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[Donald X.]

For your example of whether .99999 equals 1, you can have a 2-3 line proof for it. Whether people take it is another issue, but you can have it written there, instead of saying "I don't want to waste my time here because while my argument is simple and clear you won't accept it."

When you give them your short proof, they say, but xyz. Now if you are silent they say, oh I'm right? If instead you say, "no that's nonsense" they say "oh explain it." Again, hundreds of pages, no lie, and I know this wasn't unique to those forums, there are other forums that have had the endless argument about that very thing, point nine repeating decimal, this thing that requires only a tiny proof.

It's not that I'm going on about this because I want everyone to know just how much I think that post wasn't worth my time, despite spending time repeating that. You guys are talking to me. I was content to leave it at "that's cuckoo" and wait for someone else to do the work. You've already got threads of me arguing for pages against obvious wrong things here on dominionstrategy.

[Donald X.]

A really excellent resolution to the interface-based fairness concern would be for isotropic to offer this feature natively. As isotropic is no longer under active development given its impending replacement with the FunSockets client, this is unlikely. And as I said in the other thread, I'm quite willing to put my money where my mouth is with respect to FunSockets implementing this!

If enough people wanted a point-counter in FunSockets then it would be a possibility, unless Jay hated the idea, which I think he might, I'm not sure though. It is a kind of thing he hates. No argument about "but people will write their own" would change that, for sure. If he didn't hate it then it wouldn't be a high-priority feature but could happen. I don't imagine it would ever go to the extreme of tracking deck contents.

[Young Nick]

How would those who are against the add-on feel if there was no UI, and that those who enabled the add-on would have to type !status or !details just like the non-users? All players have to deal with the clogged messages that display the information and no single opponent has access to the information 100% of the time if the add-on functioned this way.

I figure some would still be against this, but I doubt this would be granting any competitive advantage at all. This is the next logical step.

[jayarsea]

How would those who are against the add-on feel if there was no UI, and that those who enabled the add-on would have to type !status or !details just like the non-users? All players have to deal with the clogged messages that display the information and no single opponent has access to the information 100% of the time if the add-on functioned this way.

I figure some would still be against this, but I doubt this would be granting any competitive advantage at all. This is the next logical step.

This would be my strong preference. I am among those who didn't realize that my opponent has been passively receiving information while I must request it.

[Davio]

A really excellent resolution to the interface-based fairness concern would be for isotropic to offer this feature natively. As isotropic is no longer under active development given its impending replacement with the FunSockets client, this is unlikely. And as I said in the other thread, I'm quite willing to put my money where my mouth is with respect to FunSockets implementing this!

Motion seconded as I have said before.

Online Dominion isn't offline Dominion, people.
Time to throw away all pens, papers, stones and chisels and embrace the fact that we can easily track public information on the internet so that everyone can use it.

And all the surprise about: "I didn't know it tracked cards!" Well, boo fricking hoo. Stop overreacting and calm yourselves please.
You are in fact shocked that players on the other side of the internet are using information that's available to everyone?

If I told you that in every game I've played on Iso I kept track with my loyal pen and paper so I always knew what you and I had in our decks, would you be shocked? I think NOT! You would think: "Well, you're free to do what you want, man, we can't stop you from doing it anyway."

Was the extension used under false pretenses? Maybe, but I'm actually surprised it caused such upheaval.

[blueblimp]

A really excellent resolution to the interface-based fairness concern would be for isotropic to offer this feature natively. As isotropic is no longer under active development given its impending replacement with the FunSockets client, this is unlikely. And as I said in the other thread, I'm quite willing to put my money where my mouth is with respect to FunSockets implementing this!

If enough people wanted a point-counter in FunSockets then it would be a possibility, unless Jay hated the idea, which I think he might, I'm not sure though. It is a kind of thing he hates. No argument about "but people will write their own" would change that, for sure. If he didn't hate it then it wouldn't be a high-priority feature but could happen. I don't imagine it would ever go to the extreme of tracking deck contents.

