Boosting Playercount

[Starfire2001]

Originally Posted by scriptless

oh no.. i think if era merged with iEra and became a gold server that people would upgrade.. BIG difference there (about 1200 difference)..

also GK is full blown unrestricted with the exception of Levels (and you can't join a kingdom)... which most people don't use kingdoms.. and it's extreamly hard for a trial to achieve level 10 on there own.. like jaw dropping hard without someone power leveling you. while lifetime from being playerworld rather then gold would help it wouldnt help it enough to lets say even equal UN.. and it would have by far less restrictions then UN.. maybe you could explain that?

That GK is just poorly designed? And? Nowhere did I say that having a quality server isn't also important to the player count.

[ffcmike]

Originally Posted by scriptless

The point is you want Trials to be F2P... and instead of screwing them over you now want those of us who pay for graal to get nothing extra. You want US to be screwed for paying $60+ a year.. thanks man you really care about us..

I've scripted roughly 95% of the server from scratch, which also consists almost entirely of custom scripted systems, have been working on it non-stop for 5 and a half years (as has Racil), with over 13,000 hours online time. If that's not enough for you, I'm sorry.

Originally Posted by scriptless

We can't even start from scratch and work on Classic (GTA) ourselves.. that would be like saying I want to make Era so lets clone it.. it would never be released.. You wont develop anything new yet you wont let us do it.. you took something historic and screwed ALL OF US.

I have never refused anybody the opportunity to develop who had provided significant good & useful examples of what they're capable of (providing a link to someone else's code threads saying that you understand how it works doesn't cut it for me), and didn't have a recent ban/corruption history. I'd like nothing more than to get back to working on Quests in order to further the storyline and to expand the world, but unfortunately there are fundamental problems (some ofwhich beyond our control) which render efforts futile.

Originally Posted by scriptless

Actually I upgraded just to be able to play Classic on a second account since I had already completed ALL quest's on my lifetime account.

I hope you understand that the quests are not necessarily aimed at those who have already established themself on Graal, nor are they in any way intended to keep players constantly occupied. Their primary function is to provide a sense of purpose and direction to legitimately new players.

Originally Posted by scriptless

Those are infact not "new" new players but old new players who probably had accounts created prior to the release of Classic. Not really a fair comparison.

You can usually tell roughly how new/old a trial is by their account name, guests use their PCID, whereas Graal###### accounts are incremented each time an account is created. I observe this happening with both older and fresh trial accounts.

Originally Posted by scriptless

Yeah I understand that but we (everyone on Graal) completed ALL of the quests prior to it's release with promises that there would be no further updates to Classic and that you gave up on Graal why should we play with an attitude like that?

I don't blame you for not playing, I wouldn't expect anybody to be playing with no hope of future updates and there already being hardly any players. But then why should we, the developers, continue voluntarily putting in so much effort, as we have done for a very long time as it is, when on top of having restrictions that conflict our aims (something we've already tried hard to get by with), we've been lied to and deceived for the last 14 months?

Do you think you'd still be motivated under the same circumstances?

Originally Posted by scriptless

Trials aren't suspose to be allowed into event's as it is.. Congratulations on following the rules

I have never seen any documentation explaining that trials aren't allowed to play events on PlayerWorlds, only Gold servers (where observer mode is removed). Nor was it brought to staff's attention that they shouldn't be allowed in July 2007 when observer mode was implemented (I happened to be staff at the time).

As far as I know the exclusion of trials from events has always been an indirect consequence of observer mode, rather than a deliberate restriction.
This is the closest acknowledgement of the problem I'm aware of:
http://forums.graalonline.com/forums...87#post1338487

Originally Posted by scriptless

And correct me if I am wrong but the mines are located south of the bridge "Mine Entry West". So even if the "map restriction" for Trials were implimented and eliminating the Observer Mode that your throwing a huge fit about trials would be able to do the first quest, get card's and play with others, mine (maybe craft things or buy things or potential for a side quest aside from the main storyline?).

That would be an even more watered-down experience than at present.

Originally Posted by scriptless

Yeah but we beat Classic, saw the end credits and everything. We have to move on to a server whom cares about those of us that do pay for graal. We pay, we deserve more then those who do not pay.

It's been 5 and a half years since the ability to purchase lifetime accounts was removed, Classic had already reached a very low point in playercount by 2009, having previously seen its average playercount be cut in half every 2 years since P2P was implemented.

