Hi there. My name is Spottedphyre; been kinda on and off FH for quite some time and still love the RPing aspect of it and character creation, custom maps, etc. Please let me know if this is in the wrong category if it is.
After much over a year of absence, I hopped back into FH excited over what I might encounter. I encountered the exact same thing from when I left; same maps, same issues, same frustrations; nothing had changed.
I know the team is very busy with a number of other things, but almost literally nothing has been changed or been improved on. The only differences I noticed were a barren snowy map with no features and a new spawn point, the Lonely Cave. The graphics and details are exactly from when I started playing FH years ago, and the official maps are still particularly bland. Between portals is an immensely large distance (at least in the Flourite Plains), and even finding the further portals is a hastle. The furthest parts of the map don't really incite a desire to explore, and people hardly get the urge the go there unless they desire to be far, far away from any other players (which is a good thing in its own way). I know FH is a pursuit of passion, and even as is people still love it very much (not to mention it's still fairly the only game of it's 'genre'), but I have to be honest and say i'm not seeing the effort anymore.
To be honest, the biggest update in the longest time (in terms of developement) was the canine update and that was ages ago. The UI is still unrefined, and the textures haven't been updated since FH began. The model animations are still awkward at times and hardly any improvements have been made to the character customization. That standard FH held a long time ago isn't being upheld anymore; it really does feel like it's been frozen in time.
I'm sure if FH started updating and becoming more and more than what's it's been the past few years, it can become something to really marvel at! If busy staff is an issue, why not find some part-time or new staff that's also willing to work based solely on passion and the desire to learn? Me and my friends fiddled with how FH worked a long time ago and got really interested in game developement; some even got a team together and started working on their own game! Some of the content in FH is extremely easy to work with and customize to the brim, like map terrain and object placing. It would be extremely easy to find someone who was really passionate about world-creating and set them on a project while the rest worked on other content. As a player and someone who is involved in parts of game developement, improving FH in anyone free time despite having a busy schedule would already have fantastic results in mere months time; not years where the game's been on a standstill.
This critique might seem a bit harsh, and I truly mean every respect to the developers; you made a pretty decent game! But FH is getting ancient and outdated compared to other games, and soon might come a time where FH is nothing more than a mere memory. This probably is more an 'opinion' than an idea compared to the rest of this topic's content, but please do something big for FH, like update the oldest maps (redux), update the UI, something.
