What makes a good server?
 

After debating with myself for several years as to why certain servers attract a large playercount and others don't, I figured it best to pose the question to the Graal community.

What makes a good server?
There are servers currently listed which I'd consider good only as a result of their playercount, and not as a result of quality content...

I question the intentions of Graalians, what do you get out of the server you play?

I personally play Shaded Legend, reason being; SL has a rich storyline, involved and challenging quests and an era which the entire server is based around. It also keeps classic elements of Graal, whilst slightly adapting and improving them. The only "unattractive" part of Shaded Legend is the lacking playercount, I wonder why it's lacking...

Unholy Nation, a thriving server, has a staff member who informed me the server was "medieval", unfortunately this "era" isn't constant, nor is it even apparent... There's cars and motorbikes, guns and such forth...

So is it merely the ability to play a server with a crippled economy where you can easily work your way to self-respect by gaining gralats that keeps you playing servers? Or is it the variety and range of NPC's and items which you find attractive?

Along with Shaded Legend, I also respect;
Graal Classic as it is truly original
Maloria as it has implemented entirely new and functional systems
Zenkou as it's standards surpass anything I have ever seen on this game.

I truly do not undertstand players reasons for choosing one server over another- if the server they are choosing has absolutely nothing to respect, bar the playercount.

Saying a server is good because Sparring is a central focus and is given huge importance is fine, however most servers use the same battle system and what you really like is the fact that the playercount is high, so the spar activity is also high.

You see, I'll continue to play Shaded Legend in hope that players will realise that SL's quality is excellent, as is it's consistancy and depth... Players aren't attracted because they see the playercount is low, is that really a reason not to give a great server a chance? No, it's not - you oughta give each server a chance and play it regardless of the playercount... If you like a server and it's lacking players, Do as I do and tell your friends or the community what you like about that server and how it is better than other servers which are played by a higher percentage of the Graalian Public.

I hope some people respond and defend or promote the servers they love and also throw in their reasons for choosing one server over another. I hope nobody becomes overly negative, a thread closure is not what I am aiming for!

Thanks for reading...

The driving force of Graal is the ability to form the game that you play and its community.

What causes me to play some servers and not others? Hmmm.
When I did play actively there was a lot of factors.

When I was highly into sparring I played Unholy Nation and N-Pulse because there was a large amount of good sparrers there and no lag. Classic had lots of sparrers but the lag was unbearable.

PKing on any classic server before the NPCserver came in was absolutely awesome. On classic by the Angel Clan house and on N-Pulse in level3 was the funnest days of pking ever for me.

After the NPCserver came out and I started getting into development more heavily a lot of it came down to staff involvement. Its fun to work as staff around cool, good developers and learn things, but it sucks when you work around a bunch of *******s and powermongers that throw fits monthly and fire the best staff for fear of takeover or just because they want to eliminate someone.

As for the servers itself, ...

Delteria I tried to play, but for a long time the staff there only massed racist bull****. I'm talking about the era when Tangy, Zega, and them was there (2002-2003?). I'm not saying tangy and zega did that, but most other staff did it.

SL became a lag hell for me, but I did like their storyline. It took too long for them to get it back working. So I just totally forgot about it as time passed on.

Valikorlia turned me off because I got sick of staff pming me to tell me to put -OOC- in my name or I'll be banned.

Era was cool at first when Chrisz and Angel was there, but then it got too advanced for me and the lag was too much for me to deal with.

Zenkou is something I am seriously looking forward to for many reasons. I want to experience the turnbased system on graal and try to exploit as many bugs as possible and beat the crap out of everyone. I've grown to love turnbased games over the past couple years and I just can't wait!!!

I liked Maloria back when it had that old cartoony tileset and all those nice jobs, light effects, nicely designed towns and stuff. Now it just isn't the same anymore so bleh hell with it. I'll never play there again with the new crap they have.

The kind of change has a lot to do with why I still or don't play a server. Some servers have changed into something I don't like, while others have slowly changed and kept my interest.

A super complex server will turn me off if there is no information given to start me off and lead me in the right direction.

The best server will always be the one with the most efficient staff team.

Ironic how I play Delteria, but hey :)

Remove display of current playercount and sort by name. :)

I personally hate UN. I personally hate Era. I personally dislike servers where people are rude / mean to you because you have low hours, or suck at sparring kids on 12k modems who lag around you like crazy monkey ****ers.

Honestly, I dislike high playercount servers because of the "Legends", and the community born of those "Legends". Graal's community isn't one of friendly design, it's one giving players the opportunity to rape you sideways, and then spit on you afterwhich.

I'm better off playing Zone, where people don't really talk. You just pick up a gun and pwn something. No "hey that was *** you ****ing ***got pos hacker im going ot get staff 2 ban u cos i know the owner of tis server". Just more like "wow way to go ***gy appricer", or something to that extent.

