Question

[Preach]

Why can't staff open registration once a month?

[SteampunkWolfdog]

Registration has been completely disabled while Raz has been working making things for the site better, (between doing other things, he's a busy man). When it's fixed, and all shiny and new, it will open again. But, instead of having it open all the time, it's quite likely that will be how it was before - opening at completely random times.

[Morgra]

Heya Preach! ^^

Thought I'd add onto what Spirit said and show you Nynx's reply on a recent game discussion topic that explains some things:

I fully agree with you in that the Registration should be open. I think we can all agree that the opening of it would bring about beneficial factors. This is nothing new, and isn't to any surprise.

However, something we must consider is what goes into the re-opening of it. In order to open up the Registration, it has to physically be rebuilt; it's not as simple as pressing an "on" and "off" button. Raz has now begun work on the actual Registration building, but this is a matter of time and patience. It's easy for us--you, staff, the community-- to look at the problem and say "you should fix this," because that is where the work ends for us. It does not end here, for Raz. While we make suggestions for Raz to do certain things with the game, we ourselves do not implement these changes nor have to deal with the actual process of putting together something like a Registration. Raz has to sit down and actually work on what it is that needs to be fixed, and I know that many of us are not as capable as putting together such a system as he is doing-- I know that I'm personally not. It's easy for us to look at something and ask it to be changed, but it's quite a different thing when you are the one actually doing the work. I say this because while I know that it feels like such a long time for changes to be implemented, it's so easy for us to just look at the problem and want it fixed. Actually solving it is another thing. The aspect that begs the most patience is time-- the one thing that is always being challenged.

For those of you who may not know, Raz is already building the Registration. The Registration being requested to be opened has been repeated numerous times-- we cannot open it because it needs to be rebuilt. Raz is working on making changes to the new Reg so that it is less complicated and so you won't have all of the glitches and troubles you had with the old one. He is making it more efficient, and I would be saddened to think that he sacrifices quality for the sake of trying to re-open it faster.

Opening registrations will obviously increase the amount of users online, i know it was intended to stop lags and crashes - but it's done it's job, it's reduced the amount of users.

The Registration was not closed due to lag. It was disabled due to security precautions after the game was hacked. The Reg needed to be closed during the updates then, just as it is necessary for it to be opened now.

I know many things are going on irl with the staff and that it's hard to get things done but I mean come on. It's been down since June.

You must understand that we have not been working on the Registration re-open since June, fluff. When we released the patch, that was the staff's primary priority-- the Registration was something to be considered later and was not in need of the most attention. We have not been working on the Reg for months. We have only been actually working on it within the past week. We have said that we will re-open the Reg and will look into it within those past months, and it indeed has been looked into, but it is only now that we have actually began work. From the way it is sounding, it appears as though staff is bad for having taken too long to open the Registration, when in reality, we have only been working on it in the past week. We have considered and looked into the matter within the past months, but we haven't been actually fixing it back then. It's up to Raz to analyze what needs to be fixed, and he has finally begun working on it. I hope this sets the timeline a bit straighter so that it helps.

I agree with you and Arctic. Another thing is it is really hard to find random roleplay these days. Most times when you finally find a roleplay group it either goes dead or inactive in one day. I hope the game doesn't die out. It would be really upsetting to see people leave the game because of how inactive it is becoming. Hopefully the registration will be open before 2016 is over. It would be great to see new faces around in the game too.

It would be wonderful if we could see it re-opened by Christmas. It's all up to how much Raz is able to accomplish, though.

Truth be told, I think the forum didn't need this update--it was all so unnecessary. The game update has been phenomenal, yes, and I will never doubt that. The time and effort put into it is appalling and beautiful! But again. Did the FORUM need the update? Is this why registration has been down for so long? And I know, I'm repeating myself here, but the whole life thing outside of Feral Heart, I understand. But does it really take 6 months to rebuild registration, that probably wasn't even needed to be rebuilt?

Back to what was said before, we weren't working on the Registration six months ago-- we were looking into it, considering the issue, evaluating, discussing. We have only been working on it physically during the past week. I don't know where people are getting this notion that we have been working on it since the patch, because this simply isn't true. We recognized the issue after the patch, but it is only recently things have been able to go into work.

As for the forum update, it did need to be updated. Our old version wouldn't let us fix web bugs and glitches because it was outdated. The reason the new forum looks like it does now (different color; chocolate-y) is because there no longer exists a version like the old forum we had. In order to fix systems on the website, add customizations, or fix anything related to some of the glitches that people were having (not being able to post, too many log-out forum sessions, ads), we had to update. The forum update was no doubt a decision that had to be made-- it was all a matter of when and how, and with the new update of the game, we figured it would be the best time to work on fixing it. We have accomplished quite a few of the things we wanted to achieve with the forum update, already, and now it has paved a way for us to focus on creating the new Registration.


In short, yes, the Registration needs to be opened. We have already begun actual work on it. I know that patience is a lot to ask, but I hope any of this at all helps to make things a bit more clear. We haven't been working on this for months. We've been considering, looking into it, deciding what needs to be done, within those months. The idea, though, that the game is "dying" is something I feel is very out of proportion, and if you view statistics, it's not even all that accurate. There are indeed less people now due to the Registration being offline, but the idea that everyone is going to leave at once and the game will be left bare because of the Registration not being online is something I don't see happening. If there is one thing I've noticed from this community-- in the game and on the forum-- it is that we have very persistent members. The Registration is a tiny aspect of the whole. It does not dictate whether or not a game lives; it increases the population, which was something we didn't need when we closed it, but now it is something that is a jewel. We are mining for that jewel, but we cannot cut through rock, stone, and precious metal to obtain it within a day. Patience is one of the hardest things to deal with, from my experiences on the game and in other areas of life. It's not easy to wait for something-- especially something you don't have control over. The idea and reinforcement of a "dying" game is not aiding to our goal, though. We see the concerns, we know what is going wrong. It's all a matter of getting it done, which we will do. I hope this helps, but I cannot repeat so much as much has already been addressed in other threads.

For those of you who want to keep tabs on what is being worked on concerning the website or would like to see a list of known things that aren't working/still need to be addressed, click HERE.