Feral Heart

Game & Forum Discussion => Game Discussion => Game Suggestions & Ideas => Topic started by: NicNac on August 02, 2018, 06:37:51 pm

Title: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again NEW POLL
Post by: NicNac on August 02, 2018, 06:37:51 pm
Hello thanks for taking the time to read my suggestion and opinion! First of all I'd like to start by saying I've been on this game since I was 10 and I'm 18 now. Thats crazy! Well recently I've noticed the HUGE drop in activity which is very sad to me. As all of us members that have been here for a while know, we lack the source code. We can only make art modifications to the game. A lot of people have been quitting Feralheart because nothing is changing.
   NOW before you say "But NicNac we have the updates!", Thats not what I think is the problem here. As I've said, I joined when I was 10. I HAD NO IDEA what "literate" meant! I went around and asked all the advertisers at the cape portal because I desperately wanted to join Warriors Rps. Eventually someone answered my question. Long story short, Feralheart taught me how to write properly. I was in 4-5th grade I think! I'd spend my summers all day on the game over-dramatisizing my characters in my imagination while listening to music. We had such a huge community of people and so much passion for our characters and the RP! Wolf rps, Cat rps, Horse rps, Dragon rps, Street dogs, Humans, Lion king, Warriors, Angel, Demon, and even more!
  I think the reason why people are leaving is the lack of community. The only rps I ever see are Wolf packs, occasionally lion and Warriors. People are eager to join because the idea pleases them but when they join the reality is different. Its not how it used to be. Members are saying they want the old feralheart back and I think what they are meaning is they want the community to grow again. To be large and thrive. I see about 320 people online max each day. I remember when 800 max was online! I remember seeing ALL kinds of rps everywhere, literate or illiterate but the good thing was that people were having fun!
  Granted most of us were children and thats okay plus the point! How are we supposed to grow if other non-FH are interested in all these other kinds of games or they dont know what rp is because we are staying in our own little circle community. We arent that big in members and registration is mostly always closed so how are we supposed to grow if no one hears about us? What we need is free registration for everyone! For the curious kids who wander to find this game and join and LEARN how to rp, learn how to be literate and join our community! This is how we can grow. How are we expected to grow when registration is barely open? People are waiting to join and loosing interest waiting.
 What makes me really sad is the fact that the only people im running into are the same exact people I met 8 years ago. No one new! Rightnow everyones preoccupied by the same kinds of rps with the same people and adding a discord to better communicate because no one comes online into the game anymore as often. They join a group to be apart of but dont get on. Im guilty of this as well. I realize server lag is a problem and young children can cause problems but isnt that what we all went through? We cant grow as a community if we dont let diversity in, if we dont let anyone in at all. I think Feralheart can still function even though we dont have the source code. We just need to give the young ones a chance. This generation of FH kids are grown up/almost all grown up and we need the others to join now and continue to let us grow as a community.
 Dont get me wrong I enjoy the updates and all but this is a game who has the sole purpose of communicating with others. How are we supposed to fully enjoy the updates if there arent a lot of people the enjoy the updates with? I say open the registration and let whoever join. Let us grow again instead of keeping us halted at a stop because the longer this goes on it seems the more the community depletes.. Plus who wouldnt find it entertaining and fun to teach kids how to rp and why the red eyewhile angry cliche shouldnt be used? XD Also for all my oldies out there, "Hello general ;) "
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again
Post by: Kastilla on August 02, 2018, 07:30:39 pm
Hello general! ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)   

I believe we should have registration open during holidays, random weekends, or do something like Flight Rising used to do.

I see your reasoning, though. At the same time, there are newbies that require our aid anyway!~ That, and they seem to learn on their own over time, much like we did.
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again
Post by: Kuri on August 02, 2018, 09:12:12 pm
Pretty much, open registration, watch what happens (what's the worst that could happen?).  If i was in charge it's likely have happened already, but i'm not.
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again
Post by: NicNac on August 03, 2018, 12:07:42 am
Hello general! ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)   

I believe we should have registration open during holidays, random weekends, or do something like Flight Rising used to do.

I see your reasoning, though. At the same time, there are newbies that require our aid anyway!~ That, and they seem to learn on their own over time, much like we did.
Well if its open at specific times like that, thats still not much time. I say we open registration completley for just a bit and see what happens. If the number of people increases too much we can close it but if the number doesnt increase quickly it means we need to spread the word about Feralheart again. Perhaps keep it open around the update and let newbies join. I think opening it completley even for just a bit would be a good jump for the community. We may have a few newbies but I think we need more. Tbh I think the attitude of FH needs to change. Now its just a bunch of advanced rpers that are teaching very few newbies to be exactly the same as them, only accepting super literate people who know what they are doing with super strict rules, all the mass markings, all the items, all the maps. There arent really any mapless or newb friendly rp AT ALL.
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again
Post by: Skat on August 03, 2018, 02:01:07 am
I like this idea.

I think there is a fine line on protecting the game and slowly killing it.

Everyone waits for registraction to open to make accounts for friends, I know people waiting months for it to open but lost interest because they don't have as free time as they used to and lack of enthusiasm can damage the game.

I agree that we need new people because the old community grew confident to 'Oh well I am known already' and it's sad because they get so judgemental over newbie characters, 'iliterate' designs and mapless roleplays, even with fandom characters, and it grew to be an obnoxious place to chill to the point whatever you say, do, create might trigger someone.

We need the old Roleplays where everyone, despite the literature, would join. New people need a chance to explore the game and bring new ideas (roleplaying or not) in it.

Unfortunately the new maps have more than enough similar features with eachother so people don't hang around too much and only prefer staying in The Grounds and it's really a recruiting place only so there isn't really any space to roleplay where alot of people are around except from Cherika Valley which is one of the best maps, if not the best, in the entire update.

I missed the horse, deer, fox, dragon, bird, cougar, sabertooth RPs around. The variety of roleplays is slowly dying to three options and even so people still judging everything moving.

I think new people will make the tension vanish and it would be new experience all over again~
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again
Post by: NicNac on August 03, 2018, 02:29:38 am
Pretty much, open registration, watch what happens (what's the worst that could happen?).  If i was in charge it's likely have happened already, but i'm not.
I think that would be the best option in my opinion
I like this idea.

I think there is a fine line on protecting the game and slowly killing it.

Everyone waits for registraction to open to make accounts for friends, I know people waiting months for it to open but lost interest because they don't have as free time as they used to and lack of enthusiasm can damage the game.

I agree that we need new people because the old community grew confident to 'Oh well I am known already' and it's sad because they get so judgemental over newbie characters, 'iliterate' designs and mapless roleplays, even with fandom characters, and it grew to be an obnoxious place to chill to the point whatever you say, do, create might trigger someone.

We need the old Roleplays where everyone, despite the literature, would join. New people need a chance to explore the game and bring new ideas (roleplaying or not) in it.

Unfortunately the new maps have more than enough similar features with eachother so people don't hang around too much and only prefer staying in The Grounds and it's really a recruiting place only so there isn't really any space to roleplay where alot of people are around except from Cherika Valley which is one of the best maps, if not the best, in the entire update.

