Zodiac isn't made better than GK. Zodiac was slapped together over night and over time it got fixed up, and even now the quality of Zodiac's design is no match for GK's. More productive? Yes, definitely. However, It is very hard to get work done for GK for several reasons:

1) The lack of people willing to help due to laziness, unreliability, no motivation, or the gold/classic barrier.
2) The quality of work required for Zodiac is minuscule when compared to the quality of work required for GK. The work required for GK is very high quality when compared to classic servers, and there are very few people on Graal who are able to produce this kind of work.
3) GK's current systems are quite hard to work with because of the way they have been set up. GK's mudlib design makes it extremely hard to maneuver the systems and add new things. Almost each time I want to add something new and creative to GK I have to contact Stefan to add new functions to the npc-server in order to get it to work.

I'm definitely not against what you're saying in your post, but merely correcting where you're wrong :)
Obviously Zodiac is doing something right because it's one of the most popular servers.

Point taken :) I guess the GFX and scripting for GK must have been more difficult but i believe the most significant difference between the servers is that the admins on Zodiac take into account what players of the server have to offer (their ideas) which I'm pretty sure both the Gold servers do poorly (Zone and GK)

Player suggestions are good however not all of them are practical to implement into the server. I'm not sure about Zone but I know GK welcomes good ideas for the server if the player is willing to do some work on his/her idea.

You didn't understand Tig's post.

Explain it to me then :)

Zodiac is being made better than GK, it's being made easier

I think that Zodiac Is already more efficiently spending its staff members time more effectively compared to that of what I've noticed on GK. I believe with the right decisions GK could continue being better then Zodiac but only if they start listening to the players contributions.

How many hours do you have on GK?

We've got big things planned for GK :)

Ideas on GK are taking into account, however, they are alot harder to impliment than on Zodiac.

Zodiac thrives in development as there are plenty of low-mediocre skilled workers avaliable, but GK requires skillful staff WITH gold.

Wrong, Kingdoms Debug is Classic enabled.

It's my understanding that staff generally don't work for servers they don't play.

I have around 200hours on GK i believe. So what you were attempting to say was zodiac is a simpler server whilst GK is more complex which would make implications take longer to produce and import but yet Zodiac is slowly becoming more and more complicated, and at a slow rate catching up to GK's standard.

Graal Kingdoms currently has a few people whose account status is Classic. It's really depends on the person's interest (since they can still log on debug to test their work) and their level of skill.

(Unfortunately, I have been unable to talk about anything due to the horrible construction of this website, it says nowhere that you must use your in-game password until AFTER you start trying to find out what is happening. If, say, you try to set your own password, it simply says the passwords don't match, try again. I ended up just accepting I couldn't post here)

Hello. Yes, quite.

Coming from an inside look at Zodiac (As one of its staff members. Minor, but staff nonetheless) I have to admit it is nothing special. The levels are horrible, the server goes through dozens of staff members because it fails at checking the capabilities of them before hiring them, the economy isn't always stable, and recent run-ins with issues brought down by the Graal system itself has took a toll on us.

However, I will not admit to our server being a run-down piece of (Crap? Don't know the rules yet). Certainly Zodiac's playercount says otherwise. It is probably the most active server on Graal, and if I don't see a update in a month, I start worrying. It is simply that Zodiac is continually offering something new to spice up the server, and we are doing it in a simple manner. We are also providing to the right crowd - this would never happen if Zodiac was gold. Gold standards are not only immensely higher then the current state of Zodiac, but they deter players from joining in. Sure, galat-switchover victims can experience it for a while, but if anything changes in the system, that tiny vessel of new players breaks, and gold starts to die.

Which, of course, is unfortunate. I would certainly never let a ORPG fall into a state of decay, and right now it seems overwhelming. Graal in general needs to do something, Cyberjoures (?) needs to either step up to the challenge of looking at their own community, or they need to pass it down to someone more able.

Just my two cents on things. Hope you guys aren't too harsh on forum newbies, but I'll but on my flame retardant anyway.

*Favorites page*

Any who aren't former GK players?

Well actually after visiting GK today, I can honestly agree with everyone who says GK's standard is high since it is a complex game, with great levels, and a friendly community nevertheless. I will continue to play GK and Zodiac and compare how each one of the servers are growing.

At this present moment I believe that Zodiac is evolving faster then GK but Zodiac has a long way to go before it is any where near the standard GK has set. I believe if GK has minor updates every month it can maintain a good standard and increase its playercount by quite a bit.

