GRAAL GUILD SYSTEM PETITION
 

We are sick of waiting for the new guild system that is being overhyped and was told it was comming out soon since it was I'm out was pretty hyped for the new guild system but the game is dead my friends all left or are leaveing and getting boring for pkers and towering I think to myself

And if Graal honestly wanted the best why would you take out a guild system over a president ago when your working on a new one why wouldn't you leave it while you were working or aACTUALLY close to finishing it and don't update much or say anything about it if it was because of over powered guilds and hat chasers there was a million ways to fix that smh,

"yeah yeah why are you so impatient " lol I've been hearing from staff saying soon since they took it out pathetic



There was so many other options to do this its really sad to see it even have to had go down this road


Sign it to make Graal Guild System better again and call the number to complain too only location I knew that Graal staff would be at you WILD ANIMALS!




http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/462/260/974/


I'll edit the petition adding a description later

unixmad: does nothing
Xor: does nothing
Dusty: seems to have little interest in the competitive aspects of Graal
Coco: seems to have no interest in the competitive aspects of Graal

That leaves fp4, who's probably heavily demotivated ever since Rufus quit and also has to deal with Zodiac (among other things)

GATs are relegated to making hats, mounts, and whatever else generates revenue
GPs are mouth-breathers with no developmental skills

It's not much of a surprise why this isn't happening and your petition is useless because the highest people on the totem pole will never see or care about it

is this bait?

That's quite the lobsided view of what constitutes as "competitive." Just because they choose to focus on other aspects of graal that dont favor yours doesnt make their choices less favorable.

Also, I dont really have an issue with having the new system added yet. Graal, for me, has been and is fun regardless. I rather the new system be realeased when the admins have finalized it. Rather not have a new system with loop holes.

I feel sorry for you guys actually. I only play Graal Classic for the socializing part (Judge me all you want, I'm just looking for fun things to do and Social in Classic is fun. Besides I suck at PK activites anyway. Towering was fun...when york was around...admins why).

Maybe...MAYBE...The reason its taking so long is because the update is WAYYY bigger than we think and will make towering real fun and everyone in classic will want to tower???

...Well, you judge if that last bit is good or not...

• Towering: 317 days since rewards were removed. No one's towering due to it. When no one's towering, it isn't fun. When it isn't fun, no one towers. Stuck in infinite loop: when no one's towering, it isn't fun. When it isn't fun, no one towers. Error: towering is ****ed.

• Sparring: Despite 100 different suggestions, side rooms still aren't fixed. No new players come to sparring because it's impossible and discouraging to get started. People are boosting and speeding like it's the wild west because we have [dreadjarace]the most qualified GP team possible[/dreadjarace].

• PKing: Basically limited to MoD tower as a byproduct of towering being dead. It's nothing like it once was, and PKing should be a thing that very easily gets "better" as the playercount increases. That's not what's happening anymore.

• BKing: It's fine. You can't really **** up BKing.

The core gameplay elements of Graal (listed above) are in bad shape on iClassic right now and it has been that way for a year (or longer).

fp4 has made it clear in past posts that the NGS is basically his project alone, and I've seen posts where Dusty states that he isn't very interested in it because it's all GUI, backend stuff. That's fine. Dusty is a creative guy and he's into different things. I'm pretty sure he doesn't get paid so he should be able to choose what projects he involves himself with. But where is the management and leadership from Xor and unixmad? Should they not be encouraging fixes to these areas of the game? Shouldn't they be aggressively searching for more developers? When's the last time they logged on iClassic? Are they even real people? I'm very confused about the people that are in charge at the highest levels of this game.

totally agree with you :0
we all know when this update comes its gonna make or break the game so i guess doostrz and fp5 are trying to find a way of making it better than... ya kno, the leaderboards rn

No one huh? More like no one that you know. You seem to be stuck in an infinite loop in that whole paragraph.

Limited? Limited to you. Not for me and many other players.

damn you're either truly stupid or started playing this game last week.

