a new start
 

i think classic need new management . what i mean is , why is storm the manager? what did he do for classic in the past 2 years? and why is stryker still the gp chief even after being inactive for long time?

you tell me.

i say classic need a new manager that will be able to actually DO something to get the playercount up . cause now classic has a big 4 players online daily

Why would Stryker need to even log on if there's only 4 players online daily.

'cause they all hack!

BEFORE the server have 4 online daily , its was about 15-20 and no gp were active except deo or eillen

A developer team needs to update it

it wouldn't be classic then would it?

Okay, yes sir, I'll just make all players have guns and cars...


...


Wait.




...

Uhh?

Did you miss the sardonicism or something?

Hell, why not!

lol, I swear it would be attractive. RIOT AT CLASSIC!!!

Also, Polo is excellent towards player relations.

So maybe we should change him to (PR)? Anyways, he wouldn't even survive there if he didn't come online...

Well... just throwing in what I know from him... (his PR side hehe) I got no idea bout dev.

Because most Staff should check in on the server they work on from good time to time.

I have seen Stryker log on his rc a few times in the past weeks, but i guess he doesn't notice his whole team is just about inactive (with the exception of Xaphan, and Mighty started logging in lately).

As to Storm, people have been complaining about him for too long, even to Stefan. I just don't see Storm being removed, though all he does is spew out his 'plans' that never happen. The most I can give to Storm is that he actually takes the time to respond to your thoughs/questions/concerns, unlike most managers.

That's like 1/4 of the current playerbase right there dude.

You sure are uncreative.
I'm talking about quests, minigames, and other stuff to do

Ziplock for Manager.

At this point I dare them to do it just for the hell of it.

Dude Ziplock has so many ideas, it would be the best thing to happen to Classic in the last 4 years.

I was actually mocking you.

We are currently updating the server, so when you say stuff like "A developer team needs to update it," it is a direct insult.
Thanks.

And as for Ziplock's ideas, he's already development staff on the server, and he usually gives us his ideas and works on some of them himself.

He should have full control over what is developed. The few simple ideas he shared with me were pretty amazing.

I dare you guys to make tennis.

Guys, priorities. Let's not tear down anything right now. Let's all just Make Stuff, then once Graal has lots of Stuff we can fight about who's Stuff needs to get erased. Right now there are 2 quests, one that's too easy (except when the server's laghacking you so badly that you get killed going up the stairs, getting hit by baddies on the Previous level who can apparently attack Up, grr) and one that's too hard, we got baddies that kinda work, movement that's the best it's been in years, horses...just Keep Building, add recovering HP in beds, add more quests. Tennis, sure, whatever, as long as People Are Making Stuff.

That is never going to work.

this is what i never understand u know i been doing a lot of projects with classic tiles and trying to get a new style for ya but still classic u know
u know if yall just redid the gmap make the levels actually good even add a new style make GUI's for talking to the npc's you have great story lines for quest i love them and
u can still make it a sword fighting but update and add new stuff honestly Classic could come back and prob be up top instead of at the bottom

but good story line quest from the classic's before on graal all of them i seen not just the current ones on the server

Honestly What do you guys think redo levels make a new style for Classic
new gmap new story line add something new to graal actually make it fun

REDO = LATER.
DO = NOW.

Jesus, it's not that complicated. Say we're building a house, right? We've got the foundation, we're framing the walls, we're halfway through the drywall and you notice that a few bits here and there are done wrong.
There are two possible avenues from here: we could stop what we're doing, go back to the beginning and redo it now - possibly saving time wasted painting, etc - or we could just keep going, and when we're done assess the actual damage and patch what we need to patch. The Professional Answer is the first one, The Faster Answer is the second one. Right now, I'm saying we keep going and patch it up later. "But a taupe wallpaper would look nicer than the mauve paint!" - I don't care, let's get it done. "But it'd be so much better if we used a new style!" - don't care, I'd rather have Any House At All than No House With The Best Principles.

Add to all this Classic's Constant Handicap, it has to stick to the old style, old tiles, old graphics, or become Just Another Server...

But what do you do when the foundation is wrong?

Tyhm that is a horrible analogy, it would be more expensive in the long run to redo everything after the project is finished.

Yeah, I never really got the hang of Analogies. Point is, it's like something that's got a lot of problems, but it's not that tricky to fix things, and if you keep going back and fixing things you'll never finish. I guess it's more like writing an essay freehand - sure, you just noticed an error two pages back, and it'd be better to rewrite that entire page than to line it out and make a correction, but if you keep rewriting the old pages every time you find an error you'll never Accomplish anything, you'll wind up with one page of an essay that never goes anywhere, right? Sure, it'll be a very Nice page, very cleanly written and all that, but it'll still be Incomplete verses a full essay with a bunch of eraser marks and corrections in red.

