In regards to the problems of Graal and possible solutions to them.
 

Here's my two cents. If Unixmad wants us to start treating this like it's a professional game, he needs to do a professional job. The emails should NOT be a problem, most of you are familiar with GameFAQS.com, that site is run by ONE man who answers hundreds of emails a day and manages all the faq's, etc. If ONE man can do that with a MUCH larger community than Graal's I see no reason Unix and Stefan can't, after all this is their JOB.


If they want to treat this game like it's unimportant the problems of hackers, low quality servers, horrid management (on their part), and the decline of new blood into our community will remain. Essentially they are slowly but surely ensuring the downfall of their own game. I'm sorry to criticize the game itself, I usually criticize the people but this needed to be said.


Stefan and Unixmad: time for your criticisms. I understand you get alot of *****s who just PM you with "hi you're cool" etc, every staff member down to the lowliest FAQ Cadet gets this, however YOU as the managers of this game need to read for the occassional important one. We shouldn't have to hunt you down and pray that you'll answer us, you should be easily accessible for us to talk to. I don't give a damn if you increase price to get a better staff, if that's what Graal Online needs, DO IT.


Out of all the choices you have ever made I applaud very few, the highest being the hiring of Nemesis (regardless of what you people think I think he does a DAMNED good job.). I believe that you NEED to start advertising but ONLY AFTER you have fixed the problems that Graal currently has. We lag on servers currently with the small playerbase we have. Imagine a playerbase like any other POPULAR MMORPG (I'm not mentioning any so don't even start with the threats of ban you annoying little mods). You NEED to fix these problems Stefan and Unixmad, and you need to get YOUR act together. If you're gonna blow off your customers you can't expect them to keep paying forever. Most of us stay for memories.


I have a thread mentioning that all the players used to be 12-15, and now are all above 15 pretty much, you know why? BECAUSE THERE ARE NO NEW PLAYERS. IT'S JUST US OLDBIES WHO ARE STICKING AROUND BECAUSE WE ARE DEDICATED. If you wish to disregard this that's your choice but this is my opinion and it shall be heard. I believe that Konidias once said this so sorry Koni for stealing the following line: If you reply to this without reading the entire thing, you are an idiot and you are unable to read even one page of text, it's pathetic. Thank you for your time in reading this rather lengthy message -King Arthur

Neonight:

Stefan's doing excellent. I believe unixmad is going downhill, though. :(

and stop pouring everything into 2k2, i dont want to play on a server bassed on make believe

I agree. They've become so obsessed with that one server that they neglect all others, here's a newsflash guys, the majority of players are on the classic servers, not gold, thus it would make sense to pay at least SOME attention to them, wouldn't it?

Ryan: - . - Stop sending me these forum links I quit graal... But yes this is the exact reason why I quit. I would rather play a game where I can get fast support and answers to my problems rather then stalking one guy that could take up to a month. Also I dont like it when people use the excuse.. they dont respond because they are working on graal.. Well if they were working why would they have tons of staff helping out on the servers and why would people be telling me they played counter strike earlier with stefan? These are clear reasons why I quit graal.

Nefi:

You robbed what I was going to say! :(

yes, people pay $15 for the classic servers, they deserve something

i mean, let players run the playerworlds, but graal classic should have some staff involvment


i also think that 2k1 needs t ogo non p2p, it needs a bigger playerbase to function well, and with 20-30 people on max its just all gone to hell. you should also STOP RESTOCKING THE HAT SHOPS, thats what killed the ecomomy

Damn right it is. That FIRST hat stock killed everything. But let's not get off topic. The point is Unix and Stefan need to start paying attention.

Re: In regards to the problems of Graal and possible solutions to them.
 

jesus christ, PARAGRAPHS
no way i'm reading that..

Neonight:

No, what killed the economy was staff. Yes, hats took effect, but not the restocking of the hats. Staff who would give out 10k to players for no reason.

When Konidias had a NPC that gave you 200g on Christmas, that was fine.

RC giving people 20,000 pearls killed the economy.

Re: Re: In regards to the problems of Graal and possible solutions to them.
 

There. No particular order but whatever.

That's not what killed the economy. If anything, it's better that stuff is cheaper. With only expensive stuff, it turns people off from graal because money..takes forever to get and you can't get anywhere.

But that's off topic.
I do agree it's way too hard to get to talk to Stefan.
And Unix is doing a poor job. Let's just leave it at that.

Were it not for me, Nemesis never would have become Asst. GM.

That's nice? I don't really care much but okay Alk. I'm talking mainly of the shortcomings of Stefan and Unix here bro ;x

I fail to see the parallel between Stefan, Unixmad, and the GameFAQs guy. The gameFAQs guy doesn't have to maintain an overworked, outdated server, nor does he have to code update patches to a complicated game, nor does he have to translate every email into his own language before reading them and translate back in replying.
Yeah. It sucks that Stefan has yet to reply to my requests in Future Improvements, and it sucks that he doesn't tell me when a new version's coming out so I can send him a new map, and it sucks that he doesn't download it off Classic before releasing the new versions. It sucks too that neither of them are going to read this, let alone reply, because they're (ta da!) busy. Cope.

You're a mean old man :(
They may read it, there's a chance. The GameFAQs guy deals with a WHOLE lot MORE though. I'm jus sayin they need to get it together.

I'd say it's been going good, there are a few minor things that could be picked up that would improve gameplay, but overall they're doing a good job in my oppinion.

I still find it kind of funny that it takes a second for any NPC to react to your actions. This only occurs on a server with an NPC server. Yes, I know it is because of the NPC server.

Also, as an added idea, perhaps make it possible for playerworld owners to restart their own NPC server? From what I've read, the Providence (I think it's Providence's) NPC server used to regularily crash, and they would have a long delay before it was restarted.
This also happened to Enigma's server a while back...
Anyways, that's an idea.

All im saying because im too lazy to read the things said in here is that Unixmad, think here, think now... Screw Newworld, Graal2002, and Gameboy advanced... We would rather see the Graal2001, and classic servers FIXED, and maintained. The quality of them now, is horrible.

There is a big, huge, humungous, giagantic, uber overly massive difference between running a website and running a game.

I do agree however far too much time has been put into 2k2. More development staff need to be hired to take the workload off Stefan.

I'm sure Stefan will get tons of emails a day so don't expect an answer the next day. I'm sure he would read ones from important people first and then even if the subject of the email makes the email unimportant he probally won't even read it.

Unix has gotten a little bleh though. He tells us not to discuss general Graal in the Graal 2001 Main Fourm but we have no General Graal fourm to discuss it in so wherever we put it in it's going to be out of place.

He told me flat out that he isn't reading e-mails. Stefan said that.

Gah, if you're still here I need to know how to contact you, I have to ask you something not Graal-related that I've been putting off for to long.

I don't care if it's the best GBA game ever, I still don't wanna get it. I don't give a rat's ass about New World, nor do I give a damn about 2k2. These servers mean very little to me. I agree with zell 100%. I don't care overly much about 2k1 either, my main thing is that classic servers are TOTALLY neglected.