Massokre's Classic Discussion (split from Warning about graalians.com)

[Tyhm]

Someone invoked my name.
*glance*
So the new team's using the wrong version of everything; "Supernicks shouldn't be there, but neither should NL, it should be Onnett town, bring back the old castle I remember" - I went over this, it was Graal1999. Two versions, one where nothing ever changed and one where everything always changed, and nobody liked either. It's not going to be the exact version you want, deal with it.

It is the humble opinion of this emeritus administrator that if you're going to renovate something, you should try to renovate it exactly so it has the minimum impact. It is also the experience of this rampant renovator that it's always more fun to take a wrecking ball to an old dead quest and remake it from scratch, not to mention less work. But what do I know? I tried to introduce Heras so we could have more than 17 "Fullheart Quests!1!!1!1", and we all saw how well that went.

I'd say for major sweeping changes hold a poll, but it won't change anything. You'll get 13 votes for Supernicks, 12 votes for NL, then someone'll call foul. Eventually you'll wind up with the world most enjoyed by the largest minority or, more to the point, bits and pieces that nobody agrees on, all stapled together haphazardly.

It's a thankless job, people will be after your neck, and you'll be lucky to see a profit when all's said and done. Enjoy it best you can, try and leave it a little better than you found it. I have neither the time to manage nor fix this poor forsaken server, whatever your various opinions of its proper name - this is not a new argument, it's been going on since the mines were initially retiled, probably a ways before that.

I like the idea of the town being peaceful, but also of the peaceful town being the quest hub. That was the point of the castle, in any eventuality, and all the scripting the King had. I was going to name him Hassenpheffer, you know, but Ragnarok insisted on Tristam. Probably for the best - Hassenpheffer's a horrid name - but Tristam's a little shady too. That would be a good NPC spot to auction off, as I did on the old trivia contests on the Level Updates page, back when we had one and people could track my progress.

Yes, I'm sure it still doesn't meet your approval for a standard issue playerworld. If it still hasn't when they release v4, then congratulations, Classic will officially have outlived its usefulness and you can dance on its grave until you start missing it. Then you'll release your version, someone else will release their version, and nothing will get done. Same as it ever was.

Don't much care for reports of how small the world is now. I suppose that'll happen when you have to start from scratch...wouldn't have had that problem if the G2K1 people let us borrow their system for a starting point. Then again, wouldn't have been a problem if the PW Control Panel had basic scripts for converting movement, baddies, etc. to serverside in the least invasive way possible, but that never happened either. So everyone makes their own homebrew movement and wastes a few hundred hours perfecting it instead of working together. Brave new world.

Oh well, do try to have fun.

[jake13jake]

Yea, Tyhm, you almost sum it up.

Yes, I'm sure it still doesn't meet your approval for a standard issue playerworld. If it still hasn't when they release v4, then congratulations, Classic will officially have outlived its usefulness and you can dance on its grave until you start missing it. Then you'll release your version, someone else will release their version, and nothing will get done. Same as it ever was.

I've put too much time and effort into this server to let that happen. Make a basic movement system, a few weapons, a few half-done quests, a few baddies, while Storm has hardly been doddling on his own overcomplicated movement system since the NPC Server. I think that Stefan should be Manager of Classic and devote a little bit of time to it.

[syltburk]

Originally Posted by jake13jake

Yea, Tyhm, you almost sum it up.

I've put too much time and effort into this server to let that happen. Make a basic movement system, a few weapons, a few half-done quests, a few baddies, while Storm has hardly been doddling on his own overcomplicated movement system since the NPC Server. I think that Stefan should be Manager of Classic and devote a little bit of time to it.

You crossed the line, I rather see Storm still being manager then having you as LAT Admin, storms managing everything. He understands what classic is about, you crossed the line.

Someone else 4 lat admin.

[James205]

Originally Posted by Tyhm

Someone invoked my name.
*glance*

I brought up your name, because it's a great example of what's going on. Let me explain...

I remember when you started adding a lot of great things to classic, in some ways it made it much better. You reshaped the whole island to make sense, you added somewhat of a storyline, added great weapons, tons of complicated things that were really good quality.

After a while I started noticing something different about classic that it started to feel like a completely different playerworld and leave it's old meaning. I also felt that you should of made your own playerworld because with your skills you could of made something amazing and people would appreciate it, but since it was classic you took in a lot of crap from people... and it wasn't really your fault.

