Future Expectations?

[Vinka]

What are your expectations for PC Graal's future?

Graal can't stay at the same level, it will either grow or die out.

I haven't been around for too long, or been involved in many discussions about Graal's past, but I believe most of the magic has faded - and most of us are still sticking around hoping for Graal to take a U turn. Visiting now and then to see if anything's changed..

I'm not entirely sure what to expect, either with the arrival of Facebook Graal and PC Graal becoming F2P (one can only hope..), Graal will blow up. Or it won't make any difference to PC Graal, just like iPhone Graal, it'll bring some extra cash for Cyberjouers.

I'm interested what you guys think,
Vote in the poll and/or discuss below!

[Soala]

I've been around for years now, and I sadly have negative thoughts about Graal's future. I just hope like anyone else that things will change.
Graal F2P would be an amazing step.

But for now:

[Shards-Of-Fate]

I voted for never dying. I've got some faith in this money pit.

[Devil_Lord2]

I voted "It will continue to die slowly, people need to move on and stop chasing the past."

I don't agree with the second part of the sentence, and the owners can definitely fix it, but I think they choose not to.

I'm not mixing iPod or Facebook up with PC either.. PC is dieing, iPod has a good chance depending on management of the servers, and of course I have no clue about Facebook. But the farther out the owners move onto new things, the less they will do for PC.. And I haven't seen them really do anything for PC in a looong while. :]

I wouldn't doubt they would raise prices on iPod too later on, and I don't feel facebook will be all that great.. It is probably as free as any other game that wants money gives you special money to buy certain things others cannot get. I'm not saying it wont be as good as most of Graal is now though. I also believe there will be more adults which makes me happy. <- also a bigger paying community for the owners. >.>

[fowlplay4]

Statistics beg to differ the 'death' of Graal, player-count of Graal has been increasing and the main reason is because of iPhone Graal. It's free advertisement for the PC platform. Many players on the iPhone are fully aware of Graal on the PC.

Player Statistics:
Unique Logins: 25069
Trials: 21096
Upgraded from Trial: 922
Hours Spent Total: 576053
Hours Spent Avg.: 22
Gelat Sales: 940k

Zodiac's Player Graph
http://statistics.graal.us/server/show/120

Both Zodiac and Era show signs of player-count increase in the past year as well.

[BigBear3]

Graal is WINNING.

[Galdor]

Pc Graal has way to many big obvious flaws to grow bigger and better then what it already is today, the facebook and iphone stuff is nothing new, I assume its basically the same stuff we have but just shown to a new audience.

[Devil_Lord2]

Originally Posted by fowlplay4

Statistics beg to differ the 'death' of Graal, player-count of Graal has been increasing and the main reason is because of iPhone Graal. It's free advertisement for the PC platform. Many players on the iPhone are fully aware of Graal on the PC.



Zodiac's Player Graph
http://statistics.graal.us/server/show/120

Both Zodiac and Era show signs of player-count increase in the past year as well.

True, on facebook all the time there is players arguing PC is better. I feel, most of the time, it is deceiving players to think they should pay to have an account. I also know trials get on and quit because servers don't explain the PC controls and how to play their servers... One of my iPod friends told me for two months he didn't know about the Q menu, and I had to teach him how to use F7 to message me.

But I don't think Trials should count in the statistics unless they come back over and over again. That would be like saying me playing Runescape for five minutes to try it counts for the active users on Runescape D:

I only use that as an example because it was the only game I couldn't try for two weeks. So horrible in my opinion.. D:

I'd also like to know how far the graph goes..
If 922 trials upgraded since last year or the last few months, then I admit I'm definitely proven wrong lol.. Sounds too astonishing to be true..

But yeah, iPod and Facebook are both advertisement for Graal it self, so will facebook be. I'm sure iPod fans will argue iPod is better than facebook as well and have people switch as well.

Just saying there are too many unknowns in the statistics to persuade myself. Also shows me people have too much money to waste. x.x;
And so far no one has voted that it will be dead soon anyway...

Either way it is still going to die slowly until they step up with something big like getting rid of P2P's which I feel started killing the population from the start. Possibly advertise Graal more then having the game. Facebook ads would help a lot once it hits facebook.

There use to be more then 4-5 servers on the server list. Hundreds of people on each server.. :'[ miss those days..

Everything dies slowly. -.^
Newpapers are dieing slowly.
Hopefully I am proven terribly wrong,
and Graal finds a health potion.

-Edit-
Actually in that whole bit, I was thinking PC.
After iPod, Facebook, the owners may find other ways to get money from its audience and expand. It's still going to die slowly, but possibly slower than my own lifetime. x.x; Depends more on the owners.

[Fulg0reSama]

Originally Posted by BigBear3

Graal is WINNING.