I missed the horse, deer, fox, dragon, bird, cougar, sabertooth RPs around. The variety of roleplays is slowly dying to three options and even so people still judging everything moving.

I think new people will make the tension vanish and it would be new experience all over again~
Some people are saying that the admins and such dont have control of the registration. I think that is very untrue. They have changed the registration multiple times. Unless they've some how miraculously lost control over it, its VERY unlikely. At first I thought they were trying to get FH to die down but with this new patch coming out I'm hoping thats not the case
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again NEW POLL
Post by: Michen_S on August 03, 2018, 03:07:44 pm
Yeah, I remember I managed to register because I just plain got lucky with how much free time I had.

It does seem like an oddball choice to have the registration on random for an hour two times a day. They once put it in effect because all the new users registering and playing overloaded the server. Nowadays I'm sure whether that's necessary anymore. However, if we have registrations open 24/7 again the problem could potentially come back. What the staff CAN do with the current player decrease is put open registration for one day in the week. This has been requested many times before to no avail.

I think there's something else the admins can do to increase the flow of new members, though. The idea is that the registration still opens at random, but the staff could simply increase the odds for wannabe-new members instead. This can be done by either increasing how often registration opens or extending how long registration remains open. That might be a relatively small change compared to what other members suggested, but every bit helps.

Oh, and inform new players better about the "Play Game" page on the website. Not everyone reads stickied threads on the forum before launching the FeralHeart program. I don't know how many questions of people being unable to login to the game have been answered by sending them to the Play Game tab in the Game Help board. Implementing this should save everyone some time and frustration. Only having the error "can't connect to front server" does not help.
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again NEW POLL
Post by: NicNac on August 03, 2018, 07:14:09 pm


It does seem like an oddball choice to have the registration on random for an hour two times a day. They once put it in effect because all the new users registering and playing overloaded the server. Nowadays I'm sure whether that's necessary anymore. However, if we have registrations open 24/7 again the problem could potentially come back. What the staff CAN do with the current player decrease is put open registration for one day in the week. This has been requested many times before to no avail.


Well FH isnt really that popular anymore. If we keep it open yes we'll certainly get some new people but I think its time to get the server like that again. We need to get the bustle and boom back to our community. We cant just keep trickling people in, because we are currently deteriorating faster than we are building. To be honest, it would be great to get the server like that because it would be the jump we need. Newbies are here to greet newbies, experienced players can greet the new, new will be able to make a group and actually get members to join instead of sitting in The Grounds getting ignored by the experienced players because we are too literate for them or they arent literate enough or that they dont know the basics.

 Rightnow, WE are the problem. Recently, I've been sitting and observing the grounds and especially yesterday, what made me sad was the fact that someone was sitting there
 alone by the water, advertising A MOVIE saying, "does anyone wanna talk?", REPEATEDLY! The only people around were tabbed out or advertising for their own group. Not to
 mention yesterday I saw three groups advertising for a DISCORD roleplay in FERALHEART. They specifically stated that they were only advertising in FH and that they wouldnt
 be roleplaying in game. These "discorded/sited" groups are whats helping bring us to our knees. Now nothing is wrong with roleplaying on discord. The problem is that people
 arent even playing the game anymore. They are feeding off of the community instead of joining back in.

Not to mention the only people I have seen that pay super close attention to the registration, are people who already have an account that want to make another one just so they can change their username. I am guilty of that personally but, this is the one time I will ever do it. I think we need to advertise FH again. If the staff is going to make updates, they should honestly open registration. They cant make an update for a game thats not going to be played. I mean hell, make cool videos, tell others about it, hype up the new update and once its released, open the registration. Let new players and old who lost their accounts come and enjoy a full community again.
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again NEW POLL
Post by: Tigg on August 03, 2018, 07:36:26 pm


It does seem like an oddball choice to have the registration on random for an hour two times a day. They once put it in effect because all the new users registering and playing overloaded the server. Nowadays I'm sure whether that's necessary anymore. However, if we have registrations open 24/7 again the problem could potentially come back. What the staff CAN do with the current player decrease is put open registration for one day in the week. This has been requested many times before to no avail.


Well FH isnt really that popular anymore. If we keep it open yes we'll certainly get some new people but I think its time to get the server like that again. We need to get the bustle and boom back to our community. We cant just keep trickling people in, because we are currently deteriorating faster than we are building. To be honest, it would be great to get the server like that because it would be the jump we need. Newbies are here to greet newbies, experienced players can greet the new, new will be able to make a group and actually get members to join instead of sitting in The Grounds getting ignored by the experienced players because we are too literate for them or they arent literate enough or that they dont know the basics.

 Rightnow, WE are the problem. Recently, I've been sitting and observing the grounds and especially yesterday, what made me sad was the fact that someone was sitting there
 alone by the water, advertising A MOVIE saying, "does anyone wanna talk?", REPEATEDLY! The only people around were tabbed out or advertising for their own group. Not to
 mention yesterday I saw three groups advertising for a DISCORD roleplay in FERALHEART. They specifically stated that they were only advertising in FH and that they wouldnt
 be roleplaying in game. These "discorded/sited" groups are whats helping bring us to our knees. Now nothing is wrong with roleplaying on discord. The problem is that people
 arent even playing the game anymore. They are feeding off of the community instead of joining back in.

Not to mention the only people I have seen that pay super close attention to the registration, are people who already have an account that want to make another one just so they can change their username. I am guilty of that personally but, this is the one time I will ever do it. I think we need to advertise FH again. If the staff is going to make updates, they should honestly open registration. They cant make an update for a game thats not going to be played. I mean hell, make cool videos, tell others about it, hype up the new update and once its released, open the registration. Let new players and old who lost their accounts come and enjoy a full community again.


I am reading this topic but wasnt responding yet, since i didnt knew what to say.
As retired FH staff and now owner of a new own game i agree that FH has lost a giant amount of its daily online users. A lot have left after the maps update, and who knows what happens to them when some old maps are hopefully get back?
On the other hand, players usually grow out of FH and considering for how long reg is restricted, yes, old players maybe grew out and therefore left, restricted reg however prevents a healthy flow of new ones getting in. Double accounts, right now, probably are a thing to handle again when its needet to. Right now my opinion is that the userbase needs to get healthy again. Considering how many guests are viewing the forum, FH could probably get a whooping 100 to 200 new players at once. And those maybe tell their friends and spread more and more the word of FH so it can grow back to being healthy.

However, i am sure this topic, as hot as it is nowadays, is still a thing to staff. The pros in sight of users probably are big, but things need to be seen and understood from different sides.

I am too hoping that FH rises again, its users and staff are still great and deserve a healthy and active community.
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again NEW POLL
Post by: Skat on August 03, 2018, 10:01:30 pm
Pretty much, open registration, watch what happens (what's the worst that could happen?).  If i was in charge it's likely have happened already, but i'm not.
I think that would be the best option in my opinion
I like this idea.

I think there is a fine line on protecting the game and slowly killing it.

Everyone waits for registraction to open to make accounts for friends, I know people waiting months for it to open but lost interest because they don't have as free time as they used to and lack of enthusiasm can damage the game.

