I will have to respectfully disagree, as I personally do not believe iPhone should remain the indefinite future of Graal if there is to be a future for Graal. Nobody actually wants to play Graal2001 other than Graal2001 players at the moment. Exactly 0% of those Graal2001 players are dying to play it on iPhone. The server could easily be restored to a point where it would be playable for those players who wish to have access, and it would be a great justice to the community of Graal to do something like that instead of a big derpy iPhone revival, which is a terrible idea.

Yeah they actually don't. I would argue that nearly 100% of actual real world Graal2001 players are not interested in playing it on anything other than PC.

Okay, well everyone already is aware that those are not very adept platforms either. I shouldn't even be explaining this in the year 2016.

Cool straw man analogy! Here's the part where I shatter your subjective moral high ground. iPhone does not provide any advantage over other leading video game platforms as far as user availability. There are millions of PC gamers who could get access to Graal and become interested via advertising, and it really helps to gain players when a PC game receives actual support. Maybe you should think about the reasons why PC Graal lost so many players, because there are more reasons than personal bias why it's a more viable platform than iPhone or Facebook. Here's an example: why not release Graal on Steam? That's a rhetorical question, because derp!

There are no buttons, and the game apparently isn't optimized enough to draw all of the NPCs on the screen at one time that might appear. Those were two of the glaring inconveniences I experienced in my 2 minute playthrough of Facebook/iPod Classic (which is an atrocity by the way, nice job screwing up royally).

So like... a handful of people? Woo... that justifies the work of all the effort that it would take to revive the server and make it playable!
Ya, shouldn't have to explain your point. How convenient..
I don't care about any of that. The point is Graal is what it is, has what it has, and releasing a server only to PC is practically subjecting it to a quick death. No point being hypothetical about what Graal could be on different platforms when it's not. You just want 2k1 back to be what would amount to a personal playground for a few people before they get bored and leave.

Who screwed up Facebook Classic? We don't control the clients and their limitations, we just do our best to work around them. There is no limit to drawing NPCs on the screen, and most limitations of Flash are visual and not really effecting gameplay. But keep on insulting our work since you obviously contribute so much more.

Before you guys took my rights away I was actually doing that, yes. I get the feeling you iPhone goons ruined all the work we were doing as well as probably left the server basically a train wreck from the looks of the story I just got out of Rufus.

I can't imagine the server maintaining a steady playercount solely based on old Graal2001 players. I guess it depends on what the plan is for PC Graal in general, but a server with no players would have been removed from the serverlist in the past. Though now that iPhone is center of attention for the administration those kind of standards may not hold true anymore.

I still think that in order to revive the server you're going to need to introduce a new playerbase and iPhone, Android, Facebook, whatever is the only viable route towards that. It just makes the server more accessible as opposed to the stagnating PC client which hasn't seen any movement in years. Unless you really are just looking for a 'museum' to log on for nostalgia purposes or something, but like Dusty said, that seems like a waste of real effort.

The 'iPhone project' was housed on a separate server.

Go to Era, Zodiac, etc and use the same logic, that their server is not viable because they're old players, and see the reaction. In fact, go to a RUSH concert and try arguing with RUSH fans using that logic, see how it goes. You're just wrong about this.

And your solution is what? Stifle out any PC Graal development growth? If PC Graal is such a non-threat then let legitimate projects develop. Your logic is "PC Graal is not as good as iPhone Graal, therefore PC projects won't help Graal grow". That makes absolutely no sense and you are part of the problem. If something is not seeing any movement, hitting the brakes is not how you solve that problem. You're looking for the gas pedal. Now hand in your license because you're driving drunk.

That's because you guys are not Graal2001 fans. I don't even remember you or Dusty ever playing back in those days, I could be incorrect about that but you were not the developers I ever worked with, or players I ever played with. The fact that you believe opening this server to the players is a waste of effort is full testament of the fact that you don't intend on actually helping and are working to stop Graal2001 from seeing the light of day.

Why does it have to be one or the other? As someone who's been working actively on a server project for a long time, it's clear as day to me that the only path forward for ANY new server project - revival or not - is to focus on cross-platform support.

Servers can, and should, be available on PC, iOS, Android and Flash. Limiting to one or the other would be very naive. This isn't the golden Graal days of 99-05 anymore.

