Graal Free To Play on Facebook and Android

[ffcmike]

Originally Posted by Stefan

ffcmike you understand that your weird behaviour is not really motivating us to speed up those things?

Then what is going to motivate you to speed things up exactly?
Or if you're simply too busy and are therefore unable to speed things up, which is perfectly understandable, why don't you just say so instead of continuing to ignore the issue?

If you were to familiarise yourself with the work that's been put into Classic for the past 3 years you'd find I'm not a stupid or unreasonable person, and although you may not like my behaviour, you cannot say I haven't been patient enough beforehand.
There are a lot of developers on PC Graal who are incredibly frustrated with the lack of support towards this version of the game. Sure there is the option to just give up and leave, but that's not a good thing, especially given that many feel PC Graal has its advantages and the potential for higher quality gameplay, compared to what exists on iPhone/Facebook Graal.

I'm not really asking for things to be sped up though, I'm just asking for clarification so I know what level of possibility exists for it. Ultimately I feel there is a responsibility to get something done rather than just assume there is an answer of "no".

Originally Posted by Stefan

this thread is about the Graal version(s) on Facebook.

Really?

Originally Posted by unixmad

We are planning to give the opportunity to PlayerWorld owners to move to Free To Play either. We will soon give a list of requirements to move a server Free To Play.

I must have misunderstood this part then.

[NicoX]

Originally Posted by ffcmike

I must have misunderstood this part then.

Same....

Do we get this list of requirements now or what? Why is it that complicated? If you can't do everything on your own I would suggest hiring more Developers to help you Stefan/unixmad.

You should be gratefull that so many Developers working for free, atleast give us (the Community) something back... I don't appreciate this arrogance.

[Galdor]

Originally Posted by ffcmike

Really?
I must have misunderstood this part then.

[Crono]

Originally Posted by ffcmike

I must have misunderstood this part then.

Originally Posted by NicoX

Same....

Do we get this list of requirements now or what? Why is it that complicated? If you can't do everything on your own I would suggest hiring more Developers to help you Stefan/unixmad.

There is no list of requirements because it doesn't exist yet. I think they're still trying to figure out how they want their P2P model to work on existing servers. It's reasonable that their focus is on the iOS community because that's where the money is right now. I just don't get what's so hard about updating the v6 client to have a nicer playerlist, fix the funny way the font looks, and then make all of Graal F2P where you only pay for aesthetics (additional character colors, Zodiac's stuff, Era's stuff, etc).

There's no harm in making a bad server like UN completely free until they figure their crap out either, it benefits the players and only encourages playercount. This increase in playercount will eventually explore Era or Zodiac and spend some gralats there anyway.

Originally Posted by NicoX

You should be gratefull that so many Developers working for free, atleast give us (the Community) something back... I don't appreciate this arrogance.

Heh, welcome to Graal bro. I rarely do work anymore but when I do, it's small stuff for iClassic. I'm always reminded by a friend that we're not doing things for Stefan or unixmad, we're doing things for the community and the thousands of players who will be experiencing our content. That's slightly motivating.

[cbk1994]

Originally Posted by Crono

fix the funny way the font looks

What's wrong with the font? I thought the issue with nickname bolding was fixed?

[Darklux]

I thought it might be an idea to put into words what has bothered me for some time now:

Graal was beyond it's time then. Back then, few MMORPG games exited, requiring expensive costs for credit cards - more or less cutting the european market off like this.
In the beginning, it was free to play and attracted many people, especially fans of old games like 2D Zelda.

What happened?

Slowly, the Market for Free to Play MMORPG's exploded, limiting the playerbase nearly completely to folks interested in development. Furthermore to a point of time, the official interest seemed to slowly vanish, distracting and annoying many more players.
Some examples:

- A Graal3D that never fitted the expectations of the playerbase, "only" leading to torque integration and v3/v4.
- Announced features that have never seen their release, like flying engine.
- More or less complete halt on official development of socalled "Gold Worlds" like GK or Zone, without adapting subscribtion costs to the limited quality.
- Although being kind of a MMORPG SDK, bad treatment of development staff, few updates on staff tools, no possibility to offer free to play content, although you already have to pay for the content being hosted.

