It can stay the same, development went in the wrong direction.

Can you perhaps back up your claims with reasons as to why it would be so simple to put everything back as it was?
It's not like the issue is down to upload speed, it's to do with compatability.

By simply upload a later version where it had the original HD and levels. Stefan has the back ups.

Like I said, there might be some work to do with this, but the fact stands, Classic staff is there to do work on Classic. Hense the staff position.

Do you have an issue doing work for Classic?

We both want the same thing,
but if you think it's a matter of simply reuploading it all you are mistaken,
and yes, it would require such an amount of work that the workload is an issue in itself, what would be wrong with bringing back the Default Systems, restoring only a small patch of the old Overworld and expanding outwards gradually and strategically according to an actual adventure server plan that incorporates the best parts of old Classic?

I can help with the damn Pyramid Quest, I KNOW I got that backed up here somewhere...and since you guys redid Pushing/Pulling, easy peasy...

The problem with "just have Stefan restore an old backup" is that's how we keep running into problems with things like the Peen Lake version of Graal; new guard wipes the old server, spends two years getting up to the same level of completion that the old guard had, then the next guard starts over again.....

are we really beating this dead horse over and over again.

you really have no sight of what made classic glorious.
sure, if you could pull the IMPOSSIBLE, which is find a large team of people willing to convert all 1K+ levels of GTA as it existed pre npcserver, which would allow for default HD to work properly(as GTA was built for it), it would take 1-2 YEARS to pull off such a large project.

Realistically, it would take even longer because such a team would be impossible to create. Sure, you would have a ton of people saying "oooh i'll help convert back old classic", then they'd do a few levels and realize what boring, repetitve, and thankless work converting a server from pre npcserver really is. A side effect is, that you would be reverting the server back to gs1 scriptingwise(converting gs1 scripts to meet the serverside/clientside guidelines is still gs1), which is exceptionally inferior to code with.

So you spend these nonexistant dev resources, the limited amount of time, to bring back what exactly?
All the people that vote for 'old gta' to come back, refer to a number of different versions that have existed over the years. Some people that mean bring back old classic mean bring back 1.2x or 1.3x, some mean bring back 1.4x, some mean bring back 2.x or 3.x and on and on and on. Which means when you bring back whatever old classic gets brought back, all the other people who wanted the older or newer version get pissed, and you're left with even more complaining than you started with.

Go ahead, try to agree what set of levels and overworld brought life to this server. The answer is none of them, because all of you are too damn blind to realize what made classic what it was. It wasn't some damn set of levels, it was a damn community. You logged on for the people, for your friends, not some crappy levels that looked like they got put together with a staple gun.

It may be hard to cope with, but classic as it was is gone, and will never exist again, because the community that oldbies like us that stuck it out and didnt leave completely, well, we're the only ones left. When we started playing this game, we were in our teens, we were growing up, playing online kid games.

This is now, we're in our 20s(im 23 going on 24 for crying out loud), maybe even some of us in our 30s, and this game just doesnt appeal to the majority of the oldbies anymore. Phantasm, hoss, Lyndzey, i could keep going on, but all those oldbies that have long since disappeared have disappeared because they've become adults, they've built there lives, started their careers, started their families maybe, but Graal will probably no longer be a part of their lives, and bringing back some levels or even a HD isn't going to bring them back. They had their good times, they had their friends and their experiences, but times have changed, people have aged, it isn't the same as it was back then. If you need another Graal 2000(for oldbies that remember that server and how that crashed and burned, I know Tyhm does) server to show you old levels dont generate a community and fun, so be it.

The fact is that community builds a server, and thats what UN is built on for example, their community, should their server go down for a long enough period of time that their community fractures to other servers, if it was brought back, it probably wouldnt survive. This is an MMORPG, the staple of which is that you have people and a community to interact with, and thats what we should be working on building now, and bringing back close to 6 year old levels(or 9 for the people gunning for 2000 pack) isn't going to bring in anything. You might get a few people to come back for nostalgia, but they wont last long, its been done before on Graal 2000, it was done when Bomy Moon was brought back under Lance.

Levels alone do not make a server, nostalgia alone does not make a server, community and quality developed methods to play and interact with that community is what makes servers.

I know you miss the good days, I know I miss them too, but trust me, levels and a HD aren't going to bring the old days back, not even remotely. We have to take it within ourselves to make new memories instead of lamenting about the past being gone.

