The staff, including myself, have been hard at work lately changing around things on the forum. I've noticed we've had a lot of guests lately and old members popping in and out every once in a while, so I decided to make this official:
We are no longer Dueling Genesis Academy.This brings up a lot of questions and mixed emotions if you're an old member, and confusion if you're a new member. So let me answer those questions and clear up the confusion.
Why aren't we an academy anymore?There was a time for Duel Academies. That time is past. Back in the days of KCVDS, it was a great way to find non-noobs to duel and some friends to chill with. But now the words "duel academy" are closely associated with "noobs on DN". We made an attempt about a year ago to remain relevant, and made this place something of a dueling RPG. Unfortunately, it was not well thought out or well received by our members and we didn't listen to their ideas until it was too late. No more.
A community is still a good idea, but academies are too focused on seeming like a school with their rules. DGA was fun while it lasted and we'll keep what was good about the forum, no doubt. This is still a place where the staff is very knowledgeable about the game. We top locals all the time, some of us have been to regionals and YCS. Some of us focus on online play and do well there. We're also a close community and the forum will be a safe zone for newcomers as well. Despite us not being an academy anymore, it's still a place for our members to learn and improve, no matter where we are in skill level.
But no more testing that does nothing but put a label on you and is a hassle for both you and the staff here. No more duel arenas for points that you can do nothing with, or for experience to force you to rank up and put more labels on you. No more dorms (what were those anyway?) or shops. Help is free. No more posting requirements for anything, and no more ranking system of any kind.
If we're not a duel academy, what are we?We are a strictly a Yugioh forum now, but we are different than other forums. The way that Duelist's Den will be run is far different that the way that, for example, Pojo is run. No micromanaging rules or making new topics once a certain post count is reached. That is just silly. The updated rules can be read here:
https://tdga.forumotion.com/t4-dd-official-rules#4These are just simple rules to protect users and prevent TOO MUCH spam. Otherwise, we don't care what you do or post.
What will this new forum be like?The way I see it, there are 2 extremes when it comes to popular Yugioh forums:
Pojo: More casual duelists.
Duelistgroundz: Competitive duelists that go to tournaments a lot irl.
There are other popular forums for sure, like the DN forum or Duel Academy (DA). These are all good forums, but we are aiming to be something more. DA is active and has lots of events but still limited by being an academy, which as I mentioned earlier, we're steering away from. Because the DN forum is, well, a forum for DN, where everyone everywhere can play, my experience with the forum has been that there are good players there but it takes too long for me to sift through the newbie players that think they know what they're talking about.
We're looking to be something in between Pojo and Duelistgroundz. Not "on the cutting edge of mediocre" but the best of both worlds if you will. We're competitive. But DGz is ONLY competitive, and if you're not aiming to be competitive as possible, you probably won't fit in well there and might be criticized for it. Is it ok to have a site for strictly competitive Yugioh? Sure. Being competitive is good. But we should play this game to have fun. I'll give you an example.
I used to do team and academy wars all the time. I used to be a DN admin. I wanted to be, and was soon successful at being a pro. But in the Tengu plant format I started losing more often, but only in wars, when I actually cared about winning. Any other random duel I would win. But I was really unlucky in wars, I would play out the whole duel in my head later and realize I didn't misplay, they just lucksacked me. One such time, I was dueling a guy who was kind of a prick. He drew all 3 Maxx "C" during both duels of the match where he 2-0'd me. Since I was playing Tengu Plants I couldn't really stop when he chained it or I'd be in a worse position. I finally had a chance to make a comeback in game 2 when he chained Maxx "C" for the sixth time. I summoned Debris Dragon and guess what he drew with Maxx "C"? Effect Veiler. I just raged and I think I ended cussing him out for it. Later I just thought...what the heck did I just do? Sure he was being a jerk and rubbing everything in my face but did I really just curse at someone and ragequit over a children's card game over the internet?
What I'm trying to say is, winning isn't everything. I realized later that I had been unlucky, yes, but I had also started losing more because I cared too much about winning. If you take yourself too seriously, it's not fun and sometimes it will cause you to actually lose more. But neither is it fun to lose all the time. That's where we come in.
Like Pojo, we want our members to be able to post whatever kind of deck they want. But, like DGz, we want the site to be more focused and closer knit between members.
Many members here have grown up. All of our past admins and current admins are18 or older and working and some are in college. So why not let the forum grow with us? We're not scrubs, we've had years of experience playing this game and know the ins and outs. But we're not going to play Yugioh professionally as a side job either. The beauty of this is that people who are new to the game will learn a lot here, and not from people with a condescending attitude, and people who are really good at Yugioh will recognize the skill level and have fun here as well.
By the way, this is not at all to say all Pojo members are hopeless scrubs and all DGz members are elitists who have no life outside of Yugioh. I check up on both forums myself, occasionally. But I believe offering a smaller, nicer, professional but fun community is a good balance of what they offer. And that's what we're aiming for. Will we ever be as big as them? Maybe not. But I'm not sure I want us to be either. DGA was always essentially a dueling family where I made friends from around the world. Why should DD be any different?
What kind of content will be found here?Whatever you want. No, really. There will be:
General Yu-Gi-Oh discussions about the game
Discussions about new cards coming out
Discussions about possible dark horse combos, engines, or decks
Tournament coverage on the local, regional, national, and YCS level
Articles
Judges, DN admins, and skilled players to answer your rulings questions
Inner-forum team wars (when we get enough members)
Tournaments (when we get enough members)
And you can post whatever else you want in the off-topics forum, such as music, video games, sports, life events, photography or video galleries, fan fiction, whatever.
To Sum UpThe forum is growing up, but not too much to where we take ourselves too seriously. I hope you guys like the changes and help us make this place active. It has lots of potential and we will listen to user input. We want to make a better community than what we've been seeing and we hope that you, whoever you may be reading this, decide to join in the fun