I can imagine easily that PC Graal is no Cash Cow at the moment, but if you took the decision to slowly let it die of thirst years ago, it would've been atleast fair to tell us.

But I think I am talking for most people:
Why don't you even attempt bringing bit atleast a bit of attractivity to PC Graal?
A full Free to Play concept, connected with mandatory Mikro Transactions could work wonders, but it seems the time invested on these topics by Eurocenter seems to be insignificant.


It seems that the remains of PC Graal only exist to serve as a mere source of potential cheap designers for IPhone games that sell quite well - I highly doubt that developers who actually created the content get a fair share of the profits.

[Tricxta]

Originally Posted by Darklux

It seems that the remains of PC Graal only exist to serve as a mere source of potential cheap designers for IPhone games that sell quite well - I highly doubt that developers who actually created the content get a fair share of the profits.

I can say being a developer for iEra that we don't get any kind of share of the profits. We're meant to be paid 300 gelats a month as some kind of "thank you" for our contribution of time but not even that happens...
So overall, we don't get any kind of share of the profits nor "thank you". At least we don't have to pay to develop, erhmm yayy!
Being honest, I was never really in it for some kind of reward, I feel my reward is being able to contribute to a game with a semi decent player base but that's where it stops.

[MattKan]

Originally Posted by ffcmike

poorme

At some point you're going to have to learn how to stop *****ing, because believe it or not there's other people who have similar problems to you and are able to keep their mouths shut for longer than 3 days at a time.

[NicoX]

Originally Posted by MattKan

At some point you're going to have to learn how to stop *****ing, because believe it or not there's other people who have similar problems to you and are able to keep their mouths shut for longer than 3 days at a time.

Could someone ban this idiot?

[ffcmike]

Originally Posted by MattKan

At some point you're going to have to learn how to stop *****ing, because believe it or not there's other people who have similar problems to you and are able to keep their mouths shut for longer than 3 days at a time.

So at what point have I insinuated that I am the only person frustrated with the lack of support?
Also I had kept my mouth shut as you put it for a very long amount of time, longer than many developers would even remain active for, and have been developing a server since before you even began playing Graal.
I think you're bark... hissing up the wrong tree here.

I would also suggest learning the difference between begging/sympathy seeking and persuasive arguments.

[MattKan]

Originally Posted by ffcmike

So at what point have I insinuated that I am the only person frustrated with the lack of support?
Also I had kept my mouth shut as you put it for a very long amount of time, longer than many developers would even remain active for, and have been developing a server since before you even began playing Graal.
I think you're bark... hissing up the wrong tree here.

I would also suggest learning the difference between begging/sympathy seeking and persuasive arguments.

I don't know, but you do post an awful lot about the same issue and it isn't going to get you anywhere, and you're making yourself look like a fool.

[ffcmike]

Originally Posted by MattKan

I don't know, but you do post an awful lot about the same issue and it isn't going to get you anywhere, and you're making yourself look like a fool.

But it actually has finally gone on to get some form of response, which while not a very encouraging one, is pretty much what one of the main problems was in the first place.

I couldn't care less how it affects my "reputation". I've already made a lot of sacrifices to it for the sake of long term progress, though I don't think it appears as foolish as randomly snapping at someone with a common goal, offering no form of constructive input, and making out that you're some kind of victim.

[xXziroXx]

Originally Posted by MattKan

I don't know, but you do post an awful lot about the same issue and it isn't going to get you anywhere, and you're making yourself look like a fool.

The only one that's made himself look like a fool in this thread is you, and you're doing a mighty fine job at it right now.

[ff7chocoboknight]

Originally Posted by MattKan

I don't know, but you do post an awful lot about the same issue and it isn't going to get you anywhere, and you're making yourself look like a fool.

:/

[Admins]

Darklux all we were doing is making Graal successful, now we have each day 3000 players online at the same time when three years ago it was only 300-400. The PC Graal version is currently lagging a little bit behind the developments in the mobile space, but it's not we are standing still. Many people on the forums don't understand that we will not get tons of players just because we reduce the price a little bit. The observer mode is needed right now to justify the playerworld gold subscription since we cannot check each day if the servers are correctly scripted or so and prices are fair. So there needs to be a "hard" limit somewhere (level cap on Zodiac) or observer mode. At some point we can transform all servers to free-to-play mode but we don't have the tools in-place right now (built-in customization shop and such stuff).