Thus it was decided (and not just by myself) to try something new, to make the server more coherent, to give it a higher proportion of quality, so that it could eventually at least be capable of hooking new players. I have sympathy for those few who have paid money to play Classic, but given the choice, I'm sure most would feel the money was better spent if they were able to regularly play events and card games with trials.

Also keep in mind that PlayerWorld developers do not get a cut of such paid money, it's never been an intention of mine, but if it were the case I'm sure things would be much different across all of Graal.

Originally Posted by scriptless

Well, talking to thor a week or 2 ago.. maybe even 3.. he said they were offered OBS to be removed.. but they had to block the bridge leading to the north side of the map off from trials.. talking a little longer he changed his story to no it was not an offer it was a for sure thing being forced down there throats..

This is actually how it happened, not a change of story. Initially I thought it was a suggestion, and so I made a counter-suggestion, then later I was told this is the format it will be. Bell can verify that.

[scriptless]

Originally Posted by ffcmike

I've scripted roughly 95% of the server from scratch, which also consists almost entirely of custom scripted systems, have been working on it non-stop for 5 and a half years (as has Racil), with over 13,000 hours online time. If that's not enough for you, I'm sorry.


I have never refused anybody the opportunity to develop who had provided significant good & useful examples of what they're capable of (providing a link to someone else's code threads saying that you understand how it works doesn't cut it for me), and didn't have a recent ban/corruption history. I'd like nothing more than to get back to working on Quests in order to further the storyline and to expand the world, but unfortunately there are fundamental problems (some ofwhich beyond our control) which render efforts futile.


I hope you understand that the quests are not necessarily aimed at those who have already established themself on Graal, nor are they in any way intended to keep players constantly occupied. Their primary function is to provide a sense of purpose and direction to legitimately new players.


You can usually tell roughly how new/old a trial is by their account name, guests use their PCID, whereas Graal###### accounts are incremented each time an account is created. I observe this happening with both older and fresh trial accounts.


I don't blame you for not playing, I wouldn't expect anybody to be playing with no hope of future updates and there already being hardly any players. But then why should we, the developers, continue voluntarily putting in so much effort, as we have done for a very long time as it is, when on top of having restrictions that conflict our aims (something we've already tried hard to get by with), we've been lied to and deceived for the last 14 months?

Do you think you'd still be motivated under the same circumstances?


I have never seen any documentation explaining that trials aren't allowed to play events on PlayerWorlds, only Gold servers (where observer mode is removed). Nor was it brought to staff's attention that they shouldn't be allowed in July 2007 when observer mode was implemented (I happened to be staff at the time).

As far as I know the exclusion of trials from events has always been an indirect consequence of observer mode, rather than a deliberate restriction.
This is the closest acknowledgement of the problem I'm aware of:
http://forums.graalonline.com/forums...87#post1338487



That would be an even more watered-down experience than at present.



It's been 5 and a half years since the ability to purchase lifetime accounts was removed, Classic had already reached a very low point in playercount by 2009, having previously seen its average playercount be cut in half every 2 years since P2P was implemented.

Thus it was decided (and not just by myself) to try something new, to make the server more coherent, to give it a higher proportion of quality, so that it could eventually at least be capable of hooking new players. I have sympathy for those few who have paid money to play Classic, but given the choice, I'm sure most would feel the money was better spent if they were able to regularly play events and card games with trials.

Also keep in mind that PlayerWorld developers do not get a cut of such paid money, it's never been an intention of mine, but if it were the case I'm sure things would be much different across all of Graal.


This is actually how it happened, not a change of story. Initially I thought it was a suggestion, and so I made a counter-suggestion, then later I was told this is the format it will be. Bell can verify that.

Notice URL:
http://graalonline.com/playerworlds/stores/signup

And also from the page before that, where I got the url from the sentence the link was actually from.

Without Gold membership, you can only play 5 hours per month. To know other advantages you have with Gold membership, go to this page. In order to play more, you have to subscribe to graalonline.

And yes I would still be motivated.. I offered to assist developing and you wouldn't even let me prove myself.

Also to whom ever neg repped me keep it comming im not going into red neg anytime soon idiots.. however I will be neg repping alot of people from each of my accounts in return

[ffcmike]

Originally Posted by scriptless

Notice URL:
http://graalonline.com/playerworlds/stores/signup

And also from the page before that, where I got the url from the sentence the link was actually from.

