Dominion Online (ShuffleIt)

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The current Dominion Online logo.

Dominion Online is an official online implementation of Dominion. It is currently run by Shuffle iT at this website.

Contents

[edit] Gameplay

Playing a game of Dominion Online

[edit] Features

In Dominion Online, you can play games of Dominion against either a human opponent or a bot. A human opponent can be found automatically via a matchmaking system based on rating, or can be invited by creating your own Dominion table. By creating your own table, you can also customize your kingdom (that is, the cards with which you are playing). Automatch games do not allow specific customization of the kingdom, but do allow players to choose the card pools they are comfortable with; these are a mechanism by which inexperienced Dominion players can gradually introduce more complex gameplay mechanics as they get more familiar with the principles of the game. Players can also ban up to five cards from appearing in their automatch games, and "dislike" an additional five to reduce their likelihood of appearance.

Almost all Dominion cards from all existing expansions can be found in Dominion Online; the only exceptions are the 12 removed cards from the first editions of Base Dominion and Intrigue, as well as StashStash.jpg, due to technical difficulties with its implementation. The removed cards from other expansions remain available under the heading "deprecated", but do not appear in automatch games.

Some features are still missing from the Dominion Online system, including campaigns and multi-platform support. These and other features are all mentioned in the priority list on the official Shuffle iT forums.

Dominion Online is available in Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, and Russian, with more languages to be added in the future.

[edit] Cost

  • The base set is free for the public to play with.
  • In addition to having free access to the base set, users are able to play with other expansions provided that the person hosting the game owns the expansions. This is comparable to someone owning a physical copy of the game inviting friends over to play with their expansion.
  • Everyone who owned one or more expansions on the previous Dominion Online system, by Making Fun, could play with these expansions for free throughout 2017.
  • All other expansions, including newly published ones, must be paid for. Unlike earlier Dominion Online systems, the Shuffle iT system requires a monthly payment. If you did own part but not all of the expansions, you can subscribe for a reduced fee.
    • The Core plan gives access to card pools 1–5 and costs €2.05 per month (as of March 2022).
    • The Complete plan gives you full access to all Dominion sets and costs €4.10 per month (as of March 2022)

To these costs, you have to add the VAT (if buying from inside the EU) and a transaction fee of 0.35€. When buying a subscription for 3 months or more, there is a discount ranging from 2% to 15% depending on the time span purchased.

[edit] Ratings

Dominion Online uses the Glicko-2 rating scheme, and has separate leaderboards for 2-player and 3+ player games.

[edit] Praises and Criticism

The current online implementation is often considered to be the best official one to date.

[edit] Praise

  • Immediate implementation of the newest expansions, including the ability to play with previewed cards
  • A payment plan that helps with users having a smooth transition between Making Fun and Shuffle iT
  • Being available in a browser without the need to download any program
  • A better matchmaking system than before
  • Interface cleanliness
  • Ability to undo
  • Supports reconnecting to games when Internet connection is dropped.
  • Ability to spectate in progress games

[edit] Criticism

  • Cost - There are objections to the pricing structure, preferring the 'lifetime subscription' from Goko and early Making Fun.
  • Confusing interface - The interface of the system outside of games gets critiqued for not being intuitive. Matching in particular often causes new players confusion with both automatch and creating tables being possibilities.
  • Poor bot play - The bot, of which there is only one, plays very simple strategies and misuses some cards to the point of not being able to win even if the human player does nothing.
  • Lack of offline play.
  • Incompleteness - StashStash.jpg is not implemented.

[edit] History

For a general history of online Dominion implementations, see History of online Dominion implementations

In 2016 it was announced that Making Fun, after taking over a year to implement AdventuresAdventures.jpg, would be losing its license. In its place, members of the Dominion Strategy Forum, -Stef- and SCSN, were contracted to create a new platform, to debut on January 1st, 2017. Their newly founded company, Shuffle iT, began development on their version of Dominion Online in early 2016, and entered into a semi-open beta in December of that year. It released with all currently published cards, including those from EmpiresEmpires.jpg and the new second editions of BaseDominion.jpg and IntrigueIntrigue.jpg, except for InheritanceInheritance.jpg and StashStash.jpg. It returned to a browser-based implementation, though a separate offline version has been discussed since 2017.

On January 18th, 2017, Shuffle iT added Russian language support, providing translations for all available cards, despite only the first editions of Base and Intrigue being published previously in Russian. This makes it the first Dominion Online implementation to provide support in a language other than English. German language support was added on March 20th. On March 31st, a leaderboard was added and Inheritance was implemented. On July 10th, Japanese language support was added. On November 16th, NocturneNocturne.jpg was released, autoplay functionality was introduced, and icons were added to the resource tracker indicating which long-term effects (from Durations and States) the current player is affected by. The previewed cards from Nocturne were playable online as they were revealed during the previews week.

On January 19th, 2018, French and Traditional Chinese language support was added. On September 24th, the GuildsGuilds.jpg cards were updated to their second edition Coffers wordings and Coffers and Villagers icons matching their mats were introduced, along with several other updates. In anticipation of RenaissanceRenaissance.jpg's release, the previewed cards were playable as they were for Nocturne, before releasing the entire set in November.

On August 1st, 2019, CaptainCaptain.jpg and ChurchChurch.jpg were added. On October 15th, the 2019 Errata was implemented.

On March 18th, 2020, after a period of previews, MenagerieMenagerie (expansion).jpg was fully released. On June 29th, development of more translations were announced, specifically Czech, Spanish, and Esperanto.

[edit] References


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