15: nexxogen (1453) 2016-12-30 21:18

Yeah,that's why using 81dojo server would be the best for what I wanted to do. I pretty much wanted to make a client that I would use and offer it for free to others who would want to use it.

14: Berni314 (1694) 2016-12-30 20:45

Hi Nexxogen,

true, P2P isn't a good idea.
If only the 2 players interact together, than P2P maybe could be even a good option.
But if you like observers, gamechats, global chats, ... P2P would have too much problems.
But be aware, you need hardware (=money?) for a server running the server-app.

Maybe an other idea: one (random) client get server functionality
Would also save money for hardware, but also causes a lot of problems.

Bye,
BCM

13: nexxogen (1453) 2016-12-30 02:20

@Berni

Thanks for the links. I wouldn't really count on P2P much, but I'll see if I can do anything. This would be my first multiplayer game anyway.

12: nexxogen (1453) 2016-12-30 02:19 (Edited at 2016-12-30 17:51)

@Hidetchi

"If you want to be careful not to offend anyone, you shouldn't define the goal of someone else's site"

I didn't define anything. I only assumed what it was and then tried to prove to you that it was a reasonable thing to assume. If I was wrong, then I was wrong. But there's nothing offensive about it.

"If you have respect for him and his videos, you wouldn't question his emphasis of traditional manners."

Sorry, but I don't agree with this statement. Constructive criticism is a good thing and you do it for things and people you like and care for. Not agreeing with some of the things you say doesn't mean I have no respect for you. And likewise, having respect for you doesn't mean I have to agree with everything you say.

I didn't make any personal attacks against you. I didn't speak in a rude manner. I went out of my way to show my respect and appreciation for you and others involved in this and I stated my good intentions several times. If you're still offended after all that, it's simply because you didn't like what I said. I'm sorry, but I believe in civilized discussions where it's normal to say things others won't like, as long as you do it in an assertive way. What I don't believe in though is arguing with emotions because that leads to nowhere. If we all agreed on everything, what would be the point of talking?

I don't know what you think I meant by "easier to play". Shogi is shogi, and it's equally hard to play everywhere. I was talking about logging in and getting to the game as quickly as possible which is purely a technical thing related to points I made that you acknowledged were true. 

So let me see if I understood you - the goal of the site is to get more international players, but not just any players. You want only those who want to immerse themselves into shogi seriously and play it in the way it is played in Japan. OK, I would then have a couple of questions in case you have time (please ignore them if you don't).

1. Are you happy with how that goal is currently being achieved?

If the answer is 'yes' then this discussion is over, everything is clear as day.

2. If the answer is something like 'no' or 'somewhat', then what do you think is missing for the answer to be 'yes'?

My point is this - for more serious players to emerge, there must be more players in general. If you only care for getting the ones who are serious from the start, then you're gonna only have a few, like you do now. If you're happy with that, that's absolutely fine and there's no point in discussing anything further.

Unfortunately, I can't go to tournaments because there aren't any nearby, however, I did participate in chess tournaments as a kid, and I know the feeling. That feeling isn't unique to shogi I'm afraid. There's as much profoundness and beauty in chess as well, although I would rank shogi a tad bit higher.

But how does the fact that shogi is a profound and beautiful game make point 5 go away? Is it because you consider those manners to be a part of the beauty? I'm trying to argue against that, and I made a lot of points to support my position, primarily stating that I think those aren't necessarily 'shogi manners', but general (Japanese) manners that are used in other games and situations as well, though this might not be true. I'm also trying to argue that the beauty of shogi lies in the game with it's rules, and not anywhere else. The beauty of good manners is a separate kind of beauty in my opinion. On the other hand, it seems you consider your position on the importance of manners to simply be true and not debatable. If I remember correctly from your videos, the point of emphasizing manners is simply to encourage people to be decent and respectful when playing, but that's not specifically a shogi thing and I don't see it as vital point when trying to promote a game. But again, if you're only interested in players who want to embrace that too, then that's perfectly fine. It's not something I would do, but this is your site, so you're 100% entitled to do whatever you want with it.

As for points 1. and 2., of course they have been discussed and decided. Now that you have a couple of years of statistics, you can measure whether those decisions were good or not, and adjust if necessary.

And of course I sent a short and concise email.

11: Berni314 (1694) 2016-12-29 23:56

Hi nexxogen,

yes, "the most proper way" is of course debatable.
I mean, (I believe) I know about the "most proper way" of Hidetchi, still not written in detail.

I can tell 2 reasons against fitting different personal preferences:
1) I'd also written in footnote (5) of my previous post: if there are so many games without byoyomi, players who prefere byoyomi would stay away, playing on an other server
2) 81Dojo is like a child from Hidetchi: when he is thinking this or that is wrong, he don't like such things on his server

=> maybe if there would be a lot of more people, having a filter showing only things you like would be helpfull, but this solves only the first part.

