Applications to create playerworlds.
 

I never saw this discussed before, so I decided to give it a shot. What does everyone think of Graalians having to apply to be able to create a playerworld? It's a known fact that there are very very many UC servers, and that developers are running thin amongst them, which results in bad things for them. A lot of the UC servers I've seen are a waste of space, and have absolutely no chance of becoming hosted whatever.

The pros and cons I see are..

Pro(s):
- With less UC servers, the developers will be less thinned out, meaning servers with competent Management will be more likely to be dev'd.
- Apparently, the spam of UC servers can cause occasional lag to other servers? I'm not sure about this, but it's a rumor I picked up.. So basically, if it's true, there'd be less lag, I guess.

Con(s):
- It kind of takes away from the whole "PLAYERS CAN EASILY DEVELOP THEIR OWN GAME!!!" bit.
- Graal would lose money selling less useless servers, which probably means we'd have to pay more Euros to buy accounts :[

An application would most likely ask about the Manager/Owner's past experiances in developing, their development skills, the server plans/ideas, and who they'd already have working for them, and what they are capable of.

Not sure if it's a good or bad idea, so I was wondering what others thought.

Lag? Just use the money to upgrade the server machines.

And if they are new to Graal? :rolleyes:

I disagree. If someone wants to create a playerworld, they should be allowed to. CJ makes more money this way anyway, so it won't change.

Maybe applications for someone who can't afford to buy a server, though.

I agree.

Problem is, if they start putting standards into purchasing a server then there will be probably no UC servers. Meaning no income, meaning raised prices for those who don't want to own a server(the players).

I don't know about you guys but I see the reliance on UC servers for money as a short-term "solution". If you think about it, the chances of many quality developers coming together to work on a solid server are reduced due to the massive amounts of UC playerworlds. Quality developers have been more split up than they used to be in, say, 2002 (by quality I do mean in their time, not necessarily today).

If the number of UC servers were drastically reduced I could see more developers, let alone quality ones, having to work together. I would guess this increases the chances of a quality playerworld being released. With a quality (and I mean really really really good quality) playerworld you can attract more players and have a bigger playerbase...which would mean more accounts being upgraded.

I don't know. :blush:

Crono, I asked you to help us out, you said no D: You aren't helping to fix that problem, either.

Because the way I see it, Bomy Island will have a lot more to offer in terms of both gameplay and quality than any other server. However the road to the finish is going to be very time consuming and difficult in some areas of development due to both the lack of available quality developers and motivation for lazy developers such as myself.

You will be delighted to know that we are right in the process of developing an application to create playerworlds with!!

Pshh, he didn't talk about dev tools and that kinda stuff, Ben!

Well, some servers actually have hope for them, are pre-planned, have good ideas behind them, which are the type of servers I believe could pass an application.


How many people new to Graal are going to be confident enough to start a server?


As long as Graal can attract new members by getting rid of the new website design and making ob mode better for trials to enjoy the game while they can, then yeah, that could happen.

You'd be rolling the dice on that one. The problem is, on Graal, people just don't work well together. Back before you could buy servers and UC servers were a lot less frequent, notable projects were far and few between. Forcing people to work together isn't gonna solve anything.

Exactly. Some servers... it's not many, and having an income relying on the hopes that kids will have some good ideas and planning and buy the server is a pretty unreliable source of income. Simply, you're taking their income and slicing it down to probably 1/10 by being picky.

It's a good idea in theory, but beggars(Graal) can't be choosers. Even if this were to work, do you think Graal would cut quantity for quality?

Well, they don't HAVE to work together, but if there are less UC servers to choose from, then the Devs will usually end up working together on the server(s) of their choice. And no, judging by what I've seen, Graal's management will not take quality over quantity..

They will have to work together because I doubt less than half of the UC servers have the capability to properly plan out a server. Thus, you'll probably have 10 or so servers for people to work at... virtually forcing people to work together. This causes tons of drama because putting that many developers together is just asking for trouble.

You make it too strict, and then you have very few servers. You make it too lenient and you have a minor inconvenient of having servers fill out a template of what, how and why.

Like I said, there were a lot less projects back in the day before you paid for a server... because back then you HAD to come up with a decent server to get PWA to allow you to have an UC server. So in reality, this has been done before... and there were still tons of crappy servers, and a few that were worth noting.

The money goes to personal things first.


Like bread

I actually doubt that servers like Dev GULTHEX are sapping the supply of quality developers to any marginal extent.

No, servers like Dev GULTHEX probably don't. But I speak from what I've seen both ingame and from these forums.