Oddly enough, the Ascension iPad app tracks deck contents but not points. Go figure.

[Personman]

A really excellent resolution to the interface-based fairness concern would be for isotropic to offer this feature natively. As isotropic is no longer under active development given its impending replacement with the FunSockets client, this is unlikely. And as I said in the other thread, I'm quite willing to put my money where my mouth is with respect to FunSockets implementing this!

If enough people wanted a point-counter in FunSockets then it would be a possibility, unless Jay hated the idea, which I think he might, I'm not sure though. It is a kind of thing he hates. No argument about "but people will write their own" would change that, for sure. If he didn't hate it then it wouldn't be a high-priority feature but could happen. I don't imagine it would ever go to the extreme of tracking deck contents.

Alright, well, for a points-only counter, my hypothetical kickstarter contribution goes down to say.. $50 ;-)

Seriously, that's great to hear. I hope he doesn't hate it, and I hope this kind of messy argument can just never ever happen with FunSockets, because everyone accepts that the official counter exists, knows what it does, and is clear on whether they are playing with it or not.

Also, I'm going to bed now.

[chwhite]

I'm just going to say one thing on this matter, then shut up.

I personally have no issue with the point counter.  I know that it gives a (very) slight advantage to the player who uses it, but it doesn't bother me.  I play against people who use it all the time, no big deal.  If I meet you on Iso, I'm not going to ask you to disable anything, or avoid you, because you use the point counter.

HOWEVER.

There is no defense, I repeat no defense, for not having the courtesy to disable it if asked, since after all a) everybody knows it's controversial, and b) it is confirmed by the DXV himself as a variant rather than accepted within the official rules.  And it should go without saying that this is especially true in a tournament setting: there is no question in my mind that refusing to disable the point counter in a tournament game is not just incredibly rude, but is, yes, cheating.

[Davio]

You can't take the official rules for the offline version and copy paste them for the online version.

But if I continue your reasoning, chwhite, you could play in a tournament and say in the chat box: "Guys, I'm not using the point counter (disabling it), but I'm writing everything down, is that ok?" They can't stop you from doing this even if they don't want you to.

So what's the difference and what's the use?

In my view, we're at a Crossroads, either:
- Make the point counter extension native to Iso, program it in so everyone can use it
- Make any online Dominion software very intrusive on your PC, making it scan constantly for the usage of point counters and let it connect to your inbuilt camera to see if you're writing something down with pen and paper

I think the first one is more viable.

[blueblimp]

(Edit: In reply to chwhite.) I agree for tournaments, but for everyday play I'd prefer that the other player just decline the auto-match. That's why it's in the status.

[chwhite]

But if I continue your reasoning, chwhite, you could play in a tournament and say in the chat box: "Guys, I'm not using the point counter (disabling it), but I'm writing everything down, is that ok?" They can't stop you from doing this even if they don't want you to.

Yes, technically you could do that.  And you'd be at best an inconsiderate jerk for doing so- just because it's impossible to catch all fouls doesn't make it okay to foul.

I really don't see what's so controversial about basic courtesy and sportsmanship here (and make no mistake, this argument is about sportsmanship and NOT about the point counter, which as I've said before I'm quite agnostic about).

(Edit: In reply to chwhite.) I agree for tournaments, but for everyday play I'd prefer that the other player just decline the auto-match. That's why it's in the status.

Yeah, of course.  That's entirely fair.

[Qvist]

Seriously guys, what going on!?
I'm happy to be part of this community, because I had the impression that everyone is kind and very respectful. I can't understand all the hate which is going on.
The community seems to split apart in two halfs, the Pro- and Contra-PointCounter parts. That's really sad.

I did want to post a long essay, but as I figured out. Most of it was already said by Davio. Especially his bold sentence "Online Dominion isn't Offline Dominion".
But I like to add a few things. I can understand both sides. Each side has brought arguments that sound reasonable. So, I, by myself tried to figure out what s reasonable.