You can make the highest quality of content on classic (example: Tyhm's amazing scripting/managing), you can update it and redo everything but it has already been proven that it doesn't work because that's not what classic is. I agree with most of DC said (except a good amount of the stuff he said about master storm) and what Tyhm said.

In reality all of us are waiting for the real version of classic to come back out, not a watered down version. Trying to improve everything and change things based off your opinion will NOT work, so start giving the players what they want again.

start listening...

[Tyhm]

I'll applaud you if you ever find out what the players want, as it's unlikely two will ever agree completely on all points. Sure, you can get a majority that want Voluran's back the way it was, but you can't get that same majority to decide which version of Destiny should exist, and they'll all want the gold sword but that doesn't mean they should have it.

[DarkCloud_PK]

I think you misinterpreted what I said, James.
In all honesty, I don't really want the pre 1.39 classic back, the levels did not make what was fun about Graal then, sure they helped, but it was the community that made Graal fun, for almost everyone, and that community isn't coming back, a majority have long long moved on. Proof of this was the Graal2000 projects, level for level they were the old graal, both failed miserably. Everyone has a different idea for the "perfect" Classic, quite frankly, there is none.

I do want the server to at least somewhat resemble classic, and fit the by the players for the players theme of Classic, with a majority of the key elements of Classic intact. Not a playerworld in which there is no player input, no player houses, and just a server driven on what Storm and Massokre want to do. I want the landscape to somewhat resemble what Classic used to look like, with the key areas and towns somewhat intact. Keep Classic to some degree "Classic". I'm not going to have a complete fit though if that isn't what happens however.

For the most part, I would like some form of content, something to do, something new to explore. There has been next to nothing added, that has been accessible, for over a year to the server(All those empty levels that came with the small overworld expansion a few months ago are still not even accessible. The LAT continue to attempt to focus their attention on every single project at once, instead of concentrating on one or two things and releasing them one at a time, and handing projects to inactive LATs instead of Massokre steping up to the plate and getting stuff done. My main gripe is content, in any players eyes, the LAT do close to nothing for the server except run around on tag on buildings and watch events. I don't care what you say is in the works, Massokre. Frankly, the LAT have been talking about what they're going to be doing for months upon months, talk is cheap, where are the results?

[jake13jake]

Originally Posted by syltburk

You crossed the line, I rather see Storm still being manager then having you as LAT Admin, storms managing everything. He understands what classic is about, you crossed the line.

Someone else 4 lat admin.

Yea, but if Stefan came into manage, I think it would be Storm 4 LAT Admin and me for Asst. LAT Admin.

You shouldn't really make assumptions on the unspoken :P.

[syltburk]

Originally Posted by jake13jake

Yea, but if Stefan came into manage, I think it would be Storm 4 LAT Admin and me for Asst. LAT Admin.

You shouldn't really make assumptions on the unspoken :P.

Mate, if stefan would be manager Storm would be manager because stefans managing a whole game, so...


Massokre - Out

Someone else - in

[DarkCloud_PK]

Any suggestions for Stefan to manage Classic are way off base.
It will never happen again, ever.

[Polo]

The main thing that made Classic 'so' is the community, and regardless of the levels we have, without that community we will never have that same feeling. Now, of course I want to keep a certain ammount of Classic just so, tha main central city area, gonna maybe readd modtown, that sort of thing, but at the end of the day, old players will always leave, either out growing Graal, or following friends to other servers. Before we switched to NPC Server and started rebuilding from scratch, we were still losing those players. I can revert back to those levels, given a reasonable time to convert them all etc., but I can see no reason why that loss of players would not simply continue.

For me, it's more important to try and bring in new players, and build the community of the future.

[Tyhm]

It'd be nice to have the community back, but rebuilding Classic's a lot like rebuilding Woodstock - you need unique social pressures for it to develop. Things like, loathe though I am to yield shockedfrog's point, it has to be the only Graal server, one of very few free online games, with a corrupt and absent staff to give players the sense that they could do a better job of things, horridly attached levels uploaded on the basis of who's the admin's friend, and most importantly, the final word has to be the guy we all trust to do what's best for his baby, Stefan. Since we can't get pretty much any of these points and are unwilling to create the rest, yeah, I'm afraid we're stuck with trying to make it newbie friendly enough to offer to Unixmad as The Newbie Server. That'd bring back community, get everyone started there learning the controls before they run off to Zone or whatnot.

[Yen]

Zzz.. Too much reading.

