The Dojo admits they need help

[Ferret]

I read those three articles on The Dojo today and it looks like the site is finally admitting that they're not as good as they used to be and they feel bad about it...
Everyone together now: "AAWWWWWW!"

I'm not feeling too simpathetic for them today. They've been digging their own graves for about six months and now that they're to the point where only a handful of people actually like them they're trying to get everyone's attention back. Well, being the nice guy that I am I'm going to mail them some suggestions:

1. DAILY UPDATES(if not more frequent): I can't stress this enough. People like to know that they don't have to wait four days to read some new articles.

2. Less advertising: I look at their 'front page' and see 60% advertising, 20% articles, and 20% BLANK SPACE. Has anyone noticed the full inch of nothing on the lefthand side of the screen (your screensize may vary).

3. More Pro Tour coverage: Don't just go to the PTs and shut down the site so the staff can lose again. Write some articles, give reports or at least let us know of its existence!

4. No more featured authors: Bring back the days when everyone's articles were welcome and more importantly, PRINTED!

5. Ditch the Forums: seriously. They've totaly degenerated. If you publish more articles than there won't be a need for that third rate discussion group.

6. Lost Casual Fridays: It's out of flavour for the site and the articles are sub-standard - but, that's just my opinion

Of course, I wouldn't mind if they ignored these and just let the site die...

-ferret

"More sheep for the slaughter..."

 

[Leshrac]

I can't say I'm too impressed with The Dojo's whining and lame excuses. Running a major Magic site is hard, I speak from experience, but being out of touch with your readers/users for so long is inexcusable. Would they ignore the needs of their advertisers for six months? Hardly. Then why do they insist on doing it with their readers?

I'll have to disagree with you, Ferret, on getting rid of their forums. Part of the reason a site provides forums is to see what kinds of people are visiting their site, and what those people think about it. What The Dojo needs to do with respect to their forums is start paying attention to them, and stop ignoring what gets posted in there. If they just want to continue ignoring their forums, then I agree with you, they might as well just take them down and save the server resources.

What I'd like to see from The Dojo is fewer excuses, and more solutions.

 

[Zadok001]

I don't think they should do away with the forums. Reasoning? There's no reason to take them away. IMHO, they're an eyesore, complete with the requisite supply of spam, swearing, flame wars, and bad grammer. As a result, I stay away from 'em. I haven't even looked at the link in over two weeks. (And that's a long time for me, I'm online almost 4 hours a day, 7 days a week.) There's no reason to take them away, though, since they really do nothing to harm the remainder of the community. Those people, like me, simply stay out.

Why take away the forums for that, though? Bad or otherwise, they don't harm the community. They simply exist. They take up bandwidth on an already weakening website. They don't directly affect 99% of the Magic playing population. So who cares whether they live or die?

They don't do good, but they don't do anything _bad_ either. They simply are. The Dojo can keep 'em, fix 'em, or remove 'em. I don't really care.

(On a happier note, the community on a whole is starting to flourish. MtgNew's percentage of useful, logical posts is increasing dramatically, and more and more people are liking the new sets, since the broken cards of Rath and Urza's blocks are things of the past. Smile, and be happy, CPA. WotC is learning.)

 

[theorgg]

I agree with you on several of the accounts, except a few. they, with my commments are below:

"4. No more featured authors: Bring back the days when everyone's articles were welcome and more importantly, PRINTED!"

I like the "featured authors". Guevin is interesting, Wakefield is like a god of gaming; and king of the fatties to boot, Zvi has some interesting comments, and Mr. Alongi isn't too bad of a wrighter; He's gotten better at wrighting, in my opinion.

"6. Lost Casual Fridays: It's out of flavour for the site and the articles are sub-standard - but, that's just my opinion "
you mean "loose?" see above. the articals are entertaining to some, boring to others, and all around pointless.
Just like half of the "humor" section use to be. I'd say it's a good way to balance the "overpompus" pro's(excluding wakefield).

theese are my opinions, and you are definatly free to disagree.

sic semper,

 

[Baron Sengir]

A year or two ago, my Magic web surfing consisted of The Dojo, Mtgnews, Brainburst, and Newwave (The rotten son of a ...). This is before I had even heard of MOTL (which I wish to god I had known about) and before the CPA was even a glimmer in my eye.

Look what's happened here: The Dojo blows. There's no other word for it. It blows. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Newwave is nothing. They sell cards now and that's it. Brainburst is just a pawn of Newwave now. Mtgnews is still up and running and doing better than ever, it looks like.

Nowadays, my surfing looks like this: CPA, Mtgnews, Nineinchnails.net/news, joecartoon.com, decipher.com and mdfmk.net.

Which brings me to my point. Mtgnews is still going strong and looks to be one of the premeire Magic sites out there.

What are the odds they'd let us advertise or put up a link? We could link to them, they could link to us, what do you guys think?

I remain
The Baron
If the dojo dies, does this mean we'll see more original decks at tournies?

