Why are these things still implemented?
 

Sincerely, I'm just wondering.

I understand that there have been many attempts and people are still working to get Zone back up on its feet, but it makes no sense to me that the features that drove many of the players away, are still here. Such as:
-Increasingly poor support for trial/non-pay players. These are possible new subscribers, and should be your MAIN priority at the moment
-Redaction of permanent basic weapons/items such as Jet-pack
-Removal of "laming" and "game breaking" options that some people did not favor
-New Worlds

These are all great, if you had an active player-base. But Zone doesn't. It has a 0-7 player count at all times, topping at 20 when people who play on other servers feel like getting a nostalgia high or seeing what it is. And if anyone does want to join, the completely unfriendliness to beginners/trials immediately puts them off. To be honest, if I didn't have my old stats and history with this game, I would never even sign on anymore.

Keep the gelat system, I know that the game needs whatever money it can get to stay alive. That, or look into ad-revenue to help dumb sub costs. There are almost no ads on the Graal homepage, in game, or anything. Its admirable, but this isn't WoW or an NCsoft game. Its a small indie online game.

I have read tons of threads with the same "bring back perm weapons/temp guilds etc etc" but it remains the same.

Its just idiocy to keep features that NEED A PLAYER POPULATION TO ACTUALLY WORK OUT, on a empty server.

-Make the basic rifles (red/blue) and jet-pack permanent for zone cash. If you new players have items permanently, maybe they'll stick around to USE THEM.
-Bring back cookies. I don't care if they're abused, not every beginner is as good as you or me. The best game times I ever had were times I stayed alive for longer periods. No one likes trekking back to the same spot to just die over and over. This is why games have healing.
-Hotkeys Hotkeys Hotkeys! These should be standard for everyone. Its a game staple, it may make abuse easier, but its dumb not to have them. It shouldn't be a pay factor. Never. If you want it to be a P2P service, make it free to all but enhance it for payers.
-Keep the Gelat system up. Just make some of the items that shouldn't be Gelat items (explosives, simple weapons, etc) non-Gelat again.
-Instead of basic weapons being for-pay only, make GOOD DEALS for Gelats. Like a super big pack of explosives that would save you tons of zone money. If someone is in the middle of the game and really wants more pipes/proxies, and they see an option for like $2 to get 100-300, instead of spending all their money they use for food on them, they might just spend $2. Make the very best weapons like 100k zone money, but only $4-5 on gelats. People pay for TIME savers, but hate when something is restricted to pay. This also gives incentives for people with less money to play LONGER. Longer playtime = more fun. More fun = word of mouth. Word of mouth = more players. Repeat ad nauseam.
-Gelat items should be permanent. Or at least last as long as your account does. Micro-transactions aren't amazing. If I a gold subscription, you shouldn't be making me pay more.
-Gold Accounts get free gelat items. Like 5 per however many months they pay for. Since Gelats are spread out between the entire game, this would save them Gelats to use on GK or another server.
-Back to basic. Remove worlds that never get played. Instead, refine work on your best maps "Iricia + Deathmatch" and wait for players to rise. Not only will this stop the paper thin player count from spreading themselves even farther out in-game, but as players grow, its good way to "re-add" new content to give players something new.


These are just a few suggestions. Do I expect them to be heeded? No. But maybe one of you will read the opinion of a long time player who used to have tons of fun back when Zone peaked at 70-100 players.

We aren't that hard to please. Just give players INCENTIVE to play. Make some sacrifices for a little while to gain some players, and THEN drop the weights onto the server when it has the manpower and people are faithful enough to give up some cash for something you made for them to love.

That's all guys, I hope you're doing well and keeping safe. I wish you all the best of luck in whatever you're doing with life, some of you are the greatest guys. I want this game to become something again, because of what it was for me, back when I played it for hours upon hours.

Sincerely,
Luffy (Steven), a longtime player (both pay and trial) and ex. Events Team member.

If Zone has no playcount like you've said, how is it getting increasingly poor?
I'd prefer it to be left on the Grelat shop, might make the runner's mom's decide to say No for once in their lives.
Start small, work your way up. I'd rather not come back to the same Zone just with new ways to lame people.
See above.

They are all great, reguardless of playercount or not. Yes, old stats makes people stay.

No, really?

Really now? cause I totally wanna come back and just see new ways to lame people! Shut up.

Both of them suck now compared to what's in the Grelat shop, the point of adding them back in the shop is nothing.

Easy way to fix that, get better.

No. Hotkeys. Ever. They shouldn't of EVER been added to Zone.

