Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Topic started by: Aleimon Thimble on October 04, 2015, 06:41:01 pm
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So today was the official Dutch national championship Dominion, and I managed to reach third place! :D I'm really proud of it, since I've only played competitive Dominion for a couple of months and I managed to beat players who have been there like three years in a row. But I couldn't have done it without this forum and the Wiki. You guys learned me everything I needed to learn about engines, Big Money, combos and alt-VP strategies, and all sorts of other strategic concepts. So thank you! :D
I'm really happy, and on top of it I won the expansion Adventures in Dutch, which is good since I can now sell the English version to buy another expansion. ^^ Alright, I'll admit the English version is more awesome, but it doesn't fit well with my Dutch base game, so yeah.
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Congratulations! Now you just have to take first place next year. :)
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Congratulations! Now you just have to take first place next year. :)
That would be awesome! Still, it's only Base and it's 4-player, and there's a single final round to determine the winner, so luck plays an important role as well. Even if I'll be the best player by next year, I can still lose. But I'll definitely try again. :)
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Sad that I couldn't make it this year.
Somehow they also do a good job of not advertising this so I always find out way too late.
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Sad that I couldn't make it this year.
Somehow they also do a good job of not advertising this so I always find out way too late.
"Official" Dominion tournaments/championships are really more akin to barnstorming in sports than a formal league, due to their scattershot geographic spread, timing, and near-invisible advertising. Hopefully that will improve down the line. Clearly there's tons of players missing out because of it.
Anyway, congrats OP! Always nice to be reminded that even 4-player base Dominion can be high-skill.
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Sad that I couldn't make it this year.
Somehow they also do a good job of not advertising this so I always find out way too late.
"Official" Dominion tournaments/championships are really more akin to barnstorming in sports than a formal league, due to their scattershot geographic spread, timing, and near-invisible advertising. Hopefully that will improve down the line. Clearly there's tons of players missing out because of it.
Anyway, congrats OP! Always nice to be reminded that even 4-player base Dominion can be high-skill.
I have never heard of barnstorming sports. I wonder if my lack of knowledge can be attributed to their scattershot geographic spread, timing, and near-invisible advertising.
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Congrats Aleimon on doing so well. Good to hear you had fun and I guess that's what its all about.
"Official NK Dominion" also sounds a bit strange to me. I know I wasn't there, SCSN wasn't there, apparently Davio wasn't and I assume florrat wasn't either.
4P, base only, and 1 game to determine who is "best" are all elements that made me not even want to go.
Anyway, tempting now to organize an "Even more official NK Dominion" that actually uses all sets, 2P games, and any number >1 games in the finals.
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Congrats Aleimon on doing so well. Good to hear you had fun and I guess that's what its all about.
"Official NK Dominion" also sounds a bit strange to me. I know I wasn't there, SCSN wasn't there, apparently Davio wasn't and I assume florrat wasn't either.
4P, base only, and 1 game to determine who is "best" are all elements that made me not even want to go.
Anyway, tempting now to organize an "Even more official NK Dominion" that actually uses all sets, 2P games, and any number >1 games in the finals.
999 Games advertised it as the official Dutch championship Dominion, don't shoot the messenger. :P
I would definitely join a two-player all-set even-more-official Dominion championship even if it meant I'd finish last because I'd get slaughtered by you and other top players. :D
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Congrats Aleimon on doing so well. Good to hear you had fun and I guess that's what its all about.
"Official NK Dominion" also sounds a bit strange to me. I know I wasn't there, SCSN wasn't there, apparently Davio wasn't and I assume florrat wasn't either.
4P, base only, and 1 game to determine who is "best" are all elements that made me not even want to go.
Anyway, tempting now to organize an "Even more official NK Dominion" that actually uses all sets, 2P games, and any number >1 games in the finals.
999 Games advertised it as the official Dutch championship Dominion, don't shoot the messenger. :P
I would definitely join a two-player all-set even-more-official Dominion championship even if it meant I'd finish last because I'd get slaughtered by you and other top players. :D
We once had an unofficial championship at ArjanB's house with most serious Dutch players at the time, including Stef, SheCantSayNo and myself. I don't think Florrat was around at the time, it was probably about 2 years ago.
That was a lot of fun and I would love to do it again, but actually being able to make it is going to be difficult.
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Congrats Aleimon on doing so well. Good to hear you had fun and I guess that's what its all about.
