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deadowl · 07-27-2014

Problems that have existed on Graal for a long time:

* Understaffed scripting talent

* Lack of incentive toward directives for the existing scripting talent

* Even when I was an admin it was difficult to contact stefan, and essentially impossible to contact unixmad

Now let me talk about what happened to the original Graal Classic. The NPC server had been released for something like 4-5 years, and the scripters were required to convert scripts to work with an NPC Server. The number of players waned as no new content was released during this project. I knocked through hundreds to thousands of mostly overworld and underwater levels so that the 7000 could get cut to something that seemed more manageable to everybody.

Then, one day, the NPC Server is released and the server is completely wiped save for a small set of levels and horribly broken scripting (which was apparently an all-nighter job for the then manager). After that the server's population dropped to pretty much < 20 players online at the same time and continued to fall until the server was taken off of the server list.

I spent a lot of time trying to build out the overworld, items and quests. The quests lagged primarily due to the bottleneck of making baddies with serverside-based movement and incorporate them into a custom serverside hit detection system somehow, and nobody really had the talent to develop them.

The serverside hit-detection requirement was the biggest issue because there wasn't any reliable event triggers for when a baddy came into contact with a player. Fortunately the serverside hit detection requirement was later dropped.

Since then, Graal the Adventure (another Graal Classic reboot on the PC Client) and Graal Classic (iPhone/Facebook) seem to have been released. The former looks like it recycles more of the scripts I developed and the latter looks like it recycles more of the levels I assigned and developed.

I.e. a lot of levels exist. The overworld places just need to be fleshed out. Pretty much all of my quest levels look like they've been tossed aside though because Graal Castle, Sardon's Tower and Kull's Castle (i.e. a quest site which is now the Deadwood Guild Fortress) seem to have been repurposed. Maybe the Gnome Caves levels I designed will be recycled. Maybe the original Gnome Caves levels (more linear) will be recycled.

Also, the stagnation of updates isn't a good thing.

07-27-2014	67
deadowl Registered User Join Date: Jul 2014 Posts: 783	Problems that have existed on Graal for a long time: * Understaffed scripting talent * Lack of incentive toward directives for the existing scripting talent * Even when I was an admin it was difficult to contact stefan, and essentially impossible to contact unixmad Now let me talk about what happened to the original Graal Classic. The NPC server had been released for something like 4-5 years, and the scripters were required to convert scripts to work with an NPC Server. The number of players waned as no new content was released during this project. I knocked through hundreds to thousands of mostly overworld and underwater levels so that the 7000 could get cut to something that seemed more manageable to everybody. Then, one day, the NPC Server is released and the server is completely wiped save for a small set of levels and horribly broken scripting (which was apparently an all-nighter job for the then manager). After that the server's population dropped to pretty much < 20 players online at the same time and continued to fall until the server was taken off of the server list. I spent a lot of time trying to build out the overworld, items and quests. The quests lagged primarily due to the bottleneck of making baddies with serverside-based movement and incorporate them into a custom serverside hit detection system somehow, and nobody really had the talent to develop them. The serverside hit-detection requirement was the biggest issue because there wasn't any reliable event triggers for when a baddy came into contact with a player. Fortunately the serverside hit detection requirement was later dropped. Since then, Graal the Adventure (another Graal Classic reboot on the PC Client) and Graal Classic (iPhone/Facebook) seem to have been released. The former looks like it recycles more of the scripts I developed and the latter looks like it recycles more of the levels I assigned and developed. I.e. a lot of levels exist. The overworld places just need to be fleshed out. Pretty much all of my quest levels look like they've been tossed aside though because Graal Castle, Sardon's Tower and Kull's Castle (i.e. a quest site which is now the Deadwood Guild Fortress) seem to have been repurposed. Maybe the Gnome Caves levels I designed will be recycled. Maybe the original Gnome Caves levels (more linear) will be recycled. Also, the stagnation of updates isn't a good thing. Last edited by deadowl; 07-27-2014 at 12:28 AM. Reason: Typo. Hi Rufus!!!