I'm late, but I don't give a ****. I felt like addressing this thread since I've got some time. First off, let's identify the two core problems surrounding Era's current (vilified) reputation amongst the Graal community. While the two issues aren't on equal ground per say, they are both very common problems that many online games - especially MMOs - are plagued with today; it just seems to be more extreme and prevalent in Era. The two core problems that I mentioned are:

A: The overall immaturity in the community
B: Forced grind game mechanics

Let's begin by discussing the first issue. The immaturity in the community across the entire game is absolutely undeniable - spend more than ten minutes walking around or even two minutes in Start Park or Astros, and you'll witness one of the following and probably much more: players presumably under 18 crudely asking for lewd pictures, players spamming disgusting, vulgar and racist language in gleeful joy after getting kills, among other beautiful sights such as players spamming "n00b fk" in all caps in a pitiful attempt at an insult after dying. Era is simply the type of game - a mindless and effortless shooter that's an MMO no less - that attracts these types of toxic players, and that's simply the nature of the game. Sorry to say and not to offend, but judging by a large amount of players' reactions to things like PKing or dying in a spar, the mindless mechanics (2D joystick shooting) of the game are a strong reflection of the mental patience a lot of players that inhabit the server seem to have. It's not that hard to see and it certainly isn't hard to question, but this is a huge factor that tends to drive ambitious players away from the game in favor of more sophisticated and complex games. I can't speak wonders for the staff team either, I've seen some pretty nasty stuff coming from a lot of current and previous staff members, but that's a whole new thread altogether. You can't deny it: Era is easy. It's mindless, it's simple, it's fun, it's not mechanically demanding at all, and ironically, that appeals to a less-than-ideal demographic that can turn an otherwise casual MMO experience into a toxic one. Yet, in spite of all of this, the game somehow manages to introduce what is regarded by a large amount of MMO players to be the single most game-destroying element: grind.

Again, we have to face the facts: getting what you want isn't easy, and it's tedious, and it certainly isn't fun - unless you're paying. At the moment, Era forces players to invest a considerable amount of either time or actual money in order to play the game on an even playing field with the vast majority of players today, simulating a steep "equipment curve" that tends to drive new players away as well. Though, as absolutely toxic as it is to have a heavily encouraged pay-to-win system, the injury is terribly insulted with the fact that the only other alternative besides paying a large amount of money for a single weapon is to do extremely tedious and mind-numbing grind with absolutely no variation in the "quests" that net you a very small amount given the time invested.

What makes matters even worse is that the grind doesn't even stop if and when you somehow attain a top-tier gun that probably took weeks upon weeks to earn without paying. If you're a casual player like a lot of Era's population appears to be, there are even more broken game mechanics to bite you in the ass. While ammo certainly isn't too big of a problem, revive potions and especially gun repairs definitely are. The fact that weapons degrade in performance - not by usage time (for whatever stupid reason), but by real time - really tends to turn non-frequent players away from the game once they become a little inactive. Those players log on in hopes of a good PK or spar session, then they realize all of their weapons are "very rusty" and have to spend time mining for rocks, which abuses an RNG mechanic in order to get the materials you need to repair, as well as currency.

Why staff have not identified any of these problems let alone acted upon them yet is beyond me, considering the game's been out for years now with endless complaining about how tedious it can be to play this game, how broken game mechanics are - and I didn't even mention how terribly imbalanced the price/weapons ratios are, nor did I go in-depth on how ****ty the pay-to-win system is as a result of it - both elements are beyond broken and aren't even worth discussing since the "marketers" of the game are blinded by income without any sense of balance or compromise between players and developers.

That's why Era is vilified, and that's what needs to be worked on. Right now, Era is seen by pretty much every other server to be the trashcan of Graal filled with obnoxious game mechanics and players alike, and it really isn't hard to see why.

don't give me that TL;DR ****, I don't care if you didn't read it, just don't post about it like an idiot