Journey Token

[Donald X.]

What does Donald X think?

For me there's no question. This is a simulation of a real physical game that people actually play in real life.

The face up token should show the actual image used on the real face up token - the new improved image, not the original image. The Journey token has a boot. The face down token should show the actual image of the real face down token - it's a mildly textured colored blank circle. We don't use blank circles to mean something else, but the face down token might still be confusing sitting there in some random spot, so the token should be labelled, e.g. "Journey."

[Cave-O-Sapien]

As long as this implementation of Dominion remains a facsimile of the physical card game, it seems silly to represent the virtual token in a manner directly opposite of the physical one.

Edit: ninja'd!

[Donald X.]

Oh a thing you could do, if you wanted to be maximally friendly Someday, is, highlight the text that will apply in the Ranger / Giant in your hand or Pilgrimage on the table (which would be the text for the other position).

[Rabid]

Good idea, does that cause confusion with Throneroom?

[Donald X.]

Good idea, does that cause confusion with Throneroom?

You tell me!

[Jacob Marley]

Please don't say "us."  That implies that you speak for the entire dominion playing community.[...]vocal minority assume [...]

Us only implies me plus at least one other person. Since my wife has the same oppinion, which personal pronoun should I use? And tell me good sir, why do you assume that I am a minority? Aren't you doing exactly what you say "annoys" you?

Ok, there is a misunderstanding as to what exactly "us" meant.  I did not understand that you specifically meant you and your wife.  My apologies.  As for implying that you are in the minority for your view on this issue, that is not what I was trying to say.  I am implying (and I believe) that those who are active on these forums represent a minority of the total online Dominion playing population, and that therefore it is dangerous to assume that the views of the forum community are necessarily representative of the total playing population. That was poorly communicated my me.

Back to the issue at hand, the way I see it is that many people are arguing based on "play the card first, then check for the effect".  If this is how you are thinking,then yes, the implementation is confusing.  I'm coming at it from the perspective of "I want to know before I play the card which effect I will get" in which case it seems intuitive to see the green side up and know I will get the big effect or see the grey side and know I will get the small effect.

[Rabid]

How about using big and small, as well as flipping.
So a big face down token = next play will be big
And a small coloured face up token = next play will be small.

[Ingix]

The rulebook is written for the real life board game version. I am pretty sure that in that version there is a colored side and a blank side (no gray side). Clearly Colored is face-up and Gray is face-down.

Thanks for the correction. I was more remembering the MF version than the board game version, and I couldn't check the latter at the time of writing. That makes the current implementation opposite of what is supposed to happen in the board game version, which is probably very confusing to players.

[jeebus]

Just want to say that I agree that it currently works opposite of what the card text says. The card text is there in the online version too. That's what we're supposed to be following when we play. So there is a face-up side and a face-down side to the token. It should be clear which side is which. Colored being face-down and B/W being face-up is definitely opposite of what 99.9% of people would think, so it's crazy that this was implemented and that anybody is defending it.

EDIT: I think the best solution is a token that shows the symbol when it's face-up and is just blank (in your color) when it's face-down - exactly like the physical game. Only the journey token will ever be facedown by the player, so there will be no confusion. It will start face-up, and when you play/buy something that flips it, it will be obvious. It's the only token there (except for Coin/VP tokens) and the only thing that flips.

[Mick]

When teaching a friend I just told him this game was currently bugged and the journey token shows the opposite side, that seemed like the easiest way to explain it to people who actually expect things to do what the card text says.

[ravi]

So is there any update here? You can see that users are literally assuming there is a bug in the program from this implementation. Donald X has even said that this is the wrong way to do this. Are you guys planning on switching back to MF (color up, gray down) or (even better) using the icon with the boot as up and the plain circle as down?

[fisherman]

We were told to give it some time and that we would get used to the token being implemented backwards. Just reporting in that it has been some time and for me the token implementation is still confusing!

The clearest way to see that this implementation is wrong-minded is to remember there is no especially compelling reason DXV won't someday print a card whose main effect happens when the token is face down. If that happens, I don't see how anyone could ever consider the current implementation intuitive.

[AdamH]

I said this before but it seems like it bears repeating.

"Take some time and get used to it" is not a permanent fix for this. Maybe it's not the highest priority thing ever, but the implementation for this needs to change at some point. Any interface that's causing this much confusion needs to be changed at some point.

I understand that some things are difficult to make an intuitive interface for. On the other hand, just having text that says "journey token face up" or "journey token face down" would be way, way better than the current thing. So I don't think an argument like that can be made for the journey token.

[LastFootnote]

The clearest way to see that this implementation is wrong-minded is to remember there is no especially compelling reason DXV won't someday print a card whose main effect happens when the token is face down. If that happens, I don't see how anyone could ever consider the current implementation intuitive.

I agree that the current Shuffle iT implementation is bad. That being said, I really seriously doubt there will ever be more Journey token cards. And if there someday are (like 6 hypothetical expansions from now), they will almost certainly have their big effect when the token gets flipped face up.

[JunkDealer]

The problem I see now is the longer it stays this way the less likely it will be changed because people will get used to it.   If they do change it there will probably be people who complain about it then.