Ah, I see what he was saying now x_x.

Those numbers are assuming that people bought the exact number of gelats that they spent on the shop. That probably isn't the case, I'd imagine.

I don't really get the whole idea of a cash shop. Can someone please explain?

A lot of people will leave Graal if they don't.

The idea is that the game will become free for everybody to play but servers will sell items that seem optional, and are specific to that server, for a small fee.
Ideally the items will be consumable or provide a bonus for a short while so that they can be sold to the same customers again and again and again.

Like all those free korean mmos.

Hmm. Sounds too much like Classic iPhone.

It's a system that would benefit Graal a lot, because quite frankly, none of the content is worth paying money for just to be able to play it properly. It would also make people be able to develop on UC servers without having to upgrade for it.

Being staff on UC playerworlds should have been free all along. The rental and bandwidth of those servers are already paid for by the playerworld owners.
Classic servers don't have owners paying for them so it makes sense for the players to cover that cost.
Tl;dr Paying to develop is just purely greedy double dipping.

Also I still can't see micro transactions working if we still need to buy gelats first. Paying $30 for a bunch of gelats is NOT a micro transaction.
The idea of micro payments is that paying $2 fifteen times seems like a lower cost than paying $30 all at once, and gelats remove a lot of the ease of what should be a very quick and very simple payment.

I don't speak for Unixmad, but I would assume that since the gelats at the moment are used for subscriptions, and thus need to be a large amount at a time with it being 300 gelats per month, then with subscriptions gone - much much smaller gelat packs would be offered at smaller prices.

I don't know specifically how the iPhone/iPad/iPod one works exactly, but when I get e-mails from their customers who e-mail the wrong address about gelat packs, they get something like tiny bundles at such a measly and manageable price which, with the removal of subscriptions to be replaced with gelat shops, would probably end up mimicked here.

For a bit of mathematics: With the cheapest subscription package at the moment (2400 gelats for 8 months gold charged at 300 per month, no bonus gelats added), that's around $33US total but just over $4US per month. Pay $4US and get 300 gelats to spend at these Gelat Shops and most wouldn't care about $4US off their backs. Much better than a huge chunk, that's for sure, which would make sense to be set at in these little packs compared to how they are now.

Again, obviously can't speak on behalf of Unixmad.

Why do they even want to have those additional steps between them and my money though? I just want to click on what I want in the cash shop, have a window that pops up with my credit card number and expiration saved, type in the 3 digit security code from the back of my card and bam, done. That's how I buy phone credit and it takes about 20 seconds, I don't even think about it.

They should be making it as quick and easy as possible to give them money. Gelats are just annoying.

No doubt. I agree completely. I can't think of any reasons to use currency to buy currency to buy product, either. I haven't spoken to Unixmad directly in over 2 years but I can imagine if I asked, I'd get some kind of brush-off to avoid discussing it.

It's most likely there so you've got situations like:

It's done in most other games too, even in places like the Xbox Live Marketplace and WiiWare store.

Classic iPhone is a small portion of Graal, you make it seem like its not even part of the whole picture which is Graal. I like the idea :)

Well actually.. PC is the small portion now.

Except in those cases I would be more likely to decide to just not buy it, and I'm sure other people would as well.

Another thing that I'd like to see is enforcing that the cash shop items be tradable.

nop!! real graal always da best platform traitor

Not content wise.

The pay system on iPhone works like this. They sell packs called gralat packs (not gelat as there's no subscription) which gives you either 2500 or 8000 gralats, depending on how much you pay. I personally think it's a rip off, especially because the prices for items are so high these days and buying packs is the easy and fastest to get money. People email you (by mistake probably) because sometimes they don't receive the packs. The system has flaws, but the pricing of the packs is fine. The problem is that the items you buy with gralats are so expensive that you're almost forced to buy the packs. I only hope that doesn't happen here.

Tell me they arent making more money then most ....

From what it sounds like, trials are going to be promoted to being classic.

That's not right. :(

If this is all true, I would actively start playing again because the playercount would spike so much. I could bring some friends along with me, too.

In a forum called "Your opinion" I'm going to hide my opinion with white font. Makes sense, no?

