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[Kirian]

Sorry, didn't know where else to post this question:  On Goko, which rooms are casual, which are pro, etc.?  Thanks for any help here.

None of the above; the rooms are arbitrary.  This and the lack of auto-match are one of the reasons many people don't play there...

[heron]

I think the biggest reason I don't play on goko is the interface. On my turn, I pretty much know what's going on. However, on my opponents turn (especially against AI) all I see is a lots of cards moving around the board and then its my turn again. I look at the log to figure out what my opponent did, and it takes me a full minute to learn that my opponent played an ironmonger and a witch and bought a gold. The logs really need some formatting.
Additionally, whenever some plays militia, I always thinks it's my turn so I try to play my witch. That ends badly. Maybe a warning should be implemented if you're discarding something besides victory cards, curses, or coppers.

[qmech]

Sorry, didn't know where else to post this question:  On Goko, which rooms are casual, which are pro, etc.?  Thanks for any help here.

If you're wondering how to tell which games are pro and which are casual, I think there's either a star (casual) or a trophy (pro) symbol on the game's entry in the lobby.  I've not played there for a while though, and that was never any more than guesswork.

[michaeljb]

Sorry, didn't know where else to post this question:  On Goko, which rooms are casual, which are pro, etc.?  Thanks for any help here.

If you're wondering how to tell which games are pro and which are casual, I think there's either a star (casual) or a trophy (pro) symbol on the game's entry in the lobby.  I've not played there for a while though, and that was never any more than guesswork.

This is correct.

[Beyond Awesome]

They really should have seperate lobbies for pro games and casual games.

[ftl]

They should really have an automatch for pro games. Better than a lobby.

[enfynet]

I'm not playing on Goko because...

1. Issues with Chrome/Firefox on my laptop

2. Issues with IE on my Xbox

3. Issues with Safari on my iPod (1st Gen)

[tolenmar]

I haven't played much on Iso, but it is quickly growing on me.

Here's the thing with Goko (for me): I love about 90% of the interface.  It looks good.  The music is good for the first handful of games, but I shut it off now.  But some of the buttons are too close together. so many times I've clicked end turn when i didn't mean to, or played cards in the wrong order. It gets really irritating.  I can play several games on Goko in just a short period of time (but see below), which is good for me, lots of practice. It lets me try out a few things and learn whether or not they are good to try for games against real players (if a particular strategy fails regularly against the bots, it probably won't work if I try it against someone else).

But Goko has a lot of problems, too.
First, there's the pay to play aspect. I can play for free, but against bots, I'm stuck with basic dominion.  I'm led to understand I can play the expansions if I play against someone who has them, but I haven't seen that for myself yet. The thing is, I have base set, and what this tells me is that they expect me to pay twice for each box.  Once at anywhere between $25 and $60, depending on where I buy it to get the box to my house, and then again to be able to use those cards on Goko. I understand that not all players have the cards at home. Paying extra makes sense for people who don't want the cards taking up space, or who just prefer an online game to a RL game.  Not that I have any suggestions for how to fix that problem...

Then, as someone else mentioned, it's really hard to keep track of what the bots do.  You can see your turn, but they the bots go, the card bounce around the screen, some pretty lights flicker, and then it's your turn.  Wait, what?  More than once I'll totally caught off-guard by a card I didn't ever see my opponent buy.  And then to try and figure out how it happened...

Now that I know how to see the log, this is alleviated a bit.  And as far as the log goes, I don't have a huge problem with reading it.

But my biggest beef with Goko is it's unreliability.  Sometimes I can play 5 or 6 games in a row with no problems.  But then there are all of those times when, for no apparent reason, it just stalls.  Completely frozen. It almost always does it during some animation.  Then it clears, the game resumes, you click on a card, only to find it froze again. Over and over and over again. Then you'll finally get a game finished, and it won't launch the next game.  Guess it's time to go find something else to do...

[michaeljb]

First, there's the pay to play aspect.

Online Dominion and physical cards Dominion are inherently different products. Goko doesn't make any money off of the actual cards, so they shouldn't be expected to let you use all of the expansions even if you've bought them IRL.

