A public letter
 

Today I got an e-mail from somebody and I want to let you know about it's content:

I know you probably don't know who I am even though I've been playing for 6 years now...my name is Arrie and I've used the account exsever for as long
as I have played Graal.
I've had everything imaginable happen in the graal experience. I've been staff, I've been hacked into, I've seen the rise and fall of every Graal server ever. I come to you today with a very serious issue about the world of Graal Online, and I'm sure you care about the well-being of the game considering that you've been around longer than any of the new staff around you. I know you're probably close to Stefan so if you could maybe send this to him too, that'd be great.
This issue regards Graal Kingdoms. Graal 2001 was the ideal server; It had kingdoms, brand new ideas, and awesome script, gfx, and level design. When Graal Kingdoms came around, it revolutionized Graal as we all know it. It added depth and even more room for expansion.
I'm concerned now about Graal because I see it slowly declining. Everyone just goes for items and levels now; nobody sits around crafting and playing the whole game just to have FUN.
Kingdoms are hardly active and people don't even care about the other 5 islands in the game. I remember when my good (and real life) friend, acct:feivel, ruled Shogun (the old Samurai) and it was the best experience ever.
Kingdoms would have large scale battles, military strategy, organized attacks and defenses, naval/ship battles, people would form small independent task forces and take over parts of Kingdom's islands and hold them ransom, try to overthrow kingdoms, become seafarers and take people to other islands, form rogue groups and have small unofficial guild battles, and basically just play the game the way that I know Stefan, You, and a multitude of other people wanted it to be played. Graal has lost what it's meant to have and be. It's not the staff's fault, but they definately could reverse some effects and even maybe help to get it back into swing.

I don't even know if players care enough anymore to bring up this issue with you or any other staff. I would send this to Stefan but I haven't sent him an e-mail since 1.27 when I had an issue with a head I submitted not loading. Please, Please, Please a THOUSAND times over think about this, suggest it to staff, really anything just to promote this idea. Just send me an email back and talk to me about it atleast to show that Graal is still something special, and it's not just another MMORPG that has gone boring.

I beg of you: please don't let my own and other people's years of dedication end on a bad note.

Sincerely

Arrie Oliver
Account: exsever
AIM: ArshuahTheKeeper
e-mail/MSN: [email protected]
I said, I agree and promised to post it.

if you ask me... Zone gets boring.. like all action games and other htings that require you to kill.. endlessly

GK is different, its a fantasy/medieval like roleplay server
only problem is all the bugs and incomplete things that staff continue to ignore...

*I would agree with him.. Graal does have a bunch of bad or lazy staff that dont really care to try and fix problems on all the other servers, not to mention restarting server just kills off all the old players that have worked so hard at getting somewheres for what is now nothing.

Talk aboust overstating the past, people seem to think things were a lot better then they were. Even under feivel the kingdom activities were not that much more active then they are today. Roleplaying events have barely changed then Graal 2002 started.


Graal is not declining, everyone who says that is ignorant, I see the same activity as before, just because people have moved to different servers, doesn't mean they aren't there.


And who are you to say what is fun or not? People who collect items, or strive to be the highest level are having FUN, just because it isn't what you think is fun, doesn't mean its not fun for them.


To say the least, you have completed idolized the past, you overlook what is currently going on Graal and refuse to look at facts. You e-mail what we have heard a million times, graal is dieing, this is how you fix it. Its same crap that we have all heard before. This e-mail/post is no different then any of the others.

I don't know what 2K1 they were playing but the focus on 2K1 was mostly on items much like it is on 2K2. Scamming and staff corruption were far more rampant on 2K1 than they are today on 2K2 (admittedly this had more to do with Karakaze Troupe than with faults in the server itself). The jobs on 2K1 were far more tedious than on 2K2 as well. 2K1 was fun stuff but oldbie nostalgia tends to blow the server's quality way out of proportion.

Very true, the community was more then anything

What has declined, however, is the forums.

Account sharing was banned, forums went downhill. A couple questionable appointments didn't help either :whatever:

Kingdoms is not what it was........
 

