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[junkers]

People complained! Not very many, but you know. You can't please everyone. I remember Doug Z. saying, "sorry, guy who didn't want this."

Because it's the Internet, and it's the Internet's job to shit on everything good and holy. I really don't get that attitude in this case, especially when, as Hans said, you can just remove the material that annoys you. This isn't Magic, where something that you find annoying in a preview might well dominate all games you're going to be in for the next 9 months+. Just don't play with it.

Others have already pointed it out, but previews really are the most magical time of the year. Despite having all expansions, this was my first one and I really enjoyed waking up early to see what had been uncovered, then seeing what uses for it decent players had posited after I got back from work.

[Donald X.]

Well, Dark Ages released, like, a couple days after the previews.  Hinterlands released DURING previews.  I imagine Jay will be posting Empires rules sometime this week?

That doesn't sound like Jay. Or like anything I'd be suggesting to him.

Elvis Costello - Imagination (Is a Powerful Deceiver)

[flaquito]

The big take-away for me was not to do previews next time. It's work; it's stressful; and then people say "oh what if you combine this with Possession and Black Market, this expansion is too complex." Man.

Donald, since so often negativity ends up being a vocal minority, I'll also chime in and say how much I enjoy your previews. The last ones easily got me to pre-order Adventures, and after this week I'm super stoked for Empires. With every new expansion, I'm amazed at the ideas you keep coming up with.

Also, I'm an extremely pedantic literalist (yeah, I know, a bit redundant), and absolutely love the intentionality that you put into the wording on the cards. Every word serves a purpose, and it's very rare that a thoughtful, logical reading of cards leaves any uncertainty about rules. Thanks again for everything you've put into Dominion!

(You guys want to see real ambiguity? Go read the Quarriors rulebook sometime....)

[Deadlock39]

But uh. If the set were out, and someone said, wow Crown is complex, someone else would speak up with their actual personal experience that did not demonstrate this.

Well... LFN has already done this, but hey, I've used this one too, and it is super not confusing. Seriously it's just Throne Room, except it costs more because you can use it on a treasure as a consolation prize when you don't find an action. (Also, I guess there are new things coming with it like playing Capital twice with it)

There are some bizarre cards like Black Market that might make it confusing, but seriously, that is Black Market's fault not Crown's.


I've played a few games with Villa too, and it is really not all that confusing either. What it is, is super amazingly fun. After I saw it for the first time I think it was 3 days before new cool things it can do stopped popping into my head.  I'd be willing to concede that maybe it wouldn't be the best card to throw at a brand new player, but this is the 10th expansion... surely someone at the table knows what they are doing. If you have been playing Dominion for a while, you will just have a blast doing things that feel like breaking the game.

[crj]

Well... LFN has already done this, but hey, I've used this one too, and it is super not confusing.

It seems it is, for people who think in terms of playing cards as Actions, and playing cards as Treasures. That includes me, and it seems I'm far from alone. Suddenly, I can play a card "as a Treasure" in my buy phase and make Peddler cheaper, then stack it back on my deck using Scheme? I can play a card "as an Action" in my action phase and make Bank more valuable then topdeck it by buying Mandarin? Wibble!

Sure, those are isolated cards. But there are lots of such isolated cards.

I've played a few games with Villa too, and it is really not all that confusing either. What it is, is super amazingly fun.

What about for the other players? I've not played Alchemy much (because I can't find anyone to play it with me), but I "fondly" remember the player to my left Possessing the next player round and having them play King's Court on Possession "to see what would happen". What happened was they threw the game to the player two to my left, but I had to sit there for a good long while watching it happen! I worry Villa could promote downtime in a similar kind of way.

Alchemy:
[...]
The next big thing is that, I knew some people wouldn't appreciate the potion concept, but did not realize that some people would find the set to be too slow. It has an action-chaining sub-theme, in order to make individual potion-costing cards good in games where there's only one card to buy with potions, and well this leads to longer games.

[ipofanes]

My then 11yo son and his three friends had super fun going full circle with KC-Possession, and still manage to keep track of the turn order.

[Donald X.]

My then 11yo son and his three friends had super fun going full circle with KC-Possession, and still manage to keep track of the turn order.

That's something people always forget when putting down Possession. Kids.

[Donald X.]