I'm led to understand I can play the expansions if I play against someone who has them, but I haven't seen that for myself yet.

Whenever I make a game, I name it "All Expansions." I know not everyone does this, but that's something you could look out for.

[tolenmar]

Online Dominion and physical cards Dominion are inherently different products. Goko doesn't make any money off of the actual cards, so they shouldn't be expected to let you use all of the expansions even if you've bought them IRL.

I understand that.  But it still would require me to pay twice over, and I'm not keen on doing that.
This is simply why "I" won't pay, not a reason for them to not do it at all.

[LastFootnote]

Online Dominion and physical cards Dominion are inherently different products. Goko doesn't make any money off of the actual cards, so they shouldn't be expected to let you use all of the expansions even if you've bought them IRL.

I understand that.  But it still would require me to pay twice over, and I'm not keen on doing that.
This is simply why "I" won't pay, not a reason for them to not do it at all.

You know it's only $40 for all the cards, right? I'd say that's a hell of a deal, personally. For the price of one physical set, you get 187 Kingdom cards online.

[gordythegopher]

I do play online, but only solo games against the bots. I enjoy the game but I`m not very good at it. I don`t play multiplayer dominion for the same reason I don`t play multiplayer anything; elitism.
 There`s a lot of it, particularly in a game like this.
When I see posts along the lines of "Then he played a village, can you believe that n00b? Lolz facepalm", or threads encouraging players to mock other players (I believe there`s such a thread here somewhere), then it`s a "no thanks" from me.

So:
 1. Bots are patient. There`ll be no comments if I take more than 3 seconds to play a card.
 2. Bots don`t mock.
 3. And for me, the bots provide enough of a challenge for the mediocre players such as me.

[theory]

Which thread are you referring to?  I don't doubt you, but I haven't thought of this community as one that mocks beginners.  Obviously I'm biased, but the whole point of this website was originally to help beginners .

[Beyond Awesome]

I do play online, but only solo games against the bots. I enjoy the game but I`m not very good at it. I don`t play multiplayer dominion for the same reason I don`t play multiplayer anything; elitism.
 There`s a lot of it, particularly in a game like this.
When I see posts along the lines of "Then he played a village, can you believe that n00b? Lolz facepalm", or threads encouraging players to mock other players (I believe there`s such a thread here somewhere), then it`s a "no thanks" from me.

So:
 1. Bots are patient. There`ll be no comments if I take more than 3 seconds to play a card.
 2. Bots don`t mock.
 3. And for me, the bots provide enough of a challenge for the mediocre players such as me.

We were all beginners at some point, except maybe -Stef- I used to ovebuy villages, grabbing as many as I could before buying a single Silver. I would put tons and tons of terminal actions in my deck with no villages. I thought Chapel was the worse card and saw no use for it. But, you are right, there is also a certain level of competiveness that comes with Dominion. Anyway, my suggestion is to play against players of a similiar skill level to you. Currently, Goko does not have good matchmaking, but you can click on a persons avatar and see what their level is and whether or not they are close to you in level.

[Kuildeous]

Which thread are you referring to?  I don't doubt you, but I haven't thought of this community as one that mocks beginners.  Obviously I'm biased, but the whole point of this website was originally to help beginners .

Well, I think it's fair to say that the term "village idiot" in Dominion can be construed by a newbie as a hostile term.

We joke about it and all, but I could see how someone reads a post on how a newbie plays 5 villages in a row and succeeds in only buying another village. In fact, I know there's a sig out there that highlights that. It's hilarious, sure, even though I used to be a village idiot, but not everyone can appreciate that kind of humor, especially if it pokes fun at their mistake.

I'll still poke fun at it, but I hope that the person realizes that I've made similar mistakes.

[Jack Rudd]

When I see posts along the lines of "Then he played a village, can you believe that n00b? Lolz facepalm", or threads encouraging players to mock other players (I believe there`s such a thread here somewhere), then it`s a "no thanks" from me.

