Think Farther.
I remember when Graal Classic used to be called Graal Online, and there was one really cool server. I'm talkin' pre-AP people. It was a blast! Oh, and the website didn't run phpNuke and actualy looked good and had information besides a "Copyright notice."
Let's go back there!
In reality, the idea of going back is stupid. We can't go back, going back would mean loosing features we have now, and; moreover, going back to a gameplay system designed for 50 players (when it's REALLY busy) not 300 (when it's slow.)
YES, Graal is getting to a point where there's alot wrong with it, and people who were arround to see it as it developed have good memories "before the dark times...". But going back isn't the solution, what needs to be done is accept the fact that Graal is, and will constantly, be growing. Somone needs to start a project to create a New World (hmm. someone alredy started this... but due to it's ellusiveness, noone ever saw anything from it, no hype was built, and interest was lost. And once the project leader looses interest, the project dies.) This is a project that needs to be open to the public to see, something that needs constant input from players, etc... in all actuality, either the development of New World is taking FAR too long (e.g. by the time it's playable it'll need to be re-done because the software will be at version 4.0 instead of 2.x) or it's alredy dead (my theory.) but no one wants to admit it.
The first thing that needs to be addressed is the size of the world. What worked for Graal with 50 users wont work for Graal with 500. The new world should literaly take about half an hour just to get from one edge to the other. Create the land, even if it's not pretty or polished, plan ahead for expansion. (Graal2001 seemed to attempt to do this, but it's alredy becoming out-grown)
Next is the Gameplay. Develop a good story line, make it so diferent people can have random stories and such. But make team-based quests that are common to almost all story lines, along with some solo-quests, as long as it fits with the story. To encourage a nicer gaming environment, prehaps quest items that are NOT weapons (which is all we see now adays.) would help. Job's are O.K., but shouldn't be the focus of the game, working is something that usualy sucks in real life. why would anyone want to play a game where you do the same tedious, repetive, redundent (joke in there if you catch it.) thing for HOURS on end just to buy stupid items like hats or musicial insturments (Music Insturments were a grate idea, but why not make em' do something? like you need to learn how to play a certain song to warp somewhere [zelda, song of time?]). Above all, anything in the world should have a POINT, or a reason to be there to start with, don't worry about player houses and such to start off with. It makes the story contradict itself if your not careful about it, and alot of the times you walk into very poorly done levels that leave you thinking "where the $#^% did THIS come from?!"
There's so much that could be done with the Graal 2001 software, if Stefan would just concentrate on fixing bugs instead of going and making a 3D world (where Graal has NO chance against real 3D games on the market.) I don't know about everyone else, but part of the charm of Graal is it's old-school sprite-based gameplay, and the fact that it doesn't bring your computer down to a grinding hault so you can actualy do other things while playing the game.
From a finincial standpoint, if I were to recomend LINUX CYBERJOURER the best course of action to be sucessfull, I'd strongly recomend sticking to the Graal 2001 feel, and working on that, along with releasing clients for Mac and Linux, (Being multi-platform will eaisly doubble user-base, if not more.) Create a good Game. The software could be the most wonderfull, feature-rich, pice of code the would has ever seen, but if there's no thought and time put into the gameplay (the world) none of that work will matter.
To be honest, we have plenty of people willing to help, we have plenty of tallent, the problem is almost that we allow playerworlds. Instead of trying to fix things we just loose our tallent and players to people who say "This sucks! I can do beter." and now look at Graal... 20something playerworlds, and almost all of them are horrible, if the energy that went into creating 20 worlds could be tapped to create one Graal Online world, perhaps we might even get somewhere, but as long as anyone can say "I don't like this server, I'm starting my own." we'll just keep loosing more and more potentialy good people.
It's a very touchy situation. And I think if something isn't done soon, Graal will fall into a downward spiral... unfortinately, change often means sacrifice.
In the long run, however-- I think we'll find that if we actualy do this, not only will we find new energy to drive us, but we will also find ourselfs smiling in awe that we could even pull it off. (read: Graal Online hit's 1000 users online during normal useage, on one server, and they are all in an environment where there's little PKing without reason, there's plenty to do, and above all, a place to make friends.) Life isn't perfect, but gaming can get us a little bit closer
Sorry for the length of this, if you've goten this far I'm impressed. I just feel there's a lack of vision or planing for the future here, and think it needs to be addressed. I'm not right on everything here, and I don't intend to sound like I think I am. If after reading this, I've goten you to think... well, that was my goal.
Cheers!
[email protected]
01-20-2002, 11:04 PM
Think...
Muroshi - Lead Developer for Agaroth
Linear Mode