I worry Villa could promote downtime in a similar kind of way.

Do you really though?

Do you lie in bed at night, thinking about it? You're sitting at the breakfast table, your wife says something, sorry honey, what was that? And she repeats it but you don't hear a word the second time either. You're sitting at your desk, you can't lose this account, it's too important, but all you can think about is that maybe this card you've never played with will fail just the way you want it to, just the way you imagine, so perfectly, a jewel of a failure, leaving you the clever chap who saw it all so clearly where no-one else could.

I mean, I'd like to think so. I'd like to think someone out there is doing that worrying. But I bet you don't really.

[Davio]

The thing about Crown (yes, let's talk about the actual card again) is that it costs $5, which competes directly with most of the cards you'd want to throne anyway.

And then your decision is: Do I want to get this so I could potentially win an action and otherwise play an extra Copper/Silver? Or do I want the actual $5 because I'd rather play that straight up then play that Copper/Silver?

Consider Mountebank; throning a Mountebank is great, but not drawing them together and throning a Copper is pretty useless.
So if I already have a Mountebank, I might get another Mountebank before I potentially get this, if at all.

So I think it's not particularly overpowered, it just gives you some choices, which is always good.

Obviously, this gets better if the cards you throne are worth more. Just throne that Royal Blacksmith or something!

[Beyond Awesome]

In Jack/BM, Crown is sort of interesting.

Anyway, as far as complexity, this card could have appeared in Intrigie and no one would have given it a second thought.

[junkers]

I worry Villa could promote downtime in a similar kind of way.

I see it more as an extension of Lab or Port, where you alternately marvel at what's going on and swear at your opponent because their turn won't end. And those are some of my favourite Dominion moments. Because while you're glad to see a chain go off, a little bit of you knows they might screw it up somehow or draw dead before they can finish you.

But that's not Crown, so I'll shut up about it.

So I think it's not particularly overpowered, it just gives you some choices, which is always good.

That's it - it gives you an alternate way of throning stuff and it seeks to resolve the dead draw issue, but, like with every card, there are plenty of checks on it to make sure it doesn't do this too reliably so as to make it OP.

[Accatitippi]

Donald, I'm pretty sure I'm speaking for the majority when I say that Previews are great.
We get to see new cards with some interesting and fun presentation text, and that's cool, but they also show how much you and the playtesters like and are invested in making good expansions, and that's even more cool.
I understand how getting only feedback (positive and negative) about art, wording and "how does it work with Possession" makes it seem like the audience is not getting the point or something, but really, what else can we speak about?
Somebody will see a couple of cool synergies with other cards, somebody will explain how half of those don't work, and that's it.
But the low quality of the ensuing discussion is not a sign of a low quality experience on our part. (I see how it might be frustrating for you)
Anyway, I'll just throw this idea around, what if you experimentally included an interesting Kingdom in the next previews to give people something else to talk about? It's hard to speak about single cards, even more so when you have never played with them. Speaking about kingdoms is easier, and makes more sense too.

[junkers]

Anyway, I'll just throw this idea around, what if you experimentally included an interesting Kingdom in the next previews to give people something else to talk about? It's hard to speak about single cards, even more so when you have never played with them. Speaking about kingdoms is easier, and makes more sense too.

I can still see the same problems arising: "It didn't work in this Kingdom, so it clearly should never be printed. God, Donald, why are you so awful?".

But I think you're totally right - rather than latching onto the most extreme cases of rules interpretations from the get-go, it would give players a chance to feel things out. And it would probably benefit beginners most of all in opening up vistas onto how all this new stuff might interact with all their old stuff. I'm going to write "all" again because that last sentence didn't have enough of it: all.

Once that's dusted, we can start working out where it lies on some sort of "potential to make your brain hurt when played with Possession" chart.

[Davio]

Well, you're free to use proxies and try the cards in your own kingdoms...

[Phil]

The big take-away for me was not to do previews next time. It's work; it's stressful; and then people say "oh what if you combine this with Possession and Black Market, this expansion is too complex." Man.

I realize that lots of people have already responded, but as someone who posts very rarely here I feel the need to say that the previews were a huge part of this past week for me; I woke up excited to see what was going to be revealed, and had long thinks on the cards when they showed up.

