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Author Topic: Interview with Donald X.  (Read 2126878 times)

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LastFootnote

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4300 on: July 13, 2018, 09:02:03 pm »
+2

Have you ever had to choose different artwork or a different concept for a card due to it being printed in a certain country? I know China in particular will censor, like, human skeletons, which could have been a problem for something with Nocturne's theme.

I don't know about this, but I remember when Old Blacksmith had to be Royal Blacksmith instead, since Alayna came back with art of a guy who didn't look old.
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crj

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4301 on: July 13, 2018, 09:23:45 pm »
0

Now I'm curious how artwork commissioning works. If an artist comes back with something clearly sucky or inappropriate, can it be rejected, or do they get paid regardless?

(I didn't know the blacksmith was supposed to look old, in the sense of aged. It's already been pointed out that he ought to have looked old in the sense of historical.)
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werothegreat

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4302 on: July 14, 2018, 12:00:15 am »
+2

Have you ever had to choose different artwork or a different concept for a card due to it being printed in a certain country? I know China in particular will censor, like, human skeletons, which could have been a problem for something with Nocturne's theme.

I don't know about this, but I remember when Old Blacksmith had to be Royal Blacksmith instead, since Alayna came back with art of a guy who didn't look old.

Honestly, I think "Royal" fits better with what the card does, anyway.
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Donald X.

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4303 on: July 14, 2018, 02:43:01 am »
+1

Have you ever had to choose different artwork or a different concept for a card due to it being printed in a certain country? I know China in particular will censor, like, human skeletons, which could have been a problem for something with Nocturne's theme.
In the prototype, the 4th expansion was called War. That wasn't an acceptable theme for Hans im Gluck, and it ended up Dark Ages.

City was called Boomtown, and I said, make sure it doesn't look wild-west-y, and Jay said, wait why is this called Boomtown.
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Donald X.

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4304 on: July 14, 2018, 02:48:27 am »
+1

Now I'm curious how artwork commissioning works. If an artist comes back with something clearly sucky or inappropriate, can it be rejected, or do they get paid regardless?
I'm not involved with payment, but think that they do get paid if they produce a finished piece which we don't use, which there have been a few of. We usually see sketches first meaning we've okay'd a sketch at that point. Sometimes there are things you can't tell from the sketch though. And sometimes like Jay insists on a piece being lighter, for example, and brightness was specified in advance so I bet they don't get paid extra for fixing it.
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ipofanes

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4305 on: July 16, 2018, 03:16:22 am »
0

City was called Boomtown, and I said, make sure it doesn't look wild-west-y, and Jay said, wait why is this called Boomtown.

I think the artwork would fit a boomtown, with buildings rising a bit higher than what would be reasonable, like the high-rising private homes in Renaissance Tuscany towns.
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crj

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4306 on: July 16, 2018, 09:25:33 am »
0

I'm not sure that's the point. The issue is that Boomtown simply isn't a thematic term. It would sound as out of place as Goldrush or Shoot-out.
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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4307 on: July 17, 2018, 02:22:36 pm »
0

Why do you have the "everywhere" part on Bridge (formerly "including cards in players’ hands" in the 1st edition), but not on Highway, Princess, Bridge Troll, etc.?
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crj

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4308 on: July 17, 2018, 05:47:19 pm »
0

A lot of Dominion's Attacks can actually help your opponent in certain circumstances. Do you have any particular tricks for making sure those Attacks remain balanced rather than ruining some kingdoms, being too swingy or whatever?
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Cave-o-sapien

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4309 on: July 17, 2018, 06:10:42 pm »
+1

I've noticed you spectating several high-level league matches. What is it like watching people play your creation competitively, in general?

Is it amusing? Entertaining? Fulfilling?

Do you find validation of design choices by watching some of these matches?
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Donald X.

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4310 on: July 17, 2018, 08:32:34 pm »
0

Why do you have the "everywhere" part on Bridge (formerly "including cards in players’ hands" in the 1st edition), but not on Highway, Princess, Bridge Troll, etc.?
At any given moment I had to word a card and had some idea as to what wording I liked best, and for Intrigue I put in that "everywhere." Possibly I was thinking "this is the first expansion, let's be a little friendlier," or "I am already saving words cutting out that other text, I have room for this word" or something.
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Donald X.

