This wonderful game...
 

I wish I could develop like a lot of the smart, talented people here. Graal has come a long way, mostly due to the community. Lets face it the game wouldn't make it without the players, and it wouldn't even have the content necessary to keep it running.

Today I write this about the dire state of classic, most of you probably don't even care about the server and why should you it is in the worst state it has ever been in.

I know, I haven't been around much in years. Times have changed and its time for the old generation to step aside and let the new players develop the new Graal. Unfortunately now Graal isn't one of the few MMOs out there and there is much much more competition around and the industry is in the billions of dollars of revenue. I commend Stefan and Unixmad for staying in the business for so long, I really sometimes question how they make ends meet with such a low player-base.

I didn't hear much about the new Graal 3D, but maybe thats a bad thing? There is little to no Hype for it outside of the Graal community, which is very sad.

What I would like to see happen is getting this list:
http://statistics.graal.us/server/list

down to 1 server.

THATS INSANE!, You're retarded first came to my own mind when I thought of this but I always end up wining in my mind so I continued on.

Who here remembers Graal 1.3.0+? Most of you probably have heard of it from 3rd party Gservers but thats not what I am getting at. The best part about it was the start of Playerworlds, basically when you warp from one level to the next your players statistics were different as if you were connected to another server. There were two servers at the time, I hate forgetting the RPG one but who can forget Maloria; Stefans playground where you could grow plants that turn into hearts (which was like OMG!!11) back then.

I would like to believe that if there was a centralized login location or world people can span off to from there that this game would seem more populated.

Say you login and there are 30 people lounging around talking and say hey lets all go to the GTA Type server and head out walking around the start world and reach the Era warp.

I think that the Server list IN THE LONG RUN crippled the game, along with p2p (yeah that horse is dead right?).

I also believe the trial system has put people off the game I don't think I've ever tested an MMO where my screen size has been restricted and I was forced to wait a certain time viewing an annoying trial message before I could continue playing. Give the players 10 day trial to make their decision, and if they want to continue purchase the game and let them continue on seamlessly.

What Graal needs to do is come up with a server that follows a lot of things from todays successful MMOs out there with 2D graphics.

2D Isn't dead people and if Graal was to produce a server with awesome 2D graphics I think it would be a lot of coverage on it, of course there would need to be a Beta sign-up of it on popular game sites; because who doesn't flock to test Beta MMOs?

But then again it is up to the Management to want these things, the formula is there, its up to them to use it. I understand Stefan is old school and works on things that he enjoys, thats the way it has always been. But maybe its time for players that pay for the game to get what they want out of it, or of course move on which many seem to be doing.

Customer Surveys, Customer Feedback, even outsiders would be useful to boost the game a bit.

I thank you all for reading my rant, and praise those who didn't skip all the way to the bottom :p. I myself aren't one to read long winded posts

Hub World ehh? Yes a bunch of us have thought of it but I don't know if it is going to happen. It would require a bit of changing around as well as a bit of work and sense of sharing from each server. Maybe each server could hire one or two developers for their section as a sort of "representative" or so?

Problem is, I don't think anyone wants to fork out $59 to do such a small project (in comparison to other server projects) and I don't know if Stefan or Unixmad are willing to give someone a free server to make this "Hub World".

That will never happen...cyberjouers needs to earn money too :(

No, thank you.

Only one playerworld? How the hell can we develop? There are way too many developers on Graal to work on one or two projects.

And how can developers get better? They won't be hired on these servers unless they are awesome, and since soon we will most likely have to use the internal level editor, there will be nowhere for them to practice. And what about scripting?

Plus, we lost all our variety. Look at Era, look at Zone, look at Zodiac, even look at GK. They all have a completely different gameplay. If we just had a single server, we'd be killing off all the other possibilities of the game.

And yes, one world means Cyberjoueres would lose money since there would only be one subscription, especially since they must keep respecting lifetime classic subscriptions. If there is only one world which is considered "gold" then everyone is losing their classic subscriptions, which could get them in trouble, since they were always promised unlimited access to classic servers, which there now are none.