That page is for Zone, if I changed the url to say Kingdoms instead of PlayerWorlds it would still work:
http://graalonline.com/kingdoms/stores/signup

Graal Skills too (lol):

http://graalonline.com/skills/stores/signup

Originally Posted by scriptless

And yes I would still be motivated..

It didn't seem like you were motivated to get much done to help Npulse get off the ground.
Looking back, I think it's fair to say the only server Managers that have been in a similar predicament within the modern era of Graal are Ziro and Crow, who both cited observer mode as a stumbling block to their efforts.

Originally Posted by scriptless

I offered to assist developing and you wouldn't even let me prove myself.

I asked you multiple times to provide me some examples to show what you're capable of, which you not only failed to produce, but reacted in such a way that suggested it was your divine right to develop on the server.
Maybe this is an inconvenient truth, but I'm very strict with the manner in-which things are coded (very abstract & compartmentalized), so as to avoid similar problems/conflicts to what Classic experienced throughout the pre-wipe years.

[scriptless]

Originally Posted by ffcmike

That page is for Zone, if I changed the url to say Kingdoms instead of PlayerWorlds it would still work:
http://graalonline.com/kingdoms/stores/signup

Graal Skills too (lol):

http://graalonline.com/skills/stores/signup


It didn't seem like you were motivated to get much done to help Npulse get off the ground.
Looking back, I think it's fair to say the only server Managers that have been in a similar predicament within the modern era of Graal are Ziro and Crow, who both cited observer mode as a stumbling block to their efforts.


I asked you multiple times to provide me some examples to show what you're capable of, which you not only failed to produce, but reacted in such a way that suggested it was your divine right to develop on the server.
Maybe this is an inconvenient truth, but I'm very strict with the manner in-which things are coded (very abstract & compartmentalized), so as to avoid similar problems/conflicts to what Classic experienced throughout the pre-wipe years.

It may be more aimed at Zone, but it doesn't specifically say it.. the average person knowing nothing of graal would assume it ment any server..

No I worked hard to help N-Pulse, they removed me because they didn't like me at the time. For what ever reason.

And you asked me that the first time I talked to you when I wasn't able to provide you any work and told you I would come up with examples. The next time we talked you said not to even bother.. the 3rd time we talked about it you said you wernt even interested in letting people work for you or some stupid reason.. after i had put alot of work into making examples to show you.. you treated me like **** just like you treat anyone else.. alot of people have told me how you treat them and use the word "douche" when reffering to you when i stood up for you anyways.. but i can see there right you may have put 5 years into helping Classic.. i have been helping multiple servers for over 8 years.. well more then your stupid 13,000 hours

[ffcmike]

Originally Posted by scriptless

No I worked hard to help N-Pulse, they removed me because they didn't like me at the time. For what ever reason.

That's not what you told me at the time.

Originally Posted by scriptless

And you asked me that the first time I talked to you when I wasn't able to provide you any work and told you I would come up with examples.

You gave me a story about how your account name is 'scriptless' because you never have examples of previous code, then eventually showed me some of FP4's script threads with the argument "I understand how this stuff works", which anyone could do.

Originally Posted by scriptless

The next time we talked you said not to even bother..

This is correct, I said this because of the way you reacted the first time, which in fairness, you later admitted was out of order and apologized.

Originally Posted by scriptless

the 3rd time we talked about it you said you wernt even interested in letting people work for you or some stupid reason..

I have no idea what you're talking about now, feel free to elaborate.

Originally Posted by scriptless

after i had put alot of work into making examples to show you.. you treated me like ****

You can ask Racil or WhiteDragon, I was looking specifically for someone who could lend a hand rescripting and creating new GC droppables, something which takes a little understanding but not a huge amount. If somebody would have shown examples proving they know what they're doing with their code, I'd have been quite keen to ask for their help on this.

Originally Posted by scriptless

just like you treat anyone else.. alot of people have told me how you treat them and use the word "douche" when reffering to you when i stood up for you anyways..

I wouldn't be surprised, when Classic launched a lot of people seemed to think it would be an easy, quick, effortless staff position on a hyped server. Then they showed resent once they realised they need to familiarise themself with the events if they want to become a GC, familiarise themself with Quests if they want to become a GH, avoid massing insults to players if they want to become a GP, all reasonable examples that I wish I was joking about but am not.