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4311 on: July 17, 2018, 08:38:25 pm »
0

A lot of Dominion's Attacks can actually help your opponent in certain circumstances. Do you have any particular tricks for making sure those Attacks remain balanced rather than ruining some kingdoms, being too swingy or whatever?
It's not some specific concern to focus on. We play games with the cards, if they're too strong or too weak I change them, unless they're early cards and I didn't know better, or later cards where I just blew it. It's fine by me if say draw-to-X is good against Militias. It's a problem if an attack is too often shut out; I try to avoid that.
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Donald X.

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4312 on: July 17, 2018, 09:03:59 pm »
+17

I've noticed you spectating several high-level league matches. What is it like watching people play your creation competitively, in general?

Is it amusing? Entertaining? Fulfilling?

Do you find validation of design choices by watching some of these matches?
To me, I'm just me; when I post on the forums it feels a lot to me like it does when I post on forums where I'm no-one special. Now shift that over to watching games being played. For the most part I don't think I'm specially affected. Sure there are things I can speak up on, oh in playtest that card was different. I'm aware that people might expect me to be a better player than I am, because I'm the guy. That's a bummer, who needs that pressure.

That said, I do like seeing interesting games, cool lines of play; I don't like seeing cards I blew it on make the game worse. It's fun to see cards I blew it on by making them too weak end up doing something. For a typical game I am not thinking "look at all my mistakes," but then the powerful cards gain some finesse from the high level of play in the matches I'm likely to click on, and taking out those 12 Dominion/Intrigue cards reduced the frequency of games with lots of duds. In that last championship there was a game with Pirate Ship, Counting House, and Noble Brigand, but there was a lot going on in the remaining cards.

Probably when an expansion is new I feel more like, this is my thing, please like it guys, I hope I didn't blow it. But later that pressure is off.

I'm probably overstating this due to wanting to feel like I'm not stuck-up or something; some cognitive bias, we can work out which one later. Probably I've to some degree watched games just because I'm the guy. Maybe in a sideways sense of, like, this isn't as much of a waste of time as it would be if it were some other game, because hey I'm the guy. Or the expected background idea of wanting to feel good about making a game that people are playing.

But then, I've watched a bunch of Super Mario Odyssey videos, and I'm clearly no-one there, just a guy who wants to see cool stuff in a game he likes.

Spectating Dominion is greatly enhanced by being able to chat with the other spectators. It's way more fun than watching the videos. I do watch some of the videos, but tend to skip a lot, trying to just see, how did they open, how did things develop, how did it end, without seeing every decision being considered. But when you're spectating, you can talk about the decisions, spot things they didn't, listen to Stef spot things they didn't, or you know, talk about something else even.
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ClouduHieh

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4313 on: July 19, 2018, 08:54:18 pm »
0

Do you ever get players who want to give you their ideas for the a fan based dominion expansion? And to just give you all their cards info completely for free. I mean as in when it comes down to it it’s still your game.

The reason why I ask is I’ve created my own new cards for alchemy and I’ve also created my own fan based expansion called snowline. I did all the cards on shemitz.com so I’ve got lots of card templates. I wasn’t extremely good with the artwork, there mostly just photos or clip art. And I only have an iPad. So the only way someone would see them is if I sent them by email.

But the card templates is as far as I can go on my own. It would take a few years before I could make them into real cards. So I’d rather just give them to you (Donald x Vaccarino) and you could make it into a real expansion if you want.

And I would give you all my ideas completely free of charge. If you did make it into an expansion, I would love to get the expansion free. And if you wanted or needed to tweak my cards go for it. However the only thing I would ask is if didn’t add any cards like snow hag or ice witch or something like that. But you can change wasteland back to curse. I’m mentally disabled so I still have to live with my folks. But my step father is very anti magic anything. So when I bought dominion I had to replace every card he wanted thrown out. So I got creative with the blank cards. And replaced curse with wasteland, witch with snake pit, possession with truth serum, scrying pool with poisen apples and so on.