[ffcmike]

Originally Posted by Stefan

Darklux all we were doing is making Graal successful, now we have each day 3000 players online at the same time when three years ago it was only 300-400. The PC Graal version is currently lagging a little bit behind the developments in the mobile space, but it's not we are standing still. Many people on the forums don't understand that we will not get tons of players just because we reduce the price a little bit. The observer mode is needed right now to justify the playerworld gold subscription since we cannot check each day if the servers are correctly scripted or so and prices are fair. So there needs to be a "hard" limit somewhere (level cap on Zodiac) or observer mode. At some point we can transform all servers to free-to-play mode but we don't have the tools in-place right now (built-in customization shop and such stuff).

Thank you for at least addressing the issue. Though I still stand by the argument that observer mode is much more than a restriction, and is indirectly having a highly detrimental affect on the ability for trial's to properly experience the game and therefore want to upgrade. As for the issue of pricing and security it would be good to know exactly what is expected, I would assume Classic already has a high level of scripted security and that planned prices are already very conservative.

[ffcmike]

Originally Posted by Stefan

The observer mode is needed right now to justify the playerworld gold subscription since we cannot check each day if the servers are correctly scripted or so and prices are fair. So there needs to be a "hard" limit somewhere (level cap on Zodiac) or observer mode.

Originally Posted by ffcmike

I still stand by the argument that observer mode is much more than a restriction, and is indirectly having a highly detrimental affect on the ability for trial's to properly experience the game and therefore want to upgrade.

To further iterate my point, you simply cannot compare a limitation which allows trials to experience the game but at a disadvantage, with something which causes so much bugs and/or disruption that staff have no choice but to prevent trials from participating with events, trials automatically lose if entering observer mode while sparring or playing something like Classic's trading card game (which lasts long enough for it to be hard to avoid), or are unable to progress within a quest due to a bug directly caused by observer mode.

I agree that obtaining a higher playercount is not as simple an issue as just lowering the price by itself, but observer mode is a game killer, it's like saying "upgrade to not have a terrible experience" or a joke I used to say as a kid "pay me £5 and I won't beat you up".

Originally Posted by Stefan

At some point we can transform all servers to free-to-play mode but we don't have the tools in-place right now (built-in customization shop and such stuff).

While it is good to know you have this intention, server staff are not asking you to transform these servers yourself, they are asking you to help them transform their servers themself. For Classic we have our own plans that I have emailed to you for how we can accomplish a sustainable free to play environment, and so I'd like to know what level of possibility exists for it to go ahead, or what (if any) changes would be needed.

[xXziroXx]

Originally Posted by Stefan

Darklux all we were doing is making Graal successful, now we have each day 3000 players online at the same time when three years ago it was only 300-400. The PC Graal version is currently lagging a little bit behind the developments in the mobile space, but it's not we are standing still. Many people on the forums don't understand that we will not get tons of players just because we reduce the price a little bit.

It's really great of you to finally hold a dialogue with us. The lack of communication between Eurocenter and us players/developers is what's been fueling our anger the most. I still think we've been ignored a little too much though, especially on important matters such as:

http://forums.graalonline.com/forums...hp?t=134266660

Originally Posted by Stefan

The observer mode is needed right now to justify the playerworld gold subscription since we cannot check each day if the servers are correctly scripted or so and prices are fair. So there needs to be a "hard" limit somewhere (level cap on Zodiac) or observer mode. At some point we can transform all servers to free-to-play mode but we don't have the tools in-place right now (built-in customization shop and such stuff).

When Maloria became Classic around a year ago, I tried for the longest time to get you to remove observer mode for us, which you flat out denied. We had trial limitations on events, level cap, joining nations, item limits and several minor things. Unholy Nation have been trying to please you in order to have it removed as well, and they've seemingly been largely ignored too.


You also seem to take months to reply to PM's and emails about things that ONLY you are able to be of assistance of, which is just too long.

[ffcmike]

Originally Posted by xXziroXx

Unholy Nation have been trying to please you in order to have it removed as well, and they've seemingly been largely ignored too.

