So how did you do it, Stefan?
 

Graal is over 10 years-old now, and I gotta ask... how did you do it? Ten years and I haven't seen ONE, not ONE, fan-game that reproduced the controls of Zelda as well as Graal did even ten years ago. Graal seems to have perfected a lot of the finer details that most people overlook, I think. Things like bush detection, hit detection, all duplicate the game pretty damn well. Even baddies, which were(and still are) being praised for their complex AI in Zelda:LttP are copied pretty damn well.

So, Stefan... did you number-crunch the hell out of multiple-playthroughs and screencaps to get the perfect data, or did you somehow ROM-dump the game and get the numbers? What about the old Zelda Online levels, did you have to painstakingly tile each level manually(which I have done before, and it sucks), or again, somehow converted ROM data into whatever format you used for .zelda?

You should write a blog about these sort of processes. It amazes me how I've yet to see a game in these long ten years come even close to duplicating the controls of Zelda as good as Graal.

I agree with Dusty, this is an amazing effort he did here!

Graal is a great game. I'm amazed Stefan created it and kept it alive for so long. Ignoring all the Zelda things, Graal has literally shaped my life, and it's the reason I'll probably become some kind of computer programmer/software developer in the future.

Thanks, Stefan.

Graal got me to the point where I am now where I earn alot of money with pixeling!

Same for me :)

I totally agree with you here Dusty, I now realize how long it probably took, and I'd like to know how too :D

Blog plz.

As interesting as it would be to know just how the whole process came about. Word on the streets is, if he told you he'd have to kill you. Now what do you think that would do the playercount :D

while i agree completely, i find it very disappointing that there isn't a perfect player world in to which it can be shown in rapport.

Self explanationary ;)?

i've learned a lot from graal. however i do regret wasting over 3500 hours of my life on the computer. i wouldn't know a lot of computer terms / situations or how to deal with them if i didn't play graal. i think interacting with other people from across the world on graal was also a learning experience for me.

Graal actually contains subliminal messaging that makes you think that makes you think that you have friends and are having fun. It is set up so that it keeps you addicted and playing Stefan money. Stefan is actually not a person at all. He is a computer program that wants to take over all of humanity and make them play the same game forever. So thank you my machine overlord for sparing my brain until the end.

Is Graal the Matrix?

We do not speak about the Matrix.

Are you perhaps confusing The Matrix with Fight Club? :P

3) No shirt, no shoes.

Graal was the thing that got me into professional programming, though professional programming got me into GraalScript2.

It's kinda like, I learned GS1 because it was easy, went and used some of the knowledge to learn stuff like Java, then C++, finally ASM, then I came back to Graal and learned GS2 with minimal difficulty, it's like Graal is a piece that fits perfectly into the puzzle that is my life.

Good work Stefan, long live Graal :cool:

3500? :noob:

But than again, why do modern servers;i.e. Era, Zone exist?

Besides that, I agree. Graal is a great game, would OBVIOUSLY be better with more people! :)

This is not what this thread is for. That topic has already been addressed before and shot down pretty fast. No need to bring it up again.
http://forums.graalonline.com/forums...ad.php?t=86170

I agree, Graal is truly a great game and keeps you addicted as it's the only online game I've been playing for years.

Graal isn't addicting, the community is just nice to be around.

Isn't the community Graal attracts part of why Graal is good?

I don't know, Graal itself used to be good and it built a nice community. The community then carried on playing even though Graal itself came out to be the way it is. :\

Same here. Honestly. Except now my professional career has me working for £18k a year using PHP all day :(

Comparing with other games on the internet, Graal should be maintaining a higher
playercount than 500 on average.

Its creativity and logic to the Zelda III concept makes it a die hard fan-game in my opinion.
Although with the current community (younger adults) I doubt any of them even heard of
Zelda III or played for that matter. I believe in the early years, Graal was more popular
because the community of the players grew up playing the actual game. The popluarity
of 2D gaming is decreasing because of 3D PS and Xbox technology. Face it, Graal's not in
its prime, and it may never become a popular face in the crowd again.

Graal was cool because it allowed many a chance to meet others across the world. Thats how i got addicted. It was the first and only online game i ever played back in '02. But then i got xbox 360. Thats when i interest for graal decreased dramatically, as i made friends from all over world on there and i realized, why talk to someone in text when i could do it in voice? Im still attached to graal, but i think most people these days rather play some great graphic game for about the same price as paying for graal now...

And Crono is right, I know ill never ever play another 2d game. As i said, why when i could go play something way better with better graphics and such? And with tons of new video games types coming out, im sure one day there will be like a xbox game that allows people to just chat and such. Graal really is just one big chat interactive chat room

Hm.

The game I was playing which I had just got for Christmas when I first discovered Graal was Majora's Mask. That was the best, newest game out for me to be playing at the time.

Funny how so many years later, Majora's Mask still seems to be the prime choice in game design. I have yet to play a more well-designed game in all this time, even with such advances in technology.

To that effect, I know it to be true and believe it as a fact that this classic Zelda game design formula is no passing fad. It will remain popular so long as no developer grows their skills for the cause of creating a better game formula. It simply has not happened, to my knowledge.

That is why I am here on Graal. I know it is dead, but I also understand the potential that can be unlocked using Graal as a tool to hone my skills to the level necessary to design a game that even Nintendo could look at and say, "He understands how to design a video game, and respectably learned by our example."

That is my goal and I believe that Graal, even in its current state can catalyze this effect. One way or the other, my trying to do so will be for the benefit of the game.

^ Agreed

God damnit it makes me so angry that Unixmad doesn't do anything (probably does, but he's failing miserably) to raise the playercount!

Just paying 30$ a month and putting Graal on a list of the best 100 online games + giving Players Rewards if they vote daily would make Graal A LOT better.

Be carefull what you're saying to unixmad.

Did you ever think of that maybe they don't want too many players?

Why would that be?

lol wut

Think logically, if graal had more players it wouldn't be a fine community anymore, that's what Stefan wants tbh, he doesn't want it running really professional and ****, like in other MMORPGs where the "globals" don't even have contact with the manager or w/e

This is a very family-like relationship in graal, that's why Stefan doesn't want too many, so it's not as stressy

That CAN'T be true.

Stefan would EARN a lot more and that's what matters for him, that's also why he's concentrating on the Iphone Games and not on Graal itself.

Also didn't Graal have a "fine community" like 5 years ago? Where it also had like 10 times more Players?

Dude, what you just said was the most illogical thing I've ever heard.

^^

yes we already know that he choose to make graal "better" for the small developing group rather than the large group of actual players. it's so obvious that i can't believe you had to write it out like that, and it's rather insulting.

You misunderstand, I'm saying that 2000 players is enough for graal, it doesn't need more than that, that was my answer to Sam

Graal had a fine community 9 years ago and it's population was larger.

The graal community ATM is nice but I preferred it when it was larger (Lol 86 people on tag in terisu family in the most recent high count). Graal used to have a lot more people but I like the family styled community

maybe he realizes he can;t earn alot of money with graal, decides to make money with the iphone games, and lets graal keeps it's family like community.