I had this crazy idea...

[konidias]

Okay so I was bored and decided to visit the Graal forums and went straight to my favorite area, which is the playerworlds. The problem I found doesn't really concern originality. My concern is that people are straying too far away from what made Graal so great. I never would have even came to Graal if it would have looked like Zone, or Era or any other totally non-Graal type world. I came to Graal because it had a fun and friendly environment, much like that certain RPG and it's green capped hero.

We've all tried too hard to make something that would "blow everyone away", and that is far too complex for its own good. So many incompleted and abandoned projects... which I am sadly all too familiar with. So many clone servers modeled after popular Graal playerworlds. "Okay, so Era has lots of players... lets copy it exactly and then add our own spin to it, and people will flock to us!"

I'm afraid that Graal has lost its roots. Classic is a shell of its former self. I barely recognize what I once knew as Graal. What with the futuristic shoot'em up servers, and the drastic changes to the game engine which seems to have caused nothing but trouble. (in terms of fun and accurate sparring) What is with all the "realism" and the blood and the slaving away for money, and "power leveling" and lack of player support?

Graal was once a good thing. No, it was a great thing. At first I thought I only appreciated the old Graal because I was new to the game. But after being away for a while, I understand that it's because things were kept simple. I remember when I'd love getting challenged to a sparring match, and I would follow the person to their arena of choice, and we would spar with others looking on. The matches were intense, fast-paced and most importantly, fun. They required skill and strategy, and there was no worry of some guy having more max health than you, or better armor, or a better weapon. Everyone was even, and skill actually mattered.

You could sign on for a moment and spar a few rounds, talk to some people, maybe help someone through a quest... It was simple and fun. No needing to worry about having to feed your character, or having some high level person come up and kill you, or day and night effects with tons of lights that lagged your game down. Just pure and simple fun.

So what I'm suggesting is basically that someone... a group of people... form together to make a new version of the old Graal we knew and loved. The graphics would be new, but polished and clean. Kept simple, and resembling what Graal once was. The systems would be bare bones. Gralats would be reborn. There would be yin-yangs for health. You would have a basic bow and arrow that shot in 4 directions....

And sure, the barebones of the Graal system are still built around this. But they are too dated to really be appealing to anyone nowadays. All I'm proposing is that somebody makes a fun and simple server that wouldn't have all the flashy lights and bells and whistles. Blending in the good qualities of both Classic and 2k1/Bomy Moon. Something sort of like Mario from the NES turning into Super Mario for the Super NES. You would just be re-inventing the wheel. Polishing it, making it work better, and not adding rims and mud tires and noise-making spinners.

I'd like to see Graal reborn.