Lifetime Classic

[Devil]

Yeah I know, they should get rid of the Fairyland crap instead of trying to pull this crap on us.

[Tyhm]

I somehow doubt Fairyland is the entire problem, nor that cutting it would fix it.
Advertising will work, but only if the front page will hold the customers....

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by Devil

Yeah I know, they should get rid of the Fairyland crap instead of trying to pull this crap on us.

Fairyland is entirely unrelated to Graal.

[Devil]

Haha, unixmad runs some fairyland servers, I'm sure at his expense. He would in return receive some type of comission off of account subscriptions.

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by Devil

Haha, unixmad runs some fairyland servers, I'm sure at his expense. He would in return receive some type of comission off of account subscriptions.

I moderated his forums for a while - I know this very well. That's an entirely seperate business venture.

[Devil]

You obviously have no idea what I'm trying to point out so I won't bother.

[Spark910]

Originally Posted by Devil

You obviously have no idea what I'm trying to point out so I won't bother.

But I think we're on about the profitability of Graal, not cyberjoueurs as a whole.

[Devil]

Yeah I re-thought about what I said, and I understand where you guys are coming from.

[Crono]

Originally Posted by Stephen

Fairyland is entirely unrelated to Graal.

Remember how much we used to play it together? Then I passed you

[zim5354]

Originally Posted by Spark910

But I think we're on about the profitability of Graal, not cyberjoueurs as a whole.

I hope they know just becuse they slap a price tag on this game doesnt mean that it will make money. Say they slap a price tag on it alot of users quit the ones that stayed are in a ghost town so they dont renew there accounts Graal is now dead.

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by Gerami

Remember how much we used to play it together? Then I passed you

You shush ]:

[Crono]

Originally Posted by Stephen

You shush ]:

Fun times though. I really liked that game.

[Tyhm]

Originally Posted by zim5354

I hope they know just becuse they slap a price tag on this game doesnt mean that it will make money. Say they slap a price tag on it alot of users quit the ones that stayed are in a ghost town so they dont renew there accounts Graal is now dead.

*Trying-to-stay-on-topic* Right. There are a couple avenues to increased profit without lower population; driving in new traffic (with ads and an updated frontpage, 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).

Another idea in the New Traffic direction:
What about a Hub World?
Either do away with the server list, or put a single basic server at the top. Set it up like Graalympus was, with support for different ganitypes from different servers...a bunch of different warp gates (a different style for different servers...start out with just one or two basic ones, let the servers submit "better" ones)...then use global strings to pass their appearance in when people warp off their server to the Hubworld.
Example: Tyhm jumps to the Hubworld from Kingdoms (pressing F8, or maybe Pressing F8 and choosing Hubworld). He steps out of the warpgate as a Kingdoms character, using the Kingdoms ganis. He walks around, trades in some Global Gralats for a beer, advises a class of newbies on running-away strategies, hops through the Classic gate. Loads up his Classic character, plays through a few dungeons, hops back on Hubworld - now he's a Classic character. Plays a few flash games, plays checkers against a guy from Korea who doesn't have an english keyboard so they have to communicate via pictographs ("pawn?" " " "-> chair!" " " "black/white?" "white." "white first" *move move move move* "white king!! (check)" *move* "white king falls" " " "handshake"), then he goes to the Zone Transporter Room, where he teleports out all Star Trekky. On Zone he teleports in looking like a Zone character, holds a fort or something...jumps back to the Hub looking like a Zone character still...

[zim5354]

Originally Posted by Tyhm

*Trying-to-stay-on-topic* Right. There are a couple avenues to increased profit without lower population; driving in new traffic (with ads and an updated frontpage, 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).

Another idea in the New Traffic direction:
What about a Hub World?
Either do away with the server list, or put a single basic server at the top. Set it up like Graalympus was, with support for different ganitypes from different servers...a bunch of different warp gates (a different style for different servers...start out with just one or two basic ones, let the servers submit "better" ones)...then use global strings to pass their appearance in when people warp off their server to the Hubworld.
Example: Tyhm jumps to the Hubworld from Kingdoms (pressing F8, or maybe Pressing F8 and choosing Hubworld). He steps out of the warpgate as a Kingdoms character, using the Kingdoms ganis. He walks around, trades in some Global Gralats for a beer, advises a class of newbies on running-away strategies, hops through the Classic gate. Loads up his Classic character, plays through a few dungeons, hops back on Hubworld - now he's a Classic character. Plays a few flash games, plays checkers against a guy from Korea who doesn't have an english keyboard so they have to communicate via pictographs ("pawn?" " " "-> chair!" " " "black/white?" "white." "white first" *move move move move* "white king!! (check)" *move* "white king falls" " " "handshake"), then he goes to the Zone Transporter Room, where he teleports out all Star Trekky. On Zone he teleports in looking like a Zone character, holds a fort or something...jumps back to the Hub looking like a Zone character still...

You actually have some great ideas. But my main problem is like the global quest, say I am from UN and the quest requires me to go to Valikorlia I do not know the rules there and I could cause some major problems in there roleplays and such. I think it should be up to each classic playerworld if they want to be included in the quest or not but it is a very great idea.

[warp2ukew]

Unix also has a monopoly over the .fr domain names, he makes plenty of money off of selling those / the ones he has sold.

[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.

[Tyhm]

so let's polish and post. What should the priorities be prior to posting the ads? Website, content, frontends? How thoroughly should we update the site? How much content should we make, in what direction, and by whom? Is skinnable clients enough, or should Graal give/host each PW their own homepage?

