GServer

[mastervampire]

I know there's a lot of buisness reason why this is a bad idea, but we should get GServer back in the next update, the way I see it there would be a lot less people trying to get test servers online before they have any decent levels if they could just test the stuff out themselves in an online format. Especially with the NPC commands, though i have no idea how you could possibly make NPC server stuff work in gserver, but hell, if it can be done I say try!

[mikepg]

i think the main reason a new Gserver isnt released anymore is due to the p2p aspects of it. If Mr. Knorr did that, then he'd lose all value of graal what so ever. Everyone could have their own server using p2p commands and everything. Graal would go bank rupt.

[WHIPENIE4]

[screen_name says:]

then stefan should release the gserver with a limit of 2 to 4 people, that way you could test the scripts without taking away Graal's business

[grim_squeaker_x]

No, not because of the reason that it would take away business from Graal, but because it could potentially be used by hackers (Or, I should say, trainer makers) to see how information is stored and retrieved by the GServer, and if you know that it makes creating trainers much much easier.

[Saga2001]

it would be nice to make a mini release, that has all the version includes, but i think it would be useless, also it would have to be like qa local thing, and how would you go to it from just your computer? what like another option? online mode, offline mode, and semi-online mode? i don't think so, it would be good for script testing tho...

[AlexH]

a new gserver (one abouve 2.##) will never be released
stefan wouldlose too much miney

[Faheria_GP2]

maybe a network based multi-player mode?

so you could play over a network?

that would be quite nice...

[Juron Pilo]

gserver hath died... let it STAY dead... I don't want to hear about what I can't have anymore comprende?

[Mortur]

What would be best, is a limited server, one where you can only let like 5 people max on it, so you can test your scripts. i know personally, i am having a lot of problems testing out my online scripts without having a working world... and none of the old gservers will work with the advanced scripting i am doing. there should be a gserver lite or somethin...

[Tyhm]

Except that every hacker who's ever been "disrespected" by Graal's constant failure to cater to their every whim has been aching for the release of a new GServer for the sole purpose of reverse-engineering it, upping the "Player Limit" constant from 5 to 16737, and opening their own 1337 super-saiyajin my-rejected-levels-0wn world.

I mean, just look at what Mafukie did with the NW leak.

"Fear leads to anger, anger leads to suffereing...no wait....anger leads to fear, fear leads to....no wait...first you get the sugar, then you get the money..."-Xander, Buffy

[Poogle]

.

[Tyhm]

Yeah, but how are you gonna make it P2P? Force all servers to get authentication from graalonline.com on startup? No good, someone'll hotwire it.

[Solareon]

Originally posted by Tyhm
Yeah, but how are you gonna make it P2P? Force all servers to get authentication from graalonline.com on startup? No good, someone'll hotwire it.

if the gserver did come back so people could tinker with p2p commands it would be local only and it would have built in crc checking (IE like half life, if you haxor it is get's fuxored) and then it sends pgp style keys to exchange with the graalonline server to get authorization to run it. I imagine also that the pgp keys it sends aren't gonna be cracked like hot knife through butter. I forget the way pgp works but it doubt that most trainer makers (who btw use programs to make the trainers they just feed them some hex numbers and it churns out a proggie) Stefan could also design it to only host a couple of levels and like 4 people max (since that is prolly the most anything that is added to graal will ever have, being that CS and Survivor reign supreme). Humm I think I am bored now

~lalalalala

[kp_p2p]

Originally posted by Tyhm
their own 1337 super-saiyajin my-rejected-levels-0wn world.

hah, you make all hackers to be inferior and stupid... you probably couldnt do half the **** they can... not all hackers like dbz, and many are very good level makers, you're a very pessismistic (sp?) person aren't you tyhm?

[kp_p2p]

and they are aching for a release because they have no more servers to play on cuz u all ban em too fast

[Tyhm]

I present the 1337 hax0r, ladies and gentlemen.

[kp_p2p]

theres another injustice, thinking people are hackers when they take the side of them. those ppl want gserver too.

[AlexH]

Once upon a time there was GServer.
Then came better sctipting commands and an idea. And that idea was p2p.
Due to these changes GServer died.
The End.

