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Guys I just want to reliably play Dominion online because I have a hard time finding IRL people to play with at the same time and place as me.  I own all the sets.  I'm willing to pay money to do this.

I like pro-rankings/leaderboards and tournaments and automatching according to preferences.  I'm willing to pay some more money for those too.

Does anyone know what I can do or where on the internet I should go to do this?

But it's like, someone has something you want, and you feel like you're entitled to get it just because you're willing to pay for it.  But sometimes life's not like that.  Sometimes the seller says "not for sale".

Goko's not gonna sell the license.  It's theirs for X years.

I don't feel like I'm entitled to it.  When did I ever indicate that?  I'm saying, "hey I have money -- anyone have some [insert the product I've specified above here] to sell me?" and "hey do any of you people know where I can go to buy [insert product specified above here]?"  How is that entitled?  It's literally how a marketplace operates.

Nowhere have I said that DougZ/Donald/RGG/Goko MUST do X or Y or Z.  I'm saying, "hey I have money -- anyone have some X to sell me?"

If the answer is no, then the answer is no.  That doesn't make me entitled for asking the question though.

[popsofctown]

I think at this point it takes a sense of entitlement to come up with any optimism for an opportunity to trade money for online dominion play.

[Stealth Tomato]

Are people on board with contacting RGG with this proposal?

...no? They're just going to say no, or not bother to reply. I'd be much more interested in some sort of "Are you aware of the following problems with Goko" sort of message.

In this situation, "No" is an acceptable outcome because there is so little opportunity cost associated with simply sending an email to Goko. This could literally be done in 5 minutes.

Unlike other "plans" which require the cooperation and backing of the community, along with significant potential negative repercussions. Furthermore, this is an offer of compromise which benefits Goko. Essentially we're offering them free servers and hosting. It's not a unilateral demand coupled with a toothless threat. And if they say "No" or don't respond, that's fine. On to the next plan.

Do you really think there's no cost in potentially pissing off the people you count on to make your favorite games happen? Particularly after DXV's departure from the forum due to... well, this.

[Ratsia]

It's illegal because it's a copyright violation. You're making a copy of the card text and images (by printing them out) and you aren't licensed to do that. Pretty simple. It's the same reason it's illegal to torrent a book and print that out to read, even if it's just for your personal use.

Interestingly enough, under Dutch copyright law you are allowed to make/own one copy (and one copy only) of whatever copyrighted material you own, provided it's for personal use.

This sort of a copyright law is apparently fairly common in Europe, so it's more like the US law is the exception. I guess their copyright laws are quite a bit stricter than in most other countries. Also, to me it sounds like the Dutch law is also quite a bit more restrictive than the Finnish one. We are also allowed to make personal copies, but we are not required to own the product. It is perfectly fine to borrow a CD from a library and convert the songs into MP3s for personal use. There is also no (arbitrary) limitation to just one copy, and you can also make copies for your family members and friends (but not further than that).

My understanding is that majority of countries would see absolutely no problems with blueblimp's example of printing out the cards and playing with them. I can absolutely borrow Dominion from a friend or library (yes, we have board games in libraries), scan+print the cards and play with my copy. I can even make some extra copies for my close friends. Even though the material is copyrighted, there is simply no violation of anything since personal copies are permitted. Torrenting the e-book would, however, be illegal because distributing the e-book (which happens in torrent automatically) is illegal. Also, the source has to be legal so already downloading a copy of the book from some piracy server would be a violation, even though the user would otherwise be allowed to make a personal copy of it.

It's an old law and as far as I know (I'm not a lawyer) it hasn't really been updated in a long time and since people only ever get sued for very blatant violations there is little jurisprudence, but it supposedly extends to digital material as well, in the sense that owning a physical book makes it ok to either scan it or download the e-book version from an "illegal" filesharer.

The Finnish law was updated a few years ago, so it explicitly covers also the new stuff. Even after the (quite disputed) changes it is perfectly legal to make copies for one's personal use, even of digital products. However, one is not allowed to break any "sufficiently advanced" encryption while doing so, which means that e.g. copies of Blu-ray discs are not legal even if taken for personal use. This criterion is quite suspicious and raised a lot of objections, and it remains to be seen whether the law will be fixed in the future.

Getting back to the e-book example, I could hence buy an e-book from Amazon and then give some copies of it for my friends, assuming I can do it without circumventing a sufficiently advanced technical protection. I have no idea whether the e-book protections fall into that category, and I think nobody does.

