Worlds/Classic

This article describes one of Graal's many playerworlds. If you have some information about this world's quests, staff, events or content, feel free to contribute to it by clicking the Edit link on the left side. Try to keep your edits as fair and unbiased as possible, though - the GraalBible is primarily for information, not for argument.

Classic is a top 2D multiplayer server that focuses primarily on its adventure aspects and player interaction rather than having tiresome experienced based leveling or huge role play elements. As Graal's oldest world, it has a lot of prestige, reputation and history amongst players.

Many players of the players enjoy practicing their fighting techniques through sparring (organized fighting) and pk'ing (somewhat less organized fighting), and there is a lot of competition to become the best. Each month, a large tournament is held to determine the finest fighter on Classic - a position that comes with great honor, and frequently the events team hold various sparring tournaments. As Classic is not level/experience based, it is possible for players from all servers to come on and be competitive based on their skill alone.

Classic's Game Coordinator team also put on many other events throughout the day, such as Capture The Flag, Sumo Battles and many more, with the winning players receiving tickets that can be exchanged for unique collectors items. With new event items being added all the time, it will take the most dedicated of player to obtain them all.

As a Classic server, Classic is available to all players, though Trial accounts will not have thier stats saved.

History

The Early Years

Classic was the first Server to emerge on Graal, and as a result, has gathered a strong reputation amongst Oldbies.

For a long time, the server was managed by Tyhm, and slowly evolved with interesting new ideas such as 'races', whereby players gained attributes of their chosen race, for example, the Zorbi race could trap other players inside bubbles in order to escape a battle, though these races were later removed after players complained of 'unfairness' between them.

As time continued, a storyline and cut scenes were integrated, and the overworld was molded to fit more cleanly together, eventually shaping the Classic world into a series of islands. These changes were prompted by the influx of new players, and the introduction of mapped levels, which allowed players to see nearby levels as if they were part of one large area. To appease some of the older players, unhappy with these changes, a quest was formed which took an early version of Classic, and placed it into a 'museum'.

The Middle Ages

By mid 2003, Classic was bulging with content, with some 7000 levels on the server. Whilst this was great for the players, especially those with a tendency to explore, Tyhm and his development team himself were finding it increasingly difficult to convert everything over for the emerging NPC-Server technology.

In March 2004, due to other commitments, Tyhm left the management of Classic, and after a brief period of anarchy, Stefan stepped in, appointing a new manager, Master Storm on the 7th of April. Storm made it his primary focus to get the NPC Server released, as it was by now some many years overdue. Due to various situations, namely the difficulty with converting everything, Storm decided instead to rebuild Classic from scratch, focusing on getting compatibility with the NPC server at a base level, and expanding with content after. The wipe of content also meant that new ideas could be implemented, and that the Classic development team could create a world closer to the servers roots.

'New Classic'

On January 6th 2005, the NPC-Server launched for Classic. This came somewhat early in the development of 'New Classic', but was pretty much forced as support for old style Classic GServers was being removed. It is fair to say that the server was rushed to meet this deadline, and this has had large knock on effects. Not long after, GScript 2 was introduced, and this futher delayed progress, as time had to be dedicated to compatibility rather than the creation of content. The appointment of a new LAT Admin in August '05 has greatly improved the situation, and Classicis finally rebuilding itself.

Since the introduction of the NPC-Server, Classic has been using custom movement and hit detection. Whilst these have been designed to closely emulate the built in system of Graal, by using custom movement, the opportunity for interesting new ideas is greatly increased. The custom movement also allows more subtle tweaks, such as allowing for a greater range of player movement speeds, and encompasses various bug fixes.

More controversial is the rewritten hit detection. This places the hit detection entirely serverside, as opposed to the clientside detection with which many are accustomed. This greatly improves security, and provides a more consistent, lower lag, but has been controversial with the players, most notably the sparring and pk'ing fraternity, as they have had to adjust to the different lag behavior.

There remain few who still believe that the rebuilding is, in essence, wrong. There remain even fewer who hold a hope of actually gaining the beloved Classic back. The current view of the Levels Administration Team is to not reject any fair content that is already existing on the server, and there are also efforts to restore older content.

Staff

Management (Manager)

Master Storm is the current Manager of Classic, and is in charge of directing each staff divisions, also well as overseeing the development of the server.

Can be contacted via:

• Forum PM: Polo
• E-Mail: admin@master-storm.co.uk
• AIM: StormLagmaster

Graal Police (GP)

Graal Police is the oldest, and in some ways most prestigious of all the staff devisions. Led by Stryker, the division is in charge of ensuring that all players act in an orderly manner, jailing those who offend. They are also out the detect those using hacks/trainers to gain an unfair advantage, deterring them as appropriate.

Levels Administration Team (LAT)

Currently fronted by Massokre, the LAT team is there for all aspects of development, from graphics and tiling, through to scripting. They are also in charge of handling player submissions of content. More specifically Cappa and PKT take charge of graphics and ganis, while Exodus is in charge of levels content. Massokre, as admin has a large influence into the evolution of the server, and with his team are responsible for creating the quests of tomorrow.

Events Team (Game Coordinator)

Along with his minions, Game Coordinator Administrator 'Night Darkmane' is out there to ensure that all players are well entertained through various events and tournaments.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

The FAQ team, led by Tatsumi Darkblade, were created in order to help players progress through quests, or to become familiar with Graal and Classic itself. Originally a task done by GP's (with mixed results), the FAQ team are the people to turn to when you've forgotten a vital control, or need help obtaining a given item, or simply, if you don't know what to do!