I must admit to be playing a lot of other online multiplayer games recently besides Graal. Something I have found from playing these games is that many of them rely on the social connection between players to work properly and keep the online economy high. Being an ex-Graal player developer, I thought back to my Graalian roots and thought of a way to further bring this social community to Graal. What instantly came to my mind was the commonly proposed idea of a centralized Graal Hub.
Don't get me wrong. Graal has a great connection between players through the forums and somewhat online. But I think that we can take that connection even further through the introduction of a Hub World. Not only would the Hub be a great way to connect people socially, but because of Graal's unique aspect to completely customize and develop the world around you, it could greatly increase the amount of creative thinking and collaboration between players.
Playerworlds recently have been very competitive things. What the Hub can do is funnel every player into a common world before they break off to their preferred servers and worlds. This gathering of players will help mix players together from all of the servers, creating an easier way to meet new people and assemble in a world with no pressure to be the highest leveled, the richest or the strongest player. The Hub will bring everyone to the same level, so we can interact more as people than elites and newbies.
What are some of the Hub's features? - Each player will be able to own their very own home in the Hub World. This will be a give the Hub more of a reason to exist in the first place. Players can move freely in and out of their house and allow friends to enter if they wish. You will be able to customize the furniture and other features in the house to fit your personal style.
- The Hub will not have a health or experience system of any kind, so you don't have to worry about being beaten down or intimidated by other players. The Hub is meant to connect people through a sense of a secure environment and controlled equality.
- You will be able to connect to your favorite servers via way points in the world. In addition, each server will have a "Global Vendor" where you can collect special items offered by participating servers to decorate your home with.
So what will this Hub World have to offer?
One of the most obvious and main reasons for the Hub World is to connect all of the players and servers to one centralized root, before branching off into their separate servers. The purposed of this is to not only connect people, but help create common goals between players across every server. An example of how this could happen is this: If a server is hosting a special event or tournament, that server can offer trophies or special objects to be collected in the Hub World. Any server can participate in the distribution of trophies or objects such as furniture, wall paper or other home design features as well as other unique and strictly cosmetic designs for your character.This system will give players the opportunity to expand on their server exploration to try and obtain new items in the Hub. These things will hopefully give the Hub a strong playability factor, while encouraging people to leave the Hub to explore the far corners of Graal and interact with new people.
I'm going to include a list of some more of the features that the Hub will be offering in a simplified list form for easy reference:
- Full character customization
- Simple, vibrant custom tileset
- Free, player owned residences for every player
1. Customized furniture, art and room design
2. Display cases showing off trophies
- A place to show off your graphic skills in galleries and possibly even a theater to show off videos made in Graal
- A vast overworld, ready to be explored
If you have any more ideas, or would like to expand to this idea, please leave constructive and positive feedback so we can try and make this idea a reality!