Lifetime Classic

[konidias]

Originally Posted by Tyhm

with custom frontends for playerworlds so they can bring in their own subscribers, with an official newbie-friendly world/hub, a global quest), or selling new products (expansion packs for maybe $5 a pop...just because the Neverwinter people decided this or that had to be on CD rather than downloaded as a patch doesn't make it any different, Graal could sell pre-download packages and unlock Optional dungeons. Ideally even give the developers a tiny slice of the profits, and/or a discount on the next server fee).

I agree that something needs to be done about all the free labor. I don't see how Graal stays alive as well as it does. The majority of Graal is made by the players and developing on Graal can only be taken as a hobby. (since you don't get paid for it) I'm lucky enough to be able to have a lot of free time to invest into working on Graal but I'm sure other people have to worry about school and jobs and all of that...

I just don't see how any playerworld can get completed or updated often when the people working on it have to practically put in 8 hours a day worth of work and get no pay. I'm sure if these people were compensated somehow, they might not have to have a day job and could dedicate their time to Graal.

But in order to pay these people enough, Graal would have to sacrifice portions of the account upgrade profits. But I don't see this as much of a downside in the long run. If developers are getting paid for having high quality playerworlds then they will work faster and longer and bring in more players. The sheer volume of people upgrading would turn a profit for Graal. I think the whole free labor thing is getting outdated.

My suggestion is to let quality playerworlds have the option of going gold, and then having a drop down list in the account upgrade page that let's people choose their main reason for upgrading. It could be "new subscriber" "to play Graal Kingdoms" "to play Zone" "to play Gold server X"... like that. If the person picks "Gold server X" then that server would get a portion of the profit.

At $40 an account, you could give even 25% to the playerworld which is just $10 per account. So you'd still be making $30 an account still. The money given to the playerworld would be given to the manager but any staff on the server could see the total profit for each month. This way the manager could decide how to divide up the money. If the playerworld manages to make like $300 in a month (30 people upgraded to play that server), then the manager could split up that money equally to all staff or could give out different portions of it or whatever. (if the staff are unhappy about the pay they could just leave that server, so it's not really unfair)

I think this could work in the long run (if the manager is of age to be able to accept money online or whatever). It would give playerworld managers and staff a valuable goal, and give them a real reason to work harder and attract more players.

Because as of right now, all of these hard working people don't get squat... aside from the joy of having people play on their server... but joy does not pay rent. Unixmad should know this most of all.

[Devil]

Those are some good idea's konidias, but to fully maximise that and for it to be able to work, you would need hundreds of more players every month signing up.

[Tyhm]

1) regarding the global quest: Yeah, I keep coming up against the same problem: a single quest on many servers, any one server can break down or rebel and screw it up. Thus, each server can only write to its own globalstrings and can choose to ignore the strings from others - if world A sets global.A.0=gotthegoldsword and world B doesn't care, they don't even have to script it. I look at it like playing a sequel on the Playstation: it reads your memory card, if it finds a save for the previous game you start with some easter egg unlocked.
It'd be cool to have a quest that requires that much cooperation though. Like a quest in Chrono Trigger, you gotta hop in the Epoch, dive into a dungeon to set things in motion to hop back in the Epoch...
2) I like the idea of paying developers somewhat, but as a former paid developer I gotta say it's cursed. There are expectations that come with a paycheck, and there's a finite level of enthusiasm you can put towards a company that's your source of income...we all dream of living large off a game we made, but it's the spirit of the hobbyist that made Graal great. Thus say I: make the tools easier to master, so the new and enthusiastic hobbyist is not dissuaded from making his custom system. I say start each world off as though restoring from a backup of an elegant yet primitive world-they have a serverside movement system, their own website where they can register accounts, a really basic customizable client frontend. It should clearly be Bob's Game, not Bob's Slice of Graal Estate.

Once it becomes easier to sell Bob's Game, it won't matter how much Graal's paying him to develop content for them: it's Bob's Game (hosted by Cyberjoueurs, powered by Graal4). At that point, Bob's working for himself, reaping reward and folly alike.