Just wondering.. What's wrong with Classic and how did it happen?
I haven't played in 3-4 years, since a certain GP banned me for quitting LAT. I had gone through quests with staff boots to find out how they were supposed to function, so I knew they were working properly when I rescripted them. So my flags didn't correspond to my stats. x-x'

[nikomi946]

A series of events happened to classic over the past several years. If you want details it would take a few pages to explain.

[jake13jake]

Just so you know, I started in September as LAT Admin, not January. I recently got permission from Storm to rescript the warp ring, so once I do that I will be able to put up the Castle's (first) quest.

The lantern isn't pointless, although I might want to rescript the corresponding class. I just forgot to ask Master Storm if he could add one of my functions to the public functions that would make it easier to do a lot of things. You'll see use of the lantern once in the castle. Gnome Caves, I want to make use of it 2-3 times. I'll probably use it in the boss room.

But, right now I'm in the middle of final exams, and my Macroeconomics one is about to start, so I must leave you. for the time being.

[Inspiration]

It's really funny just how long this has been going on for, and yet nothing is done about it.


There IS a way to keep most of the people on classic happy. None of you are going to find it like this, though.

[Tyhm]

Originally Posted by Inspiration

There IS a way to keep most of the people on classic happy. None of you are going to find it like this, though.

You seem rather certain of that. Do you intend to put your money where your mouth is, or do you just run it because you're afraid it'll burst in this winter weather?

[Yen]

From asking around, I've surmised that the main reason behind Classic's decline is the lack of quest content.
There's not much that could have been done about that.. The server had so many levels, it'd take an extremely long time for a group of dedicated scripters to convert or rescript everything.

Oyah, I love Tyhm. <3

[Mark Sir Link]

Originally Posted by jake13jake

That's why we fired you and Luda and Doahh and Kevin and ...

LOLOL I was fired? I remember having to plead with you guys to remove me from the staff roster!


Edit:

I commend Stryker on his brilliance.

[StrykerTFFD]

Kevin4partiallyblindseizuremanagerwithgodmode

[maximus_asinus]

Originally Posted by Mark Sir Link

LOLOL I was fired? I remember having to plead with you guys to remove me from the staff roster!


Edit:

I commend Stryker on his brilliance.

Speaking of account sharing, I can swear another person uses this account on Classic. I just can't put my finger on who.

[jake13jake]

Did somebody mention something about this level?

[Mark Sir Link]

Originally Posted by maximus_asinus

Speaking of account sharing, I can swear another person uses this account on Classic. I just can't put my finger on who.

a.) Who said anything about account sharing
and
b.) why accuse me in a shaky fashion that's completly unfounded?

[jake13jake]

Originally Posted by Mark Sir Link

a.) Who said anything about account sharing
and
b.) why accuse me in a shaky fashion that's completly unfounded?

That's right fake seizure king!!!! THIS THREAD IS FOR BASHING ME!!!! NOT KEVIN!!!!!! DON'T TAKE MY GLORY AWAY!!!!

[Tyhm]

Originally Posted by jake13jake

Did somebody mention something about this level?

It's beautiful! It predates me! It...was removed for a reason!

[jake13jake]

Yea, this thread motivated me to explore Java Graal, which led me to find the strangest places, and also this one guys playerhouse had a URL to a website that had the original Zelda Online client, the original Tile Editor, all the original source code, the New World levels, and the first Graal 3D. I also found that Zorbi Castle that you and Chimp had contemplated using in Old Graal. I also found a graphic that said "Spider was here! <whoever made the site> is 1337!"

Unfortunately I couldn't find any PACHUKA NPCs. Tyhm, do you know if the current head# for the head that PACHUKA had was head22.png or head4.png? Old Graal has head22.png, and the level under the brdge in CC has head4.png. I decided to make a paigan statue/memorial to him in the first quest as the boss. It wouldn't really feel like Classic without a PACHUKA joke.

[Inspiration]

Originally Posted by Tyhm

You seem rather certain of that. Do you intend to put your money where your mouth is, or do you just run it because you're afraid it'll burst in this winter weather?

Well obviously the chance for me to "put my money where my mouth is" is not currently existent, but yes, I am fairly sure I could make THE MAJORITY of the players of classic happy.


I did it with N-Pulse when I managed there. Mostly, I understand what the average player likes, wants, and enjoys. Being that I played classic for over 2000 hours from 99 to now, I have a fairly good idea of how to put everything together in a package that most players would enjoy.

Of course you can think I'm just talking out of my rear, and I'm sure that you would hold yourself as more of an expert on the situation, having tried it yourself, but hey, every time I talk to someone that plays/played classic about my ideas, they seem to agree that I have a fairly good idea of how the server should be set up.


