Zodiac - Save or Shut Down?
 

So Zodiac has been an ongoing server for many years, but the player count has been dwindling vastly. From 5 to 10 people daily. The server has fallen into atrophy and any means to communicate with Ketsomaru, Fowlplay4 or Raven613 have been since abolished. However Ketsomaru I will give the benefit of the doubt as he's "trying" but he's only one person. I believe the server is in need of new scriptwriters/gani artist and an overall team. There's been a staffing change and the rules haven't been updated in I wanna say almost years now?

The server as a whole has the potential to be great, but the problem with that is the development is still in 2001's phase. Where the constant need to grind for an item exist. Now I am not saying that's not the case, but in most modern MMO's from 2013 to now in 2016 have improved their farming systems to alleviate it for newer players.

Zodiac has a dashed history of not having the friendliest playerbase which is a given in any game. There will always be bad eggs, but the problem lies with the disconnection of Staff to Player communication. We have no way to contact them directly, and any attempt to make a communication with the staff is met with something along the lines of, "They don't want X to have their info." or "Haven't seen him/her log on in x days." "Where is the manager." That sort of thing. I had previously brought up this topic on Zodiac before and in my honest opinion I think the server "should" be shut down and have management reassigned else where and have it worked on like N-Pulse currently is.

Delteria being a clear example of a good rework. Zodiac could learn something from that servers example as it's kept a steady playerbase since it's relaunch and the good reviews for it from friends and the actual visual updates on the GraalOnline login hub makes it stand out from it's other servers. Another server that Zodiac could learn from is Era, who has been pumping out updates almost every week. I think their last update was actually the 6th of this month. Zodiac sparingly see's updates unless the community literally is flaming the staff to the point of where they will fix the problem, if it means the hate comments will stop.

Here's an example of Era's update log. Compared to Zodiac. These are the last 5 updates.

Era
Tuesday, June 28th 2016 (1 Update)
Monday, June 27 2016 (2 Updates)
Saturday, June 25th 2016 (1 Update)
Friday, June 24th 2016 (1 Update)
Friday, June 17th 2016 (1 Update)

Days between Updates
17-24 = 7
24-25 = 0
25-27 = 1
27-28 = 0
Total: 8 Days

Zodiac
July 12th, 2016
June 29th, 2016
June 27th, 2016
June 23rd, 2016
June 21st, 2016

21-23 = 2
23-27 = 4
27-29 = 2
29-12 = 13
Total: 21 Days

Now I am not saying devs should be pumping content. Most of the updates are just balance/QoL/PvE changes. However what I am pointing out is the inconsistent times between updates. We don't know when they're coming even as nothing is even hinted on the forums about it and we have no feedback from the admins on why these changes happen. They just happen.

If we had a more consistent staff team I think Zodiac could pull itself out of the rut it's in now. But from the looks of it, 2016 is looking rather bleak for the classic RPG server.

I'd like to hear your feedback on this MysticalDragon as well as some of the other staff from Era too. Thanks.

whats the point in shutting down?

Redo the server like they did Delteria.

So make a completely different server with the same name?

why the heck would we want that

Why not? What is the point of keeping around a dying server? It's like keeping someone on life support. I think it's time we just pull the plug on Zodiac. The server is in short in a ruinous state in terms of admins, with no real foundation other than the handful of people who play it. Which isn't even that any more. I don't see why we need to keep a server around that has no management. Unless you can prove me wrong and tell me that fowlplay4 has been on in the recent week or so I've been looking at Zodiac. I can't see RC at all so I can't tell if he uses that either.

There is 0 response from him on our own server, let alone the OFM. We've lost scriptwriters due to feuds between the devs.

Smirt is gone.
Jiroxy is gone.
Scarz is gone.

They were some of our top developers. Jiroxy being a prime candidate, since he made an entire class and roughly 300+ skills that he made animations for all on his own, plus he made two events. But since he got into a fight, he stepped down and left. Scarz "retired" from his position but some how kept his commands and thought it would be funny to abuse them, so he was shamefully stripped. Smirt left due to getting into an altercation with some of the other devs and stepped down. So unless new devs are appointed Zodiac isn't going to change.

