This is the end of it all

The staff and I have been discussing for sometime as to what could be the source of our problems and how to fix it. We thought about it and came to the conclusion that there isn't enough motivation, a lot of us have IRL issues to del with, or it could very well be that you just really dislike the place.

I am giving you regulars a chance to discuss and voice your opinions, do not abuse this chance because the forum rules still apply. I want to know what everyone thinks should improve here. If you make a suggestion or rant, please do use at least decent logic so that we can take you seriously.

Well, let's break this problem down in little pieces:
What is the problem?
This academy currently has little activity.
What causes this problem?
Two things:
1. Barely anyone outside of WDA knows about WDA.
2. People inside WDA aren't motivated enough.

Why aren't people motivated?
- There are too few people at WDA. More people equals more competition, equals more fun.
- The current communications system isn't optimal. People need to do too much to get what they want. (Even if it is this little)

This breaks it down into two things that need attention:
- Publicity and attracting people to WDA.
- Better communications.

Let's first dive into publicity and attracting people.
Publicity isn't very hard. Everytime you duel someone, have a little chat about 'this awesome forum that you're a member of'. Link them to this forum and tell them how awesome an academy like WDA is.
In the above sentences we should be able to define 'awesome'. This is immediately linked to attracting people. How do we define 'awesome', how do we attract people? Well, think for yourself, what would make an academy awesome?
1. Tournaments. We already have those, but communications suck. (Will be attending that later in this post)
2. Deck showing, fixing, creating. We already have that, but it's dead as hell. I think it's something the staff can start fixing, after which the members will follow. Post your decks, especially the ones that aren't that good. This will cause other members to fix those decks. Show gratitude when your deck is being fixed. Motivate people to post their decks and to fix decks. (I can continue with posting how this can be achieved, but I think I made my point.)
3. Teaching. Teach people about the game! It's an academy, other word for school. the only one who's teaching is Al-Bhed. Moar teacherz! If you know a lot about a certain type of decks, post it! Even if some of the things are wrong, it doesn't matter, people will correct you. People posting to correct you = activity too! You don't have to be an all-knowing expert like Al-Bhed to teach. Don't be afraid to share your knowledge people, it's a great source for activity to share ideas and points of views.

If this can be attained, it will result in activity, resulting in people coming here.
Now, with that the problems still aren't gone, for there is still the problem of communication. This, believe it or not, is so easy to take care of. Let's start at what we currently have: One chatbox and a forum PM. This is hardly enough for live chatting with each other. TWA had hamachi, but it isn't used anymore. There never came an alternative, resulting in inactivity.
How to improve communications:
- Profiles should have a place which says: DN Name. This immediately solves the problem for one on one conversations, since people can easily look up others on DN. This does require DN to be open though, which some people might not like for simple chatting only.
- To solve the above, a new, simple chat program should be introduced. I think hamachi was very nice. Very easy to start, use and chat with. I think it should be reintroduced, even if it's not required to duel anymore as it was with KCVDS. It was an awesome chat program, it was foolish to ditch it in my opinion.


Well, that about sums it up.
Better comminucations + more teaching/deck making, fixing, sharing/better tournaments will bring more activity. It will cause people to think of this place as 'awesome' again, causing them to be able to attract random people they duel to this place. This causes more members to come to this academy for even more activity.
We can do it!

Unforgiven Pretender wrote:

Profiles should have a place which says: DN Name.

I WILL NEVER ALLOW THAT TO HAPPEN!!!! NO, JUST NO!!!
Now some liars may claim that this field has been there since forever but that would be a flat out lie! IT.WILL.NEVER.HAPPEN!!!
!!!
!!!
!!!

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...
...
Sorry, I had to...

Unforgiven Pretender wrote:

- To solve the above, a new, simple chat program should be introduced. I think hamachi was very nice. Very easy to start, use and chat with. I think it should be reintroduced, even if it's not required to duel anymore as it was with KCVDS. It was an awesome chat program, it was foolish to ditch it in my opinion.

