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Furcadia

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Furcadia
A typical Furcadia session.
Developer(s)Dragon's Eye Productions, Inc.
Publisher(s)Dragon's Eye Productions, Inc.
Designer(s)Felorin/Dr. Cat, Talzhemir, Emerald Flame, and sanctimonious
Platform(s)Windows, Third party Mac support
ReleaseDecember 16, 1996 (1996-12-16)
Genre(s)Massively multiplayer online game
Mode(s)Multiplayer

Furcadia is an MMOSG (Massively Multiplayer Online Social Game), set in a fantasy world inhabited by anthropomorphic animals. The game is based on user-created content, socializing and free-form roleplaying. Furcadia is not entirely In Character; however, the background world and rule system does exist for those who wish to participate. Furcadia is the longest continuously running MMO.[1][2]

Gameplay

Characters

The character avatar on Furcadia is generally called a "furre", which is usually pronounced "fur", but occasionally "furry". The in-game avatar can be set to one of several species of anthropomorphic animal, including Feline, Canine, Lapine, Equine, Musteline, Sciurine, Rodent, Bovine, and Ursine. A furre can be one of three genders: male, female, and unspecified. These genders modify the displayed default portrait respective of the character.

The furre avatar is composed of two parts. The 'walkabout' is a basic walking animation with the ability to stand, sit, and lie down. The walkabout is customizable by species and colors, but not gender. The portrait or 'port' is a 95x95 portrait image.[3] The portrait by default shows the head of the furre, and it is customizable by species, colors, and gender. Portraits now support a static (non-remappable) 24-bit image.[3] Players can customize their avatars by choosing colors from a palette and can edit a brief character description that is viewable by other players. Some players choose to use third-party websites and link to them in their description, like Furocity or Freewebs, owing to the description box's character limit; some descriptions go far over the limit. Furcadia offers several items for purchase that allow further customization of the avatar, including the ability to replace one's portrait with custom art.

As of May 2007, Furcadia has over 70,000 regular players[4] and regularly sees between 4,000 and 4,500 players at peak times, depending on the day of the week. The record number of players on Furcadia at once is 4920 as of January 25 2007.[5]

Furcadia and the furry fandom

Although Furcadia's anthropomorphic animal characters are related to those of the furry fandom, and the game was inspired in part by FurryMUCK, Furcadia has never been intended as an exclusively 'furry' game. A significant portion of Furcadia's playerbase do not identify as 'furries' or have any interest in the furry aspect of the game.[6][7]

Dreams

The primary focus of Furcadia is user-created content. To this end, the Furcadia game download includes an art editor and a map creating program. Users are encouraged to create their own virtual worlds, called Dreams, using these tools. These worlds can be uploaded to the Furcadia server and used for a variety of purposes, examples being role playing, a place to hang out with friends, or a number of other purposes. Dreams remain open to the public area in which they are uploaded, so long as it is inhabited, and, if unoccupied, it is eventually unloaded automatically. Dreams can include the use of audio files in the WMA, Ogg, MOD, S3M, WAV and MIDI (.mid) formats, to name a few.

Most Dreams take advantage of a relatively user-friendly coding language known as DragonSpeak, or "DS". DragonSpeak allows users to develop interactivity into their dreams, ranging from a simple action like opening a door, to far more complex uses, such as a complete game of chess or laser-tag.

Dream owners are allowed to make and use bots to accomplish things that DragonSpeak cannot, but these are not officially supported by Furcadia.

Dreams run off several file types. ".MAP" files hold the main Dream layout, ".DS" files hold the DragonSpeak code, and ".FOX" (replacing the older ".FSH" format) and PCX files hold patch art for Furcadia. Every aspect of the Furcadia interface can be customized with Furcadia skins. Skins are made with a "marbled.pcx" file that is used for the background, two ".FOX" files (buttons.fox and the customizable dsbtns.fox), a settings file (skin.ini) and several fonts.

