Come together
 

I was originally going to post this in Galdor's thread but think the scope of this deserves its own thread.

I think Graal can still fit a 2D niche pretty well but at this point it would probably require all the best developers coming together to first work on an infrastructure that could be unified across all servers and then taking that and implementing it on one brand new server

I always found it really jarring to go from server to server and wind up seeing a different GUI, different controls, commands, hotkeys, and everything else on each server. It'd be really nice to see a lot of these things become more customizable in terms of how information is conveyed to the player and where, and being able to set consistent keybinds and chat commands across all servers. One thing I had Switch work on on UN Dev was a rescripted HUD to allow players to move the location of any of the given things to wherever they wanted and resize them.

It'd be nice to see all the scripters get together and decide by committee the best approach to do certain things that arise in systems all the time and then actually create the framework for doing them. Fowlplay had a good thing going with his GUI creation functions that could have been made better with either the addition of a tool or anchors so that visually consistent GUIs are made.

I also really liked Chris Vime's GUI Explorer having Windows Explorer qualities, namely sorting and expandable/retractable fields to a given column in each row. The approach he took is really nice and could be abstracted out to make even more useful GUIs with similar functionality.

I'm not saying development of every other server should be halted but I think I can safely say no one is fully satisfied with where their server is at, and a group effort to unify a well though out infrastructure across servers seems massively beneficial in the short and long terms. In the short term, each of the current Classic servers would wind up closer to each other in terms of quality, and switching from one server to another wouldn't be quite the jarring experience that it is today. Long term, it would allow for the creation of higher quality playerworlds in significantly shorter time periods since it seems like scripting is always a really big hang up for a lot of servers.

To simultaneously go alongside the development of a new infrastructure, a new server could be created that would ultimately be a proof of concept, and hopefully become a really good server as well. That's where levels and graphic artists would come into play on such a project, along with coming up with a creative director to actually have a high quality story/project on Graal for the first time.

Sooner or later it's likely every server is going to fall off and die, and this seems like the best way to stave that from ever happening.

In terms of setting up the project from the coding standpoint, everyone interested in participating would have to come together and agree on a few things, namely how to evaluate how useful someone would be to the project. There are plenty of low-mid caliber developers who ultimately could still be useful in such a project. A project leader would also need to be determined who has a solid track record of getting things done and making effective decisions about assignments for parts of the code base. I think either fowlplay4 or Chris Vimes are the obvious fit for this role, because even if neither of them were technically the best, they've certainly proven their ability to complete and contribute major works.

The project director would ultimately not be making all decisions about what should actually be included in the project, as that would probably best be decided by committee, along with the approach for doing it.

The end result would hopefully be a very abstracted framework that allows for the easy integration of new code, granted a functionality doesn't exist

I tend to agree. The best way to make this work is incentive for talented developers or at least an easier way to rough out ideas. Although I wonder if it's worth it.

I think you mean cbk's SQL Explorer, my GUI Explorer was just for debugging/hacking GUI objects. I would like to see some functions (and/or tutorial) so other developers could create them easily though.

A framework or even just a script package for common tasks would certainly be much more beneficial to developers so they don't need to re-invent the wheel every time.

I still think the best direction though is providing useful documentation and tutorials for new developers which is much easier for me to provide personally. It would also be nice if Unix/Stef lowered the barrier of entry to online development.

As much as I'd like to lead a project like this I already have so many other existing projects that I'm a part of already. I also work full-time M-F so I'm already quite busy.

I think you should look for a manager instead of a developer. Jer might be suited for the position, but I'm a fairly crappy manager (I can't manage staff teams well so it ends up being just me and a couple friends). As long as they have some development skill (especially in the area of scripting), they should be able to drive the development direction without doing it themselves.

I'm wondering if they've sold any licenses for QuattroPlay yet?
I'd be more interested in buying a license and creating a standalone 2d online game than developing a server for Graal.
At least then we'd be able to have total control and better community management.

a lot of graal's problems start with how it's run.

its just so much more convenient to be a player than a developer now more than ever.

Very true.

I want my playerginity back.

I think this should have been dealt with in the beginning. Each server should have had a foundation that gave the ability for expansion but made sure there was uniform qualities between all servers so you could seemlessly develop from one server to the next without worrying about compatibility issues.

Another issue with Graal today from what I have noticed is a lot of people try to complete a server. No server can ever be completed therefore no one ever reaches their goal. Some developers need to lower their standards of a server in order to actually be successful. If I had the ability to develop I would not make one of these mass projects that involve all this extra content. (events, nations, combat systems, weapon systems, etc) It would be much more efficient to develop a server that severed a single purpose or function. Such as a server that focuses primarily in gun fights on various maps and that is it. As you get more kills you get more money and the ability to buy more weapons, there would be a simple stat system and that's it - clear cut. That is just an example but I think it would be wiser to do more things like that instead of trying to create the next habbo hotel or world of war craft.

You just described Zone.

Essentially but not as complex. Zone has all these variations (e.g. event island, deathmatch, etc.) If it were me I would have just developed one world (not even with classes like Zone has) and allow players to make their own class by purchasing weapons they want and having extremely high quality content and this can be done due to the small amount of content being made. However, this was just an example and I am off topic.

Developers unite!