My opinion.

[Aknts]

Originally Posted by Crono

Semi true. Look at Classic iPhone, same formula but just a different platform. However ~12+ years later it got even more popular than Graal could have ever dreamed of.

Bingo. Look how simple it is, look how cheap it is to play. Graals appeal is its simplicity. What you could do back when NPC Servers came out was enough. Now it has gotten so bloated and the program itself isn't as good as it was.

I've been around Graal since 1.28ish, the game was great all the way up to the new Graal exe. Where it had a blue GUI with games and such you could play. That's when it added all the menus and stuff you can incorporate with the game. Go back to how it was. There is a reason people don't play the game much now.

[fowlplay4]

Originally Posted by Aknts

Bingo. Look how simple it is, look how cheap it is to play. Graals appeal is its simplicity. What you could do back when NPC Servers came out was enough. Now it has gotten so bloated and the program itself isn't as good as it was.

I've been around Graal since 1.28ish, the game was great all the way up to the new Graal exe. Where it had a blue GUI with games and such you could play. That's when it added all the menus and stuff you can incorporate with the game. Go back to how it was. There is a reason people don't play the game much now.

That doesn't justify taking a step back in terms of technology, sure not everyone likes the serverlist but you don't play Graal because of the serverlist. It's purpose is to get you from logging in to the server you want to play as fast as it can while still being able to deliver resources such as Graal News and Development Tools.

I don't believe that a serverlist/login interface change is reason enough to say why people don't play anymore either. In fact Graal Classic iPhone uses the same theme and that doesn't seem like it effects the playercount at all.

There's no reason why people can't make the "simple" servers anymore, everything that was there back then is still here today. In fact most of the tools haven't even changed since they were created (this is a bad thing) except for performance reasons like using FILENAMECACHE.

[Aknts]

Originally Posted by fowlplay4

That doesn't justify taking a step back in terms of technology, sure not everyone likes the serverlist but you don't play Graal because of the serverlist. It's purpose is to get you from logging in to the server you want to play as fast as it can while still being able to deliver resources such as Graal News and Development Tools.

I don't believe that a serverlist/login interface change is reason enough to say why people don't play anymore either. In fact Graal Classic iPhone uses the same theme and that doesn't seem like it effects the playercount at all.

There's no reason why people can't make the "simple" servers anymore, everything that was there back then is still here today. In fact most of the tools haven't even changed since they were created (this is a bad thing) except for performance reasons like using FILENAMECACHE.

Well that's my opinion of why a lot of people don't play anymore, why do you think? I honestly want to know =).

[fowlplay4]

Originally Posted by Aknts

Well that's my opinion of why a lot of people don't play anymore, why do you think? I honestly want to know =).

These come to mind.

Boredom, Loss of Interest: This is entirely out of Graal's control and there's only so much you can do to avoid it, and it's only natural to just get bored and lose interest but normally there should be new players to fill the void of a bored one who just left.

Excessive P2P Limitations: How do you hook people with a high success rate when you don't let them save any of their progress or bother them with nag screens.

P2P Cost: Considering the most popular servers are the playerworlds, and the lack of administrative support for it's gold/flagship servers (that are now run by players). People are having to shell out ($30/8 months) a lot for not very much for a game that's not worth nearly as much. Graal's success on the iPlatform has shown that micro-payments can be just as profitable.

Lack of support for newbies: A lot of servers don't really have that many systems in place to teach newbies, and because they aren't exactly as simple as they used to be this lowers the chance of hooking a new player.

Lack of quality content: Considering that all content is developed by volunteers and don't make any money doing so, it's very difficult to develop something of quality unless you have people who are just as willing as you to help get it done. If you want quality service ultimately it comes down to having to pay for it.

Uninviting Community: This kind of ties into the lack of newbie support but it doesn't help to log on a server to be flamed, ridiculed, and harassed for next to no reason, or walking around to see people tossing around racial slurs like a dedicated hate group.

[DarkCloud_PK]

A strong community provides more benefits than equal amount of strong content. Interaction with other players makes this game fun for me more than content alone. Being able to intertwine good content with a strong community is <3. I personally feel the community is vastly overlooked as sort of a source of content that makes this game fun.

Who can honestly say "I have fun playing all this awesome content all by myself!"?

[Fulg0reSama]

Originally Posted by DarkCloud_PK

A strong community provides more benefits than equal amount of strong content. Interaction with other players makes this game fun for me more than content alone. Being able to intertwine good content with a strong community is <3. I personally feel the community is vastly overlooked as sort of a source of content that makes this game fun.

Who can honestly say "I have fun playing all this awesome content all by myself!"?

This and not me.

[AlkarenHyralt]

While no one left would remember, the reason I left Graal and being GM was due to differences between Unixmad and I on the direction we wanted to take graal. And also on how to retain players, make money, develop the game, etc.

He wanted to go the way you've seen over the years, and I didn't because it killed the game.

I continue to be amused how I was right in the end.

[Kamaeru]

Originally Posted by fowlplay4

That doesn't justify taking a step back in terms of technology...

Taking a step forward in technology doesn't justify taking a step backward in game design principle.

I also would like to add that I disagree with darkcloud, I think that making the game fun for every player, extroverted socially or introverted, would help a lot. I usually kept my friends to a minimum in my years and didn't join much guilds. I've never really felt that multiplayer experiences held a candle to single player experiences, especially online multiplayer (it's way funner to be in the same rooms with your friends). Also too much of a group mentality can be extremely uninviting to new players. Graal2001 is an example of a server that was inviting to new players with its social scene. I remember noticing that people were generally more articulated and nice to befriend and talk to on that server.