Edit: As for uploading GTA right before it went NPC server, as I recall, that server had a playercount of nearly 30. Is that really the 'ticket to success' thats going to make everything better.

Classic was dying long before the npc server ever came into play, besides p2p obviously, try to figure out why.

Edit 2: This was mainly to comment on the old levels, the HD situation is a new can of worms thats hard to address.

Your post contradicts the poll ratings, enough said in response to your trashing any attempt to work.

To be honest, your opinion is null because you are not a player, you are staff. Look to what the players are asking.

I have been local, global, and created a server. I actually speak from experience. I have that notch on my belt.

In more simple terms DC, you are one of the staff that are not producing for Classic. Enough excuses, either step up for Classic or step down, period.
.

little more positivity little less negativity dark cloud

If that poll were public where you could see the names, it would be half people who dont play here and will never play here, and the other half of people looking for change in any direction. I know that the people want old GTA, the old everything, I wouldnt mind having the old HD if it were easily put back in(its not that simple to just throw it in there).

I'm just realistic contego.
I miss old classic just as much as you, but where are we going to get the man power to convert such a large scale project? What version of the old classic is the 'right' one? How long will it take before people start eventually tearing apart the old levels to rebuild them into what they think looks better, which always happens?

I'm not trying to put you down for wanting all the old stuff back, if it were logically possible to go back in time and do that, I would, but it simply just isn't feasible. Look at what happened the last time this happened. People didn't like what classic during the second half of Tyhm's reign was turning into, everyone hated heras, the pyramid quest, the movements of staple areas. They whined and complained, so they got what they wanted that time.
They got Graal 2000, if everyone remember that, and it completely blew up on the launchpad. Similarly it happened when people cried for 2k1 to come back, so it came back(unfourtunately with the new bodies), it expanded and then failed hard in the course of 2 weeks.

A major concern i have with all the work that was "supposed to have been done" was only personal levels for people from rommel and also ventrue guilds, just today i have wandered a large collection of maps made mostly for people in the rommel guild, and i'm STILL walking around in the even larger collection of maps someone or a number of people from the guild ventrue have made and uploaded to the server, i would understand if these locations were created with the general community of the server in mind, but (i may be mistaken here) they seem only to be levels created for the small groups that are within their respective guild, that is a gross misuse of time and effort and it doesn't make me too happy to know.


If you want to view these levels yourself, just find rommel headquarters along the path going south from the castle and for the ventrue levels, the entrance is set in the cliff just under angel clan, but be warned, you WILL spend 30 minutes or more checking everywhere.

One thing I'd like to note..
Converting all of the content could indeed take a long amount of time.
However, it doesn't have to be released in one batch.
The old levels could be released in packets, as in - upload the main areas, then release a new converted town/area every few months.

Yeah, they could easily release a small overworld similar to the one they released 5 years ago then strive to release 10 levels a week or something as addons. They could even post a packs of levels on these forums for people to convert(simple overworld levels most likely).

Chances are that the effort they spent was reserved for making their guild content, and they wouldnt have used said effort to do something non-guild.
It really isnt wasted effort if its only going to be used if its for their guild.

Ok one thought on the poll.

Do NOT assume because of the numbers that each of those 37 people who voted are oldies willing to come back to a "new" classic. I assume that many oldbies voted for the return, but many current classicians also voted for it as well. Not because they played the old classic levels, but simply because they aren't satisfied with current classic and are thus assuming old classic levels will automatically be better.

Stop assuming that those 37 people want "old classic" back. I'm willing to bet that a good amount of current classicians never saw old classic, but simply want new content, no matter what it is.

Assume that all 37 people who voted for old content will login to Classic if the old content was restored. As of right now that is a 370% increase in Classic population.

We're at a point where we're going to have to bend to one group's whim or we're going to lose it all. We're not making any progress continuing down the path we're on now so what does that tell us?

By the way, is there any way to completely get rid of the NPC server?

how long would they stick around?
longer than the spikes on 2k1 and 2k lasted?
a 370 PERCENT increase for 2 weeks, how lovely.

edit: pls fix percent sign

Maybe but which version would they be? I know you prefered Classic way back in the day where as I prefered Classic (GTA) circa 2002-2003. Someone's gonna get burned har har.


Nopers

Such a pessimistic attitude. Do all staff members think along the same lines as you?