[TheExpressicist]

Do you really think there's no cost in potentially pissing off the people you count on to make your favorite games happen? Particularly after DXV's departure from the forum due to... well, this.

[/quote]

Of course there is. In fact I even specifically brought up that point as reasons why both a "sit in" and the issuing of unilateral demands are terrible ideas.

But on the scale of Things That Might Piss People Off, "Writing a civilly worded suggestion of a potential win-win compromise that acknowledges the situation without placing any blame" is pretty darn low. Case in point, I have had productive, back-and-forth, civil conversations with both DXV and Goko, neither of whom were pissed off or offended at my approach.

[markusin]

Do you really think there's no cost in potentially pissing off the people you count on to make your favorite games happen? Particularly after DXV's departure from the forum due to... well, this.

Of course there is. In fact I even specifically brought up that point as reasons why both a "sit in" and the issuing of unilateral demands are terrible ideas.

But on the scale of Things That Might Piss People Off, "Writing a civilly worded suggestion of a potential win-win compromise that acknowledges the situation without placing any blame" is pretty darn low. Case in point, I have had productive, back-and-forth, civil conversations with both DXV and Goko, neither of whom were pissed off or offended at my approach.

Right, but the compromise hinges on Goko/RGG admitting that the current online Dominion is very weak. It would be very embarrassing for them to make such an admission.

I guess no one really cares about that though, when given just how weak online Dominion has become.

[popsofctown]

Do you really think there's no cost in potentially pissing off the people you count on to make your favorite games happen? Particularly after DXV's departure from the forum due to... well, this.

Of course there is. In fact I even specifically brought up that point as reasons why both a "sit in" and the issuing of unilateral demands are terrible ideas.

But on the scale of Things That Might Piss People Off, "Writing a civilly worded suggestion of a potential win-win compromise that acknowledges the situation without placing any blame" is pretty darn low. Case in point, I have had productive, back-and-forth, civil conversations with both DXV and Goko, neither of whom were pissed off or offended at my approach.

Right, but the compromise hinges on Goko/RGG admitting that the current online Dominion is very weak. It would be very embarrassing for them to make such an admission.

I guess no one really cares about that though, when given just how weak online Dominion has become.

That would be like going back into beta after attempting a launch in terms of levels of implausibly high level embarrassment.

[Ozle]

Im pretty sure we already know how long Gokos licence is for isnt it?

Pretty sure that was info Donald shared with us, or possibly how long his licence with RGG was.

5 years comes to mind?

[SirPeebles]

[elahrairah13]

There is no way that Goko and RGG are going to agree to an iso-style implementation that co-exists with Goko - even if it is password protected for only Goko purchasers.

I just wrote to RGG.

"Hello!
I'm a giant Dominion fan (well... addict to be honest). I apologize if you've received a bunch of messages like this, but I've found the online implementation (Goko) to be excessively frustrating. I have purchased all of the Dominion sets in physical form (except Dark Ages, as I fear the cards are too complicated for my daughter to play) and would love to play them online - and would pay for what I deem to be an acceptable version of that. However, Goko is just so buggy and unreliable that I haven't purchased the cards there. I'm not alone in that. I contribute to an online community of Dominion fans, and many people (including many who bought the cards on Goko) are extremely dissatisfied.
Many of us are talking about how we might possibly get back a version of online Dominion that we like. The night I first played Dominion (in real life) I really liked it. I went home, searched online, and found the old unofficial implementation (isotropic). It was there that I became hooked - buying the physical sets quickly followed. I understand why it had to go, of course - Goko needed a blank slate to get their foot in the door. Unfortunately it seems that their version is just not up to the task.
So to round to the point, I would like to urge you guys to seek alternative licensing arrangements whenever your contract with Goko allows. In fact, if you're comfortable disclosing some details of your contract (and not legally prohibited from doing so), I would love to get some information from you about it. A few of us have seriously discussed pooling money in an attempt to purchase the license. I'm sure it's a pipedream, but we have a community full of folks who are willing to kick in to a crowdsourced version of purchasing the online license in order to implement something more like isotropic.
Thank you for your time and for the work you've done publishing an awesome game. "

[TheExpressicist]

@elahrairah13: We can agree to disagree on the plausibility of the plans. And I don't mean that in the usual "smug asshole" sense of the term. I mean that, even though we may disagree on whose potential scenario is more plausible, we both took action towards achieving the same end goal. If yours works and mine doesn't, I'm still happy. And I'm sure vice versa applies as well.

