Administrative Affairs

[Draenin]

So what's currently going on with Linux Cyberjoueurs at the moment? It's been pretty hushed so far, but pretty much everyone is well aware by now that Stefan is no longer with us. So that leaves me curious, where are things headed now?


This isn't a thread for discussing drama or anything like that, but I'm sure a good number of players would like to know more about the current situation going on with the actual company itself.

A lot of users could certainly use some support, and the game client itself could use more updates. So will be be seeing another lead programmer or two soon? I've heard rumors about two new people being hired to take on that task, but no official word on any of that yet.

It would be really nice to see the company actually grow and additional improvements made to the game, but without solid support that probably won't happen. So I figured that, on the behalf of the community, I'd go ahead and ask in this section.

[Darlene159]

I dont know too much about what is going on "inside", but I do know that Unix is working very hard to get things back on track.

[-Ching]

Will Uncle Stefan ever return to us?

IDK what happened between Unix and Stefan the Great, but they need to get back together again. Stefan is Graal.

[Matt]

Originally Posted by Darlene159

I dont know too much about what is going on "inside", but I do know that Unix is working very hard to get things back on track.

I agree also. A very big change in quite a few things and to be honest, i see a bright future for the game especially with the Administrative changes we've seen the past year. I do however, wish the PC platform had equal attention. It has it's own broad, unique fan base that iOS servers don't.

[Draenin]

PC Servers are where most of the content for Graal is first created, and the community can only do so much without updates to the actual client and server programs themselves. Some things can be scripted to work within the game, but others require updates and it's not exactly great if the flow of updates has halted.

I brought this up mostly out of concern, and it would be really nice to hear from Unixmad on the subject if possible. Like I've heard of 'Xor' in some conversations who seems to be a higher-up that I've never even heard of, and same basically goes for Rob, our most recently announced PWA.

But staff lists on the forums and wiki probably need to be updated to reflect that, so that developers know who to get in contact with.

Originally Posted by -Ching

Will Uncle Stefan ever return to us?

IDK what happened between Unix and Stefan the Great, but they need to get back together again. Stefan is Graal. Unix just pretends he cant speak English

Originally Posted by Matt

I agree also.

Not that it needs to be discussed much further, but Stefan had a bad habit of jumping from one project to the next without going back to make sure any of his old projects were still doing okay, which is a primary factor that has led to lots of people quitting over time.

Just consider some of the projects he was heavily involved in:

Graal Classic (Java)
Graal Classic (Client)
Graal 2001
Graal Kingdoms
Graal Zone
Graal 3D
Graal Games
Graal Mobile
Graal Facebook
Graal (Gameboy Color)

It was a new project every year or two, and a lot of them hardly received the attention they probably deserved. So new blood in Linux Cyberjoueurs might not be a bad thing if we can get help from some really experienced people who will actually interact well with the community and help out when there's major trouble on servers that are well-established.

[-Ching]

Originally Posted by Draenin

Not that it needs to be discussed much further, but Stefan had a bad habit of jumping from one project to the next without ...

Aye, and thankgod Graal 3D never got finished.. no idea what he was thinking with that one. But still..even if he did jump from one thing to another, its more than ive noticed anyone else in charge of this game doing.

Things look really stale at the moment, would be nice to hear whats planned or whats going on, even if my days on this game are nearly over.

[Draenin]

The game can still run fine as long as players and developers are doing stuff, but there's other issues in play as well, like the fact that Graal for PC is not advertised nearly as well as it is for Mobile.

Increasing exposure to the public in order to get more users is tough, but we could probably discuss that sometime in the future in another thread.

[Elk]

Graal 3D = cool if it actually looked nice and worked properly

[Anero]

I'd love to see unixmad upgrading the Era iPhone iOS server.
We're at a playercount of roughly 3300 players right now and a lot of players are experiencing lag spikes.
Era has a lot of potentional, I don't think that should be thrown away.

[Skyld]

Originally Posted by Elk

Graal 3D = cool if it actually looked nice and worked properly

The Graal3D Winter Preview server was definitely a step in the right direction. It was nicely styled and for the most part stable too. I think that the engine has probably been modified quite a bit since then though.

[kia345]

Originally Posted by Skyld

It was nicely styled

Was something wrong with the character models on my end?

[scriptless]

Originally Posted by Matt

I agree also. A very big change in quite a few things and to be honest, i see a bright future for the game especially with the Administrative changes we've seen the past year. I do however, wish the PC platform had equal attention. It has it's own broad, unique fan base that iOS servers don't.

PC Wont get the same attention iServers get mainly because the player staff won't give it such attention. Why should graal administration work so hard to do things that the players themselves won't support? Everyone sees mobile servers can take the same quality content, and get more players with it. No one wants to dev for pc anymore even. The sad thing is theres another solution, like improve the quality instead of just adding more of the same quality. And I'm not saying there ignoring PC completely. Because there not.

