There's a few ways to look at this.

You can look at this from a sociological perspective and see the repetitive ideas as mere conformity. If something works for one server, other servers are bound to try and copy it in order to stay competitive. People like what they like, so each server feels they'll have to grab every good aspect they can in order to keep as many people as happy as possible. After all, it was once said that (not exact quote) "good artists create, but great artists steal."

You can also look at this from the perspective of trying to break that conformity. Each server wants to have it's own identity and be as different as it needs to be. Era can't add baddies and Classic can't add ak-47s without looking retarded. Each server is going off in it's own direction and tries to have their own 'image' that draws and keeps players.

The problem is, neither idea is completely correct. The former idea is flawed because each server needs to be different, and not all ideas will fit on each server. The later idea is flawed because you can't just ignore good ideas for the sake of "being different," especially if they fit on the server.

So, the best solution is to find the happy medium. Graal servers need to become like Disney World Parks; each having their own theme and each having similar popular aspects, but not including things that won't fit with the theme. If a server A has a good idea that could work on server B, then server B needs to take that idea, change it up a bit to fit their server, then add it. If server A's idea doesn't work on server C, then it shouldn't be added.

How well a hat economy, for example, would work on Classic remains to be seen. I don't play on UN (only been there once,) so I don't know exactly how things look/work there. But I have been on era, and I wasn't impressed. Rob (account: bloodwork) had a house with some friends, and in the back room they had piles and piles of hats. We're talking a couple hundred hats here. That isn't my idea of an economy. Value comes from demand, and clearly there wasn't a heavy demand in hundreds of hats are sitting in rooms around the server. My idea of an economy would be to have a limited amount of items so they would have a set value.

But anyways, enough rambling. Copy and edit good idea that fit, ignore ideas that won't.

I agree with a lot of what you have said, but your disney world analogy isnt really good, seeing as you can label a ride with a different look but its still the same ride, but I get what youre trying to say.

Regardless of what people think, a hat economy cant hurt...it can only help.

If done correctly I'm sure it can help. Though I'd miss the ability to say sethat hat# whenever and where ever.

As it stands:

51 out of 54 want change with the HD.

(Levels are 44 out of 54 - HD is included in both.) ;)

And as far as hats go, I think people like the fact that hats are limited. Classic never caught on to that.

I'll pass on the hats idea. I didn't like Graal 2001 8 years ago, and I don't think I'll start liking it now.

Well would it appeal to you more if there was an incentive based on time played?

For example, every 100 hours is an extra ___________ (economy item) therefore the exsiting supporters of Classic get an appreication bonus.

The # of ___________'s (economy item) a player would get is just a sign on bonus and only at time you first log in it registers the # of ___________'s (economy item) available for you to choose, this is not ongoing for every 100 hours played. This would give the economy a good jump start.

But please don't bother rolling out any economy out until you've fixed the HD. (i.e. Angel Clan as a PK Default HD and spar rooms updated.)

This isn't asking a lot.

And couldn't hurt to create new events in default HD too. >_<

Time based incentive is kind of lame as well. What I would like to see is a guild ranking system where guilds earn points based on pk rating, time spent on tag, etc.

I suggested that a while back, but it was deemed unnecessary as US is the only active guild on Classic, apparently.

If they implemented some sort of guild ranking system with some sort of rewards, I would hope it would attract guilds to the server to try to be the best.

IMO being the "best guild" isn't about tag time; any guild can recruit a bunch of active noobs to gain tag time.

Being the "best guild"(imo) means having respect. Respect is earned by winning, whether its guild wars (not that there is a defined way to win a war,) events, tournaments, rankings, etc.

I've never held too much value on having the most people on tag. I'm more concerned with having people do something while they're on tag. Represent your guild where and when it counts; not while you're idling.

Can the onlinestartlocal be changed at all to somewhere more livelihood is at with the option of using tule or starting at brothers with the graal castle quest?


Contego's suggestion about changing it is pretty nifty imo.

Get rid of the forced tutorial and have the players start on the main land, I know a handful of people who didn't want to come visit Classic because they were forced to be there. I think I managed to get out of it on my other account (Gerami) by pming a GC during an event and then just getting warped to the bank, heh.

Tule village is completely skippable, but I don't know about the graal castle quest.

I agree.

We (BTK) have a "Guild War" script that allows us to designate a war between 2 guilds to a certain kill limit ex: 5v5 first to 1,000 Kills

We made that really popular on UN

@ dmhabe

Better than nothing I suppose. The obvious problem is if people involved go afk during the war, but I suppose no solution is perfect.

@ contego + crono

As I said earlier, noobs to graal still need to do the tutorial village. People new to the server don't need to do that, but I personally think they need to do graal castle quest + sardons/gnome quest ASAP, otherwise they have 6 HP and are thus at a disadvantage at everything.

Some people just come here solely for the monthly, and don't want to bother with questing. It should be optional.

@ warhawk

i remember warring with cgu in these rooms, but its turned out people could run and lead to alot of bashing.
and we have mod fort , its pretty much better than UN cw when alot of players participate in it.

