Yeah don't worry guys, it's just the fact that school is impacting the number of players who want access to your game, eventually it will go back up. Don't try to fix it.


Somehow that's an extremely crappy business plan, you sir should not be a CEO.

God, you people are incredibly selfish.

He is right, though.

No, he's not. There's no obligation to advertise on the part of GraalOnline. None, whatsoever.

If you like the game, then you advertise it. If you want the game to succeed, then you need to help it succeed. Get your lips of the royal teat and take some damn responsibility for your own gameplay. This isn't WoW. This is user-driven community. So, start driving.

I was referring more to:

With the following usually applying to, like, any successful MMORPG:

That's exactly what I was referring to, too. We are the marketing agency. We are the advertising agency. GraalOnline doesn't make this game, we do. The sooner you people stop denying responsibility, the sooner this game will get better.

No we're not, and the fact that we are and have been "making this game" should be highly appreciated and more of a novelty, since it's their job to begin with (especially since they started charging people to play on playermade servers and offer very little on their own servers).

Well, it's certainly not our responsibility to advertise their product - but their product seems to be where you're confused (and, undoubtedly, they are as well); they provide a service for people interested in developing games. They provide the servers, the manager tools, the administration, the community to help you, and the environment to develop in.

Sadly, they have lost sight of their game entirely in an attempt to branch their market - essentially thinning their community due to a lack of control and quality updates.

It's not our responsibility, but if a group of us are interested there is certainly nothing to stop us from persuing Graal advertising in our own time. I've run a series of "Graal Online" adWord campaigns to get an idea of Graal's advertising potential. I only put ~$10 a month into it and there was a bit of interest. With highly optimized ads, and a larger budget (~$400/mo) we could certainly see perceptible results.

I've set up the means to measure the result, too. I have been monitoring player actively through a series of MySQL database and logging utilities. The front end needs to be optimized (outdated clunky code atm) but the back end is healthy.

Indeed and it seems everyone who's been calling it a service first and game second has too.

In my opinion it is a service first and a game second - however, the service side is maturely developed where the game side needs more (official) attention. I don't think we need another server, just better support; I don't know about Zone, but I can definitely say that GK has been poorly supported by Cyberjoueurs for years.

Part of the problem is its a 2d game in a realm of 3d games, I know a 3d game that was supposed to come out this month but got pushed back because they have had an estimated 200,000 people that are planning on playing it, bet heh I don't care I'm on the beta release they are having this month

this is one thing everyone can agree on, another problem any 2d game faces is one can go and download some korean game and play for free (with better gfx) then fork over hard earned (or easy depending on the job) cash to stef and unix for graal.

I don't really agree with the topic of your point, but the gist seems to imply there's little incentive - which I do agree with. This is why they need to shift attention from "broadening" (thinning) their markets to quality game content, and (imo) better community support.

It is?

We aren't the marketing agency. We aren't the advertising agency. We aren't any of that.

We are the customers. We are Cyberjourner Clientele. We should NOT have to develop, advertise, and market Graal ourselves to make it succeed. Cyberjourners should be doing that. It's their JOB. We are not getting paid to develop. We are not getting paid to advertise, and we are not getting paid to market Graal. They are. This is a Business. We are part of that business as customers, not employee's.

I mean, I may be sounding harsh, but it's the truth. I'm not here to play Tiddly-wings.

They might feel they have succeeded with their game just by making it available for people to play around with an engine.

No, it's not. Their job is to provide the service and tools, and to ensure it stays functional.

No, because we PAY to develop. It's a hobby, plain and simple, and no one is forcing you to do it. Cyberjoeurs charge for their server and bandwith, like any other hosting company.

No, but if you want your server - your hobby - to become successful, you would advertise to see that happen.

CyberJOUEURS plz ? that's french :) (cyber is english, but joueurs= plural of joueur = a player so cyberjoueurs = cyberplayers)

Btw, I bet they could make a nice advertising campaign if they had a better website, as said before.

I'm ready to start designing it if they want me to :D

Okay what the hell?

You're using conflicting terms here. Graal isn't an engine and therefore a game. It is being sold as a game on the website and as far as anyone is concerned, member or not, it is trying to be a game. The engine might be used on Graal, but that is something they use a different title for when referring to it, and a different website for when they're selling it.

Incorrect. As it is a game and not an open source project, it is their job to provide in every aspect of their product.