[Matt]

Originally Posted by Draenin

I brought this up mostly out of concern, and it would be really nice to hear from Unixmad on the subject if possible. Like I've heard of 'Xor' in some conversations who seems to be a higher-up that I've never even heard of, and same basically goes for Rob, our most recently announced PWA.

But staff lists on the forums and wiki probably need to be updated to reflect that, so that developers know who to get in contact with.

Not that it needs to be discussed much further, but Stefan had a bad habit of jumping from one project to the next without going back to make sure any of his old projects were still doing okay, which is a primary factor that has led to lots of people quitting over time.

Xor has been around for a couple of year and does a good job imo. Reminds me of MagicalTux.

As far as the staff list(s) displayed, it appears there actually up-to-date which is good. I may be wrong.

Stefan was great but i do agree he jumped from one things to another, and i bet for Managers of the Servers, that was pretty annoying. It'd most likely be beneficial if he returned, but unix should keep doing what he's doing now if that was ever the case.

Originally Posted by scriptless

PC Wont get the same attention iServers get mainly because the player staff won't give it such attention. Why should graal administration work so hard to do things that the players themselves won't support? Everyone sees mobile servers can take the same quality content, and get more players with it. No one wants to dev for pc anymore even. The sad thing is theres another solution, like improve the quality instead of just adding more of the same quality. And I'm not saying there ignoring PC completely. Because there not.

I agree to a certain extent. Everyone has mobile devices, it's just new the new age were in. A majority of the people that have a mobile device more than likely have a computer also. I think PC development should keep going, it just needs a drastic change, somewhere..

[Tim_Rocks]

Graal should be HTML5 capable.

[Draenin]

If Graal is still doing okay financially, (which it seems to be) I would really like to see some different programmers stepping in to continue driving the game forward.

People give this game crap all the time because it's mostly player-run, but that is always a double-edged sword because the game is only as good as we are at working on it. Every once in a while, we need support from programmers with access to the source code or the game's technology will remain where it is.

I've played this game for well over a decade by this point, and one of the things that has always brought me back is that it's essentially a 'Sandbox MMO' that quickly provides players with access to tools we can use to build online games quickly. But sometimes the updates we need have to come down from on high.

We could really use a hand or two at the wheel right now, just to make sure this game keeps going well in the foreseeable future.

[Sinkler]

Originally Posted by Skyld

The Graal3D Winter Preview server was definitely a step in the right direction. It was nicely styled and for the most part stable too. I think that the engine has probably been modified quite a bit since then though.

Hi Skyld - I didn't expect to see you on these forums! How are you doing?

Also, I agree.

[Skyld]

Originally Posted by kia345

Was something wrong with the character models on my end?

Of course it could have done with some work, but it fairly well captured the Graal2001/Graal Kingdoms feel in terms of buildings etc. It was promising, and it worked pretty damn well too.

Originally Posted by Tim_Rocks

Graal should be HTML5 capable.

If you mean making a HTML5 game client, then that sounds like trying to make HTML do a thing that HTML is not supposed to do, which plenty of people try and the result is pretty much always terrible. Not to mention the obvious advantages of the client not being so readily modifiable by JavaScript/browser extensions.

Originally Posted by Sinkler

Hi Skyld - I didn't expect to see you on these forums! How are you doing?

I keep an occasional watch on what's going on! I'm very well though. Yourself?

[scriptless]

Originally Posted by Skyld

Of course it could have done with some work, but it fairly well captured the Graal2001/Graal Kingdoms feel in terms of buildings etc. It was promising, and it worked pretty damn well too.

If you mean making a HTML5 game client, then that sounds like trying to make HTML do a thing that HTML is not supposed to do, which plenty of people try and the result is pretty much always terrible. Not to mention the obvious advantages of the client not being so readily modifiable by JavaScript/browser extensions.

I keep an occasional watch on what's going on! I'm very well though. Yourself?

Oh man, I loved that server. It lagged me badly tho unless I looked at walls and floors when I moved if it wasn't for that it would have been amazing experience. I wish it was still around I think it would be great.

HTML5 is ment to handle that kind of stuff. It's not the HTML part thats doing it, its the javascript end. And I agree about the whole client being not able to readily modify there extensions. There are certainly ways around some of the issues, and I have seen both good and bad examples of games. I think the neatest demo I saw was Quake ported to HTML5.. Everyone has been calling for the days flash dies and as an alternative HTML5 is a real candidate.

[Minoc]

I don't think client updates are going to help.
PC Graal is virtually dead, and has no hope unless they move to a new business model (such as the Minecraft model).
I seriously have no idea why some people are still paying to develop their own servers, while there's almost a zero chance any of them will ever go public (the only new server in about a decade of the pay-to-develop system is Zodiac).

Also, censoring and patronizing the community of a community-based game (as is commonly done around here) is just detrimental.

[Draenin]

Originally Posted by Minoc

I don't think client updates are going to help.
PC Graal is virtually dead, and has no hope unless they move to a new business model (such as the Minecraft model).
I seriously have no idea why some people are still paying to develop their own servers, while there's almost a zero chance any of them will ever go public (the only new server in about a decade of the pay-to-develop system is Zodiac).

