It's not hard.

[Sword]

On UN's in-game forums, I see suggestions that blow everything out of proportion and treat UN as if it is a hopeless smear of what it once was. In respect, that really describes the current state of Graal. The internet changes, and it's no one's fault in particular.

What I don't understand is the apparent lack of direction. This isn't aimed at the current Manager or higher administration of UN in particular. I actually appreciate the general structure of the server right now: higher-ups are Manta, Rage, and Vicious (I think). These guys don't act like traditional Graal staff and probably aren't treated like them, but they have experience. These guys have contributed and been with UN forever. The server is better with these people (moreso the first two).

We need more people like that. Cujo seems interested in developing levels for UN lately. Why isn't he staff yet? Hoyt seems pretty passionate about Graal again. That guy is one of the best coders I've ever seen, why not try to bring him on?

The fact of the matter is that UN does not need huge sets of vibrant, complex levels and scripted systems for it to be successful. UN needs some cleaning up and polishing around the edges, and then UN needs to be brought into 2011.

What I mean by that is, 95% of action on Graal's only "traditional" server left occurs in a small portion of levels: the Events House and TC Spar. TCPK should and could easily be included in that mix. Events, sparring, and PKing. That's the trinity of classic Graal gameplay. It still works. People don't play UN to mine. People don't play UN to do the little RPG system or whatever. People don't play UN for the marriage system or whatever time-consuming other side projects you guys have put efforts towards. How about UN steps up and does what Graal as a whole has neglected for a long time and take a step back?

• Ease the workload on staff. We don't need new quests, an RPG system, or all of this extra junk that is or may be in the works. We never needed the dojos with all of those skills or the Zelda-esque caves, I mean whatever. Come on. This is Unholy Nation. We play this server because it is fun to chat with friends, play events, spar, and PK. Maybe we like to trade hats too, that's fine.
• Why is there not a more concentrated link between TC Spar, TCPK, and the Events House? Like I said before, welcome to 2011. We're lazy players. The internet has changed. I know the Events House has a door straight to TC Spar in some hidden level through the middle door in the main room of the building, but can we put it out somewhere more visible. We don't need that second level in TC Spar, how about replacing that door with doors to immediately enter TCPK and the Events House? It seems like such a stupid problem, but I think part of the problem is that we don't want to walk between so many levels and so far between events and sparring. We want to be there and come back in seconds.
• Why have you guys allowed PKing to die? It doesn't take Bill Nye to revive PKing. You incentivize it. You have someone create a script that randomly drops a little bit of EP in the level every 2-6 hours. You make a script that rewards the top PKer of the day with 10 EP at the end of every day. You create a leaderboard. You link it directly to TC Spar and the Events House. Hello? This is basically a no-brainer.
• Once again, in regards to bringing everything all together: Can we see the spar line while in TCPK, if we have these 3 (Events House, TCPK, TC Spar) linked together? People don't really like to sit around idle in TC Spar. They do it because, well, what else do we do? You know, if TCPK was linked directly to the spar, I bet people would PK. You can have it summon them right back to TC Spar and into the spar when it is their turn to spar. It's really simple, guys. Maybe create some sort of miniaturized "spar viewer" that shows the main TC spar from the Events House, so people have something to watch and look at instead of just idling, waiting for an event?

I feel like UN has a lot of content and a lot of truly time-tested material that can be successful, it's just not being leveraged correctly. You guys seem to be thinking big instead of thinking small.

[Fulg0reSama]

inb4 the following:
UN is a sandbox social server.
but we like the RPG and marriage projects.

[ffcmike]

If it was that easy I'm sure PC Graal would have at least one server thriving on nothing but traditional spar + pk and events.

[Crono]

how to fix un - stop taking it seriously

[Unkownsoldier]

Guess what, UN was fun because friends used to play. Friends grew up and left, some of us still played. No new players come along because back when we played it was newish, Graal wasn't cutting edge but it wasn't outdated like it is now. So all the new generation kids like to play the better updated games, they like graphics, updates every day, and pointless achievements. Graal only has one of those three (pointless achievements). UN will never be what is was in the past, or what you in-vision for a future of change. It will slowly lose players due to growing up and eventually the game will be shut-down or move solely to the iDevices. Yet, it doesn't matter at that point you should be worrying about whats going on in your life and not about a game.

