Release date for PlayerWorld hosting

[unixmad]

It's simple, we add each month 1 full free month to the Playerworlds in group 1 and 2, it mean if they go back to group 3 they will have the full time bought.

About the number of servers in group 1 and 2 we will perhaps change it if we have more quality servers or more players, but one of our goal is to push the quality of servers up, it mean less servers and more quality.

Originally posted by konidias


I understand this, but what happens to the playerworlds in the top seven, who haven't paid, when they fall below the top seven? Do they have to pay if they fall out of the ranking or what? Because I mean, you're switching them each month, meaning it could only take them a month to move back up in the top seven again, and it would be silly to make them pay 99 to 59 dollars just for one month.

I'm sure a few of the top seven will eventually fall below, so are they going to have to pay? I mean, that's kind of strange, it's like you have to pay no matter what really, unless you can maintain an extremely high point rating.

It seems like a constant battle to stay alive, heheh.

[unixmad]

Making Third group only for Gold/Vip is our way to pay costs, someone need to pay for the Bandwidth/hosting costs... If we let LifeTime or Trial access the third group then we have to make the price double or more...

And Vip is only $19 a year, it mean 1.5$ / month to be member of a game you play hours each week...

Originally posted by ETD

that wouldn't be so bad... exept then only gold, and VIP players could play your server...

the biggest problem i have is that most of my staff do not have upgraded accounts, or VIP... and a lot can't spend the money to do so... yet they have worked their butts off to make this world

[Soul-Blade]

Originally posted by Brett White


Hey, fool, let me tell you a secret, you can build a great playerworld OFFLINE, then still work on it when it gets up. Piece's of crap servers don't go up.

Hehe so true

Ok so anyway, what ever happened to the support system, for when people put in a playerworlds name when they upgrade??

This is all good and dandy for public PWs, but most of the quality PWs are being developed as a private server, unixmad. How can you push the quality up, if you do not give time for the quality servers to be developed?

Dunno, just think most people making a quality server put in so much time, they barely have time for anything else *cough* life *cough* so I do not see how it is right to make them pay for this. I realize someone needs to pay...but in the long run most of the private PWs are a investment in the future of graal, or in other words, the ammount of money graal makes. The people working so hard usually really get no benefits, other then the joy of working. And personally, I don't have the money to pay, and with the current schedule no time to get a job yet.

To sum it up: If this is applied to private worlds, then no, I cannot pay, and Shifting Ages will go offline, and all the days of work I have put into it will go in vain, and all the work others have put into it as well....because rather the loosing money to provide professional work, I would rather get a job and make money for the ammount of time I spend on this.

Surely, someone can see the logic in this .

[unixmad]

Like will say Stefan, That's life ...

Originally posted by Soul-Blade


Hehe so true

Ok so anyway, what ever happened to the support system, for when people put in a playerworlds name when they upgrade??

This is all good and dandy for public PWs, but most of the quality PWs are being developed as a private server, unixmad. How can you push the quality up, if you do not give time for the quality servers to be developed?

Dunno, just think most people making a quality server put in so much time, they barely have time for anything else *cough* life *cough* so I do not see how it is right to make them pay for this. I realize someone needs to pay...but in the long run most of the private PWs are a investment in the future of graal, or in other words, the ammount of money graal makes. The people working so hard usually really get no benefits, other then the joy of working. And personally, I don't have the money to pay, and with the current schedule no time to get a job yet.

To sum it up: If this is applied to private worlds, then no, I cannot pay, and Shifting Ages will go offline, and all the days of work I have put into it will go in vain, and all the work others have put into it as well....because rather the loosing money to provide professional work, I would rather get a job and make money for the ammount of time I spend on this.

Surely, someone can see the logic in this .

[brock128]

:|

I really don't like the "gold -> classic -> trial" system, but whatever.

[Spark910]

Originally posted by unixmad
Like will say Stefan, That's life ...

