What makes a good server?

[bef]

After debating with myself for several years as to why certain servers attract a large playercount and others don't, I figured it best to pose the question to the Graal community.

What makes a good server?
There are servers currently listed which I'd consider good only as a result of their playercount, and not as a result of quality content...

I question the intentions of Graalians, what do you get out of the server you play?

I personally play Shaded Legend, reason being; SL has a rich storyline, involved and challenging quests and an era which the entire server is based around. It also keeps classic elements of Graal, whilst slightly adapting and improving them. The only "unattractive" part of Shaded Legend is the lacking playercount, I wonder why it's lacking...

Unholy Nation, a thriving server, has a staff member who informed me the server was "medieval", unfortunately this "era" isn't constant, nor is it even apparent... There's cars and motorbikes, guns and such forth...

So is it merely the ability to play a server with a crippled economy where you can easily work your way to self-respect by gaining gralats that keeps you playing servers? Or is it the variety and range of NPC's and items which you find attractive?

Along with Shaded Legend, I also respect;
Graal Classic as it is truly original
Maloria as it has implemented entirely new and functional systems
Zenkou as it's standards surpass anything I have ever seen on this game.

I truly do not undertstand players reasons for choosing one server over another- if the server they are choosing has absolutely nothing to respect, bar the playercount.

Saying a server is good because Sparring is a central focus and is given huge importance is fine, however most servers use the same battle system and what you really like is the fact that the playercount is high, so the spar activity is also high.

You see, I'll continue to play Shaded Legend in hope that players will realise that SL's quality is excellent, as is it's consistancy and depth... Players aren't attracted because they see the playercount is low, is that really a reason not to give a great server a chance? No, it's not - you oughta give each server a chance and play it regardless of the playercount... If you like a server and it's lacking players, Do as I do and tell your friends or the community what you like about that server and how it is better than other servers which are played by a higher percentage of the Graalian Public.

I hope some people respond and defend or promote the servers they love and also throw in their reasons for choosing one server over another. I hope nobody becomes overly negative, a thread closure is not what I am aiming for!

Thanks for reading...

[Zurkiba]

The driving force of Graal is the ability to form the game that you play and its community.

[PrinceDark]

What causes me to play some servers and not others? Hmmm.
When I did play actively there was a lot of factors.

When I was highly into sparring I played Unholy Nation and N-Pulse because there was a large amount of good sparrers there and no lag. Classic had lots of sparrers but the lag was unbearable.

PKing on any classic server before the NPCserver came in was absolutely awesome. On classic by the Angel Clan house and on N-Pulse in level3 was the funnest days of pking ever for me.

After the NPCserver came out and I started getting into development more heavily a lot of it came down to staff involvement. Its fun to work as staff around cool, good developers and learn things, but it sucks when you work around a bunch of *******s and powermongers that throw fits monthly and fire the best staff for fear of takeover or just because they want to eliminate someone.

As for the servers itself, ...

Delteria I tried to play, but for a long time the staff there only massed racist bull****. I'm talking about the era when Tangy, Zega, and them was there (2002-2003?). I'm not saying tangy and zega did that, but most other staff did it.

SL became a lag hell for me, but I did like their storyline. It took too long for them to get it back working. So I just totally forgot about it as time passed on.

Valikorlia turned me off because I got sick of staff pming me to tell me to put -OOC- in my name or I'll be banned.

Era was cool at first when Chrisz and Angel was there, but then it got too advanced for me and the lag was too much for me to deal with.

Zenkou is something I am seriously looking forward to for many reasons. I want to experience the turnbased system on graal and try to exploit as many bugs as possible and beat the crap out of everyone. I've grown to love turnbased games over the past couple years and I just can't wait!!!

I liked Maloria back when it had that old cartoony tileset and all those nice jobs, light effects, nicely designed towns and stuff. Now it just isn't the same anymore so bleh hell with it. I'll never play there again with the new crap they have.

The kind of change has a lot to do with why I still or don't play a server. Some servers have changed into something I don't like, while others have slowly changed and kept my interest.

A super complex server will turn me off if there is no information given to start me off and lead me in the right direction.

[MKxTortoise]

The best server will always be the one with the most efficient staff team.

