[James205]

Originally Posted by Inspiration

I'm sure we've all sent our forum PMs to the "appropriate staff" and have seen nothing come of them.

Yes exactly, the suggested system by the MODs that never works, you sir are correct.

Originally Posted by Inspiration

I've played this game for 6 years this fall. From the time where there was simply one server, with 300 or more players on. When the game was all about the community, all about friendships, guilds, and such. Before the place was divided into many servers. Back before we were expected to pay, and promised that Graal, in some form, would always remain free.

Correct again, this is how graal was published in game magazines, it was known as one of the few good games you could play without paying any money.

Originally Posted by Inspiration

I'm sure you've all noticed this, but player counts on all servers have been hitting record lows. It is to be expected, afterall. More people are quitting than new players signing up. VIP accounts are surely expiring at a fasrer rate than they are being signed up for.

No argument here, once again you are right.

Originally Posted by Inspiration

We have a system that allows players to create and develop their own worlds, yet not enough players to do so.

One of the big problems of graal was expanding to creating your own playerworld when it wasn't ready to do so. There simply isn't enough players to make a quality server (with few exceptions). Even the respected "quality" servers that for some reason people got all hyped about (Zenkou, Oasis, GRAAL2001,TOT and Faheria) all fell because of lack of staff and eventually everyone gave up (Yes that may not be the reason for all servers).

With one server ages ago with 300 players and increasing, it allowed players to actually play the game and limit the amount of staff jobs. When a player became staff it had actual meaning to it. Now anyone can buy their own server and TRY to make a low quality server, but eventually just quit graal because they get tired of DEVELOPING and not playing. So once players started buying their own playerworlds they concentrated on that, which cut down on the amount of players big time.

Originally Posted by Inspiration

We also have tons of free MMORPGS, and MMORPGS which cost a comparable amount to this game, which offer much larger communities, more interactive and captivating game play, and a seemingly more involved administration. (Just check the list of games on mmorpg.com, if you need verification).

Yes, there is a simple explination for this and we all know why the community has been destroyed

Originally Posted by Inspiration

Graal simply does not offer a package that's attractive for your money. Two Servers with a playerbase of 40-60 people each? Access to some semi-active forums? The ability to log onto 100 playerworlds with nearly no content?

Yes once again I agree and your explination is along the lines of mine. If graal was cheaper I would upgrade to gold, but the amount of money for a package now is getting ridiculous. I would love to post on these forums more than once a day but no way am I going to pay $40+ to do so, I'd rather use that money for food for a full week.

Originally Posted by Inspiration

Further more, and by far the worst call Stefan has made since making classic servers P2P, is the new "Limited" trial account system. Is it really necessary to drive the nail into the coffen?

I read about this in the "Future Improvements" sections and I was amazed by the amount of GOLD players who wanted a limited trial system. A GUEST SYSTEM is the same thing as a limiting trial accounts. Some of my old friends on graal still use a trial and simply don't have the money to upgrade and don't have a reason to do so (goes along with nothing attracts them).

I'm sorry to the people who think it's a very important issue and getting out of hand that all trial users are incompetent asses who are just annoying, but I could say the same about all the new GOLD players. They are part of the game too and just because they don't want to upgrade doesn't mean they shouldn't be allowed to play, GRAAL is known as a game you can play for free and ages ago put up a good reason to upgrade and some of those reasons were...

1. Growing Community
2. Constant Updates
3. More Freedom (ex: look at the amount of closed threads for no reason around here, half the time I can't post on a thread because it's closed for no reason).
4. Logical Staff (staff now just beat around the bush and send you to one staff to another. It takes over a week to sort out a problem which could take literally 4 seconds, and don't tell me it has always been like this because when Contego and I were account admins it was required to fix the problem first rather than say "Let me look at it tomorrow" or "send me a forum PM")
5. LESS money for a game that should be for less.

Originally Posted by Inspiration

I've said it so many damn times and no one seems to care. No one wants to listen. The best thing this game has going for is its simplicity. At it's core, you have a simple game with a community that is easy to get into.

The community is the players. Without them, the game becomes moot. There are no monsters to level off of (GK doesnt count, seriously.). Besides interactivity with other people, this game does not offer much.

Fully agree again.

Originally Posted by Inspiration

So why must the player count be forced to go down?
Why can classic servers not be free again?
Why not give this game a damn chance of survival?

It would be nice to have classic servers go free again, but we have to remember the financial costs of the servers. Personally I don't mind the one time fee to play CLASSIC servers, but even that has increased in price (was $15 originally). Personally I think Gold should be $15 a year, I would upgrade instantly because it's only worth $15 a year.

Originally Posted by Inspiration

Instead of forcing people to pay just to play, why not offer them a free game, and then make a few servers (Graal 3d, anyone?) pay to play, like it was?

Seemed graal was doing better when the system was like this too.

Originally Posted by Inspiration

Why not advertise this game? I see adds for games like adventure quest, which is no more than a flash RPG, yet I see none for this on any popular sites a gamer might visit.

Well it used to be advertised as a FREE online game which got a lot of attention, that quickly changed though.

Originally Posted by Inspiration

I understand the financial issues. I also understand the most basic concept of economics. Supply and Demand. Players demand a product worth their money. Currently, Graal does not supply this.

Yup agree with this, explains what I was talking about earlier.

Originally Posted by Inspiration

You can tell me I'm not forced to play. You can tell me that I don't know what I'm talking about. You can defend your choices, as poor as most people find them to be, until the bitter end.

While you've been jumping from one project to the next, I've been watching the community die. I've been watching players lose faith. I've played other games. Yet I always come back here, clinging to some foolish hope that perhaps my first online game will restore itself to a fun, large community like it once was.

I also keep returning as well, but each time it's disapointing but I put forth some kind of effort each time.

Originally Posted by Inspiration

Edit: To Stefan.

http://forums.graalonline.com/forums...9&postcount=23

That means users who do not pay have 2 weeks to play Graal. In those two weeks, do you believe they will become attatched enough to this game to think it worth the money?

I also thought about this a little more and I remember when a certain game came out (YES I WISH I COULD SAY THE NAME BUT APPERENTLY IT'S ILLEGAL) and it had a free trial account thing like this, but the game had a HUGE community before it started using guest accounts. The game had more than 3,000 players on at once, that was a minimum playercount sometimes it would be at 6,000. Right now it's 1:40am and according to the playercount on graalonline.com there is approximately 121 players on, now according to the RC server list 24 playerworlds have 1 or more players on. Lets do some simple math here...

121 players divide by 24 playerworlds averages to be 5 players on each.

12 of those playerworlds are PRIVATE/HOSTED with a total of 41 players out of the current 121 players logged on. 80%+ are idling RCs...

So for trial users who consider this time to be morning/afternoon they have a good 4 people to interact with on each playerworld, is that seriously going to convince them to upgrade?

During the day graal only gets at tops 600-700 total players and peak time. Divide that up with the amount of private servers graal has. Usually UN and Era have 100+ and sometimes GK has a high playercount (nothing extraordinary still).

It really is time to re-think some of the things going on with graal...