No. They want to make a profit, making everything perm isn't going to make them money considering only the same people play Zone.
So you want gold with free perm weapons? Yeah, we're not trying to make this game too easy.
They somewhat tried this with CTF by making it smaller. Lasted less than a week.

I believe you've misunderstood. I'm not making these complaints/judgement out of what I think would make Zone a better game. No, Zone is a great game already. What I am trying to say is that if you want to make any more money at all with Zone (by the way, they probably aren't, if you haven't noticed), they need to change things.

Obviously Zone is flawed. It wouldn't have lost what player-count it did have, it would have grown.

Read my points more thoroughly. I said increasingly poor "treatment", not increasingly poor player-count.

No, this is a personal opinion. I'm caring about THE NEWBIES. They are who we should focus on and they are who needs to be catered to. If you are so good, you can kill them no matter what crutches they hand out.

Again, I'm not sure you understood. I meant those laming techniques need to be added back into the game! Yes, they are lame, but so is dying every 5 seconds in most online multiplayer shooters these days. And people LOVE them.

No, that's just dumb. If these features fit well with Zone, people would be playing Zone.

Your opinion. All games should start out easy. All online games should reward paying customers, it establishes a fanbase/faith in the developer and creates repeat subscribers.

Why. This is 2010. If a game can make things more convenient, do it. This isn't game breaking, it just bothers you. I highly doubt you find it irritating that most games have hotkeys, because they are A STAPLE.

But they are still good weapons. If we went by your logic, we should remove all the weapons that "aren't as good as gelat weapons" Every game needs weapons of varied strengths.


No. You know what a first time player who keeps dying says to this? "F#$# it this sucks." Sure, you and me don't need them, THAT IS BECAUSE WE HAVE EXPERIENCE. This player will one day outgrow the need for cookies, but start him off with some!!!

I appreciate that you took the time to read my post, and that you gave your honest opinion. But you have to understand this from the perspective of somebody trying to sell a game to someone else who has never played said game before. I think one of the major problems is that many of the updates (which happen to get planned here) cater to the experienced and best players. They make the game more difficult, and try to innovate because said players are bored. But unless you take in the opinion of the common new player, you will not succeed and the game will lose followers. A unpopulated online game = a bad one.

Like I said, establish a player-base, and then update the game as said player-base deems necessary.

I know I'm basically telling you to make the game more "casual" and everyone gets !pissed! when someone even whispers that word, but casual players who get hooked onto a game will get addicted and turn into loyal players.

-Luffy

Luffy sounds so convincing, I hope it persuades the high staff as well as it swayed me.

*Liked this statement*
I always say something similar to this when I get accused of "laming" :p

I have been waiting for over five weeks, Stefan must approve some proposed content before I can continue. The biggest problem I'm facing, while I wait for his approval, is the lack of a competent scripter to create and modify new or existing systems.

It is shamefully easy to submit system outlines and proposed content... bringing it into existence on the other hand...

e: Reading over your ideas, a lot of them are dangerously short-sighted. The situation is not as desperate as you think, and making rash decisions to get a few quick players may hurt the long term growth of Zone. There's no doubt in my mind that a lot of your suggestions, while immediately effective, would do serious harm in the long term.

However, this is a natural and important step. We must get our concepts and ideas together, discuss them, highlight the most important, and prepare them for development.



List Criticism & My Opinion
Support for trial players is unchanged from the previous administration - the status before that, I am not sure of. However, that is a poor tactic. You must first practice customer retention before you try to get new customers. It's more effective to keep players you already know are playing and (most importantly) PAYING than to try to convince some new people to do that.

Not sure what you mean with "Redaction", but consider it like this - the Jetpack is probably one of the biggest sellers. Why in the name of Good GreySkull and Conan's mighty sword would we remove something so successful from the market?

Again, I realize you want new players - but shooting yourself in the foot is not a great way to start a marathon.
Laming can be really frustrating. Interesting thing is that these core and almost primal emotions (fear, anger - even frustration) help keep the game active. They draw people together as a community, and they split groups down the middle. Who doesn't like a good e-war?

What can I say? Do onto others... ;)
It is dangerously easy to let your own perception represent reality. Zone is kind of nice because you can practically log in and immediately begin pew pew pew'n. If you don't know what to do you can play monkey-see-monkey-do and follow someone.
Now we're talking. :cool:
I know when people are young they try to emphasize, "If you build it, they will come". I'm afraid that won't cut it in advertising. People accessing the Graal Online website are already at high risk of bouncing, what in the name of Glorious Mother Goose makes you think they'll say "Oh hey, look - healing magnet bracelets. That's EXACTLY what I was looking for!"
I'm a pretty big fan of "wisdom of the masses", but in this case it would certainly be wrong.
I cannot really think of a single feature like that, with the exception of Squads. I'm currently in an epic battle of email messages with Stefan to get some new development started.

