My Review Of Graal Online Era

Hello all today I decided to write my personal opinion on the game we all love to play and thats Graal Online Era. First off Id like to start out with the pros of Era. Era is extremley unique with the character creation as you can create your own personal graphics and upload them to the game. Era is also very diverse with the many different guns and apparel you can buy as well as furniture for your house. The game itself is fully PvP and focused on the aspect of sparring/basing and even in earning just straight up kills. It also has things for people who prefer to make Era a game where you can just socialize such as Astros. The game itself has a tight knit community and has shown much improvement over the years, from being an iOS only game to expanding to facebook and other devices such as android. However there are alot of issues that I myself run into when playing this game. One example would be the aspect that this game is basically a Play To Win game. Although there are ways to earn money in the game itself, the money you earn isnt enough and you cannot earn money fast enough to buy the higher priced guns that allow you to have an even playing field. Therefore many people spend tons of money on this game so they can have the best guns this game offers. Although this wasnt a problem at first, because of the playerbase that is slowly growing more people decide to buy more gralats so they can get the best things available faster. Another issue to me is the repetitiveness of the game. When you first play you can literally soak up hours and hours of gameplay because there is so much to do. However after a few months to a year you basically run out of things to do in the game because youve completed everything already. Also this game has many things that are added to it to improve the game yet the game has not tried to slowly expand the map and implement it with one big server update. Staff on Era as well is not the best. Im not hating on all the admins on Era because I know there are many staff members who work hard to keep the game fun, but there are also so many staff members who are just immature in general and lack the maturity to help run a game. Instead they become an admin for a showoff title so that they flaunt it around everywhere. The game is overall good in my opinion and I love it, but as it stands there are some problems that I think could be ironed out, and as for map expansion I understand it is not likely, but it could be something the staff can consider.

..K

Nice review!

Hi, we're glad you enjoy the game overall but i'll try my best to address your concerns.

Pay to Win: Out of all of your points, this is what i disagree with the most. Era is most certainly not pay to win.
The guns are routinely balanced so all players have a fair chance in PVP. Some of the cheapest guns can be the most effective; uzi, dual shotguns, AK47 ect.
The other weapons have different pros and cons. Some slow but powerful, some fast but a bit weaker ect.

You just have to find the right gun to suit your style of play. When someone thinks pay to win they think premium currencies and a cash shop, yes we might offer a quick way for players to spend some money in game but there is nothing in the game that you cannot get by hard work.

Lack of things to do: We know there is a problem with just releasing holiday updates. There is a giant lack of scripters and people who know how to code in the graal scripting language (GS2) So our bigger content updates wait until few coders can get around to working on them along with regular server work and maintenance.
We do have a large map expansion with new jobs and quests coming this year as well as more exciting mini-games and things to do (the mini games will have a rotating prize pool every month).

Staff Immaturity: Era is run completely by volunteers. Someone who looks good on paper might not react so well when given the golden handshake and being put in a position of authority. We do our best to maintain a level of professionalism among our staff and anyone caught not living up to our expectations is quickly removed.

All of that aside, i'm glad you like the game :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Psycho Adelphos

Hello all today I decided to write my personal opinion on the game we all love to play and thats Graal Online Era. First off Id like to start out with the pros of Era. Era is extremley unique with the character creation as you can create your own personal graphics and upload them to the game. Era is also very diverse with the many different guns and apparel you can buy as well as furniture for your house. The game itself is fully PvP and focused on the aspect of sparring/basing and even in earning just straight up kills. It also has things for people who prefer to make Era a game where you can just socialize such as Astros. The game itself has a tight knit community and has shown much improvement over the years, from being an iOS only game to expanding to facebook and other devices such as android. However there are alot of issues that I myself run into when playing this game. One example would be the aspect that this game is basically a Play To Win game. Although there are ways to earn money in the game itself, the money you earn isnt enough and you cannot earn money fast enough to buy the higher priced guns that allow you to have an even playing field. Therefore many people spend tons of money on this game so they can have the best guns this game offers. Although this wasnt a problem at first, because of the playerbase that is slowly growing more people decide to buy more gralats so they can get the best things available faster. Another issue to me is the repetitiveness of the game. When you first play you can literally soak up hours and hours of gameplay because there is so much to do. However after a few months to a year you basically run out of things to do in the game because youve completed everything already. Also this game has many things that are added to it to improve the game yet the game has not tried to slowly expand the map and implement it with one big server update. Staff on Era as well is not the best. Im not hating on all the admins on Era because I know there are many staff members who work hard to keep the game fun, but there are also so many staff members who are just immature in general and lack the maturity to help run a game. Instead they become an admin for a showoff title so that they flaunt it around everywhere. The game is overall good in my opinion and I love it, but as it stands there are some problems that I think could be ironed out, and as for map expansion I understand it is not likely, but it could be something the staff can consider.

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If it was 'Pay to Win' they would have a third currency, like gold which could only be bought with IRL cash, and making all the good guns buyable with gold.
Also, admins don't just become admins to have it as a 'showoff' title, they have to work hard by keeping people happy and catching hackers and glitchers. If they were not to do this job, they would simply be fired.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vendhin

Hi, we're glad you enjoy the game overall but i'll try my best to address your concerns.