Obviously, none of us here would make that comment. (This is because playing a Village is nearly always a good move; it's buying the Village in the first place that may not be great.)

[hsiale]

it's really hard to keep track of what the bots do.  You can see your turn, but they the bots go, the card bounce around the screen, some pretty lights flicker, and then it's your turn.

Set the animation speed to a slower setting. I use "normal" when I want to know what the opponent is doing, if that's still too fast for you there's still the "slow" setting.

[DStu]

Which thread are you referring to?  I don't doubt you, but I haven't thought of this community as one that mocks beginners.  Obviously I'm biased, but the whole point of this website was originally to help beginners .

Maybe it also the "Dear my opponent, I'm sorry", which from times to times turns from "Dear my opponent, I'm sorry I had so much luck" to "Dear my opponent, I'm sorry I'm so much better than you".

Anyway, I think on isotropic itself you don't experience that much elitism, you experience random idiots on the internetz.  I don't think many of the people playing reasonable well behave like that, but you just meet people on all skill ranges that does not know how to behave, independently of if they can play the game or not.
There are enough people that have complained about my noob-deck build up to long and l2p and I only got lucky in the end because they couldn't double Province unluckily (with the fact that they don't have $16 in the deck having no influence to that at all).  But that's not the majority, and I don't think it's elitism, it's just idiots.  [Or I don't fully know the meaning of the word, which can as well be.  But for me elitism includes at least a certain level of skill, and not only the (wrong) assumption that you have some.]

And these people that complain and even spam you are too slow, I think everybody agrees that this is nonsense, this is not a RTS, and sometimes it takes time to figure out which strategy to go, remember your deck or decide which card to buy…

[Kirian]

First, there's the pay to play aspect. I can play for free, but against bots, I'm stuck with basic dominion.  I'm led to understand I can play the expansions if I play against someone who has them, but I haven't seen that for myself yet. The thing is, I have base set, and what this tells me is that they expect me to pay twice for each box.  Once at anywhere between $25 and $60, depending on where I buy it to get the box to my house, and then again to be able to use those cards on Goko. I understand that not all players have the cards at home. Paying extra makes sense for people who don't want the cards taking up space, or who just prefer an online game to a RL game.  Not that I have any suggestions for how to fix that problem...

When I started this thread, I had no clue that this complaint would come up so many separate times.  I understand that people don't want to pay.  I mean, I understand that.  But expecting to play for free online just because you own all the cards at home is a bit ridiculous.  These are two separate products, and expecting to play with the cards you already have at home is the same as expecting Goko to make no money.

Isotropic Dominion was done in Doug's spare time (in a cave! with spare parts!)  He did it without expectation of payment.  Which is great!  It makes him even more awesome than the chicken thing did.  But we shouldn't expect the same from everyone.  I can't understand this attitude.  Not wanting to pay for a beta product, that I get.  Not wanting to pay for a product at all... what the hell?

[tolenmar]

When I started this thread, I had no clue that this complaint would come up so many separate times.  I understand that people don't want to pay.  I mean, I understand that.  But expecting to play for free online just because you own all the cards at home is a bit ridiculous.  These are two separate products, and expecting to play with the cards you already have at home is the same as expecting Goko to make no money.

I love being misunderstood.  Especially when it happens more than once.

At no point did I say that I thought Goko should be free or that they should make no money. All I said was that I've already paid once, and do not want to pay again.  Which means for me, I will only be able to play basic set most of the time. Yes, they should make money. No, there is no way for them to know if I have the cards, or that it should even matter.

It's a matter of budgeting. Do I spend the money to pay for something I already bought so I can play against strangers around the world (which is not a bad thing), or spend the money so I can play with my friends every Saturday? For me, I'm gonna go with the physical copy.

The question was why am I not playing Goko? I don't want to pay again, with Iso doing more for me. And that's likely why Iso dominion will eventually go away, it makes them no money and steals players from them.

[DStu]

It makes him even more awesome than the chicken thing did.  But we shouldn't expect the same from everyone.

