Graal Forums - Graal Online Improvements

When it comes to complaining, "graalians" are the first to come upon the debate... However, I haven't seen very much constructive critism on the actual game. They say it's boring, noxious, a waste of an individual's time, but they don't say what caused it or how to fix their problems they have.

First point... The service on Graal Online has never been quite the fancy subject. When it comes to support, things get done in 4-5 days, if not more. The updates are always delayed, and far inbetween. You have a problem, and you expect, or rather in this case demand, feedback as soon as possible. It is a problem because most of the administration team are actual developers that have, I wouldn't say better, but more demanding sections to do. I see Stefan posting a multitude of posts a day, but I don't see him publishing anything! Of course, I keep a keen eye on what he does, but not everyone does. To them, they don't see anything being done. It's always a question of half-finished projects.

The second point that comes to mind is the fact that we're here, paying. The question I ask myself is... Paying for what? Paying for a game in which the 'playerworlds' were created by paying members (who infact paid more to work). It seems quite obnoxious that the people who pay perhaps 150$ a year to play a game is bombarded with insults, requests, and demands from players which they sacrificed so much time towards. There is no reward for good managing and nor for best playerworld. Infact, it is proclaimed that even if you are the top playerworld, if you don't pay your rent for the server, you'll either be removed from Manager/Owner, and reinstated a wealthier person, or the server that you worked hard on will vanish, disappear. This leaves no motivation for anyone with talent to want to work. Infact, I was told that the playerworld I've been working on is better off just going on some opensource game engines and create it there, because Graal itself would waste my time.

The third point is the community is negative towards one another. I've been practicing soccer a lot this year (first year), and I've been playing with people who've played for 10-12 years. To my surprise, when I mess up and leave the other players to goal, the person does get frustrated, but he SUPPORTS me. He tries to develope my skills, tries to help me get better. Of course, the community here does do this, but it's so much easier to blast some people. It turns out that even if someone gives a constructive comment, that the person will be offended because everyone else just insults.

To summarize: I was thinking perhaps improving on three fronts, two of which only administration can do, and a third one that every single person can. The first one is about keeping the people happy through fast service to solve problems pretty fast. Instead of having limited people working on both developement and player relations, they should have them seperate. The second point is... Instead of just making the players pay and pay, try to get some competition going, perhaps a prize, an award, a romantic night with MoonGoddess... Who knows how much this would improve the quality! The last point is try to be nice to each other!

While I was pissing at school today, I was thinking of how much lack of respect that someone must have so that the administration needs to post "Guys, please flush your toilet when you're done" on the wall... It made me think about how not what we want to portray ourselves, but how we want to portray our community... How do we? I want it to be a warm, welcoming feeling where everything is nice and clean... Just because I didn't do the mess, the fact that I don't pick it up means that I as a person wants to portray myself as someone filthy. The moral is... Even if you aren't responsible for doing something, it would always be appreciated to help out a little bit anyways. It won't only make the community you go to cleaner, but as well as yourself.