Well said.

I'd agree with 3D, but the other things are good exposure for little or no cost (except of course the website doesn't aid exposure much if at all. Infact, in its current state I'd say the exposure gained it somewhat wasted when it arrives at such a weird website. There are so many things flashing and animated that it reminds me of 888.com, and I've never used the site, but their adverts are equally movement orienated!)

I have a question. Has Graal's overall population been declining or increasing over the last few years?

EDIT: Talking ingame only not forums.

It's down about 50 or so from a year ago (according to statistics.graal.us). But, that looks like it is within the normal fluctuation of playercount. From what I see, Graal does not seem to be gaining or losing players at an alarming rate.

can it be determined how many active players there are?

You never know because they never disclose important financial information at all. They could be in the slumps and suddenly have to close Graal tomorrow and we'd never know because they don't give us even the slightest clue how well their income is with Graal.

It does seem like Stefan is getting bored with working on Graal though... a few years ago he seemed to enjoy making changes to Graal, adding onto and such. Now he seems bored with it and only does it because he has to.

I'm sure Stefan has other games he works on.

As a few people said, and I've said in the past, if they just developed an awesome playerworld and actually stuck with it, it WOULD bring in a lot of customers.

I've never heard of any other games Stefan has worked on... and I'm not talking servers. I mean, there was Fairyland or whatever, but I dunno if Stefan was coder of that too.

Either way, it seems Graal has transitioned to a chore to Stefan instead of a profitable hobby. I could be completely wrong though as I can't claim to know Stefan on any sort of personal level.

Don't they only have 3 physical servers?
And I figure their total data transfer rate is about 3000GB a month, so I don't see how they couldn't be making a decent amount of money, even with all the stupid decisions they've made.

Well according to Unix and stuff, they're just trying to 'put bread on the table' or so. I don't think Unix is being honest when he says that though... but like I said, who knows! While most companies give financial statements and all, it's not unlike Graal to keep it all hidden.

Pretty sure Stefan wasn't even involved with that. Unixmad owned a license for it or something but he was removed from that project or something.

I remember Graal use to average around 700... now its 530.

Please note: this is just my opinion, i do love graal and want to see it do well. So no flaming please, my opinion is based off what i remember when i used to play. anyway...

I have just logged on for the first time in 6 or so years since i last played graal and its charm is still here (kind of at least) but it hasnt changed at all. That isnt really a bad thing but its really the community that made the game for me (and i believe is a make or break thing for modern mmo's). Back in its prime, graal was popular, having a huge player base but now the mmo environment has opened up and competitors have come in and changed the landscape while graal hasnt changed at all. I dont think it can compete with all current mmorpgs even the 2d ones (especially all the free ones). Now that there are so many mmo's out there for a player to choose what makes graal a cut above the rest? the game needs to be looked at from a business/marketing perspective (and im no expert).

I think the iphone application is great idea. Its fresh territory for mmorpgs that needs to be capitalized on and in turn it will draw players to the pc version. Unfortunately graal isnt being developed on by a huge team like other mmorpgs that it competes with and thats understandable. So rather graal should take a different approach then other mmo's that will give it a competitive advantage. Graal should focus mostly on what i loved about when i first played, not the content itself but the ability to make your own player world.

Not many others offer what graal can in terms of players being able to put there own stuff online easily. Improving player world development should be graal's means of competition and i think if marketed new players will respond. While i dont know what has changed over the last 6 years I think that focusing on player development and improving the quality and means by which they can do it will make graal stand out and draw more players. Now i must stress i dont know how the business end works for stefan/unixmad and i believe that game isnt making them rich but i think the pricing model needs to change (if possible to keep the game alive).The game needs to be free to draw in players (my opinion) so it can stay competitive. Playerworld development should be the means of making money (i remember something similar being tried back in the day). Maybe through off once payments for space or a cash shop for addons for playerworlds (just ideas coming to mind). Ultimately we need to look at other similar mmorpgs, what there doing in terms of pricing and quality. Anyway again all my opinion based off what i know from a while back. thanks for reading all that.

I completely agree with you except for not focusing on content and more on players making content, because that is a big contribution as to why Graal hasn't really moved forward.