[Googi]

Graal is being advertised on Google ads.

[Devil]

Yeah that's good if that happened, but think about it, neither of them know how to market Graal in other countries.. they need to do something about that first, and find some other people.

[konidias]

Originally Posted by Tyhm

so let's polish and post. What should the priorities be prior to posting the ads? Website, content, frontends? How thoroughly should we update the site? How much content should we make, in what direction, and by whom? Is skinnable clients enough, or should Graal give/host each PW their own homepage?

Fixing up the website. Getting rid of VIP and making the upgrade page simpler + fixing some info on that page in particular. Getting active contests and things going on the website so newcomers see lots of activity. A written and video tutorial of how to get started with: getting an account and playing the game, developing in the game, starting your own playerworld.

There needs to be a new gold server planned and a team organized and starting work on it. Possibly make some of the higher quality under development playerworld plan to go Gold instead of Classic. As for the all new gold server... updates should be made on the site frequently when new things are made for it. (like during it's development)

I think it would be much better if the news was once again being posted actively and by different servers. (with someone approving the content of the news posts)

Once that is all set, I think a more inviting/professional login screen and lobby for the game would be great.

It would also be nice to be able to access flags from a graal server and display that data on websites. (I think someone did this I'm not sure how though? Maybe make an example of this if it's already possible?) That way people could have forum sigs that showed their stats for a certain server... or like what their player currently looked like or who knows what... (though I think that would consume more bandwidth)

There should be a page on the website that compiles EVERYTHING a Gold account has to offer including listing the current classic and gold servers with brief descriptions for each.

It's a start...

[Devil]

I really would like to see more gold servers from other players, personally I've never played Zone, I logged on and had no interest whatsoever, and I also do not like GK.. another no interest server for me personally. A bigger range of gold servers would definately make me upgrade to Gold again.

[smirt362]

I dont like the graphical style of either of the gold servers...I've even played both for a couple of days and I didnt think it was anything special :/

[Spark910]

Originally Posted by konidias

There should be a page on the website that compiles EVERYTHING a Gold account has to offer including listing the current classic and gold servers with brief descriptions for each.

It's a start...

A 'quicksite' like Fairyland has:
http://www.fairyland-europe.com/

but for Graal! There was one made by Amon-Ra but Stephane didn't like it so much, and perhaps it was a bit graphical anyway and not that fitting. But such a website would be great for new players who don't need to see all the news and other links just yet (but they should also be somewhere, but less obvious).

[Devil]

That's exactly my point, nothing AT ALL appeals to me, I'm not saying they are crap.. but you have to give something to paying customers who want to play an enjoyable server.

[WanDaMan]

http://forums.graalonline.com/forums...ad.php?t=67792

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeee.

I believe it hasn't been fixed yet either.

[Raelyn]

Originally Posted by unixmad

I am reopening a discussion that has been started on another thread, i didn't want to speak about it because i wanted everyone to stay on topic, but i am not against discussing it.

That's not really my cup of tea to be always seen as the bad guy for trying to find way to get some money from our work but we are a company and not a non for profit organization and if I don’t want our company to go bankrupt like hundred of other online game company, I need to make choices, that’s basically what I tried to explain.

Cyberjoueurs spend a lot of time and money to add new features and technologies to the graalonline engine and a good amount of the players (classics one) get all these for free and don’t pay any more, even worst when they don’t play the game any more they give the account to a trial friend.

You can still argument that classic players have paid, what is true but they have paid for a software version X.X and not for all forthcoming version, no companies make new version for free, they make patch and bug fix free but not new version.

The idea with lifetime was to let player play even if the subscription was over. This is not something any other game services are providing like we are, most other game services are restricting functionalities, items or area when your subscription is over.

Ask yourselves if it is profitable for us when someone buy a 29$ subscription and play for years with no new subscription. I have already made calculation and if I add computer costs, datacenter costs, bandwidth, human costs… We are loosing money.

Also we have made the choice to always give our latest technology to playerworld, that means our gold services have no technology advantage to push classic player to take a new subscription.

We have introduced a few year ago vip subscription thinking that classic player (for most of them playing 20 hours a month) our services will accept to pay 2USD a month to get all services and more but only a few % of classic player are using vip.

So what is the solution? Is it to focus on a new game and close the old one when the new one is ready? Watch other online game company, 95% are doing it and they don’t care you have paid most of the time hundred of USD in subscription and spent hundred of hours playing a persistent game that will not exist any more.

So Cyberjoueurs have to find solutions to attract more players (and I am working on it very actively) but also find solution to not loose endlessly money with long time customers.

I'd like to say that I agree with you entirely, however, I have never been one to abuse my lifetime classic. I have 5 accounts with lifetime classic that I never use, and I have never given to trial members, and I keep my Raelyn account renewed with Gold and usually VIP as well, not to mention I pay for server hosting for Aetherforge. I fully support Graal in idealisms and financially and any of those arguing that lifetime classic should be brought back should be ashamed of yourselves.

If you love graal enough to be reading and participating in the forums and have been playing for a long time, you should support graal's financial choices.

I challenge you to find a MMORPG engine as useful or as cheap as the graal engine. Not only does it offer an online gaming service at a fraction of the cost of other MMORPGs, you are also given all the tools to create your own content.. FOR FREE.

Seriously, for all Unix and Stefan give to us, you should be ashamed for not wanting to give back.