Furcadia
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| Furcadia {{#if:{{{image|}}}|<tr><td colspan="2" style="text-align: center;">{{{image|}}} | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Dragon's Eye Productions, Inc. {{#if:{{{publisher|}}}|<tr><th style="background-color: #ccccff;">Publisher(s)<td>{{{publisher|}}} |
| Release date(s) | December 16, 1996 |
| Genre(s) | Massively multiplayer online game |
| Mode(s) | Multiplayer {{#if:{{{ratings|}}}|<tr><th style="background-color: #ccccff;">Rating(s)<td>{{{ratings|}}} |
| Platform(s) | Windows {{#if:{{{media|}}}|<tr><th style="background-color: #ccccff;">Media<td>{{{media|}}} |
Furcadia is an MMOG (Massively Multiplayer Online Game), set in a fantasy world inhabited by anthropomorphic animals. The game is based on user-created content, socializing and free-form roleplaying. It is not a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) in the strictest sense; the game has no built in RPG continuity or a combat simulation system. However, these components of MMORPGs that the game itself does not provide are very often added by the players through the powerful customization system.
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History
Furcadia is one of the oldest still-running graphical MMOGs. It was developed by Dragon's Eye Productions, Inc (DEP), and was opened to the public on December 16, 1996. Furcadia's engine was first developed in 1995 for a preliminary graphical MUD project called DragonSpires. DragonSpires featured a very simplistic real-time combat, and used a DOS-based client limited to the 16 EGA colors. At its release, Furcadia featured a graphical improvement: art with a 256 color "VGA" palette.
The original programming and design of Furcadia was done by Felorin/Dr. Cat and Talzhemir. Two additional people have since been credited as part of the creative team for their significant contributions: Emerald Flame (Katie Bazor), who developed (and coordinates) the Beekin volunteer staff project, as well as being the game's producer, and sanctimonious (Aleksi Asikainen), who created the game's editors and is now heavily involved in coding the client and the server as the game's lead programmer.
The developers 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 2006, the game remains in alpha development stage.
Playing Furcadia
Characters
The character avatar on Furcadia is generically called a "furre", which could be pronounced as either "fur" or "furry". The in-game avatar can be set to one of several species of anthropomorphic animal:
A furre can be one of three genders: male, female, and unspecified.
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. The portrait by default shows the head of the furre, and it is customizable by species, colors, and gender. Players can customize their avatars by choosing colors from a palette and can edit a brief character description that is viewable by other players. 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 early 2006, Furcadia has over 60,000 active players and regularly sees between 3,500 and 4,100 players at peak times, depending on the day of the week. The record number of players on Furcadia at once is 4305 on January 5th 2005.
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 Dreams can be uploaded to the Furcadia server and used for a variety of purposes, such as role playing, a place to hang out with friends, or simply to show off. Dreams remain open to the public area in which they are uploaded so long as it is inhabited, and, if unoccupied, it eventually unloads automatically. Dreams can include the use of MIDI (.MID), .WMA, .OGG, .MOD, and .S3M format music files (to name a few), and .WAV sound files as well.
Most Dreams take advantage of a relatively user-friendly coding language known as DragonSpeak or "DS". Dragonspeak allows the 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 .FSH and .PCX files hold patch art for Furcadia. Every aspect of the Furcadia interface can be skinned. Skins are made with a "marbled.pcx" file that is used for the background, one .FSH file (buttons.fsh), 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), 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.
Technical Information
The Furcadia server is located at lightbringer.furcadia.com. Ports it accepts for Furcadia connections are 6500, 5000, 2300, 80, 22 and 21.
The Beekins
The game is supported by a structured volunteer group called the Beekins, who assist players and, in rarer cases, enforce Furcadia's rules of conduct. 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 dream creation 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 provide help relating to 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.
Players can apply to most (but not all) of these groups via the applications page on Furcadia's website.
You can view everyone who is a Beekin on the website as well.
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 avatar-enhancing products, known in the game as "Digos" (after Digo Market, an in-game location). Possession of these avatar enhancements can last anywhere from one week to an indefinite amount of time, depending on the product and package one purchases:
- Wings (Tri-color wings (Triwings), Butterfly wings, Bat wings, or original "Classic" wings)
- Custom In-Game Character Portraits that allow custom art to be uploaded instead of the default art.
- Silver Sponsorship (community supporter account)
- The ability to change their furre's color and species without disconnecting from the game
- A special portrait that can be changed each month, but lasts as long as the player is a sponsor
- Access to private listen-only channels
- The opportunity to preview new software features
- Roses
- A player can pay to give another player (or himself) a rose, with the option of an attached note. This is a small graphic that appears in a furre's description. Roses come in various colors and last for different periods of time.
See also
External links
- Furcadia's official website
- FurcadiaWiki, a small Wiki run by Furcadia users.
- A comprehensive information site run by Artex, Furcadia Technical Resources.
- Furnarchy, a Furcadia proxy client by Cluracan and others
- DogProxy, a proxy by sanctimonious, a Dragon's Eye Productions staff member
- Mreow! Proxy, a proxy by Rey.
- mFurc, a Mac OS X client by Ghost Tiger.