Questions about servers
 

When they are taken offline, do the files stored on them stay preserved, or do they get wiped? I know that a lot of servers went down lately because of users not paying to run them (A good decision, in my opinion.) and I was wondering, if you pay for it again, will all the content still be there?

Also, it's sort of a long shot, but will there ever be a time when server rental goes 'on sale?' It'd be cool to occasionally have time spans of like two weeks or something where a year of server rental would just cost around $75 instead of $100. It could encourage people to rent out servers more than they have been. Just an idea.

Hmmm i'm interested in this too. My server has been down for quite some time now, not sure how long but a good few months... if the files do stay preserved, then how long for and can the owner get the levels, scripts, images etc.. back if he reupgrades? -Thanks

The playerworld files are saved for an extremely long time (years). As for the limit on time that renewal is allowed before the server itself is deleted I'll have to leave that to someone else to answer.

I have seen other peoples files still on a server me and Nas bought in the past. They kinda sit there until someone deletes the content.

I coulda swore a few months ago I petitioned for a solid policy on whether or not the admins can allow us to revive PWs with/without the original owner's consent...

I'd like to see it too. If the Original Classic/G2K0/G2K0b's gathering dust on some shelf somewhere, if Graalympus is available...

The ideal would be for all these backups to be presented in some sort of special zip format (Retain Folder Structure would work, with a flagged Index text file for server settings) that we could download locally and upload to our servers, either In A Folder or Replace Current State...

If the files are going to be left to rot, why not allow people to pick up on the project and finish it?


Graal really needs some new servers, the currentclassic-tabbed servers are just boring now.

Yeah, no kidding. The files should at least be preserved in a folder called 'scraps' or something that users can sift through.

We don't need more crap.

If anything it should go back to the old system of players having to present a server concept to be accepted for a UC server. This would lead to fewer servers that are all of a higher quality:
1) Original server ideas (enough of these modern server clones).
2) Less servers eradicates the problem of skilled developers being spread too thinly.
3) 1) & 2) lead to increased support for the server, so something might actually get finished and see release.
4) Would cut down on the number of servers that are full of stolen content.
5) Would cut down on people that buy servers to practice hacking and making malicious codes (Kuji and iSplash :rolleyes:).

I was talking about servers not on the list.



There are only so many ideas you can run through before ideas get re-used. It's what you do with the basic ideas that matters.
Anyone can be hired to work. Just because someone rents a server doesn't mean all of the staff members are of high quality.
Most managers have their own agendas, though.
No, it would cut down on the number of servers, period.

I wonder if Mithica is still on Stefans backup, and not that crap Kerin tried to pull turning it all japenese and putting jokes in the library against me and Gabani, and some others... ;)

of course it is on the backup o.o

every server is

hmm, as soon as my new account and gold payment comes in i'll re-buy shangri-la. and backup my work >.< (things i lost in the 3-4 reformats since i last stopped playing graal)
god i miss scripting so much...i actually payed 35$ just to code things in a crappy 2D game because i'm too lazy to learn C++ or something. heh.

Things like sales would never go over with this company.

In their mind, even if 10 more people bought servers for $20 less, they're losing money over 2 people buying it for full price or something.

I honestly have no clue how they think and why they do nothing at all to promote their services or the game itself.

Wait Till Niromia gets hosted! >;]

Indeed, some good servers are coming back but though

yeah, this game has ZERO advertising, and ZERO promotions other than the pointless "xmas gifts" thing that happend not long ago. even though with the era reset everyone lost the era gifts...lol
the game managment needs to seriously get things in gear and start promoting their game so more people will come.

you know how old mithica is?

Then every server starts looking the same, where does it end and how many people can use it?

Normally if you do not get your playerworld contents back upon renewal you can request that your playerworld is restored to the latest backup there is of it.

On the topic of your syntax: Yes, every sever starts looking the same, and grows apart.
Remember when PWs were first introduced? Every server used the default hearts, default baddies, default weapons, default bow...
Then Stefan gave us the power to change all that, and instantly every server had custom health bars, custom weapons, custom bows...some replaced the baddies, some eliminated them, some just used putcomp with interesting graphics to various effect....
Then the defaults disappeared, and those divergent servers continued. Some died, but weren't replaced. In a sense it's good that we don't have too many servers, but in another sense it's bad that nothing New's making it past development (and that was not an invitation to advertise how awesome your server's going to be as soon as it gets out of development, all of you reading this, we'll see if and when it makes it past development) - There's no New Gold Standard for The System. There's no "This is your basic movement and combat system, it works on GMaps, change it if you want". There's no "Here's everything you need to make your own version of Classic, have fun." There's no base, no default, no Graal that everything's a variation on.
Maybe that makes Graal more various, I think it just makes Graal rootless.

I am just curious, could I buy CDA (Old Playerworld) and have all the original content still on it?

CJ owns the content but I think you gotta ask the last manager of the server.

Also please please please stop reviving old playerworlds. :\

I agree. Maybe the veteran players get like a year off from paying for VIP/Gold and a playerworld (only if a lot more people come) LOL

Stefan could never get me my backups for graal realms. :( Maybe it was just the person who asked though

How is reviving an old necessarilyworse than making a new clone?
Granted, if someone were to revive Kharlia badly, it'd be a travesty that they ruined a good name, but if they revive it well? Verses if they made their own server from scratch?

I'm a big fan of standing on the shoulders of giants. You can get a lot more done editing an existing world than you can building your own from scratch. I'll grant that hypothetically a world made from scratch can be richer, more detailed, more unique than one that's just an edit of another, but at the same time one that's just an edit of another can be more Finished than the other. And they can dedicate more time to Adding Content than Building System.

I remember Stefan once told me that usually "a month or maybe two" was how long backups were kept...

Seems unlikely Graal has enough storage capacity to have backups from day 1 still on hand o_O

Most playerworld backups won't take very much disk space. Rudora had years of content on it and the rar'd archive was only a few megabytes.

We keep backups from servers, but we don't have a backup from each single day, so when people ask for backups they need to be more exact (e.g. there were tons of different Atrius servers). Also we don't have backups for servers from more than 3 years ago because we didn't had an automatic backup system them, so backups were only done on request.

stefan, would it be possible to revive shangri-la again?
i'm willing to pay :)

What month and year was (were?) Shangri-La last seen?

i dont know, i havnt touched graal for little over a year now. maybe like...last febuary?

I think MD became manager of Shangri-La sometime after that. Not sure about the exact dates though.

Hah, I remember when advertising was in the private messages. It was pretty killer.

I've suggested bringing this back so that perhaps rates could be brought down (and that could help bring more players). It's amazing how much could be made from online advertising.

thats not a bad idea, sure it gets annoying but if you control the type of ads that are put its not that much of a problem. I.E google adds. small,simple,no images.

Or maybe just ads for the trials.

Apparently not...but then, I don't have the numbers.

I played this one game, where they had the ads that the sysops only got paid if we clicked...and they had this "trick" where once every 24 hours, if you went to your profile and clicked the ad (and let the page load before closing it), you got a +10 to luck.

Bloody clever. Rest of the game was kinda meh, I liked the circular chronology. Whole game is getting strong enough to cast the ultimate spell (with 7 other players, without getting overrun for the week it takes to cast) to reset the server and get your name on the high scores list. But I digress...

I remember that word from the MSN gaming zone hehe. Age of Empires...good days