I have to agree, Kingdoms has declined as far as kingdoms go. I rarely hear of any kingdom actions anymore. The only thing I see going on is people trading items or selling thier items on aim. I rarely see the leaders on and on tag except for Alan of CP hes on everynight. When I go to islands they are empty no signs of life at all, except for the houses there. I can't believe we are all role playing that the whole world (5 kingdoms) are at peace.
I think that if all the good items were attainable by anyone willing to work hard, the focus of the players would shift to actually playing instead of keeping trading rooms warm.

In terms of current RP the deadlock is a result of Bel'la Olplyn, since no kingdom can make a move against another kingdom (unless that kingdom is Bel'la Olplyn) or they would risk upsetting the unified anti-Olplyn alliance.

I would, personally, have to admit that Graal Kingdoms has lost a lot of it's appeal - atleast to me.

I don't account this to poor staffing (Although, yes - some superbly dedicated staff assigned to very defined jobs would help, but you could say that about any game, I'm sure). I personally believe it's a very simple problem.

When you enter upon a server you enter without any previous knowledge, except a few amazing things people have told you, and you want to learn the most you can and become the best, or atleast become recognized (Perhaps that was just me...?) - and in doing so you consume yourself with learning about the entire game.

After you've learned all of this you discipline yourself with achieving these goals, sometimes they're so grand certain limitations stand in your way, sometimes this limitations are as grand as your designs - server rules, bugs, unfinished work, etc. Sometimes the thing which prevent you from achieving your goals is an other player...

Once you'ce accomplished so much you start to see how easy it is easy to do certain tasks, or you see how impossible it was to achieve... and you lose interest. I don't believe you can place this loss of interest solely on the game, just because it doesn't amuse you anymore.

But that's just my 2 cents :)

In terms of event items, there needs to be more, with the same stats as current ones. Instead of everyone striving for the same gear, people would actually choose what they like to wear.

Personally, I think new quests would be more productive than events. While events are fun - they don't last long... but if you make more quests and dungeons people can keep themselves amused in them for a while.

Especially if you make the monsters had to kill, and worth while ;)... gives the newbs more reason to work hard, and the excelled players something to do.

If they added monsters that required teams to kill I think it would add to the game also.

I asked Stefan about it last week, he will check if it's possible.

Imagine a group of 15 newbs all working together as a party to take out a goliath of a monster? That would be nice to see, and very enjoyible to participate in.

This may even introduce some more guilds and clans :)

People need something to look forward to, we used to get a list of updates each week from Stefan containing new spells added etc, even though the game was incomplete it was updating so fast and playercount was up.

I think monsters that would even hurt people with the highest armour class and highest levels would put more interest in game also. Come on lords I kill in one hit. Adding monsters that take more then couple seconds to kill with a chance of getting one of rarer item drops would make it even more fun. That would get the people out of trades and working on thier skills more I think. I also like the idea of having a monster that takes a group to kill it. But that is just my humble opinion.

It was fun when you could gather a group of people to hunt a lord, and even then you sometimes died. Back when people weren't all level 120 :|

I agree, the team work factor seems dead... although level 120 is impossible...

Quite a few easy ways to fix all of this too. Just need someone who's up for listening and developing at the same time. x-x

Just praising the team idea. Something to bring people together in a new way would be great.

Everyone thinks the same way, nothing new. Could have posted something that would open my items, but you failed horribly.. well tell ur mate to try again with it

A monster strong enough that it can kill even level 110 easily? AWESOME! Also, a very good thing, which they also do in World Of Warcraft would be Instances. Here's some things instances prevent:

You gather a group of players to go to a dungeon. Everything is fine, and you kill the monsters by teamwork and its all fun. Then suddenly, a level 110 comes and starts to take all your kills, and then hurries down to the Lord of the map, only to get some drop. The high level player got himself a "leet" item. The group of players wasted a lot of time.

