The Value of a Playerworld
 

"The Value of a Playerworld" - Article by Thallen
From about the time when Graal Kingdoms was just beginning as a project, it seems like playerworlds are not as respected and valued by developers as they were before that particular time. Does anyone remember Cynical? Galbadia? If you don't, you're not guilty of anything; those are two servers in specific that suffered a short-lived time on the playerlist, not because of lack of players (neither were victim of that) but because of something else that until this day hasn't been announced.
As time goes on, generally, people expect the quality of gameplay to improve, but really, nothing is wrong with a playerworld with the default tileset and a spar and PK theme. How and why are playerworlds like Cynical (up for a few months maybe) and Galbadia (online for only days, managed by Sebman) just disappearing? How does a whole, mostly-developed world just disappear? I see no excuse for it. People have told me it's the manager's decision, but when a playerworld is placed on the playerlist, it's property of Graal Online. Find a manager for the world if you must, PWA. What I am getting after is that completed playerworlds are a rarity ever since playerworld renting. 95% of the servers that are rented don't even have a chance of making it online, and there are so many, it is so spread out that I fear none will ever even be completed. Archaic was looking great, what went wrong with it? The problem is the people do not understand the value of even a half-developed playerworld, no matter it's style.
People are trying to make something new and never tried before, and there is really not an unlimited number of things possible to develop on Graal. Unholy Nation strives on just events and PKing it seems, and that's the same for N-Pulse. Classic lives on it's community, and surprisingly, those three servers aren't all that different, they all have that classic Graal theme, but they strive. If N-Pulse can get 70 players a day in a level for chat, a spar, and an events house, Babylon could be released right now (and never even taken offline, why did that happen) and be successful. We don't need mindblowing content on a playerworld if it means it will never realistically be completed. All that, I think, most of us want is a little bit of change. Babylon, Mithica, Cynical, Galbadia, Andor, Providence, those weren't level-up or shooter servers, those all were that classic-themed spar and PK playerworld, and they were all pretty successful at some time because (I'm amusing) they were simple enough to complete, so the project remained healthy, and they were released to the players when they should have been...

Renegade was also an amazing Example of the stuff you are talking about. I think the manager was Rob, and when we released it he needed to do a mass reset but Stefan wasnt avalible to do it or something like that. So he tried to reset everyone by hand, it didnt work, he got upset or something, and asked it to be shut down.

I could be wrong, and its possible. This is just how I remember it.

I dont think its that playerworlds cant be complete, I dont want to sound like a broken record, but I do believe you were a part of all the conversations that have shown what is wrong with the playerworld system.

Dedicated individuals is all it would take im telling you.

EDIT: I lied, I've read it!

I have to agree, and remember talking about it before. I wouldn't put them all back online, but certainly some (Andor for example) as that was small as it was, and anything you add would be noticed and welcomed as an update!

What happened to that server that never got online? It had one of the best overworlds I had seen in AGES. End of Ages I think, it was so good looking, with a snowy area in the middle, I loved that :\

Amen.

hallelujah!

Versus.

I'd love to see an Andor revival.

Love.. :frown:

The only problem with having a billion spar and PK worlds is that it gets sort of repetitive. I mean, I don't see anything wrong with a few of them, but I would also like to see something new pop up every now and again, instead of just the repetitive RPG servers or PK/Spar.

Is that still in production :\ ?

No. Wan let go of that, unfortunately. It was so great because the levels were crafted by him, probably the best LAT (in my opinion, at least) on Graal.

But does Graal store old, dead PWs that used to be on the list anywhere? Because if someone could get a hold of old Andor, it could be fixed up and just as successful as it was before...

I agree all the way.


Why did wan do that..... the server was going great in my view.. :frown:

Yes, there are backups. Not sure how long they're kept for and what worlds etc.
Probably the whole Mykel and Eagle stopping the project thing and then destroying the organization that was there. There was an attempt to work on it afterwards but it never worked out, I think.

Aw, Well if it does come back up again I wanna be apart of it. :)

I agree, Ive struggled for over a year to keep my last and only server alive on the UC list...always constantly trying to revive it. We have come close but time after time somthing goes wrong. Yet I push on for development til I cant push anymore. Yes I am talking about Babylon...

Now this may seem ****y to many of you but I believe if your developing a server you should and have to be like me. Now Ive been going for over a year trying to get one server developed while Ive seen so many servers start and end...Mainly Im saying you have to really want to complete your work I guess. Dont start if you dont plan on finishing...If you truly value your work, youll value your playerword til the end.


..and maybe instead of making your own servers us developers can come together one day and create 1 great server instead of all going our own ways.

Heh well it's hard when you can't find good trustable, and good at what they do staff members these days well alone keep the other ones active i'm close to shutting my playerworld down but i'm having difficulties with my admin account and graal.net account so I can't shut it down yet i've had it i've pushed and pushed on and on and done pretty much every bit of work that is done on the server. :\