Maybe you can list some? Otherwise, it sounds a lot like rhetoric.
Another instance of shooting yourself in the foot before your big university run. Sorry Chuck - I don't think you'll get that scholarship you wanted.
Cookies are one of those things that fall under laming, so I don't initially disagree with you. On the other hand, I have had the sad experience of hunting a cookie-eating-rat-faced-jerk for over 10 minutes and then getting lamed by another player before I could get the kill. Nerdrage.

Hotkeys are pretty awful in general.
Silly Rabbit, you already said that! :p
Happy to see you're throwing some love to the gelat system again, but I'm afraid you again have a big hole in your foot. We don't need to panic and throw cash into the air for everyone to grab just to make a few friends. This is the lifecycle of every server that has ever existed, it happens. We just have to figure out effective ways to work with it.

*boom* Ahg, my foot!
I'm pretty sure we already have starter packs? :confused:
I really think I am accurate when I say your approach is too rash - works in the short term, does damage in the long term. I think the quoted message above reinforces my accuracy.

I doubt anyone read the list, this is more for Luffy's sake. It's important to note that I really encourage suggestions, but it's also important to note that I maintain the privilege of deciding which are effective and which are not. Not every suggestion is going to be a block buster, and some of them will require a lot of criticism and discussion before they can be approached for implimentation. Try to keep it in mind when you are preparing to submit your suggestions. :)

I'm super glad you took the time to read my suggestions, as I know it is quite the rant and the internet tends to make people move away from long runs of text.

All your responses were very considerate and you tried your best not to be condescending.

But I'm someone who plays video games, I sell video games to other people, and I am immersed in the general world. I know you have Zone's best interest at heart but these are just idea's that I think would help Zone. Like I said in my post, As you seem convinced of their lack luster appeal, its okay. I understand. Let me just explain a few things that in my opinion, you don't seem to understand.


I completely understand this. But where would new idea's come from if no one proposed the rough sketches? These are in no way a final proposal. If I worked for Zone, that would matter. But these are player complaints, and they don't have to be top notch.

This I disagree with. If you look at most online games, the actual game content tends to be very cut/paste and unpolished. Most games that hope to even survive in the online market focus on gaining new players, and having a "decent" product to keep them in. They later improve (through patching and such) once they gain a following. I also don't understand something else. What players are you holding on to? I see 0-5 players at all times in Zone.

That made me laugh. Just saying.

Squads is a great idea. And it should be in the game. But no one is going to be in squads if no one plays the game.

Never expected anyone who is even close to the "higher ups" of Graal, or any company, to say yes to this. But its true. Go to any other online website with micropayments for weapons. Those are PERMANENT (unless you can sell them), they stay with you for as long as you want them. Not the case in Zone, and its "extremely" frustrating that I can't use Sci-Fi pistols because its ridiculous for me to keep buying them.

x_x No, they aren't. Every. Single. New. Age. Game. Has. Hotkeys. If you are so against them, maybe just weapon hotkeys. I'm seriously willing to bargain. The ability to immediately pull out a Knife/Sabre after shooting and getting close to an enemy is called "strategy", not laming.


You have a better grasp of the situation. You are the new manager and I trust you will do what you believe is best for the Zone in the long run, and I have nothing against that. But I will say it over and over, even if guys shove cotton in yo' ears: The only way for any game to survive is to actually have players. I would love to see the day when Zone had 300-400 players, hundreds across different planets, thriving squads/guilds with tons of subscribers and a new league of "olbies" to take our place.

As I said above, you are the one who knows how "desperate" the situation truly is, but my idea's were meant to be "rash". You took my entire post in as if it were a final copy of something that were to go in effect right away. No, these are just rough sketches of my ideas. And its me wondering why some of the silly things that drove players away are still in when they drove players away.

Again, thank you for reading my multiple long posts, I really appreciate you taking time to do it. You are the current manager and Zone is in your hands, and I am rooting 110% that you bring players back. If Zone gets repopulated, you'll sure as heck see me out there playing every once in awhile. These were just a few constructive complaints.

-Luffy

Personally i think the current problem Zone is having, That you need other players to play it, to have fun.. When you are alone, or with 5 people the game is boring because the most people are idling or only running..

