Next 2D Server?

[Tyhm]

Ah, I think we left Crono behind - we've been discussing this so long we've started skipping steps in the debate. Sorry, okay, recap:

: Official Graal 2D Server?
: Sweet!
: Wait, we need Stefan to make it "official".
: Well, I'm sure he's got time for one more!
: Naw, he's too busy on Kingdoms and 3D and the engine and mac tools and linux tools and scripted-RC and the logon server and flash games and the gralat system and synching things up with whatever updates to the website and the wiki and...
: Yeah yeah, we get it. Okay, why not have a player build the Official Server and then Stefan just waves the Magical Official Wand?
: My server should be the official one!
: No mine, mine's a million times cooler!
: Mine ftw!
: You see the problem.

So we've already concluded that if there will ever be an Official Graal 2D Server, it'll either be one that exists or doesn't exist, and either way it'll be player-built and Stefan-supported.
What should it be? Which should it be?

My money - the Newbie Server and/or the Hubworld. The Newbie Server would be at heart what Classic used to be - if you're a newbie, by default you start on The Newbie Server. Maybe you don't even see the server list. Simple, basic, straightforward, strong Zelda theme while studiously avoiding copyrights, heavy on the Tutorial Mission.
Hubworld would be what Graalympus was, but with warpgates. If you log on from Classic, you walk out of the Classic warpgate looking like your character does on Classic. If you run from there into the Kingdoms warpgate, you get transformed into what your character looks like on Kingdoms. If we ever get any Global Data Communication technology to allow it, it could also be the heart of a Global Quest - you beat everything on Classic and get a knicknack, which mixes with the knicknack from beating everything on UN to unlock a gate on Hubworld, when an ancient evil runs past, empties the vault, and books it onto Zone...where a quest suddenly activates to hunt him down, but he escapes to Maloria...etc. But that last part's my own pipe-dream: The Important Thing About Global Quests Is That it's up to each server whether or not they choose to honor the global strings from other servers. If Kingdoms doesn't want to participate, sure they can find out Billy beat everything on Classic, but they don't have to give him anything for it.

[Crono]

hub world makes me go ew :[

[Tyhm]

Oh. Kay?

[zim5354]

Originally Posted by Gerami

Guys I'm talking about an official 2D graal server :[

g2k1 if it doesnt die agin would be nice, idk if it would be worth paying for though.

::edit:: the hubworld idea seems nice but say if I wana play with my friend or someone tryed graal at my place and they dont wana go to the noob world and they wana go to era or something. it seems nice but i doubt it would work.

[Ak101]

What if a bunch of decent-players could pull off the Zelda-server idea and make it the "noob" world in which trials can roam around and actually play it and not worry about losing items etc.

[Andy0687]

Originally Posted by Gerami

hub world makes me go ew :[

You just dont understand its genious complexety

[Tyhm]

Originally Posted by zim5354

g2k1 if it doesnt die agin would be nice, idk if it would be worth paying for though.

::edit:: the hubworld idea seems nice but say if I wana play with my friend or someone tryed graal at my place and they dont wana go to the noob world and they wana go to era or something. it seems nice but i doubt it would work.

Ideally: Blend G2K1 and Classic. They were never distinct enough to allow for them both existing independantly (and I've long felt G2K1 was initially Antago's Classic, his attempt to prove Tyhm's a big doodie-head and given his druthers - and exclusive access to Stefan - he could make a MUCH better server), so why not just combine them? Two continents, one server. Two starting points, two starting quests, whatever.

As for whether NewbieWorld should be mandatory, and whether HubWorld should utterly replace the serverlist, it's debatable. I think it'd be spiffier if players hit Start and walk out of a warp on the Hubworld, then press F8 if they wanna skip the social aspect of walking through Hubworld and just get to Era...

Originally Posted by Ak101

What if a bunch of decent-players could pull off the Zelda-server idea and make it the "noob" world in which trials can roam around and actually play it and not worry about losing items etc.

Exactly.

Originally Posted by Andy0687

You just dont understand its genious complexety

I dunno about Genius complexity, but thanks for your support.