But that's what Classic keeps doing - "Oh, this current state is no good, let's throw it out and start over." "This system NPC is flawed, let's start over." "These admins aren't good enough, let's wipe 'em out and start over", "This quest is dumb, let's throw it out and make a new one," etc. I shudder to think of how many imperfect levels, scripts, etc. were developed since the GS2 Move that got thrown out because the new administration wanted A New Start...

This is what has got Classic in the mess that it is currently in. Rush to fill in the content void, blame the fact that it's Classic for the lack of quality, and worry about the stigma attached to that content later. It is such a poor and amateur way of developing, and that is not what Classic needs at all.

After a long stretch of zero updates the fishing rod was released and it was was well received for a day. An entire day because the players were starved of content for so long, whoopty doo. The rod was badly scripted, completely pointless, and provided very little incentive for use with the massive amounts of gelat people have. A couple of days later not one single person was using the NPC, and while it might have entertained a very small playerbase for a very small amount of time, you are pretty limited to the amount of times you can do something like that. Next came the release of the Minigame System, which was a little more functional and served an actual purpose, but had was terribly executed. I must admit it was fun again for a while, and the return of Com's Game Tower re-enhanced the competitive playing at the time. Three of the old games were released, but there was no attempt to improve any of them. Graal Invaders had powerups that didn't even work and the reasoning behind not fixing them was that the bugs also existed in Graal The Adventure, which is a pretty pathetic excuse. Needless to say, once the initial buzz had died down the NPC was rarely used, and there has been no attempt to rehash the activity by releasing new games, which should be pretty easy to make.

As you know, Bowling was the latest big release and there was no attempt to hype it at all. Big releases on dead servers depend on hype, yet nothing was posted on the forums, nothing was posted in the login news, and it received a silent release save for an NPC Server message. Bowling itself received no additional features of use, the fancifuls were nothing out of the ordinary and the core of it was solo play. Why would you play an online game to play alone? You don't, but that point seemed to escape the developers who re-released this. I don't care if it was like that in Graal The Adventure, it doesn't mean it has to be like that now. Players wanted to play together and not have to grind their way through it, so after a week it wasn't touched again by most. There was no attempt to encourage the Game Coordinator team to hype it up either, and although I know some of them tried, nothing was provided for real competitive play so it was fruitless.

So, to return to the point I'm trying to make here; In a server revival quality is paramount, especially if the content is not particularly unique. Content shouldn't be released for the sake of having content. Release content for the sake of being a better server. Classic is up to the point now where most of the game mechanics and game lore is offered elsewhere, and at a greater quality to boot, so if they're going to add a similar feature to Classic they need to go all the way with it or not put it in at all. First impressions are everything, and as this current playerbase isn't all too familiar with the old content, most of the re-releases are new releases. Players are not going to feel the same sense of joy, hype, gratitude, fondness (and all those other positive feelings you get when you play on a decent game you've been waiting for) to a "better" re-release of a re-release further down the line, so these initial releases need to be of quality. More importantly we need longevity in content, so a delay in a release is totally worth it as long as the product has a more professional finish to it when it finally does release. Apparently the staff thought that Bowling was acceptable, so maybe they should just take the third option and STOP = NOW.

This was also a pretty stupid statement to make. Classic isn't handicapped by these things at all, it is made unique by them. The levels have a Classic styled look to them, it's not really dated, it's a style. The graphics used on the server can be fixed up to a greater standard and still look Classic. It's the people who believe that in updating content you need to drastically change it who are adding the handicap, because this is completely untrue and down to creative limitations. Konidias' graphical updates of various Classic graphics are a prime example of how a progression can be made. Classic isn't about looking crap, it's about looking and feeling classic.

Ok here's an opinon comming from a player that started in 2007.

Really, classic is a piece of trash now. Theres no reason whatsoever for me to play that server anymore, but it was the first server I played and I liked it a lot at the time. I dont believe that Thor and Master Storm understand the needs of the newer players such as me. The little content that Classic has is ****ty. The little content that they release is ****ty. I dont think its fair at all that the newer players such as myself to have this team of staff running the place. All I hear about is Graal the Adventure blablabla.. and all I wanna know is why they are settling for outdated content from 1998/2000, when people have the capabilities to do 2009 content? I don't want to see more outdated graphics from GTA and I don't want to see more in-things that you would only understand if you played back then. In fact, I just don't want to see more content from GTA because from what I have seen it is all garbage and none of what I've experienced is actually fun.

I think Classic settles for too little. Why are we stuck in this 1998/2000 GTA mindset, when all other successful modern day servers (UN, Zodiac, Era) are free to do and expand all they like? I don't think its fair for the newer players such as me to have Thor as the Developement Admin and Master Storm as the Manager. Both of these people have proved that they in no way can relate to me, their little content cannot relate to me, and they have no real idea of what a player like me wants in a server.