Maybe I couldnt do a better job, but I'd be damned suprised if that was the case.

[StrykerTFFD]

Originally Posted by Inspiration

stuff

No.

[iownu]

Originally Posted by StrykerTFFD

No.

"No" is not really a good responce to anything written there.

Care to elaborate?

[jake13jake]

Inspiration, if you want to come join LAT and help, with a good app I'd love to have you.
The GC Team seems to really enjoy my castle quest from testing. I'm trying to get all of the rooms linked, lost where I put the throne room and dining hall though . Then comes getting the boss done, rescripting the warp ring, fixing the weak statue class, and making it ridiculously hard to sneak into the throne room without defeating the boss. Then make sure the guards handle the individual clients correctly.


If anyone has some advise, why isn't strcontains(#s(clientr.quest_dungeon_statues),#s(t his.statueID)) returning true as

clientr.quest_dungeon_statues=ab
this.statueID=a
??
I can do it in gs2, clientr.quest_dungeon_statues.pos(this.statueID) != -1.
However, the pos string attribute function isn't in old gscript.

I just want v4 to be released so I stop having gscript1 nightmares :'(.

[Tyhm]

Really oughtn't. He was rather...succinct in his request that his own likeness not be used anymore.

[Deophite18]

Originally Posted by Inspiration

Well obviously the chance for me to "put my money where my mouth is" is not currently existent, but yes, I am fairly sure I could make THE MAJORITY of the players of classic happy.


I did it with N-Pulse when I managed there. Mostly, I understand what the average player likes, wants, and enjoys. Being that I played classic for over 2000 hours from 99 to now, I have a fairly good idea of how to put everything together in a package that most players would enjoy.

Of course you can think I'm just talking out of my rear, and I'm sure that you would hold yourself as more of an expert on the situation, having tried it yourself, but hey, every time I talk to someone that plays/played classic about my ideas, they seem to agree that I have a fairly good idea of how the server should be set up.


Maybe I couldnt do a better job, but I'd be damned suprised if that was the case.

I agree with Inspiration. Pleasing the majority of classic players wouldnt be all that difficult. I havent seen a Admin on Classic since back when it was the only server who actually listened to the players instead of doing there own thing. That is the key but no one ever follows it. For starters get rid of this ridiculous new hit detection and quit turning the server into some anti lamer playground. Why dont you try asking players if they like the new 0 hit detection instead of just ASSUMING it would go over well with them. Because the MAJORITY would say otherwise. But the admins wouldnt know that because like i said they do whatever they want. Why must this single server be different from ALL the rest. It shouldnt and it takes away from gameplay. Another thing is the Admin needs to be and remain neutral and treat all staff equally. Also they need to know when to be sturn so that things get done when they are supposed to. The GC is the best thing on clasisc mainly because Nightmareangel runs the show. He keeps all the GC's active and there are always events going on. The last person i ever Recall Massing and asking what the players would like was Com13. And that involved races. He actually removed the races from the server because the players didnt want them. That is the kind of leadership we need. An admin who talks to people and accepts feedback and suggestions.

[Lance]

Originally Posted by jake13jake

I can do it in gs2, clientr.quest_dungeon_statues.pos(this.statueID) != -1.
However, the pos string attribute function isn't in old gscript.

I just want v4 to be released so I stop having gscript1 nightmares :'(.

indexof()

[Luda]

Originally Posted by Deophite18

I agree with Inspiration.

METOO

[jake13jake]

Originally Posted by Tyhm

Really oughtn't. He was rather...succinct in his request that his own likeness not be used anymore.

lol... I can respect that. But why in the world did you use him?

[Inspiration]

Classic shouldnt be about any manager or admins "Vision" of classic.

Classic should be just that. Classic. It's not a player world, nor should it be treated like one.



It's really quite simple.

Restore all old levels. Keep it around 1.38, possibly a few versions later. That was the point where the server functioned best level wise.

Rescript everything, keep functionality the same, improve quality. Update supernicks with some new more functional scripting to allow better sparring.

Focus on events and new areas.

Why will this work?

Simple!

A) People are happy that the old levels are back. They will also be happy that new areas to explore are now being added.

B) What do people do on a normal player world? Spar, PK, Chat, Events. Supernicks, Level 14/13, and we have a huge event house. Looks good to me.

C) Kill the Hera system, bring back old heart quests. Not only will it give the server a more classic feel, it will add to the playability. Hera's just were too time consuming. No one wants to quest for 10 hours just to be able to spar and PK normally.