[Tyhm]

Maybe if it was wired in such a way that the game server would be impossible to find without going through Graalonline.com....like, you connect to GO, it lists your server and unlocks it with a huge password, like 100 characters, randomly generated each time and shared between servers. Anyone connecting directly via GO has the password entered for them, anyone else has to manually enter it. If someone's trying to hack into their own server to get the 100 character password it'd shut down, failing that they could email it to their buddies...ideally it'd have to be more trouble than it's worth to go the illegal route though....

[mastervampire]

That Tyhm is a good damn idea, though I can forsee problems (with the type of hacker that just likes to piss people off) repeatedly attempting to get a test server's code just to crash that server and mess up the people's testing :grrr:

[grim_squeaker_x]

Originally posted by Solareon


if the gserver did come back so people could tinker with p2p commands it would be local only and it would have built in crc checking (IE like half life, if you haxor it is get's fuxored) and then it sends pgp style keys to exchange with the graalonline server to get authorization to run it. I imagine also that the pgp keys it sends aren't gonna be cracked like hot knife through butter. I forget the way pgp works but it doubt that most trainer makers (who btw use programs to make the trainers they just feed them some hex numbers and it churns out a proggie) Stefan could also design it to only host a couple of levels and like 4 people max (since that is prolly the most anything that is added to graal will ever have, being that CS and Survivor reign supreme). Humm I think I am bored now

~lalalalala

The problem is that it's possible to originally just remove the security (or the security's security etc.)and then just change it anyway.

[Edit]
Nevermind, I missed the server authentication part.
[/Edit]

[Tyhm]

Yeah, like it wouldn't be enough to have the server's IP to login, you'd need the authentication handshake from the GO server, which is based on server IP, accountname, and the randomly generated key shared between host and server...

[Saga2001]

actually i was thinking about making offline mode like a gserver that can't brodcast, like u know. so that it wouldn't add to the playerlist, can you imagine how long the server list would be if you let everyone's server list?! omg! because i know i get irritated with testing things online so he should make it the same enviroment, and have fake players to make sure it works with multi players. cause it would be stupid to let people have a gserver of their own.

[WHIPENIE4]

[screen_name says:]

make the gserver be released and coded that it will shutdown if someone tries to hack it, and only allow a 4 player limit to it

or just make people have to pay for the gserver

[Tyhm]

we have been heard

[Oladahn]

Heard?

[iniquitus]

Eventually, SOMEONE will write a clone of Graal and make it Open Sourced and GPLed, then there will be no money maters involved, and everyone will have the source code.

Don't try and tell me "That would never work, it'd be hacked the first day." Because Open Source usualy leads to beter security, if Graal's network layer were writen with some inteligence and knowledge of security, Graal wouldn't be hacked at all. If I were Stefan instead of working on making a cool 3D world that can't even be called a "RPG" I would try to fix the problems with the old Graal first. If you don't take the time to fix the little problems, they add up and your left with a big problem, usualy requireing a complete re-write, and by that time, the code gets so massive that you want to put off a re-write because it's "too much work". And what ever happened to releasing Graal on diferent platforms? LINUX CYBERJOURES, the company that owns graal, doesnt even have a LINUX client. Maybe it's the whole "use the latest Tech. buzz word" thing. And what about a Mac client?

I can alredy name 3 Open Source projects, witch I wont name here in respect to Stefan's request that we not promote compeating products, that are alredy where Graal was a year ago, and the projects are only a few months old... How many years has Graal been in development? Hmm...


with Graal 2002, I'd rather be playing Quake or something, if I wanted a more 3d gaming environment with servers that are just endless PKing I'd go jump on a real game. After all... The weapons on Q3A look so much cooler

Part of the charm of Graal was the old SNES Zelda feel to it. There are only a few issues that could EAISLY be fixed, but are negelected. If Stefan would concentrate on fixing the issues with Graal, instead of re-creating the game, it would probly have a chance. Graal's software is feature-rich enough to make a very very Beautiful gaming world. Instead you neglect Classic, witch USED to be a fun place until AP and the levels started getting far too cluttered and ugly... and create VERY BORING and TEDIOUS job's on 2001 that are not even the slightest bit fun because it requires too much time and effort to get any money, and everything on the server is based on money.