"Official NK Dominion" also sounds a bit strange to me. I know I wasn't there, SCSN wasn't there, apparently Davio wasn't and I assume florrat wasn't either.
4P, base only, and 1 game to determine who is "best" are all elements that made me not even want to go.
Anyway, tempting now to organize an "Even more official NK Dominion" that actually uses all sets, 2P games, and any number >1 games in the finals.
Since I currently live in the US (for a PhD), indeed, I wasn't there :)
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Congratulations! Now you just have to take first place next year. :)
That would be awesome! Still, it's only Base and it's 4-player, and there's a single final round to determine the winner, so luck plays an important role as well. Even if I'll be the best player by next year, I can still lose. But I'll definitely try again. :)
You should try convincing them adding more expansions next year. I know it is a cost issue. I am working towards hosting my own tournament (actually, I want someone else to host, so I can play in it). Anyway, I have been acquiring extra sets. Right now, I have two of everything except Adventures and the Prince promo which I have one of each, and I have 3 copies of Prosperity, Alchemy, and Base. Also, my mom and her boyfriend have 1 copy of all the expansions, so I think I am close to being able to host a good tournament. Anyway, maybe you should talk to the players and see who owns what expansions, maybe you guys can pool together to add more variety.
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Is it really that expensive if you use a kingdom selection method where there is no overlap between cards during concurrent rounds of the tournament? You'd need like twice as many Dominion boxes per game for a limitless number of expansions, I'd reckon.. Assuming you exclude/restrict Alchemy, Prosperity, and Dark Ages.
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You should try convincing them adding more expansions next year.
Last year they had Base + Intrigue, whereas the year before—the only year I attended—Seaside was included as well.
Extrapolating this trend would mean that next year's championship will be played with Base Cards only, with two years from now posing the ultimate challenge: to win with no cards at all.
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You should try convincing them adding more expansions next year.
Last year they had Base + Intrigue, whereas the year before—the only year I attended—Seaside was included as well.
Extrapolating this trend would mean that next year's championship will be played with Base Cards only, with two years from now posing the ultimate challenge: to win with no cards at all.
Seriously? That's ridiculous. I can understand it if they don't add the newer expansions due to cost issues, but why would they actively remove expansions over the years?
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It was a different organisation each time, so it's sort of like online Dominion getting worse with each successive developer.
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Is it really that expensive if you use a kingdom selection method where there is no overlap between cards during concurrent rounds of the tournament? You'd need like twice as many Dominion boxes per game for a limitless number of expansions, I'd reckon.. Assuming you exclude/restrict Alchemy, Prosperity, and Dark Ages.
I've hosted tournaments each way, and it really depends on what your overall goals are. Static tables with rotating players means you have to have a good seating chart worked out ahead of time and limits the format the tournament can take - simultaneous play with identical kingdoms makes results more fairly comparable, but obviously has a significant setup cost.
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I am working towards hosting my own tournament (actually, I want someone else to host, so I can play in it). Anyway, I have been acquiring extra sets. Right now, I have two of everything except Adventures and the Prince promo which I have one of each, and I have 3 copies of Prosperity, Alchemy, and Base.
In hosting my tournaments I'm finding the bottleneck is sets of base cards (treasures, victory cards, curses). With my set of kingdom cards alone I can easily support 5 or 6 really good kingdoms with zero overlap.
I've had success with having static kingdoms and people move between them, it seems to me that it's a lot more trouble to switch them out between rounds (like it takes a lot of time). I've found it's not hard to make good pairings if you have mostly 3P games, and the more difficult problem of mostly 2P games, well, I wrote a script to help with that (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=13871.0).
I find it strange that someone can put together a tournament and not include the last 6 years worth of expansions. I understand why people don't want 2P games (you need more base cards because you need more games, it's more work putting the kingdoms together, etc.) and I understand why people want only one game per "round" even in the finals (each game takes quite a while to play), but having more expansions just makes your life easier.
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The two main problems here are:
1) the idea that it's required to play the same kingdom on every table, and therefore it's not practical to play with a lot of sets.
2) the idea that a single game of dominion is a meaningful result.
2P, 3P or 4P is probably just a matter of preference, but on these two points I think this organization simply fails hard.
Perhaps it would be nice if we (f.ds community) could write a document that helps them (officials that get the assignment of organizing a dominion tournament despite having no clue what the game is about).