I agree that we need new people because the old community grew confident to 'Oh well I am known already' and it's sad because they get so judgemental over newbie characters, 'iliterate' designs and mapless roleplays, even with fandom characters, and it grew to be an obnoxious place to chill to the point whatever you say, do, create might trigger someone.

We need the old Roleplays where everyone, despite the literature, would join. New people need a chance to explore the game and bring new ideas (roleplaying or not) in it.

Unfortunately the new maps have more than enough similar features with eachother so people don't hang around too much and only prefer staying in The Grounds and it's really a recruiting place only so there isn't really any space to roleplay where alot of people are around except from Cherika Valley which is one of the best maps, if not the best, in the entire update.

I missed the horse, deer, fox, dragon, bird, cougar, sabertooth RPs around. The variety of roleplays is slowly dying to three options and even so people still judging everything moving.

I think new people will make the tension vanish and it would be new experience all over again~
Some people are saying that the admins and such dont have control of the registration. I think that is very untrue. They have changed the registration multiple times. Unless they've some how miraculously lost control over it, its VERY unlikely. At first I thought they were trying to get FH to die down but with this new patch coming out I'm hoping thats not the case

Admins don't have control of registraction indeed. I think Raz is the only one who's in charge of it and I don't think they want it to die but just protect it, however this over-protection is slowly killing it. People are not as attached and drained to FH as they used to and registraction opening randomly is a huge factor of that. People get angry they can't play the game on they day-offs because they don't have an account so they just give up on it. I think shutting the registraction is a huge problem.



It does seem like an oddball choice to have the registration on random for an hour two times a day. They once put it in effect because all the new users registering and playing overloaded the server. Nowadays I'm sure whether that's necessary anymore. However, if we have registrations open 24/7 again the problem could potentially come back. What the staff CAN do with the current player decrease is put open registration for one day in the week. This has been requested many times before to no avail.


Well FH isnt really that popular anymore. If we keep it open yes we'll certainly get some new people but I think its time to get the server like that again. We need to get the bustle and boom back to our community. We cant just keep trickling people in, because we are currently deteriorating faster than we are building. To be honest, it would be great to get the server like that because it would be the jump we need. Newbies are here to greet newbies, experienced players can greet the new, new will be able to make a group and actually get members to join instead of sitting in The Grounds getting ignored by the experienced players because we are too literate for them or they arent literate enough or that they dont know the basics.

 Rightnow, WE are the problem. Recently, I've been sitting and observing the grounds and especially yesterday, what made me sad was the fact that someone was sitting there
 alone by the water, advertising A MOVIE saying, "does anyone wanna talk?", REPEATEDLY! The only people around were tabbed out or advertising for their own group. Not to
 mention yesterday I saw three groups advertising for a DISCORD roleplay in FERALHEART. They specifically stated that they were only advertising in FH and that they wouldnt
 be roleplaying in game. These "discorded/sited" groups are whats helping bring us to our knees. Now nothing is wrong with roleplaying on discord. The problem is that people
 arent even playing the game anymore. They are feeding off of the community instead of joining back in.

Not to mention the only people I have seen that pay super close attention to the registration, are people who already have an account that want to make another one just so they can change their username. I am guilty of that personally but, this is the one time I will ever do it. I think we need to advertise FH again. If the staff is going to make updates, they should honestly open registration. They cant make an update for a game thats not going to be played. I mean hell, make cool videos, tell others about it, hype up the new update and once its released, open the registration. Let new players and old who lost their accounts come and enjoy a full community again.


I am reading this topic but wasnt responding yet, since i didnt knew what to say.
As retired FH staff and now owner of a new own game i agree that FH has lost a giant amount of its daily online users. A lot have left after the maps update, and who knows what happens to them when some old maps are hopefully get back?
On the other hand, players usually grow out of FH and considering for how long reg is restricted, yes, old players maybe grew out and therefore left, restricted reg however prevents a healthy flow of new ones getting in. Double accounts, right now, probably are a thing to handle again when its needet to. Right now my opinion is that the userbase needs to get healthy again. Considering how many guests are viewing the forum, FH could probably get a whooping 100 to 200 new players at once. And those maybe tell their friends and spread more and more the word of FH so it can grow back to being healthy.

However, i am sure this topic, as hot as it is nowadays, is still a thing to staff. The pros in sight of users probably are big, but things need to be seen and understood from different sides.

I am too hoping that FH rises again, its users and staff are still great and deserve a healthy and active community.

At this point, I am sorry to say but double accounts exist so friends of the user creators can join the game. When last registraction opened I have made accounts for my friends who could never play the game because of registraction. Sub/alt accounts are not what the game needs, it's the new people it needs.

The old people grew to know one way to roleplay and thats literate, realistic and mapped Warrior cats, Lion or Wolf roleplays. It needs the new people to roam around maps, have fun and get te community rise to a friendlier one.

There was a new member asking for people to play with them while I was recruiting and most of the 'old' community ignored them and were, infact, rude to them. This is why it needs new members. So they can explore together and play with eachother without the need to care about being literate, mapped or realistic. Just to have fun.
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again NEW POLL
Post by: NicNac on August 04, 2018, 12:21:45 am

Admins don't have control of registraction indeed. I think Raz is the only one who's in charge of it and I don't think they want it to die but just protect it, however this over-protection is slowly killing it. People are not as attached and drained to FH as they used to and registraction opening randomly is a huge factor of that. People get angry they can't play the game on they day-offs because they don't have an account so they just give up on it. I think shutting the registraction is a huge problem.

I dont see why they cant contact Raz and have them open registration for a bit. It'll be good if we get full servers. Then they can change it back so that all the people that joined can flourish. RELEASE THEM BACK INTO THE WILD aka fh xD
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again NEW POLL
Post by: Kuri on August 04, 2018, 08:43:19 am
This is why it needs new members. So they can explore together and play with eachother without the need to care about being literate, mapped or realistic. Just to have fun.
100% agree.
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again NEW POLL
Post by: NicNac on August 04, 2018, 06:17:13 pm
This is why it needs new members. So they can explore together and play with eachother without the need to care about being literate, mapped or realistic. Just to have fun.
100% agree.
Maybe we should try  to get a bunch of people to vote on this poll? Do you think it would help get attention for the registration? Honestly at this point im terrified FH is gonna die if we dont. Yesterday I saw two more group advertising non fh rps in the game and that scares me.
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again NEW POLL
Post by: WolfQueen on August 04, 2018, 06:34:01 pm
I agree that the registration is slowly decreasing community activity for a multitude of reasons. The thing is tho, games start to age and so does the community. The "old FH" was when FH was still a new thing. 7-8 years now, the community has dwindled due to a lack of actual game updates. A lot of the people back then moved on, and people who are staying matured and seek more mature roleplays.

