Communication about releases & future plans

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JunkDealer

Quote from: Nyarpy on 16 February 2017, 06:13:10 PM
I now look at the forums every couple weeks, see that it looks like no major progress has been made, and lament that we're wasting our free year subscription.

I've had to re-frame things in my mind so that I don't feel so pessimistic.  That re-frame is that we haven't been given a free years subscription out of kindness or because of money spent on another product with the same name. It isn't that they were doing it to showcase their new product.  Instead, the free subscription is because the product is still in development.  Thinking about it that way makes it more tolerable, to me at least, that it's still missing almost all of the features that I enjoyed about the MF version (and ultimately why I bought all available expansions on that platform).  For clarity those are:
- Campaign Mode (interesting variants and different challenges/bots)
- Bots with different characteristics/levels
- an interface that let me play it is a game and ignore the logs
- platform specific clients (iOS/Android/PC) so that idiosyncrasies between clients didn't impact play

Perhaps this re-framing will help others come to terms with the state of the current implementation.  Tying this back to this thread (communication), I would have been more understanding if this is how it was communicated at the beginning and before launch.  That is, not as a free year subscription, but a transition subscription while the product is finalized.  With that in mind perhaps throw a BETA indication on the main screen to identify that it isn't at full capability yet.  I wouldn't take it to the same extent Google did though (https://gmail.googleblog.com/2009/07/gmail-leaves-beta-launches-back-to-beta.html).

I'm still hopeful that the ShuffleIt crew will come to the realization that communication is a fundamental part of product development and customer satisfaction.  Once they've realized this then start providing some meaningful progress updates and forecasts.  Ultimately that's what I think this thread has been asking for.

Cave-O-Sapien

Quote from: JunkDealer on 16 February 2017, 07:00:08 PM
I'm still hopeful that the ShuffleIt crew will come to the realization that communication is a fundamental part of product development and customer satisfaction.  Once they've realized this then start providing some meaningful progress updates and forecasts.  Ultimately that's what I think this thread has been asking for.

YES. The relative silence over the past month or so has been really disconcerting.

Given the incomplete state of the game at the moment I would expect frequent official updates across multiple communication channels.

ThetaSigma12

#47
Quote from: Nyarpy on 16 February 2017, 06:13:10 PM
But then we were completely unable to get a game going on Kindle Fire vs. Kindle Fire.
Was it a browser problem, or the fact that they don't have a dedicated app?

EDIT: It doesn't want to load, you're right.

santamonica811

Quote from: ThetaSigma12 on 16 February 2017, 09:03:02 PM
Quote from: Nyarpy on 16 February 2017, 06:13:10 PM
But then we were completely unable to get a game going on Kindle Fire vs. Kindle Fire.
Was it a browser problem, or the fact that they don't have a dedicated app?

EDIT: It doesn't want to load, you're right.

Interesting.  It's working (has always was working) on my own Kindle.  Screen is small (8 inches) so I don't play there much--and I'd never play with a live opponent, as it takes forever to zoom in to select a card, then zoom out to navigate around, then zoom in again to click on my next move/step, then zoom out...etc etc etc.  Fine to do with the bot.  But not a real game.

In other words, it works for me.  But not particularly well or smoothly.

Nyarpy

Quote from: ThetaSigma12 on 16 February 2017, 09:03:02 PM
Quote from: Nyarpy on 16 February 2017, 06:13:10 PM
But then we were completely unable to get a game going on Kindle Fire vs. Kindle Fire.
Was it a browser problem, or the fact that they don't have a dedicated app?

It was a browser problem, possibly combined with a matchmaking problem. When I made a table, my wife could join the table as a spectator but couldn't join the game because our rankings weren't close enough. I attempted to follow the suggestion to change the min/max rating difference, and that worked if I was setting up the game on Chrome on my laptop, but those options couldn't be changed on the Kindle. So we couldn't play a Kindle vs. Kindle game.

This past weekend, though, I finally tried it again, and we were able to play our first 4 or 5 games on the new system on our Kindles. Both of our opinions can be summarized as, "Nearly everything was better on the Making Fun app, but this certainly beats the past 7 weeks of Dominion withdrawl." We haven't played on anything but our Kindles (and don't really intend to), but I'd bet most of these problems are limited to Kindles and possibly other small tablets. This probably isn't the perfect thread to list my first impressions, but here goes anyway:

-First and foremost, it's nearly impossible to read the description of a card during your buy phase without buying it. We've taken to asking each other to read the cards out loud if we forget something because it's too big of a risk for the player whose turn it is to try to read it.

-Occasionally when we do enlarge a card to read it, it gets stuck on the screen and won't go away, and you can't do anything. Close the tab, sign back in, works again. This happened at least once per game to one of us. At least the reconnect works unlike on MF, since it's absolutely necessary in order to play a game to completion.

-Constant need to keep switching from portrait to landscape. Playing works best in landscape - everything's too small in portrait. But there are some things that can't be done in landscape. The box that shows how many actions/buys you have covers up your hand cards so you can't see if you have 2 Estates/3 coppers or 3 Estates/2 Coppers. You can click that box to make it disappear, but then it's gone the rest of your turn when you need it. But if you turn it to portrait, you can read those counters on your cards, then turn it back to play your turn. Then on your opponent's turn, she plays an Envoy or a Knight and you have to make a choice, but the choice doesn't even show up in landscape. You have to turn it to portrait to choose (or to even realize you need to make a choice unless you're paying very close attention).

-Minor annoyance with Tavern mats. On MF, they were always visible - you wouldn't forget you had a Wine Merchant on them. My wife did forget she had one on there for nearly the whole game. We finally did figure out how to see them, but having a tiny always-visible icon like on MF would be great.

-Having to make some choices by clicking tiny text in the log is really weird. The log should be a log. Decent-sized buttons should be how you make choices. I can't remember off the top of my head which choices made you do that, but it was very non-obvious what we were supposed to do.

I doubt these problems will be enough to stop us from playing, now that we actually can. But the first 3 I listed are very annoying and I hope won't be issues for long. I wouldn't recommend the game to non-addicts in its current state, at least if they're playing on a Kindle like us. But it's good enough for those willing to put up with it to get a Dominion fix.