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Messages - Donald X.

#1
OP updated with the errata to the errata.
#2
I am changing some rules and errata-ing some cards. And this post is telling you all about it.

The reasons behind these changes are:
- It's possible for two copies of a card to have different abilities. This causes problems, the worst (extremely exotic) situation being, you play a card and don't actually know what it should do. The cards that do this are also confusing in general.
- There are cases where card interactions fail in an unintuitive way, due to it mattering if cards in a discard pile are covered up.
- Two minor rules clarify things a little and simplify texts a little, and are just coming along for the ride.

These changes will be implemented in the online program soon, and are effective now for play irl. Of course if you are playing irl you may not know about them, or may choose to do whatever you choose to do. These are changes for the better though, and I recommend using them.

1. Errata

Eight cards are getting errata. Four are "shapeshifters" - they can change what they are, or what something else is. These create lots of rules questions and a few problems, and are switching to be like Captain and Necromancer - they'll play a card instead of becoming the card. Three are one-shots that would behave differently with the shapeshifters; they're changing to be more like they previously were, though this will change how they work in some other situations (e.g. with Necromancer and Captain). And then Procession is getting rid of the tracking problem introduced when the Throne/Duration rule changed a few years ago.

Someday those expansions will get printed again, and will have the new wordings, with FAQs to go with them. You can play with them right now though, through the magic of knowing about them.

New card texts:

Band of Misfits: Action, $5
Play an Action card from the Supply that costs less than this, leaving it there.

Overlord: Action, 8D
Play an Action card from the Supply costing up to $5, leaving it there.

Inheritance: Event, $7
Once per game: Set aside a non-Victory Action card from the Supply costing up to $4. Move your Estate token to it. (During your turns, Estates are also Actions with "Play the card with your Estate token, leaving it there.")

Lantern: Artifact
Border Guards you play reveal 3 cards and discard 2. (It takes all 3 being Actions to take the Horn.)

Death Cart: Action - Looter, $4
You may trash this or an Action card from your hand, for +$5.
----------
When you gain this, gain 2 Ruins.

Pillage: Action - Attack, $5
Trash this. If you did, gain 2 Spoils, and each other player with 5 or more cards in hand reveals their hand and discards a card that you choose.

Embargo: Action, $2
+$2
Trash this. If you did, add an Embargo token to a Supply pile. (For the rest of the game, when a player buys a card from that pile, they gain a Curse.)

Procession: Action, $4
You may play a non-Duration Action card from your hand twice. Trash it. Gain an Action card costing exactly $1 more than it.

2. Tracking for the former shapeshifters

Some cards, like the new Band of Misfits, can play a card that isn't put into play. When you play Band of Misfits, leave it in play as long as you would have left the card it plays in play. Normally that will be the same turn's Clean-up. For a Band of Misfits playing a Duration card, it will be the Clean-up of the last turn the Duration card has any effects. For a Band of Misfits playing a Throne Room playing a Duration card, it will be the Clean-up of the turn the Duration card leaves play. For a Band of Misfits playing a card that can move itself from play, like Mining Village, the Mining Village can't move itself, so Band of Misfits doesn't leave play any earlier than normal. If a Band of Misfits plays multiple Duration cards (e.g., you used Throne Room on it), leave it out until the Clean-up of the last turn that one of them still had effects.

These rules apply to all of the cards that play cards without putting them into play: currently, Band of Misfits, Overlord, Inheritance, Necromancer, and Captain.

3. The new lose-track rule, now stop-moving, and getting things from your discard pile

Sometimes, the game wants you to not move a card further. I used to call this lose-track, because it existed due to situations where you'd really lose track of the card. But mostly you know right where the card is, so now I am calling it the stop-moving rule. And it's changing too, as follows.

The stop-moving rule: An effect can move a card if it specifies where the card is coming from, or if the effect put the card where it is now. If a card isn't where the effect would expect it to be, or has moved away from there and then back, it can't move the card. Played cards expect to be in play; they can't move themselves if they aren't. Gained cards are expected to be where they were gained to, even if this isn't the discard pile. Cards in discard piles can be moved even if covered up by other cards; cards on top of a deck can't be moved once covered up.

Additionally, when you are told to get a card from your discard pile, you can look through it to get the card. That's just implicit. You don't have to just look at the top couple of cards, you can look through the whole discard pile.

The main change here is that previously you'd lose track of something if it were covered up in your discard pile, and now you don't. So for example if you Replace an Estate into Skulk, previously you would lose track of the Skulk when you gained a Gold and covered it up, but now you won't, you will put the Skulk onto your deck.

4. You can gain non-Supply cards when called out.

When a card tells you to gain a non-Supply card by name, you can gain it from its pile, even though it's not in the Supply.

This is just letting me drop "from its pile" from those cards, which wasn't a great way to make it clear that you really get to gain them.

5. Costs don't go below $0.

The cost in $ of a card can't go below $0. The cost in [potion] of a card can't go below 0 [potion]; the cost in [debt] of a card can't go below 0 [debt].

