Messages

We're using changed rules for the Black Market, not being able to see what's in it is intended.

Agreed on the other piles though.

This is an unexpected approach, as it makes the game more luck and less skill.  It's been my observation that adding complexity and variety to new cards was, in part, to reward strategic planning (and, obviously, to maintain interest in the game, create additional revenue, etc).  If you have no idea what is in Black Market, then it's a real crap-shoot, and you're almost forced to buy the card, just in case . . .

Having said that; I was unable to ever view the BM pile at the old site, and it didn't ruin the games for me.  But I always thought that the inability to view was a software bug, and not the intended result.  I'll be interested in hearing feedback from more-experienced players--do they see this as a good or a bad decision?

Auto sitting means people who join a table and walk away will be dead wait.  Why not launch the game when the creator is ready and anyone not ready become spectators.

Or give a mere 60-second period, *With* a distinctive sound--to give waiting players a clear "heads-up...game is about to start" notice.

I had the same confusion with Travellers.  I had multiple ones in play, and when I got to the "upgrade" stage, it was not clear what to click on to confirm that you wanted an exchange.  (Hint: If you you do want to upgrade, don't change the default settings.)

I also would much prefer a "click in box to confirm" type system.

Not a major quibble.  More of a "Hey, once you take care of the big stuff; can you improve this interface a bit?" matter. :-)

i hate to even mention this, but has anyone considered adding adds to help lower the cost of the yearly subscription. They suck, I know, but it does generate cash flow. The thought of having to wait between 'hands' and watching viagra commercials is making me cringe just thinking about it. But i guess you could always just have a 'waiting' period for paying subscribers and make the people who play for free watch the lame adds. ;D

Yes, there is such a thing and maybe, for some reason, in some time it will start to be considered. It highly depends on people obv. For now, it's too soon to even think about it. I do not know policy of Shuffle IT developers about that, quite possible outcome is that they are highly against ads (and I can understand this).

I think it's a great suggestion.  And a good way to add a bit of extra income.  Don't like the ads?  Then pay some small amount ($1-2 per month) to get ride of them.  As long as we have the choice; paying tiny amounts like that should be no issue for most of us.  If it's like many other sites, lots of people will start off with the cheaper option, and then realize, "Wow, a 30 second ad is really annoying between Each game.  It's worth a buck a month to get rid of that."

Nice idea.

Donald X,
Thanks for the lengthy responses.  I am sure that you are not surprised at the level of frustration/anger, but--even if expected--it's not a ton of fun for you to read.  My own thoughts are that a lot of us (ie, people who spent a lot of money buying all the expansions at the old site) will end up paying the 2018 subscription, IF the price is reasonable. 

I think that, in real life, I can buy the entire set--if I look for a good deal--for about $150 USD, right?  So, if we "legacy" members have to pay an annual subscription of around 10% of the IRL cost . . . that's about $15/year, and I can live with that.  If you want to gouge a bit more money, and charge us 20% of the IRL costs, that would end up being around $30/year.  That leaves a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth, but I think I'd be okay with that (esp if that included the newest expansion or two that was unavailable at the old site).  But if this site asks for, say, $40-50 a year, then we are talking about paying ONE THIRD of the "forever" IRL price for just one year of use, and that would obviously be too much of a rip-off, and would not be something I'd be willing to do.  I'd much rather just go out and buy the physical sets (so, you'd still get my money  :D), and have them forever.

I get that the way things resolved themselves was less than ideal.  And so there was no way to do the deal that would have made everyone happy.  But prior posters have pointed out examples where people under old systems were grandfathered in, with different prices and pricing systems for new and/or incoming users.  To us, that seems much more fair.  When I bought all the existing expansions online at MF, I sure did not notice any warning like "Hey, you *do* realize that what you're paying for will go away if Donald ever moves to a different provider, right?"  (It might have been buried in the fine print, but so what? . . . no one on earth has read to the bottom of a User Agreement.  :) )  I am a photographer, and so I use Adobe Photoshop.  I spent hundreds and hundred of dollars, over the years, buying that programme and several upgrades.  But when it went to the now-current subscription system, we legacy users were (and continue to be) allowed to keep using our program, and will be allowed to do this forever.  And that's what I am doing . . . until such point as new digital cameras will not be recognized by my old version of PS.

I wish that you, in your negotiations with Shuffleit, had done something similar with us legacy users.  But if, when it comes time to figure out what to do for 2018, we legacy users are asked to pay somewhere in that 10-20% range--for all the expansions--then my guess is that most of us will be okay with it.  You (and Shuffle) will obviously make the ultimate pricing decisions, and we'll just wait and see.

Once a game is in progress, or, once a game has ended, where do you look to determine which game you are playing/have just played?  I had a bug to report, but when I hunted around for the specific game number, I could not locate it.  I'm sure that I was just overlooking it, so if someone can point me to where on the screen it is, that would be appreciated!  :-)

It's not really relevant to your bug report, but . . .

When Possession comes up in a deck, I tell the other player, (a) Can we agree to not use the Poss. card, or, (b) Would you like me to resign and we can start a new game w/o Poss?

