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Originally Posted by NicoX
We can make content until the cows come home, but if there's not enough community to actually experience it together people will lose interest and fall away.
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Indeed, this is ultimately what Graal boils down to, and the great thing about PC Graal is that a strong prosperous community in turn contributes to the games development pool, which would benefit every platform.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NicoX
seeing our graphics and story quality people get super excited...
...And then we have to mention that, at the minimum, they have to fork over $30 for an 8 month Graal subscription. That is a complete dealbreaker
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It's similar with Classic, in the time since we wiped 6500 unique accounts have logged on. Many of these have been trials who were complimentary of the quests and subsequently supportive of the server, but then turned out to be even more bothered with the price of the game than the fact the server happens to still be UC and not maintaining a playercount.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NicoX
Where things get confusing for the PC crowd is how the Facebook and iPhone models are more affordable and many times more populated than the original version, and yet we're still using this archaic pricing model that is heavily restricting the amount of new players that will come to the game. I understand that when you're running a business, you go where the money is, so it is not unthinkable that you would focus more on the platforms from which the most profit is coming, but an F2P model with a cash shop would work just as well on PC.
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Something I would add to this is that the PC platform offers a lot of extra capabilities, as such it could be marketed either as a 'plus' version of the game, or with greater emphasis on being a development platform.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NicoX
Every playerworld is made by players, though, and all our volunteer staff members work hard to create something that is community-built. It’s our most unique trait, but it’s being buried under a payment system that clearly is not working to our benefit.
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It's not just failing to work to the developers benefit, it is counter-productive. It has contributed to the number of talented developers being drastically reduced, which in turn has contributed to both the quantity and quality of updates across Graal being reduced. Any consequential lack of trust towards developers on Graal that Stefan and Unixmad may have, is largely by result of their own doing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NicoX
and it’s only as frustrating as it is because there are an incredible number of games that are showing massive success with a much more player-friendly model, including this same game on another dang platform!
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It's incredible how 2 people can get something so astonishingly right in one instance, while at the same time leaving something similar in such an utterly wrong predicament.
It would of course be a massive jump to be going from primarily subscription based to primarily micro-transaction based, and perhaps this is something us developers aren't ready for either. For this reason I expect it would have to be a transition where subscriptions are gradually eased down while micro-transactions are gradually eased up. At least giving this a try wouldn't have any radically negative effects compared to what PC Graal is already experiencing.
That said, my initial post isn't even demanding immediate change, it is demanding an explanation. It is not right that people are putting hard work into a game where the owners will not even provide an explanation as to what their plans for it are, or why your plans for the server you represent aren't agreeable.