A few ideas to promote growth

[Imperialistic]

Originally Posted by fragman85

If there'll be ads for Graal, they should be about how easy it is to learn GS2, make their own Levels, and get Staff.

Because that is what makes Graal unique.

I don't understand..

Why wouldn't you advertise the game? Most people like playing games, they just don't want to hop in the boat right away and start developing.

[xXziroXx]

Originally Posted by Imperialistic

I don't understand..

Why wouldn't you advertise the game? Most people like playing games, they just don't want to hop in the boat right away and start developing.

Graal Online it itself should be advertised as a development platform, while individual servers should be advertised as games.

[MiniOne]

Originally Posted by xXziroXx

Graal Online it itself should be advertised as a development platform, while individual servers should be advertised as games.

Though Graal Online is both a development platform and a games server, therefore it should be advertised as so; a package, in which you can play and develop.

[xXziroXx]

Originally Posted by MiniOne

Though Graal Online is both a development platform and a games server, therefore it should be advertised as so; a package, in which you can play and develop.

Except that the servers aren't made by Graal Online, only hosted. Each servers manager should advertise their server.

[MiniOne]

Originally Posted by xXziroXx

Except that the servers aren't made by Graal Online, only hosted. Each servers manager should advertise their server.

To play that server, you still have to go through the Graal Online website and subscribe to 'GRAAL' not to the user's server, therefore it would be more beneficial if graal were advertised as a package. You've also forgotten about the Gold Servers, which are made by Graal Online, if I recall right.

[Pimmeh]

Originally Posted by MiniOne

To play that server, you still have to go through the Graal Online website and subscribe to 'GRAAL' not to the user's server, therefore it would be more beneficial if graal were advertised as a package. You've also forgotten about the Gold Servers, which are made by Graal Online, if I recall right.

Zone, as I recall, started out as a player project and Stefan took over. Now it is again run by players. And so is GK.

[MiniOne]

Originally Posted by Pimmeh

Zone, as I recall, started out as a player project and Stefan took over. Now it is again run by players. And so is GK.

Zone is run by Dan, who gets paid for developing the server. Therefore making him a member of the cyberjonex team.

[DarkCloud_PK]

I didn't see it touched much, if at all in this thread, though I may have missed it, is the state of how playerworlds are simply able to be rented now to anyone with the money available. This along with the lack of communication and teamwork in the development community, I think brings actual playable game content production down exceptionally. Even on live classic servers, it is very hard for developers(especially scripters) to work as a cohesive unit of more than a few(around 5 or so) people that work on an active basis, or at least seems to be the trend. This simply comes from people in the development teams naturally having disagreements in direction of a specific server, and people generally aren't inclined to work towards something that isn't in their direction, so more often then not, team members part ways, a lot of times to UC servers where their direction can be more focused on.

While I do understand the revenue the rented playerworlds bring, I feel they waste a lot of our development potential by allowing anyone with the freedom of having the cash to spend, to take their skills and run their own projects. This appears to produce a lot of development teams of one or two developers attempting to produce a server idea in a specific direction. However, 1-2 people are nowhere near enough to build a server alone, so barely any of the rented playerworlds end up reaching completion.(which I consider being on classic tab, or even hosted.)

I do support new ideas and server types, but it seems as if a bit of the projects seem to be of the similar enough theme of an already existing classic server that it becomes harmful to the game as a whole. Not only does the massive spread of development talent get spread away from working on live servers, should one of those similar themed servers, or even a different themed server make it to classic tabbed status, I find that it just spread the current community around aswell.

Theoretical Example: Say xxx modern themed server(similar to Era's theme), makes it to the classic tab. Should the server be of good enough quality, it will 'steal' a porition of Era's community away from Era, but not reach the playercount that Era did previously before that server was released, since its majorly a spilt of Era's community now playing two servers. This ends up damaging Era a lot, and the end result is two smaller communities that as a sum, are probably not as fun to play as Era was originally with its larger playercount.