What people want when they log on classic is a playable server that looks and feels fairly the same as it did years ago, along with added new content to keep them entertained.

Instead you all focus on remaking, reorganizing, rethinking, ect.

If you want your own player world with your own ideas, go make one. Leave classic as classic.

[Luda]

One time to get the wedding chapels up just below the main bridge I had to convert the bushes etc and send in the levels for storm to upload, I was supposed to do the more major scripting but I cannot script at all so storm did it.. anyways in order to get the not so major stuff up we have to rescript them ourselves and send them in.. why? are you just too lazy? If I could script i would be doing all this stuff

Edit:
Here is my list of what should be done

1) Atleast bring back the old overworld, Avalon, Big City Volcano etc

2)Original movement system

3)new or old quests NOT that crappy maze one

4)more updates a trusthworthy LAT team that WILL be able to update the warptex

[jacob_bald6225]

Originally Posted by Luda

2)Original movement system

Amen!

[Tyhm]

Originally Posted by jake13jake

lol... I can respect that. But why in the world did you use him?

Because it was funny, duh. ^_~

Hillarious. This late in the development, people still seem to think throwing fullhearts at players is better than the stupid Hera system. Spoiled...

[Warcaptain]

Originally Posted by Tyhm

<what Tyhm said at the top of this page>

I ran into the same problems with Enigma. (I know it's not a popular topic.. anywhere.. because people seemed to hate it.)

The original world I released was horrible.. really really horrible. When the playerworld went up half of the things didn't work and I had no idea that things were different online than offline. I struggled daily to keep things running. (This was, mind you, back when there were only like 5 playerworlds. So don't go saying things like, "Well you should have worked on other playerworlds before you made one, then you would have known.") And then I released a whole new overworld to try and start from scratch.. this made everyone mad of course. Enigma at that time had around 100 players daily and everyone liked it (for who knows what reason) Then once I was forced to change the new overworld (years later) to comply with NPC-Server.. everyone got mad again. You can never please the players of Graal. I can empathize with them, I think back to 'Graal Online' (before it became called 'classic') and I love it. Everything was so fun, and the simple things that seem so complicated now.. like guilds, staff, and level rights.. didn't matter. Everyone pitched in to help a struggling game that was really fun. But I guess thats just a side effect of getting older, you look back on the way things used to be and wish they were that way again. The fools journey is trying to make those things back the way they were.

[Tyhm]

Yeah, that's the joke about nostalgia - you guys look back to the 138 levelset and say it was perfect. I say it looked like a psychopath with a staplegun assembled a collage of levels that often didn't even match up pathwise (one path would go from 15 to 19 y, another from 23y to 27y, and in the next level they'd be 14-20y and 40-44y, ish), the treetops looked awful when the levels connected on the overworld map, if you were lucky a warp that was supposed to have been removed would still be buried in the wall and you could chance upon a free heart and goldsword (in more than one location), there were minigames that would do nothing more than take your money and lock you in place, it was only a matter of time before the copyright lawyers caught up with us - it was a travesty.
So I upload it to see if anyone will agree with me under the name of Old Graal, or Graal 1999, or whatever, and everyone says "Hey Tyhm, you dumas, you uploaded the wrong version! I didn't want this copy, I wanted the one right before it, when everything was perfect!" It's not a question of failing to get it quite right, it's a question of missing the point entirely - no matter what version I put up, it's not going to be the one where everything was perfect.
The downside of running Classic is it requires a really minimalist touch. It is the nature of every LAT to want to build New and Better things, not to simply preserve and repair, thus it is the dillema of every LAT to go against their own nature for the enjoyment of the game. I introduced Heras because we were already out of fullhearts (all 20 being placed somewhere on the server outside of "quests", unless you count "find Armageddon's house" a quest, or "Pay 10,000g" a quest) and everyone hated it. Rag and I reworked the dungeon because the tiling was awful and the continuity based entirely on an admin manually resetting the level, and everyone hated it. I had Ange and honds (I think, my logs are in a zip file somewhere) redo the entire frelling coast so Graal Continent would no longer be a vast black shadow with the occasional patch of water, and everyone hated it. I added the moon and nobody liked it. I added the underwater and actually people enjoyed that for reasons I'll never understand - if there are so few people, doubling the playable area ought to be a bad thing.
Maybe that's the problem. Adding quests stretches people out, as newbies will be in Quest areas rather than Level13. But then, I never saw PKing as a particularly positive thing, mostly as my queries for WHERE I GET YING YANG IN BOX?!? were met by three quick axeswings to the back.