@ mystic

if u remember on graal the adventure, to go past the bridge u needed to donate gralat to the guard , but now u need to do the castle quest, i agree on it being skippable to go to lvl 14

@ crono

lol classic would not be classic without a proper tutorial.

i would not say a "hat economy" but i already suggested many times that card game booster should have been sold for gralat, but dc didnt want. this only could have benefit classic gralat economy

Didn't really play GTA other than maybe logging on but I see what you mean. Just dont like the idea of having to do graal castle before ur let in level 14.

ya well , id request it to be just like GTA. all i want is pyramid quest to be back , and its might come back. :P

If you can log on Zone, please try and look at how you can choose a planet. Classic could use something similar but rather it would prompt you with the option to choose;

'View Tutorial'
(Recommended for new players.)

or

'Skip Tutorial'
(Welcome back!).

No they don't. I never had to go through a tutorial when I started Graal and I caught on pretty quickly. Noobs shouldn't be forced to go through a boring tutorial and then be forced into a boring quest directly afterwards. Not even I wanted to play through it. If anything go back to the way it originally was where you started off having to go north west of the brother's house. Atleast that way the people who have just logged in are on the same world.

I'm sure classic is classic with events like CTF sumo and fortbuilder, event and bank gui, weather, and altered overworld. :rolleyes:

ya but u cant compare server like zone to classic, its not the same at all.

In my opinion, if you can't be bothered to walk straight up through a simple tutorial then you're not exactly going to be active enough to contribute much else.

@ Laura

It's not 'comparing Zone and Classic', it's using Zone's example of the start up screen. Check it before you presume to know what I'm talking about.

@ Rufus

Er - first impressions are key. Pick up a book.

@ Both

If you would check Zone's login you would have had a more appropriate response. You BOTH are sitting back shooting opinions down before even giving them a chance. People are trying to improve Classic's playercount and bringing forth reasons why Classic didn't stick to them again.

First impression.

I'm not sure why I'm wasting my time but I keep giving you both the benefit of the doubt however you both don't respect people enough to view their examples before smacking them back down. Useless, the both of you. !pissed!

Didn't read the rest of this nonsense, but I was around to appreciate it, before you as well.

But like stryker said, lets not get our hopes up because I doubt there is enough time to do this. Also, will development and its lovable admin be able to suck it up and do this? I've never seen it happen.

What's a better first impression:

1) Brothers house + bunch of people idling in lvl 14.

or

2) A giant castle with a (hopefully) compelling storyline.

Either way, my opinion is that you need to do something on the server story-wise before you actually go to the overworld. A good example would be the game Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. You start out in a jail, go through some storyline stuff, set up your character, etc., and eventually make your way out of jail into the real world. From that point, you can either follow the arrow on your map and start the main story, or you can wander around and do the hundreds of quests, join a guild, etc.

People come here solely for events sometimes, such as the monthly. Doesn't it take away some of their abilities if they are blocked from parts of the overworld? Obviously they can do it preceding to the monthly, but that always isn't the case.

The way classic is set up makes a compelling story impossible. Since most dialog takes place in signs you cannot tell who is talking. Or it takes place in messages over the npcs heads which I think looks just as bad.

@ contego

do zone have a storyline?
your going to skip a full tutorial on how to play just to freaking start the game?
i saw zone login screen and zone is a guns/shooters , like i said u cant compare those two because they are totally different in every aspect.

and lol the only thing that will make YOU come back is the hd, you did not mention one time the quests and how benefit they would be.

Maybe I'm not being clear. Attempt to log in to Zone, and it gives you a screen to choose a planet. My suggestion is to use this similar set up to choose from two options:

'View Tutorial - Quest Mode'
*Increase hp, dmg, def, and includes all PvP Mode features*
(Recommended for new users)

or

'Skip Tutorial - PvP Mode'
*Play events, get ________'s(economy item), challenge players in spars, chat with friends while playing the featured Trading Card Game, and PvP Mode also includes Quest Mode features*
(Welcome back!)

i dont think i understand wheat ur trying to mean

It annoys the hell out of me at the beginning of Classic when you're forced one after another to do quests, literally taking hours before you're actually able to explore the main overworld without interference and actually see other players.

Just put the player in a big room with lots of signs and different things they can do, with a door that is accessible for WHENEVER they want to just leave. Curious players will read the signs and try it out if they want to, players who want to just get into the game will leave ASAP.

its took me minimum 40minutes to do
tutorial , the joint and castle quest before i was able to explore

Three things too many.

40 minutes is nothing lol
if u speed up u can take less time.

40 minutes of forced, linear gameplay in an online game is a lot. I liked Classic when it was log on, get told where to go and go if I wanted to. Not, log onto Classic, do a boring tutorial, do a forced quest, finally think I'm done and get 'kidnapped' to do another forced quest, and never seeing a player during any of this or more than a few of the overworld levels.

Also, the time varies between people. It may have taken you 40 minutes but it wasn't that quick for me.

if you guys think that 30/40 minutes of forced gameplay is bad, i don't know how you would react to having things be like old GTA where you had to spend several hours to become viable in any PvP action because you had to quest up a decent amount of hearts and a lizard sword.
nonetheless, I'll explore the option of allowing to skip some stuff.
key word is explore.

There's a reason linear gameplay tends to get phased out nowadays. Especially in online games.

I mean, I'd happily do the quests, but I'd like to do so on my own time. I just don't think locking the player out in the VERY FIRST experiences of the server for upwards to an hour from other players and the overworld, probably more for those really new, is not a good thing.