[konidias]

I think the thing about being paid though would improve Graal all the way around... here are my reasons:

1. If playerworld staff can be paid, they will work harder to improve the server and bring in players/upgrades

2. Yes it might create problems within the playerworld team such as one team member thinking they deserve more money than the other, etc... but this can be solved with good management, and a better managed team means a better managed game

3. this would be different than recieving a paycheck. I worked directly for cyberjoueurs and I can also agree that it's not a great way of making money. But since these playerworld staff/managers would only get money from having people upgrade for their server, then there is no fixed amount to be expected or anyone getting paid for doing nothing or anyone not getting paid their share.

It would be up to the manager to decide how to divide the money. They could even cut themselves out of the money and use their portion to fund prizes for large events on their server.

The percentage given to the playerworld for each upgrade could be a fixed amount or it could adjust to suit the number of upgrades that playerworld is getting per month. Obviously if the playerworld is pulling in something like 50 upgrades a month, they should be getting a bit more money out of each upgrade.

While yes this system requires more people to make it work... I think that's the point. =p This system would bring in those extra people.

[Devil]

I highly doubt it is going to work.. you need money to make money.

[Tyhm]

(ahem...I was under the impression that money WAS going to PWs to offset server upgrades...and that owners were emailed the code to put on their site to Refer...)
But regadless of what Is, what Ought To Be is: PW owners need to get a bit of webspace, where they can upload a skinned client, and where they can let players register/subscribe accounts for Their Own Game (which also works on Graal, but shh); and somewhere around 10% of the revenue should go back to these Content Providers.

It's a great long-term solution. In the short-term: advertising? How much, if at all, should the website be fixed up first? Say, we wait a month? Time's limited....do we devote effort to the hubworld? To global quests? More to the point, will Stefan give us globalstrings in the next month? Do we revamp the administration?
Stop selling more Classic Lifetimes? Does anyone really think discontinuing the extant Lifetimes is a good idea? Start selling monthlies? By the hour? Start selling Expansion Packs?
Would it reduce overhead if all the graphics and levels were predownloaded? (convenient excuse to sell the expansions...it'd definitely lag less...)

[Infernix]

Jesus long post. But yea Koni said somthing about people having to invest time into school. I tend to do a lot more of that than I used to so I dont always get a chance to do much development.

[zim5354]

Originally Posted by Devil

I highly doubt it is going to work.. you need money to make money.

So true.

[Tyhm]

Someone (Shaun I think) suggested distributing the GServer again to cut down on overhead - a horrid idea that would lead to the illegal servers all over again...or would it? What if, instead of GServer, they distributed NPCServer? What if you could have the Graal servers run the NPCServer for you for a fee, OR you could route the calculations to one account, which you run on your client? What if your RC did all the calculations and appeared on the serverlist as "NPCServer (RC)"?

Would that even work? Would it be just as dangerous? I dunno...I mean, Unixmad could pack maybe 20 worlds to a server, move all the level-packs to a FTP server and make people download the "patches" before they start playing, the server's just running a "Connect this account to the server...send all NPCServer requests to Maloria_Admin_1 and let that account handle the calculations..."
If it works, it'd mean those people with ridiculously powerful computers and ridiculously fast connections in their basement offices could have uber-fast NPCServ, uber-low lag (higher low...? Uber doesn't always work as an adjective I guess), and they'd be paying about the same...servers who need the overhead can pay for it, and it'd probably be more expensive...

[zim5354]

Graal doesnt seem to have any quest going now really. I mean ones that take team work and cant be done in 15 min. Im talking something that takes quite a while and is in diffrent peices. It would be nice if new quest were added and the story updates and such...But meh just a idea.

[Tyhm]

Content to keep new players around long enough that they'll upgrade. I agree.

[Devil]

Where exactly has Graal advertised other than some topsites websites.

[konidias]

Graal isn't exactly polished enough to advertise yet... I mean the website hasn't been updated in ages.

[Devil]

And that's my point, what do you mean yet? HOW MUCH longer must Graal not be advertised for lol... it's been years now.

[konidias]

Originally Posted by Devil

And that's my point, what do you mean yet? HOW MUCH longer must Graal not be advertised for lol... it's been years now.

I could probably have Graal ready for advertising in less than a month... I really don't know what's holding them up. I'd love to have control over the marketing of Graal and attracting players. (as I'm sure many others would also) It's got huge potential but nobody is actively doing anything to bring in new people or attract anyone.