Nostalgia
 

I was just having a chat with some friends about what made Old Graal feel special to us. The lustful lure of the open world. Free and open to explore for one and all. For it did not matter if you came without a clue. Neither did the others. Together we have all come to adore one another. To progress and explore. When the chatter was low, but ambitions were high! Oh yes, I am talking about the Olden Days of our playing. The glorious and wonderful expedition to our tales. Perhaps you had a calling on that fateful day you first opened that app. Here let us explore our beginnings, let us come to know the days when Player took his first steps onto the cobble path of Graal. Let us come to know the stories of Nostolgia. The stories of when we first started playing.

TL;DR I haven't posted anything that theatrical in a while. What's your nostalgia when you first started playing?

wat

I miss glitching out of the world and exploring the areas that were locked from normal players reach. I had loads of pictures until I restored my iPod. Thank you Apple tech. Anyways, it was really fun to explore the outer world. On a side note cute look Blueh:

http://i.imgur.com/nBMeuBz.png

Lollll I was dressed like that to mess with Lia since it was her old look.

Anyway some of my favorite nostalgia was when I first started playing I avoided grassy areas because I thought a Pokemon or something would pop up and I had nothing to catch it with. I had a sword of course, but what good is a sword against thunder shock or whatever. That and remembering before Onnet was released it was nicknamed "That Unreachable City".

I don't remember much about my early days playing Classic. PC players have this superior outlook and think that iClassic is a mockery of what Classic used to be, but from what I remember it was very similar. I mean, there weren't hats, but roleplaying was just as popular as it is now. There were baby roleplayers, people roleplaying relationships/getting married, people pretending to be Kings and such. Ya, there were quests but my experience wasn't that great(this is pre-Graal The Adventure)... quests were buggy as ****, scripts weren't clientside so if someone else completed it recently you could just walk to the end of the dungeon. Most of the "puzzles" were horrible, horrible wastes of time. For example in Sardon's Tower you had to SLOWLY push a block to a button on the other side of the room while blocks spit rocks at you every .5 seconds. Almost all of the "challenge" on the quests back then were horribly favored against you like that. God help you if the scripts bugged out(which they did often) and you had to do it again later. Did I mention waiting rooms for bosses? Ya, you had to wait until another player was done with the boss before you could go in and fight... and there was no queue. Chances are though the boss didn't work at all :P

Anyways, that's my experience of what the gameplay offered, so really you DID fall back on community just like now, and you did quests because you had to, not because they were fun.

But I think the only thing I remember specifically were throne wars. Graal Castle had no actual King or Queen... or purpose. It was pretty empty, so there was a game players made up where they PKed in the throne room to take the throne. There was no winners or anything, but the goal was to get in the throne and stay there as long as you could.

S.S.³ Link, signing out.

I remember when I first started playing I seriously believed it was zelda.. I searched high and low for quests or a dungeon!

When I encountered my first baddie... Oh my... I thought it was an actual player and when it said "Stop!" I would stop and reply "Yes?" and when it kept attacking I would get angry and say "What do you want, I stopped!"

I remember never being able to find 'the perfect look' for the ladies, I wore the biggest noob-suit with that hoodie body and that B-Ball cap. Lol.

When I tried spar for the first time I didn't know what to do... I thought It was like a speed-dating type thing. So I would freak out when I died.

Thats all for me x-x I don't want to embarrass myself too much in one day.

I liked Classic iPhone when I started because we were all new and adventurous. The baddies with the lightening was probably one of the most memorable things to me!! We would all bring them into Graal City, and let them zap players that were sitting at Burger Refuge. Then we would laugh, and run away to bring more lightening baddies.

I also remember guilds setting up guild wars at War Room 2 in Battle Arena. There would be like 40-50 players just fighting to see who could last the longest. The team that has more members still fighting would win the match at the end. That stopped when Guild Sparring came out since it was basically almost the same thing except with fewer players.

Another thing that I liked was when guilds tried to assassin another guild's queen or king xD. We would go into our meeting places, and talk about when or where to kill the queen/king. We couldn't talk privately since we had no guild chat button. If we killed the King/Queen, we would be happy that we accomplished something even though we got nothing in return.

