so who's looking to create a server?

[Hiro]

i'm unsure about whether or not this thread should be in here since i don't actually have anything to provide because nothing is assembled so i can't follow the posting guidelines - however, it is basically a staff opening thread since it's looking for developers...up to you guys.

so who out there still active on graal (or the forums at least) is a developer and wants to make a server? it's not a good investment to purchase a server before anything is set up; that makes you have a deadline, and seems to fail 99% of the time. instead, we can create a team out of people interested in making a server and are not working on anything else, plan out what the servers purpose will be making sure it fits with the requirements of getting onto the classic tab, do all the work that needs to be done offline, and then purchase the server for scripts and testing - and seeing if it doesn't suck.

i am such a person looking to create a real, quality classic (defined as sparring and PKing with swords) server based upon what i have played and put up with over the years, matched with the interests of those players who still want classic servers. however, i'm not a developer. i can make simple graphics, i have only a beginners understanding of scripting, and i can't LAT; all the staff jobs i have held on graal were all player relations jobs. this doesn't mean i can't contribute to the team though, because i can add direction and i'll pay for the server; which doesn't even necessarily make me a "manager" - honestly i dislike that style of staff management; i'm more of a council/committee type organizer.

so, post here if your looking to make a server. we can share some ideas; my only deal is that i want to make a classic type server, so if you're looking for a modern type server this isn't going to work out. i hope some talented people want to develop, because i have a lot of ideas and stories. (:

[Hiro]

been a few weeks since i made this thread, no replies. i figure this is from a lack of ideas on my part, hopefully not that no one wants to create a server, or at least a server with me. so, i figure i should post a few ideas once i have them fleshed out so that if, by chance, a developer likes an idea he can contact me and we can get things going, or even go off and make it on their own.

my first idea is very a link to the past-esque as it involves running around the overworld in search for better items, all in the hope of rescuing the world from a dictator-magic using wizard. heres a rough sketch of the map:



from the starting point, which i always call Haven, you awake in a bed. a large explosion is the cause for being awoken, and your grandfather who was also sleeping in a adjacent bed will leave to check what has happened with the mayor. after he leaves you will be able to get out of bed and go to the nearby chest, attaining a level 1 sword and level 3 shield and 2 hearts to put you at 5hp

upon leaving your house the player will freeze as towns folk run past yelling for help. chasing them are knights from the kingdom of Ezra; a nearby nation on the largest of the three islands who wish to conquer the small island that your town occupies. from here the player can choose to hide/escape, letting the townsfolk die, or he can fight the knights (whom have 10hp, level 2 swords). regardless of what the player chooses, a NPC named Tinal will rush over and tell the player to follow his lead to a safe house. unable to control their movement, the player will be forced to go into the safe house with Tinal

from here, information on who the kingdom of ezra and why they attacked the town will become apparent. near the end of the discussion, the player will be informed of several magical items that can be used for the benefit of the town to stop the kingdom of ezra from spreading their evil influence. from here the player can choose to help the town, or go off on his own. if he decides to help the town, he will receive 100 gralats and the items will be marked on his map (as you can clearly see in the image above). the player can then be lead through a secret tunnel which will lead him outside of the town. if he chooses to leave and not help the town, he will be found by Tinal later on right before the player leaves the town, and he will give him the map markers anyways, but will shortly thereafter be killed by knights, which the player will have to fight

from there, a series of quests that all lead into one another will be possible. once the player attains all of the quest items (whether with the help of others or by himself) he will be able to get the final items that lay inside the castle itself. this is the main objective of the server, and will need more explanation

the castle will be maze of tunnels, pathways, walls, and baddies laid out in the hardest possible way where it can still be possible to get through the level by oneself, if you use the items and maneuver your character correctly. the castle will also be subject to change whenever the player, or a group of players, enter the castle. this means that each player will have his own separate castle levels to wander and fight through, and they will change randomly each time: so no one time will be exactly like the other (though probably pretty similar some times) and you won't find the same resources all the time. once a player has penetrated the defenses of the castle enough, he will be able to get the final two items which will allow the player to do whatever they want to with the rest of their time playing the server, which is to say that while the castle is the main game play of the server, it won't be the only thing going for it. you will have to fight Ezra, the king of the castle, to attain the last item: groups of players will increase the difficulty of the castle, as well as the resources found

this is roughly what is planned out; i've tried to keep it interesting without losing the PK and sparring focus that graal essentially has on classic servers. the other focus was to make quests more interesting and different each time you attempted them, along with finding new routes and new ways to get through each quest while in the castle. the last focus was to make the castle useful not only for the final two items needed to finish the server (such as what happens to quest areas once players have completed them) but also useful for resources found for other areas of the server, which makes questing into the castle a regular ordeal, and an excuse for players to team up

the other objective of this server is to give players several options for completing quests and dealing with NPCs and other players, much like getting through the castle. having a single route for every quest gets boring and mundane, making the job of FAQs to be to warp players to the chests so they can simply be done with the quests and move onto the actual server: this won't be allowed to happen here, as the quests will be what makes the server fun, along side what other servers have. having to make choices that affect the outcome of your quest makes things more interesting, and can allow players to due quests multiple number of times to try different approaches

[Exhausted]

I hope you find developers to help you. Judging from your other posts, you seem to care deeply about classic gameplay and sparring.

