Developing should be free for servers that are staff-only

[Hiro]

Originally Posted by Tigairius

And... here's where you lost it. It's not $70 to have your creative freedom, it is $70 to have your creative freedom + pay for server space which includes electric bill and internet and maintaining the machines. It's actually fairly cheap for the amount of stuff you get and the power GS2 does have (although more definitely needs to be added for it to be considered a serious development platform).

Yes, of course you will still have to follow GraalOnline rules, otherwise servers would just be running rampant uploading pornography, copyrighted content, and extremely obscene things. Since the game is hosted on GraalOnline servers you have to follow GraalOnline rules. Any server host requires that you follow their terms of condition, including web hosts, dedicated server hosts, etc. Why wouldn't you have to follow the rules? Remember, these are their machines, they are legally liable for them and their content.

Rigorous inspections? Try simple inspections for basic quality, content and control. It does not take a ton to get accepted to classic, all you need is a halfway decent server, and even less than that to get Hosted status. One of the incredible things about Graal is not the fact that you can develop your own game, but it is that you can develop your own game and have it approved to be advertised to all sorts of players who play Graal. Since Graal IS a development platform as well as a game, this is an incredible opportunity. I don't know many games that allow you to develop your own content, even as a complete amateur and have it uploaded onto the official game which is run by players -- just like you! You propose removing the PWA though, which would just be shooting yourself in the foot. PWA is not only here to protect GraalOnline, but to protect you as a developer as well. If your content is being used against your will and there is no one to enforce it, then you're just out of luck, how frustrating. PWA is also monitoring for copyrighted material and enforcing basic amounts of quality control on the classic servers. A game like Graal would not survive without the PWA, they are currently key to Graal and if the PWA team vanished tomorrow I am willing to place money on the notion that Graal would plummet quite a bit from where it is right now (no one running support center, handling corrupt activities in server management, making administrative decisions to [hopefully] benefit Graal).

i'm not sure what you mean by saying graal is a development platform as well as a game, since the gaming aspect hasn't been emphasized in years

i also like the fact that the PWA are there, but to the extent to which you give them importance, it seems that the responsibility for running graal has been put completely into their hands, which i don't agree with. shouldn't the PWA be assisting stefan and unix as they run graal, not running graal in the absence of stefan and unixmad?

and lastly is the server costs - while i have no argument for the server hosting itself, i don't see how you can pay simply to have GS2. shouldn't you have included support for graal online staff in the assistance of helping amateur developers? shouldn't all servers have, at least, a once a week global on the server, checking on development and helping where needed? graal becomes better and stronger the more content is released - whether it be by graal staff or amateur developers is of no concern as long as it gets out. this might be hard for the PWA and GDT to handle, but it should be included in the job considering the global and social powers involved. if i create a support ticket asking for assistance in LATing for my server, would it ever reach the eyes of any global staff more than just the one person checking tickets that day? and even if they see it, will they even help out, or send help?

it's like paying for a car but given no gas and no instruction manual