Yes, speaking about kicking I've also only seen on playok and there were some rude people doing it.

By the way, maybe I'm not a "big" fan, but I also like American Football.  ;-)

In Japan, shogi is more than a game, it's culture.
So I believe, Japan has no interest in spreading an interesting game around the world - it should stay culture.
To make shogi popular all over the world, I believe there must be an counterinitiative, focusing at the game.

Telling your philosophy about "chess.com" was maybe the most important word.
So we'll understand better now and I believe more, that this wouldn't be the way of 81dojo.

Everyone who has internet can form a team, today.  ;-)


For shogi-server, the CSA protocol is "well known".
Also 81dojo is using it as basic, even there have had to be done a lot of extensions, support comfortable human play, chatting, drawing arrows, ...

It was long time ago, I've gambled with shogi server software.
I'm not sure, if that was also ruby - but with ruby (running under windows) I've had also tried it.

The (one) source is here:
https://github.com/HiraokaTakuya/shogi-server

Maybe also look here: http://shogi-server.osdn.jp/

I remember, also the free open-source go server supports shogi.

But before you start, you should be aware the following:
where will you run the server?
I don't believe there will be a free way - will you give money? Somehow collect money?

You can also use other technics, for example write a server in PHP.
There are still also free ones available, but it's not a save future - if to much traffic, it can become unfree.

Or maybe doing it with a peer-to-peer solution.  ;-)
Without the need of server, or at least much easier to handle, so possible to do without money.
But on the other side, I assume a lot of more work to do.

Next very difficulty thing would be to establish and make it popular.
Hmmm, this would be an own extensive topic.  ;-)
A lot of things written somewhere in internet, some ideas, but very hard to do.

Bye,
BCM

10: Hidetchi (1891) ☗10☗5☗102016-12-29 23:54

Hi nexxogen,
if you want to be careful not to offend anyone, you shouldn't define the goal of someone else's site (especially as the one he disagrees most). If you have respect for him and his videos, you wouldn't question his emphasis of traditional manners.
I totally cannot believe you say you saw my videos. "Giving an easy way to play shogi" is the "goal"? And playing "shogi" here means even a casual toy like ShogiWars? Did any one of my videos look like I have such a low-sighted goal? I think I made every effort there to explain the importance of the things surrounding shogi.
If the goal was like you said, yes, ShogiWars would do. We don't need anything else. Many many people would have fun and go crazy with the easy toy to play shogi. Maybe you're happy with that, but I am not. I've been making efforts for years to avoid such tragic situation. So Berni has the point. I'm not working for numbers.

Japan has so many and strong shogi players and we're really fine. We're not desperate to increase overseas players. But we are so much fascinated by the supernatural beauty and profoundness of shogi, that we dream of letting even overseas people to share this feeling, and that we definitely want to do everything to help those overseas people who are eager to endeavor to go deeper into this world but having difficulties. If you go to an European shogi tournament and see the people who seriously face shogi, you will feel it. To remove their difficulties, to help them with a successful promotion in the country, to give them right access to shogi world, to guide them through the right way to get along with shogi; these are some of the important goals of the site.

With this correction being made, your point 5 will immediately go away. And point 1 and 2, you can see they had already been designed like that after thorough discussions and thoughts. Point 3 and 4 are fine, of course. These are just technical and man-power issues. (But they won't make much difference in the number of users.) By the way you can scale the board with Ctrl key + mouse wheel.

I've never seen your e-mail, at least I don't remember at all reading one. But I'm sure I must have decided immediately not to read it and thrown it to archive IF the email looked exactly like your post.
When you want to be listened to by someone who doesn't have time, you need to be brief.

9: nexxogen (1453) 2016-12-29 20:57 (Edited at 2016-12-29 21:05)

Hello Berni and thank you for the detailed answer. I have no problem with reading long posts, so don't worry about it. :)

A) I absolutely agree that this comes down to personal preferences but most of the things you wrote can be present at the same time, so why wouldn't they be? Byoyomi and no-byoyomi should both be available, so people can pick what they like. If you want to greet your opponent and thank them after the game, then by all means do it. Kicking of the players is something I've only seen on playok, and I don't support it. I'm more for reporting disruptive players.

C) The problem is that "the most proper way" is something hugely debatable. I would go as far as to argue that there isn't such a thing. They are probably referring to ethics as much as the rules of the game itself, and that's one of the things I was talking about. If we strictly talk about games (sports included) I don't know of a single example of a game that became very popular in the world while still hanging on to surrounding traditions from its country of origin. 