 

[dawn]

Please read this! i just joined this site out of bordom with the net. I have the highest feedback rating at MTGnews, and on a good week I will post 100 auctions. If you would like( I don't think I can get into trouble over it) tell me how to but a link up at my postings. I'm real stupid when it comes to computers, but really good at making money. Can I put the link into the URL slot? If I can I will. I have dealt with the webmasters there on occasion and they have always been very nice to me. So maybe I can help and maybe not it never hurts to ask stupid questions I have found. Thanks DAWN (This is my username there also, check me out sometime)

 

[Zadok001]

Welcome aboard, dawn! Good to have you!

Yeah, you can do that. I'm not sure what the exact methodology would be. The obvious method would be to simply type the URL in the item description as a signature of sorts. If there's a place to put a URL in your personal profile, put it there. Either way will let people get here. (Btw, your ratings are _really_ good!)

Any of those ways SHOULD work. I'm not entirely cetain, since this is the first time I've visited the auction house.

"Orgg, can you do your usual little 'e-mail M:tG site about the CPA, see if they'll talk to us' routine with MtgNews now?"

 

[Spiderman]

Well, I agree with pretty much everything Ferret's saying except:

3) Personally, I don't need to see more of the Pro Tour. But I certainly understand more for those who do.

5) I agree with Leshrac in that someone needs to take more of an interest in the forums and "moderate" them. However, I also agree with Zadok in that if you don't like it, don't go.

6) I like Casual Fridays if only it provides something different than "this card can be used for this purpose in a tournament". Kind of how Wakefield's articles were.

 

[Dune Echo]

I actually like Alongi's stuff because he dares to *gasp* USE SUBSTANDARD CARDS FOR FUN!! The first time I read his stuff, it was the Jangling Automaton deck. To me, that was ingenious. This is kind of stuff I'm looking forward to doing with Complex Automaton. It's breaking a useless card. How much casual fun could you want? Yeah, he rambles at times, but don't we all? I also appreciate his attempts to give the spotlight to bad cards and the attempts to break them. I mean, who has really made an attempt to break Security Detail? I'd like to see more stuff like this. (Hey, when's anyone gonna give me more card ideas to mess with?)

 

[arhar]

I wish Dojo was dead and went to hell!!!

Seriously though, what good Dojo brings us now? 99% of it's visitors go straight to the decks to beat section and hurriedly look for a newest piece of someone else's work - that we, as casual players, have learned to despise. So what's gonna happen if Dojo dies? The writers will find a new place to publish their articles online, forums no one cares about, and well, maybe some other site with decks to beat will surface or maybe people will make their own decks... Anyway, I think it's a good thing Dojo is losing it. The only thing I will miss is Casual Fridays. I just can't get enough of those multiplayer descriptions =))))

"I'll Donate the Time Elemental to you... attack you with the Lured Ornithopter.. take 5.. activate Sorrow's path.. take 10.. Twiddle the Sorrow's Path.. DIE!!!" =))))))))

 

[Spart]

Hey Dune Echo, I made an attempt to break security detail before Anthony's contest. I was playing it in my worship deck along with man-lands to get instant speed creatures. It's great with an academy rector in play 'cause if they kill the rector I just remove it to bring a security detail into play and then activate it for another creature.

I'm not sure we can blame the "dojo deck" copying problems on the dojo or even the internet. As I and many of you no doubt have found, when developing diverse decks (alliteration rules) in a given card pool a lot of them tend to begin to resemble a "dojo deck". This is probably because those decks are made up of a lot of good, versatile cards. One example I can think of is my recyle deck. I was working on a green deck which tried to break recycle (don't laugh) using free artifacts. I worked at it for a long time and when I was done, it was much closer to an academy deck then anything else. And I hadn't even seen an academy deck at that point because I wasn't using the internet for MTG at that time.

I think the blame for a few boring decks to beat rest on WOTCs shoulders for printing UNBALANCED cards in Urza's Saga. At least they're trying to help the situation by making MM and Nem balanced sets. Perhaps as Urza's block is rotated out the dojo decks to beat will become more interesting and diverse, if the dojo lasts that long.

 

[Dune Echo]

Hey, I hadn't thought about using Recycle with free artifacts. Question: What was your kill method? Creature overrun? Direct damage? Decking? I built one two using Stampeding Wildebeests with lots of elves, Lanowar Sentinels, Spikes, and good CIP creatures (Wall of Blossoms). It was more a Stupid Green deck with Recycle, but I used Gaea's Blessing and Reclaim in mine (read Reclaim as saying: "Pay G: Return target card in your graveyard to your hand at instant speed). I'd like to discuss this with you sometime. Start a post or something if you're interested or email me.

And yes, I totally think you're right, Spart. Compare Yawgmoth's Bargain to Recycle. Same cost, different color, but like Necropotence, Recycle limits your hand size and when you can draw those cards. This is the why the game when too far and now it's beginning to stabilize again, thankfully.

 

[Zadok001]

This stage is known as 'the last breathes.' Now, they either change in the next two weeks, or die.

 

[Dune Echo]

Has anyone else noticed how even after all the complaints they've posted and such, that they've only updated twice so far this week? They are not going to keep people coming back at this rate. Bring back the forums, at least!