It's the one card so far that I simply will not play with.  If other players like it, or love it, then that's fine, of course.  But I find it quite off-putting, for some reason.  :-)

Thanks, gkrieg. Good to know they're working on it. I'll wait.

I cannot tell you how many fora I participate in (mostly photography-related) where the moderators are, essentially, absent.  And then they wonder why members get so outraged.

In other words; I want to express how pleased I am at the quick responses so far.  A "we're working on it" or even "We're aware of the issue but have no current plans to change it." response is a million times better than dead silence.

I'm in the group that is annoyed that they overpaid at the old site for short-term "lifetime" use.  But other than that quibble, I am very happy at the customer support so far at the site.

Trazo,
You are correct.  I checked back and there was a popup window "Force C. to resign?"  I am not sure of when it popped up, but no reason to think that the 5 minute figure you gave is incorrect.  That's a nice feature.  I've never had anyone just up and leave, but there's a first time for everything!  :-)

I bought a car at Michaels Toyota in Fresno, CA years ago.  It broke down.  Now I should be able to go to Stevens Creek Toyota in San Jose and have them give me a new car since I paid for one and it no longer works.

This illustrates the flaw in your argument.  You didn't pay for the right to use Dominion for the rest of your life no matter who is providing it, you paid for the use of Goko/MK's Dominion product. That is now gone (broken down).  You didn't "already" pay for ShuffleIt's product, but they, in the interest of customer service, are giving you free use of their product for a limited time. 

We've all heard this argument before, and it stems from an emotional reaction where you feel that you should own the new product, not the legal reality.

This.

Not a great analogy.  Here is a different one:
You got to your first Fresno Toyota dealership to buy your car.  Instead of paying $25,000 for Model X, you instead pay 37,500 for the same car, for a lifetime of Toyota car use.  All good, for many years.  But then Toyota is bought out by, say Honda (or Rolls Royce, or whatever).  Now, you find out that your original "lifetime" warranty is worthless.  Yes, your fault for not reading the fine print of that contract you signed, where it said it was valid only re Toyota.

The fact that Honda is willing to give you a year's free lease on a replacement car is something, of course.  And maybe something that, strictly speaking, it was not legally required to do.  But you probably are not going to be super-happy with Honda, and since it's the only car dealership still around (Remember that Toyota was bought out), it's Honda that will get the brunt of your wrath.

Of course, it could have been part of the Toyota-Honda buyout agreement that all 'lifetime' warranties would be honored by Honda.  Or Honda could say, "Hey, it wasn't part of the agreement, but we'll grandfather all of you legacy buyers and your old agreements will be honored."  But unless Honda gets a crapload of bad publicity, there really isn't any business reason to turn down all that future renewal money.

I pissed away close to $100 buying (or overbuying, in retrospect) the game and all the expansions under the old ownership.  I am hopeful that, at the end of this year, I'll be given the option of buying future use for a vastly reduced amount.  I'd feel ripped off if I had to pay double, and probably would not elect to renew.  If enough people feel the same way, then I suspect that the new Dom. owners will listen, and will try to work with us.  If it turns out that only a few people are really that exercised about it, then I think that the message to us will be, "Hard cheese.  If you want to pay full price again, great.  If not, then we'll be sorry to lose your business with us.  Don't let the door hit you in the a** on the way out."  :-)

Market forces at work.  Alas.

I was just playing a game, and then, in the middle, I saw the message, "Chalky left the table."

What does this mean?  I am assuming it means that Chalky quit the game.  But then the game would show that there was a quit, or resignation, etc, right??  If C just walked out of his/her room for a minute, then of course the computer would not know that.  :D

If one gets this sort of message, what sort of unspoken rule is there about how long I should wait for another move?  Or is "left the table" code for 'quit, gone, and forever departed."?

Wish I could give you the specific game, but could not see it, including in the game move log.

Bug is in the scoring table after the game ends.  The final result was correct.  Me: 64, Lord R: 49

Me           #      VP
Estate        5       5
Gardens       4       5
Dut.          3       9
Prov          5      30

Lord R
E             4       4
Gar.          3       9
D             5      15
P             3      18

As you can see, there is a bug re Gardens.  I had 4, which (obviously) could not yield a score of "5".  The table did correctly show that I had 51 cards, for a Gardens value of 5 per Garden card.  But, for LR, the table correctly assigned him the 3/garden score and came up with the correct total of 9.

This bug is not a huge deal, since--in the total game summary--I **DID** get the 20 Gardens points I had earned.  It's just a minor one, and hopefully an easy fix.

Just played a game with Ambassador.  It worked perfectly when trashing/giving away coppers.  But not for any other card I tried.  My opponent had the exact same issue.  Worked fine with coppers, but not for anything else.  Hmmmm

I saw under FAQs that Apple is having tech trouble playing nicely with the new Dominion game.  Are you having the same issue for Kindle tablets?  I was able to follow your email link to me and register/log in on my desktop PC with no problem.  (I'm writing this from that computer.) 

But I cannot log in from the Kindle.  Is there anything special I need to do?