To put things into perspective, Zone happens to have observer mode removed, and yet the argument can be made that as a result of its essentially dead state, UN, Val, and even a UC Classic are contributing more to Graal.

[Starfire2001]

Originally Posted by Stefan

Darklux all we were doing is making Graal successful, now we have each day 3000 players online at the same time when three years ago it was only 300-400. The PC Graal version is currently lagging a little bit behind the developments in the mobile space, but it's not we are standing still. Many people on the forums don't understand that we will not get tons of players just because we reduce the price a little bit. The observer mode is needed right now to justify the playerworld gold subscription since we cannot check each day if the servers are correctly scripted or so and prices are fair. So there needs to be a "hard" limit somewhere (level cap on Zodiac) or observer mode. At some point we can transform all servers to free-to-play mode but we don't have the tools in-place right now (built-in customization shop and such stuff).

Disagree with the business model here, but guessing probably pretty pointless to argue. Thanks for responding to this though, at least I now have a post to link people to when they ask me 100x a day on UN when I'm going to make a gelat shop so we have observer mode removed.

[Crono]

Originally Posted by Stefan

Many people on the forums don't understand that we will not get tons of players just because we reduce the price a little bit. The observer mode is needed right now to justify the playerworld gold subscription since we cannot check each day if the servers are correctly scripted or so and prices are fair.

That's kind of the point though, they shouldn't cost anything and there is nothing to justify buying a gold subscription to begin with right now. In the past we had free servers and then exclusive "gold" or "p2p" servers like G2k1. Even after Graal went full p2p we still had lifetime Classic accounts being offered if you bought Graal once, which is a much more fair and correct model than what's being offered today.

Graal used to be very special in the past, but today it's losing its charm. iClassic and iEra work well both because they're on a fresh platform and because it's very cheap (or even free) to play. Ever since you released Graal v5 we were going downhill, and a lot of us were saying that Graal would die if nothing were to happen. Releasing iClassic is the best thing that's happened to Graal since 2006 and we now have players. Use this new momentum to propel the "real" PC Graal forward as well. Many players on iClassic have some interest in playing what we call "PC Graal" or developing for it but don't know where to begin nor do they want to shell out money just to develop for you.

Nowadays many multiplayer games are either going for a "pay once and play forever" model or completely F2P with various levels of microtransaction. On games like League of Legends (a very successful and popular F2P game) microtransactions effect balance, while games like Dota 2 (currently in closed beta but extremely popular, especially in e-sports) will be F2P and only have aesthetic microtransactions. My point is that both the modern and future of gaming relies on either of these models, no longer does it rely on buying limited subscriptions and renewing them.

Originally Posted by ffcmike

To put things into perspective, Zone happens to have observer mode removed, and yet the argument can be made that as a result of its essentially dead state, UN, Val, and even a UC Classic are contributing more to Graal.

Zone is actually an interesting example of what limiting the player does. Originally trial accounts weren't saved but could still partake in guild activities and had 100HP. Displeased with this, they later changed it so trials started with 80HP and could no longer join guilds. Zone began to lose some playercount over this and much of its guild activity died off. The moment v5 came out, I declared Zone "RIP" and was quickly proven correct. Zone is such a good server, but it is ruined by imbalances caused by the cash shop and the restrictive limitations that were stacked onto players over the years. I hope iZone revives interest in the server.

[dude2020]

Originally Posted by Crono

Zone is actually an interesting example of what limiting the player does. Originally trial accounts weren't saved but could still partake in guild activities and had 100HP. Displeased with this, they later changed it so trials started with 80HP and could no longer join guilds. Zone began to lose some playercount over this and much of its guild activity died off. The moment v5 came out, I declared Zone "RIP" and was quickly proven correct. Zone is such a good server, but it is ruined by imbalances caused by the cash shop and the restrictive limitations that were stacked onto players over the years. I hope iZone revives interest in the server.

You forgot about terrible managers.

I was there.... it was like watching a train wreck go into a nuclear power plant with explosives.

[Imperialistic]

Originally Posted by dude2020

You forgot about terrible managers.

QFT. He has a point here Cron

[Crono]

Originally Posted by dude2020

You forgot about terrible managers.

I was there.... it was like watching a train wreck go into a nuclear power plant with explosives.