Anyways, yeah. This game is going through a "dark age" like it has before. It's always directly correlated to staff members (high and low on the totem pole) being either:

too lazy to do anything of substance
or
too dumb to do anything of substance

pick your poison

Mod is pretty much a cesspool and easy to boost kills since theres nowhere else to go pk anymore, oh well I'm not gonna complain anymore so I'll just stay quiet and watch

There's so many improvements the game needs in order to evolve but unfortunately the only thing keeping the game relevant are the pixelated vomit that arrives every so often (thanks Coco and GFX Team).



• The least they could have done was raise the guild hat reward to 3K until the NGS was release since towering to 3K hours takes much longer than 1K hours.
• Drain the Swamp: GP Team needs improvements. Revamp the GP Application.
• Update to iOS10 already. Hasn't been updated since 2014.

Yeah. Maybe these guys should find another game if graal is so broken that it's unplayable. I mean, geez... it's not like there's a guild in every single tower every hour of the day. It's just not the "Same" guilds in the "Same" towers every day like before. Instead of boosting hours for hats, it's almost like the players who are partaking in it at this point are actually doing it out of sheer enjoyment. The nerve!

Also, I see pkers everywhere. Hell, hang around in swamp for ten minutes you'll surely see a storm of rampant boosters somewhere nearby, killing each other and any random person who wanders too close. When the blob comes they still spam arrows and bombs into the crowd of people. Additionally, all the towers have PKers. ALL of them. And they're annoying as all get out.

And spar... what to say. Is the issue the competition in the first place? Or the idea that players are using alternative means to compete because of the disparity between skill levels? This is the only area of the game where admins take a special dedicated event and promote it / spend time and effort catering strictly to the people who are interested in it (and multiple times a year at that). What if there was a "positive score" room? Then there would be no issue, right? Elitism?

Imagine if there was a fashion show multiple times a year (and not just impromptu valentines' couples contests). Maybe this is a good idea - a halloween themed costume contest? SO many players would love it. And it wouldn't take much effort, overall, would it?

Or anything to do with house rating that wasn't just slapped into the pre-existing competitive ranked leaderboard system. This has been broken since it was added. See rant regarding this here

Yet, the guys who have special events and systems designed around the aspect of the game that they enjoy (there are many aspects) are complaining.

Do you really want me to post pics of all the players i see at other towers? That narrow minded thinking of yours will get you no where. If this is truly the "dark age" of graal, why do you continue to play?

did u really categorize this as human rights... theres a gaming section...

Agre this game is definitely gettin worse in my opinion it's getting so bad I seen Lia05 offline for 2 whole hours

Pretentious people like Reemas just contribute to the problem, spamming the thread with what amounts to "towering isn't in bad shape right now, there's like 20 people doing it so it doesn't matter that hundreds did it years ago"
"I just saw 2 people PKing a minute ago, it's fine"

Then there are the people like Bryan and Zorma, who have actually participated in these areas of gameplay for years, who seem to agree that there are very clear problems

I'm back and what the hell ..what did you guys do to my thread

You're the only one being pretentious bud.

Random dickish comments like this make it really hard to respect your point, regardless if you're correct.

Koff koff. Answer the issues raised instead of slander, Mr T. Then we can move in an appropriate direction.

It's in bad shape, and that's pretty obvious... I'm sure that the kills leaderboard would reflect the drop in activity.

Players aren't complaining because they aren't the ones towering; they're complaining because there isn't a reason to. While it's nice that people are still playing for "pride"(I mean, I still get 300 kills a day, what else could be what I be doing called?) it shouldn't be the only reason to play. The plaques were a step to increase competition... A really good step. But our developers have to realize that people will get bored of doing the same thing for the same exact reward(I understand the gst, but the hats are different every time). I'm sure they do realize that, but it shows a lack of foresight to have taken rewards away that early.

Without the rewards to be earned towering activity has declined. When a guild like Black Soul can hold mod uncontested with 5 members that's a sign. Remember when guilds had twenty online at a time? I haven't seen that at all, since the removal of the rewards.

Sparring is kinda pathetic... Whenever I go to que there's only a few people actually sparring. The only people who spar actively are near the top of the season. Last season Thallen was able to stay in the top 50 by sparring actively for a few days... That shouldn't be possible. You should be sparring actively for most a season to place, not a few days.