When I started Graal, the guild that I was in had a "secret" meeting area. Our meeting place would always be the Tony Montana place(which is the Jesus Freaks building now). That was a great place to have a meeting because there would be a door that lead to a hang out zone. And there was a back entrance if you needed to run away during an attack xD. I don't know why they deleted that building but I thought it was a really cool building.

3 steps to experience nostalgia.

1. Turn off music for a year straight

2. Turn it on

3. Nostalgia

oh the days before the uploading system was added and graphics staff made heads and bodies for us for a fraction of the uploading price <3

oh the days when nexus was open every weekend <3

The days when staff would give out "admin bombs"

When i started graal, players at the bottom of the Top 50 board had 50,000pks, now the top 100 board is almost overrun with 100,000-er's

Does anyone remember the guild called the "RapeBots?" They wore the blue TV head and went around burger refuge grabbing people with glove button repeatedly. The group disappeared when they started getting jailed a lot (oh the days when jail existed). Then like a year later, one of my friends told me she used to be the rapebot leader 0-0

I remember the first time I ever logged into iClassic, there was some guy in all orange running around saying "I'M GUNNA GRAPE YA!" I immediately deleted the app after that lmao. I returned that summer however, and that's when it took it's lovely painful grasp on me as an every other day Graal player.

o gawd no im never turning that crap back on.

Just inhaled popcorn reading that lmao

Tony Montana's house was replaced by the pretty pointless housing building above Jesus Freaks. I'd add it back if I had a reason to do so!

Back in the day, I practically lived in McDonald's for the free wi-fi, just to play Graal. 2011'ish, it was such a thrill, exploring the over world and all.

Offmap glitching and thinking yellow named NPCs were admin bots who would ban me.

Wondering what the hell a rat was while in tall grass.

Wondering why someone trapped me in their house demanding something called an honor, while i pressed punch a bunch of times saying "I honor u, I honor u!"

Thinking of how it would take years to get the 300 kills to get into sardons so I could go to snowtown.

Screenshotting everytime an admin hugged me.

Not knowing how to get up after dying.

Wondering what kind of stupid game the people were playing hitting the flag at castle, then spending an hour trying to find the way back to the castle flag.

N-Pulse

I remember when there was a command known as "showadmins" and it told you who was on RC. I remember back in 2010 when people would glitch off map, there were no admins on at the time and half the population was off exploring. It lead to a group of people known as "Jr. Admins" Jr. Admins weren't even real staff. They were a group of people poised as staff that had "rights" to go off map. A great deal of people believed in Jr. Admins and went off map to places with them. I remember how I used to think it was cool that my buddies and I would be off map thinking we had special permission because a "Jr. Admin" was giving us the grand tour of the map outside. Then I remember getting lost from the group then later getting PMs from my friends how one-by-one they were all separated and either jailed or sent back. I never got caught :D but I eventually unstuck out of fear I'd be next.

Ha who gets scared from getting jailed.

I remember thinking that players with the most hours were the pro - est players in Graal and would afk overnight just to gain hours.

I also remember when the Battle Arena was just released and people would grab the SuperNick dress option so that the colour of their gloves/skinon their hand would change, or something like that.

Yeah; the old classic was not nearly as polished as iclassic is.

In regards to iclassic being seen as a joke - I think the micro transaction focused economy is what turns most people off; but they are still FAR better than the ridiculous pricing scheme that PC Graal uses. I really wish PC didn't go P2P, it killed the game.

It greatly saddens me to see what happened to The Adventure; which was one of my favorite servers ever. RIP Adventure

I think that adding it back just because is reason enough :0

Still am :D even though I don't AFK anymore because I don't want to ruin my iPod.

I wish they'd bring back that Pachuka/Supernick box thing. I also remember when Supernick's brother used to be in that hidden area and gave a little backstory about how Nick got corrupt and all after he landed and built the Battle Arena above his ship.

Staff used to be way more relaxed and laid back back then. When they'd actually hang out with players and entertain them (because who ever thought being entertaining to players on a game would be such a bad thing?) by handing out special bombs. If you've ever used a staff bomb with a horse it's pretty frigging amazing, I'll tell you that. I remember when they used to just drag people onto rooftops just to hang out and chat. That cliff below the bank was where Jezzle I think used to just drag random people and have conversations with them for fun. To me, that was even more fun than the events they host nowadays. What ever happened to staff-to-player interaction?

