What's that, Furcadia?

In an attempt to get closer to the community, Emerald Flame’s Daughter, (and current Intern at DEP) announced a few months ago that she was working on a DEP Sekrit Projekt that would be announced closer to the end of the summer.
With about 27 days left to go, (see the timer to the right,) Felorin dropped some information today about what that particular project is going to be.
In an attempt to draw the community in a bit more, creating some closer ties amongst people, Pouncer Kitty is currently working on creating a Furcadia Social Networking Ring.
This ‘Ring’ will include popular Social Networking Sites like Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, deviantART, and YouTube. There’re rumours flying around that there will be contests involved that will allow you to possibly win prizes if you help them promote the game on these sites, but there’s no final word on that at this point.
What is clear is that DEP is trying desperately to get some more information out to the public in places where it won’t have a direct, negative impact on the community. Bickering and infighting are becoming more and more prevalent on the forums and people are starting to avoid them because of the negative attitudes of a few people who constantly seem interested only in bickering and harassing the DEP camp.
These are the same people who would follow DEP Twitter Accounts, YouTube Accounts, and other media outlets to vent their ‘frustration’ at other players and-or at the company itself.
While this is not a primary focus of these new social media outlets, it is an undeniable consequence of such actions. Whether this will help improve the community by taking away the initial brunt of angry users from the forums, or cast a shadow over their marketing is anyone’s guess at this point.
As a marketing aspect, this is a fantastic move for the company. Facebook, Myspace, deviantART and other Social Networking Sites are great exposure for small companies and it should show huge returns for Furcadia, coupled with the release of the iPhone App, hopefully released before the end of the summer. As of yet, there are no specific release dates given or even information about when the ‘final product’ will ship to Apple.

For those of you who don’t understand exactly what went on with the recent ‘alt rollback’, here’s some of the specific information about what went on.

I do warn you, however, that the details could prove boring to those not interested in the world of alt trading.

Special thanks to the FAM/FAZ staff members who helped make sure the information was accurate.

February 7, 2009 – Dragon’s Eye Productions fixes a ‘bug’ in the ‘expiration’ for characters that have been inactive for a specified period of time.

February 11, 2009 – Dragon’s Eye Productions issues a rollback on over 200,000 alts that were incorrectly removed in the rollback.

You may have noticed the new influx of ‘information’ about the alt rollback that Dragon’s Eye Productions performed on February 7^th. Over 230,000 alts were removed from the Character Database at that time.

Since that time, over 200,000 of those characters were returned to their original owners. Still, from that number over 30,000 characters were cleared from the list appropriately.

The alt-trading community was in an uproar when this information was made public. The reason for this is twofold.

First, a lot of people lost alts without an e-mail warning them that the alt was about to expire. These were names that were ‘special’ to the owners and they wanted to keep them. This group makes up the majority of the 200,000 alts that were returned. Some of these people lost alts that should not have expired, and some of them had been long-standing, (active) characters that were active within a week before the expiration.

Dragon’s Eye Productions is chalking this particular issue up to a bug, and those particular alts were returned to their owners with an apology from Felorin posted publicly on the Furcadia Forums.

Alts that should have normally expired were allowed to remain expired. That means some 30,000 alts that were supposed to expire, but hadn’t, were allowed to expire, and remained expired.

Over 100 alts that had Digos recently purchased on them were not returned to their original owners; Dragon’s Eye Productions allowed the new owners to keep their Digos and their alts.

The part that made the situation tricky was that several alts that were not supposed to expire did, and were claimed by new owners who had wanted them for quite some time. These new owners were upset because the previous owners had not logged on for several months, but were still within the six month expiration limit.

These new owners stated that because the alts were never used by their original owners, they should not get their alts back. The new owners said that they grabbed these alts specifically to use them, in effect pulling them out of the mothballs and making use of names.

DEP seemed inclined to listen to these requests and, (for one time only) reset the expiration date for the older alts to 3 months of complete inactivity.

Some people rankled at this, but overall it seems to have appeased most of the people involved with this situation.

Recently Dragon’s Eye Production’s has had some… problems.

According to Emerald Flame, three power supplies went out on three computers in as many days at DEP HQ recently. Felorin’s, Gar’s, and Leah’s all failed or had something else happen to them.