There's a lack of unique roleplays because they're not considered mature or uniform and don't follow a certain criteria, so they're difficult to control for most people. Plus there's some mean players who judge you if you try to open a fun roleplay and it discourages people from trying. That's why there are so many dull edgy wolf rps. Allowing many new players to join will help the active player amount but I don't think that would make all the diverse groups come back unless we try hard enough. -shrugs loudly-

Yesterday I saw two more group advertising non fh rps in the game and that scares me.
I've seen those as well. They're usually discord rp groups.
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again NEW POLL
Post by: NicNac on August 04, 2018, 07:55:43 pm
I agree that the registration is slowly decreasing community activity for a multitude of reasons. The thing is tho, games start to age and so does the community. The "old FH" was when FH was still a new thing. 7-8 years now, the community has dwindled due to a lack of actual game updates. A lot of the people back then moved on, and people who are staying matured and seek more mature roleplays.
Well yes we can guide them to make more diverse roleplays. But yes I agree. That is why I'm thinking getting newer members will help a ton. They can move forward just like we did. I realize that it wont be the same as "old FH" because that was us. I do however want a new group of people to help continue to move things along and all the while we can guide them and support them so that those other groups who judge wont have that much to judge. Besides, I think if we open registration, a lot of people will actualy stick up for the newbies. Rightnow old players overnumber new, but if the number of newbs grow, it wont be as bad.
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again NEW POLL
Post by: BlueMuzzleFlash on August 07, 2018, 05:37:30 am
I understand and accept that this game may not run optimally without the current system, but it'll likely affect our community in the future.
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again NEW POLL
Post by: SpazPaint on August 08, 2018, 12:17:47 am
From what I've observed, more people are leaving than new people are joining.
I think that opening registration again can help the playerbase reach an equilibrium. It'll help even out the people leaving to the people coming in.

I wasn't around when "The Hack" happened. But almost 3 years have passed since then and I think that the community has had enough time to heal. I know that the staff is doing what they can to prevent this kind of thing from happening again, but I believe that it's time to open the registration
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again NEW POLL
Post by: Ame88 on August 08, 2018, 12:50:47 am
Ack... I've held off from replying to this, since it's a slight touchy topic. Kinda iffy about commenting but- why not XD

I personally feel like it would be a good idea to bring the registration back, however, we do have to realize that this game is run by generic people who have lives too. Granted, they could open it up more often then they do now, if they haven't already.

If I had any ideas as to try and fix this problem, one would be to yes have a set time in the day(s) to have it open for a period of time. This way, players who desperately want to join but have the most difficult time finding when the registration is open, can have a general idea of when it opens, and for how long. This way they can plot out when they can go online and make an account.

That's just throwing a thought out, not like I have a say in what will happen. If I understood more as to why staff have it set up this way, then I could understand more fully around this subject. I do understand however that they are trying to protect the game from the previous hacking incident I think. That happened, oh my, how long ago? I can't even remember.


Admins don't have control of registraction indeed. I think Raz is the only one who's in charge of it and I don't think they want it to die but just protect it, however this over-protection is slowly killing it. People are not as attached and drained to FH as they used to and registraction opening randomly is a huge factor of that. People get angry they can't play the game on they day-offs because they don't have an account so they just give up on it. I think shutting the registraction is a huge problem.


If this is true, that Raz is the only one who can open and close the registration, then I can understand if it could be a strain on him. Maybe if they want to do this, Raz could pick out days and times that he could open the registration, granted if he has any free time other than what he does to open the registration. Then it would be easier for everyone to get registered. Again, if I knew more about how the registration works, then I could elaborate more on this subject.

I do have to comment on the over protection. I agree that being over protective is slowly suffocating the game and all it's glory, but I do see why they've come to do that. I think they could pull back a bit with the protecting, just a little bit. I have a feeling that if they keep clamping down on protecting it, then the game will slowly die off.

But nonetheless, this whole thing is left up to the mods and their decisions. I'm gonna trust that they'll come up with a compromise for this situation, or at least a solution to make it less of a pain =)
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again NEW POLL
Post by: Edolicious on August 08, 2018, 01:09:37 am
 Registration was like this back before the hacking; that wasn't the cause, which is good!

Quote from: Red
Why does the registration work this way?
A lot of people ask the question "why" the registration work this way, and the reason is quite a reasonable one. Feralheart is really just another game online, taken care of and run by people in their free time out of mere interest and love for the game itself. We want to make sure it works as well as we can, and that's where quantity is not the only thing to think about. We want to keep the site and game up and running smoothly without hiccups and issues due to the registration part, and just reduce general abuse of the registration system where users would intentionally hog accounts, those who really want or need an account will get one eventually. Even though a greater number of players is always fun to see, it cannot always be a priority since we need to look a bit further ahead than just that.

More information on registration can be found here. (https://feral-heart.com/smf/index.php?topic=50461.0/)

At this point- and this is just my opinion - registration having scheduled opening times would be really beneficial. Really. I know it says there that we can't just hope for a greater number of players and have to look at the big picture, but I completely agree with everything that's being said about the registration hampering the game. People really are leaving faster than they're joining. Even after just a year, forum activity seems to really have slowed down. I'm in discord servers where people talk daily about leaving FH; I really hate to see it happening.

About the 'put FH out there more' bit, I remember someone mentioning an official FH youtube channel a while ago. I think that would be such an incredible idea, if done properly. Youtube is how a ton of us found FeralHeart; why not use that fact?

I just hope that however the registration process continues on, it's the right choice.
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again NEW POLL
Post by: NicNac on August 08, 2018, 06:49:24 pm
Registration was like this back before the hacking; that wasn't the cause, which is good!

Quote from: Red
Why does the registration work this way?
A lot of people ask the question "why" the registration work this way, and the reason is quite a reasonable one. Feralheart is really just another game online, taken care of and run by people in their free time out of mere interest and love for the game itself. We want to make sure it works as well as we can, and that's where quantity is not the only thing to think about. We want to keep the site and game up and running smoothly without hiccups and issues due to the registration part, and just reduce general abuse of the registration system where users would intentionally hog accounts, those who really want or need an account will get one eventually. Even though a greater number of players is always fun to see, it cannot always be a priority since we need to look a bit further ahead than just that.

More information on registration can be found here. (https://feral-heart.com/smf/index.php?topic=50461.0/)

At this point- and this is just my opinion - registration having scheduled opening times would be really beneficial. Really. I know it says there that we can't just hope for a greater number of players and have to look at the big picture, but I completely agree with everything that's being said about the registration hampering the game. People really are leaving faster than they're joining. Even after just a year, forum activity seems to really have slowed down. I'm in discord servers where people talk daily about leaving FH; I really hate to see it happening.

About the 'put FH out there more' bit, I remember someone mentioning an official FH youtube channel a while ago. I think that would be such an incredible idea, if done properly. Youtube is how a ton of us found FeralHeart; why not use that fact?