[Hiro]

Originally Posted by Exhausted

I hope you find developers to help you. Judging from your other posts, you seem to care deeply about classic gameplay and sparring.

thanks for the support (: i too hope that some developers want to bring back classic servers. whether it's with me or not is up to them

[papajchris]

just a thought.. you could use the level generater to copy your picture above and bam your gmap, and islands will be done already. Then you just need to add details, fix any errors the generator made, etc..

[Hiro]

Originally Posted by papajchris

just a thought.. you could use the level generater to copy your picture above and bam your gmap, and islands will be done already. Then you just need to add details, fix any errors the generator made, etc..

very true, but i would still be completely lost for scripting, especially for the level of game play hoped for in this idea. i could probably try my hand at gani's and graphics again, but really it all takes some time for me to produce something quality, and without some competent developers to help carve the way...i won't be able to make it happen on my own

i was working on making my guild event idea through the level generator as a matter of fact, but i haven't finished it as i have no motivation to actually finish it

[XPrototypeX]

if you want to help out an RPG server than I would do that

[papajchris]

Originally Posted by XPrototypeX

if you want to help out an RPG server than I would do that

He clearly said classic style, and he also said he wants devs. You have no skills that are beneficial to him.

[Hiro]

as soon as a figure out what is going wrong with my post i'll be able to post my next idea, because so far all i've been getting is "bad requests" which is pretty frustrating

[Gambet]

Originally Posted by Hiro

as soon as a figure out what is going wrong with my post i'll be able to post my next idea, because so far all i've been getting is "bad requests" which is pretty frustrating

You can't post percent signs on these forums, that might be your problem?

[Hiro]

Originally Posted by Gambet

You can't post percent signs on these forums, that might be your problem?

let me try, that might be the problem

[Hiro]

here is and idea for a modern/classic server combined with spell casting, a steampunk-themed server, with the choice of swords, spells/magic, and guns. the focus will be to let players choose and specialize in the way they want to fight, without making on class unfair. in the end at the final stages of leveling, everything will come out equal, with some things being slightly better than others, still keeping it a skill-based server

swords will stay the same as classic server, the only variation will be the swing speed and the damage caused. they come in 3 categories:
1) 50 percent extra speed from normal, but 25 percent lower damage
2) normal speed, normal damage
3) 50 percent slower speed from normal, but 25 percent extra damage

this is the same way that weapons will also come in, though they have added perks, such as hit through blink, extra damage/speed, able to use sword as a shield, etc.

spells will be split into three categories as well. the hard thing about spells is that i wanted to make them as easy to use as swords or guns, without making people use their mouses (or at least a minimal use of the mouse). this can be done with area effect damage where it shoots out much like the sword-gani, and then depending on the spell will follow a predetermined path of zig-zags or circles or straight lines. spell categories are:
1) enhancement, buff yourself or others, comes both with negative and positive buffs
2) damage caster, where your spells do a range of damage in a spectrum of designs. the length of the spell determined how long
the area effect stays, so if it's long enough a player can run into one spell multiple times
3) spirit-bonding, this is making items better by summoning and bonding certain spirits to items. this has to be done on a number of requirements and limitations, such as the place you bond, where you summon the spirit, what resources you have, etc.


guns will be kept in much the same modern sense that we know, but it's sure that other ways to project the physics on guns will be needed. guns are essentially like swords, except that you naturally have a quicker shot release, and you can shoot from far distances. this will not make swords pointless, and you will not have to chase people with guns as they shoot you to death, and will be explained later. gun's come in the same three categories as swords:
1) 50 percent extra speed from normal, but 25 percent lower damage
2) normal speed, normal damage
3) 50 percent slower speed from normal, but 25 percent extra damage

perks will be slightly different, like instead of swing speed it's shooting speed, differently theirs also fire-rate but you can't use guns to block stuff

classes will be a choice separate from what types of weapons you use. any class can use any type of weapon. this will be a little shaky to type out so i don't confuse anyone, or screw it up so that it doesn't work