Emerald Flame:
Gar’s computer made a cool wind up sound and a large *pop* and sparks and smoke came out the back

Gar was actually in the middle of doing graphics for some of the new items up for sale on the Digo Market. Unfortunately, because the computer he is currently using doesn’t run Photoshop very well, they are still graphic-handicapped.

Seasons Greetings
Throwable Snowballs
Candy Canes
A hot “Cuppa”

I have no idea what the hell a hot “Cuppa” is, unless they’re trying to say it’s a hot cup of cocoa or coffee. It doesn’t really roll off of my tongue well, but that’s my personal opinion. There are also some flower arrangements available that seem more like they belong with a “spring” kind of sale, but…
(Well, it is summer down in the southern hemisphere…)

Some of you might notice that the Digo Market has been changing a little bit. That’s to better facilitate customers, and offer a new category for people to order from. Unfortunately, Gar was doing the work on the site when his computer decided to kill itself.

I wonder how a psychologist would interpret that… (Just kidding, Gar.)

Felorin and sanctimonious attended this year’s “Austin Independent Game Conference. It revolved around helping indie games, (such as Furcadia) manage to become successful. Emerald Flame told me that Felorin was a guest Speaker for “Project Horseshoe” at this conference.

Slated for the next update, (hopefully) should be accounts. With accounts will come things like Character Pages and (possibly) legit alt trading for those who like to trade their alts around a lot.

Edit: It has come to our attention that sometime yesterday Gar’s PC stumbled upon another failure, this one of the Hard Disk Drive failure variety.

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.

Shake DS currently doesn’t work with the following line of DS:

3:1) everywhere on the whole map,

Felorin is said to be working on a fix for it.

Also, to use the Shake DS for all furres present, you must have an area clause, such as:

(3:8) everyplace that the triggering furre can see,

Furnarchy 2 has updated to be compliant with the latest update. There were a few minor changes that were requested by a few people, but nothing major.

This info is thanks to Kedessa, who bugged Felorin about it until his head popped off.

If you’d like to keep people off of a specific spot in your dream, (That spot you really like to sit in, perhaps?) you can use this code:

(0:70) When a furre idles (doesn’t do ANYTHING) for 1 seconds,
(1:170) and the triggering furre’s name is not {furrename},
(3:2) at position (x,y) on the map,
(5:15) move the triggering furre to (x,y), or to someplace nearby if it’s occupied.

The new DS parameters, (and the corresponding numbers that are needed to use them,) are:

(5:420) Shake the triggering furre’s map in style #, for # tenths of a second, with speed # and intensity #.
(5:421) Shake the map of any furre present in style #, for # tenths of a second, with speed # and intensity #.

Style 1 = Earthquake (random)
Style 2 = Pingpong (side to side)
Style 3 = Bounce (up and down)
Style 4 = Swirly (clockwise)
Style 5 = Whirly (counterclockwise)

Speed and Intensity both range from 1 to 32.
(1:340) and the triggering furre is species #,
(1:440) and the triggering furre is not species #,

Species 1 = Rodent
Species 2 = Equine
Species 3 = Feline
Species 4 = Canine
Species 5 = Musteline
Species 6 = Lapine
Species 7 = Squirrel
Species 8 = Bovine
Species 9 = Ursine
Species 102 = Dragon
Species 103 = Phoenix
Species 104 = Gryffe
Species 105 = Kiwi
Species 106 = Kitterwing
Species 107 = Ferian Wolven
Species 108 = Ferian Tygard
Species 109 = Ferian Leonen
Species 110 = Werewolf
Species 111 = Penguin
Species 112 = Bat
(1:34) and the triggering furre is wearing wings type #,
(1:134) and the triggering furre is not wearing wings type #,

Type 0 = No wings at all.
Type 1 = Classic Wings.
Type 2 = Tricolored Wings.
Type 3 = Butterfly Wings.
Type 4 = Batwings.
Type 5 = Prime Wings.

These new lines of DS should help make dragonspeak much easier to work with for experienced Dreamweavers.

A new feature that is going to be added to What’s That, Furcadia? will be a tutorial section. We’re going to be adding tutorials, (slowly) for players to use at their own free will.

If you have a tutorial you’d like us to showcase, please, send it in. You can find the appropriate E-Mail information on the ‘contact’ page.