Graal

Graal started its existence as a relatively simple Java game - known then as 'Zelda Online' - on the website of French company Cyberjoueurs. They branched away from the Zelda theme and become an original(ish) game. The name was changed to Graal by Unixmad and the majority of sprites were replaced. Some time later, the game was converted to a standalone Delphi program, and Graal began its evolution into a professional, Pay to Play MMORPG.

Perhaps Graal's greatest strength is its customisability. An intuitive editor allows even the most technically-inept players to build levels of their own, complete with custom graphics and interactive NPCs. The latter are developed using a simple - yet surprisingly powerful - language named GScript.

The creative power afforded by these features means that groups of players can combine their skills to produce entire worlds for other Graalians to explore. Indeed, GraalOnline offers hosting options that allow such groups to develop their Playerworlds online, making them (if they so wish) accessible to regular Graalians.

In addition to these player-operated servers, GraalOnline also runs three official worlds: Graal Kingdoms, Zone and Classic. Though they are usually considered conceptually distinct from Playerworlds, they are still largely developed and maintained by volunteer players.

The Graal client was recently converted to C++ and is using part of Torque, granting superior speed and cross-platform compatibility. Builds of the new version - dubbed Graal 3.0 - was available for Windows, Linux and Mac operating systems. In addition, this new version offer fully 3D graphics[1] along with a rehauled scripting engine. Graal3D was released to some criticism around Christmas 2004. In July 2005, A small group of beta testers tested a new Graal client, dubbed Graal4. Graal4 is based on Graal 3.0 but offer better compatibility with Graal 2.0 and offer lot of new features.