Several popular types of dreams are build-a-homes (where you can buy a temporary house from staff for free and decorate it with items, but is usually deleted after you leave the dream), hangout dreams (Usually featuring a bar or café area) and roleplay dreams. Furcadia hosts a wide variety of roleplaying dreams, ranging from strict-continuity roleplay (In which the dream is its own independent world) to persona play (Roleplay that is light and is governed by few rules). Roleplaying dreams also come in a myriad of different forms, ranging from feral (Feral wolf and horse dreams are immensely popular, concentrated in the Northeast region of the popular 'main map', Allegria Island) to furre to human. Many dreams revolve around fantasy plots and themes, based on popular books, television programs and even ancient mythology; some dream ideas are created entirely out of the minds of their creators.

Furcadia itself is basically made up of several dreams, the ones made by its users, and the main maps.

Dream standards

Although Furcadia itself is unrated, individual dreams may specify a standard which details what kind of behavior, language, and content may be allowed. Before March 2007, Furcadia used a rating system akin to the MPAA film rating system. Since March 2007, Furcadia uses its own dream standards system which allows users to define exactly what kind of behavior should be allowed on a per-dream basis. The dream standards are based on age groups, ranging from Everyone8+ to Adult Only, with specific behavior, language, and content restrictions. Some main maps - FurN and Hawthorn (previously Haven) - immediately block the user from entering the main map if they are not within the specified age group, if parental controls are enabled.[8]

Main maps

File:FurcShot2008B.jpg
Naia Green, one of the main maps. Also visible is the "classic" skin.

Furcadia includes a number of "main maps"--that is, public, permanent areas created by game staff. Main maps are always available, and many are included with the initial Furcadia download. The ones directly accessible from the user interface include:

  • Naia Green, intended to be Furcadia's community center. Many Beekin volunteers gather here to help answer user questions.
  • Challenges, a game-oriented area that includes boards for chess, checkers, "pillow wars," and others.
  • Acropolis, an area for out-of-character socializing and a popular map for user uploads.
  • Furrabian Nights, a Mature 16+ environment. User-created content follows guidelines set in the new dream standards and is of a mature nature.
  • Hawthorn (replacing Haven), a Mature 16+ environment dream meant for the harsher, more savage side of Furcadia. It employs the same basic layout as Haven did, with darker patching and other content-related changes.
  • Allegria Island, a popular location for dream uploads.
  • Meovanni Village, an area intended for persona play (a form of simplified roleplay.)
  • Imaginarium, an area intended for deeper roleplay. Most roleplay-oriented dreams are uploaded here.
  • The Wylde, a main map for Ferians which includes thirteen different biomes with habitats upon which players can upload their dreams.
  • Vinca Nexus, the central hub connecting the rest of the main maps, as well as your destination if your character is ejected from another map or dream.

Other official maps

There are several other official maps that are not accessible directly from the user interface, but are maintained by Dragons Eye Productions and/or have permanent status. The following is an incomplete list of these other official maps:

  • Welcomers Map, a tutorial area where new players learn about the game.
  • Beekins Aerie, beekins map, beekin classes and meetings held here.
  • Theriopolis, a map where roleplaying is optional.
  • Goldwyn, an official roleplaying map.
  • Dusk 2 Dawn, official Mature 16+ map.
  • Town Meeting, a temporary dream where an annual "Town Meeting" is held, accessible only to Silver Sponsors.
  • Silver Showcase, a scenic map where Silver Sponsors can upload on special portals, but anyone can visit
  • Zephiroth, a flying island-themed map that only winged players or those summoned by winged players can visit.
  • The five annual festival dreams, Jujinka's Spring Festival, M'Rill's Festival of the Sun, Jemmion's Rameen Festival, Wolf Howl, and Danival's Winter Festival.

