Could have the background of the login(like in my mockup) be an actual playable lobby instead of a screenshot. Default would just show other players(not their chat, as that would make the interface too busy), and maybe a panning camera that floats around popular areas. Pressing a button gets rid of the interface and lets you actually play. It would 1) make the background seem more natural and lively, and 2) give players who want a lobby... a lobby, while keeping the interface there for those who prefer it.

^ this

Someone else should try their hand at making a mockup :P

I don't think they really do represent their game much anymore.. :o
or should put Gralats everywhere on the screen lmao..

Maybe the under construction things can be shown in a hidden spot or something.

I kinda meant whenever any game does that kind of stuff.
Like how WoW shows like a dragon or whatever animated at the login screen, it's just interesting.

Ooh, also shows there was time and effort put into making it. o.o;
You know.. unless you go for the Evony approach.. seems to work too with the whole Rebecca Black thing.. lol

If this wasn't gotten, Evony uses sex sells type of advertisement, and the Rebecca Black music video is popular due to hate.. Apparently people go on to Evony and yells wheres the boobs.. I don't know o.O never tried the game my self.. But apparently they make good money if they can advertise everywhere >.>

But yeah I think if they don't do the interactive version with walking, Dusty's approach was very good. It just needs a better level I think.. possibly things happening in the background.. Unsure how that would look..

I posted a solution to that above ^^ make the bg an actual lobby with players.

how is this difficult

some people act like we've never had a functioning login/serverlist before. dont get me wrong, im all for new things (as long as they're good), but this is from ~summer 2001 and 10 years later still looks better than anything we've had since v4 came out

Ya, I got my 45degree rotated BG idea from that :P But that's never coming back :(

Playable login server sounds really lame. I can't imagine it being done well.

Would it need to be done well? It'd practically be a giant chat room and that's it. I can't see it getting messed up too much. Hell, they could just copy over iPhone Graal.

i agree w/ dis

Oh man how I miss that, even the loading screen was pro.

Just curious bro, how would it be well done in your eyes?

If people spam, add an anti-spam class for players.
Use your custom curse filter
Allow all heads n such to be used for that server alone for preview demonstration purposes

I mean really, how do you mess that up!?

Letting MattKan do the levels.

Okay, so how can you make that judgment if you can't even think of what is actually possible with it?

...what?

That's like saying "how can you say that orange juice and toothpaste don't go together when you can't think of a way for them to go together?".

I'm glad you chose that example because those two things are like the worst two things to put together. Even the bubblegum flavoured kids toothpaste makes orange juice taste terrible.

Simple, they make Crest Orange Whitening Refresh, which an ingredient is orange juice concentrate and fluoride. It didn't taste bad either. Anything is possible, you just have to either believe in it or dream it. If you hinder yourself by saying 'can't' your are closing off a whole world of possibilities. A new login would be nice. It should do what a login screen should do and be able to download the client/dev tools/maybe even betas? Allow for chat rooms for friends to talk, but not necessarily have a player, but a start screen and a 'extended' playerlist, with IRC chat.

+rep to you bro.
...Someday when I've spread more around.

My point was not the analogy, but good job defeating that :rolleyes:.

I didn't say it couldn't be done, I said I can't imagine it being done well. If someone can come up with a good idea for a playable login server level, I'd be happy to have it implemented, because the login server is quite bad right now—but I'm yet to see that good idea.

I can think of a room with seats and tables, then the top server links which I don't know how you would do it, but could be done with an npc doing a server warp if touched.. No one said it had to look amazing.. just neat :]

But it would be nice to have a check box or something to just save the server you like to go on and 3 seconds of being in the room, it will automatically warp you to the server.. In case someone doesn't feel like walking to a door..

What is wrong with my idea?

Your idea is decent, but I would think it might be confusing to new players if there is a button to "join the lobby" or so.

I really don't see a reason we need a login lobby. What does it do that we can't do now on servers like UN?

I think if you fixed up your mockup a bit and maybe rotated it between 5-10 different screenshots as the background (different each time you start Graal) it would be quite nice.

Honestly I am not a fan of a lobby, but a lot of people apparently are and that was my only intention. The fact that my bg was simply a screenshot of a level made it make sense that it could be supplemented with an actual level/lobby. I don't see much harm in having a such a thing, but I'm also not much for it so I don't really see it as my place to argue for or against it as I'm mostly neutral on it.

Also, if UN can be replaced by a giant empty overworld with absolutely no content, I think they deserve it.

