The Death of Era
 

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The future is clear. Era is dying, if its not dead already. Many of the factors of a dying server has came into play. People quitting, going to other servers, complaining more over mass, large crowds idling, and now this week: playercount dropping. On a friday and saturday night I was surprised to see only about 50 players tops.

Now I'm not dissing anyone out here so please dont think I am, everyone is working very hard, and im thankful for that. But how has the server fell into this hole? And how can we get back out?

To be quite honest I dont think that adding ranked spars and putting malls around or anything newly made is working. Why is this? I'm even an ET on Era and im still getting bored. Mostly because everyone logs on and just leaves their computer now. Whats the fun in that?

Im not going to get into detail with this and point out every point thats influencing this servers death, all that matters is that whatever is being done is not working. Whatever state of mind people are in, we need to change it before we end up like Zone. Its as simple as that.

To state again: I am not complaining to just whine, I am complaining because I pay to be bored and ive been on the server long enough to see its downfalls. I care about era, I dont want it to die.

Thanks everyone.

Your friend OD

Era's player count has dropped, but so have all other servers, too. It's Graal in general.

I'm sure school starting again is the primary cause of the sudden drop in players. Let it be known, though, that the few developers we have are working hard to bring the desired change!

Although, maybe not as quickly as some of us had hoped.

True Sales, and school probably is a major factor in it, but lately I have been noticing that Zodiacs playercount has been as high as Era's was at given points. This could only be a coincidence though, we'll never get any proof out of that. The fact that everyone is quitting and idling and complaining far too much than they used to. Lets go back in time to 1.5 years ago, people as I remember would PK more and do quest, never stand at unstick me and do nothing. I always remember somthing big going on. Maybe you dont think the same as me, maybe you do. But the main thing is, most everyone feels this way also.

I do realize all the work you guys do, all while having us players whine at you. I know thats a tough combination...lol. But its all a matter of time until people just say "**** it." It would be too bad if it went out like that because I still have faith in you guys, even though alot of people lost it.:)

Might just be the way to play. Killing people all the time is really fun, but it gets really boring some time after. Events can solve this, but not forever. It'll probably finish like Zone, except if you bring awesome updates(and don't reset the players lol)

Just my opinion tho.

I don't know where people get these facts from that resets would cause the playercount go down. In actuality playercount always goes UP when there is a reset. The reason for this is because new people from different servers would give the server a chance since everyone is on equal footing once again. Also, all the players would want to be the richest, own a business, have the best guns, be the best in general, and etc. Which also causes activity to rise. The saying that a reset would make the playercount drop, in my opinion, is a joke.

That was just my opinion. I have tried the same with Zodiac before, even if it was not so appealing, I gave it a try when there was a reset. I never made it.
Some people might have the same opinions, because as you just said "people from different servers". Those one are not used to the server, so the oldbies from it will mostly just ruin their chance to get to the best level.

Again, it's only my opinion.

I personally have never liked the idea of the server reset being used so frequently on Era. Back in the past, I was always very frustrated when I had to start completely over again whenever I decided to start playing again. It got to the point where I finally said **** it, what's the point of doing all this work when it's just going to get reset again?
That's when I took a 2-3 year break. I went back, and naturally, there had been another reset. The only reason that I didn't mind this quite as much was that there was now a bunch of new content to explore from my long break. The reset itself was still an annoyance.

Now, does a reset spark a playercount? Perhaps. But should a reset really be necessary? If anything, I think the fact that it's used as a solution at all just shows the flaws inherent in the system. There's better ways to keep bringing fresh things for players to do, rather than simply hitting the reset switch and making them revisit old classics like:
°Mining for hours.
°Flower-picking for hours.
°Seashell digging for hours.
°Pizza-making for hours.
°Heckling with the price-gouging jackasses that infest the player-market.
Which, spoiler alert, wasn't fun the first time, and sure as hell isn't fun the next time. If I was (god forbid) paying a monthly fee like a lot of these Graal#### accounts that are floating around are, I'd be really upset to find all that time and money essentially wasted.

Other games based upon gear/items simply introduce new, generally better items for those that have reached that peak and find themselves bored. Granted, it'd be a terrible idea to just release more and more powerful weapons, creating a gear-based MMORPG-esque style of play that values items over skill. These new updates could just be new styles of weapons, maybe new quests that introduce a potion/tonic that gives new temporary stat boosts...

I'm just brainstorming useless **** here now (I'm way too tired, shouldn't even be trying to post something coherent right now), but the idea is to release content that both encourages new players and old players. Bring new content while keeping old progress still somewhat relevant. Not everyone has the time nor the resources to reach the top and become bored, and not everyone wishes to restart from scratch.

These problems of boredom stem from the fact that as everyone said above me, while mindless killing is fun, it becomes stale and pointless quite quickly. I think once the new gang system is released and the concept behind gang points and **** actually gives purpose once again to raiding beyond that of raiding just for raiding's sake, that might help the player population. The server just needs some more direction, more purpose. Releasing 424919 generic new guns won't solve it, and likewise, just resetting everyone's **** won't either.

It's a complex problem, and the best solutions are often very dev-intensive, which is likely why a quick-fix like a server reset is chosen. With the salary they currently receive, though, I can't say I blame them.

Era is dieng yes, So is graal..

The only thing that keeps me on Graal (era) is : Raids,Friends,Events and thats it.
If none of those are going on, I say **** it I have better things to do. Then i log off.

frequent resets made me not play era for a logn long time back in the day, but a reset before a major change such as the one era is planning is a must. When a server resets, players will most likely try it out then if they havent before, because everyone is at the same level and such. Thats how i got hooked to era, was when everyone was equal. And era isn't really dying as much as it's graal. Im sure others like myself, have school, a job, sports, etc, who has time for graal!?

Should I make a thread called The Revival of Era since Era's #1 on the serverlist with 70 players.

Well actually, it would give the older players a reason to quit. That's just my opinion. Not to mention zods had a higher playercount these past few days

Era is in limbo.
It HAS been worse.
It's not getting better though.
There's nothing else to be said.

I think Graal Ghetto on the hosted tab (being a complete rip off of Era) is part of the reason the playercount has been lower, too. Players are able to get things there that they've always wanted on Era (staff positions, lame weapons, etc). I don't think it will last, hopefully.

This is such a boring, old, and repetitive conversation. Yes, at times the game can be boring. If the rate of change isn't attractive to you then maybe what, switch games? If the concept seems impossible to you, then you will have to put your trust (how hard as it seems) in the management to release fresh content and keep the game updated.

Ultimately it's out of your control.

this server and graal in general will never be as good as it used to be.

It will get better. I am optimistic.

In terms of quality, it's wayyyy better than it used to be. If you're referring to how much entertainment it provides you, that's on your end, not ours.

Sure, new events have been added and small features/things to do have come to life...but the overall gameplay is the same as it's always been. The biggest change is within yourself. You've grown up. You're what, 18 years old now compared to 12-13 when you considered the server "great"?


Also, this is totally unacceptable...we should be atleast 50 players ahead of all other servers on the playerlist. Farewell, Era.
http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/4830/unacceptable.png

I'd like to consider my statement pretty loose. I wasn't directly blaming anything in particular of why the game isn't that great for me anymore. your reasoning probably plays a big role in why I can't stand it anymore though. I never thought of it that way.

Nah I think you're wrong. It's all relative to time, and back in the very late 90's and early 2000's Graal could get away looking like it did. Fast forward 10 years and the interface looks much worse and servers haven't really improved in quality with the exception of light effects which Graal has had for almost a decade.

Then again I'm only focusing on visual quality. I could go on with the other areas as well.

You're comparing Graal with other games...Graal is no match for other games of today (you're right about that)...I'm just comparing it with itself in response to Frankie's post about it never being as good as it used to be. The quality of the systems, levels, and even some graphics have improved relative to Era "back in the day", while the overall gameplay has been left virtually unchanged. The only thing that has changed is him, and his perception of what a "good" game is.

Yeah, Graal itself is dying. Era, Zodiac, and UN are always fighting for top of the list... that's nothing new now.

http://i364.photobucket.com/albums/o...cceptable2.jpg

UN gets payback. :3

Rip

The thing is, if graal or era is dying, than why am I paying to play it? Why can we not become the best 2D game there is out there? I dont want to have to go to a new game, but at that point im feeling forced to by how it isnt all there. Think of it like an egg with no yolk, yeah sure it has a shell, and it looks like a normal egg, but really inside it theres nothing going on. Thats sort of a comparison to what is happening right now. Why cant we get back to the times where everything was so, unpredictable?

I agree with sales graal ghetto is a total rip off.
I went on and wow all the staff are...... The era players act like they are gods lol, funny and shows how much graal ghetto wants to be like era

I don't know why people are getting so annoyed with Graal Ghetto. I've worked on enough Era clones to know what's going to happen. Players will eventually get over the free/cheap stuff they're giving out and realize the server sucks, and leave. They'll then come back to Era to realize not a lot is different right now.

Graal Ghetto is not a threat to Era. At the very worst, it's a bit of competition (which is a good thing).

because you're an idiot. paying for graal is a rip off.

Agreed.

Ok so its my fault that I actually like and enjoy playing the game, but yet I didnt meet the deadline for getting a classic account. My gold runs out in 24 days, people promise hope but yet they dont come through with it. Gabe ive been optimistic for waaay to long now. It is starting to become a ripoff as frankie said. Do I quit or do I stay? Im not no graal celebrity like our know-it-all friend will soul, so I honestly dont know whats holding me back. At the time when I bought this new account, the server and graal in general was doing pretty well, halfway into it everyones starting to notice the effects.:\

I agree with Old Days.

I see the numbers are slightly going down. It's sad if such a good online 2D game will end.
:/

I blame Jen :x

I blame Squirt :x

:x

it's been a rip off ever since life time classic accounts were discontinued.

i blame him to, he's useless

I blame you all

I blame people that are *******s.

What do you mean Graal is dying? It died a loooong time ago.. probably before HALF of you guys who posted in this thread started.

Era is still not Dead. And we should all continue to keep it up!
And we need to get Lifetime Classic back. !pissed!