Client Comparisons & Thoughts
Posted: Sun Jul 11, 2010 11:08 pm
Basically, I'm curious on hearing people's input and thoughts on various online mahjong clients. I've tried out a fair few in my time as a player, but I'm wondering if maybe there are a few that I've not tried because they've not been brought to my attention, or maybe ones I've dismissed because there are features I was unaware of, or have since been introduced.
At this point in time I'm not really interested in paying for anything. I wouldn't be completely against the idea, but at the very least I'm too interested in trying something that requires me to pay up front, or only gives me a very limited trial period before I have to cough up money for it.
My thoughts and opinions on the ones I've tried so far:
Tenhou
This is my main mahjong client, by a fairly large margin. It's in Japanese, but there's an excellent online English guide, and I can get by perfectly fine for general playing at least, despite not being fluent. I can find players quickly, the skill level (in the Dan rank rooms at least) is pretty nice and it tracks my games and rating/ranking stats. I'm still fairly curious as to how some of the features work such as tournaments, but I've not had time to properly experiment with them yet, and I'm not sure if they're even possible on a free account.
Jan Ryu Mon
I tried this for a day or two. I thought the client was pretty swish visually, but I didn't really like the actual functionality. It was a fair bit more confusing to navigate than I found Tenhou to be, nor could I find any sort of really good English guide. The skill of the other players I played against seemed a bit more frustrating, and I also kept getting odd pop-up error messages in Japanese that I couldn't decipher.
Mahjong Time
It's in English (and other languages), which is a plus, but the only one I've really found. It's not centred around Riichi mahjong all that much, and it's very slow to find players. I also think that the "QuickMahjong" one-hand mode is an absolutely atrocious idea, and my distaste is exaggerated by the fact that it seems to be the only thing anyone I come across on there is willing to play.
The main other two I've looked into but haven't actually tried first-hand are Ron2, which basically seems to be almost identical to Tenhou except it won't track statistics unless you pay for it, and FourWinds Mahjong which seems to not have a free version.
So yeah, I'd be keen to hear people's opinion and thoughts on their own favourite ways of playing online mahjong. Perhaps either correcting my incorrect views on some of the clients I've mentioned, or maybe offering other ones that are quite good and I've not mentioned here.
I'm also curious to know if Tenhou has much extra to offer if you have a paid account. If there are some pretty nice features (besides being able to go back to the premium client) then I might be tempted because ¥500 a month really isn't that huge a sum given how much I play it.
At this point in time I'm not really interested in paying for anything. I wouldn't be completely against the idea, but at the very least I'm too interested in trying something that requires me to pay up front, or only gives me a very limited trial period before I have to cough up money for it.
My thoughts and opinions on the ones I've tried so far:
Tenhou
This is my main mahjong client, by a fairly large margin. It's in Japanese, but there's an excellent online English guide, and I can get by perfectly fine for general playing at least, despite not being fluent. I can find players quickly, the skill level (in the Dan rank rooms at least) is pretty nice and it tracks my games and rating/ranking stats. I'm still fairly curious as to how some of the features work such as tournaments, but I've not had time to properly experiment with them yet, and I'm not sure if they're even possible on a free account.
Jan Ryu Mon
I tried this for a day or two. I thought the client was pretty swish visually, but I didn't really like the actual functionality. It was a fair bit more confusing to navigate than I found Tenhou to be, nor could I find any sort of really good English guide. The skill of the other players I played against seemed a bit more frustrating, and I also kept getting odd pop-up error messages in Japanese that I couldn't decipher.
Mahjong Time
It's in English (and other languages), which is a plus, but the only one I've really found. It's not centred around Riichi mahjong all that much, and it's very slow to find players. I also think that the "QuickMahjong" one-hand mode is an absolutely atrocious idea, and my distaste is exaggerated by the fact that it seems to be the only thing anyone I come across on there is willing to play.
The main other two I've looked into but haven't actually tried first-hand are Ron2, which basically seems to be almost identical to Tenhou except it won't track statistics unless you pay for it, and FourWinds Mahjong which seems to not have a free version.
So yeah, I'd be keen to hear people's opinion and thoughts on their own favourite ways of playing online mahjong. Perhaps either correcting my incorrect views on some of the clients I've mentioned, or maybe offering other ones that are quite good and I've not mentioned here.
I'm also curious to know if Tenhou has much extra to offer if you have a paid account. If there are some pretty nice features (besides being able to go back to the premium client) then I might be tempted because ¥500 a month really isn't that huge a sum given how much I play it.