In general, I'm glad the tone of the thread has shifted from a "Lets all get together and protest!" mentality to a "Lets come up with, and try to implement, a reasonable compromise."

[Kuildeous]

Does anyone else think that Goko might get insulted if they were told that reducing their average traffic is a good thing? It's a very counter-intuitive claim, and something that seems like it's making fun of Goko. Having too much traffic actually be an issue is just a really sad situation that should never have come about in the first place that you'd normally pretend never existed.

I don't think Goko would be insulted. I'm sure it has a very thick skin as of late.

What is more likely to happen is that Goko will not want to admit that it can't handle the server load.  Nobody wants to admit they were wrong. If Goko goes for this, then it will be expressly saying, "We bit off more than we could chew and now have to rely on someone else's resources to accomplish our goal." That's not going to look great to future investors either. At least if they stay the course, they have a chance of fixing things (in theory) and re-establish confidence among investors. If they sell out to an Iso clone, then they'll never regain that confidence.

Just my thought on that, but I'm no expert on corporate dealings. Maybe I'm wrong.

[LastFootnote]

So: LastFootnote, sorry for being unnecessarily dickish.

Likewise, apologies for getting unnecessarily angry.

As a side note, I dug through Goko's code and it looks like it is written entirely in Javascript. This is problematic for a number of reasons. My fear now is that "fixing" Goko will necessitate an entire rewriting of the Dominion code to something more stable and server-side.

This article is fairly non-programmer-friendly which explains the limitations of Javascript: http://programming.oreilly.com/2013/07/javascript-is-way-too-slow-for-what.html

For the coders out there: http://sealedabstract.com/rants/why-mobile-web-apps-are-slow/

EDIT: Oh gosh. Since everything is handled client-side, it's extremely easy to alter certain things. See attachment:

Thanks for the linked articles. Being a software and web developer who has worked nearly exclusively with garbage-collected languages, has spent virtually no time thinking about memory management, and who is now working on a mobile version of our web application, I found it extremely interesting and helpful.

Luckily(?), new management at Goko is already aware that Javascript is not going to work out for making games on mobile devices. Back in August of 2013, they stated that they're developing a native iOS version of Dominion. Assuming our problems with Goko stem from overload of their servers, this could be good news as long as the mobile version(s) use the same servers as the web-based version. Since I believe the initial goal was to have desktop players be able to play with mobile players, this is a possibility. It's probably not going to happen, though.

What's probably going to happen is that the two versions will be completely separated and the web-based version will get the bare-minimum attention it needs (or less). Rio Grande will continue to contract with Goko because the iOS version will probably succeed far more than the silly web-based version (unless they totally botch it, which is possible). We will therefore be stuck with laggy, unreliable Dominion Online as it currently exists, since it's pretty cheap to keep those servers running while New Goko works on other, more profitable things. Sorry for being a pessimist, but that's how I see it going down.

One would typically expect contracts like the RGG - Goko contract to contain clauses requiring performance standards.  The fact that they haven't been triggered implies one of several possibilities: 1) they are no such clauses; 2) Goko has not breached those performance standards; 3) RGG is unaware that Goko has breached those standards; 4) Goko has not yet had enough time to breach those standards; 5) RGG is unwilling to trigger the clauses; or 6) they have been triggered, and we just haven't heard anything about it.

You are a lawyer, and I am most definitely not, so I'm legitimately curious as to why you think such clauses would exist. It seems to me like there's no guarantee in the contract that Goko would even deliver any sort of product at all, let alone one that meets any standard. They claim to have bought over a hundred licenses for games, yet they have delivered three. This article seems to indicate that there is no obligation at all on Goko's side. The contract is most likely primarily to protect Goko from any other competing implementations of these games that might arise (like isotropic).

[Ozle]

Does anyone else think that Goko might get insulted if they were told that reducing their average traffic is a good thing? It's a very counter-intuitive claim, and something that seems like it's making fun of Goko. Having too much traffic actually be an issue is just a really sad situation that should never have come about in the first place that you'd normally pretend never existed.

I don't think Goko would be insulted. I'm sure it has a very thick skin as of late.

