A hope for a new graal server/game?
 

Hello!

As I'm sure some of you know, a website named 'Kickstarter' has been around for awhile. Recently though it has really began to shoot off and start producing quite a lot of money for developers, whom would otherwise be just like us, with monetary incentive.

I 'd like to hear thoughts or concerns about wether some of the dedicated developers on graal should come together and finally produce something alongside the help of kickstarter. This would, I think, provide a much better motivation than simply looking forward to the end product on our side.

I've seen projects that contain nothing more than a promise and screenshots with RPGmaker tilesets earn $12,000+. If we could get something going, I'm sure we could make at least that much in donations to really get us going along in development.

Again, I'd like to hear questions and concerns on this idea, and of course hear from people who would love to be a part of this if it ever got under way. Things like "what genre" and "Ipod or classic or what" should be better off left until it actually got going on kickstarter, and better left for the team that would be developing.

As I told you on AIM, I think this is a great idea!

if only my dev skill wasnt the most useless of the three. if money is involved i'll make levels for anything though. no shame son.

as long as you get together outside graal and have complete control of whatever you are doing. otherwise ur gonna end up 4 years down the road on the gold playerworld list like a worn out prostitute with your gelat shop gaping wide. neat idea tho just dont do it with graal

lul.

I agree. Not necessarily biased towards any opinion, I just approve :D

I agree with felix. dont do it with graal. It will have no players and graal controls it. Make you own game

Normally with Kickstarter you offer something to those who donate, like a copy of the game when it's released. If you make a Graal playerworld, how will you make sure donators can access it without trial restrictions?

graal's management is whats ultimately kept the game down for many many years. the potential was always there, but ya.

at least not quite S2 :rolleyes:

hm?

graal getting closer n closer to doing an s2

s2 sold out but increased their playercount by about 15,000. at some points it was hitting as low as 35k, after their new scheme i saw it at a record high 70k.

The idea is there, but you're still working within the confines of Graal itself. The only donators who would be interested I feel are Graalians, which is a very limited demographic. Then besides that the only fields of development where you can pay to get stuff done are the artistic fields, like graphics and music. Scripts will be very important to get anything decent accomplished, and there are only a few of those left(in my opinion, of any skill level that would warrant being paid). You could have a very artistically beautiful game, with awesome graphics and a wonderful soundtrack... but what's the point if the server is scripted poorly/has poor gameplay?

I mean, money can only get you so far and Graal is a VERY close-knit community. If people donate and then the product isn't satisfactory then it will ripple on forever. First off, donators will somehow feel entitled to a decent product since there is money involved(and they would be wrong), and second the first kickstarter results could effect anyones willingness to donate for future kickstarters related to Graal, even if it's being handled by someone much more capable. Also note that most developers on Graal don't script fulltime like you would find with programmers. Their time is often limited, and money can't fix that(especially if they have obligations with school/work, like many do).

It's an iffy thing, in my opinion. Also as it's been noted, Graal's structure(with Stefan and Unixmad) doesn't really help at all. But for an entirely different game? Most definitely, you're breaking away from a niche setting and gaining much more possibilities of being able to hire programmers from many different places and so on. However this would end up being much more work so it's a pro/con sort of thing.

and look at em now broson :cool:

s2?

****ty ass company that stuck with a broken p2p model way too long before changing to f2p but it was too late by the time they actually changed.

yeah but i dunno what ziro's point was. is he saying s2 is worse than cj? because that would be ridiculous and obviously wrong.

ya idk about that. cj takes the cake no doubt son

I might not have thought that one through properly.

the makers of LoL.

If money is the only motivation, you should keep away from that.

I agree, this is a wonderful idea, outside of Graal. :]

:noob:

Graal projects do not need any funding.
I don't think you can use Kickstarter for fundraising and then just put the money in your pockets as incentive.

To whoever gave me negative rep - if you'd like to dispute my argument, please do it over here, so I'll be able to respond accordingly. :)

by that logic game developers do not need any funding. and no i didnt neg rep minoc.

I would only fund initiated projects that only want to cover production costs like hiring people to work on it

Wasteland 2 seems to be a good starter

When regular game developers seek public funding they usually have expenses these funds are supposed to cover.
These expenses include among others the cost of the infrastructure (computers, software, licenses), salaries, and marketing and distribution expenses.
Graal servers normally do not have any of these expenses, sans the server rental fee.

thats my point though, game developers dont need funding for salaries by your logic

Regular game companies could seek public funding in order to cover salary costs.
I'm not sure however that this also applies to private developers who have a stake in the product. For example, if two guys developing an indie game raise $500,000 for the purpose of 'covering their expenses', and then cash in the entire amount as payment for their own work, it seems like foul play.

Back to Graal -
Graal developers tend to work for free. Instead of using funds to cover current expenses (which hardly exist), the funding would only serve as a mean to create new expenses, which do not exist today. The total funding should be derived from the expenses, and not the other way around.
I assume some legal issues may also arise, since the project would probably need to comply to quite a few legislative regulations.

Exactly, Graal doesn't have these expenses... hence the rather lackluster content. The idea here is that the funding would be used to pay for quality work, and probably outside of Graal. Right now if you want, say, graphics for your server you post a thread and probably get no response. However with proper funding you could instead go to some place like pixelation or the many other development communities floating around on the net and hire a freelance graphic artist. They don't give a **** what the graphics are for as long as you're paying them. Music and SFX as well would work well with this direction since those two fields are the most neglected areas on Graal, and it's very hard to find quality sound artists around here. More importantly when money is involved and it's dealing with more professional people who do freelancing for a living, you're much more likely to get what you pay for.