A few new offical maps ingame~

[ZombieKitteh]

I know with situations as they stand making major updates within the game client itself is hard for staff (without Kovu around).  I'm not asking for coding things or uber hard things to be added. What's stopping you guys from adding offical maps ingame?

Surely you have the tools to mess with .fhm files and the original, default FH maps? I doubt it'd be very hard to go in and add portals. Just because you guys can't have 'major' updates, why can't you offer small ones like offical maps for the time being? Or even editing the current ones.

The maps in game are currently abit.. empty sort of? Have you seen some areas in Fluorite or must I mention South Pole? Maybe add some dens here and there and random ice sculptures in other places. A clear ice material file wouldn't be hard to code (I have one if you like) and there are a ton of public meshes made by players you can use in said maps.

Maybe a more forested area branching off of Ficho and an Icey cave in South pole someplace? Just something new. It'd be something easy for staff to do (after the server issues are finished); and keep people entertained until you guys can throw out real updates.

Heck if you don't want to make the maps yourself maybe make a map making contest. And the places get their map added ingame? It'd be pretty interesting and I'm sure people in the community would like the idea.

Or if you can't edit said files (which I know you can *cough*FH+ & Feralistic*cough*) make an offical map pack for the game on the downloads page.

[Ruby1234]

New maps intended to be the new official maps, have actually already been made.
But there were... Complications as to getting them "official."
I'm not really the person to tell you the details.

[ZombieKitteh]

Hrmm, I see. Are said details client/game based or personal problems with others based? *decides to be nosey*

[Ruby1234]

It's really just an issue of,
okay, I have the original and official content, what can I do with it?
Edits may be made, sure, but every edit released hasn't been official, merely addons/mods like FH+, Feralistic, etc.
If new maps were made, permission would have to be given for them to be official, and not merely addons.

[ZombieKitteh]

I see, so as in getting permission from Kovu to add said maps to the game? Makes sense I suppose.

[Ruby1234]

Aye.
He owns the game, so any official changes made to it, would have to be approved by him.
I know of a few people that had been planning to ask staff if they could remake the default maps and such, but not just any staff member can give permission to edit the game and replace the old download.

[ringoluver]

In addition to what has been said above, the one thing is even if we did get updates like that out, there isn't a way (to my knowledge, without Kov) that we could force players to download it. Like we couldn't make a popup saying "Please downloaded the latest patch" when you try and log into the game. Only the users who are at least slightly involved with the forums and/or dA groups would know about something like this.

[ZombieKitteh]

So apparently staff /can/ make changes to the game without Kovu. General is gone.

What's stopping you guys now.

IT servers get updated through word of mouth and such, I remember the patch for SouthPole wasn't made into a popup. I heard from friends. The community is tight enough I'm sure word could spread. And hey maybe it'd get more people being active on the site and forums.

[ringoluver]

X'cuse me, but, we actually can't ADD anything to the game. Raz was able to take general away by redirecting any message send through "general" into "local" through the server code. If we could've edited the game, the 'general' button would've been removed completely, no? It's still there, it just get redirected.

[Vysena]

Exactly what Ringo said, I'm not staff, but I do know that they need the actual Source Code to truely edit the game, including adding and taking away things.