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.