Bking activity is up, understandably with the release of the northern wilderness... More spiders to go around.

Pking has gone down as well... I remember the first summer plaques were given out. I got 500 kills every single day, some days doing 1,000. I placed 18th with something like 48k kills. Give me 48k kills these next few seasons? I'll be in the top 10 easily, maybe even the top 5. Even in the other seasons recently I've had much less and have placed higher. Sure, that was the summer season, but it's almost impossible to deny the drop in activity this season.

I find this interesting after previous discussions regarding hat rewards to be pointless. Not pointing to anyone specifically here, but there was the general atmosphere that towering for the sake of towering was the reason to do it, and hat chasers were in it for the wrong reasons?

Hey! Wanna come online and rp? I got some amazing beauty supplies that would go great with your fabrication!

Ya'll keep beefing so a Moderator can see my thread

expect I don't want Colin to see it he will just close it

I'm not going to get baited into a perpetual argument against someone who uses words like "lobsided" or someone else who has never shown any interest in any of the activities we're discussing

It's not a coincidence that people like Areo, Bryan, and Zorma agree. They're the ones with years of towering experience, about 700k PKs shared between them, etc. Do they go into your threads about bug catching and try to grief it like you're doing here?

Actually, the fact that there's an issue at all (on either side) is enough to outline that there are fixes that are required. Regardless of whether you think it needs specific focus on one area of the game or another, or if you choose to parse details and data or not, the fact that there's something to talk about is enough. Kudos on making a thread that got people talking.

That's three whole players to the near 4k. Good job guy. Keep at this and you're sure to leave a mark in the graal history books.

They totally do, though I'm not "griefing" anyone. Bring some information to the table and validate your points. I like a good, solution oriented debate about a topic. I stated my points pretty clearly.

1. There are sparrers, pkers, tower guilds currently operating
2. Towers are occupied with players who WANT to tower, and not just hat chasers
3. Spar tournaments happen multiple times a year
4. Other areas of the game do not have the same focus or attention
5. Guild system has been a long time coming, but some areas of the game (which may be valid to you or not) that are enjoyed by many players are neglected
6. I look forward to a guild system update that harmonizes the blatantly skewed leaderboard system and the non-competitive forms of gameplay into a singular group activity with incentives for all.

I do admit to having said that in the past... But opinions change. After seeing the effects of having no rewards, I feel that the previous system, even with its flaws, is better than what we are currently running. Even if they had extended the hours needed for a hat(maybe even to 5k) that would have been a much smarter move than just doing away with them altogether

I don't recall griefing a thread, perhaps ever... but that's a subjective viewpoint, so whatever.

1. Yeah, there are guilds currently running... But they're small and kinda dinky in comparison to years past. It will be hard to justify that, even with some guilds still playing, this dramatic drop in activity is okay.

2. Talked about that above.

3. They do, but that's gs... Single sparring receives nothing, no tournaments, no competition(I feel my previous example showed that rather nicely?). The lack of point is shown by the fact that the only people doing it are usually in the side rooms.

4. That's fine; the competitive side of the game requires the most management and improvement... It usually isn't too hard to get other parts of the games right.

5. I'm assuming you're referring to bug catching or looting... That would be welcome to me, both of those are legitimate activities, and should be rewarded outside of monetary rewards(I remember campaigning for "bug hat rewards" which would be given out after you had caught <X> number of a certain bug).

6. That's what we all want, I believe. I don't believe I've ever complained about uncompetitive aspects of gameplay(though I have complained about administrator experience... thoroughly discussed already). I am not unhappy with the system that you want... I am unhappy that we are approaching a calendar year without rewards for guilds to stride for. The gst is cool and all, but it's a single tournament rewarding 6 guilds or less... What about for less serious guilds? Currently there is nothing for us to do competitively.

Are we not in agreement that something should have been done to have avoided our current situation?

Can't say I don't agree with you in some points but there is still competition on Graal just not the way you're used too. There is still the competitive aspect of wanting to get the upper hand on another player. The higher ground (Star Wars reference). That is a reward in itself.

I don't agree. There was something done in place, the pure gratification of beating someone.

