Graal 2001, GDT, and You
 

I'm sure a lot of you have been wondering for quite some time now multiple things about the Global Development Team, in regards to what exactly we do, what's going on, etc. The answers I have for everyone is this.

It's really hard to say what direction we are exactly going in. We currently have one project that is starting to enter the development phase which will demonstrate functionality of Graal's engine and help introduce new developers to the familiarity of Graal, as well as educate others with new concepts and possibilities that Graal has to offer. While this is what I feel a satisfactory project for now, I still think we could be doing better, obviously.

The real question I have for every one of you guys, the players, developers, managers, etc. is this: "What do you want from us?"

We will be continually updating the Graal Bible as well as work on Skyld's own independent GScript-based wiki as usual, providing support to those who need it, and work to the best of our abilities to satisfy you the best we can. However, we are limited by our team's own imagination, and we haven't gotten much feedback from the players, so it's really hard to say what else we can do. Aside from that, we have a major proposition for you, the players.

I'm interested to hear who still cares about Graal 2001. Skyld approached me earlier today, requesting the GDT to take over development of the project. Now, I know for a fact we can handle it, and would be a perfect task for us, working on an official server. If we were to accept this project, it would certainly put a hamper of what other kinds of support we could provide, since this would be a full-dedication project. But, there are different ways we could work around this.

I'm not going to decide if we should work on the project, YOU guys are. Simple as that.

This raises multiple options. Once we begin development, I don't see any signs of stopping, since this is something YOU guys want. This will also prove our worth to those who criticize the team to show you we are determined to give you what you want.

A couple of ideas that have been floating around include:

-Hiring individual developers to help the GDT with development
-Once development is complete, how should we set up managerial rights?
-Players volunteering to test for bugs, suggestions, improvements
-Perhaps a bi-weekly/monthly blog giving everyone updates on our development progress, keeping you informed

As I said earlier, we want to serve YOU. If you don't want us to continue 2001's development, I don't see it ever coming back. Do you guys still want it? If not, what do you want? If we don't get much feedback from this, then I feel the GDT will remain in it's current dormant-like state, until we think of new projects of our own to work on. As much as I'd love to jump right into 2001 and start developing, I can't do it with just HR alone. We have a team of talented developers who are just as anxious to work on something meaningful and fulfilling as much as we are.

TL;DR Version:

• Skyld offers GDT to Develop 2001
• We want what YOU want us to do
• Up to YOU what we do
• Provide feedback

We will be eagerly awaiting your responses.

-Ben

I fully support the GDT to develop graal2001 I'd even lend some of my own services if needed to the project.

Agreed with Sky. And I'm also willing to help out. Toss me a forum PM, Ben.

That's exactly the feedback I'd hope to see thus far.

I support the idea of working on Graal2001.

Rename it to the Graal Development Team, make it a guild, then call it a day. Nothing has been done yet that warrants the word "global", and focusing on G2k1 isn't going to make it any more valid.

I'd "support" the GDT working on G2k1 if I actually thought they'd stick to it. Pardon my skepticism, but your track record is hardly impressive.

If you actually think you can finish G2k1, go for it. You don't need our permission. Just remember that your work is going to do a lot more good on small projects you can finish rather than on a giant failed one.

I want to see the "Iron Fist" that's going be required to get this done, and assignments.

I dunno if its wise to dedicate all your time to a single server, especially if you will be doing all the work yourselves without having any management in place to take over once you are done.

My suggestion for what the GDT should focus on is servers that already have structured management (i.e. N-Pulse) but who are lacking in committed developers. If you were to put your efforts into one server you might as well just be called the Graal2001 staff. Though I know it isn't an easy task you took the job as GLOBAL development team, you should in turn do your best to help out all servers on Graal and not dedicate your entire efforts into just one server.

Your main priority should be to make sure that any server on the Classic tab is up to par with current standards set by the PWA. Yes this should be the job of management, however, as I already stated some servers are severely lacking committed developers to help them which is exactly where you should come in. You went onto N-Pulse and converted their text map to gmap format, but gave no explanation to them as to how to clean everything up to fit the gmap format. Although a simple explanation to their staff would be helpful, I do think you should go even further into it and actually physically help them sort out their live server.

