Why has the playercount dropped so dramatically?

[MiniOne]

Originally Posted by Angelu

Would be interesting if you need a minimum of (something around 10) Developers and a concept
with (something around 1000 words) to buy a new or renew the Subscription of a Server...
I think if Graal has 10 UC Servers with 10 Developers the chance for sucess is
much bigger than if there are 150 UC Servers with 3 Devs

Yes i agree if we made requirements to get a UC server then it could work a lot better and the updates could come in more frequently as well as a bigger range of ideas from each Developer.

[Matt]

All of this would reduce the Graal manager(s) income.

[DesolateRestriction]

As I and other people have said before. There needs to be benefits to being a graal developer. As to what those benefits would be and how they would be distributed is a job for the graal global management team.

As it stands the only reward for developing your own server is to see others enjoy it and to be able to have some control over the decisions of your server. Though this is a great reward in itself, it's just not enough to motivate a lot of people to go through the pain staking task of creating their own playerworld and sadly such said task has only increased in difficulty with the decreased player count and developer count.

I do not feel that removing servers is a good idea,
atleast not the hosted and classic ones. Why? Because those servers are mostly composed of die hard loyalists. If Delteria was removed, do you think the Delterian developers would pack up and move to another server to work even more efficiently than they did for Delteria? Hell no. Why would they? The only thing that motivated them to get this far was their loyalty to Delteria. With it dead, they'd just quit graal. And there goes atleast 5-10 players, gone from Graal forever.

We need more compelling ideas that promote freedom and creativity (which is what graal is about), not hinder it. we need Global Management support and we need it now.

If you ask me, I think the first move should be to setup an effective network for Developers to be connected (not some distant forums board off game.)
Perhaps something that resembles Xbox Live Gamer Cards, but instead it's "Developer Cards", that would list projects (servers) you've worked on, your talents, in game information, etc. Make these easily accesible in game. Something that can spread throughout all the graal community (Because let's face it, not every graalian bothers coming to these forums.)

[Damien]

The playercount has dropped so dramaticly because of the updates that have been happening recently. Zone's Trial limitations and gelat shop weapons took out the average 50 playercount per day, and the Observer mode for classic servers didnt have much effect because of lifetime classic among players.

[GarethOmni]

I think it's due to the fact that people are normally drawn to this game at a younger age (When not usually able to spend money on it) and not being able to afford it.
It seems a lot more expensive than it used to be, but whys that?

The idea that you can't just open up your account properties and change your e-mail kind of irritates me and I'm sure other people that have e-mails they've used when they were 12 and want to switch them don't want to pay 30 bucks or give up their account's classic to do so.

It should be required that you have a certain amount of content before you can own a server and begin developing it. (And by own I mean Graal Owns that work)
A player opening up a server should submit a tileset (If it's not using the standard one), a staff list, and a proposal of content. Basically saying "Hey we can do something with this server space and we are not just blabbing away to you in order to own a server that will ultimately just be stagnate and die". This would encourage more developers to work on already established worlds, and encourage better content/ideas when they decide to take on creating their own world.

Many of the classic servers seem to be on a broken record of repetitiveness, Era is extremely guilty of this and because of it many of the players have either stopped playing or only login like once or twice a month.

[fowlplay4]

Graal just doesn't have very much "hook" factor, that keeps newbies from wanting to play more.

Need to get the "hook" factor back.

I'm sure many of the players consider it an interactive 2d chat room.

[Liberated]

okay everyone listen up, i finally discovered why the playercount has dropped so much.
Of course, it's impossible that such a brilliant game as graal dies out, especially with all the advertising that is being done, so there is only one conclusion. Conspiracy.Okay now that might sound a bit strange at first, it also did to me, but i have found evidence. I've hacked into the mainframe of sereral countries, and of agencies like the DIA, FBI and CIA, everything leads to one conclusion. They're trying to shut graal down, they're secretly contacting players, and telling them to quit playing for their own good, they're also preventing new players as much as possible. Why you ask? Well because of the brainwashing program of course, something Stefan never told us about. They discovered behind graal a brainwashing program is being build, and alot of you will deny this, but alot of players have already been brainwashed.
To prevent yourself from being brainwashed, you must always wear these special goggles i made, theyre only 50$ each, pm me about them if you're interested. Unless you prefer to be a mindless zombie of course.

[Deas_Voice]

Originally Posted by Liberated

BIG WALL OF TEXT

i saw the word Conspiracy and stopt reading.

[Liberated]

well that word said it all actually, but you missed one hell of story tho.

[Kamaeru]

Originally Posted by fowlplay4

Graal just doesn't have very much "hook" factor, that keeps newbies from wanting to play more.

Need to get the "hook" factor back.

I'm sure many of the players consider it an interactive 2d chat room.

Considering the fact that the game Graal is based on (A Link to the Past) is a game with such an intensely well thought-out replayable hook that people still play it religiously (whether they are good at it or not) shows me that Graal--as based on what it originally was that hooked many players back in the late 90's early 00's-- is still very much capable of hooking players the exact same way.

Everybody loves Zelda. It is the best, most eclectic idea for a game that has ever been thought up, in my opinion. We need more developers who are dedicated to this idea (there were plenty originally) and I believe we could make some servers worthy of a meaningful playercount.

How hard would it be to make a game, basic as it may be, that well overpowers Zodiac, Era, and UN on the classic list? I know many developers who are capable!

And furthermore, no advanced systems are really necessary. Considering that a complete adventure game has hardly ever even been tried on Graal, I find it hard to listen to the nay-sayers.

Nobody can resist a good game. Everyone puts down a bad one. Bam.

[Unkownsoldier]

I got hooked in 02' because it was the only game that you could, customize your character with graphics you make and run around killing random people and joining guilds. Honestly, what happened was when observer mode came it shut down the important things Trials did, they hooked up with other trials and made weird fake guilds and have funky nick names. Example: Airtido {Ravenous Play}, this being said that kept them playing because they would hang out with their friends, now all the old players are cussing the newbs out making fun of them the observer mode doesn't help and that's why they stopped playing.

[Galdor]

Well none of the official graal servers have have any gameplay at all (I don't take the playerworlds too seriously)

Classic has just 2-3 bad quests that don't make sense and / are boring like with a flying guy coming from nowhere while ur just running around, killing you and then you end up in jail... and terrible boss design ect.

Graal kingdom is not fun at all... thats all I have to say (but I know the gk staffs are working hard on that atm, \m/ Alarid =D).
And then we have Zone... I really don't see what you people see in that game it has no single player content at all, no monsters, no quests, bad controls (like you have to make this stupid dance to hit people with a gun... just aim and shoot!) and the whole server is like based of a short domination type event that repeats over and over again.... of course people get bored of that after a few years and leave.

[Ares]

everyone feel free to answer this question, how many servers do you think there should be?

[Angelu]

Originally Posted by Ares

everyone feel free to answer this question, how many servers do you think there should be?

Only one
All this servers in 1 client makes Graal special but on the other side
its Graal's biggest problem because it splits all the players on different servers.
1 server with 500 player is much more interesting than 6 with 20-100 player
and its much easier to support 1 server with new content

[Ares]

Originally Posted by Angelu

Only one
All this servers in 1 client makes Graal special but on the other side
its Graal's biggest problem because it splits all the players on different servers.
1 server with 500 player is much more interesting than 6 with 20-100 player
and its much easier to support 1 server with new content

a lot of people feel that way, but that will never happen again
i think that if there is downsizing, there should be 3 servers in the classic tab