Make it non-gold

[Rufus]

Originally Posted by Tigairius

I will list a few things that are more expensive than Graal that we do quite a lot more frequently:

- The average person spends more than $40/week on groceries & food. (This is based off of the friends I've asked)
- Filling a tank of gas lately takes more than $40 depending on your car.
- Things like the average phone bill costs sometimes $60/m
- A console game usually costs $60, how long does that entertain you? Sometimes 3 months if it's really good. How long does Graal entertain you? Indefinitely.

I think you're hugely misrepresenting the playerbase with these so-called expenditures.

• The average Graal player doesn't spend a penny on food per month, never mind weekly. I'd even go as far as to say the average gamer doesn't spend that much money on food at all.
• I'd love to know how many Graal players actually drive, because I don't think that many do.
• Phone bills are another thing that the average Graal player doesn't spend money on, that is why they have parents.
• As for the console game entertainment lol.. If you are spending money on a console game you can expect quality in what you are buying and you can expect a consistency in the amount of content you get from it. Graal does not provide entertainment "indefinitely" at all and even claiming something like that is just hilarious. In the case of Graal Kingdoms, a bunch of updates every 4 months is not the average gamers idea of indefinite entertainment either.

You seemingly ignored the fact that there is a huge MMORPG market out there, with many of the games being open for all players for free. In this saturated market there are tons of higher quality games charging at a lower price. Why is an average consumer going to pick Graal over the competition? Graal Kingdoms' gameplay is fairly average after all.

[Tigairius]

Originally Posted by Rufus

You seemingly ignored the fact that there is a huge MMORPG market out there, with many of the games being open for all players for free. In this saturated market there are tons of higher quality games charging at a lower price..

How do you think we could get higher quality for Graal?

[Rufus]

Originally Posted by Tigairius

How do you think we could get higher quality for Graal?

That's not for me to decide.

[Tigairius]

Originally Posted by Rufus

That's not for me to decide.

I think it is, very much so. You guys throw your weight around on the forums like you know what's best but when it comes to crunch time where are your solutions to the problems?

You, as a player, a staff member, (a developer?), should definitely have say in the future of Graal. In fact, I think you would be upset if you didn't.

If you're willing to to find all of the faults, certainly you could attempt find some solutions.

If you just point out all of the negative things but make no attempt to contribute you just look like a complainer.

You are just trying to rally up the people on the forums to perpetuate the argument in the negative direction. Where is the positive?

[James]

Originally Posted by Tigairius

What would you do to improve it and lift it out of it's current state?

First, it would help if Stefan was actually more involved in getting the client REAL new features. NewWorld supported layered-tiles, why hasn't this been made available after 7-8 years? The flying-technology (Mode 7 I believe) still isn't available to developers, or it has been made available to only a select few. I'm only brushing the surface here, Graal's editor needs some true updates. Gani shop needs to be updated and should be part of the main Graal editor as well.

Second, why should developers have to pay to create content? Even if someone were to create a high-quality playerworld, they are still having to shell money out of their pocket for their hard work. I don't see the justification in this, as Graal would only generate revenue, not the developers. Remember, the average Graalian age is 12 or something, right? Where are they supposed to get $120? I can't even post a damn link without it getting approved because of that. They should atleast make some sort of official testbed server for serious developers that don't have the cash. It shouldn't be insanely hard to aquire access to this either. I know it makes them fast cash or whatever, but in the long run it's not going to help them at all. At least they could do is help the developers out more, and not make it such a pain in the arse.

Third, why is there not a new flagship server? If they would have put some time into a new one over these past few years they could actually have something worth playing. I've always thought they strayed away from Classic too much. I think that if they'd create a hybrid server like Zodiac and a game like Final Fantasy 3/6, with awesome 2D graphics, and make it turn-based with a storyline and quests, they'd really have something worth playing. You'd have the classic feel with the quests, people could level and quest together via partying, an oldschool overworld like Final Fantasys would be amazing, and easy to make. Valikorlia used to have an overworld like that. I think it would even take less effort than their past flagship servers. The only part that would take some real time is tying in a storyline, but it could be done. It's up to the people that created the game to create the content, not the players.

They've always set the bar for playerworld standards, why isn't this happening anymore? Graal2001 and Kingdoms used to have a higher average playercount than the free worlds when they actually gave a damn about the servers.

I could ramble on about how I feel about the way they treat their customers but that's not either here nor there.

Basically, if this game was worth paying for you'd know that it was, and judging by the worlds that cost money -- it's not. In the past it was, and you knew that it was, because Graal2001 used to have 120 people on it, and Kingdoms used to have a huge playerbase as well.

