Why has the playercount dropped so dramatically?

[Rufus]

Having 4 worlds on 1 playerworld? Even the majority of the servers with high playercounts have single overworlds that are too big, 4 different worlds is stretching it.

[Darlene159]

Originally Posted by Bell

It sounds fun but Stefan won't allow it to be 4 separate worlds. It has to be tied together as a past/present/future thing or basically they are just paying for one server in order to develop 4.

I'm not saying that is what they are doing. I'm just basically warning people who have their mental gears churning that this is not allowed.

I was assuming they would all be tied in together, hopefully. Still sounds like fun to me.

[Rufus]

Originally Posted by Darlene159

I was assuming they would all be tied in together, hopefully. Still sounds like fun to me.

I always wondered why N-Pulse hasn't had players for a long time, and now I know.

[Darlene159]

Originally Posted by Rufus

I always wondered why N-Pulse hasn't had players for a long time, and now I know.

What in the world are you talking about? I never had this idea for N-Pulse, A LONG TIME ago when I was Manager

[Rufus]

Originally Posted by Darlene159

What in the world are you talking about? I never had this idea for N-Pulse, A LONG TIME ago when I was Manager

What has changed on N-Pulse since you were manager?

[Darlene159]

Originally Posted by Rufus

What has changed on N-Pulse since you were manager?

You woulkd have to ask them that. I have nothing to do with it. All I know is they are planning something big, which has been posted on the forums, and it sounds good to me.

[Rufus]

Originally Posted by Darlene159

You woulkd have to ask them that. I have nothing to do with it. All I know is they are planning something big, which has been posted on the forums, and it sounds good to me.

Everything sounds good to you!

[Darlene159]

Originally Posted by Rufus

Everything sounds good to you!

No, different ideas, getting away from classic, sounds good to me. People making a real effort to make something great, sounds good to me.

[Rufus]

Originally Posted by Darlene159

No, different ideas, getting away from classic, sounds good to me. People making a real effort to make something great, sounds good to me.

Having 4 worlds that are going to be too big for any playercount sounds bad to me. I don't see how it sounds good to you and was hoping you'd tell me rather than just saying it sounds good.

[Darlene159]

Originally Posted by Rufus

Having 4 worlds that are going to be too big for any playercount sounds bad to me. I don't see how it sounds good to you and was hoping you'd tell me rather than just saying it sounds good.

Having 4 worlds, all different, but tied in together somehow, as long as that aren't ridiculously big, sounds good to me.
I don't know what they are doing with it, but it could be good if done right.
Look, what sounds good to me doesn't have to sound good to you. We are all different people, with different likes and dislikes. I can accept that.
It STILL sounds good to me....

[Rufus]

Originally Posted by Darlene159

Look, what sounds good to me doesn't have to sound good to you. We are all different people, with different likes and dislikes. I can accept that.
It STILL sounds good to me....

I wasn't trying to get you to change your opinion. I just didn't understand why you thought it sounded good. New things aren't always always good. I wonder if Bell's new rules would prevent N-Pulse from doing the Zodiac-clone update or ever coming back. We already have that style of gameplay and it is on one of the most popular servers around.

[Darlene159]

Originally Posted by Rufus

I wasn't trying to get you to change your opinion. I just didn't understand why you thought it sounded good. New things aren't always always good. I wonder if Bell's new rules would prevent N-Pulse from doing the Zodiac-clone update or ever coming back. We already have that style of gameplay and it is on one of the most popular servers around.

Something can be similar, but a lot different. Someone can take an idea as a starting point, and add a total different spin to it.
I don't know, I guess we will just have to see what happens, and go from there.
I am just waiting for something totally different, and great.

And, yea I agree that different doesn't always mean good.

[Bell]

The new rules won't automatically rule out servers that have similarities such as with N-Pulse/Zodiac. We will also be considering the differences as well. There will always be similar things in servers. If we became that nitpicky it would mean a complete halt of progression. Only one server with mining and farming, one with guild wars, one with skills and character creation. We wish to improve servers not halt their production completely.

Tig has suggested having 25 non graphically related differences for Hosted tab. I feel that may be overboard and think it may be too restrictive for servers just intending to give a preview of their server but I'm sure we'll work out those details with a little time.