DC is an old friend, but it's disturbing that all the people fighting the change are the current staff, esspecially the Dev Admin and Manager. This looks like a job for the globals. x_x

If your going to be realistic then this is how you need to look at it. No matter what the size of the team is, and no matter how long it will take, if you aren’t willing to put in the work restoring Classic then you might as well pack your bags and go somewhere else. Im not trying to offend you in any way because we are friends and have know each other a long time so don’t take this the wrong way. I am just trying to give you some helpful advice. You are just just like Master Storm was years ago in the sense that you have all these ideas and all these plans on how to change classic. But in the end it will all just be wasted. The player count won’t change and all of your effort will be for nothing. And just like him, you fail to see this even when you have all these people telling you what you need to do.

I can’t tell you how many times I begged and nagged him post-NPC Server to just work on restoring things instead of pretty much starting from scratch. It’s just a shame he didn’t listen to anyone who asked him to do the same thing because it more than likely would have been done by now. But to his credit he had no clue it would have gotten this bad. It's not like it can get much worse either. The difference this time will be instead of spending a massive amount of time adding new content and losing a lot of players, you will be adding a lot of new content and the player count will remain the same. Your argument is also similar to the one he had when confronted about restoring everything years ago. Sure it isn’t realistic with the size of the team, and sure it would take a long time. But it’s really the only way. And I guarantee you until some form of Classic restoration is set in motion the player count will never get better.

So if you plan on putting in any work in whatsoever it might as well be towards this. Otherwise you are just wasting your time. In two more years when the player count is the same and all of the Dev Teams plans have failed the same way Master Storms did then this thread will more than likely be brought back up. And the current stagnant version of classic will no longer just be Master Storms Legacy but all of the current Dev Team’s as well who thought they could change it just like him.

I do prefer "Old Main", but I'd rather have GTA over what there is now. :P
Of course, I fully support adding new content to both.
In fact, I believe it would be best to have a server that combines both editions and new content, but unfortunately it's the least likely option.


Is it technically impossible?
Can't someone "accidently" crash it and forget to turn it back up?

There is the ability to turn off the NPC server by saying /npcshutdown in RC.

Whether we take months/years to restore the "old classic" levels, or whether we take months/years to slowly add new content, the main problem is we don't have the development power to do either effectively.

I don't know what projects are specifically planned right now, but things still haven't gotten much better since the PWA decision, whether you agreed with it or not.

Unless a dozen or more people get together and dedicate their time this summer to deving their asses off (not 24/7, but a few hours a day maybe,) no matter what path we decide to take, nothing is going to happen.

Classic is on it's last legs right now. We need a 4th quarter comeback, and to do that, we need some leadership, which we are sorely lacking. I never played "old classic" (my first server was graal2000 when I started in 02,) nor do I know the exact plans the current staff has in mind. But unless we decide which path to take, then dedicate our time to it, classic is going to lose the small (some would say foolish) community it has left.

Then I strongly recommend doing that.

I don't think that is going to solve anything, especially since a lot of the coding used in Graal The Adventure (namely timereverywhere) is depreciated.

I'm not fighting the idea of all the old contentm you're misinterpreting me.
I'm just saying its not the golden ticket you all think it will be.
It would take so much work and manpower that does not exist at even a fraction of what we would need for such an overhaul. So you'd be waiting YEARS for this to happen.
All the while, it would kill all the new improvements in scripting, some of the nice scripts we do have would be wasted, especially some of the intricate GC stuff.
Everything would be GS1, which has a fraction of the opppotunities of use, not to mention its hard to read and understand unless your an old timer like Tyhm who grew up scripting GS1.

For all that effort, do you really think it would be worth all the work and loss put into that? It's been done before with Graal 2000 and Graal 2001, and the result from those servers, who had the SAME strength of an outcry about this, was a no, it was a complete failure.

as a side note, if default HD is what you want, answer me this?

Why doesn't a single soul use the default HD spar room, or the default HD PK rooms that we already have?

You even get 12-13 hearts, I forget, and a level 3 sword, it is the same sparring as you'd have on UN, but you don't use it, but you claim you'd come back if thats how it was?

Excuses not to come back?
I think so.

Yes it is worth it. And it won't magically bring up the playercount, at first maybe. But it will rise and fall like all servers do. But having the original content such as levels, HD, and tileset will really give it a push in the RIGHT direction.