When Zone has more players, other people log on too because it is fun with lots of players.. The problem of Zone is actually ourselfs, when we all go and play again it is alive, and we will have fun.

If I ever find a magical genie (a scripter) I want to produce some single and co-op "missions" (quests). Additionally, I hope to introduce some smart bots to maps.

Neat-o bro. I make them. I also do Marketing & Business Analysis irl. Juz sayn, amirite?
If you have a good domestic wife you have to be retarded to sleep around. That's the case here, too.

You don't go out and get new people until you know your current people are staying - otherwise you're throwing your money away.
Daz wat she sed :(
No.
Yes.

Very insightful! ;)
The problem you're describing in this thread is not with Zone. The problem is with Graal.
inorite?
Zone will probably never be as popular as it once was with Graal Online. Stefan and I are going to try it on the iPhone.

I'd like to see that yes, Would be fun if you could kept doing them.. Or make different maps of each and they keep getting harder to past (More Bots?)

Also, Why the hell iPhone? :( Just bring normal zone alive XD

Fear my blocks of text
 

It isn't always easy to remove features. To be honest, removing features helps to increase nostalgic feelings. Nostalgia is the last thing that the current Zone administration should create. For quite some time, I've seen players suggest that Zone be returned to the way it was during V4. Before that, there were suggestions to revive planets such as Alpha, and capture the flag. People are always going to want to have a things be a certain way, but that isn't going to happen. There isn't a magic reset button that will automatically create the community and feelings that made Zone great to you in the past. If features were to suddenly be removed from Zone, such as the hotkeys or Platform, there would be people who would love to see that content added back.

Your argument revolves around the things that you liked to see in the past, but I don't think the past is something that the current Zone staff should try to achieve. While you have many ideas, I think that, sadly, you are no longer in touch with the player base. I can't say I'm much better, but I think you are farther off than I. The ideas that seem appealing to you are things that the current player base has come to accept. The reason the older players, such as yourself, stopped playing was that they developed and changed and decided Graal, or Zone for that matter, wasn't the thing for them. That being said, I don't think that the tiny portion of the community that remains from the days from when you or I played should be the most heeded. The concerns of the current community should be the concern, not the people who played years ago.

To comment on specific ideas, you pointed out the increasingly poor support for trial and non-pay players. I don't think there has been a significant change in the services provided to trial or gold players. Trial players, if anyone, have benefited the most over the past few months. I haven't been paying close attention to Stephen's actions, but I know that for Halloween all players were given the flashpistol. Even if the updates are minor, the trial players have been given something, even if it isn't much. Also the more recent updates, such as rolling, have been for all players. I don't think it is fair to say that there is increasingly poor support when there hasn't been a significant change to provide more or less support for either group.

The removal of permanent items was great. It allowed for more events to be hosted, even though tons of events isn't always the way to go, and gave some life to Zone. With permanent weapons such as the RP/BP/Reapers, there is more potential to give those weapons out. It gives the current players incentives. I'm not sure if you remember the temporary event system of Huwajux, but that was intended to resolve problems with the playercount. I think that Huwajux understood he wouldn't be able to magically turn things around, but he increased events. Sadly those permanent weapons were accumulated by many players and that is what created the strong push in the fall when Dan stopped permanent weapons as rewards. By removing permanent weapons, it is easier to control the quantity of a weapon in the current population to keep it rare. If 10 players out of 20 have a weapon, it isn't rare. This is enough of my side rant/straw man logical fallacies.

You are arguing against temporary weapons in the gelat shop. There isn't any easy and sensible way to make gelat shop weapons permanent. It might increase the playercount, but it would lead to lower, and no, sales in the future when current players have all of those weapons. Why would Stefan want to kill off his own sales for minimal benefit? It would be a better investment of his time to work with Stephen to create additional updates, rather than to modify a system that will hurt Zone in the long run. While many of us don't like the gelat shop, it is one main reason Stefan supports Zone. If Zone earns Stefan 100 euro a month (No, I don't actually know how much is made), he is going to be more willing to support Zone development than with servers that have no benefit for him. I understand the futility you feel when this isn't changed, and this opinion has been voiced by a large part of the Zone community. Sadly, I don't think this is something that we should devote our efforts to when the benefits for the business outweigh the benefits for the community.

