Graalonline Business Plan

[Robin]

This has stemmed from the current "state of the <insert aspect of Graal here>" threads which have been cropping up of late.


On Subscriptions:
I don't know any MMORPG that is free, not completely at least.

Change how subscriptions work.

• Trial accounts should remain as they are.
  
• Classic subscriptions should be a fair price for a biannual subscription. This keeps money coming in and would make up for said classic accounts accessing the forums.
  
• Classic accounts should be able to access the forums on weekends only, as was with the VIP system accessing gold servers.
  
• Classic accounts should be able to play gold servers up to a certain level, before access is limited to a few hours per day or only allowed on weekends. This would increase player counts dramatically.
  
• Gold accounts should have the ability to create a server and manage it using a control panel back end at the standard $99 per year. Six month servers, while a good idea, probably not making as much money in the long run. This will stop kids from signing up with their birthday money (well, it will stop the majority).
  
• Once a gold subscription as run out, the account should default back to Classic, as it does now.

On Servers:

• Hosted servers which have little to no players should be re-evaluated, and possibly shut down if the managers are no longer available.
  
• Classic servers (Sorry, I'm looking at Atlantis and Delteria) should also be re-evaluated and either moved into Hosted or under construction.
  
• Current management of all servers should be re-evaluated and if inappropriateness is found, it should be dealt with.
  
• Gold servers with little to no playercount should ALSO apply to the above changes.

On the client:

• Get rid of the start bar. I know it's easier to implement it due to the fact that WindowBlinds skins can be loaded, but it's not appropriate for the game that Graal is trying to be, which is, above it all, a Zelda like online game.
  
• Torque is great, I just don't see much point of having external windows et al if there's no development tools.
  
• Standardize development tools. I will release my (open source) flash level editor and my flash gani editor when Flash 10 is properly released (support for loading/saving of local files) if standardization is not apparent.