People want a story line, and help to follow it. The dont want a bunch of random un-related quests to get items that they dont really use. Magic and mystery are what makes a game fun to play, Graal 2001 became too 20th century with the "car's" and rail-roads et. al. New World almost showed some promiss if it would actualy be DOING something, and the author of the software would be devoting more time to making it work.

Just my Rant. Sorry if I'm in a bad mood, one of my friends just killed himself.

[G_yoshi]

Originally posted by iniquitus
Eventually, SOMEONE will write a clone of Graal and make it Open Sourced and GPLed, then there will be no money maters involved, and everyone will have the source code.

Don't try and tell me "That would never work, it'd be hacked the first day." Because Open Source usualy leads to beter security, if Graal's network layer were writen with some inteligence and knowledge of security, Graal wouldn't be hacked at all. If I were Stefan instead of working on making a cool 3D world that can't even be called a "RPG" I would try to fix the problems with the old Graal first. If you don't take the time to fix the little problems, they add up and your left with a big problem, usualy requireing a complete re-write, and by that time, the code gets so massive that you want to put off a re-write because it's "too much work". And what ever happened to releasing Graal on diferent platforms? LINUX CYBERJOURES, the company that owns graal, doesnt even have a LINUX client. Maybe it's the whole "use the latest Tech. buzz word" thing. And what about a Mac client?

I can alredy name 3 Open Source projects, witch I wont name here in respect to Stefan's request that we not promote compeating products, that are alredy where Graal was a year ago, and the projects are only a few months old... How many years has Graal been in development? Hmm...


with Graal 2002, I'd rather be playing Quake or something, if I wanted a more 3d gaming environment with servers that are just endless PKing I'd go jump on a real game. After all... The weapons on Q3A look so much cooler

Part of the charm of Graal was the old SNES Zelda feel to it. There are only a few issues that could EAISLY be fixed, but are negelected. If Stefan would concentrate on fixing the issues with Graal, instead of re-creating the game, it would probly have a chance. Graal's software is feature-rich enough to make a very very Beautiful gaming world. Instead you neglect Classic, witch USED to be a fun place until AP and the levels started getting far too cluttered and ugly... and create VERY BORING and TEDIOUS job's on 2001 that are not even the slightest bit fun because it requires too much time and effort to get any money, and everything on the server is based on money.

People want a story line, and help to follow it. The dont want a bunch of random un-related quests to get items that they dont really use. Magic and mystery are what makes a game fun to play, Graal 2001 became too 20th century with the "car's" and rail-roads et. al. New World almost showed some promiss if it would actualy be DOING something, and the author of the software would be devoting more time to making it work.

Just my Rant. Sorry if I'm in a bad mood, one of my friends just killed himself.

The way of future gaming is 3D. Yes, 2D games are fun and all, but there a ton of advantages that 3D games have over 2D

[Tyhm]

IMHO, Graal doesn't stand a chance in the 3d market, because it'd be up against Zelda64. It would have to suddenly, with a one-man development team, be at least as good as MM - and fast. But since it'd be direct competition, it'd have to be BETTER than whatever the next Zelda game is. Bear in mind: One programmer here, five thousand programmers there scurrying to save the 'cube. And a dwindling credit line here - a billion dollar warchest there. If you go head to head with Nintendo, you will lose. Unless Nintendo files Chapter11 and goes out of business, THEN there might be a slim chance.

Go Retro. It's why I play Graal at all. Maybe it's because Z3 was still echoing when I started. Maybe it's because I'm still addicted to FF6 (bebbies). Maybe todays' gamers don't dig retro, but I still see it as better than trying to shoehorn into the 3D world with old tech.


If you're determined to go 3D though, use the Tribes 3 engine. Or whatever engine that was Terazel showed me. Use NEW tech. You'll lose the charm regardless, but at least you'll get the eyecandy.

[G_yoshi]

How is going with Nintendo a loss?

[konidias]

I have to agree, Stefan should have never started work on 2k2.. he should have focused that time and effort on improving all the things that need improving..

