here's a good proposal
 

one of graal's unique features is the ability to choose from a list servers that each have different types of gameplay features.

era is based around pking and if you say otherwise, you're wrong. if you say you want to change that, you're stupid. if you want to play or develop non-pk related content, why not just go to a different server? that's the beauty of this game!

this part of a post in particular caught my attention:

what I don't understand is, if you love these items so much why don't you just go on a server based around "pointless items to use" (unholy nation) and play there? don't have the staff team mimic these things on era when they could be spending the time developing content that actually fits the server theme.

that's just how I see it. feel free to disagree.

I want this topic open for discussion. if someone starts getting out of hand, delete the post, don't lock the thread.

:cool:

I agree that Era is based on PKing; what I said earlier was misinterpreted. However, this doesn't mean that Era can't involve some non-PK things as well. It's not like they subtract from the server.

It seems to me like releasing the instruments has brought a lot of people to Era who weren't here before. In any case, the release of the instruments has brought a lot more life into Era than many updates of the same caliber would.

However, Battle of the Bands was our last big project on the main server, and we are now going to resume work on the dev server.

I don't really see people sitting in unstick me playing instruments as "life".
Seems kind of like dead weight to me.


Not that this wasn't a good idea, it was a good way to put the instruments to use. But you guys took like, what, a month to prepare this event. And you only gave the winner 30k.

you're right, they don't subtract from the server. the thing is, I don't think you should be focusing on things like that right now. era has lacked a decent update in years. you guys put effort into an update with something the server isn't even based on. all I can say is, I'm extremely disappointed.

the way I see it, you're attracting players that didn't play era before because they don't like pking. I don't see why they can't just stay on other servers if they want to do things that don't involve pking instead of making the staff team on era cater to their non-pk needs.

Teeth. Grip. Razor-sharp.
Bites hi-power, tear you apart.
Teeth. Grip. Razor-sharp.
Bites hi-power, tear you apart.

Name any successful server that focuses on ONE aspect of a game.

Look at zone for example. Average playercount: 3-7, it's all PK, but it gets boring after a while and people quit. There were many days on Era that i was completely bored. Now heres another way to look at this. Do you like businesses on Era? They are non pk features. In addition so are quests, etc.. When i say i want non pk stuff, this is what i mean. I don't mean i want the random items though i still believe some are entertaining like the Cards game on Classic.
I also still think music is another feature added to Era that adds more diversity. I also think adding more things will bring players to Era. The game is STILL based around pking, guns, etc... but has side items now

Another great thread from the philosophical mind of Frankidomis.

I hope you realize that Era was one of the first playerworlds to make use of an economy, and that this was one of the features other playerworlds did not have at the time (as opposed to purely pking which was basically every other server but Valikorlia).And of course the whole modern + guns thing

Go buy a first person shooter rather than make a pointless thread and b*tch. Have you NOT payed attention to the game over the time you've played it? You're a miniscule little character riding horses and cutting bushes. Graal is the facebook of indie games.
HEY! lets make the gmap into a huge parking lot where everyone runs around with a handgun and shoots each other repetitively, that certainly won't get boring. You know, lets erase houses, businesses, events, instruments, and other systems that have no relevance to pking whatsoever. ;)

yeah, because I totally said to remove everything not related to pking. way to be relevant to the thread there champ :rolleyes:

my argument isn't "get rid of everything not related to pking"

my argument isn't "don't ever develop anything not related to pking ever again"

my argument is, oh wait. I already posted it! way to read guys ^____^

like I said, feel free to disagree!

Hey sport, You're implying that you want all non-pk related dev to be done on OTHER servers, or perhaps that isn't what you wrote here?

Once again, without a social aspect to era there would be no playercount. Which is why developing non-pk related things is an important aspect to the game. Maybe you should purchase some glasses.

I won't call zephirot ignorant but I will say he's uninformed.

Frankie is right in that servers are unique and should try to stay within their theme. Its what sets them apart from other servers and draws in new players and keeps the server alive. Any community will grow old and die eventually without the influx of new generations.

