iPhone VS Original
 

This is something I've been wondering about the past week, and just wanted to address the issue and see if I can get some feedback.

With the release of Graal for the iPhone, Stefan has been hard at work on a new version of Classic. Though the server has not been opened to PC users, there is a strong possibility of its release after V6 has been made available to the public.

Then we have the existing Classic, which appears to be months (if not years) away from release (well this is only an assumption based on the lack of news posted).

Does the possibility of a rival server spark activity on this project, or do you now think it might be a lost cause? If the iPhone Classic is released before your project, will you shut your project down?

As players, which server would you choose? Personally, I'd opt for iPhone's Classic even with the history I have with the original.

Ofcourse there is the possibility of there being a conflict of interests with the servers being so similar, but while it is incredible that the iPhone version is maintaining so many players (although perhaps not a huge surprise, it is free), and that it clearly has a lot of potential and could even revitalise Graal, i'm personally not impressed with the server itself from a Developers standpoint, as it turns out they are going in a completely different direction with it compared to Main Classic, it is more revolved around being interactive (than lets say Questing as a main example) largely due to the iPhones lower CPU capabilities and in terms of generating income i'm told it will be item-based, but then it's not as if the server was really designed with this in mind either, sadly when I have visited i've seen a high amount of confusion among it's players regarding what there is to do, I think it needs a lot more work including planning before being fully pushed otherwise I believe it will be a case of unfulfilled potential.

The affect it will have on Main Classic really comes down to how it is handled, on one hand it can generate added interest through both introducing players to Graal and acting as a form of advertisement for the server, as mentioned within the main thread there could be a special form of subscription tieing iPhone in with Main Graal, this coupled with perhaps a special tab on the serverlist for iPhone servers could provide a scenario where normal subscription prices are lowered with the knock-on effect of iPhone/other new players subscribing and global playercount rising.
On the other hand if no special effort was put towards accomodating it, and let's say it was rushed in its current form to appear on the Classic Tab (which I don't really believe it has the quality for but is a possibility) this would likely result in it being fun at first but failing to succeed in the long run, as well as having a highly detrimental effect on Main Classics chances, there is no way of knowing for sure until both of the projects are complete, but hopefully if handled correctly by Stefan there will be no issue.

In my opinion, it is not a matter of Classic iPhone being released, but what its goal is.

As Thor said, the iPhone version has a truly entirely different demographic, being primarily interaction-based (chatting, PKing, etc.).

But, as I'm sure most of the players who stuck around know, Classic itself was entirely interaction-based as well before it went UC anyways. However, we have a very different image for the re-release. While we want to encourage community interaction as much as possible (and we already have some things that Classic iPhone doesn't towards that purpose, such as events), that is only one of our goals.

A major goal for us has been creating a rapid development process for quests, which is something Classic has never had before, and my belief is that this will keep the server healthy.



Classic iPhone's target has clearly been different -- item-based, interaction-based, etc. This means that the two servers could technically co-exist in terms of their markets.

The only thing Classic iPhone truly has in similar with Classic is the levels; everything else is different: the players, scripts, and direction.



That said, it does certainly offer something that we don't have: a massive, enormous playerbase. This could easily be a double-edged sword though; if everyone were to migrate to iPhone Classic because of the amount of players, the current servers would die out fairly quickly.

Would iPhone Classic be able to sustain these players? From what I've seen, not much effort has been put into that server at all.

If there is one thing we can take from Classic's history, it is that a community can only sustain itself for so long -- old content and bad management will eventually send it down the drain.



With the cooperation of iPhone Classic, we could easily make this bipartite and encourage the players to come to PC Classic which would be something along the lines of "Classic+". The same community interaction, but with ups such as storyline, a clear goal, and regular new content.

What do you mean by "item based" with Classic iPhone?

Item-Based as in the server being free to play however with charges for special features, items, advantages etc.

Oh, right. I'm pretty sure they've always intended on adding quests though.

If this is true, what is the real difference between the two servers?

One is limited to the iPhone's resources and one is limited to the PC's resources. :P

Well obviously, though Classic has never done anything that has been resource intensive.

After snooping around, it seems the core concepts are going to be pretty similar after all. I don't think this is classified information as most of it is posted on other forums, but they can remove it if I've posted anything I shouldn't have.