Well SB you have just said you can make a good PW offline. And considering one of the ways into the free gap is to let people or some people see what developments you are making to make it worth while, then you'll have to pay all the time until release.

And you say someone had to pay for bandwidth, cant you add something on top to allow other accnt types on [I already said this, dont know if I got a reply to it, will check that now]

[konidias]

Okay, now I understand most everything with this system. Only one thing that puzzles me. Once the first seven go up (assuming they don't have to pay to get in the top seven), EVERYONE is going to have to pay for their server.

I mean, if you're starting at the third group, and you have to pay to be in the 3rd group, then you're paying anyway. I didn't see anything about a playerworld automatically being in the top two groups, so that means you're having to pay initially anyway.

Is there still a way to earn some sort of profit through the points? So far I see you get free playerworld hosting and some benefits, but I see no mention of getting profit or anything. So I guess you cut that out or something? Maybe it could be done still, by doing the upgrading thing where people can select a playerworld they are mainly upgrading to play, and a bit of that money goes to them?

I just kind of see this as a severe approach to playerworlds. First it's pay to play, now it's pay to work? You're basically not really rewarding the pw managers if they don't get anything out of it besides "free hosting" which was already free to them in the first place before you made them pay, heheh.

It's like "Well you're going to have to pay for your playerworld, unless you work twice as hard as you used to, and you still get nothing out of it, doesn't that sound good?"

[Milkdude99]

Originally posted by ETD

that wouldn't be so bad... exept then only gold, and VIP players could play your server...

the biggest problem i have is that most of my staff do not have upgraded accounts, or VIP... and a lot can't spend the money to do so... yet they have worked their butts off to make this world

I think Unixmad already summed that up in his post ..

Originally posted by unixmad
Like will say Stefan, That's life ...

[Darlene159]

I just kind of see this as a severe approach to playerworlds. First it's pay to play, now it's pay to work? You're basically not really rewarding the pw managers if they don't get anything out of it besides "free hosting" which was already free to them in the first place before you made them pay, heheh.

I was trying to make this point elsewhere, and got told by an un-named person that us Managers dont do much, and we benefit from this plan far more than stefan/unixmad...lol, I would like to know how so?
Since p2p, us Managers (cant speak for all managers) have been busting our rumps trying to find staff when so many players have dropped off the face of the earth because they couldnt pay for whatever reason, only to find some semi-good staff, and they turn out to be totally corrupt, and think they are way above the rules because they are needed...Dont get me wrong, I have some good staff that do massive amounts of work for me, and I wouldnt know what to do without them...but scripters and level makers are extremely hard to come by, as well as GFX people. To be honest, I dont get much out of being a PW Manager anymore, I get players constantly complaining about lack of updates (rightfully so) because of lack of staff/good staff...and alot of the players are not nice with their complaints either, I have never seen such rude people in my life (and I have 3 teenage kids).
Now we have this new pay thing that is going to make us really kill ourselves to try and keep the PW at the top.
We have to ask ourselfs if this is really worth it anymore....I love graal, and I love Npulse, and I would do almost anything I could for both, but there is a limit, and I cannot devote every second of every day on npulse, and I cant put massive amounts of money into it either (buying accounts, paying to keep it up, website, etc....)

This is what this un-named person said to me:

"The reality is that a management position isn't really work. To most people it's a desirable position of power and status, like a trophy of sorts. Yes, playerworlds bring something to Graal. They provide places where cheapskate players can spend their time, but they don't need managers to do that."

Now, I ask you, is this what people think of us Managers? Is this all us Managers bring to Graal? Is this all the regular PW's that arent gold mean to Graal? If so, it isnt worth it to me............

[Johnny_5]

Theres already about 25 servers up (including the UC ones), so why would people want to buy these servers when its going to be close to impossible to get the top 7 spots. It makes no sence paying for a UC PW that only gold and VIP players can access when most of the people that play classic worlds dont have gold or vip. I wouldnt pay all that money for a world barely any one could play on.

