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[Polk5440]

I found two things very interesting:

1) Her candid admission that building an HTML5 platform for gaming was the original goal, it didn't work because of unforeseen limitations in HTML5, and then acknowledging a refocus on just the games.

2) This quotation:

I’d like to see a little softening in the hardcore community. What if we rewarded the hardcore players for teaching people how to play the game? Write tools, and tutorials and let the hardcore players teach new people how to play.

I approve. 

[ragingduckd]

I’d like to see a little softening in the hardcore community. What if we rewarded the hardcore players for teaching people how to play the game? Write tools, and tutorials and let the hardcore players teach new people how to play.

Oh boy! I hope she gives me more Gokoins!

[Kirian]

"Softening in the hardcore community" is not the same as "reward the hardcore players for X."  I don't know what the hell is up with that.  Not to mention, like AI, what are they going to reward us with?

Frankly that line sounded to me like a swipe at this community, a "stop bitching" as it were.

[StrongRhino]

I’d like to see a little softening in the hardcore community. What if we rewarded the hardcore players for teaching people how to play the game? Write tools, and tutorials and let the hardcore players teach new people how to play.

Oh boy! I hope she gives me more Gokoins!

Maybe we could get victory tokens or something. Then add Base Cards art so there is something to but with them.

[Kirian]

"Well, how do you keep a game moving? How do you keep the pacing of a game alive when you’re not sitting around a table together drinking beers, but all over the world in different time zones? We can create turn timers if we have to, or incentivise people to check their turns, make it easy for people to check their turns of Catan. That type of innovation."

That doesn't take innovation.  That takes a single chime when someone needs to make a play.  If people want to play, they're going to play; why do you need to "keep the game alive?"  What the hell does this even mean?

"I haven’t spent a lot of time with Playdek, but it seems to me that they’re going deeper into pure board game, pure strategy side. We’re more focused on emphasising the social features — and we’re just starting to introduce the new social features that Goko stands for."

Oh, I cannot wait for this.  If there's anything board gamers want, it's to de-emphasize strategy in favor of "social features."

Let's face it, we aren't Goko's target audience.  We're a good chunk of their customer base, but we're not their intended audience.  I'm not sure who their audience is, though.

--------

Other things I'd like to know:

Is Wei-Hwa Huang (onigame) still working for/with them?  He was doing a lot of the on-gain/on-buy design, then disappeared from the forums around the same time as Donald.  His fiancee left Goko about a month later.

Is Keldon still working on their RFTG app/site/whatever?

[Awaclus]

"Well, how do you keep a game moving? How do you keep the pacing of a game alive when you’re not sitting around a table together drinking beers, but all over the world in different time zones? We can create turn timers if we have to, or incentivise people to check their turns, make it easy for people to check their turns of Catan. That type of innovation."

That doesn't take innovation.  That takes a single chime when someone needs to make a play.

Innovation has the chime!

[Watno]

Well, if social features mean stuff like a friendlist or being able to use chat from an Ipad, I'd say that's quite useful.

[Kirian]

Well, if social features mean stuff like a friendlist or being able to use chat from an Ipad, I'd say that's quite useful.

I have the terrible feeling that's not actually what they mean.  But both would be good, yes.

[Beyond Awesome]

The same site posted a followup article in which they interview the new Goko CEO.  Not a whole lot of  information there over the first article, but one tidbit is that an iOS version of Goko Dominion is supposed to ship next month.

http://pockettactics.com/2013/08/13/visions-of-a-new-dominion-an-hour-with-gokos-new-ceo-kate-connally/

Interesting read. They still have a lot of issues to solve and they really need to get rid of the dragging for Navigator and Watchtower if they want a good UI experience on a Tablet.

[ragingduckd]

Is Wei-Hwa Huang (onigame) still working for/with them?  He was doing a lot of the on-gain/on-buy design, then disappeared from the forums around the same time as Donald.  His fiancee left Goko about a month later.

I haven't tracked any Goko employees, but working with their code convinces me that:

• They started out with a very good lead developer whose first language wasn't English
• Later they either started restricting his freedom or they switched to a less competent lead
• In recent months, nobody who can even understand the existing work has been putting in any real time

I think the most likely explanation is that Goko decided not to prioritize Dominion some time ago. If so, then the change in management may be very good news. It's possible that Goko has developers who could deal with their screwups and missing features in short order if they were given the freedom to do so. Whether the new management will prioritize the current Dominion platform remains to be seen, but at least there's hope.

[Jdaki]

I’d like to see a little softening in the hardcore community. What if we rewarded the hardcore players for teaching people how to play the game? Write tools, and tutorials and let the hardcore players teach new people how to play.

Perhaps this is simply hoping for a bridging between "experts" and "newbies". Kind of like the article I remember WW writing that there are still many people (that apparently have played hundreds of games!) on goko that do not provide any challenge to most of the people on the forum. I guess it would help the goko (dominion) audience to be given an opportunity to not get walloped all the time. And by this I assume that the CEO would like something integrated on her site or in the apps, as opposed to us just telling them to come here (to this forum).

[ashersky]

"Well, how do you keep a game moving? How do you keep the pacing of a game alive when you’re not sitting around a table together drinking beers, but all over the world in different time zones? We can create turn timers if we have to, or incentivise people to check their turns, make it easy for people to check their turns of Catan. That type of innovation."

