Posted by Reemas

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.

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.  

Posted by Reemas

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?

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

Posted by Reemas

That's three whole players

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.  

Posted by David

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

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  

Posted by David

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

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)  

Posted by Reemas

Do you really want me to post pics of all the players i see at other towers?

...

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.  

Posted by David

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.

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.  

Posted by David

...

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  

Posted by Reemas

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.

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.