Truth be told we had during the begining ham networks and after kcvds died we still had them updated every now and then even in TWA. However people didn't use them and I am one of those people, I will never put that disaster of a software on my pc ever again without very good reason, it does such horrible things to my pcs it might as well be a virus.

Now other than that, as far as communications go. Chat is sufficient, that's what I believe. Chat doesn't work when WDA isn't active and people just don't want to communicate. The answer to that isn't to wire people up to be able to stalk them even when they choose not to communicate, I won't begin to explain how that isn't an option I would consider now, I don't know about the rest of the staff.

Other than that, considering the staff did its part once upon a time (heck, if you go to the bottom of the news section you will find 5 ham networks for WDA), if any member wants WDA to have a ham network or a skype group or get them on msn/facebook/penfriended or whatever they are free to do so. If you want, go to the off topic section, post your own ham and ask wda to join, because we have already done that once and as I said, it actually should still be right over there unless joker deleted them, and by all means, get them on msn or skype. But if people just dont want to communicate, we can't do much about it, that's the point where I say "ok, I won't stalk you".

As for the rest, I may reply later, maybe, if I find the time for another rumbling.

Al-Bhed wrote:

Unforgiven Pretender wrote:

Profiles should have a place which says: DN Name.

I WILL NEVER ALLOW THAT TO HAPPEN!!!! NO, JUST NO!!!
Now some liars may claim that this field has been there since forever but that would be a flat out lie! IT.WILL.NEVER.HAPPEN!!!
!!!
!!!
!!!

...
...
...
Sorry, I had to...

It's only visible to staff, Al.
Might want to fix that.


About hamachi: It's okay if it isn't hamachi, then it has to be another program, I just don't think the chat is sufficient. MSN is in my case only meant for friends, not people I duel. Another chat program would be great imo.

You can have msn for friends and skype for wda. If you want a skype group we can make one but I don't think you'll have a better time finding people there than here (since I actually remember making skype groups in the past). As I said, if people don't want to talk, they'll be hard to talk to.

Unforgiven Pretender wrote:

2. Deck showing, fixing, creating. We already have that, but it's dead as hell. I think it's something the staff can start fixing, after which the members will follow. Post your decks, especially the ones that aren't that good. This will cause other members to fix those decks. Show gratitude when your deck is being fixed. Motivate people to post their decks and to fix decks. (I can continue with posting how this can be achieved, but I think I made my point.)

Meh I am done posting in the showcase xD
IMO barely anyone says anything that's got to do help my deck.
So I don't post my deck because either no one helps or people call me stupid so I am like screw it why do I show my decks here? Only deck that got attention and help was my ninjas.
And I don't really like to post help or fixes for someone else's deck because once again I am told that my opinion was "stupid" or "invalid" or whatever.
So right now Deck showcase is not for me....

In other words when you were talking about the WDA chat not being sufficient it actually has been very sufficient up until these past weeks.
Really I don't see how hamachi is any better .-.

One thing I would personally say is to maybe up the competitions again such as "create a card" and things I thought sometimes {not all the time} "Create a Card Competition" had a lot of submissions.

WDA is just in a slump right now. I say just keep moving forward till it starts building up a little bit.

To be honest my experiences in the deck dome are only those of despair. After seeing massive amounts of denial and other such mental disorders I said I'd stop helping in there and would only do in pms or in my shop.
The case in the deck dome is like this:
If you have a horribly bad deck, bring it there and the "average" (by our standards, the actual word for it is bad) player will tell you how much you suck and how much better than you they are in their own way before giving advice that may or may not help you.
If you had an anywhere decent deck however that's even worse, because you are bound to leave with a worse deck than the one you brought in if you take any advice. If you do have at least the standart human ingelligence however you won't take any advice and will just be frustrated with what you are reading.

Then you can break down deck fixing to 2 parts again.
1: overused decks/decktypes.
In this section you are really much better off checking YCS tops/shriek. I'd love to spend time to argue this, for the 1029374th time, but I won't waste time. Believe it if you want. That much makes the deck dome redundant on that matter and only useful on the second thing
2: underused decktypes. The issue with underused decktypes is that you have to be at least a decent deckbuilder to make them. Being a decent deckbuilder however in WDA standards qualifies you as a good player. Which brings us to a point made above.
Either you are good and bring your deck here only to be frustrated by what you read, or in a different case the deck is too bad and apart from being frustrated because you are told things you won't understand you also frustrate everyone else.