Spreading the moderate sized communities that are present on live servers, only damages the overall game as a whole, as I feel for most types of servers, the more players you have on at a given time, the more enjoyable the experience on that server with disregard to content. Those that played on servers in the early 2000s that had playercounts above 100, probably hold that to be the most enjoyable period of them playing graal.

I guess what I'm saying in general is that while the server renting system as of current may provide some revenue for Graal on the short term basis, on the long term, I feel this is only harmful to Graal. It both spreads the development talent around, often to servers that never see the light of anything past UC, and spreads the community around as well. Right now I feel that the more condensed we can get both devs and community on live servers, the better the playing experience the players will have on a global level, the faster more live content can be released, and the more this game can grow, as a whole, and that means more subscription revenue.

[Crono]

Originally Posted by xXziroXx

Graal Online it itself should be advertised as a development platform

You see, Graal's downfall started when they began treating Graal as such. Graal is a game, it is made up of the individual servers. The sooner the higher-ups realize this the sooner this game can be fixed.

[xXziroXx]

Originally Posted by Crono

You see, Graal's downfall started when they began treating Graal as such. Graal is a game, it is made up of the individual servers. The sooner the higher-ups realize this the sooner this game can be fixed.

Because none of the sever managers are advertising their game, aka server. Not even CJ are advertising any server, which is bad, but Graal Online in itself should be advertised as a development platform.

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by Crono

You see, Graal's downfall started when they began treating Graal as such. Graal is a game, it is made up of the individual servers. The sooner the higher-ups realize this the sooner this game can be fixed.

If advertising is ever pursued officially they should target players and developers separately. I think they should emphasize their advertisements on developers.

More kids are interested in graal as a game engine than as a game. That is, after all, the few features it has which defines it as a product.

Originally Posted by Rufus

We are merely players no matter how good our ideas are, and there are sadly very few instances where the players that are not already close to Stefan are listened to.

There are serious avenues of the game a group of developers could positively indfluence without administrative help.

Originally Posted by Rufus

Our ideas really need to be supported by the people that are running the game in order for them to ever work, so suggesting is as good as it gets realistically.

If a large group of players, who have established themselves in the Graal community (if it ever gets to that point) ask for a feature, they will be more readily listened to than an individual player.

That's not the purpose of the development group I've mentioned, but it's a fringe benefit. The philosophy you project to me is one where you have decided that you cannot control every aspect of the game, so you might as well not try influencing or improving any.

Originally Posted by Vima

The News Admin might help but the problem is really on the Graal people.
Everyone says that Stefan should do this and that, but Graal is really depending on their players to make new content on the servers. Constantly updating Graal Servers with new features.

This is the underlying logic behind what I'm driving home - players can develop not just new content but better systems. So their games are more about the content and less about messing with some settings, or trying to learn a new help system on every server. Little things which will improve the community as a whole. God knows there's enough problems that, if they were fixed, it would be a breath of fresh air.

Originally Posted by Crono

This is the real problem.

But it wasn't a problem when there were fewer servers - we had enough players that, even if developers wanted to behave in such a way to make themselves disposable, another one would always better there to pick up the slack.

That's why we need new players and why people want advertising. We just need to make sure Graal Online as a game is ready to HOLD the interest of new players. Why pay for advertising to attract 100+ people for a week when you can work a little on the content, pay for advertising, and attract 100+ people for a year or two? Especially if they get their friends involved.

Originally Posted by Cloven

Especially with the lack of incentive to doing so.

The incentive is the same as it always has been, I think. The big problem is the quality of ideas is very low. So there's not a lot of new stuff, and what we do have is...

Originally Posted by Vima

So what do you expect them to do?
They allready "manage" 2 servers, isn't it up to US to work together and release and update new servers? Graal will do the rest of the job.
This is how Graal is now, it really consist of playerworlds made by the players.

That's the general concept - and I'm glad someone recognizes it.

Originally Posted by DesolateRestriction

follow link if interested

I'm sorry to chide, but it's in poor taste to return to a thread which has functioned merrily for nearly two pages and revert attention to an already distracting occassion... Especially if you're going to end your post with a derisive and insulting statement? x-x