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Perhaps it would be nice if we (f.ds community) could write a document that helps them (officials that get the assignment of organizing a dominion tournament despite having no clue what the game is about).
I was planning to at least make a post about this once I knew what I was talking about. My second IRL tournament is this weekend (shameless plug) so maybe that will help, but I still don't really feel like I know what I'm doing enough for this.
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The two main problems here are:
1) the idea that it's required to play the same kingdom on every table, and therefore it's not practical to play with a lot of sets.
2) the idea that a single game of dominion is a meaningful result.
2P, 3P or 4P is probably just a matter of preference, but on these two points I think this organization simply fails hard.
Perhaps it would be nice if we (f.ds community) could write a document that helps them (officials that get the assignment of organizing a dominion tournament despite having no clue what the game is about).
Well, assuming the tournament will again be hosted by 999 Games next year, I guess I could sent them an email. But since SCSN mentioned that the host differs from year to year, perhaps it would be better to wait until someone announces the championship next year.
Since one of the officials asked me how many curses were needed for a four-player game, and none of them were familiar with the rule that the person with the least turns wins in case of an equal amount of points, your claim that the officials have no clue what the game is about seems to have some basis in reality.
(Although I probably shouldn't complain too much about a tournament in which I finished third)
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But.. But.. They're the publishers! They should know their own game!
Also, there is another mistake in the Dutch translation of Adventures, but I should look that one up.
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But.. But.. They're the publishers! They should know their own game!
I guess they know what all of their games are about, but they don't specifically know every single rule by heart. Unlike us, those guys are not specifically Dominion nerds ;)
Also, there is another mistake in the Dutch translation of Adventures, but I should look that one up.
The most annoying mistake to me is the fact that Treasure Trove is translated differently in the box than on the cards; 'Verloren Schat' resp. 'Verborgen Schat'. It's probably the fault of Lost City (Verloren Stad).
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You should try convincing them adding more expansions next year. I know it is a cost issue.
Cost should be a minor issue for any official tournament, unless there are ridiculously many players. The Finnish tournaments, organized by the local publisher/distributor/store, have always used the latest expansion and then 1-2 of the older ones. They provide the games by using existing demo copies, copies brought in by participants, and by opening new copies if needed. Some of those they retain for demoing and future tournaments, but if too many copies are opened for the tournament then they simply sell the excess ones for a small discount (either at the tournament or afterwards at their store). Whatever they lose in opening those copies is negligible and probably dwarfed already by the prizes or by the personnel costs for hosting the tournament. The tournaments are always 2-player Swiss tournaments, and at least the latest edition I went to had each pair playing best-of-three using the same kingdom (shared for all pairs) to further reduce random variation.
I can, however, hazard a guess on the real reason for hosting a base-only tournament. For companies that are not "within the community", hosting a tournament is primarily a promotion event. They want to attract a lot of people, including very casual players who do not yet own the expansions, not just the experts. They want to be able to sell more of the expansions, so requiring participants to know them in advance would be counter-productive. It also sounds more convincing when they can say they hosted a 200-player tournament, instead of a 12-player tournament where a few semi-professionals played against each other, even though the quality of play would naturally be much higher in the latter and the winner would be more worthy of the title.
In other words, Dominion is simply not at the level of an official competitive sport. You can either host a competitive tournament for good-will towards the expert community, or a bigger one for largely marketing. Mixing these two is difficult.
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I wonder what is required to make dominion more of a official competetive sport, like MTG for example. Getting more people into the game would be the most important thing for that I supose.
I guess it's not really going to happen but a man can dream.
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Also, there is another mistake in the Dutch translation of Adventures, but I should look that one up.
The most annoying mistake to me is the fact that Treasure Trove is translated differently in the box than on the cards; 'Verloren Schat' resp. 'Verborgen Schat'. It's probably the fault of Lost City (Verloren Stad).
Yeah, but there is also, at least one actual game-changing translation error. That order in which the cards are put in the box is really hilarious: they are in the English alphabetic order, which is one of the reasons I don't have my cards in those boxes :P
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I wonder what is required to make dominion more of a official competetive sport, like MTG for example. Getting more people into the game would be the most important thing for that I supose.
I guess it's not really going to happen but a man can dream.
The game is great, that's not the problem. A proper online environment would go a long way
Indeed, dream on.
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But.. But.. They're the publishers! They should know their own game!