The removal of laming and game breaking options was a positive change. While it didn't cater to the older community that prefers to get their kills easily, it did make it easier on the new players. A situation that is similar to this is how Graal Kingdoms changed the lords from spawning in the same locations to have the lords be anywhere around the map. It was done to make the game more challenging, and hopefully, more rewarding. My point with this is that while laming and game breaking isn't always fun for the longer standing members of the community, it does make the community more welcoming for new members. You argued in the first part of your post that the removal of game breaking options was a bad change, but later on in your post, you stated that the community is unwelcoming to new members. Can you please clarify on what you would consider welcoming and unwelcoming? I would consider welcoming to be when a player isn't immediately under attack when entering a world.

New worlds aren't necessarily what Zone needs right now. I agree with you on that, but I disagree with you on how to accomplish this. As was pointed out to me by Rufus in the past, Zone needs to have more variable maps. Having multiple objectives is going to make the maps more fun for the existing player base, however small it has become.

In regards to advertisement, that is not the Zone manager's decision, that is the decision of Stefan and Unixmad. Advertising has been suggested in the past, but I don't think much has come from it. The best solution would be to consider that it advertising is currently not an option. The only reason for this is that I feel we should focus on Zone because the overall decision's of the Graal administration is their decision, not ours.

To return to replying to segmented portions of your post:
I completely disagree. If Zone ever gets a player population, Zone will need features to entertain the players. I don't think we should remove features because of a shortage of player. That would be like saying if a store doesn't have customers that it should stop selling products. Just because there aren't currently customers doesn't mean the server should give up and remove features.

I don't think the red rifle, blue rifle, or jetpack will return to the Zone cash shop. If they do, they won't return as permanent weapons. Yes, if they are in the shop, some players may stick around and use them. I can't argue that if someone has something that they will use it, but I will say that I don't think being able to get those items for any amount of time is going to make people stick around for a significant amount of time.

As far as cookies go, I would suggest that they be rewards for holidays. I remember buying holiday items for the advantages they could give me months later in big events. My assumption is that with a new events team administrator, that there will be more big events. For that reason, cookies should be kept as rewards for events, or for advantages in events for larger prizes. You are right that not every beginner is the best player, and while I agree we should cater to new players, this is a situation in which we should not. If we give new players cookies, they are going to become the same desperate for kills community we have had in the past. Without cookies, there is a stronger emphasis on skill rather than advantages. While the best games for you may have been with cookies, there are many players who now find their best games with medics and the alternatives to cookies.

I don't like hotkeys. My disdain for them isn't going to change anything. Faster switching between weapons is a standard, and I'm surprised it took this long for hotkeys to be released. I also think that hotkeys should be kept as an advantage for those who upgrade. As someone who pays 300 gelats a month, I want some advantage over a trial player. If they can't beat me because I can switch weapons faster, I think that it might encourage them to purchase that advantage.

I do agree with you on the explosives. I would rather see explosives sold in group packages (Such as pipe bombs, proxmines, flamebombs). It makes sense and would actually give an advantage to those items. Right now, the cost of those items outweighs their usefulness and this hurts the sales. While I'm not terribly concerned about sales, I think that Stefan would be willing to make changes if they can mean an increase in money for him in the future.

I think I've already replied to the gelat items stating they shouldn't be permanent. I don't think gold accounts should get free items. We pay for a specific set of advantages and other players pay for those additional advantages. I've advocated this idea in the past, but I would rather we have two or more subscription classes. I think that gold should be the standard items gained right now, but that there should be a gold plus membership of some sort that would give players access to additional groups of weapons (Rather than on an individual basis). I understand this may not be good for business though, so I would have to defer to Stephen's judgement here because I'm not the business master. ^^

As far as removing maps that don't get played, I would rather there be a system that rotates those planets as open and closed in addition to a few standard maps. Planets such a spar, Iricia, Deathmatch, gwars should always be open. I think the other planets should rotate with only one open and that the events team should be able to host events opening certain planets for periods of time.

I don't like your pessimism. You have experience from when Zone was at its peak, but you never stuck around for the lows. I think you are part of the problem from that perspective.

i think that, the problem with gold servers in general, is that you dont get to work in a team with others, on the main server.
when you get hired, you get access to a debug server where it's lonely and quite like the grave, who would want to work on such server?
graal is all about the community.

Rather wait...
 

I'd rather wait for Stefan to transfer these "updates" Zone has made. I just want to see what they will do/effect on Zone. After that then maybe Zone could take other suggestions and such into mind.

Whomever says hotkeys are a bad idea is suffering from a certain state I like to call being retarded.

hotkeys are always bad idea.
unless you are on a server / game that got loads of stuffs.
like rpg's.