I agree with you that FH will never, ever. Be what IT was.
However, I personally think this is for the better in some viewpoints. Ofcourse, no wings or items limits the game alot, and some of the fun dissapears. But it's just some. The game is missing alot of things that IT had in general.
I understand you. But personally I don't think wings would make the game that much better, it would just make it look abit more funky. And people would easier make dragon character or other flying things. Not because we have that many maps in the game yet like that climbing map AIsland, but it does give a somewhat unfairness since other ferals wouldn't be able to do anything while others would be able to fly wherever they wanted. I wouldn't break down and cry if wings were added though. But I feel ok with them away right now aswell.
The Items on the other hand. That is something complete different. Not only doesn't the game have prays implented yet for hunting of items, but there came so much problem with having items in the game in general, and it does add up on the work needed on the game just to get them in there. If you played IT, you know how crazy people would get about items, some just played it for 1 single reason, and that was to hunt the rare ones. People was stealing items, people spammed about trades, even hacking sprees dropping random admin items in the game that pretty much killed it all.
Even though I liked the items myself, very very much. It gave alot of consequenses. Some say by making a new item system with all items addable from the character creation screen it would be better. Question is, would it?
By doing this people wouldn't be able to hunt for the items anymore, they would just "be" there. There would be no hunting for rare items, and this way. Using items wouldn't be as fun anymore either. No items would be unique, and people would probably crave for more and more items added into the game. I'm rather sure restricted items would be added into the game once regular once are, like it's unpreventable,. This way the same crazyness would start all over again just in a slightly different way.
You really gotta think around the whole subject. No items is actually better for the game in some areas. I can agree that the fun might fade a bit, but as we mentioned, this isn't IT.
As you said, "The game is still being worked on and things will get better", and I hope for this aswell.
But if we count away the items and wings.
What if we had a bigger set of standard maps in the game to explore, what if we had a pray system, what if we had all the actions we could do in IT? Wouldn't the importance of those other too seem smaller?
The game has fell short on quite a few things IT did. And we can really just hope it gets more like IT.
I really want to let you know, that I miss both the Items, and the wings aswell. But wings is something I don't really find needed. And with items came some many problems. A general update on alot of functions for the game in general would be just as important if not more in my eyes.
This is a sketchy subject though. We can't know how the future of FH will be.