I guess they know what all of their games are about, but they don't specifically know every single rule by heart. Unlike us, those guys are not specifically Dominion nerds ;)
If you expect your tournament to have some legitimacy, you really need a moderator who knows the rules well enough to settle disputes and answer questions with some authority. This is the main thing keeping me from being able to play in my IRL tournaments since I can pretty much completely automate the rest of what needs to happen.
And even if you don't know the rules intimitely to this level, I would think you still need to know how to set up the game, so that you can at least make sure you have all of the materials needed on hand.
I wonder what is required to make dominion more of a official competetive sport, like MTG for example. Getting more people into the game would be the most important thing for that I supose.
I guess it's not really going to happen but a man can dream.
The game is great, that's not the problem. A proper online environment would go a long way
Indeed, dream on.
While I agree with this, I've also seen the online environments for MtG and I think there has to be something else that gets people so into the game so much more than Dominion. Every time I'm at the game store I use for tournaments, there are 20+ people participating in the weekly Tuesday night tournament, and 30+ there every Saturday for more of the same. Yeah, it's more established, and doing that is hard work with very slow progress.
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This might be getting waaaayyy off topic, but this is a good conversation to be had -- why isn't Dominion more popular?? It's such a great game, for so many objective reasons. Is the online interface too clunky? Is it not kid-friendly enough? Is the learning curve too high? Do people just not like good stuff? Idk..
Sorry if this is too off topic.
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Well, I would counter by saying Dominion is insanely popular.
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It's popular among board game players. Dunno about general gamers, which is a bigger slice of pie. The official competitive scene just isn't existent/organized very well and they don't have the massive fanbase built upon decades that games like M:TG have. RGG is a small company, so they probably realistically don't have the manpower to organize such things.
I dunno. I've thought about this a lot, but I don't have real answers. If I did I would have suggested them already. I do know that whenever I took cards to test for Adventures to the board game stores here, nobody was interested, so I personally have trouble seeing the game as 'insanely' popular, but it obviously must vary some by region.
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It is very popular, but it is not mainstream like Magic and Yu-Gi-Oh. Settlers of Catan has been catching on with the general public, but most people who don't play board/card games aren't aware of Dominion. I blame video games.
PPE
Edit: Party games tend to be popular. Cards Against Humanity has been the number Amazon seller in Toys & Games, well, pretty much forever.
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It's popular among board game players. Dunno about general gamers, which is a bigger slice of pie. The official competitive scene just isn't existent/organized very well and they don't have the massive fanbase built upon decades that games like M:TG have. RGG is a small company, so they probably realistically don't have the manpower to organize such things.
I dunno. I've thought about this a lot, but I don't have real answers. If I did I would have suggested them already. I do know that whenever I took cards to test for Adventures to the board game stores here, nobody was interested, so I personally have trouble seeing the game as 'insanely' popular, but it obviously must vary some by region.
What???? No one interested in play testing Adventures cards? Blasphemy.
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It's popular among board game players. Dunno about general gamers, which is a bigger slice of pie. The official competitive scene just isn't existent/organized very well and they don't have the massive fanbase built upon decades that games like M:TG have. RGG is a small company, so they probably realistically don't have the manpower to organize such things.
I dunno. I've thought about this a lot, but I don't have real answers. If I did I would have suggested them already. I do know that whenever I took cards to test for Adventures to the board game stores here, nobody was interested, so I personally have trouble seeing the game as 'insanely' popular, but it obviously must vary some by region.
What???? No one interested in play testing Adventures cards? Blasphemy.
Well, at one store the guy working there told me Dominion was very popular several years ago, but people played it to death and now it would be hard to find anyone who wanted to play. That's somewhat understandable (remember, not everyone is as into the game as we are)
At the other store, I just couldn't get any biters. Tried three or four times; gave up.
At the DC meetup, a man working at the board game pub said he was surprised to see people playing Dominion.
These are all anecdotes, but this has been my experience w/r/t Dominion outside my circle of friends.
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This might be getting waaaayyy off topic, but this is a good conversation to be had -- why isn't Dominion more popular?? It's such a great game, for so many objective reasons. Is the online interface too clunky? Is it not kid-friendly enough? Is the learning curve too high? Do people just not like good stuff? Idk..
Sorry if this is too off topic.