Summary? Graal's community is full of idiots and jackasses who enjoy making your life hell. New fresh servers are great, but the older servers are unnatractive due to this "Legend" status.

Graal Classic people will always be the best, they are totally different from the others...

So what you're saying is that it's the quality, not the quantity of the players which seperates a good server from a bad server? Intellegent comment, though surely the quality of content matters too! I'm not saying classic isn't quality, infact my opinion is that Classic is one of the best servers going and always has been.

I'd just like to see more depth of thought from Graalians, think about why you like your server and if you realise you don't like it, and you're playing for the players, find a better server and put your buddies from the other server on an instant messenger or try to influence them to make the change too!

Classic has been dropped like a 20 pound bag of potato's. No new content, people just like to say it's good because they have alot of memories on it.

Hard work. This is definetely the main essential ingredient in playerworlds. I'm sick of seeing things like UN adding something that surely took them 10 minutes to make, and create a whole fiasco about how good it is. Then, based on UN's popularity, it gains 30 more players from this stupid thing.

Things that keep a server different and constantly entertaining are very good aspects. I know I talk about Zenkou way too much, but I could proudly say I have a right to. Zenkou, without a doubt, will be a #1 hit on the server list until UN kills it off with its rapid multiplication in players. I'm just hoping it doesn't turn up this way.

Wow, I slowly drifted off topic.

Active Staff is definitely a factor of a successful playerworld.

My ratings:

Era
Despite the current state(or lack of one), Era has always been my ideal server.
I played it when it was private and haven't left it.
Since I played Era, guns are all I look for on any server.

Unholy Nation
The only aspects of UN that have ever interested me would be the 'ETBrawl' Event-- LMS with Sword Beams brings out the Era in UN.

Zenkou
Great graphics. Zenkou looks like it has something comming for it. Unfortunately, there's absolutely nothing to do on Zenkou at this moment.

Maloria
I find this server boring. There's nothing to do other than level up. I'm currently IP banned for exploiting glitches.

Valikoria
I dislike RPing servers.
Val hasn't been decent since the server wipe about 3 years ago.

Classic was a good server. It still is, no doubt, but just not as good anymore. Classic is where I started playing. Maloria was good too, but then it became like alot of other MMORPGs. Delteria is pretty good. Still is. Valikorlia has its playercount because its the only server that focuses only on RPing. Kingdoms does have RPing, but its more of an optional thing, where on Valikorlia theres nothing to do but RP. The reason Valikorlia's playercount has dropped a bit in awhile is because they pretty much got rid of people having gani weapons. But for me right now, I just like working on a Dev server. Its just fun and appeals to my intrests.

The community within' the server.

The gameplay wouldn't make you play any server currently on the playlist.

The Community, and good, friendly, helpful staff that do their jobs is what keeps me playing a PW.
I don't care what it has on it, if the players and staff treat each other like crap, I don't want to play it...

i have no problem with you exploiting bugs, just make sure you let us know about them! ^^

people flock to UN because there are many people on UN, it has pretty good levels and weapons along with skills, however I define a server as good by truly unique scripting and features. With many interseting GFX and levels. Teamwork is something that is missing from many servers, though I have seen some servers with it. I personally think the best clasic and non-dev server...(heh because if it were dev, I would say Dark Rival, obvious reasons ;))...is maloria, because they fit many of these features. There are problems with all servers though. That's why I'm glad I own my own server, because I can make it perfect :D

After reading some harsh comments about UN, I won't argue with any of you even though I may feel you are horribly wrong.

I will just say good luck with each and everyone one of your playerworld projects I wish them the best of luck and hope they are highly successful with high playercounts and a thriving community.

LOVE,
NeoJenova (Unholy Nation Manager) :)

not bashing UN, I think its a great server, however, it is rather random, and does not fit into a medieval catagory, the levels are good, and the scripting is above par, it's just not for some people, and there are better levels and scripts out there. It works for your server though, obviously. When I first started playing graal, I played UN alot because it had many people on it. (Which is now one on UN's downfalls). I'm willing to bet many new players do the same thing, which increases the ammount of new people on the server, and also increases the overall number of people on, UN has some major lag troub;e because of this, among other reasons ;)

After reading some harsh comments about UN, I won't argue with any of you even though I may feel you are horribly wrong.

I will just say good luck with each and everyone one of your playerworld projects I wish them the best of luck and hope they are highly successful with high playercounts and a thriving community.

LOVE,
NeoJenova (Unholy Nation Manager) :)[/QUOTE]

See, I think the only two things Unholy Nation has going for it is the playercount and the staff team... These ARE two very important aspects of a server, though they don't make the server good!

