Just some ideas.
 

Changes that I feel would bring Graal Kingdoms back to life.

There needs to be many changes on Graal Kingdoms for this server to come back to life. Most of what I am going to say you all will instantly decline because of your selfishness, but overall it will bring life back to the server. So before you all completely shut out the idea of these changes just think of the big picture. I DO NOT THINK PLAYERS SHOULD BE RESET. In no way am I complaining these are simply suggestions that could possibly improve the server.

The economy of Graal Kingdoms has been ruined completely and most of you will agree. Here are a few things that I believe can help fix it.

Items:
I believe ALL items on the server should be obtainable by questing, shopping, blacksmithing, alchemy, and farming. There should not be any one of a kind items on there server. All that does it ruins the economy and messes up the balance in the game. I feel that every ones armor and weapons should be reset back to normal, no upgrades/blessings on them at all. I feel that all IWDs, EAs, EW, and other weapon bonus' should be removed from the server completely. You should have to use the blacksmith to upgrade your gear (with a chance of losing you item if it fails). This will help keep the server balanced. You should be required to have a certain upgrade scroll/item for armor and your weapons (obtainable by questing, shopping, or farming). I feel that items should require a certain level to be able to use them. When upgrading items the required level should be increased as well.

Quest:
There needs to be many more quest added to this server. I do not mean quest that only get you Gold Keys. We have enough of those and most are already broken. There needs to be several different quest on this server that not only help you level but also help you obtain armor and weapons. I think quest should allow you the get up to atleast mid-grade armor, weapons, and accessories. I think that instances IE the crypt should drop "Unique" grade armor (not just from the boss).

Levels:
This is an obvious. The server needs many more levels added to it. As of now there are only 3 places where you can level to get decent experience at a high level. These places of Brutals, Samurai Dungeon, and Crypt. The Crypt can only be done once a day. If you want more players on the server this has to be changed. Even as of now with 6-13 players on the servers the Samurai Dungeon is always occupied so that cuts off leveling for others. Brutals can be obtained by using dest scrolls in the haunted house which takes hours to get a 3-4? if you are lucky. So brutals in turn are not a good source to level. As stated already the Crypt can only be done once daily. There is not enough for players to do on the server so a rising player count is not going to happen until that changes. The easy way of putting this is that the server needs many more levels added to it.

Blacksmith Shops:
I feel that all gear up to mid-high grade should be craftable in the blacksmith shops. As stated before items should have a level requirement. This would give players a reason to play because they would have something to look forward to. It would also keep the economy stable. Armor/Weapons can be sold to the players that do not wish to gather the required items (sold by other players of course).

Alchemy:
There are so many alchemy books/scrolls that can be bought from the stores. I feel this should stay the same, but some of the requirements should be changed. There are certain alchemy items that require more then they should. An example would be the HSoD, it requires 1 potion of constitution and
1 potion of dexterity (GK Items) yet it doesn't offer CON nor does it offer DEX. That was just an example. Nobody is going to make that shield simply because of the requirements. Alchemy already has a chance of failure so that doesn't need to be changed. I feel any items that are not to be bought in the shops or able to farm should be able to create it with alchemy. Should require a certain level to be able to create these items.

Farming:
Farming for items should not be impossible to find items, but it should not be extremely easy either. Monster on the server already drop specific items, mostly worthless. The crypt will be my example for this feature. I have completed the crypt atleast 50 times and every time it drops 1 black cape and an essence. The drop rate is way to low. There should be a reasonable drop rate depending on the item. Dark Flame for example, only worth its look, should probably have a spawn rate of 1:8 times or so. I am sure the players on the server could come up with some reasonable drop rates for different items if these features were to be added.

Other Shops:
The other shops would be rings, spells, alchemy, and accessories. These shops should be improved drastically. There are way to many useless items that come from these shops and I feel those should be limited. The price on many of these useless items is a bit much as well. The spawn rates for items are completely horid. Rings, recipes, spells, and scrolls of some type of value do not spawn very often which limits players from advancing at all. Don't get me wrong I wouldn't want to see a RoW being spawned every other time, but the spawn rate for them has become almost exstint. I think the the spells, recipes, and the rings should require a certain level to use/learn/cast them.