I think it is very popular, relative to "similar" games. But compared to games like Magic or Settlers, well those games have just been around a lot longer. Compared to games like Hearthstone, those games have way more money behind them. Having a game be really old is probably the best way to make it popular. Look at chess, go, Risk, Monopoly, poker. Those are all really old games that probably wouldn't do so well today if they had come out in the 2000's. And then games like Hearthstone that are produced by big companies with lots of money and marketing with a well-known name behind them just get attention a lot more easily.
In other words, being a good game can only get you so far, unfortunately. There are probably lots of fantastic games I haven't played because they just didn't catch my attention, either because they haven't been around long enough or they don't have enough marketing behind them.
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Even lots of marketing tends to not help a lot of games. I know. I was a game demo person for Wizards of the Coast, and for a while every year, they would try and launch a new game. Now, they mostly focus on Magic because they realized it is hard to get people to try something new.
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Even lots of marketing tends to not help a lot of games. I know. I was a game demo person for Wizards of the Coast, and for a while every year, they would try and launch a new game. Now, they mostly focus on Magic because they realized it is hard to get people to try something new.
They should make an expansion for Guillotine. I'd buy that.
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When you compare Dominion to something like Settlers, Cards Against Humanity, or Magic, you're talking about the cream of the crop as far as popularity is concerned - bring in poker, chess, etc., and you're talking impossible standards.
Consider the analogy where Dominion is a superstar player in your favorite sport. It's going to make the Hall of Fame when it retires, hands-down, and will be in the top 10 to ever play the game. But it's not a Gretzky, a Ruth, a Jordan.
And that's what I mean when I say Dominion is insanely popular. I will simultaneously say that I have the exact same experience as jsh (well, not the playtesting Adventures cards part :() in that I bring Dominion to my store's game night every week, and the other regulars think of me as that quaint Dominion guy. Every now and then they play a game out of a lack of better options, but it's normally newcomers and people others perceive as more "casual" gamers who play with me.
tl:dr Dominion is famous and "serious" boardgamers are cult of the new
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reasons not mentioned yet:
- eurogames in general are still a really niche market. catan & ticket to ride are about the only ones that have reached beyond that to any extent. oh, and munchkin if that counts.
- the dominant culture of boardgaming is one of collecting, one of playing a bunch of new games maybe a couple times each. competitive play is still not seen as much of a factor, as evidenced by the lack of player elimination in these games. heck, i remember hearing that rio grande outright refuses to publish any game with player elimination!
- believe it or not, "big money OP" is still THE dominant meme wrt dominion for a large portion of boardgamers. as i've said on here before, if you search for dominion on twitter, you'll probably find more tweets whining about BM than anything else. the problem is that a lot of people judge a game by its base set - if that experience is bad, it's awfully hard to convince them that the expansions help as much as they do. engine-building also isn't very accessible to new players.
- furthermore, if you actually get good at dominion, all the shuffling can make IRL play a bit of a chore. dominion is much better suited for online play imo
- finally, dominion's art & theming are pretty fuckin wack and that is a huge deal with boardgamers. this was touched upon recently in that wil wheaton thread - much easier to get excited for captain america vs. the red skull than playing 5 "bridges". the core audience here wants fantasy & sci-fi & trains, and dominion doesn't deliver much of that.
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That last one's a big deal.
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That last one's a big deal.
This so strange to me. I played Temporum with some new players the other day, and when we finished, one of the players complained about the theme being "bolted on", and made some comment about some other game where "you really feel like you are traveling through the forest" (or something like that). This is obviously a thing that people care about, but I just don't get it. I don't understand how the theme of any Euro game could be any thing more than "bolted on". (/pointless rant)
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The game is great, that's not the problem. A proper online environment would go a long way
Indeed, dream on.
That.
Current realisation is like Progressive Metal: it all seems wanky and uncomprehensable from the first glance, and you need to dig for it's good moments. And when you finally find ones you might still not want to listen to it, because all the goodness is wrapped in too much crap.
I really can't see how goko version and upcoming MF version can attract somewhat noticable amount of new players.
How the hell our league only holds less than 100 players? It's a great event and with a proper game client and with some extra advertising it could have been magnitudes more than that.
By the way (super offtopic), had anyone thought of providing such advertisement?
What can be done for league to grow?
It would be nice to cooperate with MF somehow on that matter, but I guess they kinda have a lot other stuff to do right now...