There is a difference between developing as a hobby and developing towards a successful server, and there's different reasoning behind both. You make no money from your servers, and every server as a collective is making up this so-called game. Server staff should certainly not be expected to provide advertising as well as game content, that is just ridiculous.

Stop being pedantic. The spelling of what he was talking about had little significance to what he was actually trying to say, and you completely ignored it and tried to look smart. Good job, you just looked like an ass.

It is becoming increasingly aparent that you guys are not aware of what an advertising campaign is. Sure the website is important as a marketing tool as well as everything else, but what do you think you're advertising?

Just trying to tell people about their mistakes :whatever: a company name has to be written properly. And no it had no significance since cyberjourners doesn't mean anything in any language, but I'm not trying to insult anyone that way.

What would you do if a company was actually called cyberjourners ? Stuffs need to be said properly.


Uh, lemme ask you it back.

LOL why are you even trying?

What? You want me to tell you what I think I'm advertising? Nothing, because I didn't suggest the start of an advertising campaign. What do you think should be advertised in this campaign?

I'm not advertising at all, but since that thread is entitled "Graal Advertising" and since we're only talking about ways to advertise graal, I suggest graal should be advertised.

I discovered graal because of advertising on a very poor website that I was just visiting, and that was ages ago. It been the only ads I've seen, back around 2001.

All I can tell (like others) is that now, Graal's website is just ugly, and not related to the game content. I liked the old one way better, just like most people.

The website is a marketing tool, not a part of an advertising campaign. If people like yourself just said what they thought about the matter (like you just did) instead of confusing your words, then we'd get a better resolve perhaps? Who knows.

Having a great website partly shows how great the game is, I mean it would at least show that people working for that game DO care about the website. Seriously it looks like the website been totally rushed, and showing classic characters is totally annoying. Most people are attracted by very designed characters nowadays.

Pink is totally non graal related.

It is an engine that have several playerworlds, aka games, created. On the website it is not sold as a game, however, their playerworlds are being sold. Playerworlds are hosted by the so-called game.

Not every development tool is open source, far from it.

Doesn't change the fact that you yourself make the choice to pay and develop on of those servers, eventually contributing to making the hosting platform even bigger.

A good website has the potential to drive sales. Yes, I agree with you. At the same time, like with advertising campaigns, these functions only act to draw potential players into the game. If the game itself and the overall content is lacking in quality and content depth, players just aren't going to stay, no matter how good the website is. The current website sucks, and I agree with you there too, and while it does need to be more representative of the game, the game needs to represent more of what it can be and what it should be.

Graal is not a game engine. Go have a look at the website, and ask someone for a link to their engine's website. Once you've done that try to suggest otherwise, because the actual company is undermining your argument.

This doesn't even make sense in response to what I said, lol.

What are you talking about? You don't expand a hosting platform by developing content with it; you would expand a game by developing content on it. Perhaps you don't even know your own argument.

What makes you think that Graal is not a game engine? The fact that it advertises Zone, GK and Skills? Please, Rufus, be a little realistic. Playerworlds are the bulk of Graal. People use Graal (GS2 + GraalEditor + GraalShop + Graal Client) to create these playerworlds. Graal is very much a game engine. It just so happens that the company that made it used it to create a few games.

/thread


Thank god that someone else see Graal for what it really is.

Graal is an engine, indeed - but, in agreement with Rufus... it's being presented as a game - even though they're putting most of their effort right now into making it flexible and cross platform so large businesses will consider licensing the engine (servers) or even the product (e.g. "Graal Online: Asia").
Relatively speaking; in comparison to the game, yes.

To clarify some of misconceptions mentioned on the last page - you're not "working for them", you're paying for access to their engine so you may develop your own content. If you happen to be developing content you don't like "for" someone... it was, most likely, under your own decision

They're not asking anyone to advertise for them, and they're certainly not paying for advertising. But I think it's perfectly reasonable for a group of individuals who are interested in advertising Graal to pursue the idea.

Well, I agree with Rufus and Stephen here on most points.

However:


Graal currently is marketed as a game, and most people play it for the game (i.e., not everyone on a server is developing).

To specify the problem though, the marketing does not emphasize the community-driven servers. I think this is where it breaks down the most.

If Cyberjouers were to show that everything is made by players for the players, it may prove to be more effective than advertising the gold servers, the skills game, and a whole bunch of other stuff that will only avert attention away from what basically made Graal successful in the first place (playerworlds).


