So how about that?
Is this something which is also being delayed, inwhich case I understand that plans and dates change, or is it just a load of bollocks?
I'm actually quite interested to see what those requirements were supposed to be, seeing as I've spent all this time and effort writing up micro-transaction & incentive plans and preparing them, for what is arguably one of if not the highest quality production-ready servers. Yet the response I've received almost completely failed to acknowledge the plans I have presented. Following myself responding to the supposed issue of credentials in a manner which should have put that to bed, has been nothing but silence, having already waited 4 months for the first reply to begin with.
I could talk all day about why I feel Classic should, at the very least, have its plans for an agreement in principle to eventually remove observer mode, be given an honest consideration, but I feel it would hit the right chords if I instead let some quotes from last year be known:
It's funny how there was such an interest in our work when the idea was for the benefit of a different platform, yet our plans for this work in its natural designed state for PC Graal are essentially ignored. I would like to re-iterate that I am not demanding they be accepted, if there is a problem with them or they are unsatisfactory I'll be back to the drawing board and putting in the extra work to make it more credible. I am simply asking for a proper response.
As for the actual problem at hand, I would like to bring attention to something listed within the subscription policy at
http://www.graalonline.com/zone/stores/subterms:
To put it simply, Observer mode is a restriction that ****s players, why?
Because it causes disruption to competitive gameplay, the form which gameplay on Graal
mostly consists of. Look at Unholy Nation, it's a server which revolves strongly around events and sparring. Because of the disruption observer mode causes to spars and events, as well as the fact it renders players stuck on the screens of other players with no way to manipulate the observer through script, UN prevent trials from participating.
This is a problem which contributed to other traditional style servers such as Classic and Npulse dying out, which you could say has made the game less worth paying for. Now with the new version of Classic, it has also become more apparent to me that observer mode can cause bugs which can prevent Quest progress, or even render the game unplayable without staff intervention if a trial is in an unfortunate place at an unfortunate time, and I haven't become aware of it in order to implement a solution.
What's even more annoying is that it is virtually impossible for a developer to take the necessary measures to debug potential problems caused by observer mode.
To test this requires logging on a trial account, waiting a couple minutes for observer mode to end, getting into the relevant position within a level, waiting 10-15 minutes or so for observer mode to occur again, waiting another couple minutes for it to end, actually experiencing the bug, and then repeating the process once more and wasting even more time to ensure you've managed to fix it.
Considering trials are given 5 measly hours of "free time" a month, that this applies on every server they log on, most of which take several hours to explore and actually become familiar with, and this time is even deducted when playing a non observer mode server, how the hell are trials supposed to
enjoy the game before deciding to buy a subscription?
Even on those servers fortunate enough to not be plagued by observer mode things aren't all that rosey. Trials have heavy restrictions placed on them, to such an extent that they are at a big disadvantage to paying players, with this idea it will provide an incentive for them to upgrade. Similarly to observer mode this means players are having to pay before they can enjoy the game.
Once again Graal is a game which relies heavily on player vs player competition, half of what makes the game what it is can be attributed to the playercount itself. While there are several different reasons for iPhone's success, the main thing which stands out which PC players/developers would hope Stefan and Unixmad have learned from and can apply to PC Graal, is the fact that
it actually lets players play the game.
Amazingly we're still stuck with this myopic attitude that it is wrong for any player to be playing this game the way it is meant to be played, without paying. It is not rocket science that if the game can be played at a reasonable level for free, playercount would be much higher, and if playercount is much higher, the game is more fun, and if the game is more fun, it makes it more worth paying for whatever incentives are provided.
Is it better to have 250 paying players and 100 non paying players, or 500 paying players and 1000 non paying players?
To finish this off, I truly hate to make such a **** post, I know there are lots of other developers and players alike with their own concerns for their respective servers, and so I apologise if this post comes across as selfish.
To Stefan and Unixmad, if you have taken the time to read this far, credit where it's due.
