I’d write a report on why the game, or rather its community, is dead.
However, I cannot really be bothered.

I do find the stagnation of the player count to be quite interesting. Its not like new players are not joining the game, they very clearly are. However, what this number does prove is that no new players are becoming dedicated to the game like they used to. This game is simply not interesting anymore. There is nothing here, a shell of its former self, graal will crawl into a dark chasm, assuming it hasn’t already, and die. This is the natural order of things. It cannot be avoided. Even a big update will not be able to recoup dedicated players.

There are no recognisable people on the game anymore. ‘Noobs’ see these players, they in many ways ‘look up to them’. I know that I did when I was a little nooblet. I thought they were pretty cool (sad).
In many ways, the death of graal is not solely down to the terrible running of the game, with its bog standard developers. Its players have as much blame.

Rest in peace you spindly little game.  

I'll never understand why people feel the need to say stuff like this instead of just leaving peacefully when they lose interest in the game after a healthy period of time.  

Posted by renulod

I'll never understand why people feel the need to say stuff like this instead of just leaving peacefully when they lose interest in the game after a healthy period of time.

Because it would be a tragedy if I left forever.  

I just recently hopped on to see if Graal was doing any better from when I left, and that's sad to see (what you described). I completely agree with everything you've said though, based on what I've seen just hopping on the game for a bit and wandering around. RIP  

Ol' West: A hidden gem in the middle of nowhere. A little heap of drama, tension, laughter and love... Though it was a ghost town before it was even coded, (around 400-ish on a good day) I found my most meaningful Graal relationships on West rather than Classic (which had around 3k average when I played). Less people allowed for everyone's personas to shine through; famous in a small town... We weren't so easily expendable; rubbing your Western neighbors wrong had a lot more impact haha. I'm unaware of its current status, but I felt like I played during its peak— a ton of character brought by the player base from that period.

Today, I know everyone's all numbers-happy on social media, and I think we've lost a lot of spirit due to that. I currently have 150 follows on my Instagram, but I made it a point to turn the majority of my "fanbase" into personal relationships. Every person is a universe unto themselves, and if you realize that, you might stop treating people like NPC cattle, and start to introduce a little old-fashioned "Can I borrow a cup of sugar, Jimbo?" into your online interactions... The "Mom & Pop" shop ideology, building a healthy foundation towards success rather than algorithms and commercialism.

...But whatever. I'm just an old bastard.

What's shakin', Wildcat... I guess we're going on 6 years now huh  

Posted by SomeGuy

I do find the stagnation of the player count to be quite interesting. Its not like new players are not joining the game, they very clearly are. However, what this number does prove is that no new players are becoming dedicated to the game like they used to. This game is simply not interesting anymore.

Other games on mobile, console and pc are now using a live service model providing content regularly (often free) to keep an active engaged player base, all modern games are competing for your precious time. This could be down to why kids do not want to continue playing graal, why put time and effort in a game where there's nothing in return, nothing new and nothing exciting.

"If you need friends to enjoy the game, the game isn't fun your friends are" - some random YouTube comment

Graal was only able to last this long because of the social aspect, once all your friends realise you can communicate via other apps and games you'll find yourself no longer playing Graal.

Well that's my best guess anyway lol  

Posted by Xenthic

Well that's my best guess anyway lol

That is a damn good guess my man— the social aspect of Graal is really its only redeeming quality; a giant chatroom— otherwise it's a hot piece of garbage... worse than, compared to other games. Playing Graal solo would be like.. being an ugly fat girl at a Vogue runway show.

Who cares. It's not a crisis. Everything changes. Stop gaming and focus on your life before you turn 30 and regret wasting your 20s.  

Posted by Whippy

Who cares. It's not a crisis. Everything changes. Stop gaming and focus on your life before you turn 30 and regret wasting your 20s.

Why you taking shots at crono?  

