The focus should not be on past or current. The focus of a game is about " movin on" .
Where every other server has moved on, classic has been tearing to much on the success of the early 2000 years when classic had its highlights.
Other servers learned from that, used it to improve their own skills and made unique ideas to implent into the current servers. You can see now that Classic has not changed in improvement. Infact it has decreased its status by removing all of the content that made it so popular back in the day.

What classic should have done is keep the content , and expand from the content it had years ago, to expand the storyline, to improve npc's. heck, make a lv 2,3,4 and 5 trident, who cares.
But no, stupid people make stupid descisions and classis staff has a talent for that.

Coulda, shoulda, woulda. That didn't happen and we can't do anything about it now. We have to move on with what we do have, no matter how little it is.

I agree. Keep what we had, and expand on it.

That's all well and good to say now.
However its 5 years after the fact(the npc server was introduced in 2004 I believe).
I agree the server should have never been wiped and rebuilt on the mess we call custom systems now. We would be in a different situation if choices were made differently.

However, lamenting on the past does no good to help the present situation.

At least bring back the default HD. I realize why everyone's crying about it now... And I also feel the necessity for it.

It isnt as easy as simply removing the custom systems and whatnot.
A lot of classic, both the big parts down to the smallest of detail would have to be rebuilt to support default HD and movement.
Most of the GC events and tools involving any HD or movement would have to be restructured to work around default, and as we saw with the introduction of clientside HD. Even after being set up for default HD, it would alter the way most events are played, especially CTF, as we have already scene with introduction of clientside HD, which more closely resembled default HD than serverside did.
It wasn't exactly a transistion for the better, since CTF relies on players able to kill each other relatively easily. To both hold up any sort of flag defense and more importantly, being able to kill a flagcarrier who is trying to not be killed. This caused so much of an uproar in CTF that the HD was made toggleable in GC events, and mostly left to serverside.

But I digress, the main point is, it isn't a simple flick of a switch, any conversion to default systems would require exceptional amounts of scripting manpower. Not exactly what Classic has a lot of. If the little amount scripting power that we do have were diverted to reconstructing classic to handle default systems, I could see the project going into years, as in plural. All the while, development on Classic would completely stagnante, as you can't really go on and make anything worthwhile, as your scripting team is busy converting, remember?

As for the old levels before NPC server? That would take even more time than converting the current classic to default.
Fun fact: GTA as of 2004 contained over five THOUSAND levels, remember, it is over 6 years of content.
A vast majority of these levels are in gs1 of varying quality and age, and are not converted to work with the npc server.
This means all 5000+ levels would have to be converted to at LEAST clientside/serverside functionality, as well as removing and updating depreciated scripting commands.
A very thankless task to do by the way, you can barely find people that want to convert levels now for using on Classic, much less Classic as it existed in 2004 in its entirety. It isn't a fun job to convert levels, and in the end, you are left with an end product that contains none of your original work, none of your own creativity.
Needless to say, while many people say they're going to do it, help out and convert some levels, they never do stick around to do it. It is simply not fun at all to do, if you say converting levels to work with the npc server is fun, I would call you a liar. Honestly, find me a team that is capable enough, and large enough, to convert 5000 levels in a respectable time period, people that will actually stick it through one painful level after another.

Oh.

Well said, well said.

with other words, we will have to settle with the fact nothing is gonna change.
Thank you.

so basically, changing to default hd is a bad idea?

I'm not going to write a big post considering I have little time to do so, but I will say that players want the original HD back for things such as sparring/pking. I agree CTF and most multiplayer events are better with the serverside HD, but events aren't the major thing on Classic. Even if you can't keep serverside HD with a switch back to default, people adjust over time and the game keeps on going.

did u read dc post before posting this

Even the GC's can no longer keep the server intact. Classic is now in a state of collapse.

@ Laura.

Don't think he said it was a bad idea; I think he said it would simply take a very long time and we don't have the dev. resources to devote to it right now.

@ Mystic.

"Event's aren't the main thing on Classic"....

You have been playing Classic the past 3 years, haven't you? Events have been the only thing on classic. Sparring/pking are extra activities that people (used to) do from time to time. But lets no kid ourselves; events have long been the lift support of classic. However, it isn't working anymore. I disagree with pulling the plug (in this case, don't ask about irl b/c thats another story,) because I hope things can get better. But we don't have a lot of time before things will become irreversibly hopeless.