I'll be painfully honest here and say that the reason we won't be working out the deck dome issue is because I and people like me are here, we are the problem. These issues would not exist if the member base was at around the same level and therefore able to understand each other. For better or for worse in that case it would go like this: You'd post something, good or bad, and then you'd get advice on the same level, good or bad. You'd understand the other person, the thing would go smoothly. The result is irrelevant, activity is achieved.

However at WDA the spread in the ability factor is huge, you'll find people all over the place in terms of that, and while the member base has an average level which as you will be told is unfortunatelly low, there are a couple of good players around at a time able to post (not the same ones ofc, just saying available ones at a specific time) who will point out all the wrong things everyone in that level says, and the topics will freeze or not be made anymore because for one no one in his level will be arguing since not enough people exist about there and two the OP will be either frustrated or feel bad because either he'll view what he doesn't understand as nonsence or feel inferior, and that will also apply to the people of that level who gave advice, spreading the issue much further.
To sum it up, if the very odd ones out in terms of ability were gone, the deck dome would be active, again, for better or for worse. But the main issue is the gap between some groups is too big.

I guess there is a fix for that and that would be to make a deck dome for the regular member base and another deck dome in SA or something, but that would be discriminating for one and also wouldn't help other players get better, we would just be accepting a situation. And we could also divide it in deck showcase (where we'll just be showing people our decks) and deck fixing where how you post will be regulated, fixed or whatever.

Now as far as "teaching" goes, again I have fault in that, because every time something is "taught" wrong, I will point it out, I feel it's counterproductive to advise people to do wrong things. Then again if the purpose is activity, at this point, I am willing to let things pass. That is if there is a clear purpose while it unfortunatelly also means I wouldn't care enough to help it.

well...on my side,i dunno if i´m wrong,but still i´m gonna say it:
at least 2 of the biggest problems ive seen,are the difference between timezones,and ppl not getting tested at all,first of all,i want to be clear,i´m not complaining against the staff nor i´m saying they are not doing their work, what i see is that,we do still get new members,but i barely see any of them stay, they scout for any tester 2 or 3 days,then they get inactive,and also i know beforehand how hard is to get a test too,on my last retest,after posting,it took me a month to get a tester to re test me,and on that time,i was online everyday,what i think could be the problem there,is that it´s not easy to contact a tester,let alone get an answer back

the other problem i see is the inactivity on tourneys,most specificaly,the one that is originated because your opponent has a huge difference on the timezone,i sugest on that part why not try to pair the people according to their timezones,i mean 3-4 hours of difference is ok,that way the only problem there could be the lazyness on one of the players,which can be solved with a simple DQ and/or blacklisting
at least thats what i think for now

Neku Sakuraba wrote:

well...on my side,i dunno if i´m wrong,but still i´m gonna say it:
at least 2 of the biggest problems ive seen,are the difference between timezones,and ppl not getting tested at all,first of all,i want to be clear,i´m not complaining against the staff nor i´m saying they are not doing their work, what i see is that,we do still get new members,but i barely see any of them stay, they scout for any tester 2 or 3 days,then they get inactive,and also i know beforehand how hard is to get a test too,on my last retest,after posting,it took me a month to get a tester to re test me,and on that time,i was online everyday,what i think could be the problem there,is that it´s not easy to contact a tester,let alone get an answer back

the other problem i see is the inactivity on tourneys,most specificaly,the one that is originated because your opponent has a huge difference on the timezone,i sugest on that part why not try to pair the people according to their timezones,i mean 3-4 hours of difference is ok,that way the only problem there could be the lazyness on one of the players,which can be solved with a simple DQ and/or blacklisting
at least thats what i think for now

Paragraph 1 I agree with!

