New Server

[The Evil Within]

Originally Posted by Tyhm

*shrugs* Maybe Delteria was a bad example. So let's call this Hypothetical Server "Hypothetica". Say Billy makes a server and names it Hypothetica. It competes with all the other Graal servers, and he's reduced to pandering to the lowest common denominator, trying to make his server the "coolest" to the existing Graal playerbase - but bear in mind, this is not the same as making a Good server, it just means that on his server everyone can be Vejita with an uzi at first level. Hypothetica fails to evolve, Graal suffers as all servers introduce their own take on the "Vejita has an uzi" technology.
On the other hand, say every server's given the opportunity to court their own playerbase. Billy decides the "Vejita Has An Uzi" cop-out sucks, deletes it, rebuilds his server so it's actually presentable as, I dunno, a MegaMan themed server, and advertises it on BobAndGeorge.com at $20 for a month. All the Megaman fans jump on Hypothetica, which grows AWAY from the standard-issue Classic Clones and flourishes as a game all on its own(A). A few Megaman fans get bored of jumping around and blasting the same 3 robot masters on Hypothetica, which is still on its growth spurt, go back to the server list, and...hey, Zone's got guns too, let's see if that's any good. Thus, while Hypothetica gets first crack at their own players (maybe the first time you play a server's client the serverlist doesn't even come up), eventually everyone profits from the increased playerbase, and all it took was Hypothetica getting the word out on an indy webcomic.

Naturally, this requires a few more steps than this - the website needs to be revamped, Hypothetica needs a smooth website interface, ideally the restrictions on passwording newbies could be relaxed - Newbies can save via password, as long as the password's sufficiently annoying that they'll want to upgrade someday...you know, so we can start calling Graal a shareware game again...

(A) Optionally: In fact, other servers who DON'T consider themselves Megaman Clones join in a partnership with Hypothetica, and cooperatively develop scripts for baddies, music players, rescripted buddy lists, etc: on Hypothetica all the baddies are cyborgs of the baddies on "Wiki-man", on Wiki-man they're all 3D-Gradiented versions of the Classic baddies, etc. But of course, under the current situation nobody wants to SHARE work, as that'll benefit "the competition". Because all the servers are basically the same.

Like I said this could be a good idea for any server if the server decides they want to put out the money, but the only servers willing to do so are those which are lacking in players, and they're usually lacking in players for a reason (although other than the newly added spar system, UN has had a reason to have a low playercount for years yet it thrives so well). Let's put Hypothetica back as Delteria. Right now Delteria sucks, and people would put out the $20 to advertise for it, but in around a year when the new overworld is completed (This is the same as the revamp of Hypothetica) the playercount is going to thrive again due to old players returning and new players from other servers coming out to check what is new just from word of mouth. After this happens Delteria is going to have an average playercount of atleast 70 again, and as I said before once a playerworld reaches a semi-high playercount they really don't feel the need to personally advertise. Staff and players have already spent somewhere around $180 in the passed year and a half in total to just host the Dev server of Delteria, there are other servers who are spending the same amount of cash for their Dev servers, I highly doubt that after 2 years of shelling out money just to get the server done that anybody is going to want to pay money to try and get new players to come and give more money to cyberjours unless their server is a total wash out with the current Graal community, which usually happens for a reason.

I really don't see how this could hurt at all, it would definately help get some new subscribers to cyberjours, it may even also get a few more players on some of the more inactive servers, but I still believe that Graal would be doing better if Unixmad or Stefan put out the money to advertise Graal instead of asking people to do it for them, however, Classic servers to get a free ride when it comes to hosting so perhaps suggesting that they advertise for themselves isn't really asking much? :shrugs: I dunno why I'm arguing against this idea, like I said there is really no downside to it, I just don't really see any of the servers utilizing the option to promote themselves.

[Galdor]

Originally Posted by Gerami

not really but i dont expect you to see the difference

fine might be other npcs and sign texts.

[The Evil Within]

Originally Posted by Galdor

fine might be other npcs and sign texts.