If people are incapable of trying a new server then UN will be at the top until it is eventually shut down, or Graal's management could try a playerworld rotation policy that goes something like this; Playercounts aren't displayed and each week Graal "features" a playerworld, like promotes it and such... So for example, this week could be "N-Pulse" week, so it immediately goes to the top of the list and Graal writes a feature about it on it's website, then next week it goes to the bottom and another server takes it's place.

People like to play where they think the action is, until they have found a place which they like because of it's content, so some kind of reformed version of my rotation policy could work quite effictively if Graal wants to spread out it's players.

a server that keeps me busy and lag free.

Unholy Nation isn't a server. It is a dating simulator. Just ask gokucloudssj3bulmatrunks {lokin 4 gf} {leder o f cewl giez}.

You know what... I really like that idea.

That's sexy.

true you see the fake tags on UN VERY ofter x_x it is a more noob oriented server, but it's a great place to start playing graal :)

But half of the players of UN would come on the forums and post, looking for the name of the server they used to play on :( "0mg! my serber has ben eraset! pleas help me, oyah, a/sl/?"

*starts playing on UN 24/7*
*agrees with featured playerworld* kinda like a featured mod where there is a short article about the server and what it has to offer.

Quote material, my friend.

Its simple. A new player logs on for the first time and picks the server with the highest player count. Its a fair assumption that the one with the most players cant be too bad. They play a while, maybe join a guild, make some friends etc.. then they have no reasopn to move elsewhere.

Personally I feel Shaded Legends is one of the best servers, and of course Classic (Though I'm biased ;)), but as SL has a low playercount, its very hard for it to attract new players. The best server will always be the one where your friends are. ^^

Yeh, but I will. for all you people bashing UN, stop being so dense. People "flock" not because of the player count (I'm sure it helps), but because of the reason it has such a wide range of things to do.

It has everything from "standard Graal stuff" like sparring, PKing, simulated dating and intercourse, to Guns, Events, RPG systems, etc.

It has a massive range of things to do. I spent like 2-3 hours leveling in the RPG quest. Which I found to be extremely fun and challenging.

The people who have posted to bash UN are completley oblivious to what UN offers because they have not obviously spent the time of day on UN. and are just jelous the playworld they play doesn't get the playercount.

If UN was taken away. and the playercount switched to another server. I bet the bash would switch to 'That server is the sux it only has playercount cause UN has gone! If My serber was behind UN at the time it would of been teh owage'.

People, face it.. UN aint a Fad. It has alot of stuff to keep it fresh and exciting, and a wide range of things to do whilst there are no Events Team on.

so you're saying people like UN because UN is graal with A.D.D.? Most people find ritalin makes things better for a reason.

I don't know what game you signed up for but I'm pretty sure "simulated dating and intercourse" isn't standard Graal stuff.

Being a serverhopper more then anything, I've spent time on alot of playerworlds. I've spent time on UN too. I'm hardly jealous of the playercount. I speak of what I've seen and what I've seen was "simulated dating and intercourse".

Alright. You're just pulling things out of your ass. The quests are subpar at best, the events are just like every other server, and the community while there may be some cool people (NeoJenova seems alright) is mostly overran by prepubescent and hormonally challenged kids. Sure, it can be argued that Graal is a game for such kids but only on UN can you find SSJVEGETO trying to be adopted by some whacko who just so happens to be looking for a Graal lay.

you get the level 3 sword from a slot machine.

Yeah, you see it worries me that that sort of thing impresses people... You get hearts from random chests... There's no depth and yet it's popular - it drives me crazy.

I'd also like to take this oppertunity, seeing as I won't have another for 8 hours, to say Congratulations to Contego; he has taken over Management of Shaded Legend. Hrr4 will remain as Assistant Manager, overall a great result for SL as we now have more oppertunity to progress and impress!

UN makes me sad in the fact that the quests would be impossible to find and complete enough to have decent stats without a walkthrough or asking people for help.

What would you suggest in it's place? Carrying a pot across a bridge of tiles? Fighting waves of baddies? Reading an FAQ online to decipher a quest?!

Use your head.. your UN bashing thread isn't as subtle as you think it is, and even less effective.

If that is all you can think of for a quest to get hearts you are very unimaginative to what graal's scripting engine is capable of, you can have teamwork involved (since the server is so populated it wouldn't be a problem to have this in place) it was used in graal2001. You can have quests where you have to go to different NPCs and complete tasks to complete the quest.

Too bad UN doesn't have the capability.

yeah, and the jobs on UN also could use a touch up. the weapons are boring and the quests aren't great,only the new quests are any good but hey, it apeals to many people,...especialy new people ;) its Graal alright, but with ADD :D not bashing it, it's okay, but it's FAR from the best, or what it could/should be *more subtle :p*

everyone plays Un cuz everyone else.

That's abit of an overstatement.