I even made an effort to point them out to several of my real-life friends who wouldn't have come across f.ds on their own because I thought they were super interesting; we all collectively were delighted by Enchantress, that's for sure.

Yesterday we played a game of Dominion and mocked up Wolf's Den with an index card because one of the players thought it'd be super interesting to try out.  (I won by a landslide, in case you're wondering; the only unique card I ended up with was Champion, thanks to very careful deck management, and I won the Province breakdown on the last purchase as well.)

I long ago accepted that cards like Possession and Black Market are rife with rules weirdness, and it's their fault, not the new cards that tickle that weirdness.  Also, you're right; the first and only question any of my friends asked about debt was "can you win with it?"  I think the sort of person who would regularly visit a forum on the Internet dedicated to Dominion will often be someone who prides themselves on encyclopedic knowledge of rules minutiae and interactions, and so sometimes talking about new cards becomes all about those interactions, which almost never happen, rather than the general play case.  But that's enough Psych 101.

So: please to continue in future.

[Watno]

Imagine if the previewed cards were released onto Dominion Online the day they were previewed. Now that would be a good life.

People complained! Not very many, but you know. You can't please everyone. I remember Doug Z. saying, "sorry, guy who didn't want this."

I don't get what people would be complaining about there. Maybe it can be fixed by having previewed cards be optional to include?
Anyway, I loved the previews, and am confident the cards/landmarks/events will be really fun to play with, but there's not that much you can write about that. Judging from the number of visitors (I just noticed we broke the most online ever record on Friday) the forum had this last week, there are loads of people who were really hyped for the previews and likely would love to get some for the next expansion as well.

[GendoIkari]

Please, Donald, don't stop because of me. I'm sorry and i'll shut up now. A lot of people here are excited, and you make an effort nobody could expect of you by doing all of this. I took that effort for granted and derailed this thing you are doing for all of us with my preferences. I'm genuinely sorry

Yeah, me too. I may tend to be more vocal about negatives than positives; but as I mentioned in the greatest Dominion moments thread; reading these previews has been the highlight of my Dominion-related experiences. I'm super excited each day to see what's next; and I have nothing but the highest praise and excitement for all the other revealed things.

[crj]

Do you lie in bed at night, thinking about it?

Coincidentally, yes. But I know a rhetorical question when I see one.

but all you can think about is that maybe this card you've never played with will fail just the way you want it to, just the way you imagine, so perfectly, a jewel of a failure, leaving you the clever chap who saw it all so clearly where no-one else could

Here's a thing: 99% of the time, having a game's designer so deeply involved in the forums is a wonderful thing. Especially a designer as entertaining as you. I, like so many other people, am very grateful for that.

On the other hand, a few weeks ago I posted on BGG that my group never played the Generalist in Pandemic Legacy. They looked potentially interesting, kinda, but not necessarily as interesting let alone as powerful as the alternatives. What happened was a couple of people made some interesting replies. What didn't happen was Matt Leacock turning up in the thread to complain at me for negative speculation and accuse me of just trying to look clever.

So yeah, 1% of the time it might be nice to be able to express a worry about a new expansion online in the same way I would with some friends at the pub. Right now is that 1%.

That takes nothing away from the other 99%. I know that Dominion is one of my favourite games, the one I've spent the most time playing these past few years. I know that it's great that you're so committed to the forums. I don't lose sight of that.

Partly for the sake of space, partly because I'm one of those autistic-spectrum nerdy compsci types who tends to think it's OK to say anything halfway intelligent and sincere that's on one's mind without fear of hurting anyone's feelings, I don't actually prefix every reply with that. But I mean it.

And, hey, it's a huge testament to Dominion's excellence that I don't actually have much experience of being negative about anything in a way that doesn't piss you off.

Sorry. /-8

[Davio]

Well if you've read enough of Donald's post you start to grasp his sense of humor. It's pretty sarcastic almost cynical. But I can see how you could interpret his posts if you didn't know any better.

Donald's pen/keyboard is very sharp and I think it's great he's still so involved.

[Jeebus]

I think it's exactly right that most people think in terms of playing cards as actions and playing cards as treasures, and as crj writes, those people will be confused by Crown and a relatively big group of cards that care about a card being action or treasure. It just means Crown isn't straightforward, someone needs to have read the rules carefully and then explain it to the others. But that's already the case with several cards in Dominion.

