Graalonline Business Plan
 

This has stemmed from the current "state of the <insert aspect of Graal here>" threads which have been cropping up of late.


On Subscriptions:
I don't know any MMORPG that is free, not completely at least.

Change how subscriptions work.

• Trial accounts should remain as they are.
  
• Classic subscriptions should be a fair price for a biannual subscription. This keeps money coming in and would make up for said classic accounts accessing the forums.
  
• Classic accounts should be able to access the forums on weekends only, as was with the VIP system accessing gold servers.
  
• Classic accounts should be able to play gold servers up to a certain level, before access is limited to a few hours per day or only allowed on weekends. This would increase player counts dramatically.
  
• Gold accounts should have the ability to create a server and manage it using a control panel back end at the standard $99 per year. Six month servers, while a good idea, probably not making as much money in the long run. This will stop kids from signing up with their birthday money (well, it will stop the majority).
  
• Once a gold subscription as run out, the account should default back to Classic, as it does now.

On Servers:

• Hosted servers which have little to no players should be re-evaluated, and possibly shut down if the managers are no longer available.
  
• Classic servers (Sorry, I'm looking at Atlantis and Delteria) should also be re-evaluated and either moved into Hosted or under construction.
  
• Current management of all servers should be re-evaluated and if inappropriateness is found, it should be dealt with.
  
• Gold servers with little to no playercount should ALSO apply to the above changes.

On the client:

• Get rid of the start bar. I know it's easier to implement it due to the fact that WindowBlinds skins can be loaded, but it's not appropriate for the game that Graal is trying to be, which is, above it all, a Zelda like online game.
  
• Torque is great, I just don't see much point of having external windows et al if there's no development tools.
  
• Standardize development tools. I will release my (open source) flash level editor and my flash gani editor when Flash 10 is properly released (support for loading/saving of local files) if standardization is not apparent.

How is this a business plan, at all?

Try reading it.

The subscription policies are a business plan.

Changing the amount of available worlds will effect players, therefore it will effect business.

Use your head.

Obviously I've read it in order to prompt a question, one which was still not answered suggesting you don't actually know what a business plan is. This is basically a collection of rehashed ideas that have been posted.

I guess it's more like a few business ideas, not that you have to be an ass about things Rufus.

Title gets your attention though more than "Some ideas".

That's generally my titles for posts. It gets ignored.

So what if it's rehashed ideas? Thought of them on the spot, so if they've been said before, does that not mean they are good ideas that ought to be implemented?

Micropayments and advertisements work wonders yo

I simply asked a question.

With that same logic I could name a thread anything I liked as long as it attracted attention, and in gaining that attention it would justify my misleading title?

No, not really; but that wasn't insinuated in my post.

This game is ghetto enough, if you want to charge monthly or biannually I would just recommend dropping this game and going to one with unlimited content. I always loved graal because of the classic graphics :), and thatthey did not charge monthly fees.

I don't like it. This is a stupid thread.

A good business plan would be to stop wasting time on these novelty things(cards, game server, 3D???, unneeded website overhaul) and spend it on making a new gold server. So much time is spent(I'm assuming) on spitting out small quick-cash systems when it could be better spent on making a slower, but better profiting, server.

think about this, as you said in the classic part "classic accoutns should have a limited time each day on gold accounts"
they could be in the middle of something extremely important, and get disconnected because their limit for the day was up.

More incentive for them to pay.

And seriously, there is nothing extremely important on these forums.

but think of it, their kingdoms at war, theyre the strongest one int he war and theyre JUST about to kill the king, like 2 hp left, and they get disconnected

Their own damn fault. Buy a subscription. Observer mode does the same thing.

I like it better when trials simply didn't save.

This "business plan" doesn't really offer any solution for the gold servers, which should be the point of paying for Graal (or at least it used to be). With your plan, it seems GK would just be removed from gold status, and Graal's main focus would now be... Zone? The day Graal officially becomes a shooting game, I'll definitly quit. That "officially" part is the only thing that's keeping me here.

Aren't classic servers practically free anyways? One-time payment?

They used to be. Now you have to pay for class (per year), but anyone who had unlimited keeps it.

Another reason the gold servers fail. Before, when there was only one subscription, people would pay for 3 months of gold to get unlimited classic access. That 3 months of gold kind of "forced" people to play the gold server (if they wanted to get the most out of their money). Now people can just pay for classic and forget that gold ever exists.

I've seen you do the same before - I asked you to do some research before you posted and it would have been helpful here. It comes off as very condescending and worst of all (in my opinion)... patronizing.

Makes it hard to take someone serious when they're coming off as a snob - which you've been to a T since you returned. You need a helping of humble pie - but I'm not going to hand it to you.
A counter-suggestions; It doesn't even do what a suggestion would do.