Edit: On another note, I would propose Graal figure out what they are going to do in terms of making people pay. They can't do gelats and make people pay for the game. It doesn't work like that. In my opinion their best course of action would be to drop paying for the game altogether and make special things in-game buyable with gelats. You get people playing your game hooked for free, and then they want to buy items to seperate themselves from the people that don't pay. This works for a lot of games, and I guarantee you would see a surge in the playercount if the game was advertised better.

[Rufus]

Originally Posted by Tigairius

I think it is, very much so. You guys throw your weight around on the forums like you know what's best but when it comes to crunch time where are your solutions to the problems?

You, as a player, a staff member, (a developer?), should definitely have say in the future of Graal. In fact, I think you would be upset if you didn't.

If you're willing to to find all of the faults, certainly you could attempt find some solutions.

If you just point out all of the negative things but make no attempt to contribute you just look like a complainer.

You are just trying to rally up the people on the forums to perpetuate the argument in the negative direction. Where is the positive?

Don't make me out to be some compulsive disagreeing nitpicker, because if my posts didn't have any substance to them then no one would give a crap. What you said was completely misrepresenting the demographics that are being targeted for the game, and because of this your justification in the current pricing strategy didn't really work in the reality. Just because I might be a player, developer, or staff member doesn't mean that what I say is going to change anything. I always suggest possible fixes to everything that I post "negatively" about, being directly or indirectly, but even though most of what I post is seemingly common sense to people, nothing ever happens.

I'm not trying to rally up any kind of player distaste or "throwing my weight" at anything, I'm just simply showing you how you are incorrect, and in being incorrect on something as simple as demographics, you eventually cause more problems. I don't really feel that I need to keep repeating the obvious in order for people to understand that the problems that the Graal servers have are beyond fixing at our level. Sure the developers could make the best server ever, but with a limited global playercount it's just a case of stealing players from other servers, players we already had. The problems that are being outlined are not going to be fixed by making the server Classic, because the only players that it could possibly be attracting that it didn't before would be the non-paying customers. Graal needs income in order to continue, so 'demoting' their Gold servers wouldn't exactly seem a favorable action.

The market for 2d online games is not as saturated as the market for 3d. As Graal Online is predominantly 2d, even though they've tried to venture into 3d multiple times, it places the product in a market that is still quite popular, a market that is a niche. I believe that globally the servers need to be improved upon in nearly all areas including framework, structure and content. The last official server release was in 2002 and the servers themselves haven't really progressed beyond this point, with the exception of Zodiac of course. This is something that can be controlled on a developer level, but as most of the players on Graal don't really have the necessary skills nor training opportunities, it is proving to be a stagnation rather than a growth. Along with the lack of developers, the website, forums, and the client need to be adjusted to a more professional look. Like I said though, this has already been said multiple times and you probably already know this, so I don't know why you even asked.

[Tigairius]

Originally Posted by James

First, it would help if Stefan was actually more involved in getting the client REAL new features. NewWorld supported layered-tiles, why hasn't this been made available after 7-8 years? The flying-technology (Mode 7 I believe) still isn't available to developers, or it has been made available to only a select few. I'm only brushing the surface here, Graal's editor needs some true updates. Gani shop needs to be updated and should be part of the main Graal editor as well.

I agree.

Originally Posted by James

Second, why should developers have to pay to create content? Even if someone were to create a high-quality playerworld, they are still having to shell money out of their pocket for their hard work. I don't see the justification in this, as Graal would only generate revenue, not the developers. Remember, the average Graalian age is 12 or something, right? Where are they supposed to get $120? I can't even post a damn link without it getting approved because of that. They should atleast make some sort of official testbed server for serious developers that don't have the cash. It shouldn't be insanely hard to aquire access to this either. I know it makes them fast cash or whatever, but in the long run it's not going to help them at all. At least they could do is help the developers out more, and not make it such a pain in the arse.

You're not paying to create content. You're paying for the server space and to practice your skills. You can easily log onto any classic server and get a job for free if you have a lifetime classic subscription, if you don't have a lifetime classic subscription then you're just paying for the play aspect, not the development aspect of the game.

There is a testbed server for people to practice on, but if you want to continue with making a server you need to rent the server space.

Originally Posted by James

Third, why is there not a new flagship server? If they would have put some time into a new one over these past few years they could actually have something worth playing. I've always thought they strayed away from Classic too much. I think that if they'd create a hybrid server like Zodiac and a game like Final Fantasy 3/6, with awesome 2D graphics, and make it turn-based with a storyline and quests, they'd really have something worth playing. You'd have the classic feel with the quests, people could level and quest together via partying, an oldschool overworld like Final Fantasys would be amazing, and easy to make. Valikorlia used to have an overworld like that. I think it would even take less effort than their past flagship servers. The only part that would take some real time is tying in a storyline, but it could be done. It's up to the people that created the game to create the content, not the players.

