Comment by trickjarrett | Hacker News Reader

Comment by trickjarrett | Hacker News Reader

Well this is something I feel extremely qualified to comment on. Since I do a Magic the Gathering podcast/site at http://www.mananation.com

You're getting into a very cramped space. You're competing with the game maker who has a card search, card vendors have search, some better than others, and then there are the other outlets which provide card search.

Right now, your search is extremely limited and the results are underwhelming.

The UI needs a lot of work. It looks like the site fails to load with the search at the top and a banner under it. There's nothing on the default page. Secondly, aside from the domain, there's no Magic the gathering symbols or graphics.

Your search results need card images, and it needs information which makes me need to use your database. Why shouldn't I go to Gatherer.wizards.com or MagicCards.info?

I'm indeed grateful for the criticism. I know of Gatherer, and can't stand it. I've used Essential Magic for some time, but it's slow and clunky. MagicCards.info is also good, but limited in its one-box search.

I built Cauldron as a sort-of Google for Magic. Because of this, all the power is in the search box. It can do all the searches that any other application can do, and has all cards, so I'm not sure what you mean by "limited" and "underwhelming." Perhaps an example?

I've been focusing on the backend, mostly, and I concur with the UI complaint -- I'm working on a module where I can start getting articles up on the front page, but for now, there's nothing there because nothing needs to be -- I'm not selling anything, etc.

The cards themselves currently link to the MagicCards.info card detail site as a stop-gap. I plan to get that information, as well as the kinds of information in Essential Magic, to make my own card detail pages.

As I say, my only excuse is that right now it's set up purely as a card search site -- by the way, did you see http://mtgcauldron.com/help/ ?

I hadn't seen the help page. That info needs to be on the frontpage, otherwise a new viewer has no idea how your search works. There's no intuitiveness to your search system. That's not a dish, it's an observation.

If you want to email me for more feedback or if you'd like to discuss ideas, trickXmananation.com (X=@)

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