"The Value of a Playerworld" - Article by Thallen
From about the time when Graal Kingdoms was just beginning as a project, it seems like playerworlds are not as respected and valued by developers as they were before that particular time. Does anyone remember Cynical? Galbadia? If you don't, you're not guilty of anything; those are two servers in specific that suffered a short-lived time on the playerlist, not because of lack of players (neither were victim of that) but because of something else that until this day hasn't been announced.
As time goes on, generally, people expect the quality of gameplay to improve, but really, nothing is wrong with a playerworld with the default tileset and a spar and PK theme. How and why are playerworlds like Cynical (up for a few months maybe) and Galbadia (online for only days, managed by Sebman) just disappearing? How does a whole, mostly-developed world just disappear? I see no excuse for it. People have told me it's the manager's decision, but when a playerworld is placed on the playerlist, it's property of Graal Online. Find a manager for the world if you must, PWA. What I am getting after is that completed playerworlds are a rarity ever since playerworld renting. 95% of the servers that are rented don't even have a chance of making it online, and there are so many, it is so spread out that I fear none will ever even be completed. Archaic was looking great, what went wrong with it? The problem is the people do not understand the value of even a half-developed playerworld, no matter it's style.
People are trying to make something new and never tried before, and there is really not an unlimited number of things possible to develop on Graal. Unholy Nation strives on just events and PKing it seems, and that's the same for N-Pulse. Classic lives on it's community, and surprisingly, those three servers aren't all that different, they all have that classic Graal theme, but they strive. If N-Pulse can get 70 players a day in a level for chat, a spar, and an events house, Babylon could be released right now (and never even taken offline, why did that happen) and be successful. We don't need mindblowing content on a playerworld if it means it will never realistically be completed. All that, I think, most of us want is a little bit of change. Babylon, Mithica, Cynical, Galbadia, Andor, Providence, those weren't level-up or shooter servers, those all were that classic-themed spar and PK playerworld, and they were all pretty successful at some time because (I'm amusing) they were simple enough to complete, so the project remained healthy, and they were released to the players when they should have been... |