I am forever worried that the current Lifetime Classic status will be removed/invalidated somehow.

In a way, you're right to be worried about this. Since it is a service no longer provided by the company, they're well within their rights to give notice that they'll all be removed. However, it's been quite a long time since VIP and Classic Subscription were discontinued and yet they remain in play with something as simple as "If you want your e-mail address changed, and you're not currently upgraded to Gold, you will lose it" being the only thing cutting your chances of keeping it, and even then there is that leeway of "and not currently upgraded to Gold" which is quite simple to get around.

All considered, I don't think there are any plans of doing a GraalOnline-wide removal of the subscription. If that were the plan, they'd have done it already. Compared to the Graal#### community, the Classic Subscription community is becoming a minority, slowly but surely. Though, not outnumbered by them yet, it is heading that way. No sense to be kicking the last of us in the gut years down the track with "We decided, it's time..."

There isn't really a way around it if they're going to get rid of the subscription system altogether.

Pardon me if I'm wrong, but I paid $50 for my account 8 years ago under the assumption that I would have a classic subscription for life. And if I am mistaken I bought my account under those terms.

Wouldn't it be illegal in some sense to revoke that?

Nothing is getting revoked, if they bring Trials up to the same level as Classic Accounts it just devalues the Classic Lifetime subscription and Gold Subscriptions primarily used for playing on Classic Playerworlds.

Considering terms change you're probably also wrong about that aspect of it as well.

Nope, there are several legal precedents for almost the exact same case under contract law, as long as the service exists they need to uphold their end of the deal.
To get around it they would need to close Graal down and relaunch it with a new name, or just close down all of the classic servers (they couldn't just relabel them all as, say, "Silver Servers", because you could argue that it's a reasonable expectation that you'd still have access to servers that met the criteria of Classic servers back when you created your account).

Then what happens to those of us that have a Gold subscription?

I guess you'd get the gralats you spent on the current month refunded?

Hope so, if that's what's really going to happen.

what about being able to use graal$ to buy a gun or sword, also having a much larger cash shop.. I'm not really sure of how much of an 'economic impact' many of the servers would have, but I'm sure there is some sort of a middle ground with it..

i'd think f2p shouldn't be an option, but classic servers shouldn't be changed.
unless they Have to change. . . The Classic / gold is a good thing though, especially with the development servers. That being said can't see how alot of the people who have grown up on this, or played it for more than 5 years are strictly against paying a few dollars to support the servers and further Development of Graal..

i can see y if u have a classic account. idk not really @ all though

that's the attitude bra. I don't think the player count has anything to do with the payment plans. And Or, wouldn't. There is only a lag of quality in some of the servers. My opinion is hypocritical because I can't explain why Zone has empty days at all. Being free game for so long and developing tendency of a 'open community ->staff economic flux' we'll say, so no one would like the idea of change or the idea 'professionalism' brought to most of the servers, anyone playing wouldn't really want that or consider it 'boring'. .

Things have been this way for a very long time, while its fun while it lasts, people know change is long overdue. That the game: graal, Deserves Change. so

i'm not saying everyone should be paying $ to play the game they love. Well I Am saying that. but what i'm really trying to say is idk why graal didn't blow up yet considering it's one of the 'Best Games' i've ever played, i'm sure most of the frequent players could concur ;]. More players to develop more servers more servers to develop more players. beget, beget, beget. I feel like Graal is at a tipping point and tuff decisions need to be made either way so I hope I don't cloud no ones judgment. I'm just trying to toss my 2 C at it u know.

The 1, 3, 5 option is a good idea. Players will want to TRY the full benefits of GraalOnline (Gold) before auctually paying for a longer period of time. Making these options for PaybyCash users will let them have a fair deal on whether they want to keep playing the game or whatnot. The quality of the game is what will bring them towards the game and keep playing it therefore paying for a longer period of time. Also, if they were to purchase the 8 months option, and the player doesn't like the game, than they won't refer another friend to play the game and then so on and so forth. This is what makes the game grow more and more profitable.

You beat me to it :(

CJ is legally bound to continue to provide a service that they previously offered, that has been paid for. They can't revoke it unless as Demisis stated they do something that can break the contract.