As for the HD, neither server nor client are perfect; this is obvious. I haven't used default much, but apparently everyone loves it so hey w/e. If we can pull it off while still adding onto classic, then go for it. If we can't, then we're better off just trying to improve classic, at least imo.

^^^

I love how egotistical the GCs are when a good percentage of players who log on to Classic don't play the events being hosted anyway.

And why is that?

Are the events being hosted boring?

Would the players rather be doing something else?

Why, when people beg for events, do they not join events and try to have some fun?

Someone throw in some thoughts on why people don't join events, because sometimes it just makes me scratch my tail.

Yes. Do you read any posts before giving your unproductive input? Nope.

@Glad: You and I both know GC shouldn't be the main show on this server. It has been for the past 3 years. The end result is that GC has now ran out of it's juice. Why? Maybe it's because Night logs on very sporadically. Maybe it's because the GC prizes suck and no new ones will be made/released until tickets are fixed. Or probably because we over hosted CTF to the point it's what the server now relies on.

Also, the GC's are not egotistical. If we hosted what everybody wanted, it would be the same 1-2 events and people would start hating those too. Personally I think Classic has a number of great events that people don't give a chance too. I try to join every event, even if it is not what I asked for. *shrugs*

Also, Classic was not created with the HD solely in mind imo. Doubtfully a level maker said "Hmm serverside HD functions like this so I shall place this tile here". I agree some events have been made with how the HD acts in mind, and only have been great on that, but it's pretty possible to adjust to a new HD.

IMO players can adjust to a certain level, but sometimes its just impossible to adjust for every single flaw in a system. No matter how hard I try to adjust or how many games I play, clientside is going to screw me over from time to time, as will serverside.

All true but please read the following quote.


Couldn't have said it better myself! (Thank you Rufus for posting a relevent quote by Dusty.)

Classic should break down the work in what is to be done. For example spars, events, Angel Clan, etc. The work starts from the top.

• Administration.

Needs to break up the work and focus on a peice by peice at a time, with the big picture in mind.

• Things to do list.

The current staff and new hires should be made aware that there is a 'things to do list'. For example:

1. New HD in all Spar Rooms----------------------------Whichever staff is assigned, and last date to work on it.
2. New HD in Angel Clan--------------------------------contego 05/13/09
3. Update all Spar Room scripts (AFTER new HD.)--------Whichever staff is assigned, and last date to work on it.
4. New event project (In new HD.)----------------------Whichever staff is assigned, and last date to work on it.
5. Update the ________ quest to work with default HD.--Whichever staff is assigned, and last date to work on it.
6. New economy item.----------------------------------Whichever staff is assigned, and last date to work on it.
7. New gani's (shift h.)----------------------------------Whichever staff is assigned, and last date to work on it.
8. New emots (ctrl n.)----------------------------------Whichever staff is assigned, and last date to work on it.

People should indicate if they are working on the project and post results daily, if possible, as to the last date they worked on it. Keep the 'things to do list' minimal but always keep it up and current.

• Deligation (key.)

Help is definitely appreicated by your staff but it's more important to make sure people have something to do. Dev Admin should be developing work for people rather than developing the game itself (i.e. CTF Sumo).

• Assurance.

Many will need to know that what they are working on is important.

• Team Building.

Keep posting and looking for more help. Have someone go out and pound the pavement looking for talent.

A large enough team can be put together to make a difference and get Classic in the right direction.

Otherwise this will only lead Classic into a tail chasing syndrome.

*All of the above are things I've experienced hands on and learned from my degree in Management Studies.

i'd just like to say that i'm done playing classic.. the HD is just ridiculous, i bid you good day classic

i have nothing against you or this post, its just saying that putting default hd back would request alot of work and talented dev to do that, but i like the part u say we need to convert quest at default(the baddy atk range is a joke)
but should leave clientside in some spar rooms.

:rolleyes:

6000*

I think I've said this before... it's unlikely that the MAJORITY of them have that kind of complexity. I'd be willing to bet that it's not even half. All of them aren't even necessary at first. It really would NOT take that long to get something reasonable done if the proper tools (scripts for baddies and other various frequently-used things) existed. Too bad all of those tools don't even exist on the CURRENT server yet. I wonder where the problem is.

Problem #1 IMO:

Getting enough people together and getting them organized into an efficient work force, and then keeping them motivated for the however many months it would take.

Also not counting the reused scripts that you could mass find and replace.

Yeah, there would be a whole lot of "if(playerenters){ play stef1.mid; }". The biggest problem last time I took a wrench to it was, of all things, SIGNS. Still don't know why Stefan decided they all had to be serverside-only...