We've had promises of "new classes" for over two years now. The only new class we got was locked by Scarz and the key was thrown away. That class Freelance, was made none other by Jiroxy himself, the man who poured his entire soul into the class and then all his work got shut down. Not to mention he also made his own race. The guy was a godsend to Zodiac, and due to ego's clashing, he left.

Only 2 people are trying to manage the server, ketsomaru and tiu359 along with an ex-staff member Symmasolan who was a double re-hire. I log onto a game like Era and there's a full staff. We don't even have events any more. I take that back, the player Fireenn is both GP and is ETA. FAQ got long since abandoned and honestly Nikwal is the only one capable of actually handling that job.

The game is in a state of atrophy and in my opinion, it needs a serious overhaul like Delteria got or just sweep it under the rug like UN and Zone.

Whenever I look, it seems to have a substantial amount of players online!

I can't speak on behalf of Zodiac but I feel you're barking up the wrong tree here, as the whole of PC Graal is essentially being kept on life support in a comatose state.

Delteria is also not a great example to justify these arguments as it's only over the last week or so that its playercount has bettered Zodiac's, the total being a far cry away from what was considered a "reasonable" playercount a few years ago. Even then if you look at the accounts that are logged on to Delteria minus staff accounts and remote controls, ~90% of them are guest accounts, reason largely being that it has the advantage of being accessible via Facebook/Web.

I'm sure that if Zodiac or indeed any listed server had this same level of accessibility that it would be reasonable to expect their playercounts to be quadrupled. Though this is now looking extremely unlikely to become a reality.

Well yeah, PC Graal as a whole is dying. If people actually went full steam in developing their own servers, then we'd be fine. But the big bucks right now are in mobile gaming. So Graal hopped aboard. I mean if PC Graal shuts down, that's fine by me. It's just another game to cross off my bucket list. But N-Pulse is coming back, so that right there is enough to keep me playing. I don't like Zodiac much, if at all due to how it was developed over the years. Everything getting harder. The 0.001% drop rates on rare items. The dev claims to have made the game easier by throwing in loot crates/chest you can earn from CTF. But I'm talking about regular farming, it gives players no reason to run dungeons if all the best loot in the game is in CTF caches.

And it just trickles downhill from there. There is bias in terms of hiring for GP's/Events and anything staff related. If they don't like you, screw your application you're not being hired.

It's why I mostly moved on to FFXIV. Great game, active dev who responds to the community. What more could you want? I mean Graal isn't a Triple A title of a winning franchise I get that, but even Indie Developers on Steam are getting a lot more praise for their commitment to a game then anything else. If Portha had put Graal on Steam when Steam first came out, we wouldn't have this issue like we are now.

isn't it still possible to put it on steam? wouldn't that be something? :)

Although I cannot gauge how seriously I'm certain there has been some discussion on this in the past, but ultimately there has been no technological advances besides a botched client update in the ~2 years since Stefan left. Throughout this time period there has been echos of attempted replacement developers falling short and new offers being made, albeit that's speculation.

i heard they are shutting down graal in august for big client upgrade and rebranding. it was something like this

'GRaalda Online-2016k1: The final shutdown'

because idelt is ****?

I doubt you'll find anyone motivated to rebirth Zodiac just to reach a playercount of 60 again...

Go read the story of Final Fantasy 14. Then come back and respond.

http://i.imgur.com/IfCg3L6.png

Zodiac is down to 7 players at the moment, usually with a peak of 10-15 when people get home from work/school. Not much is going on there. I would advise Carlito to take another look into Zodiac and give it a good combing through. He's ill advised against resetting a server, but shutting one down for a rehaul doesn't sound bad though. I mean like it was said, PC Graal as a whole is dying, so why not just pull the plugs on servers that aren't going to make it? Advertisement for this game is little to none and we have no real trailers or anything. This game was good back around 2001, but the new modern 2016 gamer won't touch this game, due to wanting everything done quickly.

There is nowhere near enough support for Steam. The client isn't being upgraded, there's no formal support teams, the subscription model is outdated and doesn't entice players to join the game. Even if all of those points were not issues, there's still a lack of new content because ultimately the only people maintaining these worlds are doing so on a voluntary basis and sporadically at that. No game is sustainable under those conditions.

