Some thoughts from an old "newbie"

[Ariander]

Hi all,

I've recently returned to playing Graal Kingdoms (GK) after a few years away. I first discovered GK in 2003/2004 (though it was more a business interest at that time), then returned in 2009 as "just a player" for a short while and now, x3. (They say, "third time's a charm")

Anyway, I've been playing quite a bit over the past week (idling a lot - but also playing many hours just trying to get re-familiarized with things, etc.)

I do have some suggestions to make and some initial thoughts from that unique perspective of being essentially "new" (having forgotten most things from my previous stints as a player, but still remembering enough to function in the game environment marginally), and I think there's some real potential here to create a new generation of players - but I'm loathe to spend the time writing up some windy post with my thoughts on these things if no one is really that interested.

My experience as both a business person involved in this industry for many years, and as a gamer myself, is that you have two types of games:

1) old school where the old thinking and the older (long term) players who don't want or like change (beyond the always mantra/whine of any player of "not enough features, too many bugs, etc. etc. ad nauseum) and the game continues to cater to them at the expense of revitalizing itself and eventually the game disappears into the annals of gaming history or "nostaliga".

2) Games that while old school, understand the power and ability to revitalize themselves without necessarily have to "modernize". It's more about putting "new upholstery" on the couch, instead of throwing it out and buying a new one. I see a lot of potential in GK - and my personal opinion is that there is a great deal that can be done here to rekindle interest and it should NOT be moved to classic.

So...if anyone's interested in me elaborating more - let me know. But if you all think I should go *beep* myself, and keep my opinions off the forums, consider me *beeped* and outta here.

Ari

[Andre2006]

Moving it to classic could make room for "mini transactions" and introduce GK to the classic players that never wanted to pay for gold in the first place.

But no matter what, the game itself is always going to suffer from latency problems.
Mixing US - EU - Asia and Australia together is never a good idea when it comes to latency.

People talk about skills, who is the best killer? There is always going to be complaints about this guy who always lags and can't be killed. However lag usually goes both ways.

If I kill somebody on Era, they always call me a "Lagging *****" and that is the main reason I don't PK on Era anymore. Same reason I never really tried to win any spars on GK.

But there are way bigger issues that needs dealt with and PKing is very flawed indeed as well as every other system.

(I wouldn't mind jumping on GK again, however the lack of ability to obtain items and flawed leveling is what keeps me from not playing (They said this was being worked on).)

[scriptless]

Originally Posted by Andre2006

(I wouldn't mind jumping on GK again, however the lack of ability to obtain items and flawed leveling is what keeps me from not playing (They said this was being worked on).)

Yes, it is being worked on.

[fowlplay4]

Originally Posted by Andre2006

Moving it to classic could make room for "mini transactions" and introduce GK to the classic players that never wanted to pay for gold in the first place.

GK has observer mode disabled, they could make the restrictions a lot less more painful then they currently are or even remove them. It's the same effect and something I think entirely possible to do without having to bother Stefan.

The entire problem with 'Gold' is that it's benefits are very few, and in GK's case is being used a very restrictive gate to the server. If there were more reasons for maintaining a gold subscription (this applies to Playerworld servers as well) then they would make more money off people with classic accounts.

[Ariander]

I know it sounds like a "bold claim" - and I'm sure dozens and dozens of others have made it - but I believe I could bring, for a short time, quite a few new ppl to the game - my concern is, doing that w/o fixing some pretty obvious things would be silly and not helpful in the long run. Because if they come and are frustrated right at sign up - they won't stay. I'd rather see if there is any possibility that some simpler things (I realize big changes (and even small ones at times) can require weeks of coding, etc.) that don't require huge revamps could be done to attract and RETAIN new(ish) players which in turn, ideally, would revitalize interest from older players AND staff, and thus more involved development might be renewed.

P'haps its just a pipe dream - which is why I started the thread. But I honestly think its quite an engaging game, even with all its "problems" - and I think it has potential to be of interest to a whole new batch of players with a little spit polish and duct tape - so to speak.

[Tigairius]

I don't want this to sound like a clichéd response, but we seriously consider all suggestions, and weigh them with the resources we have to complete projects and the amount of time our developers truly have to contribute -- and any time we find a project worth pursuing, we do it. New, fresh discussion and debate is healthy, and we have honestly considered a lot of ideas already in the past years on the server.

GK suffers from some restrictions -- but we do a decent job of overcoming most of the restrictions when an idea is worth pursuing enough, both through getting things changed in the NPC-Server by Stefan or by writing hackish functions to use the mudlib. Certainly it doesn't make developing any easier for GK though.

[Ariander]

If anything I said was sounding like a criticism of work done/being done, my apologies - that was absolutely not the intent. How the heck could I even have an opinion on that, after having just returned to the game little less than a week ago?

I just meant that I understand that sometimes things that we (players) think are "just do this/just do that", I get that a lot of things can be complex and more time consuming than is understood at the surface.

Reading through the forums its hard to tell/gauge how much interest there is in trying kick start a new audience for PC GK/Gold GK. And I appreciate that you're open to player suggestions. Seems like my suggestions might be a) better after I've played a bit more/followed more of what's going on, on the forums and b) perhaps summarized in the form of a PM to... (who is the correct contact for that sort of thing for GK?)

Thanks again,

Ari