Era is a modern, gang based server. Thats not to say it has to revolve only around guns though. I personally feel the instruments fit in quite well since music is also a huge part of the seedier side of life. Everything has a balance of some kind. In Era's case it also has legitimate businesses which are sometimes run by gangs (a cover for money laundering I'm sure) and sometimes run by the good guys. Housing is important cause you have to admit, they even have to have a place to sleep.

Anything revolving around big city life would fit into the theme. What I don't feel fits are things like swords. I also don't feel each server should create content just like every other server just because its popular there.

Opinions such as these have been tossed around for months now, and I think it's time to finally and formally take action!

I understand that the reset will indeed bring new life to Era, but what about the current Era? Shouldn't we test out these future 'changes' and see how the players (what makes ANY server run) feel about them?

I think before we focus on the 'side attractions,' we should focus on the core game play that defines what Era is about: gangs, and guns.

bingo!

Era is based around economy. PKing is part of the economy.

Why do you play Era? To shoot people with guns, or to become rich and powerful to be able to kill people easily, have control and be better than everyone else? Regardless, I'm going with the latter.

Instruments are a nice addition to Era's expanding economy. Yes, the economy that most likely keeps you interested in playing Era.

oh yes, how could I have forgotten? I only play Era for it's intriguing economy :)

I personally spent about five-six hours working on it, not a month. I don't know about anyone else, though. Certainly not a month (though it was planned a month beforehand perhaps)

The main problem I see is the overall uselessness of being employed (or working random jobs that Era offers). Back when I was a young player, I would spend the majority of my time working jobs to save up for more expensive guns. After about a week, I had earned enough money to shop around my items (and money) and "play the market." Currently, the prices of weapons are far from symmetrical with the current cash that is circulating throughout Era's economy.

That's something that's been a death-mark on the current Era, in my opinon.

It's like an item-based game instead of skill based now. It's not so much "are you good at PKing?", it's now "I just need to get a better gun."

All of the guns have ridiculous stats these days. Who needs skill when you can just hold D and wall the **** out of everyone? My god, even the dual MKs would have been considered lame back in the old days of era.

Yea, I was going to say the same thing. I spent no more than 30 minutes making the on-screen keyboard, and no more than a couple of hours with the other stuff. The majority of the work (graphics/ganis/sounds), believe it or not, was done by players, not the staff team. It may seem like we're wasting our time on things such as the instruments, but we're really not...

I guess that just shows how resourceful we are...we can spend very little time on a project and have it turn out so awesome that every thinks we spent months doing it. ^^

Everyone thinks you spent months doing it because nothing else has been done in months for the main server. (Other then quick fixes)

you're saying the instruments took no more than a few hours, yet it's the only thing that has been released in the past month and a half? lol..

if it's so easy, why aren't there more updates a lot more often?

I was the one who started the instrument project. I had an idea and I went through it. As the current staff was preoccupied I got most of the work from my friends who weren't developers on the server. I got Omni (spydrct02) to do the sounds, Noto to do the graphics, and Hector did the majority of the GANIs. Noto was the only staff member, but he is a GP, so I don't think it's the same really. To make the first 21 instruments it only took LESS than a week and then we were done. The only help we got with the creation of the instruments was the scripting which were done by Sales and Chris, but as you can see from their response, it wasn't too much. Also, I decided to make it an EC Shop because people were complaining that their was nothing to spend their ECs on, even if the person themselves didn't want the instrument they could have easily sold it and made huge profits. With the little time spent on the instruments I think it came as a huge success even though some may dislike them. Also, the events that were hosted because of them were also huge successes and increased our playercount drastically even if it was a short amount of time.

I know I can't speak for the rest of the team, but I've been busy with school/finals, and usually spent what time I had working on the EventBot. The bot itself is pretty much done and has been running for a week or so. I'm not sure how this isn't something that was released in the last month and a half, but whatever (it just needs the occassional bug fix and more events will be added over time).

You also need to remember that we just lost a Dev Admin, a LAT admin, and a few other developers not too long ago. The team is finally getting put back together...

I finished school today too, so expect more updates from me personally in the future.

I don't really see the point you're trying to make here. maybe you quoted the wrong post? you're just further proving my point.

