Boosting Playercount
 

Hello all,
I have been thinking about this a lot lately. I don't know about you but I miss the good days when Graal PC had a huge player base. I have composed of three ideas to boost the player count, all advertise based in a way.

Idea 1

Steam Play.
For those who do not know what steam is, it's a large app store for the PC where you can buy and download a lot of xbox and ps3 games, along with solo made PC games.
How does this help? putting Graal on the Steam Store will guarantee people will see it. Now what would be cool is if Graal had steam play. (Execute Graal Client off of the steam Library game list.)



Idea 2

Windows 8 app Store
For those who do not have Windows 8, It's pretty cool. There is an App store, much like the Apple app store, where you can buy and download games. And a lot of stuff on there is free.
I have explored the app store front and back, and there really isn't an good online games on there. If Stefan puts the download on there soon, I guarantee people will download it in a heart beat.



Idea 3

MMO Hut
MMOhut.com is a website that has just about every free MMORPG out there. They also do reviews and updates. But the real viewer count is on there youtube channel.
If we can get one of the guys to do a video review for graal and get that on youtube, publicity would sky-rocket.

Won't work with the current model.

Idea 4

Reasonable subscription pricing

Perhaps go in depth?

Idea 4.1
Take subscribing off

Idea 5

Actually want Playercount to be boosted on PC Graal.

You don't want it up/?

idea 6:
worthwhile content

we can do this all day bro

If that was the case I would have the balls to admit it, and wouldn't be pretending otherwise or deliberately misleading people as they make a lot of effort.

I've had a lot of people give kudos for the content Classic has produced over the last few years, but at the end of day, trials log out in frustration when they enter observer mode (or realise there's few players, which also has a lot to do with restrictions and pricing), and Graal's owner(s) openly say this is the goal.

I think the Windows 8 App Store would be a great start. But, doesn't that require it to be Intel/ARM compatible? Would be neat to play Graal on a tablet plus the App Store would help advertise it greatly.

Not true, I would play Graal the Adventure (Classic) but I have already beaten that game. I have finished all quest's. Maxed my bomb.. If other people had reason to stay online maybe I could score a TCG match or event.. I religiously pay for Graal on multiple accounts. We get it your mad at the owners and your taking it out on the rest of us who pay for Graal.. Don't know what WE did to piss you off but thanks for how you treat us.

I think you're missing the point here. The purpose of this thread appears to be aimed towards attracting a new audience, you'd played through on an account which was upgraded prior to visiting Classic.

As things stand, a new player is having to pay a price for 12 months of Gold which is comparable if not greater than a new Zelda console game release, it would be ridiculous to think that many would pay such a price for Graal before they've even tried the game, and unrealistic to expect anyone to develop a server as extensive as LTTP with no incentives and a prohibitive payment scheme.
In the case of Classic, those new players who do try the game tend to have had their 5 hours "free time" used up elsewhere, even on servers where observer mode is disabled.

It's important to consider that Classic is supposed to revolve strongly around Questing and Competition, not things like grinding or leveling up stats. While questing, the effects of observer mode go beyond mere frustration, it has disrupted staff's ability to provide a trial with help, and in an indefinite number of ways can bug a trial to such an extent they can no longer progress, the solution being to reconnect, and endure another bout of waiting.

In terms of competition, we haven't allowed trials into events because of the disruption observer mode would cause, there isn't even a way to determine a trial's remaining "free time". Then there's the trading card game, which tends to last more than 5 minutes, which if you're a trial makes it difficult to avoid entering OM mid game.
Even if I were to release a mini-game or two as a form of grinding as part an economy, trials would still end up prohibited.

The one thing most people seem to agree on is that players attract players, and I know other servers have different circumstances, but had trials not been on the receiving end of such torment then it's conceivable that upgraded players would have greater reason to stick around. The 2 weeks of free gold was far from anything special in terms of numbers, yet a clear sign of how things can click if allowed to.

This thread is about attracting new players. And windows 8 would make a great start and alternative to paying to maybe be added to Steam or any other form of advertisment. You have 3 major competitors in the PC world... Windows, Mac, and Linux.. we already have Mac covered with the App Store (but not for pc's I dont think?) there is nothing in the lines of Windows except a website.. and same with Linux (until Android release) because yes, Andriod's are based off the Linux Kernal.