Three players that are willing to express ideas and improvements the game needs. We aren't players that bitch about when's Nexus, Revolution, or any other place is opening. Folks like you can blabber all the BS in the world, one thing is for certain: Classic is dead, boring, and dry for the last several months since the removal of guild rewards and no updates on the other activities.

Activities such as bug catching and looting have been debuff to an extent. The Archery at Onnet has been requested to be updated (not even looked upon). I don't even know why Snow Town exists if the only time players go there is if there's new hats on display. There's also the constant issues with hackers and boosters that need to be dealt with. So it's not only PK/Spar/BK that's a concern for the players in the game. There's a multitude of them.

Towering is not 1/8th as active as it used to be.

If you disagree with this sentence then you are either:
a.) stupid
or
b.) new to Graal

Yeah, you're comparing three very active players in the competitive side of this game to every single person who sits in Graal city and spams "enter my code shop!"

Unless you're trying to make the claim that competitive RPing exists or something then you have no idea what you're talking about. "look at all the 10 players at MoD!" yeah, cool story man watch this:



When you look at these lists:

http://www.clandestine.pw/sparring-tier-list.html
http://www.clandestine.pw/top-50-pks.html

and ask those people, 99% of them will agree with what we're saying because we actually are part of those communities.

I wonder who's opinion holds more weight on this topic, 4-lom and Reemas or literally every single person on those lists.

I agree towering isn't as active as it used to, compare sardons now to that video and it's plain and clear, but slap 2 lists of top 50 players and say they're opinion holds more "weight" is such an odd thing to say imo.

You can influence as many people as you want but it doesn't make your argument better (You're arguments are fine, just saying that saying that those people hold more weight than 4-lom or Reemas is stupid).

The value of the argument will beat the weight the person holds every time... because it's an opinion.

people who pk a lot have a more valuable opinion on the state of pking than someone who does not pk actively

people who spar a lot have a more valuable opinion on the state of sparring than someone who does not spar actively

I can't believe I have to type this

Anyone can walk into a tower and say "Hey there's nobody here! Where'd they go?" it doesn't take 100k pks to notice that

I can't believe that you can't believe that you typed that. So bizarre. What a world we live in.

Yeah, well go tell Reemas that he seems to think that towering is bustling with activity.

You're not taking into consideration that people who are not at all part of these aspects of the game are acting like everything is peaches and cream.

It's not. And its glaringly obvious that they aren't even part of these communities because if they were, they'd be on the same side as 99% of us who believe that gameplay is dying.

I must've missed the post that Reemas said towering is fine and as active as ever, because as far as I can tell Reemas is saying that as long as there are people in towers it's "active" (perhaps with a large amount of sarcasm on the side)

...

Anyways, all we're saying is that the game is dying. You can go ahead and define "active" as 3 people at sardons but I'll retain my definition based on how active it actually was.

Valid opinions, and true to an extent. The "Gameplay is dying" may be relative... the aspects of play that are populated has shifted, for sure. The number of players in towers has decreased, for certain. Players seeking rewards for their time spent is definitely a factor here. My personal feeling is that the previous towering system was cancer... it incentivized guilds to have a revolving door policy, stagnant alliances, and scamming players who spent hours participating and received nothing.

Something should be (and is being, from what I understand) done.

No, no, you got it all wrong. Gotta put the word in all caps to emphasize. Like this "ALL."

Yeah Reemas has officially reverted to the level of a babbling ape at this point so I'll just leave this here and go:

382 days since the five tag limit: http://www.graalians.com/forums/show...64&postcount=2

336 days since the first specific details of the NGS: http://www.graalians.com/forums/show...7&postcount=11

318 days since towering rewards were removed: https://www.facebook.com/graalonline...12591555421446

74 days since the "in 2016" goal was failed: http://www.graalians.com/forums/show...7&postcount=52

That reward is a good one, but it should not be the only reason. Look at how most other games operate

- Large monster hunts/quests for your guild to compete in, with rewards or items gained after completion.
- A level up system or prestige system to break up the monotony, with stat boosts or cosmetic rewards gained alongside your levels.
- Weekly "seasons" or tournaments to compete in, with monetary or cosmetic rewards.
- After certain achievements players will get a "shout-out".
- Victory brings more items, better armor sets, increased stats, cosmetics, badges and awards, cash(real or in-game), and so much more.