First question to ask: What is cheating? I, for myself, consider it in this context to have information that I'm otherwise shouldn't be able to have.
Second question (half provoking): Why hasn't anybody brought up the question: "Is having logs cheating?" ? The same arguments could be brought up here. The one side could say: You have to memorize, that's part of the skill. The other side could say: Yes, but I easily could write that down.
Third question: Is the official point counter cheating? AFAIK the official point counter even displays the points of multiplayer Masquerade games correctly (please correct me if I'm wrong). This is information you shouldn't have (see question 1) and is IMO more cheating than anything else here mentioned. And counting points is the most important thing you have to do. IMO the discussion should more be "Is using any point counter cheating?" instead of "Is the inofficial point counter cheating?". Because knowing how much worth your Fairgrounds, Vineyard or Silk Roads are, is very important.
Fourth question: Which benefit you have from the uninofficial point counter in comparism to the official point counter? Yes, you know how your and your opponents deck looks like. Yes, it's an advantage. But how big is it? IMO when you know how many points you have, knowing how your deck looks like isn't much of any deal. You can count if you would have enough money for double province if you draw your whole deck and there are more cases in which you really have a benefit.  But remembering what cards you have in your deck is not that hard. You often know it anyway. Maybe you don't know if you have 5, 6 or 7 silvers, but is that important? The number of your key cards you know anyway. And the only case you really want to know exactly what you have is, when alternative victory cards refering the number of specific cards. But then you have the point counter either way...

I mention it again: "Online Dominion isn't Offline Dominion" For those refering to the point counter as a variant. Yes, it is a variant. But online Dominion is a variant already on its own. Online Dominion needs variants for cases like you weren't able to fully concentrate e.g. because your baby starts to cry or whatever. So there are logs to read what happened, there is a point counter to see quickly where you are now and there is the "deck counter" where you can also see by a quick look what you missed.

On the other side I see the arguments of the Contra-group. In tournaments you want to test the skill of the players and this includes to keep track of your cards.

The combination of the "Online" and "Tournament" parts, really makes it difficult to come to an agreement.
My proposal: It should be possible to disable the inofficial point counter at any time. There shouldn't be an option "cannot be disabled". If one of the opponents don't agree with the inofficial point counter, he can just disable it. Where's the problem? Is it really that hard to come to an agreement? I think neither side has the right to either say "The inofficial point counter is cheating and should definitely be prohibited or banned" nor "I only play with the inofficial point counter". It is a controversial topic and it's the easiest way to define: "When all players come to an agreement what to use or not use, then it's fine. If an agreement isn't possible, the compromise would be no inofficial pointer, but with official point counter." I think, that's fair.

[yudantaiteki]

I assumed everyone knew that the point counter extension allowed you to see what was in decks, although I must say that I don't like the idea that you can see the deck without having to type !details, whereas your opponent does have to do that.  That's really the only thing that bothers me.

[Davio]

Still, I say that you can't have an online tournament, or an online game for that matter, where you can really enforce the "no point counter" rule. So we can either accept that some people will "cheat" (I still don't think it's cheating) without telling us or we can accept the point trackers and make sure that everyone has the same information. Well, everyone already has the same information, it's just that some players don't need to write it down while others do.

You can appeal to sportsmanship all you want, but you can never enforce players to play online tournaments without it. And if the carrot is big enough, players will do all they can to gain an edge. And why shouldn't they?? It's not like the point and card tracker instantly makes a person twice as good. It just helps him a bit to remember some things automatically which he would otherwise write down anyway.

All this discussion about something that will give players maybe a 2% edge. I mean, it's not like having the point tracker instantly makes you godlike like stef, marin or Obi Wan Bonogi....

[Qvist]

I try to make another comparism: Card counting in games like Blackjack.
It's not illegal to count cards in Blackjack although you may be sooner or later get kicked out of casinos if you do so.
If you use external devices or pen&paper to count cards, that would be illegal, no doubt.

I think it's not possible to count cards in online casinos, but just imagine it would be possible.
Of course some would write cards down, and of course there would be plugins for counting cards. Nobody can prevent this.
But still: Counting cards still doesn't mean auto-win, especially as your opponent may do so as well.