Development

First opened to the public on December 16, 1996, Furcadia is developed by Dragon's Eye Productions, Inc (DEP). Its engine was developed in 1994, originally for a preliminary graphical MUD project called DragonSpires, which featured very simplistic real-time combat, and used a DOS-based client limited to the 16 EGA colors. At its public release, Furcadia featured a graphical improvement: art with a 256 color VGA palette. New support for 24-bit non-remappable portraits (the first art to extend beyond 256 colors), and Windows Vista support were implemented in the April 6, 2007 "Kitterwing Edition." On December 16 2006, Furcadia became the first-ever MMORPG to celebrate ten years of continual service.[1][2]

Furcadia was originally designed and programmed by Dr. Cat (known as Felorin in-game) and Talzhemir. Two additional people have since been credited as part of the creative team for their work: game producer Katie Bazor (known as Emerald Flame), who developed (and still coordinates) the Beekin volunteer staff project, and Aleksi Asikainen (known as sanctimonious), who created the game's editors and is now involved in coding the client and the server as the game's lead programmer.[9]

The developers continue to make several minor updates to the code per year. Major updates to the code (such as the addition of new character avatars or improved DragonSpeak commands) occur approximately once per year. As of 2007, the game remains in a public alpha development stage.

Volunteer program

The game is supported by a unique structured volunteer program called the Beekins, who assist players and enforce Furcadia's rules of conduct. As of January 2008, there are approximately 700 volunteers in the beekin program.[10] The Beekin program is divided into several groups based on function:

  • Bugge Hunters, who discover and document bugs in Furcadia's web, DragonSpeak, client and server code. Bugges serve as Furcadia's Technical support.
  • Dream Masons, who provide help with all aspects of dream creation, from map making, patches, and DragonSpeak scripting.
  • Guardians, who enforce Furcadia's rules of conduct.
  • Helpers, who provide help with various elements of Furcadia's features and software.
  • Pixels, who create new patches for official dreams, and provide help relating to creating custom graphics ("patches") in Furcadia.
  • Scribes, who maintain Furcadia's website.
  • Welcomers, who provide help, information, and tours to completely new players.
  • Mentors, who counsel other Beekins and do one-on-one training.
  • Teachers, who give training classes to new Beekins, and give refreshers to badged beekins.

Business model

Downloading and playing Furcadia is free of charge. DEP has publicly stated that Furcadia will remain free of mandatory playing charges. To cover the costs of running Furcadia's servers, DEP sells several game-enhancing products, known in the game as Digos, sold in an online store known as the Digo Market (named after an in-game location). Possession of these game enhancements can last anywhere from one day to 'life' (an indefinite amount of time), depending on the product and package one purchases.[11]

These Digos include premium avatars, in-game wings of several types, the ability to upload custom in-game character portraits, in-game roses, and small images that display in a character's profile (known as Desctags). Additionally, players may purchase 'Silver Sponsorships', which provide a number of game-enhancing abilities and features.[11]

DragonScales are an in-game currency that may be used to purchase Digos. DragonScales may be purchased in the Digo Market, or received in-game as competition prizes or gifts.[12]

Awards

References

  1. ^ a b "Furcadia Celebrates 10th Anniversary". Multiplayer Online Games Directory. December 15, 2007.
  2. ^ a b "2006 Town Meeting transcript". Dragon's Eye Productions.
  3. ^ a b Personal Portraits, Furcadia website. Dragon's Eye Productions. Retrieved November 26, 2007.
  4. ^ "May 2007 Newsletter", Dragon's Eye Productions, May 5 2007.
  5. ^ Furcadia.com home page.
  6. ^ Forum post by Furcadia creator Felorin (Dr. Cat) concerning the furry fandom. Retrieved April 27 2007.
  7. ^ Furcadia 2005 Town Hall meeting notes, quote by Talzhemir regarding FurryMUCK (April 16 2005, retrieved April 30 2007)
  8. ^ Dream Content Standards, Dragon's Eye Productions.
  9. ^ "Furcadia credits".
  10. ^ "Beekin Volunteer Listing". Dragon's Eye Productions. Retrieved 2008-01-19.
  11. ^ a b "Furcadia Digo Market". Dragon's Eye Productions, Infire Business Ventures. Retrieved 2008-01-19.
  12. ^ "DragonScales". Dragon's Eye Productions. Retrieved 2008-01-19.

Proxies

Other software

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