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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/'Manda, Emerald Flame, and Fox
Platform(s)Windows (Windows ME, Windows 98, Windows 95 no longer supported), Mac support, 10.4 or later, iOS 3.0 or later, Linux using Wine
ReleaseDecember 16, 1996 (1996-12-16)
Genre(s)Massively multiplayer online game
Mode(s)Multiplayer

Furcadia is a MMOSG/MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Social Game/ Roleplaying Game) or graphical MUD,[1] set in a fantasy world inhabited by anthropomorphic creatures. The game is based on user-created content, socializing and free-form roleplaying. Furcadia is not entirely In Character; however, the background world ('The Dragonlands') and rule system ('Furre!') exist for those who wish to participate. Furcadia is claimed as the longest continuously running MMO.[2][3]

Gameplay

Characters

The character, or avatar on Furcadia is called a "furre", pronounced "fur", or occasionally "furry". The in-game avatar can be set to one of several species of anthropomorphic animal that Furcadia offers. A furre can be one of three genders: male, female, and unspecified. These genders modify the default portrait, as well as specitags, icons seen to the left of players' names in chat.

Customization

Players can customize their avatars by choosing colors from a palette. These colors are shown on both the walkabout and portrait. The walkabout has a basic walking animation with the ability to stand, sit, or lie down. There are default portraits for each avatar, however, one may upload a 95x95 custom portrait for a small fee.[4]

Each character can also have a brief description, which can include character details, or external links to websites. Some players choose to link to third-party websites to extend their descriptions beyond the character-limit the standard Furcadia description allows.

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 player-base do not identify as 'furries' or have any interest in the furry aspect of the game. Furthermore, players can use hyooman (human) avatars if purchased.[5]

Dreams

The primary focus of Furcadia is user-generated content. To this end, the Furcadia game download includes an art editor, a map creating program and a script editor. 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.

Dreams take advantage of a 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.

While there are several types of dreams that are popular, users continue to create new things with the tools they are given. Furcadia hosts a variety of roleplaying dreams, ranging from strict-continuity roleplay (in which the dream is its own independent world) to persona play.[6] Roleplaying dreams also come in a number of different forms, ranging from feral (wild animal) to furre (anthropomorphic animal) to human. Many dreams revolve around fantasy plots and themes, based on popular books, television programs, ancient mythology, or original creations of Furcadia players.

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/New Haven)—immediately block the user from entering the main map if they are not within the specified age group and parental controls are enabled.[7]

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.[2][3]

Furcadia was originally designed and programmed by Dr. Cat (known as Felorin in-game) and Manda (known as Talzhemir in-game). 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 Fox, formerly sanctimonious), who created the game's editors and is now involved in coding the client and the server as the game's part-time programmer. Two others that assist with programming are Ryhn and Farrier.[8]

The iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch client was released on July 19, 2010.[9]

Awards

See also

References

  1. ^ Koster, Raph (1999-10-13). "Recent News". Raph Koster's Website. Retrieved 2010-05-01. Also, I have to say that I think Furcadia is probably the most successful non-gaming, socially oriented graphical mud I've seen.
  2. ^ a b Dragon's Eye Productions (2007-12-15). "Furcadia Celebrates 10th Anniversary". Multiplayer Online Games Directory. Retrieved 2009-05-20.
  3. ^ a b "2006 Town Meeting transcript". Dragon's Eye Productions. Retrieved 2009-05-20.
  4. ^ Personal Portraits, Furcadia website. Dragon's Eye Productions. Retrieved November 26, 2007.
  5. ^ Furcadia 2005 Town Hall meeting notes, quote by Talzhemir regarding FurryMUCK (April 16, 2005, retrieved April 30, 2007)
  6. ^ "Roleplaying in Furcadia". Dragon's Eye Productions. Retrieved 2010-07-28.
  7. ^ Dream Content Standards, Dragon's Eye Productions.
  8. ^ "Furcadia credits".
  9. ^ "Furcadia", Metacritic. Accessed 2013-01-20.
  10. ^ "The Fifth Annual Independent Games Festival". GameSpy. 2003-01-13. Archived from the original on 2007-10-21. {{cite web}}: |archive-date= / |archive-url= timestamp mismatch; 2007-10-30 suggested (help)
  11. ^ Harris, Tricia (2003-01-13). "Furcadia". GameSpy. Archived from the original on 2007-10-21. Retrieved 2009-05-12.
  12. ^ "2006 Indie Game of the Year". WarCry. 2006. Archived from the original on 2007-02-12. Retrieved 2009-05-12.
  13. ^ "Furcadia 2.7B". Softpedia. Retrieved 2009-05-12.

Further reading

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