What A Trip It's Been
 

Quite a few people have been asking me my opinion on Classic's current state and the current state of GP and I've remained rather silent on both matters. I figured, like many, that most of the problems with Classic would be solved or blow over and things would be back to normal. Well, I've been around long enough and figured at this point it's time for me to speak up.

I've been a GP since 1999, or at least involved with staff in some form since then. I've seen the server at its beginnings, at its best, and at what it is now, a shell of its former self. Numerous things can be blamed for why the server suddenly turned from great to nothing, but one thing can be blamed for its lack of a revival: Loss of focus.

Every Dev Admin and Storm since have wanted to do one thing. Create a custom system that makes it easy to develop. They've made it their priority one, I've even seen Storm say things along these lines as recently as last week. This shows a clear loss of focus as the players enjoyment should be focus one with ease of development coming in a close second.

Now here's the irony of the situation. The time being spent to create a custom system to ease development has taken 5 years, 5 years that could have been spent developing more content with a lesser system. I think this is where the PWA review failed. Instead of deciding on a Manager, a system needed to be decided on so development could move forward. As far as I am aware from watching RC chat, Thor and Storm are not in agreement on which system to use and until they do agree everything is going to be at a stand still.

So would bringing back the old levels and working from there work? Well it would have back when it was asked for. It's been far too long, too many people have lost interest in the idea, nobody will put forth that kind of effort. We need to move on with what we have by first making a decision(that I feel will take PWA intervention if it isn't solved soon).

Once that is all said and done the Development team could use a revamp. Hire more people and create two divisions, a short term and a long term. Short term can focus on things like bowling, cards(Things that attract new players). Long Term can focus on quests, bigger updates(Things that keep the old). With two Managers this shouldn't be hard, just need the man power.

Now all of this is being very optimistic. My personal opinion is that we may very well be at the point of no return, but I'd rather not think that way. I love Classic and I enjoy the community. There hasn't really been a reason other than those two for me to log on.

With that said there's still the matter of GP. I can't right now see a focus for hiring GP. The server is already two-thirds RCs/staff most if not all the time. I've been logging on everyday, keeping my RC running and the like, but nothing really ever happens. I also only see myself hindering the player count by jailing for things like foul language. I think just by simply asking everyone to chill out for a bit things will be okay.

I'm putting a lot of faith in the fact Storm will wake up and actually figure out what system works and start to do something useful for the server. I hope Thor can motivate better content than a raffle. I hope DC can maybe release something that pleases the players. I hope.

i cant talk since my horrible timing with exams in taking the position lead to the worst first impression ever. i admit ive been awful so far but my last final is today.

anyway, i am aware of storm and thors inability to reach joint decisions due to a differing viewpoint. thats honestly to be expected with a joint manager system, you have any 2 people with equal say on something, obviously theres going to be problems whenever there is a lack of agreement. thor and storm arent really known for their ability to compromise on what they dont agree with, willingly anyway. thats clearly something they need to work on, or else if they make a habit out of stagnating on key management decisions, they will run the risk of being removed or demoted.

anyway, the PWA probably should have predicted this to happen with any even number of people calling the shots, if theres a split, there's no way to settle it unless
a. the management reach a compromise on their own.
b. there is a outside method established officially to handle a split decision within the management team.
so the PWA should have thought their appointment out fully, and appointed a method for dealing with such a split, other than an admin running to Bell when things go sour.

it couldnt have been the full administration team aswell, solely because the number of admins is 4, and that runs the risk of having a 2-2 split decision. whatever method that was chosen would have been fine with me as long as it wasnt ridiculous, and that it was fair and effective(thought I feel as dev admin, I should be able to personally tiebreak any management decision regarding development, as is the case for our current problem). hopefully the PWA can now address this,

in the meantime, I can only use my position as best i can to try to bring a resolve to the current issue at hand, which is to start the slate clean and (re)develop with cleaner core systems, or default. to which my answer is no, that it would not be a good idea right now. right now we dont have a lot of development power, and stagnation to work on such a long term project, is the least of classic needs right now. im not saying its not a bad idea to clean up the systems, i'm just saying it would be better down the road when it is more feasible to do so, or maybe even as a gradual process. as of now though, i do not feel that this is within classic's developmental scope right now, and that development as of now, should primarily be short term and move its way up.

however, the PWA eventually need to set up a system for indecisions between the management. unless the PWA personally want to handle every single instance that storm and thor cannot reach a conclusion jointly.

tl;dr

then get the hell out.

Wow what a waste of time, I thought you were quitting or something so I actually read it all. Turns out you're just saying something that's already been said, but one part actually did stand out:

You do know that no talented developers are willing to work on Classic because of these two people, right? With these two managers it is going to be extremely hard.

I would personally like to hear directly from these talented developers exactly why they don't want to work with these two people. I have heard this statement before but not from the actual development community nor the basis for their reasons.

Then you're going to have to personally ask them, because no one is going to step up and say, "Yup I'm a talented developer, and these are my reasons for not wanting to work on Classic.."

These talented developers would say what the community has been saying for ages.
The current manager Storm is one of the reasons the state of the server is trash. So there is your answer.

http://forums.graalonline.com/forums...0&postcount=59 and http://forums.graalonline.com/forums...8&postcount=62

I'm not aware of this, like I said I've pretty much stayed out of the all of this and have just been observing development itself for the most part.

You're probably aware that we don't have many talented developers on Graal anymore at a whole, and for those that do exist there's various different situations.

• We've got the talented developers that are external to the server and don't really take notice or care much about its going-ons. I spoke to a few when DC became Development Administrator in an attempt to get him some staff to work with and the first thing they inquired about was if Storm was still Manager. People don't want to waste their time on projects like this that have very little prospects or an attractive future in sight. Classic has had a longstanding reputation for having a bad direction, Storm is the driving force behind that reputation, and people are well aware of it.
• There's those developers that do keep up with Classic, have had experience on there before, would and could help the server out, but dislike the administrative setup. For example Dusty worked there, Storm was less than helpful, and Thor tried to publicly humiliate him for no reason. I can't see why anyone would return to help either of them in that regard, because working for DC or not, they're still working under those two.
• Then we have those developers (and this is a minority group) who play Classic on a consistent basis. Developers such as Luda who do have talent, but have no respect for any of the administration on the server because of who they are and what they have (or haven't) done. Luda might work with people like DC and Night, but good luck trying to get anything out of him if you're Thor or Storm.

So here we are with very limited options and two Managers who log on sparingly, contribute very little towards the massive hole that Classic has got itself into, and create a block for the possible introduction of talent. DC is going with a trend of recruiting developers who might show an ounce of ability in an attempt to help them nourish their talents, but without talented people around them they're not going to improve much. Is it possible to develop content - either short term or long term - in the standard that everyone expects with such limited resources? I really don't think so, and that's because Classic is a server that has a mass amount of problems, and the two people who contributed to where it is today are on the top of the food chain. It's not going to work out.