[Geno]

PC graal is on a steep slope upward

[Devil_Lord2]

Originally Posted by Fulg0reSama

LMAO xD

[PhilSmith]

Originally Posted by fowlplay4

Many players on the iPhone are fully aware of Graal on the PC.

This is true however:

Originally Posted by Devil_Lord2

I also know trials get on and quit because servers don't explain the PC controls and how to play their servers... One of my iPod friends told me for two months he didn't know about the Q menu, and I had to teach him how to use F7 to message me.

Having joined PC fairly recently (a trial about a year ago) I remember not knowing at all what to do. How to move was easy, but chat, pm, changing worlds was a different story. Not knowing how to chat, I could not ask this kind of stuff. X-X

This brings up the whole "tutorial for all of Graal" idea. I will not get into that, but if your statistics are from just this year (2011), Graal is totally on a steep slope upward.

[MattKan]

Graal has potential, but that doesn't matter since Stefan and Unixmad don't seem to care about it at all.

[Vinka]

Originally Posted by MattKan

Graal has potential, but that doesn't matter since Stefan and Unixmad don't seem to care about it at all.

Exactly.

Whether or not this'll remain true in the future, I'll face this as the truth.

In fact, this is officially my last post. If any of you find me posting again you can honestly shoot me.

[Shards-Of-Fate]

Well you had a good run.

Vinka
No Longer Here
Join Date: Feb 2011
Posts: 69

[smirt362]

I can't really decide, I've heard so little about what's going on with v6.

What would really help us? Masking effects!

[Devil_Lord2]

MattKan, right on point. :C I honestly couldn't say it any shorter. ;]
Probably take a paragraph of examples. Anyway, agree with you also.

[Crono]

you know, i dont usually do this but im gonna have to disagree with mattkan about stefan and unixmad not caring about graal. if they didnt care, v6 wouldn't be in the works and stefan wouldn't be asking for feedback from the community.

the bigger problem is that both can be rather stubborn and just dont listen to the community when they dont want to. its their game so fair enough, but a lot of what we've been chiming over the years has been right. :/

[Shards-Of-Fate]

You know what, **** it, I'll be ask this question.

What can we as developers do to help make graal a better "product"?

[Devil_Lord2]

Originally Posted by Shards-Of-Fate

You know what, **** it, I'll be ask this question.

What can we as developers do to help make graal a better "product"?

Well, for starters, working together would be helpful. However, so many servers fail, most of the good DEVs don't want to help smaller servers. ^.^.

I'd probably do the same...

[WanDaMan]

Contributing towards to the so-called "slow death of graal"; get of your ass and develop something beautiful - we don't get paid and never have for our material and if a server such as G2k1 can establish something so magnificent with it's development being 10 years ago I'm confident in the future of PC graal with the updates over the years.

[Crono]

Originally Posted by WanDaMan

Contributing towards to the so-called "slow death of graal"; get of your ass and develop something beautiful - we don't get paid and never have for our material and if a server such as G2k1 can establish something so magnificent with it's development being 10 years ago I'm confident in the future of PC graal with the updates over the years.

Except, you know, 10 years ago expectations were lower...and we had more developers...and Stefan worked on it.


I just wish GATs that still play Graal would stop wasting their time ADDing through a million unfinished projects and just help the public ones. Lately I find myself trying to do new things level wise but hit a brick wall because I have no one to make my tiles.

[Galdor]

Originally Posted by Crono

I just wish GATs that still play Graal would stop wasting their time ADDing through a million unfinished projects and just help the public ones. Lately I find myself trying to do new things level wise but hit a brick wall because I have no one to make my tiles.

They would do that if the current public servers didn't suck ass, I guess thats why they try to make something new and exciting
to bad it takes so damn much effort to make a server and the skilled developers that still plays graal are few and we don't really get a steady flow of new skilled developers to graal as you have to pay to dev :P

[ffcmike]

I've been a pretty big critic of Graal's handling for quite a while now, but having spoken to Stefan a couple of days ago, I have to say that provided his plans aren't empty promises the future of Graal isn't anywhere near as bleak as many including myself have imagined.

I can't help thinking that with a greater level of communication towards the dev + player community as to what the plans are, everyone would be alot more supportive.
But the way it's been, we've more or less been left in the dark for years.
It's under these circumstances that it's very easy to feel as if PC Graal is being neglected.

My advise is that even though the recent news may seem like a kick to the teeth of those that have stood by Graal for years, it's not really worth sitting around feeling sorry for ourself over it.
It's a sad reality, but PC Graal is always going to be the player's responsibility to Develop. Hopefully Stefan's intentions as to how this can play out will come to light sooner rather than later, as I think it would spur more developers into action.

[Crono]

hey thor...

