nexxogen (1453) 2016-12-27 04:51

Hello everyone. I’ve been on 81dojo for a couple of years now and I would like to give a lot of suggestions. These are my personal opinions and I’m aware that some people will disagree with them, which is perfectly fine.

I would really like to hear opinions of others, no matter whether they agree with me or not. There’s one indisputable fact though that I think everyone will agree on – 81dojo isn’t even close to where it should be when it comes to popularity, considering how many years it has existed. I remember that during previous years, the number of players online at any given moment was about 80 to 100. Now it’s about 150. After so many years I think we must all agree that 81dojo failed to reach a significant number of active players and that this is a big problem. In this post, I will try to explain why I think that happened and I would really like to hear other opinions as well. A lot of this will go against the core ideas that were utilized when this site was first conceptualized and created, but bear with me please.

1. The possibility to play illegal moves and lose as a result

I remember Hidetchi saying that this was done because the idea was to mimic the real world, and that makes sense, but I would argue that it very much defeats the purpose of websites such as 81dojo – casual play. 

There’s really no reason to treat every game like it’s a tournament game. I can say from experience that because of this, I’m always under a lot of stress when I’m playing at 81dojo. I’m someone who plays shogi as a hobby and simply doesn’t have a lot of time away from work and family obligations to devote to it. I would argue that a lot of other people on 81dojo are the same. They don’t really want to feel like they are in a tournament with super-strict rules, but like they are playing in a club or with friends, where an illegal move will be pointed out buy the opponent and then taken back, and the game would go on. 

Therefore I think it would be better if the illegal moves simply couldn’t be played, like they can’t be played on pretty much all other shogi servers (and chess servers as well) and I think there’s a good reason for that. 

Since the idea of 81dojo was to give international players a way to get into the game more easily, I feel that this situation with illegal moves only works against new players who are prone to making these mistakes, get frustrated and give up on 81dojo. You can clearly see this by the fact that there are always much more Dan players online compared to kyu players. That should be the other way around, since naturally, there will always be more weak players than strong players. This practically means that beginners don’t have anyone to play against, and that combined with the fact that they can lose by playing illegal moves is bound to drive them away and that is exactly what’s going on, imo.

I think you should really consider removing the possibility of playing illegal moves, and maybe keep that as a feature for official tournaments only. 

2. Lack of time controls without byoyomi

If I’m not mistaken, most Japanese amateur tournaments are actually played without byoyomi so I see no reason why that wouldn’t be an option on 81dojo. The games are much shorter that way and therefore, players can play more of them in a relatively short time period, and playing a lot of games always was the best way to improve. 

When I started playing chess on chess.com I was rated about 1200. Now, I’m rated 1700 on some time controls. I’ve obviously improved, and I was able to do it by playing a lot of games. In shogi however, I didn’t make the same progress at all, and that’s because I didn’t get to play nearly as many games. Pattern recognition is key, and the way to recognize patterns is to see them many times.

For comparison, Shogi Wars has no-byoyomi time controls only, and it’s extremely popular, maybe the most popular shogi server today. All shogi youtubers that I’m following almost exclusively play on that website. Why not open 81dojo to them as well and potentially make it more popular buy showcasing it on YouTube?

3. Registering and playing

The registering process right now is very outdated. As a professional game developer myself, I can tell you that simplicity is absolutely the way to go. Log in with Facebook must be an option without question. The fewer the steps the player must take before getting to the game, the better. 

I’ve seen some posts on the forum where people were asking for an explanation on how to play. There shouldn’t be even one such case. The way to play must be as clear as day to everyone. If there are people who actually went to the forum to ask how to start a game, imagine how many people just gave up on 81dojo because they didn’t understand how to do it. This is something 81dojo simply cannot afford.

4. The graphics

I think that 81dojo should be completely redesigned in the near future. The ability to scale the board (zoom in or out) is essential nowadays, and that is something that 81dojo never had, which is a shame really. I think this would be a great feature to have and would be welcome by a lot of players. Even Shogi Club 24 now has better graphics than before and the ability to scale the board to multiple sizes. 