[Hatred89]

Originally Posted by Crono

To me it just sounds redundant and I can imagine quantity over quality really playing a role there.

Eh, sorry I am going to have to correct you on that one. Trust me the reason we have been on the hosted tab longer then anyone else is because we have been constantly improving the quality of our work.

Also we are not far off from being ready to apply for classic tab once more and I do mean truly ready.

Originally Posted by Bell

It sounds fun but Stefan won't allow it to be 4 separate worlds. It has to be tied together as a past/present/future thing or basically they are just paying for one server in order to develop 4.

I'm not saying that is what they are doing. I'm just basically warning people who have their mental gears churning that this is not allowed.

Ah, Bell by the time you make your next visit a lot will have changed and it won't seem like four servers tossed into one. Everything will be linked together but I can't say anything more then that b/c I don't want to spoil anything.

Originally Posted by Rufus

Having 4 worlds on 1 playerworld? Even the majority of the servers with high playercounts have single overworlds that are too big, 4 different worlds is stretching it.

Well I mean take a glance at Graal Kingdoms they have multiple gmaps. Plus the thing with other server is they are only targeting one audience and our server will target the majority of everyone who plays graal. So the multiple maps we have won't seem so big at all.

Anyhow the only reason we have been taking so long is because like I guess Bell said ealier alot of players on graal have ADD and we go from having everyone working to people taking a break sometimes but that has changed. Trust me people will be amazed once we release. We are working on a lot of new things that graal hasn't seen before. Just because we might have four different worlds with similar themes being already on the classic tab doesn't mean we are going in the exact direction as those servers.

I know I am a bit late to posting but I don't read the forums that often.

[Nonepwnz]

Originally Posted by Bell

I'll forward our hate mail to you when people start getting turned down for hosted and servers start disappearing of tabs for development inactivity

Will you guys finally remove these servers at "Classics" who doesn't even needs to be there? Because they have like 0 players online. Max 10. Even my server I bought yesterday has that many players online... Even more.

[LoneAngelIbesu]

Originally Posted by Bell

I'll forward our hate mail to you when people start getting turned down for hosted and servers start disappearing of tabs for development inactivity

This is bit late, but describe 'development inactivity' in regards to a situations like Valikorlia's.

[Desear]

Don't know what exactly has been said, but I agree with the too many player worlds, and such with Bells' post, but also a reason why player count is down, is because school has started back up, and a lot of players may not have time to play, or can't.

[Bell]

Originally Posted by LoneAngelIbesu

This is bit late, but describe 'development inactivity' in regards to a situations like Valikorlia's.

Each server will receive a review to determine exactly what its particular issue is. We will then discuss it and decide on an appropriate course of action and if there is anything in particular the PWA may be able to do to help. Not every case will be the same naturally and individual guidelines haven't been set yet.

Originally Posted by Desear

Don't know what exactly has been said, but I agree with the too many player worlds, and such with Bells' post, but also a reason why player count is down, is because school has started back up, and a lot of players may not have time to play, or can't.

That will naturally be considered but is usually temporary. When school starts or there are final exams all servers have a lull at the same time. The servers we'll be reviewing already have a long term problem that isn't related to school.

[Pimmeh]

Originally Posted by Bell

Each server will receive a review to determine exactly what its particular issue is. We will then discuss it and decide on an appropriate course of action and if there is anything in particular the PWA may be able to do to help. Not every case will be the same naturally and individual guidelines haven't been set yet.



That will naturally be considered but is usually temporary. When school starts or there are final exams all servers have a lull at the same time. The servers we'll be reviewing already have a long term problem that isn't related to school.

But how will you guys be addressing the lack of development being done right now? The problem is indeed outdated content, but also the lack of new content being created. I am making slow progress trying to make my server, most primarily because I dont really trust anyone else to make the plans that me and my team (consisting of Codein and Steve) come into reality.

Of course, there is a certain group of renowned developers (Forum users seems to be a synonym here) that I would trust with working on my project, but all of these people have visions of their own, and even though I try to help them out, I find myself unable to keep my attention at their projects for long. I name Ziro, because initially I was into quite some design for Maloria.

The thing is, attention fades when its content being made by gamers, and it sometimes disturbs me, and I think I can be honest if I say that I speak for a majority of the graal players, that the people who spearhead all of Graal, the PWA team and Stefan, haven't taken credit or shown any of the work that is being done.