I was thinking on login with pass and user, it would just start you in the lobby at 30 30 or something, and you just walk to a server room, or talk to people lol

Kind of just eliminating the server selection :x

Personally I don't like the idea of walking through a door to get to a server. I foresee two possible reasons why you would be on the login server, first being to get to a different server, the second being to play the 'empty content' levels/ talk to people. If your there for 1 reason, your not there for the other. It would just muck up the experience if you had to find the door, walk through the door, blah blah when your jus trying to get on your favorite server. This kind of stuff should be optional.

"Walking" to a server is a stupid idea.

That's what i said ;)

Then you must have missed my earlier statement:

"But it would be nice to have a check box or something to just save the server you like to go on and 3 seconds of being in the room, it will automatically warp you to the server.. In case someone doesn't feel like walking to a door.."

Directed for the lazy people.. xD

It may be a stupid idea, but it is unique...

http://www.zolved.com/UserFiles/Imag...i%20parade.jpg

http://venturebeat.com/wp-content/up...home-mall1.jpg

I think we were talking about starting in a lobby where we could move around to select the server.. I have never had my Wii start me in the Mii lobby, and I've played on my Wii quite a few times..

Same with my PS3.. it sometimes doesn't even boot the game disc up, but it usually starts me on the screen where you select the menu you want.

But that would actually be kinda cool if my Wii did start on the Mii section o.o; How did you do it?

-EDIT-
Either way still sounds unique to me. If you'd like to try and prove me wrong in another odd way, why not take a picture of the Graal Server Zone's starting lobby and post it; it has more symbolic value. :3

Okay, so uniqueness is a little pushing on how to describe the idea, but it is definitely a smart way to introduce any new players to the game, because most people and I can bet a few will agree with me that when you start a new game of any kind or genre, unless you've decided to make your judgment right on screenshots, the login screen can give a small sized impression towards how you'll view the game in some minor way and it's like they say "You gotta make a good first impression", I mean that's why consoles like the wii, xbox 360 and PS3 are even making money.

If you can't show the game like a trophy, people will treat it like a garage sale item.

If you were given two options: a game-like lobby where you walk to a server, or a list of servers like we have now, which would you choose as your default?

The lobby might be cool once or twice, but I think most people just want to instantly connect to their home server.

It wouldn't be hard to have that lobby, but to also have an npc that you could set an automatic warp to your home server. Perhaps a window that pops up that says something along the lines of, "Automatically will transfer to your selected home server in 5s." And have a cancel button if you wanted to hang out on in the lobby, and an 'OMG GET ME THERE NOW' button for those who can't wait that long.

A lobby login server would be really cool. Few ideas I came up with just now:
-What I stated in the first paragraph about auto-warp.
-Lobby could just be a place for people to sit around and idle, chat, etc.
-News posted on a board there.
-Portals to other servers.
-Since it would be the gateway to all of the servers (classic and more modern), it could use a tileset that falls somewhere in between those two styles.

Just throwing some ideas out there..

a lobby server is pointless and does servers no favors. you make something as basic as selecting a server tedious.

if it's an option then its a redundant one thing to do. there's a pretty good reason why you don't walk to server rooms and whatnot on good games.

A lobby for servers cannot be done effectively to match the global right that handles how servers are listed and is a really silly idea anyway. Think about how servers are added and removed to the login list, or toggled between Gold, Hosted or Classic status- A /global command. A global command is not going to dictate how many entrances there are or how they're handled effectively.

Not to mention the ability to get to UC servers seems to have been entirely ignored in this discussion.

Simple, but not an eyesore, is a far better approach. I must also agree that OVERusing GUIs is to be avoided like the plague. So annoying.

Woh.. I didn't even think of all the underdevelopment servers o.O; there would be like 1000 doors... D:

Finally someone persuasive and smart steps up..
I feel stupid for missing it lol...

-Edit-
Still like the idea but it isn't really possible..
In that case something that looks good is fine..
But who is going to do it? lol

Actually it is very possible, it may seem weird but it's still easily manageable.

Make sub division rooms at login, perhaps have a informations NPC character to explain what each group means and they could go along the lines of something like below.

"-Gold-", "-Classic-", "-Hosted/Premiere-" and "-Underdeveloped-".

Make -Underdeveloped- come up with a list full of the servers that belong in this department.

Problem Solved.

That's not really the point. Either forget the server warp doors, or that whole idea in general, imo. Just a really nicely done simple login server would be the best. It should encompass all of the best of graal in order to better maintain new players intrest. I liked some idea with different (background) videos of the types of servers we have, on some sort of rotation. It would have to be made pretty well so it was not too busy, but not too boring though.