Posted by Whippy

That is a damn good guess my man— the social aspect of Graal is really its only redeeming quality; a giant chatroom— otherwise it's a hot piece of garbage... worse than, compared to other games. Playing Graal solo would be like.. being an ugly fat girl at a Vogue runway show

Nah the social aspects and general roleplay is what kept classic going. Zone and era are different storys however.
Era was actually super fun game for a bit and then gradually got worse. Especially when the p2w crowd came in and the grind became huge to even be halfway viable. Not to mention the grind to get heals and the graalets for said heals if you did that.
Zone was dope and was the only game that had potential to go anywhere as it was the least of a grind and had was fun ontop of that. Not to mention an actual functioning team system and large battlefields to fight on. But no one did anything and in fact cut out everything that made the game unique to make it an era clone. Now its a snooze fest and blander than karen.  

Posted by SomeGuy

There are no recognisable people on the game anymore. ‘Noobs’ see these players, they in many ways ‘look up to them’. I know that I did when I was a little nooblet. I thought they were pretty cool (sad).

Haha yeah i feel the same way. idek know that there are any recognizable guilds anymore. there was definitely some appeal in the popularity aspect of classic. it felt like a community!  

Hey, I'm back from the dead, Somewhat. I recently came back to graal after a few years since I left many years ago, Started a new account since I gave my old one away, Mainly came back to see See how the game is doing, Seems even this thread and forum is even dead, games dead, everything is dead. Didn't last that long at all, and from what I've been hearing, apparently, people can't farm gralats in other peoples houses? So that killed codeshops, also a ton of other bad stuff apparently was removed and edited around that I won't bother getting into.


I think there isn't much reason going into why the game died, I think the developers know why, They had to of. But the real cause of death was such lack of action, and taking far too much time to get anything done that was positive for it. There was supposedly if I remember a New guild system that was suppose to be in play but from my understanding, never came out, You had a newer area being built to the left of swamp, never done, I also recall the came was apparently gonna be remade in unity, Also don't think this was ever done... The biggest healthiest change for the game was the castle revamp if I recall, and that was years ago. a huge issue was just nothing ever getting done. there was projects, But none was ever done, Then there would be talk of a new project when the last one wasn't even that much went into. The biggest aspects in this game was the social aspect, which imo was bigger than the competitive asoect, as that part was mostly a joke. but those was the biggest two, Instead of improving these factors, they just went on assuming people who still play and the community would continue to thrive, For reasons I don't understand. In reality this game died because the developers treated it like the CEO of Blockbuster did for that company, Ignoring the need to improve their product against competitors in the blind thought of assuming people would just stay with them, Not building onto the successful factors, And making "projects" that never, ever got done, This game was able to survive for a bit. because the social aspect kept it alive mostly, And it's just gonna continue to die, give it about 2-3 years and the playerbase is gonna drop even more. and then more and more. It's going to be extremely hard for them to rebuild. If they even can honestly.  

Simply put, I think Graal deviated from what made the game so appealing to play to begin with. The ability to create your own server, to have players work together to create their ideal version of Graal for everyone to play and enjoy together. Take Roblox for example which I believe follows a similar model in which content could be player-made and if the game is successful enough then even the creator of said game on Roblox can reap the financial benefits of its success. The creativity in this game has been stifled. There’s no reason for new players to learn how to develop besides graphics since the whole game revolves around hats and other misc. items now.

They’ve adopted a system that makes them money which I guess is one way of looking at it. Players cycle in and out of Graal so the player count stays relatively the same. With three of the four iOS games being P2W it’s not that hard to imagine that the current model must be financially lucrative. Eventually though, the people who are keeping the games actual development alive are going to have to call it quits and at that point I don’t know anybody who is even interested in scripting or learning Graal script at all so I’m not sure where the game would go from there in terms of adding game changing content.  

Posted by iHot

Simply put, I think Graal deviated from what made the game so appealing to play to begin with. The ability to create your own server, to have players work together to create their ideal version of Graal for everyone to play and enjoy together. Take Roblox for example which I believe follows a similar model in which content could be player-made and if the game is successful enough then even the creator of said game on Roblox can reap the financial benefits of its success. The creativity in this game has been stifled. There’s no reason for new players to learn how to develop besides graphics since the whole game revolves around hats and other misc. items now.