[Chris is me]

Well, you're free to use proxies and try the cards in your own kingdoms...

I did this for a little bit when I was waiting for my copy of Adventures to arrive. I only did this after I bought the set though so I didn't feel super guilty or whatever.

The main deterrent for me doing this really is that there aren't any randomizers that incorporate Empires yet, so I'd have to design the Kingdom, and I hate designing Kingdoms with cards I've literally never used because I'm wrong about how they work.

[JW]

I did this for a little bit when I was waiting for my copy of Adventures to arrive. I only did this after I bought the set though so I didn't feel super guilty or whatever.

The main deterrent for me doing this really is that there aren't any randomizers that incorporate Empires yet, so I'd have to design the Kingdom, and I hate designing Kingdoms with cards I've literally never used because I'm wrong about how they work.

You can proxy one landmark/event you want to try out, then pick the rest of the kingdom normally. With kingdom cards, you can pick/proxy one kingdom card you want to try and pick the other 9 randomly. That's what I did when I got Prince, for example.   

[Donald X.]

What didn't happen was Matt Leacock turning up in the thread to complain at me for negative speculation and accuse me of just trying to look clever.

I don't mind you not liking the cards, saying "I think this looks weak" or "I don't like this." People have endlessly done that for my games without me getting involved at all; I've got tons of evidence there. I don't stand up and say "but it's actually strong / fun." Man what happened here. Some people said "wow this is super-complex, what was Donald X. thinking." I said man why did I do previews. It is so much easier not doing previews. And then no-one would be thinking that stuff without people having access to the cards and actual experiences. I am still seeing a lot of upside, for me personally.

And I mean, I'm not the 99% Donald X., I'm the 100% Donald X. If you'd like to get rid of that 1%, well bad news. Like it says in the comic from that guy who deleted all his comics, wait I'll link it. http://67.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kttn9k6OuP1qa9t5fo1_500.png

[Orange]

Please, Donald, don't stop because of me. I'm sorry and i'll shut up now. A lot of people here are excited, and you make an effort nobody could expect of you by doing all of this. I took that effort for granted and derailed this thing you are doing for all of us with my preferences. I'm genuinely sorry

Dude if it was just you I would just be blaming you, quietly in a corner.

I know there's like, what is there to talk about. The reddit thread for Landmarks is all about how they could do a better job wording Keep; that's what they found to talk about. There's not much point to just oohing and ahing. A wording, there was something they could sink their teeth into.

But uh. If the set were out, and someone said, wow Crown is complex, someone else would speak up with their actual personal experience that did not demonstrate this. There would be no traction to the complaint, unless the card were really confusing people. It's a preview though, so it's just hanging there, to be marveled at, and then, again, what conversation topics are there? Well hey, how does this work with Storyteller. Huh that's confusing. I guess this is super-confusing card.

Here's the thing:  we all feel like Dominion belongs to us.  We evangelize it to others.  We defend it to others who tell us it is boring or claim one of the copiers "fixed" it.  We are the ones in each of our game groups who like Dominion the most, and want to be in the know.  A few years ago when Jay had Prosperity at a demo table at WBC a few weeks before release I pretty much played it non-stop.  It's our game.  Yes, we aren't the ones who invented it or put the thousands of hours into creating it.  But we also want it to be perfect, and we all have ideas.  The wording complaints and the "oh my God this combo is so broken/confusing/complicated" are just us whack jobs filling the void between now and May 25.  In a few days we will all be so busy playing that you won't hear too many more gripes, I hope.  If you are getting discouraged, just go read some of the fun threads like Great Dominion Moments.

Thanks for the previews and thanks for Dominion.

[ThetaSigma12]

Let me chime in with some optomism.

The minute I found this set on BGG I was determined to get it. I preordered it even before the previews were released, and I nave no reason to regret that purchase.  All the previews look great, and I especially enjoyed enchatress!

As a resoponse to all the complaints, hold back judgement for crying out loud. Saying you don't like the idea of a card, the art, or saying you are confused is fine. But It's way to early to say that you won't want to buy the set. Wait a few weeks, and see the rest of the cards. Saying a set is stupid BEFORE you have even seen all the contents of it is unfair.