[Soala]

I like how Stefan himself voted the best option for Graal. Let's hope he's confident enough to make the changes happen.

[BigBear3]

Graal should be on this bad boy. Would be so cooool!

[Galdor]

Originally Posted by BigBear3

Graal on this bad boy would be so cooool!

uhh... no :P
but this is epic Click ME

[Inverness]

I think Graal is dieing a slow death due to lack of proper attention. I still think that things could turn around though if the right steps were taken.

[Devil_Lord2]

Originally Posted by Inverness

I think Graal is dieing a slow death due to lack of proper attention. I still think that things could turn around though if the right steps were taken.

Agreed, and with that stated, people should come to the game server and help out to make something wonderful. ^.^;

I can promise it will be nothing like most have seen before on Graal.
Or at least the movement system is slightly different. >.>;

However, it won't progress far without NATs helping to develop games..
I've spent three days trying to make blackjack... semi done I think x.x; lol
the cards show, move.. such.. just need to redo the positions or think of another way to get them to their spots lol..

I put in on hold to make the movement system, and avatar.. I'd like to be able to post under the new server spot but actually have something to show x.x; The program I use to make my graphics has a new interface and is taking me longer then I expected..

-EDIT-
As I am the only who will be doing graphics, I can't promise many avatars.. possibly 8 skins, a few heads lol

[blader2007_p2p]

Looks like the majority was right.

[ffcmike]

3 months isn't long in the scale of Graal time, you need to wait longer than that.
Even then it's always going to be the ultimate responsibility of players/developers to "improve" Graal, even with V6, micro-transactions, browser support and advertisement provided by the other platforms.

[MattKan]

lol just saw this and I have to respond now...

Originally Posted by Crono

you know, i dont usually do this but im gonna have to disagree with mattkan about stefan and unixmad not caring about graal. if they didnt care, v6 wouldn't be in the works and stefan wouldn't be asking for feedback from the community.

the bigger problem is that both can be rather stubborn and just dont listen to the community when they dont want to. its their game so fair enough, but a lot of what we've been chiming over the years has been right. :/

Just cuz it's me, right?

They don't seem to care about Graal itself as much as (or anywhere close to) the profits they receive from it. They are asking for feedback for V6 so that it can improve it / keep players paying for the game longer. I don't really think they want to improve Graal for personal accomplishment rather than profit.

And, yes, it's a bit far-fetched to say and in many ways assume that, but it is consistent with the other things they have done:

It seems they are just milking money out of the different Graal platforms. Classic iPhone, for instance, had a great period of time where it thrived. Players loved the server, content was released, etc. Now Stefan and Unixmad have virtually abandoned the server (in terms of content), and have moved onto Graal Facebook. Classic iPhone is probably still making money, and they don't really need to do anything to keep that money coming in; new players will continue to come and spend money to replace the old players that aren't. But the server isn't actually improving, which leads me to believe that they don't care about the server - other than the fact that it brings in profit. The same thing will probably happen to Facebook, and then Android, and then whatever happens to come next.

I would think that Stefan, having put time and effort many years ago to create this game, would want to make it better and maybe even think of it as his "baby", and try to make the game the best it can be- for self accomplishment purposes, and not the profits it brings.

[Tricxta]

Originally Posted by MattKan

I would think that Stefan, having put time and effort many years ago to create this game, would want to make it better and maybe even think of it as his "baby", and try to make the game the best it can be- for self accomplishment purposes, and not the profits it brings.

^ this

[ffcmike]

Originally Posted by MattKan

I would think that Stefan, having put time and effort many years ago to create this game, would want to make it better and maybe even think of it as his "baby", and try to make the game the best it can be- for self accomplishment purposes, and not the profits it brings.

I wouldn't expect a game developer to be motivated to improve the game for the sake of personal accomplishment, this isn't a hobby in the same way that it is for someone such as myself.
I would however expect a game developer to be motivated to improve the game for the sake of it being the most reliable way to profit long term.

There is only so far you can take a product which isn't as good as it can be, whereas a better product would theoretically make the job of selling it easier.

[Tricxta]

so whens pc graal going to become f2p with a system of making money like facebook and the iPhone? Stefan should take better care of the roots of graal where graal originally grew from. Just sayin...

[MattKan]

Originally Posted by ffcmike

I wouldn't expect a game developer to be motivated to improve the game for the sake of personal accomplishment, this isn't a hobby in the same way that it is for someone such as myself.

Well, that's how I would always want to be, anyways.

[Hiro]

personally, i just don't care anymore

[Tricxta]

Originally Posted by Tricxta

so whens pc graal going to become f2p with a system of making money like facebook and the iPhone? Stefan should take better care of the roots of graal where graal originally grew from. Just sayin...

"your such a retard" lol thank you random admirer <3