Maybe we can place some ads outside f.ds (even if some of that needs to be for money maybe we could find some soultion)?
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The two main problems here are:
1) the idea that it's required to play the same kingdom on every table, and therefore it's not practical to play with a lot of sets.
2) the idea that a single game of dominion is a meaningful result.
2P, 3P or 4P is probably just a matter of preference, but on these two points I think this organization simply fails hard.
Perhaps it would be nice if we (f.ds community) could write a document that helps them (officials that get the assignment of organizing a dominion tournament despite having no clue what the game is about).
They originally didn't feel like they would need to use the same kingdom on every table. But they also used VPs as a tie breaker in the tournament. I emailed the organisation that using VPs as a tie breaker is a horrible idea, but if they were going to do that, they should at least use the same sets. So that's where that came from.
The last one I went to (in The Hague I think) was 2p with some sort of accelerated Swiss with players qualifying in preliminaries. That was the best possible format for serious players. But they decided that it didn't need to be that serious anymore.
Also, the organisation was transferred. I strolled around the Spellenspektakel conference last year and found out by chance that they were holding the championships (4p base + intrigue) then and there, but sadly I couldn't/didn't want to make time to partake.
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I'm an unabashed Eurogamer, and really like digging deeply into heavy Euros, but they have some problems:
1) High barrier to entry related to difficult mechanics, iconography, decision making
2) Long playtime
3) Groupthink tendencies to develop with repeated plays with the same gaming group
4) Realization that at higher levels, especially in 2P, "cutthroat" tactics are usually among the most optimal ways to play
5) Lots of neat titles and limited gaming time = few plays per game before pulling out a new game
These barriers routinely make it very difficult for me to get experience with games like Caylus, Agricola, Tzolkin. Heck, I actually studied Caylus extensively including reading the rules, printed out a pdf of all the buildings, read all the strategy articles on BGG, and then still had to fight a tough learing curve on BSW to get any plays at all. I simply CANNOT get that game to the table IRL and have 100% of the time had to omit the provost or everyone just quits.
My wife loves Race for the Galaxy and we both climbed the learning curve together and have very good competition together. Unfortunately, we've been experimenting with the Orb Scenario from Alien Artifacts, and I'm convinced that a strong blocking/denial strategy is the way to go at least in 2PA. Needless to say, this hasn't led to a very pleasant gaming experience.
I think this is why a strong online server is the only way to fully mine the depths of these games. With Dominion, I'm fairly certain I never would have gotten past the Big Money stage if it weren't for online Dominion and these forums. However, Dominion has a low enough entry point that I can get it to the table routinely. The more it at least gets to the table, the more people actually have a chance to enjoy it.
The real question to me is: Why is a game like Hearthstone more popular than Dominion? Having played both, I conclude that Dominion is a flat-out better game. Whatever Blizzard is doing, we need to help RGG and MF do!
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A big part of Blizzard's success with Hearthstone is that they already made a name for themselves with the online gaming community. I have met people IRL who swear by Blizzard and don't play a whole lot of other games. Starcraft is maybe the most popular competitive game worldwide. World of Warcraft has an insane number of players even to this day. Blizzard also have their own DRM client, which has a list of their available games whenever you turn it on, so all they had to do was add Hearthstone and they captured the interest of many of their built-in fanbase right off the bat. A lot of those players were already big streamers, so Hearthstone got free advertising on their streaming channels. These are only some of the factors involved in the game's success, but my point is that unless Blizzard themselves or a similarly big company hosted Dominion, it's unlikely it would reach the same level of popularity as Hearthstone.
Perhaps getting on Steam was one of MF's hopes in this regard. The problem there is they are a mere drop in the bucket on Steam, whereas Blizzard's games get premium screen time on Battle.net.
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Perhaps getting on Steam was one of MF's hopes in this regard. The problem there is they are a mere drop in the bucket on Steam, whereas Blizzard's games get premium screen time on Battle.net.
I still think the main problem is that MF's product is a terrible playing experience.
If you have a great game with a great online implementation but without any of the advertisements, sure it will take a while but at some point it will become a success.
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Perhaps getting on Steam was one of MF's hopes in this regard. The problem there is they are a mere drop in the bucket on Steam, whereas Blizzard's games get premium screen time on Battle.net.
I still think the main problem is that MF's product is a terrible playing experience.
This x 10.000. Marketing can create exposure; it cannot create a loyal customer base.