You know, that is really getting old, and is insulting :\

I think good developers either are doing their own playerworlds, or work on good projects. I dont see a reason for applications for playerworlds.
If an idea is good, then it might peek the interest of good developers.
That's how I see it, anyway...

The real pro to applications is that less servers = devs gathered.
There are plently of competent devs on Classic servers that appear to work together fine enough to keep the sever running, so I don't quite see it written on the walls that it will result in destructive (to the staff roster and the server) drama frequently.

You're going to have mature and immature staff wherever you go ;p

Anyways, Dusty pretty much hit the nail on the head, but it seems as though many believe Graal isn't worth it's current prices anymore, and when you inflate the prices, you should inflate the quality of the game to make people WANT to pay for it, which is why controlling the quality of the servers could be worth a shot.

I'm not necesscarily saying yes or no to it, myself, but sometimes a business may need to take risks to survive ;o

I asked a nice question, and my response was, in short, "Shut up, you're paying for my food". He could've at least been polite and explained he wasn't in the best of financial positions, or just ignored me, or made a witty comeback.

People might have to, or work on some other server, in the future, since Stefan doesn't want to develop/improve offline tools.

Yeah, it's ridiculous.
Players develop his game, he should at least develop/update our tools z.z

I don't think it's a good idea just because it would take away too much money from the game. Stefan makes the majority of his income from playerworlds, not player accounts. Or atleast half.. ;x

The reason most people like graal is because it's developed and run by the players, for the most part it is anyway. Taking the ability to make your own playerworld away, no matter how crappy, would take away from it's spark imo. :mad:

Some players might not be as talented or creative, but it takes time to learn. There really is no other way to learn to script other than buying a server so unless Stefan plans on making a gs2 editor, that would actually slim down the number of new developers aswell.


Maybe the PWAs could give server stars to rate how good they are based on content already developed and the future plans that they have for the server. Aswell as maybe telling what they already have done. Obviously, there are way too many playerworlds to get to them all, and some (the bad) servers might not agree to it. But at the owner's request they could inspect the server every, say 6 months. ^^

It would help developers choose which servers to work for so they aren't just wasting their time with some dead end project and could instead work on a well thought out one with other good developers.


Though I guess it shouldn't be that hard for you to figure out if it's going to be a waste of time or not for yourself. :p

I don't think most people on Graal develop servers, but a lot do, yeah. Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't Graal's most appealing features it's community and .. well.. used to be when you could pay just 26 dollars and play for life...

You can learn to script with the GS1 features in the level editor. I was talking about scripting with a friend once, and he said that a lot of GS1 scripters just learned to convert from GS1 to GS2, so perhaps they could start out with GS1, then learn how GS2 works. I think Twinny has a good guide on GS2.


I don't know, I personally like how UC servers can gain global attention through the login screen. That's a good way to tell which servers are up and coming (for a UC server, that is).

Yeah.

I believe I've seen this discussion before, I just can't remember the thread.
Anyway, I think if they're willing to pay for it, they should be allowed to have one. People could want it for practice, fun, or just to have a place to call their own.

I think most know how to atleast do something. Either LAT, GAT, or NAT. Maybe they don't do it on a staff team, but they make their own things and get them uploaded to the server. I wasn't referring to just developing when I said that's the reason they play. It's the way everything is playerbased. Being able to be a PR staff even if you can't develope, being able to upload your own houses, heads, etc.. Most people who have played for a while have been staff before, and most people who just starting playing look up to and want to be those staff. There's over 100 servers, so a pretty big portion of people do make their own server if you compare that to how many people actually play.


Don't most people want to hire staff who script in gs2, not gs1? It seems pretty pointless to have to learn gs1 in order to be able to learn gs2 anyway. :\



Yeah, but it would be nice to be able to see them all instead of waiting for a new update. There are other servers worth working on other than just those.

YEAH! >_<

GS2 is more similar to C#, C++, or Java than GS1.

No! GS1 corrupts your mind! Once there was this guy who learned GS1. When he tried to learn about other languages, he went insane. There was also another one, a professional programmer, his head literally exploded just looking at GS1.

Wow, this must have been planned out by Stefan and Unix!

"Let's create a crappy GS1 scripting language and let it become the primary scripting language for awhile.. then we'll unleash GS2 and watch the insanity begin.."

I actually went dizzy looking at a GS1 script. However, I'm not a professional programmer.

gs1 is perfectly fine programming language, you are all crazy :confused:

I can see massive similarities between Java and GS2, to be honest.

Java is all about its object model which is very different from Graal's. Java is all static typing and inheritance and inner classes and stuff.

It's what I thought at first glance.

Anyway, I'd love for Graal to have REAL classes and inheritance and stuff.

ECMA-script is more or less JavaScript.