What is more likely to happen is that Goko will not want to admit that it can't handle the server load.  Nobody wants to admit they were wrong. If Goko goes for this, then it will be expressly saying, "We bit off more than we could chew and now have to rely on someone else's resources to accomplish our goal." That's not going to look great to future investors either. At least if they stay the course, they have a chance of fixing things (in theory) and re-establish confidence among investors. If they sell out to an Iso clone, then they'll never regain that confidence.

Just my thought on that, but I'm no expert on corporate dealings. Maybe I'm wrong.

Ahhh, but now is the perfect time, they have a new CEO, easy to admit to mistakes of the previous administration and then new plan to turn things around...

[popsofctown]

IANAL but I think the performance requirements, if they exist, would not trigger until a certain time.  Otherwise Goko could buy the license, hire half of Google for help, and still not get a working product in the time it takes the ink to dry and someone to run to the courthouse to file for breach of contract based on those performance standards.


That point in time may lie in the future.  But a settlement before that point that makes bilateral changes to the contract is possible in advance, motivated by fears Goko has about its ability to meet those performance standards in the future.

[popsofctown]

Does anyone else think that Goko might get insulted if they were told that reducing their average traffic is a good thing? It's a very counter-intuitive claim, and something that seems like it's making fun of Goko. Having too much traffic actually be an issue is just a really sad situation that should never have come about in the first place that you'd normally pretend never existed.

I don't think Goko would be insulted. I'm sure it has a very thick skin as of late.

What is more likely to happen is that Goko will not want to admit that it can't handle the server load.  Nobody wants to admit they were wrong. If Goko goes for this, then it will be expressly saying, "We bit off more than we could chew and now have to rely on someone else's resources to accomplish our goal." That's not going to look great to future investors either. At least if they stay the course, they have a chance of fixing things (in theory) and re-establish confidence among investors. If they sell out to an Iso clone, then they'll never regain that confidence.

Just my thought on that, but I'm no expert on corporate dealings. Maybe I'm wrong.

Ahhh, but now is the perfect time, they have a new CEO, easy to admit to mistakes of the previous administration and then new plan to turn things around...

I dunno, the XboxOne guy announced the change of direction, then "decided to resign" afterward. Maybe it tends to go the other way around in the business world.

[theory]

One would typically expect contracts like the RGG - Goko contract to contain clauses requiring performance standards.  The fact that they haven't been triggered implies one of several possibilities: 1) they are no such clauses; 2) Goko has not breached those performance standards; 3) RGG is unaware that Goko has breached those standards; 4) Goko has not yet had enough time to breach those standards; 5) RGG is unwilling to trigger the clauses; or 6) they have been triggered, and we just haven't heard anything about it.

You are a lawyer, and I am most definitely not, so I'm legitimately curious as to why you think such clauses would exist. It seems to me like there's no guarantee in the contract that Goko would even deliver any sort of product at all, let alone one that meets any standard. They claim to have bought over a hundred licenses for games, yet they have delivered three. This article seems to indicate that there is no obligation at all on Goko's side. The contract is most likely primarily to protect Goko from any other competing implementations of these games that might arise (like isotropic).

I suppose it depends on how it is structured.  If you see it, as I do, as a contractor-type agreement, where you're contracting with someone to do something for you, then by definition you need performance benchmarks.  After all, RGG had a few criteria it really wanted implemented, so it stands to reason that they'd put that in the contract (i.e., you get this license but can't have pay-to-win, etc.) 

In any event, it should have these performance standards regardless, because it ensures that everyone's incentives are aligned.  Namely, here, Goko might think it's most financially effective to just quit and bail instead of throwing good money after bad, but RGG might not want its reputation slandered.

Of the possibilities I laid out above, I think the most likely is (4), where there just hasn't been enough time to trigger said clauses yet.

[Ozle]

Does anyone else think that Goko might get insulted if they were told that reducing their average traffic is a good thing? It's a very counter-intuitive claim, and something that seems like it's making fun of Goko. Having too much traffic actually be an issue is just a really sad situation that should never have come about in the first place that you'd normally pretend never existed.

I don't think Goko would be insulted. I'm sure it has a very thick skin as of late.

What is more likely to happen is that Goko will not want to admit that it can't handle the server load.  Nobody wants to admit they were wrong. If Goko goes for this, then it will be expressly saying, "We bit off more than we could chew and now have to rely on someone else's resources to accomplish our goal." That's not going to look great to future investors either. At least if they stay the course, they have a chance of fixing things (in theory) and re-establish confidence among investors. If they sell out to an Iso clone, then they'll never regain that confidence.