They’ve adopted a system that makes them money which I guess is one way of looking at it. Players cycle in and out of Graal so the player count stays relatively the same. With three of the four iOS games being P2W it’s not that hard to imagine that the current model must be financially lucrative. Eventually though, the people who are keeping the games actual development alive are going to have to call it quits and at that point I don’t know anybody who is even interested in scripting or learning Graal script at all so I’m not sure where the game would go from there in terms of adding game changing content.

It would've probably have been smart if they did that, I'm aware that I believe the game engine and so on they use to make games isn't the best, But continuing to build onto it could've made that factor great, And in all honestly It would sync so well with the social aspect of the game, and would allow them to be hands off for some stuff at that point, While like you said, Being like roblox where they would be able to profit off games their players made. This I think would've made it more successful, and possibly even thrive, Though I'm unsure if it was the most appealing part of the game, since I feel a lot of players don't even know of that, no thanks to the management.

The current model the game has, In truth is so bizarre.. I feel they do put a lot of pressure on their GFX more than anything else, more than people who would script and help build on the game aspects. And I doubt they have began to pay them money, or if I recall only the higher ups did. everyone else got paid gralats which is kinda sickening. But I am curious myself what would they do if the graphic teams for classic for example couldn't make hats for stores like the Mad Hatter (Which now thinking Is an odd name, considering that is a nickname from people in the Mafia) They would have nothing to go onto. except hire new people and continue a poor practice.  

Posted by Rusix

It would've probably have been smart if they did that, I'm aware that I believe the game engine and so on they use to make games isn't the best, But continuing to build onto it could've made that factor great, And in all honestly It would sync so well with the social aspect of the game, and would allow them to be hands off for some stuff at that point, While like you said, Being like roblox where they would be able to profit off games their players made. This I think would've made it more successful, and possibly even thrive, Though I'm unsure if it was the most appealing part of the game, since I feel a lot of players don't even know of that, no thanks to the management.

The current model the game has, In truth is so bizarre.. I feel they do put a lot of pressure on their GFX more than anything else, more than people who would script and help build on the game aspects. And I doubt they have began to pay them money, or if I recall only the higher ups did. everyone else got paid gralats which is kinda sickening. But I am curious myself what would they do if the graphic teams for classic for example couldn't make hats for stores like the Mad Hatter (Which now thinking Is an odd name, considering that is a nickname from people in the Mafia) They would have nothing to go onto. except hire new people and continue a poor practice.

Well perhaps now the whole concept of creating your own servers is not the most appealing because Graal has essentially phased that model out. Even when I used to play mostly from 2009-2013 there were still fringe groups of players that would come on here and advertise the servers they were creating on the PC client and try and garner some support or find potential members to help develop. Unfortunately now, the PC client is effectively dead and Graal hasn’t changed in years. I’ve always believed that if Graal had simply encouraged the idea of game development to players that surely they’d find someone to bite. The idea of being paid actual money (not a crappy sum of gralats) to develop a game you love is so enticing and I find it hard to believe that none of us would love to be a part of that.

I think there’s a certain aspect of control that Toonslab has now in regard to the content that is released and how that is managed. Giving more power to the players to create could disrupt the balance they have now and financially of course nobody wants to lose money.

But even before there was a mandatory gold subscription to play the PC client, fees to have your own server. Then if your server got big enough it would get put on the main part of the client (Zodiac, Era, Valikoria, Kingdoms, N-Pulse, UN). The infrastructure is already there for something similar to happen on iOS.  

i never thought i'd see the day where i complain about the average player age being 15-17. we just gotta get the game more attention because i feel like a majority of graal's current aspects is still the same thing that got me hooked as a kid.

also for the love of god let players join guilds even if they're not identified. and let them talk too. like dang graal really just muted noobs and basically not allowed them to make friends

also if the game is really dying then the best we can do is preserve the current community. promote these forums and the sense of community.