There's also the fact that it has a functioning spar arena, unless Classic finally decided to add one...You also may be forgetting that Delteria designed the spar arena design used on all the servers based around sparring now, and was also the first server to introduce a weekly (or monthly for you UTC fans) Spar Tournament, and also came up with the idea for giving a statue for a prize. They also are the first server to introduce a PK arena, although the idea of the PK Arena never took off until it was brought over to UN.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that Delteria is not "just another classic rip-off" but that every classic server is "just another Delteria rip-off". I'm pretty sure that the rip-off's will not stop there either, once new Delteria is finished and released I believe that it is going to yet-again revamp what is thought necessary to consider a server "good". Delteria may not have had any recent updates which is why the playercount is lacking, but this is mainly because we are busy pushing the limits of Graal again as we have done countless times in the passed, too busy working on completely new, innovative gameplay to bother making redundant updates to an outdated server.

[_Z3phyr_]

[UberModeKappa]

Graal 3D PLEASE

[Tyhm]

Originally Posted by The Evil Within

Let's put Hypothetica back as Delteria.

Could we not? I deviated from the discussion of whether or not Delteria sucks because it's utterly irrelevant to the discussion of whether or not servers should advertise for themselves verses trying to steal each others' players.

Originally Posted by The Evil Within

due to old players returning and new players from other servers coming out to check what is new just from word of mouth.

See above - this is not a GOOD thing, Delteria stealing UN and Maloria and Classic and Hypothetica's players. Before: Graal has 100 players evenly distributed. After: Graal has 100 players, and 70 of them are on Delteria. Not a win. It's rearranging deck chairs on the titanic.

Originally Posted by The Evil Within

Staff and players have already spent somewhere around $180 in the passed year and a half in total to just host the Dev server of Delteria, there are other servers who are spending the same amount of cash for their Dev servers, I highly doubt that after 2 years of shelling out money just to get the server done that anybody is going to want to pay money to try and get new players to come and give more money to cyberjours unless their server is a total wash out with the current Graal community, which usually happens for a reason.

That's rather a seperate issue, but nonetheless a solid one: Why the hell does Graal require each developer to have an upgraded account? I'd see that abolished first and foremost. It's money better spent drawing traffic.

Originally Posted by The Evil Within

I dunno why I'm arguing against this idea, like I said there is really no downside to it, I just don't really see any of the servers utilizing the option to promote themselves.

In retrospect I think I have overlooked a key element to this: Graal would have to actually get on that whole "And the server gets 10% of each upgrade originating from their site" theory. If 100 Graalians go to GraalOnline.com and upgrade, good job Unixmad and Stefan, money for the servers, money for paying off old debts, money for developing G3D. If 10 Graalians go to Hypothetica.Graal.Net and upgrade, good job Billy, that's $20 for you - put it towards advertising, or upkeep, or hire that goth kid in your art class to design the new vampire-mech graphics, or whatever. I daresay that would encourage people to bring in the newbies.

[Galdor]

Originally Posted by Tyhm

or hire that goth kid in your art class to design the new vampire-mech graphics, or whatever.

lol xD

[The Evil Within]

Originally Posted by Tyhm

In retrospect I think I have overlooked a key element to this: Graal would have to actually get on that whole "And the server gets 10% of each upgrade originating from their site" theory. If 100 Graalians go to GraalOnline.com and upgrade, good job Unixmad and Stefan, money for the servers, money for paying off old debts, money for developing G3D. If 10 Graalians go to Hypothetica.Graal.Net and upgrade, good job Billy, that's $20 for you - put it towards advertising, or upkeep, or hire that goth kid in your art class to design the new vampire-mech graphics, or whatever. I daresay that would encourage people to bring in the newbies.

That's actually not a half-bad idea and would probably get a lot of servers who have faith in their projects to do some hardcore advertising. I don't agree with the developers not having to pay for Graal though, possibly revert back to giving a server a designated amount of classic accounts (no more than 7) to distribute to developers (and only developers) as they please, but if you were to give a Manager the power to call somebody a developer on his server and have this persons account as a classic account I could see Graal possibly losing money.