Somewhere I've probably still got that java app that'll do all the mass-replacing for you...just a question of putting the right tweaks on it...

And from recent experience, a big stumbling block is that Baddies are a pain in the butt...if I could get some official backing on making a public generic template Baddies script we could probably hammer out a damn good one and make Graal a better place server regardless, but meh.
Problems with baddies:
they're either mostly serverside or mostly clientside.
Clientside Baddies, you can get a real smooth movement with 0.05 timeouts and everything - but to everyone else, you're swinging at nothing, while on Their screen They're getting nommed by the baddie...there's no way to get everyone chipping away at the same baddie, teamwork is impossible.
Serverside Baddies, you can all chip away at the same health bar and you all see it in the same place, but you're counting on the server to calculate movement and all that...it's kind of a pain in the butt.

The zombies I was working on for Insomnia had a fun little hybrid; the Server handled the health, targetting and movement, but the clients handled animating the movement. I never ironed it all out, but the theory goes: Serverside the baddy patrols from here to here in this much time, so let's just jump this invisible NPC to the end and wait until that time. Clientside, the baddy reads in where it's supposed to be, and where it was last displayed, and when it's supposed to get there, and calculates its next position, then shows itself at that location (with some clevar showani code-fu). Then based on its virtual clientside location, it determines if that means it just got hit by the player, or if the player just got hit by it, and does the usual song and dance. Upshot: the server runs one pretty simple script every few seconds to maybe every half a second (when actively chasing a player), but every client sees perfectly smooth baddy movement and can interact with it pretty much laglessly.

Downside is, you can't use default arrows I don't think. Unless there's a way for a clientside script to read the arrows[i].x etc....

NOOO, I'm going to miss saying Ares god of war.

Problems or Challenges, all the same but I prefer to call them challenges.

Challenege #1 is really getting the current staff on board that there is an issue that we need to work out, without having anymore excuses on why they shouldn't do it.

Challenege #2 is basically ongoing development, in general. If you've got the organization then the rest can be put together.

Getting people together isn't an issue if you're creative. Finds way to attract talent.

Why would someone want to work for Classic?
What does Classic offer it's current staff as an incentive?

I know it can be done, but I don't know if it's going to be.

Challenge #3 is finding these hypothetical prizes that will make Classic matter again. Getting Unixmad to say it's going to be the Official Free Newbie Server again and it can have its own website at adventure.graal.com/ would be something...

There have been posts previously posted about why devers wouldn't want to come to classic for various reasons. There have also been previous posts on how our team isn't large enough to fully commit to this project.

There also have been several posts reiterating the same thing for pages and pages!

I think Classic should be placed automatically to the top of the playerworlds in the serverlist. It will draw more attention, and since its where graal started, it deserves the position. Although I don't think it deserves this unless they try to workout some of classics current flaws.

I've said this somewhere before, but I think that they should get rid of "Gold" servers as the subscription price is an all-in-one package, and replace it with "Official" servers. Classic, Zone, Graal Kingdoms, and Graal2001 if it returns could all be placed under that heading. Those servers would then get the additional "official" status that people claim it needs.

Hm.. tbh I think I'd rather see a merger somehow of taking the best of each server and merging them into one. Then duplicating the server itself when over popultion becomes an issue. Just like an other successful online game.

We'd hire GPs, ET's (GC's), FAQ, and other Admins for each server.
And make sure they are customer service oriented.

Make the Developers; Level, Scripting, GFX, Coding, and Gani's all globals so therefore whatever is done with one server is being done to all of them. These folks should have a global recognition for the hard work they do.

Content would be the same for each server and therefore there will be more focus on each server/Graal development. And the community would grow.

This would be a very large project and it'd be important to take a couple key people from each exsiting server and form a 'focus group' to discuss ideas on how to merge everything onto one server. Both unixmad and Stefan should be present for the meetings.


This would take Graal to a whole new direction. However even if we had all hands on deck for this major project, it would probably still not be completed until after summer of 2010.

Sorry this thread isn't really relevent to the topic at hand because it's focusing more on Graal overall rather than Classic. x_x

guys if i ever win the lottery i'll buy graal and make it free to play, i'll save graal..

god bless ares

We should start a Graal Classic lottery ticket pool just for this cause.

Ares, you'd be paying a very very high amount.

Could probably pay some professionals to make a better version for less.

hmm i wonder how many votes its gonna take for it to take effect