Graal Free To Play on Facebook and Android

[MattKan]

Originally Posted by NicoX

Could someone ban this idiot?

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.

Originally Posted by xXziroXx

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.

Originally Posted by ff7chocoboknight

:/

Fine, I'm sorry :< @ Thor and everybody else who read this thread.

[Darklux]

First of all. Thanks to the honest reply.
And to state this again: I like graal and this is no anti graal thread - the very opposite. I am an IT Professional myself and accept the fact very much, that the Game has to be profit orientated.

YET: The thing I am trying to state and many others too is, that the course PC graal is running does not seem to be a good direction, as we are loosing the playerbase - and in the end, the goal of development is to entertain you and others - yet the others seem to be running away, keeping the stiff concept that has many problems, competing with the many free to play games.

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.

Sadly, I cannot agree with this. The IPhone Game's only have a loose connection to PC Graal - it is not even linked on the eurocenter page anymore. The games would need to google to even notice, that there still is a PC version of this game.
There are few developments on the v6 client (yet it seemss to see no final fixing and no release).
The productivity tools for other topics than scripting have no seen development in years. If gconsctruct would have been finished, it would have been no problem with the level editor, seeing the development has ceased and its still very buggy, this is a problem.
The level editor for example only adapts very badly to the new big resolutions - still being somewhat stuck in the year 2001.

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. 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).

I agree that the free-to-play concept is a very big step but it seems to us - as there is no visible progress - that nothing is happening.
But I don't get why you don't use the massive player workforce on graal on this? No attempt was taken to ask us. For example, why don't you just add an api for this and enforce signed code? For example there could be an requirement for scripts touching this api to be signed by an certificate - easy protection against manipulation.

Originally Posted by Tricxta

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.

Maybe I have sounded a bit greedy with my last post, that was no intention. What I men't is that there seem to be 3000 active players on iGraal, spending money on the app and microtransactions - yet nothing seems to be flowing back into the PC Graal community, that has created alot of the concent - and this is the point which seems to be unfair for me.

Originally Posted by ffcmike

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 think this is stating the problem quite well - as the free experience is very limited compared to the lot of free mmorpgs, many people won't even consider upgrading for this - although graal features a rich experience with cool gameplays in very different ways, so I think that Eurocenter is somehow underrating PC Graal by themselves - like I stated, it's not even linked.

[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.

[ffcmike]

Originally Posted by Darklux

so I think that Eurocenter is somehow underrating PC Graal by themselves - like I stated, it's not even linked.

I actually do agree that many of their concerns have an element of truth, however it ultimately stems back to the bad decisions that have plagued the game over all this time. In a way it is failing to accept responsibility and punishing those who try to.

[Crono]

Originally Posted by Imperialistic

I don't have the best memory of Zone, but didn't things start going downhill once Supernanny started managing?

No, it was specifically right after Graal v5 was introduced.

[dude2020]

Originally Posted by Crono

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.

Originally Posted by Imperialistic

I don't have the best memory of Zone, but didn't things start going downhill once Supernanny started managing?

Supernanny (Possibly Stephen) and before were heavily restricted. I do not blame them and shouldn't of been restricted as much as they should have. The others after though, weren't restricted as much as the previous ones have been. The only thing they were not allowed to change on the live server was the cash shop.

We saw terrible content under those managers and nothing out of the current. We saw PowerProNL create a terrible new deathmatch map and releasing it and making it the one the players are forced to play for a number of rounds before the old one comes up. We also saw a new CTF, which was released as unfinished. We then saw a continuation of the planet point system (Which I find absolutely stupid).not sure if it was PPNL or Codein

Pez took over and failed at balancing weapons, and further additions to planet points. He didn't change any of the previous content added by PowerProNL and refused to work from not being able to touch the cash shop (which from what I understand, you can nerf the weapons and add the stuff to the in-game shop while keeping everything on there).

[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.

[Crono]

Originally Posted by dude2020

Supernanny (Possibly Stephen) and before were heavily restricted. I do not blame them and shouldn't of been restricted as much as they should have. The others after though, weren't restricted as much as the previous ones have been. The only thing they were not allowed to change on the live server was the cash shop.

We saw terrible content under those managers and nothing out of the current. We saw PowerProNL create a terrible new deathmatch map and releasing it and making it the one the players are forced to play for a number of rounds before the old one comes up. We also saw a new CTF, which was released as unfinished. We then saw a continuation of the planet point system (Which I find absolutely stupid).not sure if it was PPNL or Codein

Pez took over and failed at balancing weapons, and further additions to planet points. He didn't change any of the previous content added by PowerProNL and refused to work from not being able to touch the cash shop (which from what I understand, you can nerf the weapons and add the stuff to the in-game shop while keeping everything on there).

We're really running off topic but Zone was dead well after those guys were appointed manager. Once Zone died it became almost impossible to revive it. The players that had played it either moved on to other servers or quit Graal all-together. They were initially chased off by the restrictions directly prior to v5 and then afterwards.

We do have some hope @ iZone though, I just hope we can play it on our v6 clients and not have to use crappy Facebook.

[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.

[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.

[skillmaster19]

LOL. Thor he is just trying to find a way to reply. He's probably uncomfortable with answering your requests and all that, so he looked for something easy to say.