That doesn't take innovation.  That takes a single chime when someone needs to make a play.  If people want to play, they're going to play; why do you need to "keep the game alive?"  What the hell does this even mean?

"I haven’t spent a lot of time with Playdek, but it seems to me that they’re going deeper into pure board game, pure strategy side. We’re more focused on emphasising the social features — and we’re just starting to introduce the new social features that Goko stands for."

Oh, I cannot wait for this.  If there's anything board gamers want, it's to de-emphasize strategy in favor of "social features."

Let's face it, we aren't Goko's target audience.  We're a good chunk of their customer base, but we're not their intended audience.  I'm not sure who their audience is, though.

--------

Other things I'd like to know:

Is Wei-Hwa Huang (onigame) still working for/with them?  He was doing a lot of the on-gain/on-buy design, then disappeared from the forums around the same time as Donald.  His fiancee left Goko about a month later.

Is Keldon still working on their RFTG app/site/whatever?

On the game moving stuff; I assume she's talking about asynchronous play.  Yuck.

[Schneau]

The CEO keeps saying that they used to try to be a platform where people could develop games, but now they're trying to just make a few "really great games". I hope they aren't under the delusion that Goko Dominion has reached "really great game" status yet. It's half way there, but there are still some major features and playability issues that need to be addressed before most players, including casual gamers, would call it even "good game" status.

[Polk5440]

I’d like to see a little softening in the hardcore community. What if we rewarded the hardcore players for teaching people how to play the game? Write tools, and tutorials and let the hardcore players teach new people how to play.

Perhaps this is simply hoping for a bridging between "experts" and "newbies". Kind of like the article I remember WW writing that there are still many people (that apparently have played hundreds of games!) on goko that do not provide any challenge to most of the people on the forum. I guess it would help the goko (dominion) audience to be given an opportunity to not get walloped all the time. And by this I assume that the CEO would like something integrated on her site or in the apps, as opposed to us just telling them to come here (to this forum).

This is how I read it.

[Powerman]

These articles have me worried that GOKO will get worse for a period of time, but hopeful because it should get bad enough that it either A) has to get better or B) goes under and ISO comes back.  But short term, yeck.

[ragingduckd]

I’d like to see a little softening in the hardcore community. What if we rewarded the hardcore players for teaching people how to play the game? Write tools, and tutorials and let the hardcore players teach new people how to play.

Perhaps this is simply hoping for a bridging between "experts" and "newbies". Kind of like the article I remember WW writing that there are still many people (that apparently have played hundreds of games!) on goko that do not provide any challenge to most of the people on the forum. I guess it would help the goko (dominion) audience to be given an opportunity to not get walloped all the time. And by this I assume that the CEO would like something integrated on her site or in the apps, as opposed to us just telling them to come here (to this forum).

It's hard not to approve of this goal, but how exactly is dominionstrategy.com falling short here? Do we really not have enough intro articles? Enough tools? Are we just not as good as Thomas Tutor?

If Goko wants our content on their site, they could use this really great bit of HTML1:

Code: [Select]

<a href="http://wtfgoko.com">Read some better stuff</a>

[Titandrake]

Oh hey that link is actually valid. That's amazing.

[gman314]

Yeah, I was surprised too!

[Awaclus]

I'm surprised that this many people actually tried the link out.

I tried it, too.

[WanderingWinder]

I’d like to see a little softening in the hardcore community. What if we rewarded the hardcore players for teaching people how to play the game? Write tools, and tutorials and let the hardcore players teach new people how to play.

My best guess as to what this is meaning is probably not having the rating restrictions on games. Or loosening them.

But their product is a game. The point of their product is the having of fun. It shouldn't really be surprising that playing someone where there's, according to an objective, reasonably accurate rating system, like a 5% chance of (either one of the particular players) winning, or less, isn't going to be that much fun. And I don't think people should be shoehorned or scolded because they are trying to maximize their own fun in a game, so benignly.

[ragingduckd]

I’d like to see a little softening in the hardcore community. What if we rewarded the hardcore players for teaching people how to play the game? Write tools, and tutorials and let the hardcore players teach new people how to play.

My best guess as to what this is meaning is probably not having the rating restrictions on games. Or loosening them.

But their product is a game. The point of their product is the having of fun. It shouldn't really be surprising that playing someone where there's, according to an objective, reasonably accurate rating system, like a 5% chance of (either one of the particular players) winning, or less, isn't going to be that much fun. And I don't think people should be shoehorned or scolded because they are trying to maximize their own fun in a game, so benignly.

Agreed. There are also plenty of ways to deal with this "problem" other than grumbling at the avid players.

Goko seems determined not to learn anything from other game servers. As far as I know, their pricing plan and lobby systems are both unique and uniquely bad. Even Yahoo Games has different lobbies for different skill levels.

[mail-mi]

Code: [Select]

<a href="http://wtfgoko.com">Read some better stuff</a>

I love how that redirects to dominionstrategy.com.

[Kirian]

Code: [Select]

<a href="http://wtfgoko.com">Read some better stuff</a>

I love how that redirects to dominionstrategy.com.

(that's the joke.jpg)

[Warfreak2]

has shed its HTML 5 shackles and now plans to deliver native iOS apps

This is a joke, right?