For example, I'm a big fan of American football. When I watched the world cup in Vienna in 2011, my favorite team was the Japanese national team. After their game against Canada, they all held hands and bowed to the audience. I absolutely loved it. Of course, no other team would do anything similar, because it's strictly a Japanese thing, and of course, it's absolutely not a part of American football culture, but it was an instance of the Japanese adding manners of their own to a game that isn't their own. Also, while watching a U19 game between Japan and Mexico online a couple of years back, I heard a reporter comparing the atmosphere on the two sidelines. She said how the Mexican side was all cheerful, players moving around, high-fiving eachother and talking, while the Japanese side was completely silent and dead serious. And I thought it was great! Because that is how Mexicans play the game, and this is how Japanese play the game.

The game itself is universal. It's a set of rules and regulations that form something that's either fun to play, or it's not. Ethics and manners are entirely dependent on a particular culture and don't translate well across nations. Tying that to the game and saying "here, let me teach you this great game, but if you want to play it, you have to act like this, and say this" simply cannot work in favor of spreading it.

D1) My philosophy isn't "make another Shogi Wars". My philosophy is "make it more like chess.com". I've mentioned Shogi Wars only as an example of a popular site that puts no emphasis on the things 81dojo considers to be the proper way to play. And yes, I know that there's too many chess players in comparison to shogi players, but some core principles of chess.com can absolutely be copied without fear of making something that already exists. It has everything - game analysis (with an engine), many different time controls, the ability to challenge a particular player or to auto-match, chat, correspondence play, puzzles, tournaments, discussion boards. And yes, I know that it's a much more serious site for a lot larger audience, but again, I believe that many things can be copied from it successfully, such as the experience of registering and getting to the game quickly, the ability to adjust the size of the interface and so on.

Unfortunately, I'm not in a position to form a team. I didn't know there were open source servers, so thank you for letting me know, I will try to look into that more. If you know of any, I would appreciate if you could give me some more info. Of course, I would require a lot of time to do this, but I still want to do it, no matter how long it takes. If anything, it will be good practice to hone my Unity skills. :)

8: Berni314 (1694) 2016-12-29 19:31

Hi all,

I followed this thread from beginning and also wanted to write, still delayed because so much content to say.
I know, I often write too much - boring to read.
So I try to keep it short and will use footnotes, which you should only read if you are really interested in it.

A) there are different philosophies:
one like byoyomi, others not and both can justify it. (1)
one like the rule "lose on illegal move", others not. (2)
one like "autocreate play", others prefer to select the oponent manually.
one like traditional manners, others not. (3)
and so on, one like this (feature), while others dislike it. (4)

B) so what about the current situation in general?
maybe one could dream about ONE shogi place, where ALL shogi lovers meet.
To handle this huge amount of players and games, there must be filters, so it simply will hide all players who don't like byoyomi, who don't like to play short/long time limit and so on.
I'm not sure if this theoretically could work.
BUT I'm sure nevertheless this will stay a dream and can't be practially make reality.
=> existence of more than one different shogi server

C) situation about 81Dojo:
About the philosophy, you can read here: http://81dojo.com/en/?jump=en/about.html
It's right, 81Dojo is "aiming for promoting shogi to the world" BUT (!!!) with the addition "in the most proper way"!!!
And THIS (!!!) is the reason, that the count of players on 81Dojo can't grow.
This don't fit to the wishes of so many people who will play shogi only to relax.
you can't mix the players of 81dojo and Shogi Wars together (5) (suggest to read at least this footnote)
Only a dream, maybe possible with a lot of filters => reread B)

D1) @ thread-opener
Hi nexxogen,
so what is your philosophy?
Of course, you like to have more players.
Reaching this goal without changing the philosophy would be hard work (promotion, advertising, ...)
But chaning the philosophy will only create another Shgoi Wars.

=> there are different shogi-servers, one has this feature you like, an other has other features you like.
=> check them and use that one, which fit best your wishes
=> furthermore: don't be fixed to only one of them, use this today for serious play, use an other tomorrow for relaxing play!

By the way: currently I know 7 sites to play live-shogi on android (and a few about turn-based).


D2) @ thread-opener - continue
I highly appreciate your ambition in helping to make the shogi-world better.
And I'm also very disappointed that you didn't got any answer to your offer writing a client.
That's NOT the (japanese) polite manner, claimed to do like in shogi games.
Furthermore the rude ...  :-(((
Won't write this.

=> write down your philosophy
=> if it won't fit well to any existing shogi-server, maybe try to create a team to found an own shogi-server
There already exists (I believe even different) open-source shogi-servers, so writing the Client would be by far the most time needed thing, but this you told you like to do.
But second, there is also the need of hardware, to run the server. Even possible with free available services in internet, without money this would be a gambling unsure thing.

