I agree to a point, and Spark at one point was working on a "new player guide" of sorts... kind of a "get the client here, pick a server like so, enjoy!" sort of thing, apparently fairyland has one?

Anyway, I agree the project should be completed, and it would be nice if the client supported registering without visiting the website - I don't imagine that would be very hard, and usually games I download that have this feature I always create an account for.

Noone cares.

An easy way to subscribe, some noob tutorials (in game, or flash would be cool). Flash tutorial for ganis, scripting, level designing, etc, all accessible from either the home page, or the client.

Not a bad idea there, that last bit.

Mine says 2006.
and i created this account in 2001.
and my very first account like 2 years before that.

I joined the forums late.
and there were more than 250 ppl online on classic.

If you find a server with gameplay tell me for I can download graal again.

Heresy of the day:
I don't think Classic Ever had what it took. I think we all started playing it because it was free and we didn't have anything better to do. Then there were plenty of bug-filled and mislinked levels to explore, as long as we were bored - and some of us compiled lists of things to fix someday, and some of us critiqued, and some of us PKed, and some of us made vast websites about whatever our view was, and some of us tried to improve it - but mostly because Graal was like Solitaire, but more interesting.

Then it moved into P2P - thank the gods with a One Time Fee, so it was in the neighborhood of Nintendo games instead of in with City of Whatsits and World of Warboats and Final Fantastic Online (I know what they are, I'm being sarcastic) - "Well, I could dust off the old SNES and play Zelda3, or I guess I could play Graal instead...bah, I'm already online and there's less wires involved."

That's why I think Gold never really took off. That's why I think the playercount hasn't rebounded, no matter how good the content gets on any given server - and mind, none of the servers thus far have been PublishMe good, they all get mired down by competition - not least competition for Stefan's attention, everyone clambering for tools they can't do without (or would rather not script around just to find Stefan makes the tool they need two months later, smoother, cleaner, and with less lag - like Projectiles and Move Scripts after we'd been using x+=0.5;timeout=0.05; forever and a day)

But that's a little mean. Can Graal produce a game that can compete on even footing with other one-fee MMOs? Can Graal produce a game that can compete with Monthly-Fee MMOs? Probably, I just don't foresee one rising out of this particular petri dish. Maybe if the servers worked together...Maybe if Graal had a united front again...in some utopian Graal world, where you could hop on RC and ask the #GScript channel "How do I do paralax?" and they say "Hang on a sec...okay, here's a function UseParalax(x,y,image,ratio), and if Stefan ever hardcodes it you can just delete the function and calls to UseParalax will work the same way." That'd be nice, but I can't see anyone volunteering that much time and energy to the ether - and I can't see any PW giving up their closely-guarded secret to their rival servers, when Graal doesn't encourage any servers to call themselves Brothers.

But I talk too long. I have answers, I have said them, and now I question in circles...but when Graal gives servers their own frontend to bring players in, it will all begin.

You know what'd be nice? To develop for any server you want, whenever you want. To start off making a pirate baddy, screw up the movement script slightly and wind up with one that slides around the world, and instead of abandoning it as a screwup you finish it as a Penguin baddy for a different server...maybe it's just me, but whenever I was working on Classic I noticed everyone had ideas that were decidedly Not Classic, but if they didn't make it there they weren't gonna make it anywhere. Little things, like fixing the eischerian (you can see all 4 walls slanting off) overhead view of houses...not Classic, but not wrong. Yet it wound up on Classic anyway, and half the houses were Eischerian and the other half were BomyMoon style.

I dunno, maybe servers can forge alliances. It'd be cool if like, I dunno, FutureWorld and MidevalWorld and CavemanWorld and JumpmanWorld worked together. "If it's useful on both servers, upload it on both servers. If it's the wrong perspective for Futureworld, maybe the other worlds want it. If it's too high-tech for CavemanWorld, maybe the other worlds can use it..." But that might not work either, everyone playing and noone taking responsibility...nobody willing to develop what the server Needs, only what they Want to make...

i agree with tyhm's point about pre-p2p

Seriously Tyhm, wakeup from your dream. Organize your thoughts instead of mindlessly rambling.

I don't feel like reading your novels you call posts.

Let's look at Google...
google Graal, you get Graal... wonderful, nobody would ever think to type in Graal though.
google Zelda, you might eventually come upon how Zelda Online became Graal Online, etc.
google MMORPG, you won't really find any particular MMORPG. Instead a lot of websites that link to MMORPGs, and Cyberjoueurs has already visited them.
google the title of a graal server, you can get something with valikorlia, delteria, zenkou, maloria... etc. However, once again, who's going to look for that?
google UGCC.... yikes

look up graal fan sites... uhhhhhh, that doesn't look pretty.

I think that people originally came upon Zelda Online fairly easily (Zelda is a good search word, and Graal was linked to by many Zelda fan sites). The fact that it was free also helped. Hey, why not try something if it's free?

Right now, Graal Online lacks fansites and comparisons to other games, something that it used to have. So it's quite difficult to run upon Graal Online anymore. I mean, promoting Graal Fansites needs to be a priority for Graal Online. It would actually be beneficial to Graal for fans to mention other games they like. Maybe make a contest for best Graal Fansite with some kind of prize?

Look up four graals on google... hmmm... this is interesting...
http://onewomansmind.net/west/celts.html

graal's fan sites would be the same childish happy happy WE LOVE GRAAL NO NEGATIVE COMMENTS HERE ^____________^ crap over and over anyway.

graal needs to fix itself first

Yeah when I ran my topsites there was an obvious decline in sites, but there wasn't in the past, I remember all those geocities and tripod sites that had npc's etc, they were fun.

I dunno that we can do anything about Graal's listing on Google...methinks it's gonna have to be advertising in one form or another. If Graal's payment system restructures enough that it can call itself "Free" again, that'll open a lot of doors...something like Passwording, but Stefan said that's neither happening nor necessary, so I guess we'll see...

But if Graal can call itself shareware, then yeah, we can start talking topsites again. In the meantime, I don't see the point.

Well, I'm not talking about improving Graal's listing on Google. You google Graal, you get Graal. I think unixmad's policy of not letting players talk about other MMORPGs might be backfiring because then when people look up other games, they might stumble upon someone who plays Graal mentioning something about the game they're looking for and they might in turn develop an interest in Graal.

I think it's more than that which is killing Graal's popularity. Namely unixmad's policies but that's just a different story. Graal only became so popular because it was free, now it's P2P and they expect the same amount of people to come and pay? Pfft.