View Single Post
  #37  
Old 12-20-2006, 06:13 AM
Tyhm Tyhm is offline
Psionic Youth
Tyhm's Avatar
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: Babord, West Graal Deaths:1009 Kills:1
Posts: 5,635
Tyhm will become famous soon enough
Heresy of the day:
I don't think Classic Ever had what it took. I think we all started playing it because it was free and we didn't have anything better to do. Then there were plenty of bug-filled and mislinked levels to explore, as long as we were bored - and some of us compiled lists of things to fix someday, and some of us critiqued, and some of us PKed, and some of us made vast websites about whatever our view was, and some of us tried to improve it - but mostly because Graal was like Solitaire, but more interesting.

Then it moved into P2P - thank the gods with a One Time Fee, so it was in the neighborhood of Nintendo games instead of in with City of Whatsits and World of Warboats and Final Fantastic Online (I know what they are, I'm being sarcastic) - "Well, I could dust off the old SNES and play Zelda3, or I guess I could play Graal instead...bah, I'm already online and there's less wires involved."

That's why I think Gold never really took off. That's why I think the playercount hasn't rebounded, no matter how good the content gets on any given server - and mind, none of the servers thus far have been PublishMe good, they all get mired down by competition - not least competition for Stefan's attention, everyone clambering for tools they can't do without (or would rather not script around just to find Stefan makes the tool they need two months later, smoother, cleaner, and with less lag - like Projectiles and Move Scripts after we'd been using x+=0.5;timeout=0.05; forever and a day)

But that's a little mean. Can Graal produce a game that can compete on even footing with other one-fee MMOs? Can Graal produce a game that can compete with Monthly-Fee MMOs? Probably, I just don't foresee one rising out of this particular petri dish. Maybe if the servers worked together...Maybe if Graal had a united front again...in some utopian Graal world, where you could hop on RC and ask the #GScript channel "How do I do paralax?" and they say "Hang on a sec...okay, here's a function UseParalax(x,y,image,ratio), and if Stefan ever hardcodes it you can just delete the function and calls to UseParalax will work the same way." That'd be nice, but I can't see anyone volunteering that much time and energy to the ether - and I can't see any PW giving up their closely-guarded secret to their rival servers, when Graal doesn't encourage any servers to call themselves Brothers.

But I talk too long. I have answers, I have said them, and now I question in circles...but when Graal gives servers their own frontend to bring players in, it will all begin.

You know what'd be nice? To develop for any server you want, whenever you want. To start off making a pirate baddy, screw up the movement script slightly and wind up with one that slides around the world, and instead of abandoning it as a screwup you finish it as a Penguin baddy for a different server...maybe it's just me, but whenever I was working on Classic I noticed everyone had ideas that were decidedly Not Classic, but if they didn't make it there they weren't gonna make it anywhere. Little things, like fixing the eischerian (you can see all 4 walls slanting off) overhead view of houses...not Classic, but not wrong. Yet it wound up on Classic anyway, and half the houses were Eischerian and the other half were BomyMoon style.

I dunno, maybe servers can forge alliances. It'd be cool if like, I dunno, FutureWorld and MidevalWorld and CavemanWorld and JumpmanWorld worked together. "If it's useful on both servers, upload it on both servers. If it's the wrong perspective for Futureworld, maybe the other worlds want it. If it's too high-tech for CavemanWorld, maybe the other worlds can use it..." But that might not work either, everyone playing and noone taking responsibility...nobody willing to develop what the server Needs, only what they Want to make...
__________________
"Whatever," said Bean, "I was just glad to get out of the toilet."

"Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts, perhaps the fear of a loss of power."- John Steinbeck
"I'm only acting retarded, what's your excuse?" queried the Gord.
- My pet, the Levelup Gnome

http://forums.graalonline.com/forums...&postcount=233
Reply With Quote