Feral Heart

Hmm, alright. At which point, exactly, does it crash? Right away when you click play or during/after the game loading screen?

Oh wow! This is a pretty cool project you got here. I know so many TLK role players would love a thing like this, it even makes me what to get into a TLK themed roleplay! I love the design of the Pride rock especially <3 This is awesome. Can’t wait to see it as it grows and progresses more. Thank you for sharing it with us all.

Ooo, thanks! Yeah, as far as the Pride Rock goes my attempt was to avoid using a 'downloaded mesh' for it XD Give the players something new y'know. The rock is basically a compilation of meshes you'd find in the game (Cliffs, mounts/plateaus/etc) while some of them are retextured. I'd think the Pride Lands were the most complicated part as most of the other areas are somewhat vague due to lack of screen time. XD

DISCLAIMER: None of the meshes used in this map are created by me nor do I claim any as my own. I'm listing the custom meshes used in this post, along with their original creators. Since most meshes were downloaded from DeviantART, I'm posting the link to the dA post, but if anyone knows the forum user of the creators/a forum post made by them containing these meshes, let me know!

Credits:

- Fish Pack by GiddyFox (dA) (Link: https://www.deviantart.com/giddyfox/art/Fish-Mesh-Pack-FeralHeart-383322637)

- Posed Animals Packs by AquaChocobo (dA) (Links: https://www.deviantart.com/aquachocobo/art/WABBIT-WABBIT-WABBIT-569304580, https://www.deviantart.com/aquachocobo/art/WILDEBEEST-613069175, https://www.deviantart.com/aquachocobo/art/Seeing-Stripes-612006316 and https://www.deviantart.com/aquachocobo/art/Gazelles-Galore-613912435)

- Misc animal pack by Bloopaloozer (dA) (Link: https://www.deviantart.com/bloopaloozer/art/Animal-Pack-508185599)

- Rock objects by Hamilton (Link: http://onelittlecorner.proboards.com/thread/6)

- Rafiki's Tree mesh by ElfinStray (dA) (Link: https://www.deviantart.com/elfinstray/art/FH-Rafiki-s-Tree-Mesh-Public-DL-436313951)

- Wombat Foliage by Glave (Link: https://feral-heart.com/smf/index.php?topic=11142.0)

- Sunshine Beam by Wolf-NaKomis (dA) (Link: https://www.deviantart.com/wolf-nakomis/art/Sunshine-beams-FH-mesh-626026065 )

- The Lion King/Lion Guard franchises, characters and scenery by Disney (Of course)

Does that character use a specific item or markings the other characters do not? Depending on it, said item or marking is what caused the issue. If you can edit the character, removing said item or marking is wise. If you just keep getting 'bad tokens' or fail to connect to your character's home map in all the others characters, then the issue might be with the map server itself.

The state of roleplaying in this game has indeed drastically dropped. Those few roleplays you see now are often very private groups with a lot of strict requirements. Some of these groups have extremely unwelcoming “clique” sort of attitude and behavior too. Then there’s others (the majority in fact these days) that are strictly Discord based. Roleplaying isn’t as spontaneous as it used to be, but that’s also cause there’s been this stigma amongst some users who don’t like it when other users roleplay in the local chat. So you end up with more users going off to roleplaying privately in unseen group/party chats or Discord. The entire “culture” of roleplay in this game has changed and a big part of that started after the removal of the general chat.

I'll have to agree with that, unfortunately, the only advertisements we see in the 'Lobby' map (TG at this point) are for private/mapped/Discord-oriented roleplays, and not even these get too much of an active player base nowadays. Back shortly after Feralheart launched, there were always those people that went: "Hey, did you wanna rp or something?" While the others agreed and as such a smaller group was started. I read about the topic in which the fact someone was harrassed for rping in Local was mentioned, and considering how much damaged that topic in general already is in FH's current situation, it is a shame really. I do have an idea regarding the General issue, though to keep things organized I'll list it along with a few others at the end of this post.

We could try holding one for longer but after a day or two people lose interest. We’ve actually tried extending it but it all comes down to user continued interest and participation.

Hmm.. Perhaps one way to fix that would be to add some 'competitions' throughout the FHORF/FHORD? As in.. Not only character creation, but maybe plot-writing - Or even, perhaps, a sort of competition to see which user can bring the most of their friends (if they have any that do not previously play the game) to try out FH for the first time. This would also be a reasonable way to bring more people into the game, and the staff could keep track of people cheating (i.e making duplicate accounts and acting as if it's their 'friend') through the user IPs in the forums. It would at least give the player base a breath of fresh air if some of these new players decided to stay in the community - Specially now that the registrations have been opened or at least so I've heard.

We can keep trying things like this but in the end it’s just a temporary “fix”. The core game itself has issues, many issues of which are causing the issue of roleplays “dying” out. There’s a huge lack of convenience for things and many other things that need improving upon to make the environment one that is suited for roleplay again, and not just roleplay but communication and socialization again in general. Feral Heart is outdated and has remained so while its user base and the world they live in continues to grow and modernize. Hence why Discord has become much more favorable even over the game and forum itself to some.

Feralheart may be outdated now, but as I've said ingame quite a few times, I'm actually getting high hopes about this game after what has been going on (It was helped greatly by the newsletter posted in December). I have the feeling that, specially now with the source code, maybe FH could get the polishment it deserves and restore it's player base - I know this sounds way too optimistic, but really that is just the way I hope things will turn out. I was on with SpicyDirt earlier and one thing we've noted ingame was that for one a lot of the 'older players' seemed to be getting back on FH, and I can't help but notice this seemed to improve quite a bit after the news of having the source code back.

Anyway we had a FHORD/FHORF not too long ago. If it was brought back do you guys have any other ideas to make it more interesting? Aside from the activities we usually already do with it.

TL:DR quite a few of my ideas were listed above already, I'll set them in a list along with new ones however:

- A 'Roleplay Advertisement' chat so that people would be able to advertise out of videos, with range going through the whole map like General once did. Maybe, unlike General was however, that chat could be turned off by default so the users themselves would manually turn them on when looking for a roleplay. To avoid 'trolling', maybe only a player/character that leads a group could speak in it.

- The activities I mentioned earlier: Character/plot writing contest and the 'player invitation' competition.

- As SpicyDirt mentioned earlier, perhaps the addition of 'themed' or even a specie-specific roleplay, say, for example a deer, dragon or a horse roleplay as not many of FeralHeart's users usually get out of the 'comfort zone' of rping wolves or cats/lions.

- Another idea I had shortly after posting this was maybe adding a in-game and even maybe a forum 'title' for the leaders or members of a group settled in public maps, as some sort of recognition for trying to help on the current situation regarding public-map roleplays.

- Chat-related idea (Again): In light of what happened to those people that were rping in TG's Local, maybe another roleplay chat (this one being for the act of roleplaying itself) acting as a public one.. A second local, if you will. If people keep the 'first' local up for conversations, and simply toggle off the rp chat/second Local, the issue that had happened there would be avoided while still keeping roleplays public for those who might be willing to join.