Instead of clearing outdated content, we should rather replace if with new stuff. The PWA's often develop, right? Tig, TSA, and although your field of expertise is unknown to me, Bell, I believe that every single PWA team member can do a lot to help out the graal community with stuff.
This has to be my smartest post ever.
I am not trying to diss you guys, because I have seen a lot of stuff that has been progressing in the past two months, on all kinds of projects, and I hope that this creativity will soar still as it does. (Puppetmaster, Maloria, N-Pulse) But right now I am wandering what you will doing to push development, rather then pull it.

[RozenMaiden]

So "downsizing" huh?

Well I agree there are too few players for the servers. So you try to change that by letting playercount drop even more?

4 servers in one? Oh come on, who would do that, even one server with some mobs lags enough...


Imho the problem with most servers is that they don't work out their ideas, that why they fail. It's always the same
"modern typed server" "guns" "better than era"
"rpg" "crafting" "jobs"

the crafting and jobs are usually more boring than useless, but both of that at the same time. They have to put some creative, fun and useful elements into their timesinks. And they need to work out their story and other stuff before they start. Honestly, I like scripting but I loose interest fast if it's like "hey we need jobs, make some". And when you ask for details its like "dunno, mining maybe, just use <stolen image from some other serv>, we'll replace that later"

[Bell]

Originally Posted by Pimmeh

But how will you guys be addressing the lack of development being done right now? The problem is indeed outdated content, but also the lack of new content being created. I am making slow progress trying to make my server, most primarily because I dont really trust anyone else to make the plans that me and my team (consisting of Codein and Steve) come into reality.

We can't force developers to sit at their computers every waking hour and develop. If they have the interest and the drive, they will do it themselves. By setting the standards a little higher maybe it will motivate them to do more than just "get by with whats acceptable and stop working."

We will be taking into consideration how many people are actually working on a server and not be penalizing those that have two people vs 10. That would be entirely unfair and I don't want anyone asking for help from people they don't trust. That just leads to problems along the way. There will be no exact rules regarding how much needs to be done between reviews due to the fact that some things develop quickly while others take much more time to not only make but be sure that it works properly.

The thing is, attention fades when its content being made by gamers, and it sometimes disturbs me, and I think I can be honest if I say that I speak for a majority of the graal players, that the people who spearhead all of Graal, the PWA team and Stefan, haven't taken credit or shown any of the work that is being done.

If you're referring to doing the playerworld reviews on the forums again, I agree. Those with promise need to be given some hype to generate interest. There are some minor issues with that though in that many of them don't want any form of formal reviews for fear that someone else will steal their idea before they have their server done. Houdini had decided to start doing them again shortly before he left and I'm sure its something we'll do in the future again but not without the owners permission first. For now they are free to showcase their own servers when they feel they are ready for public comment.

Instead of clearing outdated content, we should rather replace if with new stuff.

Nothing was said about clearing it, we are encouraging updating it and adding new ideas to it.

The PWA's often develop, right? Tig, TSA, and although your field of expertise is unknown to me, Bell, I believe that every single PWA team member can do a lot to help out the graal community with stuff.

The role of a PWA is not to develop servers, something I'm sure is often misunderstood. We are the mediators of Graal basically. We have other duties of course, such as stepping in temporarily if a manager decides to have a mental breakdown or inspecting servers for stolen content.

My past expertise has been in the GP field even though I have done some very minor development work. I compare my stuff to being GS1 compared to the capabilities of GS2 though so obviously don't lay claim to being godly in any way. I do not script at all even though I can often spot abusive scripts, if that makes any sense. Tig and TSA of course can script so often help out servers with issues they are having. This is not something they have to do but they want to do in order to help out where they can. They are but 2 people though so we can't expect them to go script someones server idea just because someone thinks their idea is a good one but is unable to find their own staff.

This has to be my smartest post ever.

I agree, you're actually asking good questions instead of just complaining

I am not trying to diss you guys, because I have seen a lot of stuff that has been progressing in the past two months, on all kinds of projects, and I hope that this creativity will soar still as it does. (Puppetmaster, Maloria, N-Pulse) But right now I am wandering what you will doing to push development, rather then pull it.