I also think that the accounts should only work on their designated servers, if you develop for UN you shouldn't have a free ride to play on Zodiac, they should also only work if the account is computer ID locked to avoid the possible sharing of developer accounts, and of coarse the managers would need to be able to edit the accounts password so when a developer is fired the account does not go with him. These accounts should not be able to be upgraded at all either, if a developer wants to upgrade an account he makes a new one, this would be to avoid any claims from a developer saying that he wasted X hours on Zodiac on his Delteria_Developer1 account, because no information would be saved on any server other than the server he was just fired, or quit from.

Btw, my main reason for saying they limit the amount of "Developer accounts" is because most people who spend their time learning GS2 and playing with the level editor enough to make a decent level have already upgraded their own account. If you were talking about making it so classic accounts could log onto hosted servers as long as they are given access as a developer by the Manager then I actually completely agree, it is pretty bad to ask people to pay for gold/vip so they can work on a server after the Manager already payed $60 - $100 to get that server hosted, it also makes it near impossible for hosted servers to find decent staff. This would have to be monitered though, which wouldn't be hard, if all of a sudden there's a hosted server with 45 players on it, a PWA would just have to log on and look at the developers list to realize what's going on.

[UberModeKappa]

Originally Posted by Tyhm

Why the hell does Graal require each developer to have an upgraded account? I'd see that abolished first and foremost. It's money better spent drawing traffic.

PRECISELY!!!

The way i see it, if you have your own playerworld, you should be able to make a list of accounts that can connect to the playerworld regardless if it is not upgraded. Currently, the developers are basically paying its employer to produce content.

[Tyhm]

and most importantly, Graal will make more money from PWs bringing in new players than it'll lose from the developers not having to go Gold, and from the 10% going to the PW Owners, and even from the occasional player who chooses to keep a huge list of 28-character passwords rather than upgrade...because instead of Unixmad and Stefan being the only ones who care if the servers turn a profit, suddenly every serverop cares really a lot.

I don't even get why developers need Gold or Upgrade in the first place...so what if their account resets every time they log off? It gives them perspective.

As to letting developers either assign anonymous Staff accounts or a list of accounts to be treated as staff on their server, I say the latter. If Hypothetica has 90 staff entries, that's their own dumb fault, and their own security breach. If Hypothetica wants to do something with serverstrings to emulate saving accounts without passwords, that's money out of Billy's pocket too...and it'll suck for him in a year, when Graal decides to charge him for another year of hosting, since he's just freeloading as it stands.

Ain't perfect, but it beats what we're doing now.

[theHAWKER]

I have an idea, a 2d side scroler game like mario!

[Rufus]

Originally Posted by theHAWKER

I have an idea, a 2d side scroler game like mario!

http://forums.graalonline.com/forums...ad.php?t=68766

[Tyhm]

Now see, if he even had Stefan on the scripting of it, guaranteed to work. When Stefan's scripting something, Graal moves in unprecedented directions - with Stefan's guidance, Kingdoms got the F2 window and RPG interface, and the engine was expanded towards databases. Without, Kingdoms would be struggling to tokenize serverstrings for everything.

Which is why Graal needs tools. I'd love to work with Stefan making iconic genres -
"This is a basic 2d platformer world. Note the use of shoot2, which allows you to select whether gravity is controlled by y or z, and what the acceleration is of your world: default is 2, the equivalent of earth's 9.8 m/s/s.
This is a basic 2d overworld server. Note the enclosed movement and damage system, which offers some protection from scriptkiddies with a minimum of overhead, and these baddies which are basically just the Kingdoms baddies with the Classic skins.
This is your basic shooter server. Note the new script commands for paralax backgrounds and high-speed collisions with small asteroids. The gmap has also been optimized for preloading, allowing players to zoom across the server as long as they stay on the track."

But it's the nature of things that we only have 1 Stefan, and several Stefans worth of work for him to handle. :-P