I was just restating what we did. You as well as others almost seemed surprised about how little time it took to actually create these items.

However, I do have a question for you. What would you like to see on the current server? What kind of updates are you looking, or do you believe would have the best outcome and can generally be used by a large portion of the server?

I have yet to see any effort being put into a new gang system, which I would really like to see on Era. sure, the idea of a new one has been talked about for a while, but it's about time development on one actually started.

specifically, gangs need more of a purpose. there needs to be benefits from raiding a gang instead of just "haha we took your base."

gang events should be hosted weekly again, and there should be at least 4 or 5 different events. 1 event a week. rotate the events this way an event doesn't get old. having a koth every week would make gangs get bored of it. having a koth, then 4 other events over 4 weeks, then koth again, it won't be as boring!

have different bases around the server that gangs can capture for advantages. maybe one base will allow them an extra +10 HP, and another base might allow them +5 damage on their guns. these benefits would make gangs want to have these bases, and there will be huge conflicts for the territory. it would be neat. these benefits will only be useful if you're on gang tag, so this will encourage a lot more people to join a gang and be on tag.

what else???? idk!!! so much!

make pking a bit more rewarding. maybe killing people can give you points and you can spend it on little stuff such as increased clip size or shorter bleed times. a lot can be done here.

just a few ideas. most of the stuff revolves around gangs.

The least that could be added back are the phones so people can prank call each other.

It has. Just hammering out the details with Chris and I will start on it soon.

There will be much more of a purpose to gangs, and I think you'll like what we have in mind. There will be several options when it comes to leading a gang, and leaders will be able to choose them based on their priorities.

Gang events are fun ocassionally, but they're really just a sad attempt at trying to give current gangs meaning.

We have something similar in mind, but it's a little more thought out than this...same concept.


I've also thought of some things that will help with this, mainly in the area of sparring and have started discussing them with Chris. Hopefully we'll be able to see some updates in this area as well.

everything sounds good, but I just want to comment on:

it's not a sad attempt. gang events are extremely competitive. competition causes rivalries. rivalries between gangs are a good thing because it's more fun that way! if all gangs were buddy buddy it would be boring :rolleyes:

please re-add phones :3

You know what I meant...it's like taking the lazy way out at giving gangs meaning. Creating competition is great, but hosting KotH over and over again is not a solution to the problem.

I can't imagine why KOTH is so boring? Is it because it's the same map and the prize is a hat? No. impossible.

Or it's the same kind of game-type that's been around since the near dawn of all shooting based games.

Terribly uninventive, boring, over-used, tired.

We could get creative?

There's no reason to be competitive. We're no longer struggling for metal storms and flak cannons. We're fighting over event coins, because you know you had your eyes on those nightvision goggles from the very start.

I never said it was boring. I enjoy koth...both playing and hosting. Pretty much everyone enjoys it (until they lose).

My point, as already clearly stated above, is that it is not a solution to the problem. Sure, it raises the playercount and provides a couple of hours of entertainment when it's hosted, but only in small doses.

It cannot provide constant entertainment, and if we tried to host it all the time, that's when it would get boring.

Giving big prizes for Koth like that is another prime example at why the current gang system fails. It shouldn't require super expensive/overpowered/rare items to make gangs interesting.

Variety is the spice of life, swapping the KOTH levels now and then would do us all good.


That's where you're wrong. I've already stated this tonight, and I'll state it again; the world doesn't run on sunshine and stickers. People want to see their efforts and struggles be rewared, why was KOTH so successful back then?

Yeah, but if you did host expensive **** like that away, that could only be like a once-every-6-month or so event.

Unless you somehow think a regular event auctioning off Flaks and Metal Storms wouldn't **** up the economy.

I am not wrong. Sure, it makes things a little more fun, but it's not in the server's best interest to host the events for such big prizes. Not only is it an unfair way to release the items because not everyone can participate, but it throws the economy off-balance. It was usually only the gang leader who got to keep the prize, occassionally the MVP, anyways. Woohoo, fun!

There's better ways to give gangs meaning, and bring back the fun again.