Paragraph 2 I agree with to a certain extent. The reason they use Challonge is for the pairings to be random {I am actually assuming that xD} Some people might dislike this idea based on the fact that if one person what to choose the pairings underhanded things could happen such as someone asking the host of tournament to put him against this person or something of that nature.

So I'm not sure though I do agree.

yeah,i thought what you said too,then...*looks at staff* do you think any of the ppl at the staff would actually help rig a tourney like that,it could be possible for a tourney to be rigged if the host is a normal user,but im sure even under those circumstances, the staff would actually find a way around

Neku Sakuraba wrote:

yeah,i thought what you said too,then...*looks at staff* do you think any of the ppl at the staff would actually help rig a tourney like that,it could be possible for a tourney to be rigged if the host is a normal user,but im sure even under those circumstances, the staff would actually find a way around

You know that anybody can host a tournament for like 500 credits.

For one, I would like to point out that since WDA's creation about a year ago we have not had one affiliation with another academy, kinda seems pointless to have an affiliation box and topic area when we don't affiliate with anyone. Find some other academies and strike up some affiliation deals with them. If we affiliate with them then there members find out about WDA (if they didnt know about us already) and they may be more inclined to check us out.

Step 2: Testers. Our testers are either in short supply or half of them are off dealing with problems IRL (fair enough) but we still get new members but many of them dont end up being tested because the people who can test are either inactive or not online when they come on broaden your tester base as much as you can so people have more chance of being tested.

Step 3: Be harsher on people who make no efforts in tournaments, if you set a deadline stick to it, if someone has made no effort by the deadline don't sit there and say "ok I will give you a few more days" Make a judgement call and if one person is seen to have made more effort to get their duel done then let them advance and DQ the other person, thats how the first few tournaments WDA did were done and they all had much bigger numbers and were all completed.

Step 4: If you dont have enough staff around to keep things rolling, either find someone to replace an inactive staff member (temporarily or permanently) and if there is no one you can think of to replace them train someone up by teaching them how to be a staff member. Or give minor roles to non-staff members, like someone to run tournaments, someone to run a certain event whilst someone else runs another event, that way the only thing the staff have to worry about is swapping some credits around at the end of it.

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well...on my side,i dunno if i´m wrong,but still i´m gonna say it:
at least 2 of the biggest problems ive seen,are the difference between timezones,and ppl not getting tested at all,first of all,i want to be clear,i´m not complaining against the staff nor i´m saying they are not doing their work, what i see is that,we do still get new members,but i barely see any of them stay, they scout for any tester 2 or 3 days,then they get inactive,and also i know beforehand how hard is to get a test too,on my last retest,after posting,it took me a month to get a tester to re test me,and on that time,i was online everyday,what i think could be the problem there,is that it´s not easy to contact a tester,let alone get an answer back

When I first entered this academy, I got tested almost immidiately, probably due to sheer luck. The Re-Test did take some waiting though. So I'll agree with Neku about the testing part.

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For one, I would like to point out that since WDA's creation about a year ago we have not had one affiliation with another academy, kinda seems pointless to have an affiliation box and topic area when we don't affiliate with anyone. Find some other academies and strike up some affiliation deals with them. If we affiliate with them then there members find out about WDA (if they didnt know about us already) and they may be more inclined to check us out.

Step 2: Testers. Our testers are either in short supply or half of them are off dealing with problems IRL (fair enough) but we still get new members but many of them dont end up being tested because the people who can test are either inactive or not online when they come on broaden your tester base as much as you can so people have more chance of being tested.

Step 3: Be harsher on people who make no efforts in tournaments, if you set a deadline stick to it, if someone has made no effort by the deadline don't sit there and say "ok I will give you a few more days" Make a judgement call and if one person is seen to have made more effort to get their duel done then let them advance and DQ the other person, thats how the first few tournaments WDA did were done and they all had much bigger numbers and were all completed.

Step 4: If you dont have enough staff around to keep things rolling, either find someone to replace an inactive staff member (temporarily or permanently) and if there is no one you can think of to replace them train someone up by teaching them how to be a staff member. Or give minor roles to non-staff members, like someone to run tournaments, someone to run a certain event whilst someone else runs another event, that way the only thing the staff have to worry about is swapping some credits around at the end of it.