Ironic how I play Delteria, but hey

[haro41]

Originally Posted by PrinceDark

Zenkou is something I am seriously looking forward to for many reasons. I want to experience the turnbased system on graal and try to exploit as many bugs as possible and beat the crap out of everyone.

i have no problem with you exploiting bugs, just make sure you let us know about them!

[Demisis_P2P]

Originally Posted by haro41

i have no problem with you exploiting bugs, just make sure you let us know about them!

God I love that attitude.

I've probably been banned on Era just as many times as Meph has
I only have 4 accounts and each one has been banned atleast four times. And once Jenn banned IP banned 210.49.*.* (which ironically locked out half of the Australian players, as Australia really only has two main ISPs; Optus and Telstra) so I was IP banned for about 3 months.

Everytime I've been caught I've told the staff members exactly how I did what I did and how I did it, but they still banned me for a while. Often the exploit would still be unfixed by the time I was unbanned. It took Jenn many months to fix a method of duping that I told her exactly how to fix. So much for her unhackable serverside systems. That girl was too sure of herself and couldn't handle criticism.

Anyway... hi. I like your hair.

[Rick]

Remove display of current playercount and sort by name.

[James205]

Originally Posted by Rick

Remove display of current playercount and sort by name.

You know what... I really like that idea.

[nullify]

Originally Posted by James205

You know what... I really like that idea.

I'll start a playerworld named "!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!~~~~~~~~~~~GRAAL" and dominate the circuit.

[James205]

Originally Posted by nullify

I'll start a playerworld named "!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!~~~~~~~~~~~GRAAL" and dominate the circuit.

Or there could be a random system installed so everytime a person signs on to graal the playerworld list is organized differently everytime.

It would actually be cool to take off the playercount from the server list too because naturally a newbie goes to the top playerworld/highest playercount, if its different each time then it is actually fair

Just a few ideas though :P

[bef]

Originally Posted by James205

Or there could be a random system installed so everytime a person signs on to graal the playerworld list is organized differently everytime.

It would actually be cool to take off the playercount from the server list too because naturally a newbie goes to the top playerworld/highest playercount, if its different each time then it is actually fair

Just a few ideas though :P

I think I or somebody else already suggested the random serverlist organiser... If not, good idea..

Another idea would to not display any servers, you type in what you want (much like hidden/development servers)... And on Graal's official website you could find information on each server to help you choose which would be best for you. Including what era its set in, playerworld reviews, screenshots, storyline and so on...

Another thing to do would be to make Graal's website more user friendly and give you more reasons to use it. Things like more frequent updating and a simpler interface would help achieve this...

Will think up some more ideas to do with this sort of stuff and post again later.

[jacob_bald6225]

Originally Posted by Rick

Remove display of current playercount and sort by name.

But half of the players of UN would come on the forums and post, looking for the name of the server they used to play on "0mg! my serber has ben eraset! pleas help me, oyah, a/sl/?"

[Splke]

I personally hate UN. I personally hate Era. I personally dislike servers where people are rude / mean to you because you have low hours, or suck at sparring kids on 12k modems who lag around you like crazy monkey ****ers.

Honestly, I dislike high playercount servers because of the "Legends", and the community born of those "Legends". Graal's community isn't one of friendly design, it's one giving players the opportunity to rape you sideways, and then spit on you afterwhich.

I'm better off playing Zone, where people don't really talk. You just pick up a gun and pwn something. No "hey that was *** you ****ing ***got pos hacker im going ot get staff 2 ban u cos i know the owner of tis server". Just more like "wow way to go ***gy appricer", or something to that extent.

Summary? Graal's community is full of idiots and jackasses who enjoy making your life hell. New fresh servers are great, but the older servers are unnatractive due to this "Legend" status.

[syltburk]

Graal Classic people will always be the best, they are totally different from the others...

[bef]

Originally Posted by syltburk

Graal Classic people will always be the best, they are totally different from the others...

So what you're saying is that it's the quality, not the quantity of the players which seperates a good server from a bad server? Intellegent comment, though surely the quality of content matters too! I'm not saying classic isn't quality, infact my opinion is that Classic is one of the best servers going and always has been.

I'd just like to see more depth of thought from Graalians, think about why you like your server and if you realise you don't like it, and you're playing for the players, find a better server and put your buddies from the other server on an instant messenger or try to influence them to make the change too!