Just my thought on that, but I'm no expert on corporate dealings. Maybe I'm wrong.

Ahhh, but now is the perfect time, they have a new CEO, easy to admit to mistakes of the previous administration and then new plan to turn things around...

I dunno, the XboxOne guy announced the change of direction, then "decided to resign" afterward. Maybe it tends to go the other way around in the business world.

Ahh, but the XboxOne guy wasnt the one in charge was he?

I am also not an expert in corportate strategy or law, but I am an expert in shifting blame!

[popsofctown]

Does anyone else think that Goko might get insulted if they were told that reducing their average traffic is a good thing? It's a very counter-intuitive claim, and something that seems like it's making fun of Goko. Having too much traffic actually be an issue is just a really sad situation that should never have come about in the first place that you'd normally pretend never existed.

I don't think Goko would be insulted. I'm sure it has a very thick skin as of late.

What is more likely to happen is that Goko will not want to admit that it can't handle the server load.  Nobody wants to admit they were wrong. If Goko goes for this, then it will be expressly saying, "We bit off more than we could chew and now have to rely on someone else's resources to accomplish our goal." That's not going to look great to future investors either. At least if they stay the course, they have a chance of fixing things (in theory) and re-establish confidence among investors. If they sell out to an Iso clone, then they'll never regain that confidence.

Just my thought on that, but I'm no expert on corporate dealings. Maybe I'm wrong.

Ahhh, but now is the perfect time, they have a new CEO, easy to admit to mistakes of the previous administration and then new plan to turn things around...

I dunno, the XboxOne guy announced the change of direction, then "decided to resign" afterward. Maybe it tends to go the other way around in the business world.

Ahh, but the XboxOne guy wasnt the one in charge was he?

I am also not an expert in corportate strategy or law, but I am an expert in shifting blame!

I don't think so, I think that he was just one of the old higherups that was saying "sure" whenever a man with a camera asked if he could pitch some questions to a very high level manager with no PR training.

[Kirian]

I am also not an expert in corportate strategy or law, but I am an expert in shifting blame!

Oooo me too!  I usually try to shift the blame onto the four-year-old, but sometimes the two-year-old gets some of the blame instead.

[Stealth Tomato]

I feel like we may have discussed this before, but why are we so focused on getting RGG to revoke the license from Goko rather than getting them to put pressure on Goko to make the damn product work? I agree Goko hasn't earned particularly high levels of confidence, but there's a lot more feasibility to that type of solution, and RGG is likely to be a lot more receptive since it involves less work for them.

Also, how thrilled are we going to be when the license transfers from Goko to somebody else, and we have to pay the new guys again for their implementation of Dominion?

[LastFootnote]

I feel like we may have discussed this before, but why are we so focused on getting RGG to revoke the license from Goko rather than getting them to put pressure on Goko to make the damn product work? I agree Goko hasn't earned particularly high levels of confidence, but there's a lot more feasibility to that type of solution, and RGG is likely to be a lot more receptive since it involves less work for them.

Also, how thrilled are we going to be when the license transfers from Goko to somebody else, and we have to pay the new guys again for their implementation of Dominion?

This is a good call. I think the reason that we're thinking more about the license transfer is that Goko hasn't shown a lot of competence when it comes to certain things. Most notably, getting a good implementation of the web-based game would probably involve a complete rewrite of the code, which is something that (in my experience), the business side of the company will not go if they think they have any alternative.

As for paying again, I wouldn't be surprised if Goko eventually moved to a monthly subscription system, in which case we'll be paying more anyhow.

[popsofctown]

There is only one opinion that appears in this thread that belongs to someone who at one point had the rights to Dominion, and has negotiated a transfer of those rights in a negotiation involving RGG.  That opinion suggested giving up all hope.  Why has it gotten so little attention?  I feel like six times as much time has been spent shooting down thought exercise ideas from a college student with an outpost avatar.

[TheExpressicist]

There is only one opinion that appears in this thread that belongs to someone who at one point had the rights to Dominion, and has negotiated a transfer of those rights in a negotiation involving RGG.  That opinion suggested giving up all hope.  Why has it gotten so little attention?  I feel like six times as much time has been spent shooting down thought exercise ideas from a college student with an outpost avatar.

There was much more to my conversation with Donald than what I posted. It would be fair to say that we should not give up all hope.

[theory]

edit: moved to RSP