[Milkdude99]

To touch base on what Moon Goddess said as well as konidias let me say this in this light. People have hobbies like Moonie and I it is Graal and people don't mind paying for their hobbies as long as they receive something in return from it . You derive different things from hobbies depending on the person and what they want from their hobby.

Some get a return of money from their hobby if it involves making something for retail sales; their reward is a good product and making money from it. Some hobbies you just get a satisfaction of a job well done from praise of your peers. Regardless of what your hobby is you have to get something back from it to justify keeping that hobby otherwise you will move on to another one that does give some sort of return back to you. Now as far as Graal and us, we worked on Npulse and got satisfaction of trying to make a good PW for others to enjoy as well as ourselves. The money paid out was minimal so it was considered a fair exchange for our hobby.

But lately it has caused nothing but stress due to the changes in Graal for the last year, there is no enjoyment in seeing good projects lay in waste for lack of good people to work on them. Nor is there any enjoyment that now Graal is digging deeper and deeper into everyone’s pockets. Money is only one of the issues, there has to be a return of something given back to those PW Managers who work so many hours to try to please their players and make a quality PW for people to play on. There is also no enjoyment in seeing a lack of rule enforcemment of Graal rules on all servers.All this does is handicap the servers who do by a lower player count, that seriously needs to change or we all will resort to ignoring Graal rules to increase our player count to stay up top.

It has come to the point where there has to be a give and take now from Graal to those who work for the betterment of this game (PW Managers and Global Staff) free hosting isn't going to cut the proverbial mustard, Graal is still receiving all the benefits here, not the ones who are working to make this happen and make Graal profitable.

[Milkdude99]

Originally posted by Johnny_5
Theres already about 25 servers up (including the UC ones), so why would people want to buy these servers when its going to be close to impossible to get the top 7 spots. It makes no sence paying for a UC PW that only gold and VIP players can access when most of the people that play classic worlds dont have gold or vip. I wouldnt pay all that money for a world barely any one could play on.

Thats the point of it , only the best need bother if it is not your desire to pay all along.

[Spark910]

Originally posted by Johnny_5
Theres already about 25 servers up (including the UC ones), so why would people want to buy these servers when its going to be close to impossible to get the top 7 spots. It makes no sence paying for a UC PW that only gold and VIP players can access when most of the people that play classic worlds dont have gold or vip. I wouldnt pay all that money for a world barely any one could play on.

Well the point system isnt that strong, it could be abused I agree, well not as much abused, but not work fairly or give equal opportunities.

[Soul-Blade]

Originally posted by unixmad
Like will say Stefan, That's life ...

What the hell are you talking about? Over the last years, I have busted my rear trying to make graal better, and the only one who has benefitted is you people. I work on debug, and the only one who benefits of GK. I work on my PW, and the only one who benefits is you people. I sometimes tell my friends I am busy when they want to go out and do something, because I want to get a piece of my work done, and you have the stupidity to say "Thats life"?! What is that supposed to mean? In other words you are saying
Hey EVERYONE! Why don't you PAY ME to make a PROFESSIONAL QUALITY GAME, which I will MAKE MONEY OFF OF...what about you guys? YOU GET TO PAY ME! HORRAY FOR YOU!

Give me a freakin break here, do you actually believe that is fair?! PW managers HAVE NEVER benefitted from doing free work, and to those making great PWs, slave work.
Now you have the nerve to charge them to work?!

No. I won't work. I have already done everything I can offline, that is why I said "Hehe so true" because I made something good offline.

This system needs some serious changes, else this system will loose the most promising PWs graal has to offer.

[Neoreno]

Where will the official servers in this go, I.E Bomy Moon, Kingdoms and The Adventure?

I don't see how they can be applied to the system. Will they have a permanent residence in the gold/classic section?