DISCLAIMER: I'm not hating on the game in any way, I played the everloving crap out of it. But tough love must be given.
I think the problem now, with new players/returning old players is the confusion over the
fragmentation, and the business model as a whole. I tried to get back into GraalOnline only to be told I only had so many hours available (What is this, AOL?). Well, I get on servers only to find them ghost towns. Then I find there is a "facebook" version, and an iOS version. These don't seem to be the same. What? They seem to be using the F2P model, bustling with players! So many players that the client lags from all the sprites! The Windows client is not using this model. What is this PC port then?? The dying remains of the old servers? Servers I'm expected to pay for, if I may add?
In case I'm not 100% clear on my last paragraph the branding is absolutely confusing - Graal should be Graal. Graal Era makes enough sense, but you have "Graal", "GraalOnline" and "Graal Classic", and I have no idea if they're the same thing, or different! I check the windows Graal EXE and I'm asked for a password - I don't even remember setting one, and most of my recent progress was in the facebook version - which is nowhere connected to the EXE version. (This isn't obvious, by the way.) I type in "the code" in the server list like I'm supposed to for classic, and... I log on and only one person is connected along with me, and he's AFK. I'm having... not fun.
Knowing that I was supposed to type in that keyword in the server box is not common knowledge. It's nowhere in any sticky, or FAQ, None that I could find. I had to message an admin to get this information. Not good! I don't even know if I'm supposed to be sharing that information, given how hard it was to even get it in the first place!
Looking at the "official" graalonline forums, I see entire subforums that haven't been posted in in 4 years. buried in those forums are answers I couldn't find from google. Some posters are wondering where the admins are. This looks SO BAD for someone casually browsing material for the game they saw their friends play on Facebook. If we need these souls on the PC servers, as it is, it's not clicking.
I was so confused over the organization of this game that I was at a point of giving up completely. This must be addressed. As it is, it's a confusing mess with no easy way to navigate through any of it. Of course these are "noob" issues, but if an oldbie coming back from ages past is having trouble navigating through this, just imagine how a true newbie feels.
To make things worse: After hours of googling, I found this:
What is this? is THIS the graal I remember? with missing images? Was dust blown off these pages before the server sent them to me? And to top it off:
"Without Gold membership, you can only play 5 hours per month."
With ZERO players? uh-uh.
Here are my suggestions to fix this mess:
One: F2P the whole blasted thing. People
will buy items in game for VIP island loot. Those lazy bones will buy gralats(gelats?) with real money. The WoW subscription model worked back in the day, but it's a disaster compared to the way games are expected to operate today. And before you ask: Yes, I do Android dev for F2P games, these suckers will pay out the nose - so will PC players. Especially since I can give as much as I want to the development and upkeep of the servers by my purchases. It may have felt unethical back in the day to "tempt" players to pay for items, but now that it's common, just go for it! Those that have to till the soil for gelats can still do what they do, and those who pay can get an easy ride. Their choice.
Two: Clean up the website. Get rid of the outdated information. This isn't a crazy request, it's just what's expected on a bare minimum.
Three: If Staff is that stretched thin for the PC port, make the PC port work with the Facebook port servers. If the rumors I read about broken editing tools are true, we have a much bigger problem, don't we?
Four: Don't expect Facebook players to pay for "gold" membership with a ration of 5 hours per month if they don't. They will flee without a second thought and go to peggle or something. I've seen it happen in other mobile games with my own eyes.
Five: Keep in contact with players and keep them engaged. I'm seeing that on the facebook port, which is good, but the PC port is crickets. seeing official news posts from 2012 on the main page also looks bad, it's 2017 now.
Of course, this is some old geezer's opinion.