Technically the game is free now. There was a Facebook post in December 2013 proclaiming that trial restrictions will be removed "over the holidays", and to much initial confusion this was never reverted. However the old subscription policy is still reflected on the Graal website and unless one can contact a global staff member to do them a favour then Gold is required to obtain a community name.

While the other points are valid unless something drastic such as the promise of Steam access does occur, there never will be much of an incentive for anyone worth their salt to maintain these worlds.

All the more reason to shut Zodiac down, cut the losses and move on to something else. If the dev's don't care to maintain the game, then why keep it around?

This, it's what I've been trying to tell the Zodiac community for years and yet they fall off or are slack jawed in trying to find reasoning behind my words. It's why I gave up on their forums and moved the discussion over here. It'd like to see an official word from MD himself though on the situation of PC Graal/Playerworlds in general and what the state of affairs is going to be with them in the future. I don't see Graal lasting through the year at this rate. Perhaps it's high time PC Graal as a whole was laid to rest.

Launching a new server with the same name won't "bring back" the old high playercount.

What you are proposing is the exact same as just making a new server and having nothing to do with Zodiac.

Which also wouldn't work.

That was the initial idea. But we're at the "last resort" which is to shut the server down. That's where I stand currently. I'd rather just pull the plug on Zodiac.

Going by this logic they might as well shut down every PC Server. I'm not suggesting that it's entirely down to a common realisation that a prolonged serious effort on this platform would be a fool's errand, but nevertheless the lack of such action is apparent globally.

Sadly I believe it's safe to say that the continued silence on this front is worth about ten thousand words.

There is usually a slight rise in global playercount once the US school holidays begins, even on Graal the Adventure while remaining hidden we randomly had 10 - 25 players each day participating within events, but a lot of that was down to the hype surrounding the promise of a Facebook launch (which has now been broken). I can't speak on behalf of each listed server, but what is there for players to look forward to or to motivate developers to make a prolonged serious effort?

That's the thing Mike, there is no effort. Stephen is making money off unpaid dev's to do work for him. It's a thankless job with no benefits to it other than running your own server. Sure you can kick/block people as you please, but in the long run that kills your playercount.

Why keep a game running when it's not going to bear fruit in the process? No matter how hard you try to cultivate it to success.

That's pretty unfair to say the least...Hours of work gone down the drain and kinda disappointing for people who have been waiting for it to come back for a while.

To "the powers that be" I have passed on numerous such sentiments & quotes, in addition to sending numerous offers of a compromise, developmental partnership, additional non-Classic related work etc, but unfortunately they simply refuse to be reasoned with. This is despite a lot of patience, messages being kept in a respectful manner and details being kept confidential for the most part.

I assure you however that I shall not stop banging on their doors until I can provide a credible explanation to those who care about this. I do not care how long it takes, at this point it is simply a matter of principle.

Okay but to make a new server you don't have to shut down Zodiac

Uhh excuse me. Have you not seen what they did to Delteria? It literally was shut down and revamped. That right there is proof enough. Also N-Pulse went down and is being worked on. So I'm trying to figure out where in my statement I am wrong since the proof is right there bud.

Delteria was being worked on as a reboot by its own community, slowly but surely.

Then it was gutted and taken over and its assets were cannibalized by a third party - who had previously been kicked off the team for clearly not understanding the direction that Delteria was going in - and what actually happened was that a completely new and unrelated server was released, using the name Delteria. The semi-successful server that you're calling Delteria is not what Delteria was doing, and none of the community is from Delteria. Its "success" could've been achieved with any other name. Maybe recycling Delteria's resources had a hand in its success, but that wouldn't apply to what you're talking about because the only resources that Zodiac has could only possible be used to make the exact same game that Zodiac is now, a tired and played out MMORPG-lite.

Creating a new server with an old name, whether it's Delteria, Maloria, NPulse, or even Zodiac, is pointless. There is no large community just waiting to see that name pop back up. The new Delteria didn't bring in the tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free, it brought in new players who had no idea that that word "Delteria" had ever been typed before.

But it was still reworked, was it not?

It's a completely different server with the same name and (essentially) stolen graphics.