I can't explain what an instance is, as my english skills aren't that good yet, so if someone could take the time to do it for me, i would be happy.

let's look back
 

let'd look back at the time when Graal Classic was the main server and had over 200 players every day, it didnt have all the rare items, all the high stats, etc. it didn't even have much events. but people still had fun and kept playing, how come? what i think it was is a number of things:
-customization: since you could modify your look and make it as you want, people didnt all look the same, and people always submitted heads, shields, etc.
-guilds: people created guilds and had their own unofficial guild wars, role played, etc.
-levels: people could add their own levels and for example create their own guildhouse, people loved that, even if their levels were refused 98% of the time, it was still soemthign to try and look forword tom you cant do that on GK.
-quests: im sorry but what they call a "quest" on GK is pathetic, its just "run to this guy give him this, he will give you a stick, take that stick to another guy, he will give you something else, take that to another guy, he vill give you something else, etc." thats not a quest! on classic quests were much more fun, they were challenging, like for example, look for a pattern on the floor, and dont step on any square thats off the pattern or else you get warped to the beginning, for example you had to go through a whole baddy castle full of puzzles, minigames, etc. until a final boss that did something special and defeat him to get an upbraded bomb or shield, you had to push blocks to try and get out of a maze, or solve a puzzle, and alot of other stuff, and these quests were fun, even if they were hard and frustrating. some were even linked together, for example you couldnt do a certian quest befor you did another one because you didnt get the gold glove or something.
Even the bomy lords which are supposed to be a sort of boss... they dont really doa nyting, they just jump around following you... in classic bosses were all different, they flew around, warped, did special spell like stuff, etc.
Graal Kingdoms could be so much more! I cant really do anything because im nobody on here but still, you staff could create new puzzle like quests, i have a lot of GOOD and ORIGINAL ideas for new quests. and im sure im not the only one.
I really like the team idea, and once again it can be solved with quests and guilds.
i wont make it much longer even if i still have a lot more things to say and examples to give. but as a final suggestion:
i think that since we PAY for Kingdoms, we should actually get new content every once in a while i think. Theyre working on Graal 3D now but... we cant even play that, and still we pay.
Also i think Graal needs some publicity, to bring some new players.

Classic had so many players on because there were fewer other servers competing with it, not because of some kind of inherent quality to the server.

i know, but my point is that it was still fun, for most of the 200 players

Yea, just like Pong was great back when Atari came out - but that doesn't mean we should revert back to those stylings just because they were fun THEN.

i would still find that fun, come on, you have to admit that if GK had some unique monsters that did cooler stuff than just jump around and follow you, it would be much more fun to kill them, since it wouldnt be simply pressing the hit button over and over hoping that the monster dies befor you -_-

and you also have ot admit that having a few puzzle like quests would be much more fun than just running from oen guy to another giving them different items in exchange for more items you will have ot give to a 3rd guy

I have to agree on the quests thing. Questing is boring, very boring. Gold keys value is kept up almost entirely upon the tedium it takes to get one. Everyone could go get gold keys, but it takes hours of running across the map to give a glass sword to a guy for a walking stick to a guy for a master gear to a guy for a cuckoo clock to a guy for a gold key, etc. Some new questing options would be great, especially if they perhaps involved...i dunno...fighting?

yeah, that involved fighting, and maybe fighting with some new creatures? ones that do more than just jump around? that have a limited amout of AI maybe? ^^

A list of updates would be nice, even though its more bug fixes then anything

Would be cool, though the scripting is hard, I mean, maybe something like sparring something that *sort* of acts like a human?

If this gets anywhere, I will be quite astounded.

Same here.

We got bug fixes new things etc, main thing was we could see things were getting done.

V4 is bringing interesting new features, but that's not enough i think

Removal of some of the skill scrolls would be a wonderful idea, Scrolls like..

Piety

Woodlore

Steal

Melee

To prevent class mixing, i've said this same thing ages ago but nothing happened, i'll probably keep saying it until something DOES happen to add a little balance to GK. (on a side note someone mentioned the kingdom selection screen when you first start, i figured that would have been removed by now since it doesn't really give you a free kingdom tag, this is the kind of overlooked stuff that could be fixed first instead of adding new and fancy items all the time)

Why woodlore?

But then thiefs would be the only choice for everyone, seems you didn't think your idea through.

Although removing a scroll like piety would probably really increase the popularity of priests I guess and would seperate the different classes more permanently, it would really limit the content one could do. Being able to alch, and bless, etc are things that most would like to do at some point. You would have to reset your character just to try the other content.

Also an idea, how about a small explanation of each class at startup instead of just a list that gives you the options (in other words, give the reasons why being an alchemist may be better then being a warrior)