Saturday, September 26, 2009

Week 2 at the 81-Square Universe

The 81-Square Universe is still going strong after two weeks. With 567 posts and 81 members, we are the most active and fastest-growing English-speaking shogi discussion site on the Internet!

Transferring over to a new domain

In order to provide members with more features and have a more respectable place on the Internet, the 81-Square Universe is in the process of moving to a new domain. A domain would allow for the following features, copied from this thread:
  • More customization: Heavenforum has some neat features but despite all of the features it is still quite limited. The customization of the forum ends with how much Heavenforum decided to program. On our own domain, however, we will be able to add whatever we like whenever we like. I am even planning to have the ability to add Kifu for Windows to posts simply by posting the kifu of a game, so look forward to that!
  • Better maintenance: This is an issue that only came up yesterday, but it's already quite a big issue, in my opinion. Yesterday, Heavenforum went through some maintenance. Since our forum runs on a template supplied by Heavenforum, after something apparently went wrong on Heavenforum's end, we lost several of our forum images that I can't replace due to not having a backup copy. Since everything will be hosted by the 81-Square Universe on a new domain, this won't be an issue.
  • Actual webspace: In addition to the forum, the 81 Square Universe will have web pages dedicated to shogi when we transfer over to a domain. We will have lots of resources such as an extensive (and hopefully interactive) set of rules, an archive of Hidetchi's videos, and we will also have an area for online tournaments, user-submitted articles, etc.
You can read more about this in the Website Planning thread.

81-Square Universe Ranking League

Due to some complications, only two matches from this week have been decided. Due to scheduling conflicts between Nutaboutit and shogismive, and technical problems with 105, these two games will be resolved next week. The matches that have been decided are:

Lukas1 (win) vs grayswx
crazysjd89 (win by default) vs DialaceStarvy

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Week 1 at the 81 Square Universe

The 81 Square Universe is One Week Old!

We want to give a very big thanks to everyone who has made the 81 Square Universe such a successful and active forum. As of today, September 19, 2009, we have 60 members and over 100 active discussions! With this much activity in just one week, imagine our progress in a month, or a year! We at the 81 Square Universe hope that all of our members stick with us through the years.

Our members are as diverse as they are numerous. We have users from the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany, Portugal, Brazil, Slovakia, Australia, Belarus, Poland, and we have guests viewing from many more places! This is an extraordinary accomplishment, and we wish to thank all of our members for it.

The 81 Square Universe Ranking League

Members shogismive and hirohiigo are currently working on developing a Ranking League for the 81 Square Universe. The object of the Ranking League will be to establish regular play among members as well as to develop a ladder system to rank our members from strongest to weakest. We hope everyone will participate in the Ranking League so that, together, we can also study and get better at shogi.

The current plan is to have regular, scheduled Round Robin tournament-style matches as well as a ladder challenge system. You can view plans for the Ranking League here. If you are interested in joining the 81 Square Universe Ranking League, please post in the topic and let us know!

Success of the Game Analysis Forum

It appears as though the Game Analysis forum is a much bigger success than we could have hoped! There have been 18 games posted by our members for analysis, and contributions and advice in games have come from members as influential as Takodori! It appears as though this forum is a hit, and has become one of the most popular places on the Internet in English to ask for hints and tips on how to improve your game.

New Shogi Video Series from 81SU Members

We are proud to announce that the 81 Square Universe is the birth place of two brand new English-language shogi video series! 1059860 has created a showcase for online amateur shogi games, primarily from PlayOK, using Hidetchi's internationalized pieces. You can find them on his Youtube channel here. shogismive has begun a video series focusing on shogi strategy, which you can find on his Youtube channel here. Be sure to watch their videos and support them!

81 Square Universe Blog Launch

Welcome to the official blog of The 81 Square Universe, an English-language shogi forum that strives to bring everyone in the vast shogi world together. The purpose of this blog is to give updates and information about the forum, as well as upcoming events, etc. Therefore, you could say it is something like a newsletter. The schedule for updating is weekly (on Saturdays), so be sure to follow it.