:fro:

Thanks for reading my view, im not the best at getting my message across clearly hence the long read. I think the content is important but the content i think needs lesser focus would be zone, kingdoms, 3d, casino games etc (assuming thats got the teams full attention). I do believe the game engine itself should be a focus. (if thats what you meant).

I think that by making it free (and even easy to put up there own stuff) more players will join (with some marketing too) and alot more content for playerworlds will be developed.

But i definitely do get what your saying.

I agree with smooth criminal, for the most part. Shame it doesn't really matter how right you are on this game.

P.S are you the smooth criminal from Delteria?

What I dislike is, that its impossible to create a server from scratch.

The standard tiles just and easy were used a billion times too much and its pretty hard to get other gfx content, same holds true for sprites and similar things - this could be the reason for many playerworlds failing, as other then coding or lating, creating nice graphics is nearly impossible to learn without a good amount of talent.

So why don't make more out of it then just a engine? Regular added Spritesheets, Graphics and Tilesets could make the whole situation better and would lead more playerworlds to success, instead of 100 playerworlds bought and 98 failing because of the lack of gfx.

=> Create a GFX pool and Script pool
=> More playerworlds will succeed
=> More content, and probaply more players

Why? Because a team of 2 guys could have a real chance to create something good, other then 2 guys right now, who would need more companions to really start something successfull. Right now, it's close to impossible or impossible to find a good gfxer who is not already working for ten other playerworlds or just working for money.

I did used to play/work there as a lat/gat years ago so it could be me your thinking of however i didnt always go by my username and i believe somewhere on graal there was a user named "smoothcriminal" so im not sure.

Dude your right on the money. However i believe that good graphics artist dont see graal as a viable option to get there work out there. Player base is low compared to other games and it costs money to play/host your own work. I think if that were to change, more quality artists/coders etc would see graal as a worthwhile platform.

Also if the pricing was to change and as a result more players joined then more quality peoples would result.

You are soo right with making more then just an engine. couldnt agree more.

The Graal engine needs more work methinks. It's not very good encouragement for scripting when the engine never gets updates to add features that would be useful. Of course, there are often serverside updates but that is not good enough, there needs to be client updates too.

Being able to draw tiles over players has been requested for forever and it hasn't been done yet. If Graal wants players to make quality servers it needs to provide quality tools, not stuff that is never updated like the level editor and RC. If Stefan would just give us an API to work with then stuff would come a lot easier. Either that or hurry up and finish the external scripted windows.

I agree. Especially about giving an API to us.

well at the rate the prices will be going up in the next few years, i dont think it'll have many players anymore.

I don't see why everyone doesn't come together and make a server.

Because the ideas about the server would differ too much.
It would be impossible to get a common denominator.

And common skills.
Everyone's different.

Everyone comes up with these "great" server ideas. They never even make it to the hosted server. It seems like common sense to band together and create the perfect server.

Kay, go recruits some people that are 10 yrs old and that just discovered internet, teach them, take them in the band, AND GOGOGO !

I agree, it would be the perfect statue dedicated to mediocrity. In its hands, the statue would hold a fi****l of ripped pieces of paper representing fragmented ideas and concepts.

Coming together to make a good server is not impossible, it simply requires someone who's good at managing a development project and inspiring people to join in.

As far as the API goes, methinks Stefan should create a DLL that parses GS1 or GS2 script. The DLL would provide callbacks that your program would use to know when to load a tileset or a gmap or do something else. That way none of the GS2/GS1 meat would be revealed.

Such a great idea :megaeek:

I don't development I'm just saying I've seen some good developers but they're all working on something different.

I think forming a great development is difficult unless you have a group of close friends that can help benefit each area. Also, all of those people would need the same interest in building a server, such as some may want the original Classic Graal, a Modern Server, or RPG server.

Some people like to be recognized for their work as well, and then there's some that like to help out and develop. But you also have to realize that the community isn't helping either. Those who want to create a server are creating it for the complainers.

For example, if you've played Zodiac, you probably would've noticed that its impossible to please everyone.

Stefan doesn't want to create a Classic Server because he's more interested in Graal Kingdoms and possibly future Graal 3D.

You see what I mean? And no one is getting paid to develop a server. You're paying TO RENT/DEVELOP a server. You think anyone wants to sit in MSPaint and GraalEditor.exe all day? No, they would rather chat on RC.