I don't think 3-D is the way to go, because personally, it completely destroys the old way of making levels and graphics.. plus it takes the old-school fun out of it.. I don't like 2k2 at all.. it just doesn't feel like the game I played when I paid for an upgrade.

Stefan should have enhanced 2k1 with more features (not 3d ground)

I can't stress this enough.. if stefan would make Graal so that tiles could overlap the player in layers, Graal would be improved SO much from it.

Do you realize how awesome it is to be able to walk BEHIND a big house or tree, without having to come on the level and wait for the npc images to load? It would bring a whole new aspect into level editing.. now instead of walking over that one line of tree top tiles, they would overlap the character.. then you could make tunnels, walls with doorways the player "walks through", houses and objects the player can walk behind, without having any npc images to load.

Another feature would be to finally fix the custom tileset, then people could make animated water tiles, and trust me, animated tiles don't lag as much as stefan leads on.. I was on Unholy Nation, walked into a house, and there was hundreds of animated flowers, and they didn't lag anything AT ALL.

Just imagine having water that MOVED, tall grass that seemed to have wind blowing through as they move, even plants and flowers that move (like the flowers do now) It would make the environment so much cooler.

[G_yoshi]

Originally posted by konidias
I have to agree, Stefan should have never started work on 2k2.. he should have focused that time and effort on improving all the things that need improving..

I don't think 3-D is the way to go, because personally, it completely destroys the old way of making levels and graphics.. plus it takes the old-school fun out of it.. I don't like 2k2 at all.. it just doesn't feel like the game I played when I paid for an upgrade.

Stefan should have enhanced 2k1 with more features (not 3d ground)

I can't stress this enough.. if stefan would make Graal so that tiles could overlap the player in layers, Graal would be improved SO much from it.

Do you realize how awesome it is to be able to walk BEHIND a big house or tree, without having to come on the level and wait for the npc images to load? It would bring a whole new aspect into level editing.. now instead of walking over that one line of tree top tiles, they would overlap the character.. then you could make tunnels, walls with doorways the player "walks through", houses and objects the player can walk behind, without having any npc images to load.

Another feature would be to finally fix the custom tileset, then people could make animated water tiles, and trust me, animated tiles don't lag as much as stefan leads on.. I was on Unholy Nation, walked into a house, and there was hundreds of animated flowers, and they didn't lag anything AT ALL.

Just imagine having water that MOVED, tall grass that seemed to have wind blowing through as they move, even plants and flowers that move (like the flowers do now) It would make the environment so much cooler.

I have animated grass tiles on Doragon Koden.

As for tile layers, I think NW can do that :x

[Kasuagi]

Originally posted by konidias
I have to agree, Stefan should have never started work on 2k2.. he should have focused that time and effort on improving all the things that need improving..

I don't think 3-D is the way to go, because personally, it completely destroys the old way of making levels and graphics.. plus it takes the old-school fun out of it.. I don't like 2k2 at all.. it just doesn't feel like the game I played when I paid for an upgrade.

Stefan should have enhanced 2k1 with more features (not 3d ground)

I can't stress this enough.. if stefan would make Graal so that tiles could overlap the player in layers, Graal would be improved SO much from it.

Do you realize how awesome it is to be able to walk BEHIND a big house or tree, without having to come on the level and wait for the npc images to load? It would bring a whole new aspect into level editing.. now instead of walking over that one line of tree top tiles, they would overlap the character.. then you could make tunnels, walls with doorways the player "walks through", houses and objects the player can walk behind, without having any npc images to load.

Another feature would be to finally fix the custom tileset, then people could make animated water tiles, and trust me, animated tiles don't lag as much as stefan leads on.. I was on Unholy Nation, walked into a house, and there was hundreds of animated flowers, and they didn't lag anything AT ALL.

Just imagine having water that MOVED, tall grass that seemed to have wind blowing through as they move, even plants and flowers that move (like the flowers do now) It would make the environment so much cooler.

exactly, some people worked hard on g2k1 and don't wanna just lose their stuff and move to a new server and guess what?

let the same thing happen to that server, crazyness. I won't be playing g2k2, I'll be waiting for the other good p2p servers (murasasmamsnamamune, faheria, and more)

[Tyhm]

Going AGAINST Nintendo is an INEVITABLE loss. You gotta pick your battles. There's no competition in the retro market, but if you wanna go 3D, you're gonna be up against DOA3, FFX...