I just hope that however the registration process continues on, it's the right choice.
I couldnt agree more. If they are gonna come out with this new update, I feel as though they should really advertise FH nad work out keeping the registration open, even if just on certain days of the week because if this over-protection continues, there wont be many people at all the enjoy and experience the update. At that point, all the people who worked on the update put a ton of effort into something thatll only be appreciated by a very small amount of people. Id love to see more new people flood in. I mean, 300 is cap the ive seen everyday and majority of those people are tabbed! Fh used to have 500-600. Even if 450-500 could be our cap, it would be better than now. What happens when we dip into the 100's?
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again NEW POLL
Post by: wolfdog01 on August 09, 2018, 03:53:54 am
I also have to agree wirh this. Registration needs to open more, even for just one day out of the week. I don't think it's losing people from lack of updates or change, it's losing people because no one new is coming in to give us old timers something to do. When I first joined I would see 700-800 people online regularly, even reaching into the 1000s. Things got crazy and the lag could become unbearable, but it was a sign that the game was healthy and huge. People were silly and funny, making fast food characters and mate centers, it was hectic and I loved it lol. Now everyone seems so serious and they talk only in groups or something.
Now if I try to start a conversation it takes a bit of work but in the end everyone seems to have a good time. I think with the new patch coming out it will attract more people, but we need to help them join and let them know that we are accepting new members at this time and this date. The old maps were very simple and didn't really connect at all with each other, now the maps are so detailed and cared for but they are all pretty similar except for the underwater one. I think the new patch will combine everything, extreme detail and care with a lot of variety and little connection to each one. If it is going in that direction then I think registration needs to open up as well, with an update like that people should be flooding in to check it out.
I love this game, I got a tattoo of it on my wrist, I have memories that will never be forgotten. I want to see it continue to develop and grow as much as it can but I'm scared we may not get there in time.
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again NEW POLL
Post by: Tessel. on August 09, 2018, 04:36:03 pm
 I gotta agree with this. As someone who has been on this game since it's initial release, I remember when the online user count was 300-500+. Did it cause lag? Obviously, but at the same time it was at it's peak of popularity and it was amazing watching it grow and grow. I understand why the registration closed due to the large mass, but that's also the reason why I believe many users have left to this day. Of course, in general people grow out of things, have a life outside of the online world, etc. But for the people who do want to join, it's a pain waiting for registration to open considering how random it is. I have no issue with registration being closed at times, I just think at this point it should be open more than it's closed, yknow? Or have it scheduled in some way. I have no idea what part the admins play in the registration and whether they have control of it or not, which if they don't, it's completely understandable and I get it's something they can't do. However, if it's possible, I think the idea of having registration open at certain times which people are aware of, or even just for longer periods of time, would be very beneficial. That would draw in more people, especially if it's advertised, along with the new patches/updates we're getting already. I'd love nothing more than to see this game grow once again and continue to develop. It's been open for so long, we're in need of fresh members. Though this is just my opinion, and whatever happens, happens :)
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again NEW POLL
Post by: Phomentix on August 09, 2018, 09:04:56 pm
I hold a similar opinion to you. I've been playing since I was 10 also, and I am now 16, and I understand fully where you're coming from.

The community back then allowed for growth in learning and wasn't insanely strict on activity. When I first joined, a kind leader of a lion pride taught me the rules of RP and how to write (even though I was a bit of a power-player, which I cringe at to this very day heh).

The disallowing of registration made sense at the time as there was a suffacating amount of people registering and never using their accounts again - however it has gone on for too long and has slowly been crushing the life out of our community.

Furthermore, older players (like us) are beginning to take their leave, and new registered people have nowhere to go and nobody to learn from. It doesn't help that we're harsh on them with our Literacy and such. Opening the registration 24/7 would allow for a new and younger player base to grow and develop into the community we all knew and loved.

Maybe one day it could be random again, but until then, it needs to be fixed.
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again NEW POLL
Post by: NicNac on August 10, 2018, 04:32:33 am
I hold a similar opinion to you. I've been playing since I was 10 also, and I am now 16, and I understand fully where you're coming from.

The community back then allowed for growth in learning and wasn't insanely strict on activity. When I first joined, a kind leader of a lion pride taught me the rules of RP and how to write (even though I was a bit of a power-player, which I cringe at to this very day heh).

The disallowing of registration made sense at the time as there was a suffacating amount of people registering and never using their accounts again - however it has gone on for too long and has slowly been crushing the life out of our community.

Furthermore, older players (like us) are beginning to take their leave, and new registered people have nowhere to go and nobody to learn from. It doesn't help that we're harsh on them with our Literacy and such. Opening the registration 24/7 would allow for a new and younger player base to grow and develop into the community we all knew and loved.

Maybe one day it could be random again, but until then, it needs to be fixed.
I hope the admins/mods have looked at this yet. I'd like to hear their opinion on it tbh. I hate saying this but I know the people in charge arent dumb at all and they can see us dwindling but im afraid that maybe they are purposefully letting us dwindle down..Id hope not of course! Its just a fear ive had. I mean if its a capacity thing on the website, they could go through the registry and take down the account duplicates. I know I have a duplicate or two I created a long time ago and I wish I could take them down.
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again NEW POLL
Post by: NicNac on August 10, 2018, 04:53:32 am
I also have to agree wirh this. Registration needs to open more, even for just one day out of the week. I don't think it's losing people from lack of updates or change, it's losing people because no one new is coming in to give us old timers something to do. When I first joined I would see 700-800 people online regularly, even reaching into the 1000s. Things got crazy and the lag could become unbearable, but it was a sign that the game was healthy and huge. People were silly and funny, making fast food characters and mate centers, it was hectic and I loved it lol. Now everyone seems so serious and they talk only in groups or something.
Now if I try to start a conversation it takes a bit of work but in the end everyone seems to have a good time. I think with the new patch coming out it will attract more people, but we need to help them join and let them know that we are accepting new members at this time and this date. The old maps were very simple and didn't really connect at all with each other, now the maps are so detailed and cared for but they are all pretty similar except for the underwater one. I think the new patch will combine everything, extreme detail and care with a lot of variety and little connection to each one. If it is going in that direction then I think registration needs to open up as well, with an update like that people should be flooding in to check it out.
I love this game, I got a tattoo of it on my wrist, I have memories that will never be forgotten. I want to see it continue to develop and grow as much as it can but I'm scared we may not get there in time.
I too think the update will attract some people. They should open registration for a few days as the update rolls out and if they let the community know they are doing that, maybe we could advertise and hype it up. Also I woould have a tattoo of it by now if I had been old enough. Ill probably get one in the future!