If you run a hotel that has non-functioning sewerage, brown tap-water and enough crawling vermin to make your average rain forrest see green with envy, you can spend billions on marketing all you want, but your guests are still going to run away.
And although MF isn't quite that bad, it's pretty damn close.
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yes, i wasn't going to mention it but the awful online product dampens my hopes of turning my friends onto this game. and the sad thing is it's still like 10x better than BSW!
does the eurogame world just not see online as important, or what
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That last one's a big deal.
This so strange to me. I played Temporum with some new players the other day, and when we finished, one of the players complained about the theme being "bolted on", and made some comment about some other game where "you really feel like you are traveling through the forest" (or something like that). This is obviously a thing that people care about, but I just don't get it. I don't understand how the theme of any Euro game could be any thing more than "bolted on". (/pointless rant)
Oh, it's not that Dominion's theme is bolted on, it's that half the art is ugly.
If something pretty was bolted on it'd help a lot.
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Also, there is another mistake in the Dutch translation of Adventures, but I should look that one up.
It's Plan (Plan): It says 'vernietig een kaart wanneer je een kaart van die stapel speelt', but it should say 'vernietig een kaart wanneer je een kaart van die stapel koopt'.
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I think there's a few reasons games like Magic hold people's interest more than Dominion. Obviously there's legacy reasons in play, Magic is over 20 years old now and it's one of the most popular nerdy games out there. There's a nationwide, worldwide network of nerdy gamers at every game store in America who play this shit multiple times a week. Everyone who games a lot knows how to play the basics of Magic. The social factors more than anything else are going to drive millions of people toward it.
I also think a big factor is the cost and release model of Magic. It definitely costs more to play Magic than to play Dominion, yes. About $500 gets you physical and online copies of every Dominion expansion there has ever been, plus sleeves and a big box. You can obviously spend that much and more on Magic, and to some extent, your competitiveness is directly limited by your budget. Sounds like a big plus for Dominion (and in fact that's the biggest reason I initially got invested in this game), but the way you spend money in Magic (on collectibles) produces a more rewarding experience. Coveted, collectible cards that make you more competitive as you seek and trade them out is just more engaging - it gives you hope to get better, it gives you a way to slowly improve your deck and odds of winning with work that isn't just "play a bunch of games", and the effects of a purchase have an immediate impact on how good you are. This kind of reward for investment is a positive feedback loop like no other and that's why an entire economy exists for this shit.
I don't think it's impossible for Dominion to get ferociously, rabidly popular like that, and I hope it does, but it's distribution model, while far less exploitative and far more actually good, doesn't have that reward mechanism / feedback loop that Magic does, and I think that's a really big thing. If card stores nationwide had weekly dominion nights, that would go a long way though. It is a perfectly accessible and fair game where your financial investment only plays a role in your success to the extent that you have experience in the game.
Kind of a rambley post without a huge coherent point sorry
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I don't think that it's Dominion's popularity that it's the problem — as has been pointed out, it is insanely popular. It's just that the vast majority of players are casual players who never enter a tournament, which is probably because Dominion doesn't have the kind of official support for tournaments that Magic does. Magic has a ton of tournaments that are very easy for casuals to enter, such as FNMs and pre-release tournaments, and then they have bigger tournaments which attract high-level players and motivate not-so-high-level players to become better at the game. Dominion has funky national championships with invisible advertising where one 4p base-only game determines the winner.
Since RGG is a small company, it might be too much to hope for the same level of IRL official tournament play that Magic has. However, it doesn't take a big company to have lots of tournaments online, so if Making Fun wants to implement a tournament system with smaller tournaments to attract casuals and bigger tournaments to give casuals an incentive to stop being casuals, it could happen some day.
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Magic also does a very good job of keeping itself on the radar by constantly releasing new sets and there are many formats so you can find which one you like best. And there's the obvious "Magic is popular because it's popular", there's a whole scene for it with major tournaments and pros which makes it easier to keep a large player base which makes it easier to host tournaments, etc...
Why do many people in the Netherlands play soccer instead of American Football? It's just the default sport here, much like Magic is the default serious card game. By being the default sport there are a lot of opportunities to play it (many local clubs) at all levels (amateur like myself all the way to pro) and it's what your friends are playing as well.
Even if Dominion would be the second most popular card game, Magic has such a big chunk and the overall player base is too small for it to really take off.