*Kino (Darkshire) <3  

Posted by deadowl

tl;dr: scripting language upgrades.

Initially Graal was coded in such a way that everything was scripted clientside, with certain features being handled on the server. A lot of game features had to be moved to the server because people hacked the game client (what you would download to your PC to play) and made the gameplay less enjoyable for other players. It's harder to hack a server (home-turf advantage). As a longer-term strategy, Graal created an NPC server, which basically split scripting from being implicitly clientside or serverside to being explicitly clientside or server side.

Correction, while these became many benefits, the NPC Server was originally called "Animal Sector" and it was a patentable technology I invented because I wanted to have birds, weapons, and bomies free roaming the server with more sustainable interactive data between players, calling for a command I named "canwarp". Stefan stole the NPC Server idea because he knew it was the missing link that would change everything.

http://www.allgraal.com/showthread.php?t=77
http://www.allgraal.com/showthread.p...o=newpost&t=83  

Posted by Admiral

Was Stefan involved a lot in these sort of dev updates way back then? Fair play to you for pulling all nighters and such, but the amount of work you and others must've had to put in this is crazy.

Stefan was not involved with the exception of adding features to the scripting language that I requested in order to make some elements of custom-written movement, hit detection, and related systems possible. Those updates applied to all worlds, but they were pretty crucial in particular to Classic.

We had a strong team of level builders and a few good pixel artists. On the other side of the coin, there was a severe lack of active scripting talent. I had to assign myself most scripting tasks because there was nobody else who could do them, and my level of programming education was from toying around with GScript for a few years, and being a second-year CSIS major.

Posted by Victory

Correction, while these became many benefits, the NPC Server was originally called "Animal Sector" and it was a patentable technology I invented because I wanted to have birds, weapons, and bomies free roaming the server with more sustainable interactive data between players, calling for a command I named "canwarp". Stefan stole the NPC Server idea because he knew it was the missing link that would change everything.

http://www.allgraal.com/showthread.php?t=77
http://www.allgraal.com/showthread.p...o=newpost&t=83

You realize that the NPC Server practically destroyed Graal Classic, right?

---------

Found a text file describing the Kull's Castle concept map.



Green: Doors to outside
Red: Stairs (links between floors)

Themes: Swamp, Medieval Fortress

1. Warp Maze
2. Baddies/Hammer Stakes
3. Room with big chest, fences and bushes in squares around it.
4. Room that is seemingly empty, doors are locked.
5. Collapsing Bridge
6. A crapload of bush baddies.
7. bushes/healthpots
8. Trident maze
9. Boss

Posted by Elk

*Kino (Darkshire) <3

Kino? What ever happened with you anyway?  

Posted by deadowl

You realize that the NPC Server practically destroyed Graal Classic, right?

I'm not sure what you're even referring to.

1. Graal Classic still has a lot of revisions that need made.
2. I had a million dollar game stolen from me, and technology. How does this have anything to do with me destroying Classic?
3. Graal Classic needed revamped.
4. Graal Classic is booming bigger than ever on the mobile app.
5. I have a much bigger vision for Classic so I really don't care; frankly Graal Classic went downhill quickly after G2K1 opened imo and in the opinions of countless others. The process started even earlier after PACHUKA left, then in 1.3 with the addition of all kinds of junk; a lot of the original places were removed and replaced by stupid stuff that to this day anyone with good taste will tell you shouldn't exist but was added laxidaisically, such as:
   • Picnic tables in Graal City
   • Burger Refuge
   • A mansion next to Azrael's pub
   • Super Nick's spar arena
   • Vangel's house, which should have been in Onnett and shouldn't have had a tennis court
   • A bank
   • Fox's mansion in Graal City twice
   • The Baddies Fort was replaced by the castle, then by a crappier castle, and an even crapper one after that
   • Ibonic's park (called Cinobi)
   • A sign that reads "Nafet's River". Yes, I am to blame for that one.
   • A clothing shop where you could get any color clothing for any clothing accessory; what a great & popular spot, I'm so glad that douche who added that got his level uploaded (not)

I could go on and on; but I won't give away my editor's touch. A ton of garbage was added because people wanted to clutter up Graal City with their stuff, even if it meant ramming something in somewhere, removing something, replacing something, or remodeling something that was as pivotal as the Baddie's fort & King Clops did a damn good job; replacing King Clops' Baddies fort is downright blasphemy to the creative spirit. Literally, a lot of stuff wasn't real estate that should have been up for grabs—not like that; you can't design a game with a bunch of programmers & server admins calling shots with random members of an online community.

You need a professional game designer.