Actually not sure if you were aware of the subject of conversation but it's Graal2001 that we are currently discussing. If you argue that dedicating development of a game to a single platform is a bad business move you should ask real world game developers why they decide to take that route all the time. In my opinion it is a waste of development resource and time to try and make Graal2001 multiplatform, and to show how realistic my thoughts are these guys couldn't even get 1 month into their attempt before giving up.

I don't see why your rights would be taken if you were actively developing and progressing the server... the only wasted ressource now is devs wanting to dev and not having a place to dev

In the case of Graal, of course it would be a bad business move to just release on PC. At this moment iClassic alone has 40x more people online than the entire PC client, and because of the micro transactions I'm sure it generates a hell of a lot more than 40x the profit. By making the game cross-platform you're opening it up to a new audience of thousands of players. I'm not saying the server would instantly grow to this size but it would definitely be a lot bigger than if it was just released to the client. Whether you'd want that many players is your opinion but saying it'd be a bad business move would just be wrong.

Adding microtransactions to Graal2001 would fundamentally change the entire game at its core concepts. The amount of fundamental changes to the gameplay and economy of Graal2001 would be so drastic that it would make more sense to just develop a new server, because the end result would not resemble the Graal2001 gameplay everone loves one way or the other. Tell me again how that's a good business move? I'm sorry but you guys are way off on a tangent, and I'm not listening to a word of it because it's palpably demonstrable nonsense. Myself and all of the people who have been heavily involved with Graal2001 are going to look at what you've said here and laugh. How do we factor the market economy into a hypothetical microtransaction cash shop? You're creating a can of worms here that does not need to be opened, because Graal2001 already has its own problems that need real world engineering to fix. Proposing we add more problems to the development of Graal2001 is absolutely stupid.

Graal2001 is a high quality game, and high quality games are found on dedicated platforms period. With your logic Nintendo should just make Zelda and Mario games multiplatform cash-grabs with microtransaction cash shops while they're at it.

...

(here's a hint: that's not a good idea at all)

A good business move would be one that is profitable, you're telling me monetizing a game while increasing the playercount dramatically isn't? Either way I do think that the way microtransactions are executed on iServers is horrible but there's different ways they could be implemented without using a cash shop and ruining the economy.

My point is more to do with the playerbase rather than the money side of things though. I don't doubt you'd be able to recreate the game perfectly but what's the point of that if no one plays and how fun would it really be? I don't know how many people you think are still around from 2001 but I can't imagine there's a great deal and those alone wouldn't be enough to hold a stable playercount. You might get some new players but unless you're able to provide something really different from other servers then not many people are going to want to play. Graal PC isn't what it once was and for Graal2001 to really thrive again it would need to be accessible through other means than just the client.

Also, the reason Nintendo works is because by making their games exclusive they are promoting their platform, if they didn't make games like Legend of Zelda or Mario exclusive do you think nearly as many people would buy their consoles? Not sure about you but I for one wouldn't.

My plans are to revamp the economy but you won't see a cookie cutter cash shop like other servers. To unveil every idea I have in the works here would be foolish.

I am taking this as evidence that you have never played Graal2001. It's the funnest game I've ever played man, you're gonna love it. It certainly is this:
---
Exactly! This is only proving my point. PC Graal is a platform. Having an awesome game to play on the platform that doesn't patronize users will improve PC Graal user count and that's the bottom line of what I want to accomplish here.

Those who believe that a single game cannot revive a dying game platform need only look at the example of Pokemon in 1996 which revived the handheld gaming market and made the dying Game Boy platform viable for many more years than originally projected.

"..when a problem just can't be solved no matter what, someone is lying." - Shigeru Miyamoto

(slightly off subject - it can ironically be argued that the mass popularity of pokemon created the userbase, market and audience which allowed for a game like Graal to exist in the first place, and it can even more ironically be argued that pokemon was a key factor that caused proliferation of casual handheld gaming which rolled out the red carpet for the iphone game market.)

Yeah you're right, I've never played it past messing around on an old backup in the offline editor but I really would love to. I just feel that Graal in general gets better with more people and from how the client is at the moment it's going to be extremely hard to have that. As I said before I don't doubt that the server will be good, I just can't see it being successful without getting more exposure which doesn't seem likely right now.

If the server did revive the client then it would be amazing, however the client has pretty much been abandoned. UN was recently closed down due to it causing some problems but also because Carlito said it wasn't generating any profit. The iServers seem to be incredibly profitable and unix seems to have completely lost interest in PC Graal and if they cause a problem they get shut down. It feels like the only way to make a successful server is to make it cross-platform.

