Here's the problem, plain and simple. The current garbage scripts that're on the server make it difficult or impossible to re-add the old quests. The old quests WERE what made the server what it was in the past. Sure, the higher player count was a factor as well, but I would frequently be on late at night completely alone, or almost alone, still having fun with the quests that I had done 23094239 times and never got tired of.

Redoing the system scripts in an intelligent manner is the only thing that's going to put the server into a state where things can be done in an even remotely quick and easy way. This is what was going on 5 years ago when I was working on the server, but the current intelligent manager threw all that away and led the server into the wasteland it is today. Isn't he great?

As has been said, essentially starting over on the core of the server is going to make things worse at first, but it's a necessary step for recovery.

I agree with the last 3 posts.

Old content would seem new to players.

The quests were superb.

Classic might be hit hard at first but its a step needed to recover.

This has all been mentioned to staff previously by many people over the years, they just didn't care enough to make any changes and dug themselves into a deeper grave. Now its almost like the server could never recover, but theres always hope right?

Unique Elements that made up Classic -
it was Graal
it was Official
it was Free
it had Quests
it had pretty good hit detection for baddies
you could spar
(you could cheat)
it was all we had

Not everything can come back. Not everything SHOULD come back. It's not gonna break my heart if the old quests are adapted to the new way of doing things, but the occasional "Tyhm's NPC in jail" homage is just a cameo in a completely different quest, not an updating of the old quest.

For hit detection - having tinkered with Zombies for a bit, you can't count on Move or the Defaults for a damn thing anymore. I'm serious, you make the simplest possible script to "Move from here to there, wait until you get here or hit a wall and trigger, when you get the movementfinished trigger move from there to here, repeat" and it'll start to move, teleport into a wall, zip across the screen at warp speed, anything BUT sensible. I did something kinda clever with mine; I have the clientside set an arbitrary max speed, and if the X/Y suddenly jumps the clientside instead limits to that speed and catches up gradually; I also have the hit detection go off this clientside-temporary X and Y (i use showani instead of showcharacter, more freedom), have them dontblock and use custom projectiles - it's way more complicated than "just shut off the stupid custom movement system".

That said; I think if Classic's gonna be the ghetto Old Graalia server, it ought to go for the gold. Switch GPs from staff to a guild (if we want to have actual GPs, they become secret police); switch Hacking from A Bannable Offense/Using A Trainer to a metagame Weapon, switch the game from trying to recapture an age that was lost to actually satiring the culture that was lost. If the LAT wants to make quests, cool, you have my full support; but it's just not the same (ironically given how hard I worked to prevent this kind of thing) without somebody with a swear word for a name running across the screen trying to draw lewd pictures in goldgelats and shockbombs, pursued by three frantic "admins".

Tyhm,

For clarification purposes, when you say; "it ought to go for the gold", I'm believe you meant the phrase "going for the gold" rather than making Classic a Gold Server.

As for entirely switching 'GP's' to 'secret police' this is going too far in my opinion. Having some kind of "secret police" is not.

Also, I agree, it is ironic that you'd want to allow a metaweapon. I think you're going back a little too far back in time when you want to see people running around writing things with gralat. Or running all over the walls. I remember those days and I'm pretty sure those were never supposed to be part of Graal. (Lord Chimp for example, aside from his LATing skills.)

The fact of the matter is Classic is not Classic at the moment. I think Classic should go back to being what it was meant to be and made to be. What you played a big part in making it Tyhm.

The current staff should be to adding to the existing content, not changing what is there. (i.e. economy, npcs, guild events, spar tourneys, events, ganis, or develop new quests to ADD not REPLACE.)

How is this argument still going? Look at the poll.

Does the poll represent a bunch of "old classic" players hoping for a nostalgic return of their beloved server?

Or does the poll represent a bunch of "current classic" players who are dissatisfied with the way things currently are, and thus voted to bring back the old stuff in hopes that it will solve a bunch of our problems?

Or does the poll represent a combination of both sides hoping for a better version of classic?

I don't have the answers since I can't see who all voted, but just be careful about coming to a conclusion from a simple poll that doesn't reach all the desired population.

No doubt it's a combination. The point is people do not like the current content. And this is supposed to be Classic server where it all started. If people want major changes to the game play, do so with a different server.

Let me be clear, Classic needs to remain Classic but with new things to attract folks to play. Development is key. But the problem is development took the wrong direction.

Of our current problems, how many would be solved by implementing both the old levels and the old HD, however difficult it might be?

Your most important problem, player count, and restoring Classic.

A couple options, take current server and upload it to Dev Polo server. And then change the HD and levels and make proper repairs or simply just change HD and levels on the Classic server and start working off there and let players be the testers themselves. There will be a mess and it will get worse before it gets better. But it's basically like when servers had to go gs2 and alter to gmap. It's work but it should be done and can be done with the proper organization and management to see it through.

im gonna say this only one time

dev suck and the review sucked

dc is inactive

gc dev work on....nothing (jade made hockey event hoora , when to be complete?)

gc refuse to host if they dont have a huge amount of players(gladius)

card game failed hard and now its a dump

one reason to quit

look at the management we have

how much idea were requested?
how much were actually accepted and MADE?

The biggest draws for classic was the competition and the community. New HD and levels ruined the competition. And when I say competition I mean all the good players and guilds who competed like clockwork at all the hotspots. The only thing to do would be to undo what was done 5 years ago with the hit detection and levels, change classic back to classic.

The initial pop in players once the change happens will be due to everyone that plays now wanting a newer server to compete on. Classic being restored would be the equivalent of a new server. From there the Graal network kicks in, many of us have at least a few people that dont play graal anymore on the AIM buddylist just itching for something to take up a little time. Classic being restored is an easy sell. Just like SMB3 was an easy sell on the virtual console for the Wii. From there these people that come back may want to make a new guild or a new(old) guild, which will require them to upgrade...meaning paying MONEY.

If Classic is brought back, there will be a chance for Graal to make money just by these older players coming back and upgrading accounts to make guilds/families. You have to remember Classic was the place to be for the greatest competition; no other server could replicate the level of competition that Classic had. Classic killed the will for competition on the server by ******* the hit detection.


How this should play out:
1st step, restore old classic/hd...(2nd)then an initial pop in population resulting from current population migrating from every other server and the once-a-weekers becoming more committed to the game due to classic being restored. (3rd)Next would be recapturing a piece of that older lost playercount due to the graal community communicating that old classic is back. 4th would be these older players and current players recreating the competition level that classic was known for and creating new(& new/old) guilds. Creating new/old guilds would mean upgrading accounts, which equals MONEY. Or the older players now have money and its not a big deal dropping a few bucks for graal now, due to old account being lost.

Nothing but good would come out of restoring Classic.

I wonder how long it will take for most of you to realize that Classic died when Graal went full p2p.

That's only half true. There was still a very good amount of players remaining who played after you had to pay, considering it was only a one-time payment.

But I'm sure it was a downwards slope the whole time, was it not? I remember this was a pattern on the other playerworlds too.