So no. Nothing was reworked from the earlier live Delteria. Old Delteria was nothing like the private development server, which is nothing like the current iDelteria. Not in terms of gameplay, not in terms of design (by that I mean direction, not graphics), and the final straw was not in terms of community or development team, it was essentially UN with more profanity and mostly nicer stolen graphics. Even if the original rebirth went along as planned, it would still be a the same server in name only. But as it stands now, it would've met the same amount of success with any other name. The only reason that the previous Delteria is relevant to the contemporary Delteria is that they scavenged the beta resources.

The point is, Delteria did not reinvent itself into a better server.
It was in the process of reinventing itself, failed, and the pieces were reused by a more competent development team who just happened to want to carry on the Delteria "legacy" (because lore writing is hard)

Well we're getting off topic. My original point of getting rid of Zodiac however still stands. It was already said PC Graal is on life support in a comatose state. I don't see how getting rid of one server would effect it any less.

i dont see how gettin rid of servers is necessary

This might be coming from the wrong person, but removing Zodiac is not the answer. Until there's another server to take it's place, Zodiac does a much better job at being what it is now than not being at all.

On an unrelated note, shameless promotion!

yeah but we're not off topic because my entire point is that your point is dumb


graal isn't a hot air balloon. you don't need to drop off sandbags to go higher.


we don't even have flying technology.

o look the server isnt dead anymore

Riddle me this then. Why is Zone gone?
Why is N-Pulse gone?
Why is UN gone?
Why is Maloria gone?
Why is Old West/Atlantis gone?

And by gone I mean off the hub page. Not existing to where you have to manually enter the server name to join. If removing servers does so much harm then good, then why are those servers no longer on the hub page/existing?

Also please don't give me the iServer song and dance or that "Mobile Gaming" is the key to go to. When you have games like Everquest which is older than Graal and still retains players easily. PC Graal could be flourishing if those servers didn't vanish up into thin air. I actively played Maloria and when I needed a break from Maloria I went and played Zone. The fact of the matter is there was no reason to actually kill the PC client of Graal.

It failed
It sucked
All of the above + bad management
Most of the above
They were never more than 25% finished


I have no idea what you're trying to say. These are servers that stopped existing. They didn't try to disappear, and them disappearing didn't do anything good for them or graal as a whole.

zone is gone because it got rebranded and released on idev/fb

un is gone because mystical dragon who the **** knows whats going on there

npulse maloria atlantis were removed when the serverlist was still competitive (hint, its not anymore)

ol west was never there

You can really tell you have no idea what you're talking about. However Yes I was fired from Delteria by going to the Global Administration Team asking for something to be done regarding the lack of staff activity. I was considered a traitor and got canned. Few weeks after that Misconception hired me back saying it was in the "best" interest to rehire me and I have not left the team since. Did delteria really have any sense of direction? It was a beautiful server with 0% script progress. Few years later when Delterias staff team became fully inactive I was allowed to take over delteria with Alex Straviers guidance. He helped stir the ship, while we plowed out Development. Just because It is not the original developers on Delteria doesn't mean it isn't delteria. We went with delteria original plans minus the custom systems. Original Delteria wanted to be like UN, old Graal Style type system. However Alex Stravier agreed and liked the way delteria was heading. Our delteria is the original delteria, you can admit it or not but it's honestly whatever. We did what we did because we enjoyed doing it. Sandz and Zerith was also apart of this new delteria project so in my eyes there is only one Delteria and that was the current delteria you see today we just picked up the pieces and finished it.

Regarding Zodiac, I feel any server can pick up the pieces and move on. A Better example then Delteria is really Graal the Adventure, they did a wonderful job at revamping the server with keeping the core concepts of the server intact. Just because you revamp a server, doesn't mean its a new server with the same old name. Zodiac has some major potential but always lacked in trying to find new help or hire new staff. Zodiac really needs to bring some new people on board if there are truly any left.

Zone was gone a lot longer before it for it got rebranded on IOS and Fb maybe 2-3 years or so. The lousy management and the Play 2 win killed it really, Everyone knows why I removed UN Staff (Server is still accessible). Atlantis was removed at Crows request and Maloria was removed for making it staff only while it was still visible on the list.

Why thank you for the positive name-drop, however there is a humongous white elephant in the room inferred from this statement.

Are you insane? Do you have any idea how incredibly low the success rate of completing a "Reboot" for a server is on Graal?