Your second priority, after making sure Classic servers are up to par is to sort through the under construction servers, discuss with the PWA which servers seem to be the most promising and furthest along development-wise, and help put the fine touches and do some debugging on their systems. This would help more servers be completed, making more servers available to be put onto the Classic tab, and in turn giving players more of a choice of where they can play.

I know it isn't easy, and will be a ton of work for you non-payed volunteers, however, you volunteered to be part of the GDT not the G2k1 staff. While working on Delteria I would have killed for help from some of the Global Developers, however the only time I ever saw them was on Kingdoms, and they never responded to any of my pleas for help. I'm assuming N-Pulse, now in the same place Delteria was years ago, trying to maintain one server and develop another with very limited staff, feels the same kind of neglect I did when I was attempting to run the show with Delt.

If you feel that your time would be better spent dedicating all your time to one single server, building it up from nothing and then transferring managerial rights to somebody after you complete the work, then I guess go ahead, it won't change much for anybody other than the future 2k1 staff that will reap the benefits of your work, but I do feel that you should dedicate your time to fixing broken content on the Classic servers first, and helping close-to-completed Hosted servers second. Building an entire server should be the very last thing on your todo list as there are plenty of servers with well established management who are much closer to completion than 2k1 that could use your help much much more.

so in the end you guys decided you might want to make/recreate a server, which i've said since the start was what you guys ought to be doing

it would have been a lot cooler, in my opinion, if you were making a new server instead of remaking an old one. but, regardless, i would support this idea in general - graal needs some new content, and you guys have a good chance to deliver

# We want what YOU want us to do
# Up to YOU what we do
# Provide feedback

I want YOU to give up while you're ahead!

I support this, but just hope not all concentration of the GDT goes into this, but also into handling server requests for help way better, by actually doing them. In other words, don't make it 100%top priority.

I agree with you Ben, this is a great task for the GDT, and personally I would love to see G2K1 back on the Classic tab.

What version of G2K1 would you guys be working with. Konidas had done a lot and I thought what they had was very promising. Any chance you guys would continue with that?

Good luck!

I support it, as long as it's the completion of Konidias version rather then reviving the old one. And Chris, stop being such a negative ned in every thread, it doesn't make you look cool at all. :(

I perhaps jumped the gun since I wrote about it in a spur-of-the-moment excitement, but it won't be hard to branch out and balance everything. There's a lot of factors to consider in essence and everything takes planning.

I'm currently working on UN and Classic when I have the available time. UN still requires a lot of GS1 Conversion and that's up to Gamerkid, their manager. For the most part I'd say at least half of us if not more have already been working on Classic Playerworlds since we've joined the team, and continue to do so, but they seem to seek little to no of our services.

If the PWA wanted us to this it wouldn't be an issue at all, we'd also need RCs set up on these servers since we don't have Global RC

Would love to do this definitely, but we are approached by another limitation by Observer Mode. We can only do as much as the tools given to us and restrictions that are placed upon us.

Sorry to hear about that happening. Not sure if anyone was specifically "in charge" during that time period where everything was a bit sporadic. This is bound to change in the future and will hopefully no longer have similar issues.

As I said before, we can only do so much. If a server development lead or manager approaches us for help, we'd be glad to assist. So far, this has not happened once to my recollection.


To be honest, ever since I joined the team I was hoping we'd be doing something along the lines of starting an actual Playerworld, and/or fixing 2k1. Unfortunately the opportunities never arose. In the end, we're just trying to deliver what everyone else wants.

Will definitely make room for flexibility, especially with the potential interest in the project/currently high-staffed scripters; we will have plenty of resources.

From what I understand, we are continuing Koni's work, as Skyld has been unable to obtain a backup of the previous work.


Again, perhaps I jumped the gun in the original post, stating that it would be a major time constraint in so many words; in actuality it shouldn't interfere with our other duties. Hell Raven still needs to make a statement about this as well and deliver his thoughts, but so far we seem alright.

I feel sorry if such thing happened, but it certainly didn't happen while I was in charge as I have no pm history with your account at all. Do you remember anything about the GDT member you've made your request at?

