A few ideas to promote growth
 

Here are a few quick ideas I've had surfacing in my head for quite awhile now. Since I am getting more and more use to the Graal forums I decided to finally voice these ideas. However, unlike some other people in this community I am actually willing to do everything within my power to promote these ideas. Please, if anyone needs/wants clarifying or further information
either reply in this thread or forum pm me. Here are the delicious vitamins Graal needs to digest to improve it's overall health:


1. A better subscription plan.

I'll admit that I do not know all the details about the new payment system implemented. I started to read about it but was completely turned away and lost all interest in knowing everything about it. However from what I could tell it is way too limiting to new players. Rather than trying to get people addicted to playing Graal, it puts annoying limitations on them.

I know people have suggested things like, "free gold etc for x amount of time" and others have replied with, "Oh but then Jimmy Crack Corn would abuse it by getting loads of free trials." But I feel that Graal management is both cunning and intellectual enough to find a way around that problem while still promoting addiction to their game.


2.Better quality servers in order to persuade one to use the newly improved payment system.

I can't stress how many times this has been said over and over again both on these forums and in the game itself. The gold servers are exceptionally decent as well as some playerworlds but the majority of them are outdated.
But most of these playerworlds have wonderful ideas to improve and have even begun the workings toward those goals. They just need that extra support, which will lead me to my next point. Lastly, a completely new gold server that has a unique theme and setting would really spice things up.
I also suggest that Gold servers should be free on weekends to everybody, or something to that affect. Why? To again, promote addiction.


3. More global support for the playerworlds.

I don't even know if the global dev teams exists anymore. If so, I never hear about them, much less if they productively do anything anymore
(which will again lead me to another suggestion later.)
Most playerworlds do not have the resources and support to reach all (scratch that) ANY of their goals involving better game content.
We need global dev support, in more ways than one. Global dev needs to step in and familiarize themselves with all classic/gold/hosted playerworld themes and settings and to avoid any possible direct (excluding minor similiarities) clashes in themes. After learning/writing down these themes they SHOULD help these playerworlds develop quality content on these servers. Now I know this will be hard because even the globals are already stretched but it is vital.


4. Establish an official community for Graal developers to be more in touch with one another.

It wouldn't be that hard. Try something similiar to Xbox Live Gamer cards.
But instead it's Developer Cards. Something official that lists information and details on Graal developers. Hell you can even throw in achievements if you wanted to. How could one do this? Easy, instruct the server managers that if they and their server's worth of developers feel like being a part of the community and eligible for achievements, they have to organize their major server expansions/updates into just that, expansion packs. Achievements are awarded per successful expansion released. Achievements could award Developer Points that go on your Developer Card that could slowly earn you "Gelats" or gold days or whatever the hell they're calling it these days.

Now I suppose you're thinking to yourself, "Now hold on a cotton flicking minute there, how are we suppose to trace and track everyone who actually works on expansions?" The answer is simple. Hire competent, trustworthy server managers who keeps work/assignment logs. It's rather simple but takes effort. Have PWA play a more active role in it too if you want but it's definitely possible. It sounds hard, but if given enough effort with enough leadership support, it would work.


5. Inform the public of progress.

I can't tell you how many times I've seen Stefan or someone similiar say on the forums, "I've been working all day on Zone and I've done blah blah blah and fixed blah blah blah so now blah blah blah works more efficiently."
Now that's great and all, but unless you're more public with it, chances are no one's going to notice it or give appreciation for it. In fact, quite a few players feel upper management has abandoned Graal and I personally do not know what to think. So I encourage anyone who does official updates for both the forums, website, and the game/game engine itself to publicly announce it in a way that all players can see it (Like the login server)

It would tell the public that upper management is NOT inactive/ignoring Graal and her players and that they ARE indeed working hard. Personally, if I saw public announcements about how so and so and such and such was fixed by upper management it'd bring a bit of inspiration to myself, and further encourage me to go fix something. "Well ****, he fixed THAT on THERE? Hell I might as well check into something similiar on MY server." Something to that effect, anyways.

6. Advertising.

Never have I ever heard of Graal actually advertising other than word of mouth (friends telling friends.) And though this may have worked for myspace, I just don't think it's cutting it for Graal. Make trailers (don't exactly have to be gameplay trailers, more or less concept trailers) and try to
get them advertised on other game community sites. Although I wouldn't bother with this until the above suggestions have been completed.

7. A better website theme.

Seriously, now this will sound like flaming because it partially is, but what is the deal with the new theme? That doesn't feel like Graal so much as a cliche movie for kids about fairies and magical unicorns. To prove this fact I had a friend, completely oblivious to Graal, log on the site. Once the web page loaded he immediately hit the back arrow because he thought he had been redirected to Disneyland's Fun n' the Sun website. The main point is, scrap this new crap and get something that is more newb friendly but captures the theme of promoting imagination, because really that is what Graal was always suppose to be about.