As well as not putting thought into the current wave of players, the staff on Classic don't think competitively at all. They act like they are in their own little world, have a huge community to work with, and no competition and it is really stupid. Yes it would be nice if that was the case, but it isn't. There are other servers on the same list as Classic and they all offer what Classic has and much much more. Classic needs to focus on competing with the servers that take in new age ideas, instead of sticking to the horrible old content and re-releasing old junk that doesn't actually entertain the players.

If you had experienced what Classic had in the past, you wouldn't be saying all of what you just did, and would understand why people want it back. Despite being generally limited due to all being designed for use without the benefits that an NPC Server provides, it was a lot of great content. It doesn't need to have completely updated functionality and appearance to be comparable to other servers.

If you're developing to make people "in the past" happy, at most you will regain a few lost players...if you start looking for what new players might like, you could attract fresh ones.

I know that's not what you guys want though, and it would really defeat the purpose of it being "Classic"

You're assuming that the old stuff won't be the slightest bit appealing to people who didn't get to experience it in its pristine state, which just isn't true. The only problem is that the vast majority of it has yet to be rebuilt so that the newcomers CAN see what it was like. There's absolutely nothing wrong with wanting what was on the server back, and nothing wrong with striving to restore it, it's just that it's not happening.

I honestly don't have a clue what the current developers' goals are, what they're working on, or all of what's currently done. From what I do know, however, what's been getting released lately is not what focus should be on if the intent is to get back the old content.

Who killed Classic? In short, Master Storm did. By deciding on a full redo instead of adapting the current content, the server was lost forever and is now dead. The long explanation is that Stefan killed it by appointing Master Storm as manager instead of the next-in-line, Ramirez.

Graal in general was back then and everyone would love to see Graal to back to the way it was years ago and beyond. Every server has lost a tremendous amount of activity in the recent years, and there's only the management of graal to blame. But that isn't necessarily the debate here.

With that aside, I actually think It's better to make changes to attract new players tbh instead of the old players who won't accept the server anymore and will only live in their nostalgia. The content won't bring back the server to it's famous glory it had before (mind you i never payed attention to Classic in the past years but going off the opinions) ago since the community is really what makes any server very enjoyable. The recent updates Classic made was to attract old players and it failed, terribly.

Nobody is suggesting that changes shouldn't be made, but you have to realize that restoring old content, at the moment, is just as much of a change as adding anything new. Perhaps you should be more clear on what you're trying to communicate.


It's not about acceptance, it's about what's appealing, and the old data was certainly that. The current isn't, to the majority of people who comment on it.


It's not as if people are "stuck" in the past, it's that the past was better than anything implemented since then, so why not use it?


Among other things that've been permanently changed, this is absolutely true. However, since people are still playing and still developing, decisions still need to be made.


I find it interesting that you realize this, yet you suggest that wanting the old content is somehow a negative thing.

Where I stand is, if you want a server that doesn't have the stupid "I can see all 4 walls" overhead view, if you want a server that has guns and lighting effects, if you want a server with better graphics than a MSPaint dragon and V shaped spaceship, go play Era. If Classic bows to such pressures, it becomes a horrid little compromise server.

And yes Rufus, it would be nice if everything worked 100% when it was released. It would be nice if Bowling was perfect and had a good multiplayer theme to it. It would be nice if fishing was more involved when it was released. These aren't subject to debate - Good is good, it's an argument from definition. What the debate is, is what should Classic's limited staff focus on? Making more stuff, or constantly rehashing the same old stuff? Would you rather they make the big announcement next month "Hey guys, we fixed Bowling balls so they can hit other players and baddies, we fixed baddies so they take the right ammount of hits again, and the fishing rod's a lot better in our opinions, have fun!", or "The pyramid quest's open, it ain't perfect but it's something to do"? Perhaps we're permanently in opposite camps; perhaps we must simply agree to disagree.

There's also the possibility they should dedicate their time to hiring and firing staffers; that's one of those RTS "Upgrade or buy another unit?" questions. Hiring, in theory, always works out to be a long-term gain; some developers lose some time now, but increase the developers' total output. Unfortunately too much of that has a diminishing return; While Com013 doubled the amount of work we were doing on GtA, Zero33 actually slowed us down uploading his house while he didn't really draw anything.

In any case, having read this last page of arguments, I still see no reason why Classic going Backwards right now would be Actually Progress. If all ye classic-lovers want to help make it awesome you should be allowed, sure, but why destroy Anything in the process?

PS - oh duh, here's a better analogy, Painting. Yeah, we missed a spot. Let's finish THIS coat and THEN we'll go back for it. I know it looks horrible, give it a bit, we're gonna have to put several coats down anyway and I wanna see what it's gonna look like with this color first anyway. Yes, I know it's not Really That Color because this coat's thin and patchy, whatever, I can get an idea.

xD with a bit of work and help by posting bulletins on the login page we could possibly bring Classic back alive :) I miss that server