I don't know. There are tons of people putting stuff for free on the internet, but I haven't seen another chicken talk...

[LastFootnote]

When I started this thread, I had no clue that this complaint would come up so many separate times.  I understand that people don't want to pay.  I mean, I understand that.  But expecting to play for free online just because you own all the cards at home is a bit ridiculous.  These are two separate products, and expecting to play with the cards you already have at home is the same as expecting Goko to make no money.

I love being misunderstood.  Especially when it happens more than once.

At no point did I say that I thought Goko should be free or that they should make no money. All I said was that I've already paid once, and do not want to pay again.  Which means for me, I will only be able to play basic set most of the time. Yes, they should make money. No, there is no way for them to know if I have the cards, or that it should even matter.

It's a matter of budgeting. Do I spend the money to pay for something I already bought so I can play against strangers around the world (which is not a bad thing), or spend the money so I can play with my friends every Saturday? For me, I'm gonna go with the physical copy.

The question was why am I not playing Goko? I don't want to pay again, with Iso doing more for me. And that's likely why Iso dominion will eventually go away, it makes them no money and steals players from them.

So what I'm hearing you say is that playing Dominion online is not valuable to you, or at least not worth as much to you as Goko is charging. That's fine.

You're being "misunderstood" because what you've said (repeatedly) is that you're not keen on paying for things twice. What we're trying to tell you is that you're not paying for anything twice because the physical product and the digital product are two different products. They're similar, but you're not paying "twice" for anything. Get it?

[enfynet]

I can understand the "paying twice" comments because I prefer to play against friends in person. So for me playing online is the same people and same cards as I play offline.

I do appreciate the adverures concept, though I am discouraged by the handicap system they decided to use.

[Frosted]

Man, Goko is depressing. Around a month ago I decided to stop playing on Iso and start playing on Goko. Going to have to start playing on Goko if I want to play Dominion online, right? Spend some of that hard earned income tax refund on the full game, right?
I ended up basically not playing for a month. I got back on Iso a few days ago, weary and homesick.

The competition feels crazy weak. It feels a lot like I'm just *wasting* time on Goko. I'm not saying this to be cocky or whatever. I'm bad at Dominion. I don't feel like I'm going to get any better playing people on Goko.
The interface is not fun to use. It's really graphically oriented, but not in any sort of elegant or useful way. The interface just uses a lot pictures. This waxes from mundane/annoying (Why is the game lobby filled with games I can't even interact with, awesome), to the infuriating (cards stacking due to draw effects/ cards shifting during discarding which leads to misclicks)
To me, it feels awfully stupid to make an avatar just to represent you in the lobby. I'm sure that people love that or whatever, but when asked to create an avatar just so I have  picture next to my face it makes me feel stupid (even if it is a pirate). That's the kind of person I am I guess.
Also ads. I'd imagine these go away somehow?
Finding a game is way harder than it should be. Both the matchmaking/vetting process, actually having an opponent to occupy the other side of the board.
For my playing experience, Adventures could basically not exist. In fact the only times I played Adventures was when I couldn't find a game but still wanted that sweet Dominion fix.
Why can't I block people?
Still excited for Guilds.

It's (possibly) worth noting that all of this changes a lot if some sort of structured tournament is happening.

tl;dr Product not designed for my preferred method of usage/style of play. Not worth price (for me); will elect to stop playing Dominion online after Iso goes down barring major interface changes/tournament availability. Still excited for Guilds.

[cactus]

So depressing.

I keep getting encouraged by what others are saying about how much better Goko is now (and to be honest when I can get it to work it does seem that a bunch of the annoyances have been ironed out).... but.... but.... it keeps on bugging out on me.

Tried to play two games on Goko tonight. First one froze up completely about 3/4 of the way through the game and wouldn't unfreeze. Second game when I went into it the screen was mostly black with just one or two cards visible (and nothing clickable). Then this bizarre little mini version of the game started in what looked like a half sized dialog box.... I managed to play three coppers and then freeze again....

So depressing. I want to like. I want it to work. I can't. It won't.