Graal Forums - New Graal Website

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- - New Graal Website (https://forums.graalonline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=134256415)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spark910 (Post 1529317)

I'm with Rufus on this one. I came as a player and gained an interest in other things. I think those who are interested in developing or have the potential will naturally try it at some point, but they need to play first.

I guess it depends on your belief of whether people would/do come here as developers from the start. I don't think they do.

In light of that, yes we need developers to get more games. But we need players to become developers, making players the most important part, the developers a natural side effect of increasing the player count.

There is no reason why both couldn't be highlighted on the website, but I believe the player aspect is more important. You need to let people enjoy and get addicted to make someone develop for nothing. People won't come with a passion for Graal and a willingness to help for free from the start. A website that says "GRAAL - DEVELOPMENT PLATFORM - NO TANGIBLE RETURN ON INVESTMENT" won't get developers or players any time soon.

Eitherway, I'd welcome a change. I was excited, and now a little disappointed, as I thought the website had actually changed or was about to within a short space of time :p

Well, a lot of people are very interested in "developing their own game," but they don't quite know how. It's very attractive to someone to provide a somewhat easy development platform. Once we get better documentation and video tutorials (which we already started doing on testbed), it should be quite a lot better.

You make a really great point about games attracting people to Graal; which is why I certainly agree with not completely leaving the gaming field, but right now Graal is only advertised as a game-- it should be advertised as both.

Also, with the addition of a new website, I believe it could provide more motivation for developers (myself included) to work harder to improve other aspects of Graal too, while the website attracts new players. The other day I showed someone I know the website for Graal, and they were completely confused and turned off by it, if I had not been standing there next to them they would have given up trying to download the client/create an account and would have left the site. I was disgusted to say the least, and it was a huge wakeup call for me.

As you just stated, it's only advertised as a game. I'm sure it would attract more and more people if it was advertised as a development platform. So, uh, been a long time I didn't try my skills at S.Vegas, let's see what I can come with.

Any essential points you'd like to precise in that video?

Quote:

Originally Posted by alexandralove (Post 1529319)

You mean the video tutorial for developers? You could cover (in three separate videos):

- How to get RC
--- How to use it
----- Why it's needed

- How to get GraalShop
--- How to use it
------ What it's used for
--------- How to upload/use your ganis.

- How to get LevelEditor
--- How to use it
------ What it's used for
--------- How to upload/explore your levels.

Some pages that are using content originally from the graal bible should be updated on the graal website such as the graal kingdoms page here and more of the graal development pages from the graal bible should also be moved to the graal webiste.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Luda (Post 1529305)

If you are planning to keep the example videos of playerworlds, please add a ****ing play, pause and stop option.

Especially when my browser will crash if a video is running while I've got the graal client open. It took me a few attempts to get the link I posted above because my browser kept crashing.

I am all for a new website. The one in place now is like it goes to a totally different game, and is very hard to navigate. I really miss the old one from years ago.

i came on graal to dev. riiiiiiiiiight

With this new website, a portal of some sort for player submissions would be nice. Currently we can submit playerworld pictures, but that stopped getting checked awhile ago, i still have 2 pending. Along with this, there could be the recently discussed idea of global graphic submissions again, a code gallery like on these forums for public use ect. This could all be checked by PWA maybe, instead of relying on a single, inactive person to keep up to date with even the smallest of playerbases.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darlene159 (Post 1529322)

I am all for a new website. The one in place now is like it goes to a totally different game, and is very hard to navigate. I really miss the old one from years ago.

I 100% agree, the navigation is garbage, terrible.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matt (Post 1529324)

I like the idea of player-submitted previews, and a "code gallery" for images is an incredibly cool idea if it were incorporated with the website.

This is great, let's get a few more basic ideas for the site, then I can write an outline for a web designer to follow.

I don't know if anybody has brought this up, but it's related to the development platform vs. game thing. Why not have two websites: one targeted towards selling the game, and one targeted towards selling the development platform?

Quote:

Originally Posted by LoneAngelIbesu (Post 1529330)

This would be a great compromise.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LoneAngelIbesu (Post 1529330)

and one targeted towards selling the development platform?

There's quite a few people interested in purchasing the QuattroEngine, but unixmad has not made 1 reply to any of the threads/posts relating to this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LoneAngelIbesu (Post 1529330)

While it would be interested, I think it's important to represent Graal as a whole community, not two separate communities. I don't know exactly what you had in mind though, it could work out quite well if done correctly, but right now I don't think it's an idea that would benefit Graal.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LoneAngelIbesu (Post 1529330)

I was going to suggest this too, but didn't think it'd go down too well. I think it would be an excellent idea, because they're essentially two different markets. I also believe every server that is on the Classic tab (once it has been revised hopefully) should have a home on the Graal player website.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rufus (Post 1529335)

This a good idea, I think each server could have a spot as long as the layout is approved/maintained by someone responsible to ensure that there is nothing bad on there.

Finally the players are speaking because change is needed.