Staff are still very nonchalant, compared to other game's. They host events almost everyday, for crying out loud. I consider that to be staff-to-player interaction. :)

Yeah but they do events because it's their job... Back then when they weren't busy working, they were having fun entertaining the community on their own time. I realize it may have made a few seem "stuck up" or "godlike" in a sense of being so conceded, but they were only making the game more fun just by interacting and answering questions they were allowed to answer.

Staff interaction is not a sensible or sustainable means of maintaining the 'fun' in an online game. It's a can of worms.

Yeah definitely the lightning baddies and bringing them into graal city. The 'guilds' also. They felt more like guilds somehow even though there was no official guild system. Maybe because I started making friends and getting involved in the community more when I joined clans. Sparring was also more fun when I first started. There were no such things as 'noob accounts' and more experienced players always expected me to be a terrible sparrer.

How about for Lia's happiness? :P I'd actually really like to see it back. No harm in replacing a pointless building with another pointless building, right?

It seems to be the highlight for everyone. These days there is a ridiculous lack of player to staff interaction, and I don't mean handing out special bombs or adding people, I mean somewhat useful stuff like how Azreal would always answer questions and take player suggestions on top of the bank. Now there's hardly any staff that'll bother to answer a pm.

That's one of the things I feel nostalgic about, the nice little places that didn't have a point but looked cool. Now it seems everyone is all about filling every little corner with something.

It shouldn't be a highlight for anyone, that's not how a game works. In addition, I don't believe that the example you gave is useful at all. I feel as though it is just a showy attempt at saying, "Hey guys look at me, I'm doing something!" but maybe I'm just cynical. It's not like it resulted in anything though.

It's an online game isn't it? And looking at the amount of content it had then (and even now really, it has improved but still has very little to do) one of the big aspects need to be social interaction, between all players. And I think that my example was more useful than most of the current GP's today. As it helps all players out and not just the ones on the staff member's friends list.

Yeah but what quality content came out of it?

My opinion is that staff/player interaction is best in small doses. I actually interact with players personally quite a bit, but I do it sparingly. Why? Because in my opinion players(at least the sort of players that don't browse forums and interact with staff outside of the game) really appreciate and get a kick out of meeting an admin. When I need to work on fixing a bug or glitch typically I will test it out with players, and they really do enjoy it.

But... that charm goes away quick when it becomes a daily and casual thing. For one, staff shouldn't be doing it to get attention. I do it because I feel it brightens the players day, and in fact most people don't even know who I am or what I do. As far as players know I just tell them "I just do things." But if staff walked around all day visible, giving players hugs and casually talking... then it becomes the norm. Players no longer appreciate that random staff interaction, they expect it, and that's bad.

Also, interacting with players isn't always that fun. More than half the players are assholes and make me instantly regret unhiding. Many want bragging rights by killing an admin, and others just want to annoy/pester them. Too many players are just... annoying.

At least, that's how I approach interacting with players.

None, but a PR's job isn't putting content into the game, it is helping with players.

You can socialize without being staff, so throwing socialization as a reason for staff standing and making a show of themselves is not valid. Being a staff member doesn't make you any different from anyone else, and I don't believe that staff should be put on a social platform. That is not why they are hired.

It's not just that they expect it, but they become irritated when they aren't given attention from staff members. Then you have accusations of favoritism, staff not doing their jobs and simply becoming staff for the attention, how individual staff members are unprofessional, and all of the other stupid things that people constantly whine about.

That's exactly what I'd love to see. Interaction in moderate doses not to a point where some staff member has half of graal circling the Battle Arena shouting hymns to them. It wouldn't be such a bad thing to have if it was every once in a while. It'd be terrible though if we ended up with another Ed, who was a staff member who only killed people and used Godmode.

Staff are gonna be put on a social platform whether you like it or not, it pretty much comes with the job. And staff being invisible from 90% of the community doesn't help it.

It doesn't encourage it either.

I don't see the point in arguing, I thought that kinda thing was cool back then, guess everyone has their own opinion.

the old days
 

i recall my first times alot..i enjoyed graal because it was different i loved the hats and the fun it was to discover new glitches and go on adventures with friends, the old tile set back when i started made it feel like zelda for me which was truly awesome back in the days and my favorite part was the way the admins had as much fun as we did

Zoo out~

I think that was Rufus in disguise.