I would love to see Graal Online take some input for their business plan, or atleast keep us in the loop. I'm not sure if Unixmad chooses to ignore us or if he assumes by doing so he comes off as some omnipotent - either way, it's entirely ineffective and really quite frustrating.

Unixmad already has a business plan. You should try talking to him about it as he has put a fair bit of work towards it.

This coming from "oh do give me rights on GK Stefan, I've been an awfully good boy today!"

Yeah I'm a snob, so what? I'm pretty humble when it comes to some things. Be nice if you'd actually talk to me since I got back, other than attempting to belittle me (Which just makes you appear to come off like an *******. Rightfully so.)

I do have to agree with you there. Doesn't seem like a good thing for an employee to say about anything really. Sarcasm is the wit of fools. :/

Twinny has said Unixmad has a master plan.

If I had a quid for every time I've heard those kinds of words for when horrible stuff is going down, I'd be rich and wouldn't care about said horrible stuff.

Trials didn't save, used all Classes (Pertains to Zone), and no Observer modes, Graal V4 Revival would be sweet, but theirs not chance of that in-sight.
____________
On-Topic: I do not like most of your ideas, although the "Classic/VIP Mesh" Idea sounds nice.

I don't see why. It would eliminate all this observer problem crap people are having, would be far simpler, and would probably appeal to interested players more. The problem, however, was when it was around, there was also ghost mode... and that was just full of bugs and gave the players no reason to upgrade, unless voyeurism was their sort of thing.

I say bring back no saving trials, eliminate ghost mode, and just let players enjoy themselves. How far will they be able to get without being able to save? To counter any people who will just idle to keep playing, I say disconnect after 12 hours of playing, no matter what. I think it would be fine for attracting players, letting players know what they're getting, and giving them a reason to purchase an upgrade.

Then again, Tig says Unix has a business plan... but if it's anything like the 'business plans' being executed in the last few years I'm not too trilled about it.

If you think that takings things out context will help validate your own points you may want to consider your history of failure with this tactic.
I won't refer to my above statement, although I would like to acknowledge it - and with that in mind remember that I have already pointed out the difference between how the majority of others perceive things in comparison to how YOU perceive them.
Too true![/sarcasm]

Removing of existing features really is a dumb idea... Modifying them would be much more desired if anything.

I don't like this business plan.

But I think:

Most mmorpg's nowadays run based on microcredits and ad's so you can easily get an equal quality for free => trial accounts should be able to save on classic and gold accounts, otherwise they will just play another game.

Other then that, playerworld hosting should still cost money.

I'm essentially saying, that they should cut off the six month hosting, have trial accounts save up to a point, and get some ad based revenue.

why so? Someone actually finds this option good..

Um... what? If they have classic or gold accounts, then they wouldn't be trials.

It's nothing about sarcasm at all. I am just telling you I don't like it. Also I am employee for Zone only (and worked a bit on Skills Debug), so what's the problem?

They pay/paid you for Zone and Skills?

Maybe they should pay someone to fix GK. !pissed!

No, you didn't say you didn't like it, you said "this is stupid". That's the kind of reaction I would expect from a five year old.

I'm fine with removing the 6-month subscription so long as the year subscription costs the same :cool:

If I finally get to buy a server, it will definitely be 6 month since I can't really afford $100 or whatever they are for something that may fall through in the first few months.

They don't have that much money ;)
Nah I don't get why they don't do it for GK other than maybe they don't have that much money or see no reason to keep updating GK. I don't know the reasoning behind only paying someone to administrate Zone.

I think it would be nice to keep the 6 and 12 month plan and also add a month by month payment method.

More often than not a 12 month subscription would be cheaper than a 6 month subscription month-for-month for most things ;)

Yes, but if I can't afford a 12-month subscription, regardless of the cost-per-capita, that does no good ;)

:blush:

The thread is silly because I think it's not what must be focussed at, at all. Ofcourse servers like Atlantis and Delteria shouldn't be where they are right now, same for some dead hosted worlds.

What we need is more updates on servers. Bring updates to the light by posting a lot about them in the serverlist. Don't make players think it's getting dead and it won't.

The subscriptions seem fine to me, like on Zone, you pay 24€ for a year of gold, it gives you plentiful advantages and if you calculate 24€ / 365 days you can play you only pay 0,06€ per day, not really a problem I'd say. There's also the gelats which you can use to buy 14 days or 30 days of gold.

So yeah.. I think this thread wasn't needed?

This was supposed to encourage ideas, and for the most part it did. You brought nothing constructive, so I'd have to say that yeah, the thread was fine, but your so-called 'input' was certainly not needed.

Wait, weren't you 21? :noob: All I did is tell you why I did not like your post and I gave you my reasons. Next thing you do is try to take down my post saying my "so-called 'input' was certainly not needed", tell me why?

Ah and keep this in mind.
You're doing this with everything, still. Hope you know what I mean.