Originally Posted by scriptless

i have been helping multiple servers for over 8 years.. well more then your stupid 13,000 hours

I would like to see some evidence for it.

[scriptless]

I specifically linked you to MY post's not FP4's dont try and pull that **** on me. I also mentioned you could look at 90% of my threads ive started and see more examples.

While yes I said my name was scriptless because I do not save scripts to use as examples.. there on the forums but I never use the same script twice.. im always improving it..

The 3rd time we spoke I asked if you were interested in letting me help.. I don't have the pm logs on this pc.. im wondering if they were on my other hard drive before it crashed ot the pc down stairs that needs a power supply. i can check sometime in the next week or so on the pc down stairs (i know i asked you at least once on that one)..

but you basically said that i was wasting your time by asking you if you would be willing to let me prove yourself. im thinking the context was more twards just show me.. but im pretty sure you said at some point that because of my posts on the forums you didnt find me mature enough or something along the lines of not getting along with some people on the forums.. i do recall some of the details just not all of them.

As for what server's i've helped on sure I can provide you a list but since im nto the manager of them and the managers just gave up and stopped paying for them alot of them are not around anymore.

I've helped script on some of these servers since about 2003/2004:
n-pulse
zemi
graal apocalypse
delteria
val
esteria
Draenin's server
and a bunch of other UC servers that I cant think of nor can i load the rc to look them up (windows 8 wont let me use external rc)..

any server that needs my help.. any person that needs assistant i lend a hand.. im not a jerk like you.. i actually care about the community..

Ive helped debug scripts on Era, GK, not as staff but over AIM/Skype with people who worked there and couldnt figure stuff out.

[ffcmike]

Originally Posted by scriptless

I specifically linked you to MY post's not FP4's dont try and pull that **** on me. I also mentioned you could look at 90% of my threads ive started and see more examples.

While yes I said my name was scriptless because I do not save scripts to use as examples.. there on the forums but I never use the same script twice.. im always improving it..

The 3rd time we spoke I asked if you were interested in letting me help.. I don't have the pm logs on this pc.. im wondering if they were on my other hard drive before it crashed ot the pc down stairs that needs a power supply. i can check sometime in the next week or so on the pc down stairs (i know i asked you at least once on that one)..

but you basically said that i was wasting your time by asking you if you would be willing to let me prove yourself. im thinking the context was more twards just show me.. but im pretty sure you said at some point that because of my posts on the forums you didnt find me mature enough or something along the lines of not getting along with some people on the forums.. i do recall some of the details just not all of them.

I think I'll avoid getting into a pantomime style "oh yes you did, oh no I didn't" argument.

Originally Posted by scriptless

As for what server's i've helped on sure I can provide you a list but since im nto the manager of them and the managers just gave up and stopped paying for them alot of them are not around anymore.

I've helped script on some of these servers since about 2003/2004:
n-pulse
zemi
graal apocalypse
delteria
val
esteria
Draenin's server
and a bunch of other UC servers that I cant think of nor can i load the rc to look them up (windows 8 wont let me use external rc)..

I imagine if you'd contributed scripting help to so many different servers, it would have been very handy to keep some type of script portfolio to look back on.

Originally Posted by scriptless

any server that needs my help.. any person that needs assistant i lend a hand.. im not a jerk like you.. i actually care about the community..

Ive helped debug scripts on Era, GK, not as staff but over AIM/Skype with people who worked there and couldnt figure stuff out.

Well that's odd, at first you told me Npulse were wasting your time, and you'd like to work on Classic because it's exactly the same as what you'd come up with anyway.

And for the record, although I may not actively go out of my way to help others in the manner some other commendable developers do, I've still provided countless people with scripting help, I've even tried to help you in a thread you created in the scripting forums.

[xXziroXx]

TO BE FAIR, I WAS ALSO REJECTED BY THIS THOR CHARACTER

[scriptless]

Originally Posted by ffcmike

Well that's odd, at first you told me Npulse were wasting your time, and you'd like to work on Classic because it's exactly the same as what you'd come up with anyway.

And for the record, although I may not actively go out of my way to help others in the manner some other commendable developers do, I've still provided countless people with scripting help, I've even tried to help you in a thread you created in the scripting forums.

