Zodiac - Save or Shut Down?

[Xenoith]

Originally Posted by MysticalDragon

Snippet.

Thank you for responding, what would you propose then, with Zodiac in it's current state of affairs there isn't much hope for it. Would reaching out to other scripters help it? I love the server, but the bias hiring has to go. There are many talented individuals on the server who have offered to help make the server prosper and we even have some submitted weapons players made that got used, and some of them are even weapon skins now. Not sure why Ketsomaru is refusing to hire people and Raven613 is MIA and unresponsive, only popping up to do delegated task he feels like doing.

If anything I think another investigation needs to be launched as to why development came to a grinding halt. Now I will say this much, we were promised about 9 months ago new classes. The developer Ryu made a new class in about half a years time "by himself" . Between Raven, Symmasolan and Ketsomaru. Neither one of them has put out a single class.

[Crono]

dont need more classes to pile onto the shitshow

[Kuzative]

I still fail to understand the idea of shutting down Zodiac. It's at an all-time low playercount but it's still in the top 3 played servers at the moment since PC Graal has a low playercount overall.

But one thing I noticed is almost half of Era's playercount are former Zodiac players...I think if Zodiac wants to get these people back then any future big updates should be done in the login news so these players can see it.

Anyway Zodiac has always had a lack of developers and that can't really be blamed on management because our playerbase isn't really full of people who can do dev for them to hire in the first place.

[Ceasar]

it is a management issue, delteria has hired a whole lot more developers and it usually had a similar or less playercount so that can't be an excuse.

zodiac was one of the very few servers to be fortunate enough to recieve freelance gfx help from the playerbase, i hardly see anything like this on other servers.

that won't likely happen now that it's completely dead and it will only be fixed by replacing the inactive manager, no offense but jerret only cares about classic.

[fowlplay4]

I believe the theory that the server fell into the community-event feedback loop that ultimately led the player-count to drop off when events could no longer sustain them-self.

If someone wants to take the reigns and lead Zodiac to a prosperous player-count, I'm all for it.

I just don't think that person exists given the circumstances and (unpaid) time investment that would be required to succeed.

[Kuzative]

Changing manager honestly wouldn't make a difference because we have no scripters/devs on the server to hire so we'd still get the same amount of updates (which seems to be what players complain about the most).

Honestly the game got boring for me when really epic sets starting to become common among everyone.

Also we had no active ETs for a very long period of time since Tiu decided to do double duty between Dev and ETA. I was kinda annoyed when Zodiac stopped doing the monthly tournaments a while ago especially since we had a good playercount.

Well Ketso has been teasing us with a big update soon...so idk but I think it's just the end of an era to be honest. PC Graal in general is dying.

[Xenoith]

Honestly you can find scripters VERY easily. The game lacks any serious advertising. Your best bet for scripters would be college students looking to use their education on scripting to come work on Zodiac in their spare time until they land a job, they could work on Zodiac, see where they go with it and then go from there. That's what Symmasolan does and Ketso does it as well. It's practice. Reddit is one of the internet's biggest pools of people next to 4chan. People go on reddit every day, so if someone can whip up a snazzy banner/flyer advertising Zodiac, that'd be great.

You wanna know something else though? Ragnarok Online I believe is older than Graal and they have prosperous private servers that are better than the original game. They do well because they constantly advertise.

[Crono]

welp time to delete zod and add malaria

[maximus_asinus]

I sometimes wonder if part of why PC Graal is dying is because of the lack of per server updates.

[Crono]

Originally Posted by maximus_asinus

I sometimes wonder if part of why PC Graal is dying is because of the lack of per server updates.

ironically i think zod had too many updates for its own good

whos gonna sit there and farm when theyre worried about economy/their **** being **** tier? no security, who would want to continue playing?

[xXziroXx]

Originally Posted by Crono

welp time to delete zod and add malaria

[Crono]

Originally Posted by xXziroXx

)))?

[DeathOfRa]

Shut it down.

[Crono]

Originally Posted by DeathOfRa

Shut it down.

hi ra

[DeathOfRa]

Originally Posted by Crono

hi ra

What's up?

[Crono]

Originally Posted by DeathOfRa

What's up?

nm, you still play?

[Kamaeru]

I logged on Zodiac a few days ago and the server has potential, but it's so messy. The level design in general is putrid, there was a really poor choice of color for the tiles. It needs new level design and tile graphics. Other than that there are some neat effects, programming, ganis, etc. Not really my type of MMO but I do like grindy stuff. And yeah, the players are really annoying there (not expecting any different really though).

Also when I say that it needs new level designs, I mean it seriously. There was nothing I saw that is salvageable. Throw the entire OW in the trash, and interior levels, and start over.

[Crono]

new map would be cool but a lot of work

[kia345]

I don't know the intricacies of Zodiac very well, but would a new map really be a lot of work? It just needs to be big enough to contain entrances for the dungeons with enough space between nation flag or whatever

[Kamaeru]

Originally Posted by kia345

I don't know the intricacies of Zodiac very well, but would a new map really be a lot of work? It just needs to be big enough to contain entrances for the dungeons with enough space between nation flag or whatever

Yeah with modern dev tools like gonstruct and tile-editor I'm able to get large scale leveling jobs done quickly that previously would have taken much more time.