[ff7chocoboknight]

Spar, PK, chat. iPhone has all of those with more people and better accessibility.

[fowlplay4]

UN's ****ed until they get Observer Mode removed off of it.

Hard to get any new playercount when they get randomly booted off every 15 minutes or whatever amount of time it is.

[snoop413]

pretty well said. i think UN only needs to focus on events, spars and pking. the only complicated part is they need to figure out a reward. it'll be fun for a while but eventually people will expect to get something or they'll get bored again. they also need to focus on a few other things, but mostly because they're broken. job system, economy, qmenu. they're all so terrible.

the main problem UN has is the management. every single admin excepct the et dev and eta are inactive. they either don't have time for graal or don't care to play anymore. just last night there was like 50 people on for one event, so i think if globals finally did something and replaced them with someone who will actually do something instead of just say it, that this server could at least get somewhat active.

[MattKan]

Here's a tip: Disable GS1, that'll get UN staff and even players working.

[maximus_asinus]

no, it is hard

[Fulg0reSama]

Originally Posted by MattKan

Here's a tip: Disable GS1, that'll get UN staff and even players working.

Originally Posted by maximus_asinus

no, it is hard

Pretty much this, Though I feel that MattKan's phrasing needs changing to the following:

Originally Posted by MattKan

Here's a tip: Disable GS1, that'll get UN staff working on losing morale and start on the eventual path to abandon hope and ship, but players will start leaving rather then working.

[Starfire2001]

Originally Posted by MattKan

Here's a tip: Disable GS1, that'll get UN staff and even players working.

Events would still work! ;-)

[MysticX2X]

Originally Posted by MattKan

Here's a tip: Disable GS1, that'll get UN staff and even players working.

What staff?

[Sword]

Originally Posted by ffcmike

If it was that easy I'm sure PC Graal would have at least one server thriving on nothing but traditional spar + pk and events.

Huh? Hello 1998-2001? You're managing Classic right now, I'm sure you remember what Classic was like years ago. It was nothing but quests, PKing, and events, less enthusiasm on the sparring. We don't currently have a server thriving off of that because that server doesn't exist. Even if everything is implemented perfectly, UN still isn't going to surpass Zodiac or anything. It'll just do more to make the community a little more active and responsive. Right now, the only thing keeping UN moving are events really. The new achievements system is really cool, though.

Originally Posted by Unkownsoldier

Guess what, UN was fun because friends used to play. Friends grew up and left, some of us still played. No new players come along because back when we played it was newish, Graal wasn't cutting edge but it wasn't outdated like it is now. So all the new generation kids like to play the better updated games, they like graphics, updates every day, and pointless achievements. Graal only has one of those three (pointless achievements). UN will never be what is was in the past, or what you in-vision for a future of change. It will slowly lose players due to growing up and eventually the game will be shut-down or move solely to the iDevices. Yet, it doesn't matter at that point you should be worrying about whats going on in your life and not about a game.

You're stating the obvious. This isn't what I'm implying. Read my reply to Thor, UN isn't going to be "what it once was" but it can still be something. It's common sense that Graal is well past its prime and UN isn't going to touch 120 players anymore.

Originally Posted by maximus_asinus

no, it is hard

I'm not trying to belittle staff and say that there is no work at all required to put into this. But I see things in development and things released on UN that just make me scratch my head, because everyone knows that they're going to remain untouched and unused. Like I said before, the RPG system, mining, fishing, all that is old news. Stop exhausting yourself by working on changing UN and just work with what you have and weave it together a little nicer.

[ffcmike]

Originally Posted by Sword

We don't currently have a server thriving off of that because that server doesn't exist.

It doesn't exist because with all of the several servers that has been attempted with deliberation or not it has never succeeded or remained successful.
Classic's community survived on little except for events + spars + pking + guilds in the post-npcserver years, despite the awful hit-detection, simple fact was it wasn't enough by itself.