This is something that cards like Bridge have said; now it's just a rule, and covers the potion and debt cases since people ask. What does Vineyard cost with a Highway in play? Same as without it - zero coins, one potion, and zero debt.

*** Update! ***

Did I say that was the errata? There is more errata.

As a result of posting the errata, people have talked about it in forums and things, and the ShuffleiT version has gotten worked on. And this has resulted in two more desired changes. Well I'm counting it as two. And well the cards still won't be printed for months at least, but the online version is changing soon, so here they are.

The first is, when you are told to get a card from your discard pile, if it's not on top, or the card is chosen, you can look through your discard pile to get the card. You don't get to look through your discard pile to take the top card (again unless you're choosing a card from your discard pile). This change is because, well the idea to messing with when you could look in your discard pile was to fix some weird situations, not to add "look through your discard pile" to cards like Watchtower that never had it. In the rare situations where you gain a card and want to use Watchtower and the card is no longer on top, you get to look through your whole discard pile; when it's on top, just take the card like you used to.

The second is, further errata for four cards to prevent loops. You could do things like, play a Bridge and use Inheritance on Band of Misfits and then play Band of Misfits to play Estate to play Band of Misfits to play Estate and it's a loop. The fix here is a type on these cards, that they then don't work with. This affects very little other than getting rid of the loops; Courtier is better with these cards, and if you e.g. have an Adventures token on Band of Misfits and wanted to play Captain to play Band of Misfits (with a Bridge) to take advantage of that, well, now that doesn't work. This fix includes Overlord even though it wasn't part of the loops, just to be safe for the future and because it looks like the other cards and this seems less confusing. And hey it was already getting errata. To avoid "non-Victory non-Command" on Inheritance, I'm dropping non-Victory, which was just there for the old way Inheritance worked.

So:

Band of Misfits: Action - Command, $5
Play a non-Command Action card from the Supply that costs less than this, leaving it there.

Overlord: Action - Command, 8D
Play a non-Command Action card from the Supply costing up to $5, leaving it there.

Inheritance: Event, $7
Once per game: Set aside a non-Command Action card from the Supply costing up to $4. Move your Estate token to it. (During your turns, Estates are also Actions with "Play the card with your Estate token, leaving it there.")

Captain: Action - Duration - Command, $6
Now and at the start of your next turn: Play a non-Duration non-Command Action card from the Supply costing up to $4, leaving it there.
#3
Quote from: Donald X. on 22 August 2019, 03:05:47 AM
I rarely check these forums, so if you want to say something where I might read it, I recommend dominionstrategy, where you first posted this thread and I guess thought you could ignore the answer, or discord.
Since you didn't want me to read your post, I'll do you a favor and not read it. No don't thank me; it's what I'm here for.
#4
For me "the full game" just doesn't mean what it does to you guys. Possession got published, e.g. Enchant didn't (it's some random outtake from Alchemy). It's not somehow an incomplete game without Enchant, and it wouldn't be without Possession. Possession shouldn't have been published, Enchant didn't seem to have enough merit and wasn't. But it could have been vice-versa; Possession had rules issues and wouldn't have made the set if there'd been more time, and I can imagine deciding at the last minute to do Enchant instead. For me there's just no sense in which Possession should be forced on serious players in a way that Enchant shouldn't be. The argument is that Possession did actually get published, but that was a mistake, why enshrine mistakes. Chancellor etc. got published and you aren't playing with those online; I got to fix some mistakes.

I pushed for the banned list feature and am a fan. I didn't push for liked/disliked lists but they're fine. IRL people use banned lists constantly - you deal out the cards, your friend says "oh let's not play with Witch" or "oh we should have a village" and I mean they're your friend, so you're friendly. People leave out cards they don't like because they want to have more fun. People playing online also want to have more fun.

When you have a banned list, of course there will be cards you like that don't show up so much - you like Swindler, lots of people don't, only sometimes are you up against someone who didn't ban it and then it still may not show up. The suffering you experience from not getting to play with Swindler as much is just so overshadowed by the suffering of the other people if you got to force it on them. The joy someone might get from forcing their opponents to play with Possession is nothing next to the joy of people not having to play with Possession.

So, I am not sympathetic to anti-banned-list sentiments. Imagine your opponent is a friend; man, making them play with whatever card they hate is no way to be friendly.
#5
Quote from: Pizzaelemblast on 22 August 2019, 02:28:15 AM
Even so, it looks like Donald might have listened to these people when he designed the card 'Fleet'.
Fleet wasn't me listening to anyone; it was an idea I had and then I tried it out and well you know it was iffy, but some people liked it and there it is. I can go further and say, it was inspired by a similar idea I'd had for Kingdom Builder, the silos in the 4th expansion. Could I do something like that for Dominion? I could and it was Fleet.

Stef isn't going to go over my head here and implement something I say no to. That would not work out for him, and he's no fool. So to get this feature you would need to convince me.

You have not convinced me. We will not be having this feature. IRL feel free to play by whatever variants you want. Online we are only including variants I specifically endorse. The bar is high there.

