Hold on a second. Isotropic does not advertise itself to be a tool for teaching new players how to play Dominion. If you had to teach one Dominion from absolutely zero base knowledge, I'd bet that Isotropic would be just as confusing as Goko or the real cards.
Yeah, I hope it doesn't sound like I think Isotropic is supposed to be a teaching tool; that's not what I'm trying to say at all. But no, I've taught Dominion quite a lot of times to people who have no knowledge at all of the game and it took less then 10 minutes. I've even taught the game in German to a group of American highschoolers, some of whom have only studied German a single year. Isotropic may be as confusing as Goko right now, but Isotropic should not be the standard. The easy-to-learn real cards should be the standard.
You also mentioned megaturns being difficult to track on Iso. Well (I'm pretty sure they fixed this recently), they used to be even harder to track on Goko, because there wasn't a text log that showed what had gone on. Just cards moving around. I'm fairly sure that there's still the current problem where megaturns are hard to play out on Goko because the cards in your hand couldn't fit on the screen. Clearly, it's not easier there...
Yes yes, Goko sounds at the moment not easier than Isotropic. This isn't a point I'm trying to make either. Megaturns are really hard to track even in real life and will be really hard to implement anywhere. But I'm still holding out hope that there is a really good way to do it that some brilliant dude/dudette will figure out eventually.
You know, although I learned the dominion mechanics IRL, I learned 90% of the cards on iso, and I never got complaints. I would start every game saying "hi, gimme a sec to read the cards." I invariably got back "sure, take your time," or no response at all, but nobody whined at me for taking a couple minutes.
That being said, I don't really get the point of your initial thread. First of all, iso was a barebones implementation because it was done (as far as I know) by a single guy in his spare time, just for fun. I doubt he was particularly worried about usability, and considering that, I think he actually did a pretty good job. That being said, I don't imagine any rational person will argue that the funsockets site will be more complex or harder to use than iso.
Cool, I hope this has been and will be the experience of the majority for online dominion; maybe I just unluckily got a really grumpy opponent for my first match. The bold sentence is exactly how I feel about Isotropic; dougz is awesome. Given his resources and goals, he hit a grand slam. But rational people
are arguing that FunSockets should be "as easy to use as Iso." I'm just trying to remind people that not everyone agrees that Iso is easy to use if you're newer. And this will likely be similar with FunSockets. After 1000-2000 games, everyone will be used to their implementation and things will be more smiley. The rest of your post really made me nod; perhaps I was just trying to remind people to realize that they were part of a unique community with a different dominion experience than the masses.
I've previously outlined what's problematic on Goko right now. I encourage you to read the whole thing.....I want it to succeed; who wouldn't? But it's not there yet. It's not even close.
Yeah, that was a really good and well put together post. I am definitely following all the posts on that. I really appreciate how you break up the problems into identifiable pieces. Those are the sort of constructive posts that will help Goko be a seriously good implementation, I hope. You're all aces man; keep providing this high-level feedback, Kirian.
I've heard that it's not close and I've heard some pretty good constructive ideas on how to get it further along in topics on the Feedback forum. But I've also heard some nonconstructive posts that automatically assume that "there", the place where Goko needs to be if it will succeed, is a copy of Isotropic with actual card art.
The layout isn't any more intuitive--better in some ways, worse in others. There's no tutorial, buttons are ambiguous (and there are no rollovers to tell you what they do), there are plenty of things that make it just as non-intuitive....It's worse than Iso because it's buggy as hell, can be hard to use in some circumstances, and is missing obvious features.
