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[DStu]

Hey, here's what I take away from this! Don't tell people stuff, because there may be stuff you don't know that means you're wrong, and that will piss people off more than no information at all will. Cue someone to say how ungrateful of me this is!

Donald, just please stop taking things away from this kind of discussions.  There are always people complaining, and there are tons of people that don't.

[Ozle]

What do you think all this moaning and claiming of boycotting the product is actually going to achieve?

It's going to make me waste some time coming up with snarky comments!

I don't know what to tell you guys. This is just the place for a snark.

It could be worse, it could be a place for Boojums!

[LastFootnote]

Hey, here's what I take away from this! Don't tell people stuff, because there may be stuff you don't know that means you're wrong, and that will piss people off more than no information at all will. Cue someone to say how ungrateful of me this is!

Donald, just please stop taking things away from this kind of discussions.  There are always people complaining, and there are tons of people that don't.

Yeah, agreed. I've been a loud complainer myself at times, but I always appreciate your honest communication and overall I'm still pleased and excited about all things Dominion-related.

[Wolphmaniac]

Just came in to say that I think it is great that the game designer is an active participant in the community and doesn't even duck hostile threads.  I am on a few music message boards and the notion of a musician from any of the discussed bands coming onto the forums is unthinkable.  Kudos to DXV! 

At this point nobody knows what the final version will be like exactly, so it probably makes sense to sit tight for a few days, then go play some free base games upon launch and vote with your wallet as to whether you like the new server.

(P.S. If you can simply keep playing while the animations are going, I will buy all of the cards on Day 1!) 

[sherwinpr]

I'm sure Hasbro Scrabble has rebuilt a community by now, but it's not the same people.

I'd bet not.  People play Words With Friends instead because Zynga's clone works better than Hasbro's correct version ever did.  And we know how people around here love clones.

The parallels are uncanny. If this train wreck continues, I probably won't see most of you in a game again and it won't even be my conscious decision.

I'll admit I'd forgotten about the Scrabulous debacle, but yeah.  It's missing the lawsuits, thankfully.

There's still time to label the GenCon release as a public beta

/crosses fingers

Well, Hasbro (the company owning the rights to Scrabble) is actually releasing (Words with Friends) in physical board game form; this is sadly, not a joke.

[Donald X.]

Hey, here's what I take away from this! Don't tell people stuff, because there may be stuff you don't know that means you're wrong, and that will piss people off more than no information at all will. Cue someone to say how ungrateful of me this is!

Donald, just please stop taking things away from this kind of discussions.  There are always people complaining, and there are tons of people that don't.

Dude, I haven't taken anything away from anything. I am a rock of unlearning.

[Voltaire]

Here's the biggest positive I can say about Goku - man, bots. Bots! And they're pretty good (relatively speaking), and you can play against them, and it makes four player games fast, and I can lose a lot of four-player games and go wow, I am not good at four-player Dominion. Then I play hundreds more games trying to fix that.

Anyway, the bots are impressive, all things considered.

[GendoIkari]

Really? I was thinking that they indicated no. iirc, one person hosts the game, and the cards must be taken from what that person has, entirely, so you can't mix and match like is being suggested here.

Initially I thought one person would host but now I think you can mix and match.

One thing I don't get about this business model... there's little incentive for anyone to actually pay any money; if they can just go online and find a game that other people who have paid money are hosting. Or am I not understanding properly how it works? I mean, in real life, only 1 of your friends has to buy Dominion because you all know each other and get together to play together. But on the internet, your "friends" could be made up of any number of thousands of people who are hosting a game.

[werothegreat]

Here's the biggest positive I can say about Goku - man, bots. Bots! And they're pretty good (relatively speaking), and you can play against them, and it makes four player games fast, and I can lose a lot of four-player games and go wow, I am not good at four-player Dominion. Then I play hundreds more games trying to fix that.

Anyway, the bots are impressive, all things considered.

The bots have gotten obnoxiously good.  They know exactly when to go for Duchies - it's uncanny - it's like they're programmed that way!

[Captain_Frisk]

Dude, I haven't taken anything away from anything. I am a rock of unlearning.

This reminds me of an excellent quote from rrenaud describing a mutual acquaintance as "immune to learning".  Good times.

[Insomniac]

As I've said in other places I like the official version, sure I'm sad I won't be able to play alchemy, hinterlands and cornucopia when it comes out but they'll get it done, they've shown an amazing amount of bug fixes and ui changes in such a small time frame of the beta. Do any of you remember the first 2 weeks of the beta, how many of you have played it recently, the difference is night and day. I think that they are commited to making a solid product.

[Donald X.]

One thing I don't get about this business model... there's little incentive for anyone to actually pay any money; if they can just go online and find a game that other people who have paid money are hosting. Or am I not understanding properly how it works? I mean, in real life, only 1 of your friends has to buy Dominion because you all know each other and get together to play together. But on the internet, your "friends" could be made up of any number of thousands of people who are hosting a game.

Well if no-one buys Cornucopia, then no-one can play with it. So we are guessing that some people will buy it. And at the same time it will be cheap. You can play with someone else who bought it, and after playing a few games without it because your opponent didn't buy that one, maybe think, man, I could just pick that up.

[Donald X.]

The bots have gotten obnoxiously good.  They know exactly when to go for Duchies - it's uncanny - it's like they're programmed that way!

Not when Duke is out.

[werothegreat]

The bots have gotten obnoxiously good.  They know exactly when to go for Duchies - it's uncanny - it's like they're programmed that way!

Not when Duke is out.

Well, I'm sure they'll flail like a dead fish when *CENSORED*, *CENSORED* and *CENSORED* are out.  Oh, oops, those were leaked Dark Ages cards.