I can think of one specifically, yes.
e: Two.

Zodiac is "a piece of crap". It's quality in every aspect of development (save possibly scripting because I haven't seen them nor would I be able to judge them due to my lack of scripting knowledge) is awful. However, it caters to the "right" crowd.

In 2003 Graal did not have an RPG playerworld. Valikorlia decided to use a level-up RPG system common to other MMORPG's (leveling up, weapons, etc) but they didn't really expand on it. They had stats you leveled up yourself but it didn't really do much from what I remember as it was never fully implemented.

When Valikorlia changed it's system back to it's normal RP, Maloria decided to make it's move and take advantage of the new lack of RPG's. By 2006 Maloria was dead, and that's when Zodiac began rising. It's now obvious to see why Zodiac actually has players; those of us who like RPG systems dont really have a choice.

Zodiac's gameplay isnt bad at all, but it's quality is garbage.

I wasn't the first time I signed up as scripter, back when Björn had the task of management.

Trust me, they're just as bad. Or was anyways. Me, Twinny and Novo weeded out some pretty bad stuff, I wouldn't know if the current team continued doing so or not.

Go figure.

Zodiac also has the advantage of using the default bodies with thousands of heads, etc. which GK doesn't, and has a much faster-paced combat system (GK's combat is probably the slowest-paced of any Graal server other than Valikorlia).

I'm not really sure what you mean? Account status is overall irrelevant... Debug doesn't require any status to develop. The biggest problem for us is we need very skilled developers - which there are very few of... and even less are willing to work without being paid.

We don't need a big developing team. A few good developers with creative personalities go a long way, and right now things look very good for GK Development.
With heads and bodies in mind specifically, I don't think there's a huge demand. Although people certainly want the option to customize their avatar as much as possible, which is always a benefit, but not a requirement.

I'm not really sure of their combat system, it's been so long since I've played on Zodiac that I don't recall how it works. I don't think the combat system is much of a problem right now, especially where the majority of users would die nearly instantaneously against any well prepared player.

I'm a little surprised you bring it up, actually - I've always thought it was "ideal" (not amazing, but certainly well beyond acceptable). I would say right now we just need more content - not static content - areas players can interact with, and stuff like that.

I don't mean anything, I thought people wouldn't want to develop for a server they don't/didn't play, but it seems that's not the case.

I'm not trying to make a suggestion, just adding to the list of advantages Zodiac has over GK that people have been building.

I don't think it's very fair for either to try to compare - they're both very different from one and other. The biggest problem for GK, in my opinion, is that it's very gold oriented. In addition, the community is much smaller than it used to be, and as a result new players cannot get as much support as was once available... giving them less reason to stick around when they hit rough patches.

How different is "very different" is subjective, but there's no Graal server more similar to GK than Zodiac.

GK's dated combat system appears to be much more slower paced and boring than other popular Graal servers, let alone Zodiac.

Looks like I'll have to do some research on the other popular combat systems. :frown:

Don't mind him, the GK combat system is fine, bmode spars (pking) take a good amount of time, unlike some (zodiac). Also, the melee and spells systems are pretty great, damage and hp are pretty fair, there are only a few problems.

I like the combat system but I wish we had a way of using the PVP combat system in spars because I want to spar members of my own kingdom with full stats.

Is Magic still overpowered?

Magic has never been overpowered. With good speed you can catch the caster and hack them down with your sword easily.

So nothing is overpowered if someone happens to tailor their character specifically to counter it?

Er... not quite. Anyone interested in any sort of PVP match on GK is going to include speed in their optimization, including magicians.

"lol I want to be slow" :confused:

Aye, I don't disagree nor agree. Just amused at the way he worded it.

Magic is kinda overpowered but it's easy to counter.

Not exactly. People think that it's overpowered because they have Rings of War on which will bring your magic resistance down. Yes, it is easy to counter, but only if you are fast enough.

Yes, there are many ways to counter magic if you look at the items out there and buffs avaliable. For example, with rows, pray to Balor (instant magic resist), holy pos of balor, egg rod and scrolls of resist magic lvl 107...

Most magic users would equip rings and other magical equipment dropping speed while I'm still running at 6.466 speed with battle gear. I could even run at 5.5 speed and be able to catch up to them.

The only problem i have with GK is how confusing things are...
I know there are guides but for people who just started, the game is complex and me and some of my friends who started playing again are totally lost ...
I recommend adding a help system within the game in like every town to help new players who don't wish to find the guide.

No offence intended but thats where there is trial island. You can learn everything you need to know there.