 I gotta agree with this. As someone who has been on this game since it's initial release, I remember when the online user count was 300-500+. Did it cause lag? Obviously, but at the same time it was at it's peak of popularity and it was amazing watching it grow and grow. I understand why the registration closed due to the large mass, but that's also the reason why I believe many users have left to this day. Of course, in general people grow out of things, have a life outside of the online world, etc. But for the people who do want to join, it's a pain waiting for registration to open considering how random it is. I have no issue with registration being closed at times, I just think at this point it should be open more than it's closed, yknow? Or have it scheduled in some way. I have no idea what part the admins play in the registration and whether they have control of it or not, which if they don't, it's completely understandable and I get it's something they can't do. However, if it's possible, I think the idea of having registration open at certain times which people are aware of, or even just for longer periods of time, would be very beneficial. That would draw in more people, especially if it's advertised, along with the new patches/updates we're getting already. I'd love nothing more than to see this game grow once again and continue to develop. It's been open for so long, we're in need of fresh members. Though this is just my opinion, and whatever happens, happens :)
Same here! Being here since its initial or atleast SUPER close to it, I had such an amazing time with all the people. I know Red says to overlook the population and focus on the rp but we cant have rps if there arent enough people and the only kind of people just join an rp and never get on again or are just tabbed the whole time. I miss running around flourite and seeing all matters of groups to join! You cant really do that anymore. Just to get in one rp these days is very intensive. You need to fill out a roleplay sample that to be honest, is judged on the recruiters POV of what is considered "good and literate writing". You have to join their discord, their website, read the rules and regulations, download the map, download the presets, sometimes its required that you have a bio already, you have to sometimes read character creation guides, they make you change minute details about your character IE: "your eyes are a TAD bit too bright/dark", you gotta log and add sometimes long and complicated tags, you gotta pick a rank out of like a million sub-ranks, you have to read some of the lore, etc. By the end of all of that, its exhausting and especially me, i dont have the drive i had 20-30 minutes ago after trying to do all of this to rp. The newbies who come in have no idea how to do ANY of this and we just EXPECT them to know. If you mess up on an RPS just a little bit, you are denied access and never allowed in. Come on! Like, teach the poor guy if his punctuation is like two commas off!  Thats how I learned. Not to mention so many of the leaders of these roleplays (especially in warriors roleplays) are ALL THE SAME PEOPLE ALL THE TIME. Every single one of them almost its the same people leading them. These people are so used to being leaders, its like they have this cold wall and they act all stone faced and "professional". Its an rp for gods sake! I get it, you have to enforce rules but when you get suuper into it, like being extra into it, its boring and to be frank, quite irritating. Cool, I tripped up on one small thing and now i have one strike out of three and then im banned. These things to me dont bother me as much as they used to. All of us who have been around a while are used to all of this, numb to it. Maybe its time we get a lot of new people in to teach us how to have fun again.
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again NEW POLL
Post by: Kuri on August 11, 2018, 04:48:55 am
. I miss running around flourite and seeing all matters of groups to join! You cant really do that anymore. Just to get in one rp these days is very intensive. ...................

 Maybe its time we get a lot of new people in to teach us how to have fun again.
Yup, my observations exactly.
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again NEW POLL
Post by: ShadowFang1355 on August 12, 2018, 04:19:57 pm
I think registration should be open 24/7 again. Maybe when the server starts getting too full they can close it?

Personally, I rather it constantly stay open. I rarely meet new people anymore and the random registration can make people trying to join forget about the game, especially since it's almost always closed.

The lack of new players makes recruiting for my group painfully slow too. It's really just dropping movie clips for the same people who already decided they aren't interested. (Plus the majority of the Grounds seems to be into packs, clans, or prides now. Only makes it harder to recruit with barely anyone new around.)
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again NEW POLL
Post by: NicNac on August 12, 2018, 06:24:03 pm
Maybe when the server starts getting too full they can close it?.

The lack of new players makes recruiting for my group painfully slow too. It's really just dropping movie clips for the same people who already decided they aren't interested. (Plus the majority of the Grounds seems to be into packs, clans, or prides now. Only makes it harder to recruit with barely anyone new around.)
Exactly! Having it open till we fill up would be a miracle!
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again NEW POLL
Post by: Arelyka on August 12, 2018, 08:18:40 pm
god i joined when i was 11 or 12 i believe, i LOVED how full and lively everything was! everyone chatting and RPing, it wa so much fun and easy to make friends and now? its just... empty... and its practically boring now since no one even wants to even TALK to anyone anymore; most of my friends left FH and i just occasionally log in just to create a preset or two and thats about it... FH really needs to open up registration again because this community is simply dying at an alarming rate.
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again NEW POLL
Post by: Skat on August 18, 2018, 07:23:16 am
Ah I am sorry about not responding to this sooner. Life is harsh, I will try to respond to as many comments as I can.

If this is true, that Raz is the only one who can open and close the registration, then I can understand if it could be a strain on him. Maybe if they want to do this, Raz could pick out days and times that he could open the registration, granted if he has any free time other than what he does to open the registration. Then it would be easier for everyone to get registered. Again, if I knew more about how the registration works, then I could elaborate more on this subject.

I do have to comment on the over protection. I agree that being over protective is slowly suffocating the game and all it's glory, but I do see why they've come to do that. I think they could pull back a bit with the protecting, just a little bit. I have a feeling that if they keep clamping down on protecting it, then the game will slowly die off.
I won't disagree that having to take care of a game + your life is too hard and it needs monitoring and it can be difficult for Raz and for the admins respecrtively. All of the admins are working hard on it and people fail to realize they've been pushed alot, judged by their skills alot when more than a few people were disappointed, causing alot of admins to leave their possition and having to take care of this game while they have their own families, jobs and houses to take care on it can be tiring.

But it comes to the time where you see that the game is slowly getting decreased and challenged by other games on population, reputation and consept. Alot of people who wanted to join Feral-Heart gave up on it because they couldn't join and chose other options such as IT servers, Cereal Soup and such.

I think they should open the registractions every Friday, Saturday and Sunday. This way people can easily have access to the game, get more populated and if they start advertising the updates by giving sneak peeks on youtube and other social media, people will start getting interested and the community will start growing again.

I wasn't around when "The Hack" happened. But almost 3 years have passed since then and I think that the community has had enough time to heal. I know that the staff is doing what they can to prevent this kind of thing from happening again, but I believe that it's time to open the registration

About the hack, if I remember right, they were messing with the game's codes and were making everyone disconnect and they had also hacked some members and admins' accounts and said weird stuff. I remember I was in bonfire when that happened and I briefly remember a guy who had a character of an angry bird talking to me LOL

they had made the feral-heart.com/login page now to prevent this and I think that is good enough. The registraction limit did good to protect the game for a few months - year but now the game is getting cliche.

It's like the IT servers that you just end up chasing around mobs, gaining abilities, all the items and then being nothing left to do, you end up making a new character and restart from bottom. All the Rps are limited to 3. No more fantasy or roleplaying in the public maps, The Grounds is just a square now. The old maps were large enough to have plenty of room for exploring and roleplaying and it's just sad how the game has turned now.

I'd really go for a new beginning to the game and for this to happen we need new people. Otherwise I fear the worst will come for the game. Now the protection became too much and it's leading towards destruction.