I rarely check these forums, so if you want to say something where I might read it, I recommend dominionstrategy, where you first posted this thread and I guess thought you could ignore the answer, or discord.
#6
Originally you could count your discard pile but not look through it.

Valerie didn't like that the rulebook would have to say "but you can't look through it." She felt like it was like accusing the players of cheating. And I didn't care much. So, you can't count it or look through it.

When you are looking through it because something tells you to, you can for sure also count it then.
#7
Quote from: markus on 26 October 2018, 10:26:06 AM
Online release is dependent on physical release of Renaissance. I think the expectation is next week.
Correct.
#8
Quote from: Ingix on 04 August 2018, 11:26:06 AM
I heavly disagree. 90+% of my usage as a player is with the supposedly useless current AI implementation. Of course I can see all myriads of totally bad decisions it can make. But it looks like as with any strategy game, you have players who mostly want a challenge and others who want to fill some time with something they like.
You can totally get nonzero value from Lord Rattington. You can even lose to it. I routinely overstate how bad it is, but I am in a unique position to be unhappy about it. As a player, well I don't play it, it wasn't good enough, but that doesn't occupy space in my mind, I just play other things.

I am still embarrassed that people start up a game and are presented with that. I would be even more embarrassed if, after waiting so long, they download their "you can keep this forever" offline Dominion and that's what it has.

And anyone who just wants to play offline may not be checking for updates, to download a better version later. There will always be improvements they're missing if they don't; I would like to not have real AI be one of them.

Am I asking for too much? Well it's August 5, 2018. Sadly Shuffle IT isn't the first entity I've uselessly quoted the date at.
#9
Quote from: Stef on 03 August 2018, 05:30:51 PM
Yes, I can respond, but I don't have anything new to say.
Development hasn't progressed as I planned lately, but I haven't changed the schedule for this (yet?).
The offline version is useless without real AI - I would not even offer it to people, it would just make us look bad. And real AI is useful without the offline version.

So, I imagine you are doing the real AI first?
#10
Quote from: LastFootnote on 23 June 2018, 03:30:15 PM
From my cursory research, that would also make refreshing the page resign you.

And in general we want people to be able to quit their browsers and the re-enter a game, perhaps even on a different machine. I've done that more than once.
Maybe it could put you on a faster timer? We know you aren't thinking.
#11
I agree that a dialog box that appears when you try to close a window is extremely odious.

Couldn't closing the window just automatically resign you? I'm not sure why we need to ask there. You closed the window.
#12
General Discussion / Re: Trolls
20 June 2018, 12:49:43 AM
Anyone can play Dominion itself for free online, and can play with all the expansions just by clicking the button and waiting.

Making a physical game didn't require us to provide a free online game. Would you believe. And the online version is made by someone who has to eat like anyone else.
#13
General Discussion / Re: Trolls
19 June 2018, 07:46:26 PM
Quote from: DominionTroll on 19 June 2018, 07:04:47 PM
Another thing: I personally own various Dominion Expansions IRL. I find it pretty nasty to pay here for things I have already paid IRL.
You'll have to worker harder than that to troll me. Try: "you sure spend a lot of time on Dominion forums," or maybe, "did you guys actually playtest Rebuild?"
#14
General Discussion / Re: Trolls
19 June 2018, 07:45:04 PM
Quote from: AdamH on 19 June 2018, 03:02:46 PMThe voice of authority comes down and all of a sudden there's this idea that since DXV wants it a certain way, that's the way it has to be no matter what.
Well if Stef and I both want the same particular thing, odds are that's how it will be. I try to listen to reason, or the cries of the masses, but I mean, I like what I like. It's good to be king. I know you don't like that perspective; that's never been enough to change it.

I personally swear like a sailor, but that doesn't mean I feel the need to impose that on automatch opponents.

Quote from: AdamH on 19 June 2018, 03:02:46 PMThis is a game on the internet, if I want to play that game, I have to have a chat window open where my opponent can write whatever they want and that has to be on my monitor no matter what.
Magic Duels never had chat. So far Magic Arena doesn't have it. I can't help but think that that was their one-step solution to "what if people are cussing in chat, how much of our lives do we want to spend on this."

I value chat a lot, but I mean, I have played online games with no ability to chat. Someone won and everything.
#15
General Discussion / Re: Trolls
18 June 2018, 10:41:27 PM
Quote from: Stef on 18 June 2018, 02:49:16 PM
Off course people can get banned for what they say in chat. You have to be pretty foul because I tolerate a lot, but yes there are limits.

We are not talking about people who are expressing an opinion I don't agree with here, but people who are 100% clearly out to insult their opponents. I don't want them here, in the game, or anywhere else in my life.

"insulting your opponent" is not part of any valid strategy on this site. I don't care if you think there are other games where it is valid, here it is not.
I have no complaints about this policy.

It would be great if you could mute opponents, if you can't; it's certainly not a priority though. Okay I am spectating, hey markus and sicomatic are playing. If you just type 10 lines into chat, I mean "." is enough, you know, and then scroll up, then you won't see anything the other player says, it doesn't automatically scroll. So there's that anyway.