Observations
 

Why is it impossible to get a straight answer out of any upper tier staff member on Classic, when questioning development?

A few key points -

"It is impossible to convert the Old Stuff. It will take far too long and most of the players don't want it."

Well, given 2 years, next to nothing has been done. I'm sure if it had simply been a conversion of all the old material, we'd certainly have more quests, more overworld areas to explore, etc.

What I see here is the staff wanting to re-shape the server in their image. Don't tell me this is a lie, it is blatantly obvious. The levels are not past fixing to bring them to compliance, it just appears no one wants to do anything about it. Wow guys, remove setbackpals from the levels, add a clientside, and fix a few deprecated commands. The only conversion that should be difficult is weapon conversion, but I will misplace my faith for a moment and say Master Storm and the two Ravens can accomplish the conversion.

"Stefan doesn't want us to use the old stuff."

ORLY? How did Malinko manage to get him to say that the old stuff is acceptable, and all that had to be kicked to the street were default movement and hit detection?

"There was no plot to the old stuff, and adding one would be much to difficult."

Actually, it would be extremely easy. And look, there is no plot to the current Classic at the moment anyway. A very weak basis for argument.



Any other reasons Master Storm or others would like to throw as to why the old stuff cannot be used?

Kevin Kevin... you do not put misinterperated paraphrases in quotation marks, only things people have actually said. I have answered all these questions personally to people who asked, and on the UGCC, which you have read. Just because you are trying to make an image for yourself does not mean you have to stir up a mess.

I do not know what other reasons people have given for not converting the old stuff, but the one I give is this: It is merely outdated. Graal is capable of so much more now. Why spend the effort converting old levels, when you can take the concepts and stories and shed them in a greater light with a more polished look and feel, and adding better coding and a more interesting (eg? fun) story with it.

Sadly, I have not personally been around for the past two years, but ever since I took an affirmative step, I wrote a plot with an entire story, and all the quests and items connect. Not only that, Mr. IWhineLikeEveryoneElse, but the Staff on Classic have been working hard to bring it to life. There has been phenominal progress. To all that ask I answer whats up, but I have no reason to broadcast promises of whats to come, it just seems like a better idea to impress the people when it is done, ne?

To put it bluntly, imho, the old material sucks. Any idea that does not suck is just being recreated in a better form. It might have been logical if you raised this before, but for over a month there has been discussion on the progress. Do not choose to blatently ignore such things, crybaby.

With Love,
Hell Raven

No you haven't, unless I missed this, in which case direct me to this Q and A session in a forum PM.
Outdated? I should remind you of the definition of Classic, but I won't, because I agree... to a degree. There was a lot of old content that should have never seen the light of a graalian day, and quite a few things that I'd like to see changed, but there was a good deal that could have been salvaged.
I read a good deal of this story, it isn't great, not even good. From what I read, it kept reminding me of Legends of Zelda, and then I realised the story was ripped off of LTTP and then modified slightly.
Whine or making valid complaints, may I remind you, we've been waiting for 2 years for some actual content.
From what I've been told, not much progress has actually been made. Yes, I talk to the staff to get a picture of what is happening.
Kind of like what Massokre had said when he begun, but 2 years later and we have nothing to show for it other than a contentless expansion of the overworld, and three lame quests (two of which could have been tiled, and scripted in 15-20 minutes a piece).
I think Hell Raven is a more arrogant version of Massokre.

There is no misinterpretation, and all of these have been said.
Really, I've seen none of this on the UGCC, and Master Storm does not give any sort of credibility to the UGCC anyway.
Make an image for myself? Please explain what the **** this means. You think I'm trying to be known? I just miss Graal the Adventure. But really, feel free to label this however you want.
None of this has happened over the past two years though.
Well, sure. Don't show the players what's going on. I'm sure when you're down to 4 players, they'll be impressed as hell.
Again, hidden from players.


Please make a decent point.

As far as I'm concerned, if Classic doesn't preserve its old content and style, it loses its right of existence.