Originally Posted by Imperialistic

QFT. He has a point here Cron

Zone's managers weren't ace (no names) but they were heavily restricted on what they could and couldn't do by Stefan. You can't blame them.

[ffcmike]

Originally Posted by Stefan

The PC Graal version is currently lagging a little bit behind the developments in the mobile space, but it's not we are standing still.

Originally Posted by Stefan

we cannot check each day if the servers are correctly scripted or so and prices are fair.

One last thing I'd like to add in response to this particular post is that the longer the current pricing scheme remains in place, the more talented developers and reliable server staff will quit. As experienced people fortunate enough to have a lifetime Classic account gradually leave, it's harder for them to be replaced by people of similar experience/maturity due to the fact the unfortunate newer people are having to fork out for a subscription every year. Over time this will make it even harder to improve the situation than it already is.

[Imperialistic]

I'm astonished Stefan. I can at least say that we appreciate the much needed response that we have been waiting on for ~6 years. All of us are not against GraalOnline as it may seem, we are here to help you. I don't see why you can't discuss with us what you would like to see within the 'cash shops'. Because if there is anything we can do to speed up the process, most developers will take it into their own hands with your approval of course.

[NicoX]

Stefan, please tell us a list what you need for removing Observer Mode and we will just do it ? That horrible thing has to go. Valikorlia for example would work great when its moved to F2P because ALOT of people are RPing on the Internet, but at the same time they wouldnt pay for Graal when they can pay for other Games which has more to offer.
So please, give us the requirements and we will work on them. unixmad/you basically have nothing to lose.

[ajf10209]

Can Val maybe have access to the dev server that was paid for too?

[NicoX]

Originally Posted by ajf10209

Can Val maybe have access to the dev server that was paid for too?

Oh yes I forgot, we paid for a Dev Server and still waiting for 2 months now for enabling it to Classic Status. I mean we lost 2 months of Development time.

If you finally find time for some Graal PC issues, please enable the Server dev_ZazenP2P ...

[Imperialistic]

Originally Posted by NicoX

Oh yes I forgot, we paid for a Dev Server and still waiting for 2 months now for enabling it to Classic Status. I mean we lost 2 months of Development time.

If you finally find time for some Graal PC issues, please enable the Server dev_ZazenP2P ...

I think this is something that should be emailed to him, this is totally off-topic.

[NicoX]

Originally Posted by Imperialistic

I think this is something that should be emailed to him, this is totally off-topic.

Well its horrible when the PWAs says they will forward it to him and when Stefan ignores most of the emails and PMs. We already did several times x-x

[zephirot]

man if i were stefan, my will to read the last couple pages would be non-existent.

[Darklux]

Originally Posted by zephirot

man if i were stefan, my will to read the last couple pages would be non-existent.

Like I stated, I highly doubt that you can imply anyone of us to be anti graal, or against the game. The opposite, I would like to play a more lively game again, with the chance to offer our content to even more people.

[dude2020]

v5 did kill it, but even then it had a small active community.
OFFTOPIC SHALL REIGN SUPREME
If Stefan stays true to his word, then we'll see it D:

[ffcmike]

Yesterday I noticed an observer mode bug which I was previously unaware of.
If you're using V5 and the observer and/or yourself have UDP enabled, and they follow your player on their screen, they do not appear invisible on your screen, and their character appears to be stuck on top of your character as you move around, which can be pretty annoying.

On the subject of it, another bug I've not mentioned before is that when using V6, an observer's gani will remain frozen on the same frame.
Lets say a trial enters observer mode in the middle of slashing, you'd see them stuck on the sword gani. Having a clientside hit detection which scans the gani of other players to detect attacks, it is actually possible to be hurt by an observer, and the variable player.isobserver doesn't seem to be synced to other players clients. Not sure if this is an issue with default systems.

It's also annoying when observer mode coincides with clientside <-> serverside triggers.

[ffcmike]

So about 2 and a half weeks ago I emailed Stefan + Unix for the 2nd time (first time was ignored again) a German, French and English copy of Classic's micro-transaction plans.
Incredibly, I got a response just 2 minutes later. My astonishment quickly turned into disappointment however, when I read the reply of:

Stefan: Can't you just do it in English, I feel stupid when receiving such mails.