Yes N-Pulse was wasting my time and I was trying to move to Classic to work.. but I never quit.. I never gave up. I kept working. And I would have been more then capable of working 2 projects at the time and still am (actually helping 3 servers at the moment).

As for keeping them to look back on? Why? I can do a forum search and see bit's n' peices of my scripts, as well as others that can help accomplish my goals. And yes you have tried to help in a threat or 2, do you want a cookie?

Originally Posted by xXziroXx

TO BE FAIR, I WAS ALSO REJECTED BY THIS THOR CHARACTER

Like I mentioned, I am not the only one that thinks hes a jerk. He obviously has no care for the players of Graal anymore.. thats why he makes these comments like "Graal doesn't deserve Classic".. just because he has personal problems with Stefan. So hes taking it out on ALL of us.

And ziro, we all know your a good scripter. Thor just doesn't want anyone working on Classic's scripts. I believe he even said so a year or 2 ago when I was talking to him about it. Even when I proposed to help him without RC, without seeing the scripts. He was just very unreasonable.

[xXziroXx]

Originally Posted by scriptless

Like I mentioned, I am not the only one that thinks hes a jerk. He obviously has no care for the players of Graal anymore.. thats why he makes these comments like "Graal doesn't deserve Classic".. just because he has personal problems with Stefan. So hes taking it out on ALL of us.

And ziro, we all know your a good scripter. Thor just doesn't want anyone working on Classic's scripts. I believe he even said so a year or 2 ago when I was talking to him about it. Even when I proposed to help him without RC, without seeing the scripts. He was just very unreasonable.

My last post was meant to be super hardcore. Really. By the way, any self respecting server manager with any kind of development skills will be a jerk. It's not neccessarily a bad thing. It's one of the traits you're required to have in order to be able to deal with the horde of idiotic people out there.

[scriptless]

Originally Posted by xXziroXx

My last post was meant to be super hardcore. Really. By the way, any self respecting server manager with any kind of development skills will be a jerk. It's not neccessarily a bad thing. It's one of the traits you're required to have in order to be able to deal with the horde of idiotic people out there.

Id rather see someone whom is professional rather then a jerk.

[cptmetal]

Originally Posted by scriptless

Id rather see someone whom is professional rather then a jerk.

read:

Not being a pushover

instead of "jerk"

[ffcmike]

Originally Posted by scriptless

Like I mentioned, I am not the only one that thinks hes a jerk. He obviously has no care for the players of Graal anymore.. thats why he makes these comments like "Graal doesn't deserve Classic".. just because he has personal problems with Stefan. So hes taking it out on ALL of us.

That's not at all what I said or implied, what I said was directed at one particular person, which when you consider how pitifully few positive changes have been made to PC Graal in so many years now, I don't think many here could argue with in the case of any remade server. Seems to me that you're distorting the truth to suit your argument.

Originally Posted by scriptless

And ziro, we all know your a good scripter. Thor just doesn't want anyone working on Classic's scripts.

It was quite obvious Ziro wasn't being fully serious, you're also forgetting that I'd hired Kevin to help with scripting, twice. And for what it's worth, most of the staff with an RC plus a basic knowledge of scripting were given read rights to almost all code, with write rights for testing.

Originally Posted by scriptless

And yes you have tried to help in a threat or 2, do you want a cookie?

Ha ha, yeah I'm a jerk.

[ffcmike]

Originally Posted by scriptless

Screw it. See attachment. You said Stefan but you insisted that the rest of us don't matter as long as your sticking it to stefan pretty much.

That's a pretty extreme way to interpret it, just because I feel that the owner(s) of Graal doesn't deserve to have a remade PC server visible on their list, doesn't mean I don't want anything more than players enjoying the game. The incredible effort made up to now was despite that.

Originally Posted by scriptless

Lucky for me this also contains the 3rd time we spoke about scripting position. Where you pushed me off to WD and just ignored me after that. I showed you an example of a script and you said you didn't need that kind of script.. Which is besides the point.. the point was to show you the progression of my scripting skills.. you really want to start an argument here on this thread completely off subject then do it.. go for it.

You're right about one thing, it was for the sake of an example and I'll admit I should have been more open to seeing it.
I did however talk to WhiteDragon, who as I'm uneducated with other languages I've asked for advise regarding multiple potential coders. Irrespective of that we both noticed some posts you'd been making here, including within the scripting forum towards someone that tried to help you, and decided it would be best to stay clear.