[GrowlZP2P]

I tried the G2K2 preview for about five minutes and, while the initial novelty of psuedo-3D Graal was interesting at first, let's be honest here: if you want to play 3D games, buy a good computer. What Graal has right now is people who like it BECAUSE of its similarities to Zelda LOTP, and its opportunities to make your own worlds, challenges, weapons. Other engines do 3D better than Graal, and we have a good (good as in great) 2D system here, why change it?

[iniquitus]

Yup. The entire reason Graal is a desireable game is the fact that it's a good light-weight, old-school game. Maybe I'm just getting old, but I really don't see stefan pulling Graal2002 off like he hopes, and I think it's a shame that Graal is taking this course. I attempted to contact Stefan about buying licenceing for GServer 1.39 or something, (when the wrote the GServer to run on Linux) so some friends and I could put togeather our own server thats not advertised to the masses of Graal (To attempt to keep it from becoming a PKing frensy like Graal has become.) and run it on my own server, but he never responded to me. (The PM was shown as read in tracking.) I was kinda pissed that he wouldn't even acknowledge me about it considering I was willing to pay a nice amount of money for the licencing. Now I've cooled off a bit. But I still miss the days of pre-AP when Graal was actualy fun and the players were nice. (No comments about "Go on Val or something" please... The server sucks.) It's really too bad. I mean, here's a game for kids and I sign on to Graal Classic or 2001 and see nicks like "A@s F$%ker" and see people saying stuff like "I'll F&uc^ you up Bit^&", like I said, if you wanta game like that, go play Quake or something... it's really disgusting. If I had a child I wouldn't want him/her playing Graal untill he/she were 16 or something.

Some features that I talked about for Graal right now include:

Beter Chat/PM system. (When people go offline, you should still be able to read a message they sent you; beter UI etc...)

Beter Security. (Perhaps Write a new protocal for Graal and use SSL or something, with KEY's that need to be obtained from the server and such.)

The Tile Layering was an execelent Idea.

Keep the Lighting Effects, they look cool.

Add an Animation engine where you can do stuff like Movies (without huge buggy NPC's) and do animations of stuff like going down stairs and such (like in Zelda3) or perhaps make it so you can make a beter zooming system where as the player goes down the stairs he gets smaller or something.

Loose Automaping. It's stupid, and just encourages lazyness in Level Makers (take a look at all the disgusting playerworlds out there.)

And other things that improve game play.

Moving to PNG for images was a good move.

Above all... The software is not the problem here, somone needs to organise people, and work on developing a world. Write a simple Story. Make a simple Map. Then hand it over to your top level makers (Like Thym, and possible Todd (Fox) may be interested in helping now that he's handed Rudora over to Duthight.) The Lighting effects, and NPC scripting capibilities can really make some gorgeous magic and a very nice game play. The idea of Job's isn't bad, but the game shouldnt be focused on it, it shouldnt take DAYS to earn enough to buy one item, etc... It gets old fast.

Again, maybe I'm just old. If anyone else thinks that this should happen instead of moving towards a "3d" world. Maybe we should start a petition?

[email protected]

[Tyhm]

Maybe Classic should be mirrored...
like another server just has an alias levels folder that routes to Classic, but it'd be the Newbie Server or Oldbie Server or something. Give it a bizzarre name nobody'd look for, pass it off as a different server so most people just click on Classic and go to it, but if you want some downtime, or you wanna hold a quiet game, go to C2.

*shrugs* Too much bandwidth for the draw though, I suppose.

[iniquitus]

I wish I could talk to Stefan, I have servers at difrent co-locations like RackSpace (rackspace.com) with insain amounts of bandwidth... I'd love to host/help run a gserver.

[Faheria_GP2]

doesn't server stuff go to unixmad?

PM him, we could use less lag

[Secret_Agent]

Whats the point of hacking lel graal it's so retarted also we should have a g server for only 2 or 3 people