I, at least take nothing personally and I home that my fellow PWA's are the same so no diss percieved. I also have noticed a large influx of development thats coming close to its completion point and am looking forward to being asked to inspect it from my expert noobish viewpoint. Trust me, I am the ultimate noob when it comes to server play. Ask anyone thats ever followed me around during an inspection and they'll tell you I ask even the most basic questions regarding gameplay If its good stuff then I'm sure you'll all hear the words of encouragement for them to continue.

[Rufus]

Originally Posted by Bell

We can't force developers to sit at their computers every waking hour and develop. If they have the interest and the drive, they will do it themselves. By setting the standards a little higher maybe it will motivate them to do more than just "get by with whats acceptable and stop working."

There are ways.

[Bell]

Originally Posted by Rufus

There are ways.

They should be doing this because they want to. Not because anyone is forcing them to though. Quality will drop the moment you tell them they have to do something.

[Rufus]

Originally Posted by Bell

They should be doing this because they want to. Not because anyone is forcing them to though. Quality will drop the moment you tell them they have to do something.

I didn't mention any forceful activities going on (though sometimes it is needed ) just that there are ways of encouraging developers that haven't been done yet. I'll make a thread about it or something when I can be bothered to write paragraphs again.

[DuBsTeRmAn]

... Just get rid of peopel buying their own server. Yes i do understand, it gives you money stefan. But you could better focus on the hosted servers (Then i mean, Zodiac, Era, UN, Zone, GK, Ol West, etc etc)

[Switch]

Originally Posted by DuBsTeRmAn

... Just get rid of peopel buying their own server. Yes i do understand, it gives you money stefan. But you could better focus on the hosted servers (Then i mean, Zodiac, Era, UN, Zone, GK, Ol West, etc etc)

You don't realize that that brings in a hell of a lot of money?

[Darugo]

The people who have played, aka the vets, have been screwed over.
The trials are being given more special treatment :/

[Rave_J]

So Bell let me ask you this you want to start erasing servers. Ok
player paid 100 dollars and promise there year 365 days
or 50 dollars for 6 months worth
that was the agreement i have a feeling if you start erasing servers then stefan
will end up with a law suit due to scaming cause you cant just start erasing or more will leave what stefan needs to do make it where if u run out of server time then u can't renew it also i think stefan need to make a program where u can script offline cuz honestly if u did that it could be free just have to send it in to Stefan or PWA to look at it when its done and set it up on classic but taking out more developments people will actually quit then play cause a lot of people stay and play due to Development

[Rave_J]

also nothing will get done cause u got less developments to work on servers and there bored of playing it so they just leave graal and say this is ***

[Darklux]

Why has the playercount dropped?

The developers and managers, especially stefan and unixmad, just seem to have abandoned the game completely.
The question I ask to myself: Why should I pay for a game without official updates and where only players, who don't get paid for doing it - deliver all the content?

Don't tell me graal is a great game sdk - they stopped developing that - too.
The leveleditor is a bad joke, it's hard to get access to gfx and scripts - it's a bad sdk that had potential once. Now its a dying game without official support, without official updates - the interesting question IS why cyberjoueurs seems to want graals dead very badly. Thats a real sad part, as they had a great product once.

[Frankie]

Originally Posted by Liberated

everyone should just start helping out on AEON, that should increase playercountr drastically, once it's finished atleast.

I highly doubt it's going to bring in new players. All that's going to do is pull the player base from other servers to Aeon. Focus on bringing new players in, not existing players to new servers.

Also, we all can agree there are too many servers compared to the amount of developers Graal has, but playerworlds are a really good source of money for CJ so I don't think any restrictions will be put on it.

I skipped a few pages of reading before making this post so disregard anything I've said if it's been said already.

[Matt]

Originally Posted by Liberated

everyone should just start helping out on AEON, that should increase player count drastically, once it's finished atleast.

That will only help AEON's player count. No other servers, then we will be in the same situation where only a few select servers (1-4) have a high, or even decent player count.