What do all of these things have in common? They all incentivize the player to compete and play... I appreciate the argument of "you play for the pure enjoyment of winning,". It's how I wish things could operate, but the thing is is that it doesn't operate well under that format. Games don't, they aren't meant to(at least MMO genre games).

I will attempt to entirely defeat that argument now, I hope that I can convince you.

Lets talk about game design.
Remove us for a second... What is the logical reason for not having rewards for competition? All it does is remove a sect of the game who actively play and participate regularly... That's bad for the game's activity, which is bad for revenue(you HAVE to have noticed the decline in activity). Moreover, I would be willing to bet that those player spend more money on the game than average, by a large margin. Why would we not want to cater to those players?

MMOs should be designed around retention of players, if a large players are not playing the game or are complaining about something, what is the reason to not do it? Just because they don't have a forums account doesn't mean that they shouldn't be represented, just like what you and 4-Lom do with bug catchers and other players.

Aside from that, Graal might've been fine should it never have had rewards from the beginning... But it didn't do that. Players are used to rewards, should they be blamed somehow for this? No, because they took what the game gave them. It makes sense that once the rewards left most of the people did...
More proof of the lack of activity if you're unconvinced:
Current tower-owning guilds member counts:
7/25, 5/25, 6/25, 8/25, 6/25.

That's very low, and it can't be denied that a 2 years ago they would've been higher. This is less then a year removed from the rewards... What about when we hit two years(I pray we won't). Will towers be contested at all? probably by guilds rocking 5 people.

We aren't even doing what you are appearing to ask for now... Classic offers plaques for players who compete in these activities. Are you saying that staff should remove these, because players should only be playing for pride? We can't sit in a middle-ground between no-rewards and full-rewards... And staff have made clear that they would like rewards to add incentive to playing their game, they just haven't had the time for it. Unrelated to my other points, but still.

Getting the upper-hand should be the "end-game" reward, when other rewards like cosmetics don't interest you, if you get what I mean. That should be for players who are bored with rewards and other aspects of the game, not for everyone... How can we bring new players into the activity without rewards? Why do you think people have been complaining about singles sparring activity for ages? There is little reason to do it, so new players don't... That can largely explain why sparring is so dead. Singles Sparring perfectly follows the "play for pride" system you are asking for... And look how it is doing. It revives after its parent activity(the gst, something with a reward) comes around, and dies shortly thereafter for 2 months.

But with rewards look what took place; many a player joined a tower guild and became invested in the game... They not only became interested in towering, but in Pking too. The rewards drew them in and gave them a reason to play at first, and then their own self-interest and passion let them enter into an activity without rewards. Do you see how that works? We need the rewards to get new players into the competitive side of the game. Removing the rewards basically means removing the reason for new players to do it, outside of not understanding what they're doing. This isn't just about us older players, this is good for everyone.

That's why we want the new system; to add all that back and more(hopefully for bug catching and other causal activities, so that guild competition almost becomes a natural part of playing the game) and to fix the issues 4-Lom nicely summed up.

If very few other games operate on that system of play, why should Graal try and be different? (I ask this because I really want a response to this specifically).

I really like it when everyone posts his opinion on this but, if you don't have any towering expierence or don't have any expierence about the competetive side of this game or in my words is a complete 'noob" don't act like you'd be a "pro" and know everything, just cause even "noobs" are able to take towers now it doesn't mean the game is anywhere competitive.

It' s really a shame that this even could happen to Graal, I enjoyed the competetive aspects a lot(it's more fun whem theres a battle going on in a tower that includes 15 "pros" on each side than reemas 4-lom and other 13 randoms that can't even regroup properly.

I really hope we will see some changes anywhere near in the future and this game will be what it used to be.

