My thoughts on 81dojo
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.
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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.
1. It just adds more ways to lose, and I think it's unnecessary.
2. Well, that's how chess works, as you know. The idea here primarily is to make it easy to play a lot of games. I understand what you're saying about winning on the board, however I think that part comes down to personal preference. When I talk about no-byoyomi time controls, I don't mean that byoyomi should be completely removed. I would just like to see this being added together with current time controls. The fact kiremake is used in club play is probably due to the exact reasons I'd like to see it on 81dojo - squeezing more games into the available time frame.
5. This is a very important thing that you said. You are here primarily because you can interact with other people who speak English and analyze games, and without that, you wouldn't be here. On the other hand, you do play on Shogi Wars, even though you much prefer byoyomi and there's no verbal interaction with your opponents. That means you're on Shogi Wars for the most important reason - playing games. That tells a lot. Also, I don't think 81dojo should become Shogi Wars at all. I think it should become more like chess.com. It has the social aspect that's even better than the one on 81dojo.
Sure, it's not hard to be nice. :) However, people are different. I don't see a moral justification for forcing someone to be nice. Of course, being rude and insulting is something else, but there's nothing wrong with simply being neutral. If you don't get annoyed when you get mated, then I admire your nerves, but I personally would rather have that "You lose" in my face immediately, than have it a couple of seconds later bundled with the requirement to thank my opponent for beating me. :D
But again, this is more of a personal thing. The real issue is, and I can tell you this as someone who creates video games for a living, that the less clicks your players have to do, and the less windows they have to go through, the better.
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Well, I said that it's made to suit serious players. I didn't say that all serious players are necessarily going to like it because of that. If the strength of 81dojo are post-game tools and socializing while analyzing games, then that proves my point - it's suited for serious players who want to do that.
We agree on what the biggest problem is, but what I'm trying to say is not "the biggest problem is the lack of users, while all the rest is more or less fine", but "the biggest problem is the lack of users, and that problem is a result of other things not being fine". I believe that fixing those other things will get more users. You don't have to have anything really unique. You just need to make everything smooth and simple and the users will come as a result.
1. I don't know how much it matters for new players, personally when I started out I just felt that it's nothing different compared to make a legal blunder. At the same time it's not a big loss if it was removed so it's a change worth considering at least.
2. I have seen 30 minute kiremake being used in local tourneys and club play. Outside of that I was under the impression that they used byouyomi but I haven't really looked into it much. The format is pretty weird because it's long enough to allow playing a good game but there is still that risk of losing on time if a game runs on for much longer than expected. I much prefer at least a short byouyomi of 10 s or so to force players to actually win on the board. Even though I've played for time wins plenty of times on Shogi Wars.
5. The social side of 81Dojo is actually the reason I still play shogi, if it was just like Shogi Wars with no player interaction at all I probably would've found it too lifeless after trying a few games.
Of course that's a bit different topic than manners but I still don't see the problem of taking ~2 s of your time pressing a button at the start and at the end of a 15+ minute game to come across as a nice person. Forcing resignation also gives the losing player time to see that it's actually mate instead of just throwing "You lose!" in his face.
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It's funny that you say 81Dojo is for serious players because I much prefer other servers for playing. The strength of 81Dojo is the social side and postgame tools. I mostly brought up the topic of improvement because you used it in the OP.
At the end of the day I think the biggest problem is just that the most important thing for a server is the number of users. As long as you don't have something unique that many players want they will just gravitate towards the most popular servers which are SC24 for longer games and Shogi Wars for short games.
I don't think rating inflation has anything to do with it. I actually think the ratings are pretty accurate, when you compare people's real life ranks to their 81dojo ranks.
1. I didn't know that. Is that true for other illegal moves as well? But anyway, playing non-rated games doesn't really solve this issue because improving your rating is a good motivation to come back and play, no matter how serious about shogi you are.
2. Then I would guess that most Japanese amateur tournaments promote bad shogi too? I disagree with this notion.
3. OK, there's nothing to be said here.
4. Of course it is. I'm giving my opinion on what I think needs to be done in order to improve 81dojo. The fact that people are busy is something I'm very much aware of, but it's a different topic.