Graal needs to shift more toward using more scripted tools that allow for live and direct editing, which has started to happen already. Client updates will enable new capabilities and functions that cannot be scripted in through GS2 / GS3 yet, similar to the way Flash was added for the Games server, and GUI Windows were added, which enable things like custom skins and whatnot.

As for server models, I have suggested before that a microtransaction system similar to the shops most main servers use could probably be used to help players pay off rental fees if they are able to get people to buy Gelats. (And anything past that would be profit for the company.)

But all that aside, it's good to have someone in place who is able to work on such things and implement positive changes.

[Crono]

hi skyld

[-Ching]

ok lets get real. graal pc doesnt make money, igraal does. pc graal dead, igraal alive.

think thats everything sorted, lets go pub

[Cubical]

i have spent over $10,000 on gelats on iclassic. I only have 7 played hours

[-Ching]

its ok if your 15. feels wrong when i play it

[Elk]

hi skyld

[fowlplay4]

Originally Posted by Cubical

i have spent over $10,000 on gelats on iclassic. I only have 7 played hours

i cri in my private jet evry time

[scriptless]

Originally Posted by Cubical

i have spent over $10,000 on gelats on iclassic. I only have 7 played hours

I spent $6,000 on NES games and i've only played a couple hundred hours Lucky for me that collection is worth a little more then double that now. So don't feel bad. I think I spent hundreds, to thousands on graal over my 10+ years.

Originally Posted by -Ching

ok lets get real. graal pc doesnt make money, igraal does. pc graal dead, igraal alive.

think thats everything sorted, lets go pub

Your right about mobile making more then pc.. They should have jumped on the bandwagon of micropayment on pc back in the day when people shelled out thousands and there were higher player counts on pc.


But..
Hasn't mobile servers also seen slightly decreased player counts? If graal really wants to bash RPG, in an Adventure game.. it's more then welcome to but thats how PC died everything went RPG/Dungeon based. I think most notably is GK with its 1 level dungeons that you just fight a few rounds then a boss or something.

Era for mobile tho is different then the already forced rpg play. The thing is tho that mobile servers get recognized more.. there much easier to find in the app store just randomly searching then it would ever be for PC Graal which has virtually no advertisement, endorsement's, or anything really that would advertise them. So you can look for yourself that the quality of the mobile servers, also is higher then there PC counterparts. Better quality makes people willing to stick around longer, face it the unique ip's that get to both pc and mobile.. mobile has a higher retention then pc because of it's quality. But still I refuse to play them because id prefer a pc environment, a server with less then 50-100 people idle in 1 single level o.O, and finally a keyboard.

[Rob]

I can understand the frustration of being left in the dark when being part of such a small and loyal community. I'll try to share what I believe I can.

@Stefan: Stefan had his ups and downs. In terms of activity, he has no doubt felt publicly "better" among those who have helped to design Graal. On the other hand, if you were a coder, dealing with Stefan was like trying to break down a wall with your face.

Often, you'd report an issue ("Timevar does not update exactly every 5 seconds," "timevar2 is off by a random offset per server," "I can steal Graal passwords do you want me to tell you how?"), and his response would often be in the form of "No it's working correctly."

Perhaps Stefan no longer cared about Graal. Or it's possible that Stefan never cared about Graal per se, so much as he cared about just coding things for the fun of it. That would explain why, as many people in this thread have noted, he would change his mind about content creation on a yearly basis.

We've seen this a lot within the game as well, right? Scripters who would begin a new project and work HARD for the first few days. They'd do all the "fun" (interesting / challenging / learning) portions of a system. Then it came time to do the basic/boring stuff (make some long switch/case in an onActionServerside, create the GUI, balance the prices of the fish, or just document/release the project). All of a sudden, the project is dropped because something else is more interesting.

For why he's ACTUALLY gone, I don't know any of the specifics (and even if I did I'd likely be unable to speak about them), but what I can say is that it appeared to be legal in nature. I don't know what exactly happened, but I don't personally expect the return of "Uncle Stefan" any time soon.

@Stefan Replacements: It wouldn't be my place to reveal any details or be making any official announcements about this sort of topic. All I can really say is that Unixmad is aware of the issue and is working to resolve it.

@Who is Xor?: Xor is the Manager of iClassic and part of the global administration. Carlito is my boss. Xor is Carlito's boss.

[Eclipse]

As someone who played Graal on pc for 12+ years and hated the mobile platform, im sure if you could try to get them on PC they would enjoy the experience more than they do on their phone. PC servers need love too.

[Draenin]

Originally Posted by Rob

@Stefan Replacements: It wouldn't be my place to reveal any details or be making any official announcements about this sort of topic. All I can really say is that Unixmad is aware of the issue and is working to resolve it.

Well, please do keep us posted.

[Elizabeth]

Seeing as my comment was deleted.... Lol... Can someone fill me in on who's running what?