Though I do understand many servers aren't asking for your help, you must understand that you guys have a reputation for ignoring such requests. Many of the developers who have been working on their own projects for years don't want to even bother asking for help because the way they've been treated in the passed is just insulting. If you are truly trying to rebuild your reputation as an actual team of global staff members willing to help you should take the time to contact managers of many servers and let them know the team is now reformed and willing to help with reasonable requests given that they give you enough time to work through your check list until you have time to address their issue.

I'm glad to hear you are helping UN finally convert to gs2, this is something that's been needed for quite some time and it's ridiculous that it took you guys completely reforming the way your team works to get to it, though I can't blame anybody for this other than Stefan for never setting a guideline to what the GDT is supposed to be doing.

As for waiting for the PWA to tell you they want you to help with making sure classic servers are up to par... well... you guys both work for the same company and have easy access to contact each other, I think now is a good a time as any for both teams to have a long discussion on what should be done with servers like Valk and N-Pulse who remain on the classic tab but need serious work done to their servers. Of coarse the management can refuse help and not give you RC access, but I think that would be a shining opportunity for the PWA's to give said server a deadline to bring their server up to standards before it is replaced with another server that was willing to accept your aid.

Honestly there's no reason why the PWA's and GDT's aren't working together in such a way already. The PWA's should be constantly checking servers under development and servers on the Classic tab and reporting to you guys which servers could benefit most from your help and in turn you should be talking to the managers of these servers and offering your assistance to help them complete in a timely manner.

I'm not for or against anything that you guys decide to do, as I said (maybe not in this thread, I've posted quite a bit today) if you guys don't help out any servers at all it wouldn't be much different than it has been for years. There's no way the development community could be any worse off, there are only positive steps you guys can make which gives you plenty of breathing room to decide where you are going to go if you truly decide to take this job seriously as many before you have not.

Good luck.

I don't recognize your name one bit so I can tell you no, it did not happen while you were in charge, or at least I never encountered you during the time frame. It was quite a while ago (at least 3 years, if not more) so I can't really recall who was on the GDT during this time. I can tell you it was quite a while before Tig had joined up, I don't know Tig too well but I do know that he isn't the type of person who would treat me the way I was treated by the GDT back then. Like I said though, a lot of people have bad tastes in their mouths from previous experiences with the team being extremely rude and lazy and it would be a good idea to try and re-up your rep by going to current server managers and reintroducing the team as a new and capable group.

I don't want graal 2001, I want graal 2011.
Otherwise, help bomy island.

Get over yourself, there was no GDT 3 years ago. Only PWA without tig, but including vulcan and houdini.

Thats why testbed is there. I have one specific person that is usually willing to look at what Im doing, but again many dev servers that are actually trying and have content worth a crap should get help from GDT...

I really would not like to see GDT work on their own server until servers in classic tab are up to par, that is more important.

I would also rather see servers like the dev server I work on, when I have multiple posts begging GDT for help, actually get help (I've forum pmed a few people, and pmed on game a few, but honestly, there needs to kind of be a new list of GDT doesnt there? A more "active" one?). Again I know OB mode, but that doesn't hinder from getting help.

Also, GDT could be much more active in the development sections of these forums as well. Mostly scripting is the only real active one, but still...

All in all, there are too many servers, classic, hosted, and dev, that could use help from GDT. It would be more of a slap in the face, at least to me as an Admin on a dev server, to have GDT start a new server and mine go down the toilet hole, since (and the big one)...

...starting a new server would require gold, no?

Edit: Also slightly off-topic but still kind of on, GDT should help classic servers, especially with things like GS1 still there. If servers dont start to comply to the change (after how long has it been now?), then maybe pwa's should request the GDT to do it, since they can overrule the server manager I'd imagine on issues like this. Its just a small example using gs1 to show more things on what GDT shouldn't be missing out on.

That's interesting, being that in '05 or maybe even '04 it was members of the Global Scripting Team (different name, same goal as a global staff branch) who, along with several PWA's, had logged onto Delteria's RC to help out when Zega/Smooth had deleted the entire server and banned the entire staff list. Maybe my problems were with the GST and not the GDT but in my eyes its the same branch of staff with a different name.

it's completely different people, and they deal with all forms of development, not just scripting. after ajira quit, it was basically only skyld working that team until it was assimilated into a more general global staff

the GDT haven't quite yet figured out their goals, besides them being for the benefit of graal

by the way, your signature i think means to say "beat you with experience" not "be you with experience" (at least i think?)

I'll be nice if you guys provided advanced support to servers that are near to become successful. Like AEON? that server has been there for a while, I'm pretty sure if the GDT focused on helping them it will be opened.

Same goes for Delteria. the GDT could help a lot to finish stuff there.

Also Ruins and Xazier. They have a couple of players going on them. Xazier is full with NEW players / developers that might use the hand of some experienced people.

Well, these are the servers I've the most hope on. Wish you could help any of them(:

Lots of people speaking for other servers itt.

Yeah let's all go log on X and try to help them! Then you realize the server has **** all for planning and can't effectively utilize the additional resources (or don't actually need 3+ Scripters).

There's a reason a lot of UC servers fail, with or without the help of the GDT. They don't have **** all of an actual plan for their server.

The lack of communication from both parties are to blame for servers not receiving help. It doesn't seem logical to me that we should be putting in the extra work to help servers that don't request it or make a poor effort at doing so. A lot of us have plenty of other projects we could be working on instead of babysitting UC servers.

Yeah, sounds familiar. Probably me ^^


This. Why cant the GDT just make a whole new world combining elements of classic/2001 but not a remake of classic/2001 otherwise its just a week of nostalgia and people get bored too quickly.

Reality: We have no power to just go help the other already up servers. We have to be allowed by choice of the managers, and on their standards, not ours or some imaginary set of compliance that makes it "up to snuff". We don't have any real power.

We will be working on Bomy Island but it isn't all we have in the works, and I think Ben was just a little too giddy when he said it would be where all of our focus is. Ben and I have been active in taking over GDT, but there is a lot of behinds the scenes, plans, and structure that needs to be fixed first before anything is even visible.

Why don't you guys make Graal 2010 and not Graal 2001?--Building something new and great instead of rehashing something old and great.

The GDT comes across to me a scripting team with very little to offer elsewhere. I'm not sure there is the capacity for creating a whole new world with its own story to tell. Saying that though, I'm not sure they realize how unstructured Graal2001 was as a server, and how much work is going to be needed outside of scripting to continue one of the revival projects that were started.

No project on graal has piqued my interest in terms of a world with a story to tell. To be perfectly honest they all seem like development playgrounds.
(With the exception of Zodiac which I admit I have never tried and know nothing about)

I agree with this. I think it would be neat if it was still Graal2001 but some kind of story portrays the city/town being abandoned because of a catastrophe and being rebuilt in 2010 with all new buildings and some old structures being in tact. Also, easter eggs for oldbies (statues of old staff/players, items, fossilized bomies, etc) see islands shifted, old areas moved to new locations, and even exploring the ruins of "2001" to find artifacts for quests.

We've seen Graal2001 a million times but I think it would be more constructive to just bury the hatchet on it and come up with a sequel that glorifies the old while creating a fun new server that oldbies and newbies alike can enjoy.

Yes-- a brand new sequel is the most entertaining option. Maybe try to re-imagine the world as if all the Graalians and bomies were pulled into another dimension and the world was completely abandoned until they mysteriously started reappearing 9 years later.

Storyline revolves around the re-emergence of the graalians and bomies and rebuilding of their lost world.

While I'm all for work on this server, I think it would still be sweet to release some helpful resources to budding new servers much like the current shared functions pack that Skyld added. If Bomy starts to get crowded, split the team into seperate projects: Bomy, docu and new features :D

sounds dope. make sure i'm the king of dustari. over and out

Problem: TL;DR version should have been at the top of the post. >=[

Graal2k1 ftw

I'm the king of Dustari, sorry. :[

Gameplay takes priority over story.

lolgameplay

I agree.

I want some Graal 2KXI.

I for one am glad that g2k1 is getting the proper attention that it deserves in, ah, 2010.