The point is you want Trials to be F2P... and instead of screwing them over you now want those of us who pay for graal to get nothing extra. You want US to be screwed for paying $60+ a year.. thanks man you really care about us.. We can't even start from scratch and work on Classic (GTA) ourselves.. that would be like saying I want to make Era so lets clone it.. it would never be released.. You wont develop anything new yet you wont let us do it.. you took something historic and screwed ALL OF US.

Actually I upgraded just to be able to play Classic on a second account since I had already completed ALL quest's on my lifetime account.

Those are infact not "new" new players but old new players who probably had accounts created prior to the release of Classic. Not really a fair comparison.

Yeah I understand that but we (everyone on Graal) completed ALL of the quests prior to it's release with promises that there would be no further updates to Classic and that you gave up on Graal why should we play with an attitude like that?

Trials aren't suspose to be allowed into event's as it is.. Congratulations on following the rules :) And correct me if I am wrong but the mines are located south of the bridge "Mine Entry West". So even if the "map restriction" for Trials were implimented and eliminating the Observer Mode that your throwing a huge fit about trials would be able to do the first quest, get card's and play with others, mine (maybe craft things or buy things or potential for a side quest aside from the main storyline?).

Yeah but we beat Classic, saw the end credits and everything. We have to move on to a server whom cares about those of us that do pay for graal. We pay, we deserve more then those who do not pay.

Kind of a bold statement there to say that every new player that tries Classic isn't actually new, no? :asleep: I know that at least in the case of UN, we do get a few new players who hear about us from iPhone classic, even a very few that pay the subscription price and stick.

Nobody is arguing against that, but the difference has to be within reason. Right now, on the servers that weren't lucky/smart enough to jump in with Zod and Era and get observer mode removed, the people who pay or have paid a long time ago get to play the game normally. Those who don't pay have to deal with a restriction that makes the game essentially unplayable. The game is only fun with players. And obviously, the more players there are, the more chance there is that some of them decide to pay.

Again speaking from UN's perspective, if we were given any opportunity to set up some sort of system that allowed us to either give paying players some sort of a bonus or force some more reasonable restrictions on trials in exchange for the removal of observer mode, I would start work on it immediately. Got plenty of ideas that I think could work, if anyone cared would list them! We'll never be allowed to do this though because we don't have the trust of management, and we'll never get that trust because management isn't interested in having any sort of relationship with us.

Well, talking to thor a week or 2 ago.. maybe even 3.. he said they were offered OBS to be removed.. but they had to block the bridge leading to the north side of the map off from trials.. talking a little longer he changed his story to no it was not an offer it was a for sure thing being forced down there throats..

Once iZone is on PC Graal I would expect since it's already a Gold server that incentive to upgrade to gold would be lessened by the desire to actually upgrade due to higher player counts. First zone, then Era.. not sure on Classic since there almost 2 completely different projects.. that would push Era up to Gold with Zone.. and if Tig ever worked on iGK it would too be Gold already.. so that would put your top 3 servers into Gold.. incentive to actually upgrade.

You also failed to mention GK doesnt have OBS mode too.. its not just Era and Zodiac and GK isn't thriving like everyone claims would happen with removal of OBS mode.. -_- so your gonna need a stronger argument then just remove obs mode.

UN had a pretty obvious player count increase when we had the two weeks of free gold. One player even made ET lol, though he then quit when he went back to being a trial.

GK is hurt by being on the Gold list. The Classic servers have a base of players with Classic accounts. Not many people are willing to pay for Gold, so GK doesn't have a huge base of players with Gold accounts. Players attract players. If I see a list of servers, I'm most like to go on the ones that have people on them before I go on those that have few, esp when it's obvious before you even log in you are going to have to pay to play them properly.

Edit:
Also, you seem to think that people would upgrade if Era and Zod were made into Gold servers. I think it's far more likely Classic players from those servers would just quit. If UN was made into a Gold server I absolutely wouldn't play it anymore.

oh no.. i think if era merged with iEra and became a gold server that people would upgrade.. BIG difference there (about 1200 difference)..

also GK is full blown unrestricted with the exception of Levels (and you can't join a kingdom)... which most people don't use kingdoms.. and it's extreamly hard for a trial to achieve level 10 on there own.. like jaw dropping hard without someone power leveling you. while lifetime from being playerworld rather then gold would help it wouldnt help it enough to lets say even equal UN.. and it would have by far less restrictions then UN.. maybe you could explain that?