The Great Conspiracy of Dragon’s Eye Productions Revealed
by Damadar on Nov.22, 2007, under Digos, Dragons Eye Productions, Dragonspeak, Emerald Flame, Felorin, Furrums, News, Rants, Talzhemir
Are you ready for it? It’s pretty big. Deliciously dastardly, and awfully scrumptious.
Ready? Then read on.
I’m going to start this off by saying that this is my own personal opinion, and that it is not supported, asked for, or even endorsed by Dragon’s Eye Productions.
I fully expect Emerald Flame to hire Ninja Furre’s to come kill me in my sleep tonight for posting this.
It seems to me that a lot of things have been happening lately on Furcadia that have people all in a tizzy over what’s going on.
The general consensus amongst older players is that Furcadia is changing away from something that they loved and turning in to something they will hate, forever.
Apparently, these epic changes are so deep and run so hot that if they do come to pass the foundation of Furcadia will forever be altered, casting every veteran from their perch and send them reeling off into the eternal blackness of the Internet.
To them, I say: Get a grip.
Furcadia is changing. A lot of what is going on that is changing is good. Phoenix Speak, new Dragonspeak lines, The ability to have 24bit ports, (and as a result, PCX’s), Bears, new digos, and such are all excellent things for Furcadia to come out with.
One thing people seem to forget is that DEP is a company. They have every right to think about the bottom line before they think about anything else that is going on. (Incidentally, that is the stance they should take, as a business, and nobody should begrudge them for doing so at any point in time.)
The real fact of the matter is that people are resistant to change. For years, when something new is added to Furcadia, someone, inevitably, shouts that Furcadia is going to be over run very soon by capitalistic ideals that will ruin the game, spamming everyone with constant advertisements, and bring about the end of Furcadia that everyone knew.
Well, they get it right in part. Furcadia will never be the same that it was when you first started. The changes and evolution of the game are needed. If the game remained the same forever, it would eventually stagnate and die, leaving the game without a source of income, thereby making the game vanish.
If truth be told, a lot of people feel ‘outraged’ when they come across something that seems like a lie. I’m one of them. When I find a piece of information that I think is a lie. In fact, it really starts to get my feathers ruffled.
But I don’t go out of my way to post them here. There are about a thousand different things that I’ve heard that could send me into a ranting rage that makes me want to do nothing more than pull down Furcadia’s makers by their ears and rub their faces in what I’ve heard.
But I don’t. I don’t even try.
I do some research. I back up my findings, or I let loose the wild, fanciful protests. What I do find that I dislike, I tuck aside into a back pocket of my mind with the following statement: While it sucks, I’m not running the company, and if they decide that it is the way they want to do business, that’s up to them. I can always leave if I want to.
And I wish other people would have that attitude, too. A lot of what DEP does is good for the community, and it is overlooked by almost everyone in an attempt to run-to-ground a group of people who produce a game.
The thing is, we’re customers, and we’re not allowed to dictate company policy to them. Those of us with some kind of experience with running businesses understand that it is quite hard to create and manage a company.
Another thing that people need to do is understand that DEP does a hell of a lot more than any other company, insofar as talking to players.
It is no secret that What’s That, Furcadia? is not supported by DEP. It is no secret that DEP would like to be able to tell me to stuff it when I ask them for information about various different things.
However, most of the time DEP in general has been willing to come forward, on the record, and state facts for me to replicate inside What’s That, Furcadia? so that the players of Furcadia can have a clear cut source of news, presumably that doesn’t come directly from the mouths of DEP staff members.
Felorin and sanctimonious have both answered some tough questions for me about Furcadia in general, and how they operate.
Rumors fly around faster than mashed potatoes in a food fight when they’re about Furcadia.
DEP is not trying to cover up anything. If they’re doing something, it’s letting the community know more about their game and hidden processes than any other gaming company would.
There is no super-conspiracy that DEP is the mastermind behind. They’re trying to make a living creating a game that offers a lot of tools to players who, for the most part, seem ungrateful.
To be perfectly honest, the people who bitch about not getting enough information from DEP remind me of spoiled children who need a good spanking. You’re not owed anything by DEP, and while you might like more information, you certainly don’t deserve it.