As Stephen said, Graal is only "thinning" their market by trying to appeal to multiple niches; they only end up neglecting them all in the process.

In terms of which niche has more potential (gold servers, playerworlds, skills, iphone, 3d), that's another argument.


The fact of the matter is that Cyberjouers has to focus on a niche if they want to get a stable and large playerbase (which is essential in any MMORPG).

No it's not, look on their website - they are promoting their servers, says nothing about Graal being a game.

You can't possibly be that delusional. The reality of the situation is that if you look at the homepage (graalonline.com) it is in fact listed as a game all over the place. Only once is the ability to create your own mentioned. Even after clicking on one of the main selections of the page for more information, the aspect of Graal that receives priority in descriptions tells us that it's a game that secondarily offers custom creation features. I'd say in this case that common sense disproves your shortsighted theory.

GraalOnline.com.


First impressions:

Graal Zone: A futuristic 2D battle game
Playerworlds: Create your own game
Graal Skills: Huge resource of casual games
Graal Kingdoms: An adventurous MMORPG


I'm the one with the shortsighted theory? I just think the majority of us oldbies are overlooking Graal's new marketing strategy, because we're too stuck in the early days of it.

Graal is being advertised as a game portal, and most of you are too blind or ignorant to see it.

I'm not oblivious to Graal's current marketing strategy because I'm an oldbie. I'm just calling it like I see it: A game first, development platform second.

Even while the majority of your post reinforces my original statement you falsely attempt to call others blind and/or ignorant. In your case, I suppose there are just none so blind as he who will not see.

How many new players join Graal to play it as a game? How many new players join it to develop content? How many new players join to play Graal as a game but get worn down by the lack of content and end up being forced to develop in order to have fun? Hell, even I did and I'm not a new player.

Rofl.

I think you are just arguing about semantics. My point was that CyberJouers markets "playing", and that most people are here to "play".

Whether it be a series of games, a game portal, or a game.

Either way, that wasn't at all the point of my post, I was just trying to point out I am writing under that analysis of CyberJouers' current marketing strategy.

I would like to mention that you guys are going off topic by arguing about what kind of service graal is (game, engine or whatever you guys said) This thread was made to talk about the advertisement of Graal which would greatly help, even if it was just some words and a picture on some random game site, even the smallest ads to attract any amount of players is good and if people want to put their own time into it they can, not as if anyone has been forced upon to do this. Right?

If Stefan and his team are too lazy to make advertisements for their own game then its their problem because it will cause them to earn less and have a lower player count which isn't our problem (if we don't want to help then why have it as one of our problems?) though it may affect us in many ways, with the server eventually going down but it isn't our fault (because we decided not to contribute our own little parts into a enjoyable game, engine whatever it is) but if we can contribute in our own ways to helping the game then why not? (it isn't our responsibility but we should still contribute to a game which we all have enjoyed.)

Anyway I'm saying that Graal can be advertised by us as much as it can be by Stefan and his team, it isn't neither their responsibility nor ours but a choice we make to help benefit a once great game which can be made great again with contributions from both us and stefan's team.

As for the website it should be fixed and merged together to show Graal Gold Services as the main attraction along with the playerworlds and being able to develop in the background as a bonus you get with playing Graal and even the crappy little pixel characters may suck and look like ulgy pieces of ****s it won't matter it just depends on how you decide to show it, you can make crappy little pixels look good by adding them to certain situations and using your imaginations a bit, I would be more then happy to contribute to a new website picture if wanted.

This is all really good! Too bad unixmad and Stefan and whoever else don't care! They just make you pay to work and make servers for their own benefit. Everyone who develops and works for a server is a slave! Muahahaha! If I had it my way all player owned servers would be free and all servers developed by the games creators would quite possibly be actual good servers. Oh, and yes I would give lifetime playerworld access! (But of course the servers created by graalonline would be considered gold servers so you would have to pay for gold. AND THEY WOULD BE GOOD SERVERS! = D)

And then we would all join hands, in a circle of peace which encompasses the globe.


rite?

Only if GraalOnline agrees to work and create the "join hands" gani. But that might be too much work for them. : [

Before Graal went full P2P this was the system in place. Gold servers were developed by Graal Online, the others were Classic (free). Of course there were other perks to being Gold (no wait times on certain servers to log in, and Gold servers had access to certain script commands not available to anyone else). Too bad this wasn't enough to keep them afloat.