Classes:
The server offers many different classes, but there aren't real requirements for them. You can be a mage yet you can have the same defense/atk/hp as a warrior/barbarian. This seems a bit odd to me, because the class doesn't really matter. I think each class should have requirements strengths/weaknesses. A mage should not be able to wield a sword, dagger, or axe. Mages should not be able to wear armor above "cloth" low-grade. They should be limited to wands and staves. Warriors should not be able to cast magic but have a weakness to magic and only able to wield a sword. Barbarians should have the same as a warrior except only have to use an axe. Priest should only be able to use a or staff. Thief should only be able to weild a dagger. These are just examples not to be taken as I want these specific things.


OverAll:
These are simply suggestions and yes I know they would require a tremendous amount out work to even get half of them added. I just wanted to share some ideas with everyone and get opinions of what you think. I feel if we even have some of these features added to the server that the player count would rise. To see all of these features added to the server would bring Graal Kingdom back to life completely. What would you change about what I posted. I know the chance of any of these changes happening are slim to none but I wanted to share my ideas anyway. Who knows maybe some of you scripters out there would actually want to help work on some of these features. Thanks for reading. Sorry about the spelling its very late.

Why not make an entirely new server? Seems easier than messing about with GK's clunky ass ****

Also by making all equipment available through quests/crafting/etc you're essentially reseting everyone. What I can support however is releasing NEW items with equal stats. ie NEW SHIELD of con+1 and leave KJ as it is. that way people can collect their rares just to look cool, instead of getting both looks and retarded op stats.

Tons of threads have already been made, on how GK can improve.

Non or almost non of them were taken seriously, this shows how much interest there is into improving GK.

Nobody is willing to put forth the effort.

Already on that, actually. :p


Anyway, Tashkin...

Good stuff you have here, but everyone is well aware that a lot of these changes need to be made. The problem with Kingdoms is that its core system will never be scrapped or rewritten, even though it's very clear that it's needed. Because of the way this server is run, it will not be making much in terms of upward progress until someone tries something drastically new and gets permission to throw out some of the old game systems. And getting that kind of permission is not likely to be given unless the new systems can somehow prove themselves.

The problem with Kingdoms is that it's entirely based off of another game called Crossfire, and a very sparse amount of content has been built on its skeleton for close to ten years. I would propose getting rid of old formulas, writing brand new algorithms that work, and restructuring the way enemies and items are handled. That alone would justify a server reset, and allow us to work toward more advanced things like professions and so forth in the long run.

But not much is going to change, because too many people like to stick with what's tried and true. Unfortunately, what's tried and true doesn't exactly work as well ten years later.

So why would anyone be willing to put forth the effort of doing all this **** for gk...

Paraphrasing a bit to address your general points.

I disagree. There's nothing wrong with there being extremely rare and valuable items as long as their stats are comparable to those of cheaper items. Gold sinks are good, and without them you'd just have people with tons of money (diamonds/EC) and nothing to spend them on.

This sounds a lot like preparing weapons right now. I don't see any reason to get rid of IWDs and such; rather, I think they should be less rare so that they're easy for new players to get ahold of as well. The combat system needs to be rebalanced so that it's based more on skill than items. AC should be taken out of PvP entirely.

Agreed.

Level requirements tend to just keep new players weak and old players strong.

The spawn rate you quoted on the darkflame is way too high—keep in mind Kale and I have done the crypt almost 250 times (and only gotten prizes a couple times, most during Halloween when the drop rate is increased)—but I agree that monsters should be dropping more items.

I think it's more important to add a wider diversity of items. I don't think shops are a huge issue right now.

Graal Kingdoms is a big fail. I can't even get past the tutorial level because there's some sort of bug in which I try to give an item to an NPC and the script doesn't work. The staff are unwilling to help even when they're severely scarce on actual players that care about their server.

You can leave the tutorial island w/o doing the tutorial.

I agree with everything here

Where's the bug? This is my first time hearing about it.

That's because you don't remember back when HSoD was good.

HSoD was my first epic Shield back in 2004-2005. Damn it was so good! And everybody wanted it badly... Lol

I think he’s talking about task 5 “Using the mines” in the starting tutorial. During the task, one of the NPC, James, ask the player to mine one coal and one iron bar. The “bug” is that you are unable to give the material to the NPC.

I think the problem relates to the client that is used. I tested it out and with Graal client version 5 and you could give the material to the NPC however with client version 6 you can’t. Others have run into the problems too. I told them to use client 5 when doing the task it seems to have worked for them when they switch to client 5 as well.

Indeed kale. This helps out alot when trying to learn how this server works. (oh, how much i love sarcasm). With such bugs in tutorial and such quotes you can't expect new people to come to Graal Kingdoms. It's complicated if you are new to this server. ;)