I also agree with Joker on all of his points. I haven't been to a tournament yet, but I have witnessed a case where two members had trouble getting their match started because of Timezone difference I believe it was. Anyways, we do need more staff, enforced rules (Not that there's a major lack in that), and also affiliations. If we can have at least 1 affiliation with another academy we could probably schedule maybe an Academy war or something which could motivate members.

Now as for recommendations, I suggest we bring in new things into the academy. Maybe a Card of the week or possibly a deck/archtype review. Where basically an Archtype or Specific deck is looked at, maybe list some key cards and whatnot, since there are always new Archtypes ready to be released and looked over. Things like that could make people more interested in the Academy

Everything dies at some point. What everyone fails to understand that the forum is merely the skeleton of communication. Its activity is responsible for those who are active. UP hit the nail on the head. I can't really add anything to what he said. However, I do have a suggestion. A problem with 90% of forums is that it's restricted to a single topic or genre. In WDA's case, it's Yugioh.

For members like myself who don't duel, what reasons do we have of coming on everyday? Personally, it's the other members. I come on for Digi and the others because I enjoy talking to them and trolling the occasional idiot (And showing off my skillz) But other than that, what other reasons are there for me to come on? Nothing really. I've been debating on writing articles, but the articles are rather limited (unless I give more articles on writing. A few of you seemed to like that one). Another thing that I enjoy doing is RPing. However, the RP section is...Yeah. RPing, especially for those who are good at it, can be rather enjoyable and a legit reason for anyone to come back. So I suggest remodeling the RP section if you want to lure in the RP crowd.

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Everything dies at some point. What everyone fails to understand that the forum is merely the skeleton of communication. Its activity is responsible for those who are active. UP hit the nail on the head. I can't really add anything to what he said. However, I do have a suggestion. A problem with 90% of forums is that it's restricted to a single topic or genre. In WDA's case, it's Yugioh.

For members like myself who don't duel, what reasons do we have of coming on everyday? Personally, it's the other members. I come on for Digi and the others because I enjoy talking to them and trolling the occasional idiot (And showing off my skillz) But other than that, what other reasons are there for me to come on? Nothing really. I've been debating on writing articles, but the articles are rather limited (unless I give more articles on writing. A few of you seemed to like that one). Another thing that I enjoy doing is RPing. However, the RP section is...Yeah. RPing, especially for those who are good at it, can be rather enjoyable and a legit reason for anyone to come back. So I suggest remodeling the RP section if you want to lure in the RP crowd.

Same. I rarely play Yu-Gi-Oh anymore and really just come here to talk and whatnot.

Bloo wrote:

Do we get a video games section??
Just to make another topics to talk about other than Yu-Gi-Oh.

www.worldduelingacademy.com/f23-off-topic

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Kitouski is SUPPOSED to be in charge of the Create a card week, although he sorta disappeared. As much as I try to talk to him on Skype he doesn't answer. Say, why isn't anyone taking his place?

What I said had nothing to do with Create A Card week. I'm saying that for example like "Oh the card of the week for this week is Elemental HERO Absolute Zero." And we can just comment on what we think of the card and whatnot. We should also decide what could be some good candidates could be, have a little say in it.

I also agree with JJ. Maybe having some things other than Yugioh can maybe liven the place up and give it more spice. Maybe something most of us prefer.

The only thing I don't like about affiliations is the fact that all these trolls people who are just in almost ever academy is gonna join it for some reason that just gets annoying going to an academy and seeing the same people that you can find in another academy .-. What's the fun in that?

I am not going to say anything about the RP lol because honestly I can't stand roleplaying with certain people xD

I also do agree with Nour the birthday room topic was nice it's in my opinion it made people feel good about themselves and made them know that they were never forgotten.

I Really like the idea from the good Doc when he was talking about dorms. Like right now it doesn't even feel like it's worth it to be in a dorm .-. Right now I think I am the only one posting in the Dorm Competition for my dorm -.-' And there's no tournaments for the dorms or just little games or something.
Anywayz That's all for now 8)