I own every expansion but intrigue and nocturne. And now you know why I don’t own nocturne. Too much work and I’m out of blank cards. 2 of my friends own intrigue anyway. And I really want the first edition so I can play with secret chamber and saboteur. Oh and thankfully I didn’t have to replace the vague cards. Like haunted woods. And he didn’t have any problem bridge troll or giant. So my snowline does have yeti. Along with a bunch of animals. I volunteer at a zoo. So I usually replace cards with animals. And yes menagerie is one of my most favorite cards.

Anyways I tend to get carried away. I have asbergers syndrome. They call it high functioning autism I believe.

So if your interested I made this expansion similar to adventures. It has reserve cards, duration cards, new cards that work with the journey token, 2 new travelers. It also has a few card besides the travelers that aren’t in the supply. Similar to way it was done with dark ages. And I have a type of card there’s one in alchemy and one in snowline I call them defeat cards. They are actions with minus victory points. The one in snowline is called firn village. ( firn is term to describe a large amount of snow compacted) firn village is just like fortress it can’t be trashed and has minus 2 victory points. The only way to get rid of it would be to use masquerade. Fortunately there’s a card just like masquerade and their both not in the supply. An attack card called avalanche gives them both out. Depending on how you play it depends on who gets what. And the other is mad scientist a very powerful attack with a huge benefit as well as a minus 2 victory points on it. And fairly hard to obtain at 5 and a potion. And at least you can trash it when the time is right. If there’s obviously another card that can trash it. Like I said feel free to tweak em if you need to. It is your game after all.

When I look at my snowline expansion I really like all the cards and I wish I had the the resources to play test and make them into a real official expansion. I even tried at my own flavor text. Then I thought Donald does. I thought that maybe at least my cards might inspire more creativity to make another expansion. I mean I know almost all the names of cards by heart. And there’s not really any that have to do with snow. Except for maybe tracker/pouch. Which is why I came up with the snowline expansion. The name of the expansion kinda changed again and again. So apparently the term snowline refers to an altitude where the snow remains year after year. So I thought snowline would be a cool original name for an expansion kinda reminds me of the name seaside. Or hinterlands.

And I apologize if this isn’t the right place to share this with you it was the only forum I could find that seemed current.
« Last Edit: July 19, 2018, 09:13:30 pm by ClouduHieh »
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Jimmmmm

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4314 on: July 20, 2018, 12:09:37 am »
+1


I believe he gets this kind of request all the time, with the answer being an overwhelming "I don't do fan cards." The only exceptions would be the very small number of official cards which have been designed by playtesters.
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Donald X.

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4315 on: July 20, 2018, 04:30:07 am »
+5

Do you ever get players who want to give you their ideas for the a fan based dominion expansion? And to just give you all their cards info completely for free. I mean as in when it comes down to it it’s still your game.
Yes this is a thing that has happened.

I like making up the cards. I haven't been willing to give that up. Getting a card from someone else still means playtesting it and polishing it. I'd rather do that work on cards I got to make up. A few friends have gotten to contribute a card and well that group doesn't seem likely to get larger.
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ClouduHieh

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4316 on: July 20, 2018, 10:55:06 am »
0

Well I figured you would like to make them up on your own. Would you like to see a few of my favorites from snowline then? I might spark your creativity for a new expansion. In fact I haven’t really mentioned too much to anyone on the forum about snowline. Only my close friends. So you would be the one of the first on the forum.
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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4317 on: July 20, 2018, 11:24:41 am »
+11

Well I figured you would like to make them up on your own. Would you like to see a few of my favorites from snowline then? I might spark your creativity for a new expansion. In fact I haven’t really mentioned too much to anyone on the forum about snowline. Only my close friends. So you would be the one of the first on the forum.

There's a subforum for this. http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?board=11.0

GendoIkari

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4318 on: July 20, 2018, 11:32:24 am »
+7

Well I figured you would like to make them up on your own. Would you like to see a few of my favorites from snowline then? I might spark your creativity for a new expansion. In fact I haven’t really mentioned too much to anyone on the forum about snowline. Only my close friends. So you would be the one of the first on the forum.