That is such a stupid thing to say, especially if you are relating it to the past. Classic had always evolved with the times. New material was added and old material was removed. Things were improved. The current goals are no different then that of the past. In a sense it is incredibly classic like.

I do not feel a need to refute Max and Kevin, except on one notion. If the player count is down to 4 or whatever you may believe/will possibly be true, when they find out new material is released chances are the players that left will at least check it out. If they like it enough they would come back again to play. It is not an easy and quick fix, to beg people to stay and expect consistant results is not a relevent issue. If you two do not want to come back after it is all said and done, then its your own issue and personal spite. Do what you wish. I do not think others are as foolish to follow the same path.

While you may have felt your initial response was vastly superior, it was really weak on all fronts. If you prefer it, I could tear it apart using only logic flaws and the like, but I will only do so if you give the word. If you choose to disregard what I said, I can only believe that you believe you cannot possibly respond, and therefore, I am in the right.
This cannot be called into question, it is soild fact. The past two years, Classic had a significant surge of players. Why, therefore, has this trend discontinued and we now see all time lows in the playercount?
How do you expect them to find out? This worked for the maze quest, but not the castle quest. After how disappointing the maze quest was, they no longer cared.
Also, they won't find out. I don't think any of the players who have left are friends with "Princess Dazzy".
Some people liked the Castle Quest but left anyway.
Who said I left?

It's blatantly obvious no new content is coming. Massokre announced all sorts of grand things were on the way. In a way, it was easier to believe him, regardless of all of his shortcomings, because he controlled all of the divisions. All you control is the scripting divison of LAT, so why should I care that you promise things are on the way? I can only believe you saying scripts are on the way.

It has always evolved, but while preserving most of the old material.
Besides, in my opinion, the server was much better before the drastic changes of 2001.

If the current goals include changing 90% of the server, it should be turned into a separate playerworld.

sigh, classic isn't classic without the old pics1.png.

I don't see that pics1.png, therefor it's not "classic"

I call for evolution while preserving the older stuff.

You guys ever ask the die-hard 'Classic' players what they wanted? I'm almost sure of it, that they don't want all these drastic changes.

Change is inevitable, but making the correct changes is the key. 'Classic' can still be classic with the evolving environment of Graal, but damn... The development team needs to get together and discuss things through, and involve the players.

Sadly, this isn't how Hell Raven is going about things. He has said it on the UGCC, that he'll replace all the content he wanted because he had the power to do so, and didn't care if the players objected.

Hell Raven is gambling, thinking he can get all the old players back once he releases new content months (if not years) down the road. If you ask me, that is a fairly big assumption.

As for Minoc, sadly he has lost all credibility in my eyes. He preaches how we should convert the old, and try to preserve Classic's meaning but goes ahead and edits key historical landmarks to place his guild right in the middle of Graal City, and refuses to change it back.

The server really is beyond "fixing." It's like building upon broken Legos pieces. Not going to work without outsourcing for adhesive.

As for always falling back on old stuff (or more specifically the stuff Tyhm made and worked), it's not going to "fix" things neither. We can have all the old NPCWs and quests and everything else back, and all it is going to do is bring back players for a little bit, like the usual small summer-time surge. The problem lies with Management, which is what got "us" into this mess in the first place.

Two theories on Classic - either it's Levels, or it's not.

Ironically, as one of the longest lived LATs, I don't think it's levels. If it was levels, then Graal2000 would have been a bigger success. I don't think it's a question of starting from the levels everyone liked and Building either, or Graal2000b would have been a bigger success still. I think Classic was only ever a state of mind, and neither going back to how the levels were when I was in charge nor building a new better overworld will change anything.

But feel free to prove me wrong.

I'm just stuck wondering what's being done and how it will be added.

Are you trying to finish ALL of it before you put it up? Or maybe one section at a time? A quest here and there, maybe more on the inside of building already there?


What i was thinking of is...can some of the older levels be used? Maybe slight changes so they fit in, and script things from there? (this is probably what some players mean when they want the old content restored)