Reachmahjong.com

For the past few months ReachMahjong.com has been hosting ads for Joyjan, an online Riichi game. We are now participating in hard-core beta-testing on Joyjan and all RM.com readers are invited to join as well. Not only will you all players get to share their opinions, desires for the games and get the first foot in the door for this new software, but RM is also going to put up prizes for all forum users that participate in this testing.

Starting today and going until August 31st, all players that are registered on the ReachMahjong.com forums have the chance to win exclusive RM.com prizes.

To participate:

1. Register on the ReachMahjong.com Forums
2. Download the Joyjan software form http://www.joyjan.net/
3. Play live games and keep track of the game number
4. Write and discuss opinions and software issues in the Rm.com Forum thread
5. Email jenn@reachmahjong.com by September 5th with:
- Your RM.com Forum Username
- Your Joyjan.net Username
- A list of all game number of all games played from August 2-31st
- Your mailing address for prizes (see below)

Prizes will be determined by number of games played:
-All players will receive an exclusive ReachMahjong.com patch
-Top 5 players can choose between a signed copy of Jenn’s book Reach Mahjong:The Only Way to Play, an exclusive RM.com What Would You Discard t-shirt or a Dragon Tile Set (available in the ReachMahjong.com Shop)
-Players 6-10 can choose a blue or green exclusive ReachMahjong.com phone strap.
-Players 11-15 will receive a $5 coupon to the ReachMahjong.com shop.

Only live games with 4 players will qualify for prizes. All prizes are subject to change without notice.

Garthe and Jenn will be playing regularly as well. Also, since this software is bilingual, there will be players from Japan live! So join us and let’s get more online mahjong going!

Downloaded... no one on.. can't play.. will try again later. Frankly, the client is ok but unfortunately can't compete with Janryumon's 3d interface. I guess I've been a bit spoiled as all mahjong clients seem rather boring to me since I've been playing on Janryumon.

And also frankly, the English terms make me cry inside.. an ability to set it all to Japanese would be great. Can't understand these English yaku terms... and chow, kong, and pung? My eyes!

There needs to be better functionality in regards to multi-tabling. A feature to automatically tile all open windows similar to what most poker clients use would be excellent, also it would be nice if the window didn't auto full screen when a game starts.

Aduil100 wrote:And also frankly, the English terms make me cry inside.. an ability to set it all to Japanese would be great. Can't understand these English yaku terms... and chow, kong, and pung? My eyes!

I agree with this. If changing the yaku/terms to romaji isn't an option, at least changing it to Japanese should be.

Req wrote:There needs to be better functionality in regards to multi-tabling. A feature to automatically tile all open windows similar to what most poker clients use would be excellent, also it would be nice if the window didn't auto full screen when a game starts.

Aduil100 wrote:And also frankly, the English terms make me cry inside.. an ability to set it all to Japanese would be great. Can't understand these English yaku terms... and chow, kong, and pung? My eyes!

I agree with this. If changing the yaku/terms to romaji isn't an option, at least changing it to Japanese should be.

This is tricky, because it still needs to be accessible to newcomers. I really don't have a problem with 'Pon', 'Chi', and 'Kan' as buttons over the normal english ones. This is really a symptom of no systematic English terms. How to address this? I'll think on it a bit.

Seems like the server is down right now. I had the chance to play a game (only 4 people were on), so I feel like I should try to comment, but right now the only things that come to mind are differences between this and Toupai, due to my significant bias.

The Terms and Condition link just went to a page with the word "Terms" on it. I realize you're still in beta, but that was perhaps one of the more hilarious comments on people not reading the ToS I've seen.

I agree with the use of English terms. There are plenty of Japanese riichi mahjong clients out there. If you're not going to focus on English players, I don't think you bring anything, and I certainly can't read Japanese. Pung vs Pon isn't really something that bothers me. The obvious solution is to allow for customization, if you really care that much. This could be as simple as a checkbox to switch between English/Japanese, or (here comes Toupai again), you could compose the client out of images that live on the user's machine. Toupai does this, and I take advantage of it to customize the look of my buttons and tiles.