each character will be able to choose two types of damage they want to deal between swords, guns, and magic. you can have either swords/guns or maybe swords/magic or even guns/magic. the classes will try to help out which types of damages you choose. so, more than three classes might be needed so that we can cover all of the types of damages you want to do so that everything is equal, one class being pointless to be gun/sword with or something. or, make the classes something very simple so they only help out one type of damage. so you can have gun/sword using guns to kill and swords for closeup/blocking. or have spells/guns and use guns for killing and spells for buffing. initially i had three classes in mind:
1) damage class, where it ups your damage with whatever type of damage you choose to be your main focus of attack
2) defense class, making the things you do faster or harder depending on how you need to defend, or if you don't plan on getting hit, how fast you deal damage
3) perks class, where it ups the amounts on what you buff or what you put spells on

separate from classes are jobs you can do aside from killing things. creating weapons will be a job that everyone can do, though spirit-bonding and such will not. i think it's fair that everyone can create all of the same things that anyone else can, though the specialization into perks-making can be a fairer job. it's going to be harder for the characters that select the creating/bonding types, so when they use weapons personally bonded by them, their use of the weapon is far greater than giving another character use of it, so it won't be like some characters just can't PVP or something. i'm also not going to include any type of healing spells or perks that add health back to you. another side-job everyone can do is to create health potions and other resources for keeping your character healthy in times of battling. obviously this will be where the people who spend more time of their characters get's more out of it - that's how RPGs have usually worked. at the finals levels everyone will be able to have the same amount of potions and it will heal for the same amount - if you can get the same as other people that is

the world can be much the same as my first idea above keeping with the player making choices that affect the outcome of that character, with some tweaks so that it's more spread out and the areas not so tight in focus. since it's more of a guild-PVP server, we'll set up some events such as my guild events system and probably some siege and active role-playing on guild houses. since it will be more of an RPG server, it might also be a good idea to establish some kingdoms, my favorites always being nymerica, illusia, and eldaran from doomsday. the customization should work
out well with role-playing as certain characters. the other aspect is that i wanted the world to be very steampunk, mixing in some medieval fantasy with some high-tech machinery should give the server it's own distinct look from all the other graal servers

lastly is the system of saving statistics. i want to include a saving system which forces the players to finalize everything they did that day so that if you just log off, you lose everything you did except the position of your character. likewise if you get killed before saving, then you won't be able to keep all the experience and items you found along the way. PKing has always been too friendly and too unimportant - it should be a big deal on this server. when you die, your body will be warped back to a limited number of houses that you can choose. though it might prove to be rather discouraging, i was also thinking of making most of your items drop when you die so that players can steal your loot after killing you. i realize most people hate this and has been taken out of most games, but i also had the must fun killing people and taking all of their gear in MMORPGs and i know others did too. it can also make people quit

[Unkownsoldier]

Here is what you do, you make all the levels,graphics,scripts on offline editor/testbed server BEFORE you make a server. Then you buy the server, put all of that stuff on it. Boom there you go, you have a almost finished server, now you just got to make sure there is no lag/bugs/or problems.

[DustyPorViva]

So you're looking to create a server, and are looking for staff?

[Hiro]

Originally Posted by DustyPorViva

So you're looking to create a server, and are looking for staff?

i'm looking for developers to create a server with. if you read the first post you'll notice that i don't have quality developer skills because the jobs i had were always in the organization/brain storming process in new development (with smalls bits of graphics and scripting involved), or dealing with player relations problems. i'm also an avid player of graal so i'd think that with my experience i'd know how to make things work out from the player's point of view (been on this damn game for like 9 years now)

that said, i just advocate the creation of a new server, hopefully one that would be forum or CJ supported in it's input and progress. it's obvious that something new needs to be made so that players will want to play again, in addition to providing what players already do currently. whether it be by my ideas and organization or by someone else, i just wish to see the progress of making graal a worthy computer game again, and i'm providing what i can to that process. my first thought in making this thread was to have a place for open developers to post that they fit that criteria, but i figured that wasn't going to fly with what the purpose of the forum was, so instead i made it into a thread to post my ideas in in hope that someone with the right skills would think it a good idea to create, and working together we could create an ideal server

Originally Posted by Unkownsoldier

Here is what you do, you make all the levels,graphics,scripts on offline editor/testbed server BEFORE you make a server. Then you buy the server, put all of that stuff on it. Boom there you go, you have a almost finished server, now you just got to make sure there is no lag/bugs/or problems.

i already know this, and i have told people this many times before, because it makes sense to not waste the money/time in buying a server when you don't even know what you're going to make. it's why i'm not putting anything on concrete standards, and why i'm posting just ideas for what could be created, not "THIS IS WHAT I WANT TO MAKE TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT"