A few ideas to promote growth

[DesolateRestriction]

And now we're all going in circles. I'm not interested in defending myself or my decisions in this thread any longer, suffice to say that I, the original poster of this thread, decided that it was within the interest of the readers to explain why unkownsoldier was banned.

I'm interested in ideas, it's why I started this particular thread. I did not lose any interest in helping. I kept it short and sweet and I know those ideas need to be worked on before being implemented. The purpose of this thread was to get the wheels of thought turning again. But sadly we've nit-picked at each other to the point to where no one's on topic anymore (except a few who are repeating what was already said.)

Welcome to Graal.

[xXziroXx]

Originally Posted by Crono

You see, Graal's downfall started when they began treating Graal as such. Graal is a game, it is made up of the individual servers. The sooner the higher-ups realize this the sooner this game can be fixed.

Because none of the sever managers are advertising their game, aka server. Not even CJ are advertising any server, which is bad, but Graal Online in itself should be advertised as a development platform.

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by Crono

You see, Graal's downfall started when they began treating Graal as such. Graal is a game, it is made up of the individual servers. The sooner the higher-ups realize this the sooner this game can be fixed.

If advertising is ever pursued officially they should target players and developers separately. I think they should emphasize their advertisements on developers.

More kids are interested in graal as a game engine than as a game. That is, after all, the few features it has which defines it as a product.

Originally Posted by Rufus

We are merely players no matter how good our ideas are, and there are sadly very few instances where the players that are not already close to Stefan are listened to.

There are serious avenues of the game a group of developers could positively indfluence without administrative help.

Originally Posted by Rufus

Our ideas really need to be supported by the people that are running the game in order for them to ever work, so suggesting is as good as it gets realistically.

If a large group of players, who have established themselves in the Graal community (if it ever gets to that point) ask for a feature, they will be more readily listened to than an individual player.

That's not the purpose of the development group I've mentioned, but it's a fringe benefit. The philosophy you project to me is one where you have decided that you cannot control every aspect of the game, so you might as well not try influencing or improving any.

Originally Posted by Vima

The News Admin might help but the problem is really on the Graal people.
Everyone says that Stefan should do this and that, but Graal is really depending on their players to make new content on the servers. Constantly updating Graal Servers with new features.

This is the underlying logic behind what I'm driving home - players can develop not just new content but better systems. So their games are more about the content and less about messing with some settings, or trying to learn a new help system on every server. Little things which will improve the community as a whole. God knows there's enough problems that, if they were fixed, it would be a breath of fresh air.

Originally Posted by Crono

This is the real problem.

But it wasn't a problem when there were fewer servers - we had enough players that, even if developers wanted to behave in such a way to make themselves disposable, another one would always better there to pick up the slack.

That's why we need new players and why people want advertising. We just need to make sure Graal Online as a game is ready to HOLD the interest of new players. Why pay for advertising to attract 100+ people for a week when you can work a little on the content, pay for advertising, and attract 100+ people for a year or two? Especially if they get their friends involved.

Originally Posted by Cloven

Especially with the lack of incentive to doing so.

The incentive is the same as it always has been, I think. The big problem is the quality of ideas is very low. So there's not a lot of new stuff, and what we do have is...

Originally Posted by Vima

So what do you expect them to do?
They allready "manage" 2 servers, isn't it up to US to work together and release and update new servers? Graal will do the rest of the job.
This is how Graal is now, it really consist of playerworlds made by the players.

That's the general concept - and I'm glad someone recognizes it.

Originally Posted by DesolateRestriction

follow link if interested

I'm sorry to chide, but it's in poor taste to return to a thread which has functioned merrily for nearly two pages and revert attention to an already distracting occassion... Especially if you're going to end your post with a derisive and insulting statement? x-x

[Googi]

If you guys was advertising so much, just go to other forums and post about Graal.

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by Googi

If you guys was advertising so much, just go to other forums and post about Graal.

I've actually been emphasizing improvement before advertisement.

[Crono]

Originally Posted by Stephen

More kids are interested in graal as a game engine than as a game.

There are more players than developers on this 'game'. The majority of the developers probably feel like they need to develop because of the state of the game, not because of general interest.

You gotta think, all the players logged into the servers, the hundreds on Zodiac, Era, and UN, how many are actually developers? Sure, some make a house or so for themselves, but EVERYONE wants to do that anyways. I wouldn't consider it a development platform, but just an appeal.

Originally Posted by Stephen

That is, after all, the few features it has which defines it as a product.

Lately Graal hasn't offered anything features to define it, really. It has offered things such as cards, revamping the subscription service, observer modes, but they are all failed attempts. People tend to just forget about them and acknowledge the things that are actually useful like development additions, but the as a development platform it is far from perfect.

It's not a perfect development platform, nor is it a perfect game, but in order to motivate people to work on it as a development platform it needs to be presentable as both. People need motivation, and it is usually players playing on their servers that gives that motivation. You do not generate peers from a development community alone, and that, at current, is the weakest side of the community.

There are not many similar products offered to a niche market. Graal is a niche game that could be open to a relatively large market, but it seems like the developers would rather it be advertised as a gaming platform? Why? Due to laziness? Maybe it's because they're also lacking in motivation to develop it as a game, which basically brings us around full circle.

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by Crono

There are more players than developers on this 'game'. The majority of the developers probably feel like they need to develop because of the state of the game, not because of general interest.

I would like to think the majority of players have an interest in development, if only passing - and that their initial attraction was increased by the idea of "developing their own game", even if they never pursue it. We also have a lot of servers which support the trial community - obviously a community with goals that are less defined than paying customers.

Originally Posted by Crono

Lately Graal hasn't offered anything features to define it, really. It has offered things such as cards, revamping the subscription service, observer modes, but they are all failed attempts. People tend to just forget about them and acknowledge the things that are actually useful like development additions, but the as a development platform it is far from perfect.

We can cry until the cows come home, but you and I both know it's the oldest story on Graal. We have to take control where we have it and do what we can to improve graal. It's a hell of a lot more productive than just complaining.

Originally Posted by Crono

It's not a perfect development platform, nor is it a perfect game, but in order to motivate people to work on it as a development platform it needs to be presentable as both. People need motivation, and it is usually players playing on their servers that gives that motivation. You do not generate peers from a development community alone, and that, at current, is the weakest side of the community.

It's the only thing which defines the community. Without the efforts of a few there would be no UN, Zodiac, Era, or Classic. Obviously anyone interested in Graal from a development side would also be interested in the glory of a successful server. That's probably the most motivating concept.

Originally Posted by Crono

There are not many similar products offered to a niche market. Graal is a niche game that could be open to a relatively large market, but it seems like the developers would rather it be advertised as a gaming platform? Why? Due to laziness? Maybe it's because they're also lacking in motivation to develop it as a game, which basically brings us around full circle.

If we had a few high quality playerworlds, and the Gold servers were improved, Graal Online would be ready for advertisement prime time. All of that in mind, I want to avoid the politics of the administration as much as possible - that sort of posturing isn't going to help anything, it will distract people from the great goal, and will attract a lot of negative attention from all the wrong places.

[Googi]

Originally Posted by Stephen

I've actually been emphasizing improvement before advertisement.

I don't think advertisement would accomplish much. I'm just pointing out to the people saying there should be advertisement that they can do it themselves without having to spend money.

Originally Posted by Stephen

I would like to think the majority of players have an interest in development, if only passing - and that their initial attraction was increased by the idea of "developing their own game", even if they never pursue it.

This is pure speculation. Everything that can be observed suggests that the majority of players have little interest in development. It's possible that they all secretly harbor desires to become developers (for the sake of developing, not for local server power, etc.) but we have no reason to believe that's the case.

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by Googi

This is pure speculation. Everything that can be observed suggests that the majority of players have little interest in development. It's possible that they all secretly harbor desires to become developers (for the sake of developing, not for local server power, etc.) but we have no reason to believe that's the case.

A good portion of the players are trial. I said it earlier, and again now - their goals are probably not as defined. I feel a lot of gold, and even classic players, enjoy development on some level.

With that aside, the point is moot and distracting. The overall goal is to improve Graal in whatever way a group may see fit... not to convert everyone into developers.

[MiniOne]

Originally Posted by xXziroXx

Except that the servers aren't made by Graal Online, only hosted. Each servers manager should advertise their server.

To play that server, you still have to go through the Graal Online website and subscribe to 'GRAAL' not to the user's server, therefore it would be more beneficial if graal were advertised as a package. You've also forgotten about the Gold Servers, which are made by Graal Online, if I recall right.

[Pimmeh]

Originally Posted by MiniOne

To play that server, you still have to go through the Graal Online website and subscribe to 'GRAAL' not to the user's server, therefore it would be more beneficial if graal were advertised as a package. You've also forgotten about the Gold Servers, which are made by Graal Online, if I recall right.

Zone, as I recall, started out as a player project and Stefan took over. Now it is again run by players. And so is GK.

[MiniOne]

Originally Posted by Pimmeh

Zone, as I recall, started out as a player project and Stefan took over. Now it is again run by players. And so is GK.

Zone is run by Dan, who gets paid for developing the server. Therefore making him a member of the cyberjonex team.

[DarkCloud_PK]

I didn't see it touched much, if at all in this thread, though I may have missed it, is the state of how playerworlds are simply able to be rented now to anyone with the money available. This along with the lack of communication and teamwork in the development community, I think brings actual playable game content production down exceptionally. Even on live classic servers, it is very hard for developers(especially scripters) to work as a cohesive unit of more than a few(around 5 or so) people that work on an active basis, or at least seems to be the trend. This simply comes from people in the development teams naturally having disagreements in direction of a specific server, and people generally aren't inclined to work towards something that isn't in their direction, so more often then not, team members part ways, a lot of times to UC servers where their direction can be more focused on.

While I do understand the revenue the rented playerworlds bring, I feel they waste a lot of our development potential by allowing anyone with the freedom of having the cash to spend, to take their skills and run their own projects. This appears to produce a lot of development teams of one or two developers attempting to produce a server idea in a specific direction. However, 1-2 people are nowhere near enough to build a server alone, so barely any of the rented playerworlds end up reaching completion.(which I consider being on classic tab, or even hosted.)

I do support new ideas and server types, but it seems as if a bit of the projects seem to be of the similar enough theme of an already existing classic server that it becomes harmful to the game as a whole. Not only does the massive spread of development talent get spread away from working on live servers, should one of those similar themed servers, or even a different themed server make it to classic tabbed status, I find that it just spread the current community around aswell.

Theoretical Example: Say xxx modern themed server(similar to Era's theme), makes it to the classic tab. Should the server be of good enough quality, it will 'steal' a porition of Era's community away from Era, but not reach the playercount that Era did previously before that server was released, since its majorly a spilt of Era's community now playing two servers. This ends up damaging Era a lot, and the end result is two smaller communities that as a sum, are probably not as fun to play as Era was originally with its larger playercount.

Spreading the moderate sized communities that are present on live servers, only damages the overall game as a whole, as I feel for most types of servers, the more players you have on at a given time, the more enjoyable the experience on that server with disregard to content. Those that played on servers in the early 2000s that had playercounts above 100, probably hold that to be the most enjoyable period of them playing graal.

I guess what I'm saying in general is that while the server renting system as of current may provide some revenue for Graal on the short term basis, on the long term, I feel this is only harmful to Graal. It both spreads the development talent around, often to servers that never see the light of anything past UC, and spreads the community around as well. Right now I feel that the more condensed we can get both devs and community on live servers, the better the playing experience the players will have on a global level, the faster more live content can be released, and the more this game can grow, as a whole, and that means more subscription revenue.

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by Pimmeh

Zone, as I recall, started out as a player project and Stefan took over. Now it is again run by players. And so is GK.

The manager, Tigairius, is a member of the PWA. Additionally, Dan is a paid staff member.

[xXziroXx]

Originally Posted by Stephen

The manager, Tigairius, is a member of the PWA.

He wasn't when he got hired, and he would still be Manager even if he didn't join the PWA team.

[Angelu]

Graal is a epic fail as development platform.
There are opensource 2d mmorpg enginges out there so why develop in Graal ?
You, your friends and all other people can play it for free when you work with an opensource engine
instead of graal where you have to pay for the access and the development tools which have no support or updates...
Graal was free in the beginning too with all the tools so i dont understand why we have to pay for it now ...
(If you want your own server for sure you have to pay the server costs)
I know Unix and Stefan have to eat but its the wrong way to exploit graal like this
So the best is to hope that they become rich with the iphone games and graal becomes free again
There are other ways to get money out of it then with additional things

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by xXziroXx

He wasn't when he got hired, and he would still be Manager even if he didn't join the PWA team.

I'm not sure what agenda you're persuing - but the point stands that currently the gold servers are run by the Graal Online administration.

Originally Posted by Angelu

Graal is a epic fail as development platform.
There are opensource 2d mmorpg enginges out there so why develop in Graal ?
You, your friends and all other people can play it for free when you work with an opensource engine
instead of graal where you have to pay for the access and the development tools which have no support or updates...
Graal was free in the beginning too with all the tools so i dont understand why we have to pay for it now ...
(If you want your own server for sure you have to pay the server costs)
I know Unix and Stefan have to eat but its the wrong way to exploit graal like this
So the best is to hope that they become rich with the iphone games and graal becomes free again
There are other ways to get money out of it then with additional things

Graal is a business, not a kindergarten. They're not making piles of money from Graal Online, so it's understandable that they have to pursue more aggressive business strategies. As I said earlier, I would rather not make this political.

[MiniOne]

Originally Posted by Stephen

Graal is a business, not a kindergarten. They're not making piles of money from Graal Online, so it's understandable that they have to pursue more aggressive business strategies. As I said earlier, I would rather not make this political.

I agree, though their aggressive (as you call it) way towards business is far too aggressive, they've over priced and the quality of their product is nothing compared to the other products in this modern world of technology.

[CaptainSkittles]

Originally Posted by MiniOne

I agree, though their aggressive (as you call it) way towards business is far too aggressive, they've over priced and the quality of their product is nothing compared to the other products in this modern world of technology.

Agreed, it's more blatant denial with a mix of stupidity rather than aggressive.


Graal wasn't worth paying a monthly fee like four years ago, the idea of a lifetime subscription for a low price was what made me stay with it for so long.

If I was a new player, saw my impersonalized Graal#### account, and couldn't even change my head without paying, I'd uninstall and move on in a matter of seconds.