5. SC24 is outdated and very user-unfriendly. Even though it's been translated to English, it never had the goal to appeal to international audience. Therefore, manners make more sense there.
Actually, I usually do not make any greetings when I play an online game, and neither do my opponents. We play the game, and move on to the next one without saying a word. There's nothing wrong with that. Playing a game online is simply not the same as playing it face to face. If someone left after a game in real life without saying anything, I would consider it rude. When it happens online though, I don't, and I would bet that most other people think so too. It's the same with a lot other online interactions. If you simply don't answer to this new post I'm writing, I wouldn't equate that to you leaving without saying a word if we were having this conversation face to face. It's simply not the same.
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As I previously said, the goal of 81dojo was to give international players an easy way to play shogi. As far as I know, JSA doesn't care much about promoting the game worldwide, so that falls on the shoulders of enthusiasts. Naturally, their primary targets aren't strong players like yourself. I doubt that you actually started playing shogi because of 81dojo (maybe I'm wrong), and that you need it in order to play shogi online against opponents of your strength. Their targets are people who are new to the game, because once there's a lot of them, there will be some who will become serious players.
And did you notice something - most of the points you made were from the perspective of a strong player who takes shogi seriously. You mentioned good practice, promoting bad shogi, post game analysis in order to improve... I guess you tend to play in tournaments and travel to foreign countries because of shogi? This is exactly what I'm talking about - 81dojo is a site that suits serious players, but not new players. It really doesn't come down to what you like or what I like. It comes down to what's best to attract new players.
At this stage, good practices and post game analysis aren't important. What's important is getting people to play. If you make it easy and casual, there's a bigger chance that they will stick with the game and they might also tell their friends "hey, check this cool game out". Once we're at the point where the number of people playing is no longer an issue, then we can put emphasis on more serious things for those who want it. When a parent teaches their kid to play chess, they mostly don't teach best practices nor spend time analyzing games. They just teach them the rules and have them play. Most strong chess players have started like this.
As you can clearly notice, the online international shogi community is pretty much non-existent. Before, there was 81sqareuniverse where some of us were somewhat active, and then it died. This forum is even less used by people, and the Japanese section is more active than the English section. Things are obviously not going well so leaving them like they are probably isn't going to improve anything. Things need to be changed.
I listed Shogi Wars as an example of a successful shogi playing site. By saying that 81dojo should try to go down that road more, I meant that it should adopt what's good there, and not that it should turn into Shogi Wars completely.
1. Last time I checked you don't lose on nifu in NR games so you can always play that if you want the casual experience. I personally like that you lose on illegal moves here because it's good practice.
I think the high numbers of dan players has more to do with massive rating inflation.
2. Having the option would be nice and it existed for a short period of time on 81dojo. I think being able to win on time promotes bad shogi though. Also blitz games easily give you bad habits and quick games tend to mean little to no postgame analysis which is the most important step if you want to improve.
3. UI can always be improved, creating an account has caused problem for me in the past because of not getting a confirmation mail.
4. That's a ton of work and I guess people are busy.
5. SC24 has a similar manner system, shogi wars doesn't but it's designed to be devoid of communication and a feeling that you're playing against another human being.
The things you mention aren't specific to Japanese games. I would assume you make some kind of greeting before you start to play any game. You also tend to do something when you lose a game. Be it writing gg before you leave like in many computer games or shaking hands like I believe you do in chess. If I was playing someone in a club or something and he just suddenly left when he was losing I would consider him very rude.
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Shogi Wars is Shogi Wars. It's the perfect server when you have a limited amount of time and just want to play a game of shogi. It most likely generates a decent profit so they have the resources for high production values. Trying to mimic it is not really the right way to go because then why would I play on 81Dojo when I can play on Shogi Wars?
Hello,I agree with you, exactly 1 point. I'm begginer in this game, and I play the game due to the fact that did not know about nifu, or didnt see when i open my ''king'' for the attack. And after game, i thought why i lose!?
So, will be good, if begginer player can see ''nifu'' or other illegal move's.
81Dojo Web System
nexxogen (1453) 2016-12-27 04:51