The 81dojo interface is pretty outdated too – Flash is no longer used anywhere whatsoever. It’s a dead technology. I think the visual appeal of the site has diminished greatly over the years, which is completely normal, but it needs an overhaul, rather than small cosmetic changes it’s been receiving occasionally.

5. Manners

I would also like to criticize the emphasis on traditional shogi manners, even though this is not a major thing.

The greetings, the requirement to resign even though you got checkmated, saying ‘thank you’ after the game… I understand this is shogi tradition, but it is also an instance of too much emphasis being put on things that aren’t the game itself. If shogi is to become an international game, then it definitely must not come with the baggage of strictly Japanese ethics and manners with it. Any game, in its pure form, is a set of coded rules, and that should be separate from anything else. It is wrong to expect the world to adapt to shogi. Instead, shogi must adapt to the world, without losing its essence of course. The kanji on the pieces are big enough of a barrier for a lot of westerners, so there’s no need to add any more obstacles. I’m a big fan of Japanese culture and I think it’s beautiful, but I’m not Japanese myself and it’s not natural for me to act in a way that would be natural for a Japanese person. I think other non-Japanese people would agree with this.

Besides, pretty much none of the other shogi servers put a lot of emphasis on manners, so apparently, even the Japanese don’t find it to be that important. Here on the other hand, I see announcements of the intention to ban people who end the game by deliberately making illegal moves. Seriously? Can 81dojo really afford to ban players because they aren't being nice?? This is a great example of expecting non-Japanese people to adopt Japanese manners and punishing them if they don't want to. I'm sure even some Japanese players sometimes end their games like this. It’s best to end the game as soon as checkmate happens, rather than forcing the losing player to resign or play an illegal move. That's a win-win situation.

…

Now, as I said, these are all my personal opinions and I understand that some people will not relate to this at all.

I just want summarize my experience on 81dojo so far, using shogi terminology – playing on 81dojo feels “heavy”, compared to playing on “Shogi Wars” which feels “light”. 

I have to click a couple of times just to wait for a game, then spend some minutes waiting for someone to challenge me or try to challenge others who in most cases aren’t accepting invitations. As a higher kyu player, it’s pretty hard for me to find a suitable opponent in a reasonable amount of time, so this becomes very frustrating, very quickly. After finally receiving a challenge, you give more significance to that game than you really should (at least I do), which leads to some anxiety. Then there are the greetings which are optional, but you know you just have to say them because it’s the culture of the server and everyone does it, and then finally the game itself starts.

For me personally, the feeling that I get while moving the pieces, combined with the very aggressive snapping sound (especially the double snap) that always suddenly breaks the silence in an unpleasant manner, contributes to my impression of “heaviness”. Then, there’s the length of the game, because of byoyomi, and then, if you lose, you have to resign and thank your opponent, and then finally do it all over again. All this takes too much time and it’s very inconvenient.

81dojo was made to resemble professional shogi as much as possible, and after all these years spent on the site, I strongly feel that it wasn’t the right way to go. It feels too official instead of feeling casual.

In Shogi Wars, you click Play, click the time control, and you’re in a game in a couple of seconds. It feels very light and easy, and that’s probably the reason why it’s become so popular, even though it’s got a lot of arcade (or even childish) elements which I used to dislike in the past.

I think 81dojo should try to go down this path more, because right now, it is a server where strong players are playing, and weak players are mostly there to watch the strong players, and that’s precisely the opposite of the original 81dojo idea. I know that 81dojo was made and is maintained by enthusiasts who get no compensation for their work whatsoever. But I really wish that this website becomes the number one shogi website in the world, and I think the creators would also wish that. I’ve even sent them an email, offering to make a desktop client for 81dojo in Unity 3D (for free of course) which would then be easily adjustable and portable to many platforms, but they didn’t respond to my message. I’m not sure why anyone would decline free help of any kind, but OK.

I hope this will be taken as constructive criticism and not in a negative way, because I really care about 81dojo and I'm thankful for the immense work that its creators have put in and are still putting in.