I think both members and admins need to have some consideration; Admins to sit and think what the members say (or the logical ones) and members to stop pressuring and pushing the admins to take quick measures and then bashing on them when the outcome is not as expected. The 'bad' current update happened because most of members were pushy and judgemental towards the game. Yes a short update would be nice but not if forced. Most of these members are now gone and probably returned on a sneak account. It's just sad that we must make it crystal clear that we need eachother's support to make the game work.
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again NEW POLL
Post by: Flurr on August 18, 2018, 08:32:45 am
Hm, this topic is grabbing my attention and I would like to view into it. The registration is a big thing that a lot of new people to the site want and get an account for the game. It would be great if we could open the whole registration! But the tiny problem is that   the server would get a bit glitchy/laggy, and it may cause a failed hard drive, servers not connecting again, and populated maps servers going down. But it is still a great idea!! But there has been people asking stuff Like " Can you please open registration for a day? " Or something like " Why does it have to work this way?". While I know staff are going to see this, it will not 100% happen, but the future will tell. But as I stated in the beginning of what it could do to the FH servers, maps, drives. But it works this way probably to keep the site and game organized, and many other reasons to tell as in above. But yep, still a great idea of all of you! But there are some downsides, but it would be fantastic to see the community pushing up to a good amount of players. I'm not trying to be a disagreer even know I sound like one, I agree! Just I wanted to give some clearness on what could happen if it does happen though ^^
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again NEW POLL
Post by: Jango_Fett on August 18, 2018, 06:14:50 pm
the community dying is more than just the fault of the registration, but moreso a fact that the attitude of the community has changed so much that it's left a lot of players burned/jaded.

considering the main excuse for closing registration[or at least, make it essentially non-functional] never made sense in of itself[people make alt accounts still, and at the time it did little to curb the fact that people could make 15+ accounts all their own], the fact that it's even been allowed to go on for so long is mind boggling in of itself.

a small reason i can hear them going about how the community will get too big to manage or the players will outnumber the staff members 100 to 1.
which would be valid if this game wasn't already originally, supposed to be an MMO.
a massively multiplayer online [game].
if you didn't want to go through the trouble of managing a game that's supposed to have a lot of players, why are you doing this instead.
why basically strangle all means of good expansion in your playerbase in this way. it almost feels like instead of adapting to the environment, the environment has been adapted, or rather tailored, to the small management team.

but that's also a bit on the conspiracy theory side i'll admit. but hey, at the end of the day, who's there to harm if only myself.
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again NEW POLL
Post by: LordSuragaha on August 18, 2018, 08:51:25 pm
Idk how exactly to phrase things here without my words some how being taken the wrong way. I do want to be honest, especially because I strongly believe that the staff should remain transparent with the community on most things.

The staff hasn’t turned a blind eye to this subject. I know it’s frustrating when we don’t give you a straight up yes or no answer to things or round about of when or if something can or will be done... but we are reading your concerns and taking deep consideration of things. Keep in mind that a lot of the decisions made here aren’t just out of the whim things. Things have been set to work a particular way for specific reasons. Certain systems also effect the way other systems work so there’s no easy or straight forward right or wrong approach to things.

Feral Heart is a game similar to some other games but with its own unique set of problems... most of which we can’t address and fix the way we want to because of the lack of the game’s source code. There would be much better approaches to things like registration or even the log in system if we had a means to properly correct the issues at root. For this reason many of the simple “fixes” proposed don’t necessarily work for FH’s case.

Truthfully speaking none of us like the registration the way it is.

It would be wonderful to just open it back up 24/7 again for one of the obvious reasons of it making it easier for new users to join. If FH registration worked this way we would definitely have a lot more new blood regularly coming into the community again. I think we all would love this...

But there’s always issues that follow particular decisions made, either leaving it open 24/7, or keeping it random, or having particular days/hours as open times etc... behind the scenes FH has been made to work at best as it could with its limitations. Sadly this doesn’t always mean that it is reflected well upon the player base, so it becomes more of a balancing issue:

 How to keep both the aging broken source code-less game alive and functioning as well as an ever changing and shifting community...

At some point things just can’t catch up, and certain sacrifices end up being made.

It’s no ones fault.

It’s frustrating. It’s frustrating to you, and us. It’s frustrating to all of us as people who care about and love Feral Heart and I wholeheartedly apologize for this.

While we can’t make exact promises, I do want to assure you all that this issue is still being discussed and considered. While we don’t have a lot of options we are weighing them and considering things... We share your concerns as deeply as you all do.

For as long as Feral Heart continues to run we will try our very best to work with things and consider all the possibilities. We’ve come a long way and while things may not have always worked ideally we are still trying our best.

Thank you all for your continued support and feedback.

In due time we hope to reach a decision that can healthily balance both the game/server’s well being and the community’s.

<3




Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again NEW POLL
Post by: Audrey on August 18, 2018, 09:49:50 pm
I'm not big on the forums and have said much here at all...
But I've been on FH for, let's see now, seven years I think? Or been aware of it anyway.

And after the weird 'log in on page to play' and updates I started seeing some problems...
I can't find roleplay on the actual maps anymore. It's all big groups or nothing, and most of them just wanna be on discord anyway, which I'm not interested in. I've faded away like many more because I wasn't interested in Discord and all the like.

Whatever the case is, or whatever the problem is, there definitely seems to be a problem in my eyes. More people could help, maybe. More young crazy wild ones who can't even get into big groups, even. People grow old and get lives, if for no other cause the population of the game would surely decrease because of this; People will move on... I don't know for sure, we'd have to try it and see to know for sure. Maybe they should open registration for a year and see what happens, and if our situation worsens, close it up again? But I'm not up to date on any of this, I'm practically never here on the forums at all.
A friend told me of the state of registration and the like and the poll, and I came to gave a vote in hopes that a change will be made.

Even if supposedly it might cause server issues, was open registration not how it worked in the past? If such is the case, why is registration closed, if in the past everything seemed fine? Unless they are complaining about say, Fluorite Plain's 'Bad Tokens' and Bonfire's lag.  Sure, that was unpleasant. But was it more unpleasant than our current situation?

I guess I'm just saying, I think a change would be nice. And partially open registration doesn't seem like it would make that much of a difference, as it appears to already be open off and on.

I just now read the moderator above me. It seems to be a technical issue... Tragic.
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again NEW POLL
Post by: Jango_Fett on August 18, 2018, 10:03:26 pm
Idk how exactly to phrase things here without my words some how being taken the wrong way. I do want to be honest, especially because I strongly believe that the staff should remain transparent with the community on most things.

Well that's a nice change of pace.

Weird that with all these words I am reading, none of them show any form of transparency. Actually, to me this post takes a long time to say absolutely nothing new.



Feral Heart is a game similar to some other games but with its own unique set of problems... most of which we can’t address and fix the way we want to because of the lack of the game’s source code. There would be much better approaches to things like registration or even the log in system if we had a means to properly correct the issues at root. For this reason many of the simple “fixes” proposed don’t necessarily work for FH’s case.

Of course. Every game has its own problems and hiccups, but this is one that has been around for years and should've been addressed ages ago. The reasons for why it was never handled always changed and in your post you did not clarify as to why.

You also do not explain why these "simple fixes" won't work with Feral Heart. What are the simple fixes?
I'm loosely aware of how the registration works, and from what I can gather with what little[AKA, none] information I have... The source code shouldn't be having an effect on this.
But then again, I don't know if it's just website side going to the game, or what. Because no one explains anything.

I would be understanding if you guys didn't know because you aren't aware of what's even in the source code, but again, you haven't told anyone anything.


Truthfully speaking none of us like the registration the way it is.

It would be wonderful to just open it back up 24/7 again for one of the obvious reasons of it making it easier for new users to join. If FH registration worked this way we would definitely have a lot more new blood regularly coming into the community again. I think we all would love this...