[Nataxo]

Soala, finish Azure Skies!

and the player.count dropping I've seen is @ zone last week. (used to see around 25 and now I see around 10 :[)

[Bell]

Originally Posted by Rave_J

So Bell let me ask you this you want to start erasing servers. Ok
player paid 100 dollars and promise there year 365 days
or 50 dollars for 6 months worth
that was the agreement i have a feeling if you start erasing servers then stefan
will end up with a law suit due to scaming cause you cant just start erasing or more will leave what stefan needs to do make it where if u run out of server time then u can't renew it also i think stefan need to make a program where u can script offline cuz honestly if u did that it could be free just have to send it in to Stefan or PWA to look at it when its done and set it up on classic but taking out more developments people will actually quit then play cause a lot of people stay and play due to Development

Excuse me? I don't think you've read what I said. I never said a thing about erasing servers. We were discussing whether some of the current Classic/Hosted servers should go back to UC or not. A few other people joked about shutting down servers but thats not even an option. What the PWA decides is best for each server will in no way affect Graal's income. Whenever possible we prefer to find someone to work on and develop a Classic server.

[Angelu]

Would be interesting if you need a minimum of (something around 10) Developers and a concept
with (something around 1000 words) to buy a new or renew the Subscription of a Server...
I think if Graal has 10 UC Servers with 10 Developers the chance for sucess is
much bigger than if there are 150 UC Servers with 3 Devs

[MiniOne]

Originally Posted by Angelu

Would be interesting if you need a minimum of (something around 10) Developers and a concept
with (something around 1000 words) to buy a new or renew the Subscription of a Server...
I think if Graal has 10 UC Servers with 10 Developers the chance for sucess is
much bigger than if there are 150 UC Servers with 3 Devs

Yes i agree if we made requirements to get a UC server then it could work a lot better and the updates could come in more frequently as well as a bigger range of ideas from each Developer.

[Matt]

All of this would reduce the Graal manager(s) income.

[DesolateRestriction]

As I and other people have said before. There needs to be benefits to being a graal developer. As to what those benefits would be and how they would be distributed is a job for the graal global management team.

As it stands the only reward for developing your own server is to see others enjoy it and to be able to have some control over the decisions of your server. Though this is a great reward in itself, it's just not enough to motivate a lot of people to go through the pain staking task of creating their own playerworld and sadly such said task has only increased in difficulty with the decreased player count and developer count.

I do not feel that removing servers is a good idea,
atleast not the hosted and classic ones. Why? Because those servers are mostly composed of die hard loyalists. If Delteria was removed, do you think the Delterian developers would pack up and move to another server to work even more efficiently than they did for Delteria? Hell no. Why would they? The only thing that motivated them to get this far was their loyalty to Delteria. With it dead, they'd just quit graal. And there goes atleast 5-10 players, gone from Graal forever.

We need more compelling ideas that promote freedom and creativity (which is what graal is about), not hinder it. we need Global Management support and we need it now.

If you ask me, I think the first move should be to setup an effective network for Developers to be connected (not some distant forums board off game.)
Perhaps something that resembles Xbox Live Gamer Cards, but instead it's "Developer Cards", that would list projects (servers) you've worked on, your talents, in game information, etc. Make these easily accesible in game. Something that can spread throughout all the graal community (Because let's face it, not every graalian bothers coming to these forums.)

[Damien]

The playercount has dropped so dramaticly because of the updates that have been happening recently. Zone's Trial limitations and gelat shop weapons took out the average 50 playercount per day, and the Observer mode for classic servers didnt have much effect because of lifetime classic among players.

[GarethOmni]

I think it's due to the fact that people are normally drawn to this game at a younger age (When not usually able to spend money on it) and not being able to afford it.
It seems a lot more expensive than it used to be, but whys that?

The idea that you can't just open up your account properties and change your e-mail kind of irritates me and I'm sure other people that have e-mails they've used when they were 12 and want to switch them don't want to pay 30 bucks or give up their account's classic to do so.

It should be required that you have a certain amount of content before you can own a server and begin developing it. (And by own I mean Graal Owns that work)
A player opening up a server should submit a tileset (If it's not using the standard one), a staff list, and a proposal of content. Basically saying "Hey we can do something with this server space and we are not just blabbing away to you in order to own a server that will ultimately just be stagnate and die". This would encourage more developers to work on already established worlds, and encourage better content/ideas when they decide to take on creating their own world.

Many of the classic servers seem to be on a broken record of repetitiveness, Era is extremely guilty of this and because of it many of the players have either stopped playing or only login like once or twice a month.