So, if you’re reading through the rumors that say Talzhemir is a guy, or reading up about how Felorin and Emerald Flame are busy rolling on piles of money while laughing at players, think again. Don’t let your imagination run away with you. There is a simple, logical answer to almost everything that comes up.
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November 22nd, 2007 on 4:55 AM
I’ve taken your advice and all but left Furcadia. My reason isn’t DEP’s increasing attempts to cultivate a consumerist culture in Furcadia (which sucks, but is their right, as you note). It’s the growing realization that I am not DEP’s target audience, and my growing disillusionment (and in some cases, disgust) with some of the DEP members. Perhaps they don’t realize they are role models, and anything hurtful they say is much more hurtful from them than it is from other people. I have known several people that have, through little or no fault of their own, been reduced to tears by DEP members. But I’m not bitter. I taste like pineapple.
November 22nd, 2007 on 12:06 PM
I can’t say that I have ever heard of a circumstance where any DEP member has done or said anything that was less than professional when dealing with players in this game. In reference to the comment above me, I find it very hard to believe that any one of them have said anything that is directly “hurtftul” to anyone – I would be able to see maybe them saying something to someone who can’t HANDLE being told something. I could be wrong. But I would have to disagree.
November 22nd, 2007 on 8:32 PM
In response to Turquoise, if you stick around long enough you will. Especially if you become a beekin. I don’t think I should give names or quotes, but the friendly, wise face DEP members put on when interacting with many players at once is sometimes very different from the face some of them put on when interacting with individual players. And whenever they act vindictive, callous, impatient, and patronizing to well-meaning players and beekins, the same negativity is repeated throughout the community. That’s how I lost my great respect for DEP.
November 22nd, 2007 on 8:44 PM
The anti-spam thing wants me to type in the word “damadar”. Now the name is even more ingrained in my mind.
November 23rd, 2007 on 4:17 PM
I keep going from liking to disliking to tolerating DEP. Mostly, I’m grateful for all the work they put into this game-or-whatever-it-is that I like so much. They deserve lots of respect for this, but if course it doesn’t mean they’re perfect. As Nell says, some of them behave very badly and it poisons the whole community (though I don’t think that’s a good reason to quit Furcadia, and also some of the blame can be given to those who allow themselves to be poisoned). Of course, I’m not a Beekin so I don’t have as much experience with this; I’ve only personally witnessed one person acting this way, so it could just be that person or it could be all of them, I don’t know. Still, even if it is just one person, they’re all complicit in this if they don’t do anything about it.
To expand on what I said in the forums: I think it’s a bad idea to think of Furcadia as a business. DEP is a business; Furcadia is a community. DEP can do whatever they want to keep their business going, but I think it’s reasonable to object if they affect the community negatively. This isn’t related to their right to run the business, it’s related to Furcadia itself. They could just turn it into a standard company and start charging a monthly fee and trying to make a profit, and that would be fine from a business standpoint, but it would be disastrous for what Furcadia is meant to be. Anyway, my point is that a community should not be thought of in terms of a business.
I think a problem encountered when talking about this is that people are too polarized: they either see DEP as a pure, wonderful group who could never do anything wrong, or a bunch of evil hypocrites who only want money. Therefore we have people who will support everything they do no matter what, along with asshats who will complain about everything and hate them for making this game that they use all the time (which seems to be the whole point of Heroin Puppy, so I was surprised to see you write this while being a member of that group). This can be seen in that locked forum thread in which Maxie gently suggests that maybe not everything is perfect and Narnia assumes that she or he is one of the haters and responds with a pointlessly mean post.
Well, this is very long and probably doesn’t express what I meant it to. Final thought: Despite their flaws, I think DEP is great for creating and maintaining Furcadia.
November 24th, 2007 on 7:24 PM
I kind of feel (or felt) like a citizen of Furcadia, so even though my ‘leaders’ were appointed instead of elected, I felt some sort of misguided civic responsibility for respectfully challenging their actions. When I realized that I was having no effect whatsoever (which was probably vain of me to hope for), I left. But Mandaliet is probably the voice of reason here. I should stop caring about things I can’t change, and go back to enjoying my friends on Furcadia without worrying about the state of the community.