PC Graal is currently like a fully decked out HD movie theatre with surround sound. But there are no good movies to watch. Without Mad Max showing in 3D, who's gonna go? That's what Graal2001 would bring to the table. Graal2001 is the 8K HD 3D Dolby Surround Sound movie theatre experience with buttered popcorn of Graal that people are waiting on. The only rule in this theatre is no cell phones.

Seriously though, people aren't going to prefer watching Star Wars VII on their cell phone to the real experience, and that is a perfect analogy here. People are not going to prefer playing Graal2001 on a cell phone to the real thing when presented with both options. I have played Facebook Graal and during that time I interviewed some players. Not one of those players would shake from their belief that Graal is no older than 2006. I tried to tell them that I played Graal in 1999, and they all responded in a very predictable manner of calling me a noob. They have no idea PC Graal exists, and many are playing on a PC!

Here's a thought: if the people running Graal capitalize on the smart platform by using it to inform their userbase of the superior version of their product which is available, they might sell a literal ton of PC Graal subscriptions per month. Phantasy Star Online 2 employs this technique and enjoys a healthy online playercount among PC, Android/iPhone, PS4, and even PSVITA players. In fact more people likely play on PC than the other platforms because of this. Another thing to note is that after employing this marketing strategy SEGA was able to turn a profit as a company for the first time in nearly a decade.

But no. Heck no. Let's take rights away from the only people taking personal time out of their days to provide free support to this game.

I liked your metaphors :)

I think it really boils down to this point. Graal is at a point where they cannot cherry pick projects, at least not at the PC level of this game. So let someone who is passionate enough continue to work on their own free time. It hurts no one.

You get into 8k and only add Dolby Surround Sound? I agree that Graal doesn't have the best music, but whoever builds an "8k movie theatre" (despite it's non-existince) wouldn't just add Dolby Surround Sound ^^ BI deserves better

I'm not sure I'd compare the technology behind Graal (especially the wonky and undocumented scripting, but other things too) exactly a "fully decked out HD movie theatre with surround sound"

can't we just say "ggez" and then move on to IOS?

I'm comparing the strengths of the PC platform to the IOS platform. So yeah, it was a completely accurate hyperbolic analogy. In fact the disparity between the platforms is greater than the analogy could express.

In Hardware maybe, not quite in Software.

xD.

Ok thanks for backing my point up that PC Graal needs a better server for everyone to play on than what is currently available.

Can we at least bring back UN and N-Pulse before we proceed with this untested formula?

I'm a Graal2001 developer, I don't have anything to do with either of those projects. The main reason I am still sticking around Graal is because Graal2001 and Graal The Adventure are two worthwhile meritable games that are not easily forgotten, and if there is anything within my power I can do as an individual who has been involved with these main Graal projects, I think that they deserve support from developers who actually have a clue about what the vision was originally like when these projects were first started.

MD gave you a chance to choose to be a lead developer of a soon to release ios server?

I understand your passion for graal2001 but have no idea how many players were interested in it, personally i would have decided to work at delteria if I had the developing experience Because,

Have you ever considered to think of possibilities such as receiving manager access to graal2001 in the future just by taking that chance?

http://i.imgur.com/DWrI2JY.gif

A "soon to release" iOS server where the role of leading development is being offered out as a consolation prize?

In seriousness anyone worth their salt looking to take the route of most likely success simply wouldn't be looking for a position on a Graal server. Cloud wants to develop Graal2k1 because it is his home server and he has a vision for it. That type of passion can not be learned nor can it be bought.

When you login to delteria and enter the card shop you could see 2 dev managers on the staff list so he would just be the third dev manager if im not wrong.

so three managers could start three projects seperately or work together as a team to get things done faster :p

Conversely there could also be an occurrence of the "too many chefs not enough cooks" scenario and things get done slower.

Regardless, Cloud was offered the chance to be "the" lead developer, not "a" lead developer.

Stranger things have happened around here.

The server is currently running in a hidden view not making any money for the game so why not let someone who is this passionate about it try to bring it back? It does not cost the company any more money, the server is wasting by being hosted right now.

Talking about who will play or not people will play is a moot point until the server is back.

Kamaeru, I see your passion and I hope they give you a chance. I know I would come back and play on that server again.