[Crono]

Originally Posted by kia345

I don't know the intricacies of Zodiac very well, but would a new map really be a lot of work? It just needs to be big enough to contain entrances for the dungeons with enough space between nation flag or whatever

ya it would be because

1) no LATs
2) theres a lot of content

im under the impression that 80% of the OW is useless but you still have all the different dungeons so unless we start warping into them or just having dedicated rooms for levels (levels 1-9 here!) in OSL, there's a lot of levels to be done

[fowlplay4]

nobody is interested in investing 100s of hours to fix or redo anything in it's entirety anymore.

[PlanetOscar]

Originally Posted by fowlplay4

nobody is interested in investing 100s of hours to fix or redo anything in it's entirety anymore.

go bak to classic

[fowlplay4]

Originally Posted by PlanetOscar

go bak to classic

ok

[PlanetOscar]

Originally Posted by fowlplay4

ok

sorry

[fowlplay4]

Originally Posted by PlanetOscar

sorry

[Crono]

zod will rise again 1 day

[Xenoith]

Well this sounds like good news. I went ahead and emailed Unixmad to see if we could potentially get a new manager for our server since Jerret show's no interest in Zodiac any more as a whole. Ketsomaru is really no longer relevant since Megiddo got bumped up to staff and Raven is AWOL, so we have no staff team at this point, which is really the skeleton of the server, without that we're gonna die off again. We're at a slow peak of 30-50 people average, which is really good. The server could use a fresh coat of paint if anything. Does anyone know how to get in contact with Unixmad directly, I emailed him and I'm sending him a message via forums. So maybe he'll look into this? I tried getting MD to look into the server issue, what we really need is a new staff team. I'm actually opening up a restoration team to see if we can get more people to hop aboard restoring Zodiac.

[Crono]

who are you gonna replace him with -^?

[kia345]

I nominate MD, if he can revitalize delteria, zodiac should be a cakewalk

[PlanetOscar]

Unix usually responds to e-mails if he thinks it is relevant

[kia345]

unless you emailed him about "iZodiac", I don't think he'll think it's relevant

[Crono]

zodiac fb where u unlock skill slots with money? $$$$$$$$

[PlanetOscar]

Originally Posted by kia345

unless you emailed him about "iZodiac", I don't think he'll think it's relevant

yeah, creates a conflict doesn't it?

[Kiri]

Originally Posted by Crono

zodiac fb where u unlock skill slots with money? $$$$$$$$

you're looking at the next manager

[kia345]

tron bonne and super skrull was 2/3 of my team too, whoever that is has good taste

[Crono]

Originally Posted by Kiri

you're looking at the next manager

hah

[Xenoith]

Update: Zodiac peaked out at 106 players today. A great milestone. But we're still not getting anywhere with staffing issues. Megiddo has been giving us small balance updates. No word from Ketsomaru. Jerett (Fowlplay4) has shown up today, but he refuses to have any interaction with players and wishes to do nothing when given ideas. He doesn't give feedback, so words go on deaf ears. I can't tell if he's just soaking the ideas in or not. Zodiac isn't getting anywhere with this kind of mentality from a manager.

Jerett refuses to step down as manager until a replacement can be found to take his place who will actually pick up the slack. He did say he was willing to step down, but not until worthy candidate is chosen to take his place.

So can we start looking please?

[PlanetOscar]

Originally Posted by Xenoith

Update: Zodiac peaked out at 106 players today. A great milestone. But we're still not getting anywhere with staffing issues. Megiddo has been giving us small balance updates. No word from Ketsomaru. Jerett (Fowlplay4) has shown up today, but he refuses to have any interaction with players and wishes to do nothing when given ideas. He doesn't give feedback, so words go on deaf ears. I can't tell if he's just soaking the ideas in or not. Zodiac isn't getting anywhere with this kind of mentality from a manager.

Jerett refuses to step down as manager until a replacement can be found to take his place who will actually pick up the slack. He did say he was willing to step down, but not until worthy candidate is chosen to take his place.

So can we start looking please?

I don't think anyone is fit replace Jerett at this point in time, perhaps you should give some suggestions on who you think is worthy.

[Crono]

Originally Posted by Xenoith

Update: Zodiac peaked out at 106 players today. A great milestone. But we're still not getting anywhere with staffing issues. Megiddo has been giving us small balance updates. No word from Ketsomaru. Jerett (Fowlplay4) has shown up today, but he refuses to have any interaction with players and wishes to do nothing when given ideas. He doesn't give feedback, so words go on deaf ears. I can't tell if he's just soaking the ideas in or not. Zodiac isn't getting anywhere with this kind of mentality from a manager.

Jerett refuses to step down as manager until a replacement can be found to take his place who will actually pick up the slack. He did say he was willing to step down, but not until worthy candidate is chosen to take his place.

So can we start looking please?

why do you care so much about staff vs the state of the server? even back when there were tons of staff members constantly interacting with players we hardly saw any major updates.