What would be the solution?
1.) Prevent card counting at all. In Online Dominion in a browser, that's nearly impossible.
2.) Tolerate card counters, with the restriction to disable it by any opponent at any time. That's what I'm proposing.

[Kirian]

2.) Tolerate card counters, with the restriction to disable it by any opponent at any time. That's what I'm proposing.

I could deal with this if the code weren't transparent.  It's not a perfect solution, but it would be fair.  However, as has been noted, anyone with enough knowledge about programming can change the code; this creates an untenable situation in which you can't guarantee someone is using it and you can't disable it--or even see it!

[Qvist]

2.) Tolerate card counters, with the restriction to disable it by any opponent at any time. That's what I'm proposing.

I could deal with this if the code weren't transparent.  It's not a perfect solution, but it would be fair.  However, as has been noted, anyone with enough knowledge about programming can change the code; this creates an untenable situation in which you can't guarantee someone is using it and you can't disable it--or even see it!

Yeah, but if it's tolerated, nobody needs to do that. Only when you prohibit it, people would start to bypass that restriction.

[theory]

One of the reasons I have tried to avoid having us all get into this ugly debate is that I think it may be mooted by FunSockets.  Drheld is a great guy but maybe even for him the task of OCR'ing all the images moving around is a little much.

[Davio]

What the discussion boils down to is the believe that some players have access to more information than other players, but this is FALSE.

Every player has access to the same information. The point counter extension (PCE) just stores and shows the information which is available to everyone. The UI of the PCE is not accessible to everyone, but the information is. So the discussion about the PCE is moot. The PCE is not the culprit here, nor is anyone using it.

In banning the PCE from tournament use, you are trying to enforce a rule that is by definition un-enforcable. You can't prevent players from using the public information that's given to them. If you ban the PCE, you might as well ban Pen and Paper. I agree that having a good card memory is a key skill in offline Dominion, but online Dominion is already a variant, like Qvist mentioned. We need to treat it as such, with separate rules.

There wasn't such a Rabble when Iso implemented the option to start with the same 4/3 or 5/2 opening. This is also a variant.

I would even argue that Iso, even with the PCE, is more fair than real life Dominion, because even a pseudo-random computer shuffler is better than the good old 3 times overhand shuffle used in real life which causes clunking like there's no tomorrow.

I would let everyone happily use the PCE for online Dominion. If you want to cry about how that's unfair because you don't use it, just use it, use a pen and paper or stop whining about it. You can't prevent it, so you must accept it.

This is probably better than banning it and having everybody use it secretly anyway.

[RisingJaguar]

Well that was a lot to digest.

The Auto Count thing means they have it set so that it cannot be disabled.

edit: well i'm not sure actually, it seems the Auto Count message is required if you've disabled disabling, but I don't know if Auto Count always means that has occurred.

There are three options:

• Shows status message and can be disabled. (Edit: thought this was the default, but it's not.)
• Shows status message and can't be disabled.
• Doesn't show status message and can be disabled. (The default.)

The only thing that you can't do is turn off disabling and not show the status message.

I've attached a screenshot to show what the point counter looks like when you use it (with the other player's name hidden). Next to the cards in the supply, you can see how many each player has. The chat box is what it looks like after typing "!details", which both players can see. You can see current points and deck sizes next to the chat input box (which is the same info you get by typing "!status").

I just want to make sure I have this correct... The screenshot with the card counting did not need anything like !status to start it up correct?  Also it would continue to count it without anything like !status?  I ask because I have NEVER seen that before which makes me a little skeptical that this information is available to everyone (or I am missing the boat or something).  (Attached is the screenshot)

Also for the three options, could someone explain what is meant by not showing the status message (the third option).  Does this mean I would not be informed if they have it in the first place or something like typing !status would be invisible to the other player. 