@Agonee, I want to get your opinion on this, why is it that the "noobs" you are talking about that are "finally able to take towers" are taking towers, and the "pros" you talk about who "know how to tower" don't anymore, what makes it any less comptetive (apart from lack of players in towers) is it because theres no rewards? and why do the "noobs" keep towering even after the guild system changes while the pros have seemingly come to graalians to share their 2 cents,

It's odd to me that you say they are noobs when, to me at least, it seems they have more fun towering for the sake of towering without getting a reward, whereas most "pros" dont't find it fun because there's no physical item (in game sense) to be rewarded with (at most thats what i assume, not that everyone jumped and left instantly but it very well slowed down after time)

If possible, please don't respond with "hardly anyone does it anymore it's not what it used to be, it's too easy anyone could do it"

Thanks.

Do you play other video games? Do you participate in any competitive activity, on or offline? I'm trying to get a feel for why it's so difficult for you to comprehend why incentive is important in bringing the highest level of activity and competition to games.

What's your best guess for why competitive game modes, in basically every single online game, are more popular than casual game modes? This argument really confuses me because it seems like you guys actually want to prevent competition from happening… Why is that?

You guys come across as very bitter, bad players. I don't know how else to read this. It looks like a bunch of bad players who don't want to see good players enjoying parts of the game that were designed for them. I'm sure you're going to take offense to that, but that's how I'm interpreting this. It's unusual because these "competitive players" are rarely here on forums trolling the threads where casual updates are rolled out, like the new houses, Castle, etc. The last competitive game update was, what? The new leaderboards in 2014? And that update, as suggested by me, made the leaderboards more casual than competitive just to cater to these people.

I don't see what's so crazy about people asking for something that was promised to them, especially considering the shape of sparring, PKing, and towering.

Thanks for jumping the gun thallen, I asked him why the people he says are "noobs" are towering still even after rewards, and if you had read what I said, I literally said "what makes it any less competitive... is it because there are no rewards?" I think that made it pretty clear that I knew that incentive is important, thanks for skimming over that!

I was asking him, what makes them "noobs" because they are towering without an incentive and significantly less people to tower against. I didn't focus on the rewards at all, just that short point i quoted before, my main focus was, what makes them noobs just because they are towering now rather than 15vs15v15v15 towering that had multiples guilds attacking forts? They tower now because they can tower, and they do.

In regards to that large edit you made, I'm not here to be bitter, nor prevent competition, I'm here to talk about a game that everyone on this forum plays and share their thoughts and opinions, this is a fan made forum, things on this page can influence the game, but ultimately it is fan made, which people can use to share opinions, so that's what I do.

On a side note (take this as bitter if you will I honestly don't care) This might just be me but do you ever make a post that doesn't sound conceited in one way or another, "as suggested by me" as well as "difficult for you to comprehend" the one phrase that as far as I can tell you throw around wherever you can.

Now that, THAT was bitter.

I specifically mention that it was suggestion of mine to stress the fact that, contrary to the beliefs of the bug catchers and roleplayers on these forums, there are competitive players who are able to make suggestions that benefit others and do what's best for the game overall

The fact that you're begging Agonee to explain to you why the people currently towering aren't the highest quality of players just shows that you don't understand the issue at all

"Originally Posted by LoX
@Agonee, I want to get your opinion on this"

Blimey, if that isn't the most high quality begging I don't know what is.

I never asked him to explain why the people "aren't top quality" the fact that you say it's an issue that people who aren't top quality players are towering shows just how conceited you really are.

Now, you must be referring to a previous post that is not one of the 2 posts you replied to me with, because no where in any of it did you "stress" anything about competitive players suggesting ideas that can improve the game, all you said was that the bug catchers and roleplayers you referred to as "bad players" are trying to ruin the game for the "good players"

I love the addition of the "you'll probably take offence to that" ;)

Please don't ask several times even tho the questions got awnsered often enough, there's no point to explain something to someone if the certain person isn't open to change their mind.

Rewards is a huge part of motivation. That's sad? That's how it works, thats how most of us "competetive players" are, you don't get any reward for towering right now.
Can't talk for every player on this but do you think anyone would try that hard to win an eSports Event that first gave you $100,000 & now not even a cent?
No, Obviously not, the competitive aspect of the game would die and only the people that missed the competetive part/never felt it will still try to win an tournament.