No one is stopping you from starting it up.

Originally Posted by James

Edit: On another note, I would propose Graal figure out what they are going to do in terms of making people pay. They can't do gelats and make people pay for the game. It doesn't work like that. In my opinion their best course of action would be to drop paying for the game altogether and make special things in-game buyable with gelats. You get people playing your game hooked for free, and then they want to buy items to seperate themselves from the people that don't pay. This works for a lot of games, and I guarantee you would see a surge in the playercount if the game was advertised better.

I agree, and I've been trying to push this for quite a while.

[Crimson2005]

Originally Posted by James

Third, why is there not a new flagship server? If they would have put some time into a new one over these past few years they could actually have something worth playing. I've always thought they strayed away from Classic too much. I think that if they'd create a hybrid server like Zodiac and a game like Final Fantasy 3/6, with awesome 2D graphics, and make it turn-based with a storyline and quests, they'd really have something worth playing. You'd have the classic feel with the quests, people could level and quest together via partying, an oldschool overworld like Final Fantasys would be amazing, and easy to make. Valikorlia used to have an overworld like that. I think it would even take less effort than their past flagship servers. The only part that would take some real time is tying in a storyline, but it could be done. It's up to the people that created the game to create the content, not the players.

Originally Posted by Tigairius

No one is stopping you from starting it up.

Did you actually read what he said?

[Rufus]

[James]

Originally Posted by Tigairius

I agree.

You're not paying to create content. You're paying for the server space and to practice your skills. You can easily log onto any classic server and get a job for free if you have a lifetime classic subscription, if you don't have a lifetime classic subscription then you're just paying for the play aspect, not the development aspect of the game.

Regardless of how easy it is, how is that by any means practical? How many playerworlds on the classic tab are really going to let Joe Shmoe have NC access? GS2 should really be supported offline so we don't have to rent out server space to begin with.

There is a testbed server for people to practice on, but if you want to continue with making a server you need to rent the server space.

No one is stopping you from starting it up.

Yeah, and I'm not shelling out money to create content for a game that I don't own. If it was free it would be another story. Everything you can do online should be supported offline. It only makes sense.

I agree, and I've been trying to push this for quite a while.

I want to see this game succeed. I wouldn't be here after all these years if I didn't. They keep changing things that don't need fixing. The old website was perfectly fine, the flagship servers when they first came out were worth the money but over time they abandoned them. I don't understand why they can't just stick with something. If it works -- don't fix it.

[Tigairius]

Originally Posted by Crimson2005

Did you actually read what he said?

Sorry, I'm not sure where you've been for the past 10 years, but Graal is created by the players.

Originally Posted by James

Yeah, and I'm not shelling out money to create content for a game that I don't own. If it was free it would be another story. Everything you can do online should be supported offline. It only makes sense.

Well, like I said there is a testbed server you can use. The only thing that's required to have RC/NC on there is a will to learn and a classic subscription.

[Crono]

Originally Posted by Tigairius

Sorry, I'm not sure where you've been for the past 10 years, but Graal is created by the players.

Since when was GK created by the players?

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by Crono

Since when was GK created by the players?

I think it's fair to presume the topic had expanded from just Graal Kingdoms, despite the original topic and forum in which it resides.

[Crono]

Originally Posted by Stephen

I think it's safe to presume the topic had expanded from just Graal Kingdoms, despite the original topic and forum in which it resides.

My question still stands, Classic, G2k1, and G2k2 were "created" by Stefan (atleast I assume so). Stefan also went ahead and re-coded both Zone and Era. I'd say that's a pretty decent amount of servers, no?

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by Crono

My question still stands, Classic, G2k1, and G2k2 were "created" by Stefan (atleast I assume so). Stefan also went ahead and re-coded both Zone and Era. I'd say that's a pretty decent amount of servers, no?

Stefan has previously shown very little support for Graal Kingdoms - but not to scold him, he has recently been very helpful. He and I have a terrible working relationship, I have always treated him very poorly because of what I observed. However, seeing his recent efforts I have definitely reversed my opinion and treatment of him, although sadly I can't say the same for him

We have another update planned for late March or early April if everything goes smoothly. We'll probably still release even if we don't finish all of our goals (just carry them over into next quarterly update). As I already said we intend to approach the account status problems on Graal Kingdoms.

Believe me, we want to see it as active as it used to be as much as everyone else. We're dedicating a lot of time and effort to problems that people have brought to our attention and other problems we have noticed. We have a long term roadmap, and we're in this for the long haul.