[Thisisnotasmile]

The bots have gotten obnoxiously good.  They know exactly when to go for Duchies - it's uncanny - it's like they're programmed that way!

Not when Duke is out.

Well, I'm sure they'll flail like a dead fish when *CENSORED*, *CENSORED* and *CENSORED* are out.  Oh, oops, those were leaked Dark Ages cards.

Chicken, Chicken and Chicken?

[Thisisnotasmile]

By the way, Rats should be renamed Chicken.

[Kirian]

The bots have gotten obnoxiously good.  They know exactly when to go for Duchies - it's uncanny - it's like they're programmed that way!

Not when Duke is out.

Yeah, I was shocked at how terrible the bot did with Duke out.  Letting me grab 7 Duchies and 8 Dukes was a bit nuts.

[Captain_Frisk]

The bots have gotten obnoxiously good.  They know exactly when to go for Duchies - it's uncanny - it's like they're programmed that way!

Not when Duke is out.

Yeah, I was shocked at how terrible the bot did with Duke out.  Letting me grab 7 Duchies and 8 Dukes was a bit nuts.

I played a bot game this morning - i thought the the bots had gotten savvy when it bought a duchy before a province.... and before I had started rushing duchies....

Game ended with me having 6 duchies and 8 dukes.

[Kirian]

So the whole reason my annoyance at this whole mess began was because of this post from February 2011:

http://boardgamegeek.com/article/6286314#6286314

Hey, here's what I take away from this! Don't tell people stuff, because there may be stuff you don't know that means you're wrong, and that will piss people off more than no information at all will.

Actually... as much as people keep telling you to not to take things the way they don't want you to take it, I think this actually might be exactly the right take-away message.  If the first we'd heard about this was, say, a few weeks before a beta, followed by a couple of months of beta, I don't think the resentment would have had time to build.  Major software companies don't announce a product 18 months in advance without something to actually show--and those that do usually do not end well (See: Daikatana; Duke Nukem Forever).  Hindsight's 20/20 I suppose, but I was apparently complaining about lack of screenshots/feature list when in fact there were no programmers at all, and no contract!  That's how bad the communication was!

Cue someone to say how ungrateful of me this is!

Lol, yeah.

Recently though I haven't even been bothered enough about Dominion to even think of going to Isotropic to play the game. I think the reason for that is because I'm spending my time here reading the forums and there's no interesting Dominion discussion. There's just whining and moaning about Isotropic closing and being replaced by an official product, which, as Kirian quite handily pointed out, WE'VE KNOWN ABOUT FOR THE LAST 18 MONTHS.

Man, whining about people whining is pretty meta.  Maybe you should starrt a discussion?  That said, about 80% of the posts recently were in the preview threads, which went to like 10 pages each!

One of the places I'm coming from here:  I run an entire subforum here, and I can't do anything with it due to the current unknowns.  That particular subforum produces a lot of discussion about some interesting games if you're willing to read it!  But for now it produces nothing.  And the new place isn't tournament ready yet.

[polonkus]

So, do people remember these posts from BGG? (emphasis mine)

(1/21/2012)

Just to clarify things on this issue if I can at this point. Over the past two years, RGG has been approached by a number of people asking to do a "casual" and free app for Dominion. In such cases, we have usually said yes with the stipulation that once the "official" Dominion app became available that the free app would be removed. Cory is one of those who asked and, as with others, we gave him permission to develop a free Dominion app, which I understand he has finished. I admit some surprise as it has been months since we last spoke and I had assumed he had decided not to complete the app. In any case, as long as it is free, it is allowed, at least for a few weeks until the licensed app becomes available.

I am sorry if there has been any confusion regarding this.

Thanks

Jay
RGG

(1/22/2012)

To update you all, we are now (including me) testing the Dominion app and I have been very pleased with the product the licensee has produced. I have played it using Safari, Firefox, iPad, and iPhone and it works well on all these platforms. I am told it works on others, but that is all I have at my immediate disposal. The IA is simple, but will certainly serve to help a new player learn the game and get started. We expect it to be available in the VERY near future and will announce a date as soon as we have one. Thanks!!

Jay

I'm honestly curious what was going on here. Was there an earlier project which was scrapped?
Was Jay straight up lying?
I'm not in the beta, but from the reports I've seen it doesn't sound like it would have been in a playable state back in January.
Any speculation/information?

[jsh357]

I don't think it's impossible that an alpha version was ready by then.  We had a poster here who was able to describe it accurately several months before the public beta.  They were probably setting up the server, adding expansions, etc. during that time.  I've never developed a web app so I can't say how long that kind of thing takes.

[blueblimp]

If you really care about making this work, you would play on it relentlessly, constantly offer feedback, and demonstrate a willingness to accept what is new, instead of perpetually whining about what you are giving up.

I do, but I post it on Goko's forums since that's what they read.

[Donald X.]

I'm honestly curious what was going on here. Was there an earlier project which was scrapped?
Was Jay straight up lying?

He was not! He was making a guess based on incomplete information.

There is no earlier scrapped project; there is just, maybe certain other people were going to do it but that never sounded great and not making a decision there dragged out.

[Donald X.]

If you really care about making this work, you would play on it relentlessly, constantly offer feedback, and demonstrate a willingness to accept what is new, instead of perpetually whining about what you are giving up.

I do, but I post it on Goko's forums since that's what they read.

I have not taken the plunge of registering at those forums yet, so you could cross-post something here if you want me to see it and bug them about it, which is what happened with the shuffling bug, also thanks again there!

[Donald X.]

And the new place isn't tournament ready yet.

Incidentally Trisha will be running "manual" tournaments in the short term; "automatic" tournaments are a planned feature but def. not making the launch.