Things I missed immediately from Toupai were chat in the lobby, and an ability to see overall stats for myself.

The rules and manual pages could use a clean-up, but again, I realize you're still in beta. I'll try to be more organized about my thoughts when I've had a chance to play some more.

Joyjan's back up and I've signed up (triplebreak). This is a pretty solid client! Tenhou's still my favored client, but this isn't bad at all. I've needed something in English to direct new players to for a long time, and this will definitely do it. English yaku names, and chow and pung, aren't really a big deal to me. We need them to get more people playing more easily, and I dunno if you guys noticed, but we're in a really small pool right now. This is how you spread a community.

Basic client is good: my only issues are obvious beta stuff (no stats, East-only).

I'd like a sound effect that isn't the old America Online ring. It makes me think I've been transported into 1999.

If they're lookng at features, generated commentary with the Game Replays would be invaluable. (Turn 6 had a risky discard, East shows aggressive play, etc)

Still needs a lot of work. After a game ended, it wasn't clear to me what state I was in, or what state the room was in. It wasn't clear if I was supposed to indicate that I wanted to play again in that room, or if I was expected to close the window and queue back up. Closing the window brought me back to the lobby, but I still saw my name at the table. Despite this, I was able to queue for a new game anyway. There was a join button on my old table, but when I entered the room it wasn't clear to me if I was considered ready to play or not, and there was a dinging sound every so often with no obvious cause or effect. Eventually, I closed the whole application and reconnected, only to find myself still listed as being at the table, but no longer able to join it. I can still queue for a new game despite being listed as at a table.

EDIT: Having played a second time, I realize this is because someone immediately chose to leave me table after the game ended, which causes the PLAY button to disappear. The EXIT button has a grayed out appearance.

You cannot kyuushukyuuhai in this client... that's a rather big fail.

Think it still needs alot of work as well. One small problem is that it doesn't display the number of players who's online.

The replay feature seems really buggy.

Also, damaten is horribly frustrating. The game makes a ringing sound every time you go into tenpai that is the same sound (or a similar) as if your winning tile just appeared. So, if you're tenpai but not in riichi, every single time you draw a new tile it plays the TENPAI sound, which sounds like just like the YOU WON sound. Eventually, you just want to shut the sound off so you don't have to hear that annoying dinging anymore.

In my opinion, either the tenpai sound needs to go, or it at least needs to not play if you were already in tenpai.

I've found a bug. It's possible to get an "open chitoitsu" see: http://www.osamuko.com/chitoitsu2.png It might also be possible to get iipeiko chitoitsu (Note: tested, it's not.) and ryanpeiko chitoitsu too. As for the terminology debate, most beginners I've spoken to learn the Japanese terms because they've learned about mahjong through anime. If they want to make it more 'accessible' then they should probably switch to EMA's terms or romaji. Romaji will make it 'accessible' to people whose english isn't that great but know Japanese terms, there's a pretty big Russian, French, etc audience you know?

You might want to consider banning KittyKiller if you have that ability yet. The guy is just totally belligerent and constantly insults every player during the game.

Hi Everyone,

Thank you so much for all your play and feedback. This is the first time the game has been open, but the ultimate goal is a real-money option, so the developers will be taking everything you say into consideration.

I know the client still needs lots of work but thats why the beta-testing is going on. It's great to see that the online mahjong community is continuing to grow and I'm glad RM can be part of it. If you can read Japanese you can also play from joyjan.jp.

Don't forget to record all your game numbers and e-mail them to me at jenn@reachmahjong.com with your forum username and your joyjan username so that we can distribute the prizes correctly.

I'm also playing online a few times a week so I can't wait to see you all there. I'm hoping to get Garthe to play too but it's so hard to get him to work! haha