And if we brought the gelat system over, then we're basically having staff-sponsored USDing. One of the best things about Graal is that you don't have to have a lot of money to get good. I can log on to UN, get my hearts of course, then go to the spar and beat someone with 2000 hours and a good spar rating with my 1 and a half hours. If we have the gelat system on all the servers, then there is no way to balance out the economy. Plus, look at the general opinion of Zone's gelat system as it stands.

That isn't what he meant. He meant that when you go to sign on, everyone signs onto the same level. From that level, you can walk through a warp to different servers. That way, the one level is like login2 except you walk around and talk to people rather than sit there looking at a list.

I actually think it makes sense.

Oh, I misunderstood him then. I am fine with a more open login server.

I agree with a hub world, when I was new here I opened up the player list (about 9 years ago) and saw classic, I had no idea what that was or how things worked on this game. A hub world should be when you log on you are instantly on the hub world, and from there you can be routed to other worlds.

For those players that know what they want to do and know what server they are going to, there will be an option to disable going directly to the hub world.

I also do not think this hub world should just be a hub world per say. I think it should really be a long introduction to players, with a short storyline, about an hour of game play, and a few events just to show them how graal works. The one thing graal has never done well in my opinion is explain to players what the hell they are doing, honestly. If you log on for the first time and see a bunch of different servers, you are going to think this is like a mini game sort of thing.

And as for classic, I think we should try everything in are power to keep the first server of graal, alive.

You guys didn't read my post huh? :rolleyes: I basically summed his whole post up by saying "Hub World".

If I had the server space, I would be more then happen to script a full fledged Hub World server with a good tutorial and a few activities to show the new players around as well as the various warps to the other servers. I sort of did that on Atexia with my warp center (which is now not public).

But many problems arise from this which is why you should read my post above.

I like Mafukie's idea. He didn't mention any restrictions or limitations which some people are assuming would be involved and thus cause problems. But a lot of these problems wouldn't have to exist.

For example...

I think the suggestion was more toward the side of Stefan and unixmad themselves developing such a system and providing the necessary server for it to be officially used rather than having a player pay to develop this system and hope to have them approve it. So what's this $59 cost?

Also, for most of what cbkbud said:
Mafukie's suggestion wouldn't necessarily require elminating subscriptions and development possibilities.

It could simply exist as an actual Login Server. Instead of loading a playerlist, you'd load this hub server, roam around, walk into a server-selection area, and choose which servers to play on. They could still be divided as Playerworlds, GK, and Zone, or whatever categories we have now. It could still require the same individual subscriptions we have now.

So long as there is a way to bypass the Hub World and go directly to your playerworld.

That or have it easy to get on, not walk a long way to get to it.

Night of the living oldbies? ;)

I like some ideas but graal is now commercial - and there is no way out, although Id even prefer ad's over p2p. Yet I don't think there would be a giant market for ad marketing on graal online =(

Hai Guess What I Still Like Hubworld Kkthxby3

Night of the living oldbies #2 :O

Not necessary.
Leave your hub-world character waiting next to "your playerworld" so when you log in you can just go there.

Making the hub-world "forced" rather than optional promotes community unity, one of the main purposes I saw intended for this idea.

Nice, finally some constructive responses. There are a lot of possibilities available for people to go directly to their server of choice after logging in, be it a listserver type NPCw or just saying goto "whateverServer" But yes the Hubworlds purpose would be to force player communication and interest in the game along with new players being able to get started and not be shot, pked, griefed, w/e when they first start the game.

Because choosing the wrong server in the server list can make or break that players experience. Also having servers described to people would help with learning curve information (classic for instance would be beginner) But I like a lot of peoples ideas here such as an introduction to the game, that would be a nice PRE-main hubworld experience for people. Also people join the most populated server sometimes, maybe this will increase the population on less popular servers.

The possibilities are pretty endless here, but like I said its up to the management to care about its players wants and needs.