Pay to Win: Out of all of your points, this is what i disagree with the most. Era is most certainly not pay to win.
The guns are routinely balanced so all players have a fair chance in PVP. Some of the cheapest guns can be the most effective; uzi, dual shotguns, AK47 ect.
The other weapons have different pros and cons. Some slow but powerful, some fast but a bit weaker ect.

You just have to find the right gun to suit your style of play. When someone thinks pay to win they think premium currencies and a cash shop, yes we might offer a quick way for players to spend some money in game but there is nothing in the game that you cannot get by hard work.

Lack of things to do: We know there is a problem with just releasing holiday updates. There is a giant lack of scripters and people who know how to code in the graal scripting language (GS2) So our bigger content updates wait until few coders can get around to working on them along with regular server work and maintenance.
We do have a large map expansion with new jobs and quests coming this year as well as more exciting mini-games and things to do (the mini games will have a rotating prize pool every month).

Staff Immaturity: Era is run completely by volunteers. Someone who looks good on paper might not react so well when given the golden handshake and being put in a position of authority. We do our best to maintain a level of professionalism among our staff and anyone caught not living up to our expectations is quickly removed.

All of that aside, i'm glad you like the game :)

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I am sad to say that I disagree with you as well, iEra is in-fact pay to win. You might not notice it much but the expensive guns are quite hard to get while digging/doing jobs. But I also have to say, paying is only half way to win, you can have a great gun, and no skills at all -- or great skills with a ****ty gun, and this balances the other. But having skills doesn't take much due to the gun you're owning, so this gets back to the fact that yes, it is pay to win, unless you're a sparring god.

I also disagree to the fact that there is the lack of coders, I'm not saying this just because I am in the scripting team:
The main reason our staff team is apart is because of the Staff Team's Structure, most of the staff go inactive and once they're back they just get online to say hi. Others are not doing 'their' job, I'm not saying they are not doing anything, but not what they are supposed to. (and I must say, I might be one of those people) For example, having X staff position whom are responsible, for, let's say gani, and are doing graphics or do not even know anything about gani, and the other way around.

And there is always those other staff that are working way too much, and according to the administration they are not valued enough, or un-trusted.

Everyone's opinion may vary, so please respect mine.

I don't know John.
With Dan quitting soon, it'll just be you and callimuc right? along with snk of course- but 2 people for a whole department sounds like it's understaffed

There's not a lack of coders? I've been living a lie. Someone should tell that to HW and snk so we can start churning out the projects we have lined up
#sarcasm.

But fo' sho. I'm of the opinion that we're lacking in every area - not just scripters. We need PR's in the Oceanic time-zone, we need more LATs and we need gani'ers.

Edit: Addition -

In reality, I'm sure there is an element of 'pay-to-win' involved with Era. But you have to take Graal's relatively small/indie status into account, it's not like we could stay online just through app+ purchases.
A company has to make money, at the end of the day that's going to involve elements of the game revolving around profit. Graal isn't big enough to rely on subscription payments, we are not Blizzard.
There's nothing inherently wrong with pay-to-win, I think that as far as the concept goes our system is quite fair. Yes it will take a good while to earn the best guns in-game, but Era (for me) isn't about using the best weapons. It's about getting together with your buddies and fighting other gangs for territory, as long as you have teamwork and strategy (and skill of course) you will always be able to prevail in a non-spar environment over someone whose gun does a bit more damage.

Hey, theres only 1 person in guns department !
That dosnt mean that the guns are not balanced

i like your review very much i completely agree, and i believe i mightve run into an admin that had called me a noob once but im not sure my memory is kinda bad because i think it happened when i started the game

Im pretty much on Vendhins side here, even though some guns are expensive and seem almost impossible to work for, it is fully understandable, Graal is a free to play game, so im guessing it is probably hard to run the game without going broke, I always Buy gralats to support the game because I want it to stay, it may have a few problems but I still think this is a once in a life time game the future should enjoy too, if you think graals store is bad, you should look at a game called roblox, it is such a big game that they almost make players pay for premiums that are up to £300, I think Graals Store system is more than fair considering its free

Pay to win isn't technically defined by a cash shop and its respective currency, it may be exactly what is stated here "an easier way to obtain ingame money" the magnitude of which this is possible enables the game to be pay to win. You can pay $10 and get a little under 30k gralats, as opposed to working your *** off for around 15 hours to get that same amount. Now yeah, you can say but its still possible, but it isn't viable.
The severe lack of developers is justified by the fact that these guys get paid nothing. With the time they spend coding for graal as their hobby, they could code for a company/contract themselves and actually make money, doing almost the same thing. Only someone who's completely selfless and committed to this game is going to want to code for Graal. However, these people are extremely hard to come by. I could say the same for PR staff but the quality of work i've seen (understandable, as they aren't being paid) is sub-par for a commercial game.

TL:DR - the game is pay to win and the staff need to be paid if you expect good content often

Can anyone who knows gs2 language hack graal like hack hack not just hack... am I right or wrong?

I Like CSGO more than arcade game, Change my mind.

Old Thread from 2014. Closed.

Damn. Really thought the whole gang was back.

Not sure if this thread was closed LOL seems like it was not, so I will go ahead and close it.