8. Stop with the negative, "graal's ded, lollers" crap.

This suggestion is for the players themselves. Seriously, quit being such a negative, worthless piece of pigeon snot. Stop complaining and actually do something. If you do not like the shape Graal is in then either invest money in it by purchasing subscriptions, develop quality content, suggest -useful- ideas and then do everything you can to make them reality, or just leave already. Because negativity spreads quite easily and I'm very tired of
players *****ing about this or that but never quite living up to their words.
I'm also tired of players having a narrow point of view on server themes.
(eg: "What? An RPG based server? So a zodiac clone?" makes me raaaaage)


But that's all I have for right now unfortunately. Please post your ideas but if you disagree with something that I have said here then you are wrong, sorry. These are basic areas that Graal fundamentally lacks in. If these were improved then Graal would vastly improve in players, both in mental capacity and in numbers!


PS: Do not place all the financial blame on Graal management itself.
Bear in mind that economies all around the world are suffering, especially the United States. There are many businesses who are experiencing similiar problems.

I definitely agree and support a better theme, and i really like the idea of a new Gold Server, since something new would be really good. No significant/decent changes have been made to make the Gold Subscription really that make it worth buying. The overall guilds community is nothing as it used to be back in 02-03, so the reason of upgrading to register a guild has probably decreased.

If we actually get to that point though, we have to clean-up the code of the client and make learning to develop more player-accessible like it used to be.

The subscriptions definitely need to be addressed though. In the short term, charging the more dedicated players monthly gets you more, but even they will leave when nobody new is willing to pay. And the method of payment is over-complicated, paying for an electronic currency to pay for a game is a little much.

This is the most legit post I have ever seen.

I like the idea of more playerworld support. I'm actually willing to help in that area, if Graal would have me :P. Only problem is that I'm not sure about my own schedule in the next few months, as I might have to be out at sea for months at a time...

But, I'd still like to see a revival of at least the scripting team to clean up documentation and help out with minor scripting issues for the servers.

Most of your ideas require manpower and... well... ideas. A lot of concepts are outdated, yes, but are you making a new one?
Hm, N-Pulse's manager, probably you are huh? Anyway, the problem isnt anything but the lack of stuff to do. i agree with the support part, but thats about it.

You are wrong, sorry.

I've tried to introduce Graal to a few friends of mine lately. If you're completely new to graal, theres atleast a good solid 20 hours of gameplay before you get bored. Between the confusing and costly subscription plan + annoying trial limitations my friends laughed at Graal and went back to Guild Wars, Runescape, WoW, or wherever. The lack of game content is not the only problem Graal has. Graal has many problems and no I did not go into full detail in this single post. It's already too long for most graalians to read it.

1. Subscription plan had been discussed and though everyone would like it done, it's bringing money into Stefan's hands so I doubt this will occur till playercount is increased.

2. The free on weekends idea is good, whilst gold servers only have I think 3 developers in total, for both Zone and GK.

3. A global dev team would be nice but a option should be given to owners of servers whether they'd like help from the global dev team or not.

4. Basically a chat room correct?

5. A constant update of servers progress would be appreciated, maybe once every week or month.

6. Discussed and Stefan isn't doing anything about this, he'd prefer leaving this to the public, though I'd say a contribution from you would be nice.

7. The site needs a better background color as well as pictures.

8. Well though Graal may not be dead it's playercount has dropped dramatically since 06.

These threads come and go, you wont get an answer

True.
Maybe if you forum PM Stefan the link over and over again he might reply :D

It's not about me, rather the community itself. Instead of having an apathetic attitude towards global management maybe you try to be a little more constructive?

1.A BETTER subscription plan could bring in MORE money into Stefan's hands.

3. Of course it would be voluntary, but who would deny the extra talented help?

4. Not so much as a chatroom as an in-game and in-forum accessible feature.

6. I'm working on my contribution =]

8. Unfortunately this is true, but it's not the end of Graal.

What i meant was that nobody gets an answer, ala the community.

1. This has been discussed plenty of times and yet Stefan hasn't seen the logic to it.

3. Some people may want to work on their own server personally rather then with others.

6. If you can make me a banner approximately 60 by 480 then I could upload it on some sites.

I pretty much agree with everything you listed in the original post. I also hope that you're aware of that Stefan most likely won't come across this thread, unless you forum PM him the url and ask him to look into it. :)

A good one to put up there is unbanning me.