There's a subforum for this. http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?board=11.0

And if posting your cards in that subforum doesn't get Donald's attention (which it won't), then that tells you that Donald is not interested in looking at other people's fan cards. Because if he were, he knows where he can go to find all sorts of fan cards to look at.
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Donald X.

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4319 on: July 20, 2018, 04:23:12 pm »
+1

Well I figured you would like to make them up on your own. Would you like to see a few of my favorites from snowline then? I might spark your creativity for a new expansion. In fact I haven’t really mentioned too much to anyone on the forum about snowline. Only my close friends. So you would be the one of the first on the forum.
I do not want to see them. You can share them with other people in the variants forum J Reggie linked to, or on reddit or BGG or elsewhere. I specifically do not go to the variants forum, and all fan-made cards posted on dominionstrategy should go there and nowhere else.
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Robz888

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4320 on: July 20, 2018, 05:31:17 pm »
+10

Jokes on you, Donald. My fan card says: "If Donald X reads this, Robz888 has to give him $20." You're missing out!
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ClouduHieh

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4321 on: July 20, 2018, 05:35:26 pm »
+7

Well thanks anyway, i knew it was a long shot
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samath

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4322 on: July 21, 2018, 02:51:17 am »
+8

I do not want to see them. You can share them with other people in the variants forum J Reggie linked to, or on reddit or BGG or elsewhere. I specifically do not go to the variants forum, and all fan-made cards posted on dominionstrategy should go there and nowhere else.

So this response doesn't sound harsh and villain-spawning like Mr. Incredible's, I'll offer this additional perspective that might help. In any creative endeavor, it can be hard to trace where an idea truly originated. If Donald X. read the variants forum, there would always be a question of whether some future canon Dominion card was inspired by something he read there without him realizing it. I'm sure you'd still be honored if that happened even without any actual recognition, but others might be disappointed that he forgot. In the extreme, someone could accuse Donald X. of ripping off their variant with his new expansion, which is not the kind of publicity he wants.

I think we all have to remember that we have different roles here. For Donald X., as accessible as he is to us here, Dominion is not just something he does for fun; it's a job for him. Like anyone, he wants to do his job well, and that involves being responsible about the origins of ideas that he will profit off of. Hence the firewall keeping the variants and fan cards in that subforum, which allows him to roam freely about these discussion boards and participate in our discussions about his game.
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Donald X.

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4323 on: July 21, 2018, 03:14:55 am »
+8

I do not want to see them. You can share them with other people in the variants forum J Reggie linked to, or on reddit or BGG or elsewhere. I specifically do not go to the variants forum, and all fan-made cards posted on dominionstrategy should go there and nowhere else.

So this response doesn't sound harsh and villain-spawning like Mr. Incredible's, I'll offer this additional perspective that might help. In any creative endeavor, it can be hard to trace where an idea truly originated. If Donald X. read the variants forum, there would always be a question of whether some future canon Dominion card was inspired by something he read there without him realizing it. I'm sure you'd still be honored if that happened even without any actual recognition, but others might be disappointed that he forgot. In the extreme, someone could accuse Donald X. of ripping off their variant with his new expansion, which is not the kind of publicity he wants.

I think we all have to remember that we have different roles here. For Donald X., as accessible as he is to us here, Dominion is not just something he does for fun; it's a job for him. Like anyone, he wants to do his job well, and that involves being responsible about the origins of ideas that he will profit off of. Hence the firewall keeping the variants and fan cards in that subforum, which allows him to roam freely about these discussion boards and participate in our discussions about his game.
And I mean, I've had the same experience from the other side. Years ago I made a homemade Netrunner expansion. Then FFG got the rights to Netrunner and started making new products. I was the Dominion guy, and FFG was publishing one of my games too. I said hey, I have a Netrunner expansion. They weren't interested in seeing it. They had their own Netrunner cards to make.
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greybirdofprey

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Re: Interview with Donald X.
« Reply #4324 on: July 21, 2018, 10:14:14 am »
0

Do you playtest digitally or physically?

What art do you use on cards when playtesting?
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