I respect the thought that Graal could use another Official Genre instead of an Official Hallway. We're all looking at a blueprint of a mall, say - there's a Zelda store, a Better Zelda store, a Harvest Moon/Zelda store, a Matrix/Zelda store, a D&D Zelda store, a Star Wars store, a German Zelda store - I say all these Zelda stores should have a common (enclosed) hallway so people will actually meet up, instead of just being storefronts bordering the parking lot. And there should be an Intro Zelda Store, a main entrance for people who've never visited our Mall before.
But some people say what it really needs is another anchor store: A Metroid/Megaman store, a Contra/Metal Gear/Bionic Commando store, a Castlevania/Kid Icarus store, an Ice Climbers store, a Kirby/Bubble Bobble store, a Mario/Sonic the Hedgehog store, a Mario Kart/F-Zero store, etc. They're not wrong, it's just a question of priorities - I feel that while we'd all like to make a new direction for Graal (and we'd all like to have Stefan on staff building new script commands to make it possible, and we'd all like to manage said server, and we'd all like said server to be either Gold or Official or maybe even Stickied), I don't think it's going to solve player retention once and for all. Kingdoms and Zone were new directions too, once - then they bent towards the common denominator to try and draw people off similar servers. It's like politics, everyone gravitates towards the swing-voters in the center.

[zim5354]

Originally Posted by Ak101

What if a bunch of decent-players could pull off the Zelda-server idea and make it the "noob" world in which trials can roam around and actually play it and not worry about losing items etc.

It could be done really easy but I dont think anyone wants to because no one knows if Stefan would go for it.

I kinda get what your saying Tyhm like, a Noob world with maybe a Zelda theme with a short main quest that sort of introduces them to Graal. Once the main quest is done (Im talking semi short here nothing to long) they can go to the server browser (or the hub world) if they are P2P, if they are trails they stick around and do a few more quest and there data is saved (for a month at a time maybe?) or they could go to the classic servers and not have there data saved?

[Rufus]

Originally Posted by Tyhm

Ideally: Blend G2K1 and Classic. They were never distinct enough to allow for them both existing independantly (and I've long felt G2K1 was initially Antago's Classic, his attempt to prove Tyhm's a big doodie-head and given his druthers - and exclusive access to Stefan - he could make a MUCH better server), so why not just combine them? Two continents, one server. Two starting points, two starting quests, whatever.

Classic should be more quest based, while Graal2001 was always more economical based, Classic had guilds, Graal2001 had Kingdoms, they're completely different.

Combining the two would be weird as they seem to both have their own specific touches, or atleast, they did.

[Tyhm]

Focus on that They Did.
What's wrong with having two options for the same goal? You can mine 1000 gralats or you can purge Ninji Tower of lizardons. If you buy the katana before you win it, when you go to the tower they say "Thanks, someone else took care of it, nevermind." If you win the katana then go to buy it, they "just sold the last one to the Ninji, but thanks for your interest."

I might point out that Graal2001 had (global) guilds too, and Classic's gravitating towards a handfull of Super-guilds/nations anyway.

[Loriel]

Originally Posted by Tyhm

Focus on that They Did.
What's wrong with having two options for the same goal? You can mine 1000 gralats or you can purge Ninji Tower of lizardons.

No one is going to pay 1000 gralat if they can just kill some lizardons instead. Money on G2k1 was pretty hard to obtain and required a pretty huge time investment, but even if you managed to come up with more fun and interesting ways of making money without making it trivial, I cannot imagine spending money just so I do not get to do a fun quest.

But of course while I think that "questing" and "economy" are fundamentally different and incompatible, nothing prevents both from coexisting on the same server, so I do not really disagree with your conclusion.

If you buy the katana before you win it, when you go to the tower they say "Thanks, someone else took care of it, nevermind." If you win the katana then go to buy it, they "just sold the last one to the Ninji, but thanks for your interest."

But that totally breaks the inter-player continuity

[Crono]

~ Loriel ~

Confusing Crono on the forums since 2003

[Tyhm]

Originally Posted by Loriel

But that totally breaks the inter-player continuity

What inter-player continuity? The kind that has players asking "Did you kill Kull yet? What about Sardon's wizard? Well, you gotta wait for the castle to explode, then go to the ruins and..." The only server I've managed to set that up on was Kingdoms and then only barely - as long as you accept that the same handfull of NPCs are constantly losing the same items over and over again...

[Loriel]

Originally Posted by Tyhm

What inter-player continuity? The kind that has players asking "Did you kill Kull yet? What about Sardon's wizard? Well, you gotta wait for the castle to explode, then go to the ruins and..." The only server I've managed to set that up on was Kingdoms and then only barely - as long as you accept that the same handfull of NPCs are constantly losing the same items over and over again...

G2k1 was pretty good at entirely avoiding continuity, so that worked, I guess.

[Devil]

Steer clear of making it like Zodiac, where if you wish to be the best on the server, you just sit on for 20 hours a day farming all the bosses.