However, stuff was added just to add it because some of the admins didn't have great taste, were threatened by players, didn't care, or whatever. I think Vangel just added his house himself; I had permission to add things but not remove, as it was a community project—but I know my perspective is right. At least when I made Destiny, I was trying to replace what PACHUKA took away when he left; a lot of people were just adding stuff anywhere it was popular to boost their ego. Graal went from being something enchanted to a giant shopping mall of puke in zero to .5 seconds. I've said it, Elk said it, Rufus has said it: Some stuff really needs edited.  

Victory stop spamming.  

Posted by deadowl

Well, ain't that the truth. If you're talking about the overworld, that's a step to what was around when I left, and still what's a lot of what's around today. Cliff detailing on the continent north of the river that isn't Onnet or Graal City is all me in that map. The exception would be the old level25.graal, which I went waaay out of my way to include because it was one of my favorite levels.

That map is epic I wish it was still in the game  

Posted by Alexmo

That map is epic I wish it was still in the game

It still is, they're just fleshing it out piece by piece as their release strategy.

What I like more about the current map than this map (assuming content will be fleshed out instead of removed):

• The York Town Peninsula
• The return of the Destiny Desert
• The return of MoD Town
• The return of Graal PD
• The tree tiling in Master Li's Woods
• The use of trees instead of cliffs between Swamp Town and Destiny

What I like less about the current map:

• The removal of the northern valley corridor
• The remake of the castle (I think that came before iClassic)
• The addition of the sledding slope in Snow Town
• The removal of the golden grove northwest of Swamp Town
• The use of Babord's guild fort as Swamp Town's guild fort
• The use of the Kull's Castle quest area as Deadwood
• The use of Kull's Castle as a guild fort

 

Posted by deadowl

• The tree tiling in Master Li's Woods

ty!  

Posted by Crono

ty!

Thank you for making quality work.  

I'm going to confess that I never lived to be this old to remember all of these.  

What is the area in the purple circle? I've always been curious.  

Posted by Jhenkzi

What is the area in the purple circle? I've always been curious.

The graphic was originally posted by someone who was pointing out what Nimda was.  

Posted by deadowl

It still is, they're just fleshing it out piece by piece as their release strategy.

What I like more about the current map than this map (assuming content will be fleshed out instead of removed):

• The York Town Peninsula
• The return of the Destiny Desert
• The return of MoD Town
• The return of Graal PD
• The tree tiling in Master Li's Woods
• The use of trees instead of cliffs between Swamp Town and Destiny

What I like less about the current map:

• The removal of the northern valley corridor
• The remake of the castle (I think that came before iClassic)
• The addition of the sledding slope in Snow Town
• The removal of the golden grove northwest of Swamp Town
• The use of Babord's guild fort as Swamp Town's guild fort
• The use of the Kull's Castle quest area as Deadwood
• The use of Kull's Castle as a guild fort

When you were still able to glitch out of the map you'd reach a black void and no matter how far you dragged your screen to nimda, it was fully gone lol (same with the other areas)  

Posted by deadowl

The graphic was originally posted by someone who was pointing out what Nimda was.

Never really got to know what Nimda really was. Only been there through offmap glitches. What is the purpose of Nimda? I know there are games like boat race and such. There's also a forest too. Was that a quest?

Posted by iBubble

When you were still able to glitch out of the map you'd reach a black void and no matter how far you dragged your screen to nimda, it was fully gone lol (same with the other areas)

They blocked it off with the black void. Big City (or Big Island, whatever it's called) used to be accessible through glitches before it was released then was blocked off by black voids.  

Part of a file that had a whole bunch of task assignments in it (it also had some of my class schedules, but I'm leaving that out).

Onnet Town
-Sparring Arena
-Bowling
-*Bar
-Stefan's House
-Pizza
-Shop
-Horse Barn
-Floating Boots


Onnet Bounty Hunting
player submits rupees
player cannot collect his/her own set bounty.
everyone who accepts bounty assignment collects bounty for every 2-1 kills of bounty:total deaths ratio
bounty cannot be bounty again for 36 hours
bounty hunting lasts one hour.
trials can't set bounty.
three bounties at once



Sardon Spar
all player dirs change at least 3 times
movement keys must be being pushed 85% of the time.
there must be more than 2*totalhearts/swordleveltotal + 2 sword strokes.
spar must last longer than swordstrokes/2*8seconds.