Similarities:

• Both Classic iPhone and 'Classic Main' have started out with small (and pretty much empty) overworlds. Classic plans to expand once they've got "content density" or something, and Classic iPhone released Onett as a town on the 16th, so it obviously plans to expand too.
• They are planning to work on quests for the Classic iPhone, the first being the hammer quest. Obviously this is something that 'Classic Main' is going to be doing in the future too.
• They're releasing some guild content (forts, etc) coupled with a local guild system on Classic iPhone. Again, I assume 'Classic Main' has planned to go down a similar route.
• Classic iPhone is going to have events such as CTF, and it will have random minigames spread around various houses. I think 'Classic Main' is focusing on events at the moment itself.

Differences:

• Classic iPhone is using the default systems, while the 'Classic Main' is using custom.
• Classic iPhone is releasing a housing system for players, which I assume contains an online editor in a 2k1 style of purchasing. Either that or instancing, I don't know. It's not going to be in the same style as old Classic though, else there'd be houses everywhere.
• Classic iPhone doesn't seem to really concern itself with nostalgia at all, moving things around, getting rid of areas. They're playing around with a new community who isn't going to care. 'Classic Main' (imo) is also a hybrid of different ideas, but it does stay true a little more than Classic iPhone.
• I don't think that there is a solid storyline planned out for Classic iPhone either (judging from the signs that are on there now) and they're just taking it as it comes. 'Classic Main' says they're planning out quests.
• 'Classic Main' has a lot more freedom to work with in terms of scripting. The iPhone is running like a 300mhz CPU. Anything on the Clientside has to be processed by that CPU, so the more stuff it has to process, the more it's going to potentially slow down for the player. Serverside scripting is preferred, and it makes everything really awkward to work with.

So really no differences at all. Everything you listed has been true of Classic one time or another. Current Main, as far as I've seen doesn't care much for nostalgia, old Main didn't really have a coherent storyline, old Main used default, and there were scripting limitations back in the day (though it wasn't really a fault of weak hardware).

From what I've been seeing, iPhone Classic is a huge hit, and with Stefan backing them for the time being, there will be constant improvements.

Nothing to the degree of working on an iPhone server. When's the last time anyone has had to script in mind for a 300mhz CPU? I've used 500mhz CPU's almost recently and never felt the constraints that I did working with iPhone constrictions. For example, we had a simple script that looped and made the Angel Clan cloud float up and down, then Stefan came on and removed it and said we couldn't have scripts like that.

I recently was for about a streak of 3 years. Given the tendencies for a lot of Graal's coders to use floating math for a lot of things, I can't think of anyone who would know what they're doing.

The game play plan suggested so far for the iPhone, is that users will be able to hop right in and not be at a disadvantage from other players entirely.

It's (seemingly) intended for casually picking it up, and putting it down. There has been a strong focus on making the actual game play itself fair for all players (paying for the customization pack doesn't really benefit the handling of the game).

The problem is that a 412 Mhz ARM CPU is more like a Pentium 90 Mhz CPU. The cloud movement could easily be replaced by a gani, so it's better to do it with gani. A game is only fun if it's smooth and not lagging too much :)

That's pretty much completely untrue.

If Quake can run at 40 - 60 FPS + on an iPhone, also using a bytecode interpreter, similar to GS2, to parse Quake-C, which handles some 3D math and pretty much all of the game's logic, not to mention that the game is completely 3d, rendering hundreds upon hundreds of textured polygons, why does Graal fail to keep up to 20 FPS..? A bit upsetting, if you ask me.

You should disable nicknames and only display them when you hold an onscreen button or something, fonts no doubt render rather slow.

It doesn't. I was speaking of 412 Mhz (iPhone 2G, 3G, iPod touch 1G). With 3GS you can reach a playable speed for Quake.

My iPod touch 2G runs Quake 3 at 30 ~ 40 FPS.

There's no doubt in my mind Quake 1 would run at a comparable speed as well.

EDIT: To elaborate, it's the software rendering implementation that Quake 1 uses that creates the slowdown that you're describing. If hardware OpenGL ES support were to be implemented, it's highly doubtful that it would suffer from the same issue.



There's an OpenGL ES port of GLQuake. Runs nicely, doesn't it? The bytecode interpreter used for Quake-C doesn't seem to have any noticeable impact, and Hell, that's a bunch of 3D maths going on. Graal doesn't have to do much math to render a few low-res players..

I'm just as confused as where the slowdown's coming from =)

What the hell does this have to do with the original purpose of this thread?

It'd probably be better if what I posted was ignored, I went off on a tangent.