I hope this question doesn't spring a huge debate as well, but do a lot of players actually keep track of cards say pen/paper or excel sheet? I have never even considered to do that... mainly because its too much work though.  This point counter looks like zero effort which bugs me a bit, but not enough into a frenzy. 

[Kirian]

One of the reasons I have tried to avoid having us all get into this ugly debate is that I think it may be mooted by FunSockets.  Drheld is a great guy but maybe even for him the task of OCR'ing all the images moving around is a little much.

I understand, but so long as Isotropic is the main online Dominion arena, I think the discussion needed to finally be had.  We've been skirting around it for over a year.

[yuma]

I'm just going to say one thing on this matter, then shut up.

I personally have no issue with the point counter.  I know that it gives a (very) slight advantage to the player who uses it, but it doesn't bother me.  I play against people who use it all the time, no big deal.  If I meet you on Iso, I'm not going to ask you to disable anything, or avoid you, because you use the point counter.

HOWEVER.

There is no defense, I repeat no defense, for not having the courtesy to disable it if asked, since after all a) everybody knows it's controversial, and b) it is confirmed by the DXV himself as a variant rather than accepted within the official rules.  And it should go without saying that this is especially true in a tournament setting: there is no question in my mind that refusing to disable the point counter in a tournament game is not just incredibly rude, but is, yes, cheating.

All of my feeling summed up about this silly argument. Thanks ch.

[Eevee]

I'm just going to say one thing on this matter, then shut up.

I personally have no issue with the point counter.  I know that it gives a (very) slight advantage to the player who uses it, but it doesn't bother me.  I play against people who use it all the time, no big deal.  If I meet you on Iso, I'm not going to ask you to disable anything, or avoid you, because you use the point counter.

HOWEVER.

There is no defense, I repeat no defense, for not having the courtesy to disable it if asked, since after all a) everybody knows it's controversial, and b) it is confirmed by the DXV himself as a variant rather than accepted within the official rules.  And it should go without saying that this is especially true in a tournament setting: there is no question in my mind that refusing to disable the point counter in a tournament game is not just incredibly rude, but is, yes, cheating.

All of my feeling summed up about this silly argument. Thanks ch.

How about announcing "I wont allow disabling the point counter extension" in my status message? Should ensure I only play guys who enjoy the same variant I do.

Because really, the idea of playing without any point counter makes me want to quit the game altogether, and I would REALLY like to have the extension available too because it makes the game that much more fun to me (and I play to have fun).

[DStu]

One of the reasons I have tried to avoid having us all get into this ugly debate is that I think it may be mooted by FunSockets.  Drheld is a great guy but maybe even for him the task of OCR'ing all the images moving around is a little much.

I still haven't really found the relevant code in the Funsockets client, but without knowing the exact working of the code, I guess to write the addon you should observe the communication with the server, or at least the functions that communicate with the server, or the functions that display the relevant events on the client. Change these functions to also do the counting for you, and you are done. It's significantly harder than for iso, but significantly easier than OCR.
I'm still quite sure that we won't have such a thing for Funsockets if there was some kind of point counter in the official version, but without it someone will probably do...

Or they do (or have done) some encryption/obfuscation of these functions...

[WanderingWinder]

First of all, I did not resigned. I withdrew.
Second, I protest. I protest the finals. I have noted this, but I want to do it more publicly here.
Third: the point counter, particularly the undisableable point counter spurred much of the discussion/argument/disagreement that was going on. However, it was not really, as things went on, the heart of the disagreements, and it would certainly not be correct to say that this is the only reason I withdrew - though from the other people looking at stuff, it would certainly look this way, I grant you. But setting the record straight, it's not the only reason.
Fourth, I actually think I gave up a somewhat better than 1 in 4 chance at the Chicago thing, because I think I was the best player, even with one of them cheating in this fashion. But I do not care so much about this. I care more about some of you guys missing out on things, I guess, but again, a heap of cash, and a bunch of fun is WAY less important to me than my reasons for withdrawal. I continue to be amazed at how not understood this is.
Fifth, I will be making several more points about the issues coming up.