Bye,
BCM

---

(1) 
While chess games (normaly) become more simple to the end of the game (even there are unsolvable positions for humans), shogi become more and more tactical to the end.
So you would need much time at the end.
In my eyes, sudden-death is not good working for shogi, but only for chess.
=> So I (!!!) prefere byoyomi, or also an increment per move is working well in shogi (even not typical in Japan world).
Nevertheless I also know a reason against byoyomi: mostly I played shogi in advaning getting material. Having reached this aim, I can slowly win by doing only save moves.
Having a winning position you have to win in maybe 5 minutes instead can be an interesting task.

(2)
Here I believe the best is to explain my experience in my childhood, playing chess with my father:
of course, a beginner become frustrated, if always loosing by a stupid failure.
so to learn the game I would say it will be a good idea to take-back blunders.
But when I was older, it was my (!!!) idea I told my father, NEVER take back any moves.
Following this moment, there still were games one lost by a blunder, which is annoying for the losing player and furthermore makes no fun to win for the other.
BUT the result of this was, that the blunders become less and less and finaly (almost?) happend never.
=> the games became more seriously, better. You have learned not doing blunders and even recognize them early, not wasting time about this move.
Learn to detect nifu from beginning and you won't waste time in further thinkings.

(3)
I like it from beginning in shogi and also have done it always, even if there wasn't any automatism. I'd created a simple textfile with most common words/sentences I needed, in English, also Japanese and German language, doing copy'n'paste with it.
And when the client (ShogiClub24) only allows me to select English text for autopost, I still used copy'n'paste of Japanese text when playing against a Japanese.

(4)
For example I hate the "kick" feature, which allows to ban watchers from the game.
It could be usefull (the idea of creating it) to ban unpolite people, sisturbing the game.
But on the other side, some are using it from a very unpolite way, kicking his oponent when losing a game or kicking any observer without any reason.

(5)
for example, on 81Dojo are connected 100 players, maybe 20 of them like postgameanalysis.
You will have "a good" chance of find an opponent, doing analysis after the game.
If all Shogi Wars players would be also on 81Dojo, you maybe have more than 1000 players, but only 20 will do serious play.
Almost no chance of postgameanalysis - and finaly this players like doing analysis will stop visiting this page.
=> 81dojo will NOT become better, it will become a second "Shogi Wars"

7: nexxogen (1453) 2016-12-29 15:44 (Edited at 2016-12-29 18:20)

Here, let me do something about it.

In the very first YouTube shogi video you made, you said that you're doing it because you think there are a lot of people who want to learn shogi but can't find enough lessons in English. Almost the entire content of your YouTube channel is directed towards those people and the very reason you started it was to bring shogi to foreigners. I myself learned shogi with your lessons and I'm eternally thankful to you for that. And of course, I'm far from being the only one. You have done so many things to promote shogi internationally that one can just stand in awe and admire it. Not only have you made a ton of YouTube videos, but you've translated books to English, done god knows how many promotional activities and even learned programming just so you could make this website. And you did all of that (or most of that I guess) for no compensation whatsoever. I don't know anyone else with such devotion and passion. You are one of the top international shogi promoters in the world, maybe even the most important of all (at least that's how it was before, I'm not sure how it is these days). So having that in mind, don't you think it makes perfect sense to assume that this site you yourself thought of and helped build, was created for the same purpose of international promotion? I think it was perfectly reasonable to think that, even if it somehow wasn't true.

I was very careful not to offend anyone and I made it perfectly clear a couple of times how much I appreciate your work and effort and how I understand that people will disagree with my statements, so I really don't understand your rude tone. Doesn't the fact that I apparently care about 81dojo so much that I'm willing to "waste time" writing such a long post about it, and the fact that I offered some sort of help for free (no matter whether you want it or not) deserve at least enough respect for an assertive answer? 

If my assumption about the goal of this website was wrong, why not simply say "you're wrong about it, the goal is something else", instead of responding in such a cynical way for no good reason whatsoever? But OK, that's your choice. I'm certainly not going to reply to you in the same manner, because of how much respect I have for you.

One thing is indisputable - 81dojo still has very few users. And even if my assumption about its original purpose was wrong, that still doesn't automatically negate all of the things I said. Of course, I'm not saying that they are necessarily true either, but that's why I said I'd like to hear other opinions.

But anyway, by your answer I can clearly see that you don't consider changing anything, so I can only wish you good luck.

6: Hidetchi (1891) ☗10☗5☗102016-12-29 08:00

First please at least do something about your mistaken idea of the goal of 81Dojo, before wasting time to form your long-text argument.