The reason this is funny is not because the email did happen to include the original English copy, but because it implies it would have been read and/or replied to.

Stefan, if there is anything you should feel stupid about, it is the fact that you think of yourself as both a game designer and a business man, while utterly failing to even acknowledge the massive flaws, as well as the proposed solutions or requests for clarification, concerning the cancer you call observer mode.
Either you are ignorant of just how detrimental to gameplay observer mode is, or you are knowingly neglecting an issue which is bad for PC Graal's business.

[ffcmike]

Alright Stefan now that you're back from your vacation I thought I'd bump this.

Originally Posted by ffcmike

So about 2 and a half weeks ago I emailed Stefan + Unix for the 2nd time (first time was ignored again) a German, French and English copy of Classic's micro-transaction plans.
Incredibly, I got a response just 2 minutes later. My astonishment quickly turned into disappointment however, when I read the reply of:

The reason this is funny is not because the email did happen to include the original English copy, but because it implies it would have been read and/or replied to.

Stefan, if there is anything you should feel stupid about, it is the fact that you think of yourself as both a game designer and a business man, while utterly failing to even acknowledge the massive flaws, as well as the proposed solutions or requests for clarification, concerning the cancer you call observer mode.
Either you are ignorant of just how detrimental to gameplay observer mode is, or you are knowingly neglecting an issue which is bad for PC Graal's business.

And I also thought I'd show the response you shockingly managed to muster to my latest email:

Stefan: you mean helping with Gelat items and getting rid of observer mode, or more about future developements?

Seems you were either taking the piss or have a ridiculously short memory.

We have a production-ready server of a particularly high quality imminently awaiting going live, which is perfectly capable of supporting a micro-transaction scheme, has a stable and experienced staff team, and has a high level of scripted security and monitoring. Yet the level of response I have received from you over the last 10 months, regarding the planning and preparation we have put so much effort towards has been utterly pathetic.

I get the fact iPhone is your golden goose and so PC Graal is a low priority, but it would not exist if not for the efforts of countless volunteer developers past and present, yet you still take take take, and never give back, not unless it benefits you directly. How many years were developers asking for you to implement a method to determine the killer with default hit detection?
You ignored these requests for all those years, right up until you yourself required it. I bet if someone offered a port of Graal that allowed a 1:1 transition of servers, a fair subscription policy, and no legal consequences, the vast majority of developers would jump ship.

I haven't even been demanding that you approve such plans, merely that you at least acknowledge them and give a decent response, basically show that you actually give a damn about this game. While I am extremely disappointed with the level of response, the one saving grace is that you do not deserve to be receiving any additional revenue from PC Graal.

[oo_jazz_oo]

Originally Posted by Hezzy002

iClassic has zero talent on its staff team. iEra's close behind. Half of the people developing for those servers didn't even know that pixel art, programming existed until they started playing on the iPhone servers. It's basically a huge amount of mediocre developers *****footing their way into more content. The way people "script" on the iPhone is horrible; I've seen it. They just look at tons of other scripts and piece them together in random ways until they get something remotely close to what they want. It's pathetic and horrible.

Originally Posted by skillmaster19

scripting for iPhone is incredibly limited unlike pc. You have to use practically no loops or timeouts because of how slow the iDevices are. There are so few things you can do so that explains why most the items are really simple. On pc you can script rather carelessly and stuff will still work smoothly since pcs have generally much faster cpus. On iPhone you have to make a lot of optimizations so you don't lag.

You know, I rarely post on these forums any more, but I just gotta say how wrong you are...you obviously have no clue what you're talking about. At all.

I am part of iClassics staff team, and to say I have no talent is rather insulting. Or to say that Jerret has no talent. Or to say anyone else for that matter.

And scripting on the iPhone is limited, but not in the ways you have said.
If you can script efficiently and know what you're doing, its not hard. Its identical to scripting on PC.
So...before you go off on the iClassic staff or development, educate yourself.

[fowlplay4]

why did u send him the same document in three different languages

[ffcmike]

Originally Posted by fowlplay4

why did u send him the same document in three different languages

To minimise potential misunderstanding, which when you consider Stephane's approval is required, and him traditionally not being too comfortable with English, was worth a try.