Projects (that I can think of off the top of my head) List:

Frog Graphics: Preexistent
Frog Ganis: Myself, need to be redone
Frog Script: Myself, needs slight modifications.
Black Spider Graphics: Myself = done
Black Spider Ganis: Myself = done
Black Spider Script: Myself = done (waiting for damage function)
Mountain Spider Graphics: Preexistent
Mountain Spider Ganis: Unassigned
Mountain Spider Script: Myself
Stone Turtle GFX: Cappa = done
Stone Turtle Ganis: Racil
Stone Turtle Script: Myself
Carnivorous Bush Graphics: Cappa = done
Carnivorous Bush Ganis: unassigned
Carnivorous Bush Script: Myself
Troll Graphics: PKT (needs some touching up, Storm demands they be used)
Troll Ganis: Racil
Troll Script: Unassigned
Guardian Tree Graphics: Preexistent/Luda (needs slight modifications)
Guardian Tree Ganis: (Kevin's Attempt of an LAT app)/Myself
Guardian Tree Script: Myself
(to kill guardian tree)
Red Bomb Plant Graphics: Cappa = done
Red Bomb Plant Scripts: Unassigned
Castle Guard Script: Myself
Weapon Hammer: IDK who made it = done
Weapon Jolt Bomb: GrowlZ
Weapon Bruges' Bird: Unassigned
Weapon Birdshot: Myself
Weapon Lantern: Myself = done
Lantern Dark Room: Myself = done
Sliding Door Script (Dynamic): Kohan
City Gossips Script: (will be) Kohan
Pretext Quest: Myself
Quest Scripting: Myself
Graal Castle/Dungeon Levels: Exodus (in charge), Racil, Mighty
Graal Castle/Dungeon Graphics: Luda
Gnome Cave Levels: Raistlin
Swamp Town/Kull's Fort Interior Levels: Unassigned/Exodus
Onnet Town/Sardon's Tower Interior Levels: Unassigned/Racil/Exodus
Forest Island Levels: Mighty
Water Island Levels: Drastic
Desert Island Levels: Unassigned
Lava Island Levels: Jaffer or reuse Big City
Forest Island Dungeon Levels: Exodus
Water Island Dungeon Levels: Myself = done (needs tweaking)
Desert Island Dungeon Levels: Unassigned
Lava Island Dungeon Levels: Unassigned
Quest Key Graphics: Ghost = 3/5 done
Quest Big Chest Graphics: Luda = done
Overworld Expansion: (mostly)Exodus/(tweaking)Myself
Bug Storm About Movement: Everybody
Bug Storm About Damage: Everybody


//Story Line
--Pretext
City Gossips speak of the guy at the joint having a bounty out.
North Shorean has halted beer supplies to Graal City.
Kill North Shorean
Get Key to a cave
Find Lantern, Glass Graal
Lift Glass Graal
Warp Ring cracks
Fire Warp Ring
Irony has it that you warp to a warp ring smith in the clouds.
He claims to have fixed your warping

--Castle
Accidentally warp into courtyard with warp ring,
intrude the throne room,
get taken to the dungeon
get the level2 glove and use it to get out somehow
Escape the dungeon, sneaking past guards
Meet the king,
king notes Glass Graal,
speaks of the 4 ancient graals (forest, water, sand, fire)become a knight
sent to gnome caves with key to assist the gnomes
--Gnome Caves
gnome caves are infested with trolls.
you fight through the trolls
find the gnomes in a blacksmith's room
speak of gnome princess
speak of the stone turtles
get hammer from the gnomes
use stone turtles w/ hammer to access other caves
find the troll's portal.
block it off
get gnome princess
leaving, the gnome king confronts you
gives you note of worthiness
--Kull's Fort
Tristam wants to take Kull's Fort for his own territory.
It is currently occupied by the swamp town/destiny army commander.
Swamp Town is full of creature people, they get along with baddies.
Need to use level2 glove for entry


--Sardon's Tower
king has problems with sardon, the black wizard
sends you to neororner to acquire a name for yourself within the town
(through gambling, games, sparring, etc.)
step 1. gambling: find the right chest and get 1000 rupees.
step 2. games: moving bombs and arrow targets
step 3. sparring, spar another actual player in observation of Sardon
(spar has to be looked at as competitive enough for entry,
to prevent cheating your way in.)

win spar and gain access to the tower.
upon entering the tower, you say you were sent by tristam to destroy sardon
sardon flees to the top of the tower, sets obstacles
find a magical staff (like sword, not reall) to pass some obstacles
find sardon, defeat him (partially, he's really a good guy).
use staff to defend from sardon's dark magic.
room will be dark, lanterned.
talks to you on the roof, says that tristam's a bad guy, though you don't believe him


//To Do
Fix hats on Angel, Portable Chair, and Skull Ganis
Graal City Gossips
Castle Guard
Castle Weak Statues
Stone Turtle
Evil Tree
Bomb Plant
Evil Bush
Bruges' Bird
Birdshot