Yeah, my opinion.
WARNING: Long as hell, even for me. Pretty much a review on everything graal, in my perspective/view, I do not mean any offense, but it is my opinion.
I ought to divide up my opinions of this game, so here goes.
1: Graal's Forum Moderation
My opinion is that the Graal forums really needs some reform, it's so bad that our economics majors are looking at it trying to find a way to bring it out of its recession. We actually need multiple, friendly moderators who are willing to interact, provide customer service to those in need so they can have at least a tolerable experience with its community and as well as the game. Right now, we're that one trailer park community that was once a nice place to visit once in a while but now everyone who sees it is now offset to visiting by the chickens, beer cans and loud noise that is our forum moderation.
2.1: Graal's Forum Community
It's alright, it has your typical pool of trolls, social butterflies, elitists and casuals. These guys are alright, talented and interesting people. Probably the only reason why I visit the forums at all.
2.2: Graal's Development Community
Helpful guys right here, they'll help you in the proper ways for what you need to do or want to do, they even offer fair constructive criticism about your approaches or intentions, this is how you progress your craft, probably the best part of the forum.
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(Darlene, take note from these guys, people actually want to hear a response from you when you moderate something that isn't "Closed due to the fuhrer's rules being written without leniency.")
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3.1: Graal, the Game (Servers, their public-oriented (aka PR, GPs, FAQs, whatever they're called these days) staff, represented by metaphor of being families)
The game itself is currently a "keep it in the family" ****story, divided by the feuding families that are our different servers, one mess after another. Some of the heads of these families are hard working, honest people at first glance until you meet their children (Era, Zodiac), then there are those who just don't have any social tact or civil decency no matter who is in the family (UN, Valikorlia) or nice families who decided that they needed to move away from the community to never be truly seen again or move to somewhere more clean and perhaps friendly (Atlantis, Delteria). Overall, I think to those I've described are an alright representation of these servers by multiple mixed feeling receptions of their services.
3.2: Graal, the Game (Server Development Staff)
I feel that the best way to judge developers for their actual ability and not just their capability, is to see what they've worked on. I'd say the best developers are currently on Era and Zodiac, mainly because they've created gameplay that actually has a form of economy, which seems to be titillated by new items fairly well without major problems on both servers, but seem to have mixed opinions of their economy to each and every player, which is a good thing for the diversity of the game, meaning they actually progress on their own without major interference of the server's staff 24/7, so I say for these two servers, they do excellently as for development of their own servers, while a server like UN has an economy, but it's completely messed up by inflation to a point where it's far too selective and exclusive for anyone new to actually get into the server's "gameplay". Overall, I'd say we have some alright development staff, but we really need to refine our ability to concept ideas.
4: Graal's PWAs (Server Babysitters)
I think when they actually are doing customer service, they're just fine, although a tad boring to talk to, but other then that, what are they actually here for? I think calling them administration is kind of a stretch, I think actually having Server Maintenance and Customer Service would be much more useful, that way things could be much more easily done as far as operations go. They're fine at what they do, but they need a redesign of operations.
5: Graal's Game Community
I think the community definitely has a region behavior mindset, every server seems to breed a different kind of community member based on the majority.
5.1: UN, These guys appear to be your typical crowd of teenagers/adults who never learned how to socially mature themselves, not exactly a terrible thing, but it's not always a good flavor of people to tolerate if you just want to idle and talk to a friend or two in a friendly conversation without a bold personality, even then prepare for an interesting time as a commoner.
5.2: Era seems to have a stigma for having obnoxious elitists, when you actually run into people that will talk to you without shaking their ass at you to pea**** their lack of self-actualization, they're pretty interesting to talk to, fun to hang with in whatever building/place you happen to be at. Definitely an acquired taste of community, you have to work your way into the crowd or you're probably not going to be very welcome to the community for very long.
5.3: Valikorlia, what can I really say about this server's community other then it's rather empty besides that here are some strict as hell people here, You play by their rules or be treated like an outsider, this is definitely your stereotypical china server, but if you actually play by their rules, they seem to be okay with you, very standoffish it seems. Not a bad server, but definitely not a great server community.
Zodiac: These guys are a mixture of UN and Era when it comes to community, they seem to have slightly more matured players, but when they decide its time to go back to third grade in maturity, they ride that high of stupidity well, but that doesn't mean they're stupid people, infact you can find a lot of interesting guys to play with or chat with, but it will definitely depend on how you are as to how you will be treated, if you're considered an idiot, prepare to be treated like one, if you're a nice guy, prepare to be treated like a nice guy.
Overall: The entire game's community is a bit on the immature side, but it is full of unique and diverse personalities to me, whether they're normal players or staff on the development or public relations.
6: Graal as an entirety
The game as a whole, for someone who has "played" this game since 98/99(didn't really get into playing until 99-2000), I definitely got more then enough out of it in ways, but for an actual game, this is probably one of the most unusual games I've ever played. but for those who are over the age of twelve, they are more then likely not going to like this game, like at all, unless they find the game interesting by its aesthetic and community.
My rating:
Dried, Rotting Apricot out of Ambrosia Salad
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