This isn't even the real work that Classic needs. I've been saying this along; this is the start, we still need some content such as events, spar tournies, npcs, ganis, hats, an economy (to name a few). Originally Classic tried to make a guild wars type battle like Unholy Nation has castle wars. This is another form of the kind of development that Classic needs.

Bring it back :(

Classic can't afford to sit around in it's current state for a year while a few people work tirelessly on such a large-scale project. We need immediate help that doesn't fizzle out in less than a month.

For a long time, GCs were able to keep the server alive simply by hosting a lot of events. That was back when we constantly had 30-40 people online, even during some weekdays. That is hardly the case right now, and thus GCs can't carry the server on their backs like they used to be able to do. Classic needs content to draw people in and keep them occupied, enabling GCs to get back to their mega-hosting ways of 06-07.

Classic would not survive a year as is waiting for this massive project to be complete. Even if we did it in chunks, new overworld levels + a quest or two a time doesn't solve all of our problems. Our staff team is far too small to work on both this project and our other issues.

44-1

All I know is, if you're not willing to try and make the change, no matter how difficult, you don't care enough. Of course you can't count on the playercount to just rise, but regardless, classic should be classic, even if people don't really come back. All I know is, it is definitely worth a try, and if its not worth a try, just let it die. Seriously, bury classic, I could care less at its current state. I hope the current classic players wise up and switch to UN and let it die if none of these changes go through. I really hope classic, NP, and Delt all get shutdown since they are just stealing potential players and potential staff.

As far as new dev on classic, it would be cool for a nice storyline and a nice spar arena and keep the events house and all. Maybe an island for player developed houses/material. But most of it should just be CLASSIC.

Also, on another note, if you're going to sit and say "well what if these people dont play classic currently" THEN GO ADVERTISE THIS THREAD ON CLASSIC AND HAVE YOUR CURRENT PLAYERS VOTE AND STOP WHINING. thanks :)

i could care less about what u think but , you already know classic will not die or quit the classic tab, and whoever dev on delt classic or NP its their choice not urs , understood?

All you do EVERY TIME you post is have something NEGATIVE to say. Seriously, I am entitled to my opinion, and I don't care what you think about what I think, dig me? I am just being realistic. Come back when you actually have some constructive criticism, if you know the definition, you illiterate, immature, little girl. You obviously shouldn't be staff if you can't be literate or even give a realistic, constructive opinion about your server. All you do is get defensive for no reason. What do you even know about classic, or graal in general? You're some newbie who didn't even pay for graal, you got it from someone who quit. Looks like you owe graal some money ;)

Just because a current classician votes for "bringing back original levels and hd" doesn't exactly mean they want "old classic" back; perhaps they simply want new content, no matter what it is.

Keep that in mind.

Thats a good point, but I would think most people wouldn't mind some new development in certain areas/departments. Theres just a certain bit that should just be what it was IMO.

I do want to say, I understand you guys who are a bit defensive on the subject of change here, because most of us old classic players were the same way, but obviously thats why we left when they didn't leave it classic. Kind of an odd subject, never thought it would even come to this.

I like how people are talking about realistic when they are talking about suggestions such as taking half a decade to convert ourselves back to 2001 or 2004 or whatever the hell year the majority want(which is a pickle in itself, no matter which old classic you pick, it isnt going to be the 'right' one).

It was suggested to just shut the NPC server down? What will that give you, default HD with a bunch of broken custom systems.
How long do you think the globals would let us having our NPC server down intentionally? Really?

As for the people commenting on there being no sparring, no events, no hats, no etc.
There's sparring everywhere if you actually click on our server and log in.
Hell, we even have a default sparring area with a decent queue system.
Too bad half you BTK retards don't even know of the default sparring and PK areas' existence, much less acknowledge them. It wouldn't help your whole unachievable arguement, now would it? We have default HD around, try leaving town center spar and spar on classic? Oh wait, you're not going to do that because the HD arguement is just a god damned excuse to stay off classic, but it would hurt your pride too much, your roots, to say that UN is your home now, and not where you grew up(Classic), if you even played during those days, or just pretend you did.
You can wear whatever the hell hat you want, its called sethat unless you want us to develop a community based on hats like 2K1, that went down the toilet. An economy based on hats? Really?

Way to get fired and banned right quick.