Yeah, these have got to be fixed. The done button has to have more context; "trashing done", "discarding done", "actions done" etc. That's a simple fix, and it sounds really frustrating that it hasn't been implemented yet. Why hasn't "Make a Tutorial" been an idea i've seen yet? Maybe I missed it, but they have got to provide a tutorial in my opinion. Maybe a "game" with the first set of cards where no shuffles are actually random. With directions on what to do next so the interface becomes more familiar. "Good, you've got a Militia still in your hand but you have no more Actions to play it with. Now you should play all your treasure....You have $5 so why don't you click on a Market to buy this card?" Then after the player has bought his first province (or two provinces) the tutorial ends saying "cool, so that's how you play. It felt like you were doing good against this bot and you were, but here's a secret tip...there are even stronger strategies with these cards. Well have fun playing other people!"
Look... you're talking as someone who has played under 100 games on Iso, and isn't in the beta. I have no idea if you have all the currently available cards. I'm talking from the perspective of someone who owns all the expansions, has played ~2000 games on Iso, and has played a couple dozen games on the Goko implementation. I want Goko to be better. But it is currently much, much worse--not because I'm used to Iso, but because it's not finished, buggy, and problematic.
Yeah, I understand our perspectives are different. I'm missing Alchemy, Cornicopia, and the promos, and haven't ever even seen Goko with my own eyes...but what does that have to do with the fact that we both want Goko to be better. Or that it's currently bad because it's buggy and problematic. I agree, this game isn't ready if people can't even log on, if bots resign instantly, or if the game freezes up at multiple junctures. These problems have got to be fixed before anyone even mentions a launch date, plain and simple.
It is getting better - but it just isn't there yet. I played probably 10 games yesterday - and had the following things happen:
1. Frozen while loading
2. Frozen mid game against a live opponent forcing us to abort the game
3. Bot quit on turn 1
4. Game froze for 10+ seconds in the middle of the multiple games.
These things are just not acceptable.
Then there are the interface quibbles - accidentally trashing cards to opponents bishops, or discarding your only action card because you thought it was your turn but your opponent had really militia'd you. Sure - these things are my fault for distracted playing - but if it happens to me - it will happen to others - and its a frustrating experience. They have either slightly improved the interface lag - or I've gotten use to it, but I haven't been having too many problems with playing too fast lately - although the megaturn complaints are real... When you get up above 10ish cards in hand - its hard to see what's going on. They apparently know its an issue - so hopefully it will be fixed sometime.
Spot on man, those first 4 issues are serious problems. Like I said above I don't even want to hear about an actual launch date set until these are a thing of a past. The interface quibbles can be addressed I hope, and I'm eager to see what they will do. Maybe with practice we'll get really good at the new interface as well, but I really hope that it doesn't take tons of practice. I want something that is immediately clear, maybe this doesn't exist and maybe it could. I'm not sure.
The fact that the free version exists - and is good - and was done by one guy - without official art - in his spare time - gives us a baseline of expectation regarding what a commercial version done by a team of people working full time with art should be able to accomplish.
Here is a statement with which I totally agree, but very carefully. In a broad sense, the baseline has been set. Iso was done under incredible circumstances and I will be very disappointed if the team at Goko makes a product that is worse.
But perhaps here is my main point, stated again in a different way. We can't say that Isotropic is the baseline and THEREFORE Goko should do every single thing that Iso does, and then add pictures and glitz only once they've done all the things Iso did. I wouldn't pay for Isotropic with pictures. Goko should copy the general ideas of Isotropic, but NOT the specific features.
Thus, Goko should
1. Offer online dominion with seamless functionality.
2. Offer game logs so Isotropic-friendly sites like Councilroom and f.DS can continue in a Goko-style flavor.
3. probably other things....
I'm really not enough of an isotropic expert to be able to finish that list, but I want to point out that this list should not contain specific features. Like when somebody says that putting cards back on your deck should be done like on Isotropic where you click one box first, then another, then click done. No, that is confusing; it really truely is. I've gotten used to it and can do it fine now, but there has got to be something between that (100% functional) confusing method and the way it is done in real-life with physical cards. My hope is that Goko exceeds Isotropic's great benchmark, but it can only do that by being different. Otherwise it is doomed to be a pale comparison of a free-to-us labor of love, and we'll have people expecting us to pay for that stuff.