But there’s always issues that follow particular decisions made, either leaving it open 24/7, or keeping it random, or having particular days/hours as open times etc... behind the scenes FH has been made to work at best as it could with its limitations. Sadly this doesn’t always mean that it is reflected well upon the player base, so it becomes more of a balancing issue:

But again, I have to ask:

Why can't it be open 24/7?

You still have no explained this, no one on the Staff Team has. The only thing I can recall as to why it wasn't fixed was a post from Razmirz ages ago about it being broken, and then either him or someone else saying it was meant to be like this.

A registration that opens at random ad nauseum isn't good no matter the game. Flight Rising, a dragon breeding/fighting/raising game has closed registration that only opens on certain dates. It seems to be working out well for them, and they have a larger base of players than Feral Heart does to my knowledge.
So again,

Why not?


How to keep both the aging broken source code-less game alive and functioning as well as an ever changing and shifting community...

At some point things just can’t catch up, and certain sacrifices end up being made.
The community hasn't had an attitude shift since 2016 and it's blatantly obvious. It has actually become easier to manage since most players seem to either police themselves or keep their rule breaks on the lowest of downlows.

What 'certain sacrifices' are you even talking about? What would registration even have to DO with something like the attitude of a community?

I understand the struggle of having to keep up a game/server with code that breaks and has many, many problems. In the past four years I've seen it happen time and time again.
Feral Heart is after all, just very popular abandonware.

But that doesn't excuse a lack of transparency.

A community I've been apart of for a long time that originally begun in 2008 has just about strangled itself because the owner/creator was absent, refused to give out his precious source code, and didn't tell anyone what he was doing. The Staff team on that community followed his example, by not being terribly transparent and keeping things very secret. I know that because I was apart of it at one point.

Struggling to keep a dying game alive isn't reason to keep your community in the dark for over five years.


It’s frustrating. It’s frustrating to you, and us. It’s frustrating to all of us as people who care about and love Feral Heart and I wholeheartedly apologize for this.

While we can’t make exact promises, I do want to assure you all that this issue is still being discussed and considered. While we don’t have a lot of options we are weighing them and considering things... We share your concerns as deeply as you all do.

For as long as Feral Heart continues to run we will try our very best to work with things and consider all the possibilities. We’ve come a long way and while things may not have always worked ideally we are still trying our best.

The apologies don't really mean anything if nothing will actually change. I am very hesitant to believe anything coming from you guys, considering the running theme with the Feral Heart staff team has always been "PR or bust".

I am sure that you guys are actually putting in at least a microbe of effort into figuring out what to do, on top of balancing your real lives, but the way you've been going about it is clearly not working. You're stumbling in the dark that you made because you refuse to use the lightswitch.

If you shared the concerns of the community 'as deeply as you all do', why haven't you been upfront and honest about what's been going on?
And I don't mean 'real life is getting in the way' or 'we are finding a way around the code problem'. Those are vague statements/terms and don't actually say anything.



This entire situation makes absolutely no sense. I feel like I've stepped into Wonderland, or that weird Berenstein Bears alternate universe debacle.
The way that this team has been trying to figure things out is so backwards and slow it puts every single project I've worked on to shame.
I am amazed.




Final note: I'm not trying to be overly hostile or antagonistic, don't get your shorts tangled up. I might sound cynical through my keyboard[Which I am], but I am not trying to be overly mean. I am being curt, brief, and honest.
Because that's transparency. I don't want anything to be lost in interpretation or translation.
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again NEW POLL
Post by: Warriorstrike on August 18, 2018, 11:49:28 pm
I’m going to bounce off some of what Suragaha has stated here, but I’ll add on a few thoughts of my own. Hopefully I can help clarify a few things. c:


You also do not explain why these "simple fixes" won't work with Feral Heart. What are the simple fixes?
I'm loosely aware of how the registration works, and from what I can gather with what little[AKA, none] information I have... The source code shouldn't be having an effect on this.
But then again, I don't know if it's just website side going to the game, or what. Because no one explains anything.

I would be understanding if you guys didn't know because you aren't aware of what's even in the source code, but again, you haven't told anyone anything.


In regard to the “simple fixes,” a large part of this originates from how the game is built. The game is not designed to be a huge MMORPG. It’s just not. Perhaps it was a future desire of LKD's to incorporate room for a larger playerbase, but as Feral Heart currently is, it can be easily crippled by a large influx of users on its server; this is what caused the initial crash back in 2010, which led to the game having to be temporarily taken down. This is what is meant by the game is buggy. Without the code, we don’t have all of the ability to “make” it easier on the server. Flurr above mentined this, too. ^^ The current random registration system certainly has its existence promoted by instigating ways to prevent people from hoarding accounts, but the main reason is because the server is not meant to handle so many people playing online at once. (Which we have seen actually occur in the past, actual history and not hypothetical suspicion. It's only natural for staff to be worried about this, because we don't want to put the community in a situation where they cannot even enjoy the game as it is. Staff have stated this publically in the past.) A significant concern with opening the registration full time is: what will happen to the server if this is done? In the past, the constant influx of people lead to Razmirz having to spend quite a bit of time simply trying to get the game working, let alone any other bug fixes he was able to conduct. The question then is, if we were to make the change to permanently open registration, will the game be fine when Razmirz may not be in a position to quickly and constantly fix a game that has bugs like those? If work calls up, if personal problems arise? Will the game be better off having experienced those changes, when we have foreseen how badly it can go in the past but unsure of how well it will do in the future? Because the responsibility of the server lies soley on one individual, this can be a very tasking effort. This is when personal incidents and life begins to take a toll. The concern of the moment is if we should open the registration to allow more folks to join in, but the concern of later will be if we can even keep the game online. If one takes into consideration what he is capable of himself, the time he has allotted to dedicate, estimated how much time it would take to rectify an influx, this vastly affects the decision. The proceeding question is what is the best to do for our game—it seems like a very cut and dry answer on the surface, but there is a lot more to which it boils down. Feral Heart could potentially be unplayable for stretches of time if Razmirz is not available to constantly fix it. This is why staff have to consider if it’s worth it. Is the risk of making registration more accessible worth the potential of no one playing at all? Of course, the other factors do factor into this, as some have mentioned in prior posts, referencing the issue with players hoarding accounts or creating extra ones to stir up trouble. It’s a complex problem.

In terms of transparency, this isn't something concealed from the community. I myself has stated the gist of the explanation above previously, and I have seen other staff members doing so, as well. The reasons for why there has been past hesitation for implementing the registration permanently, full-time, has been referenced quite a few times. The issues we cannot fix "simply" in terms of the game's bugs (ex. a better security precaution than the login-page, a better adapted server to maintain large amounts of people) have been stated publically before. You have said yourself that you only have a loose understanding of the registration, so perhaps the explanation I have provided above will help to shed some light and fill in any gaps. The reason for why the registration is the way it is has already been posted publically on the very rules section of this forum:

General Information Regarding FeralHeart Registration
Why does the registration work this way?
A lot of people ask the question "why" the registration work this way, and the reason is quite a reasonable one. Feralheart is really just another game online, taken care of and run by people in their free time out of mere interest and love for the game itself. We want to make sure it works as well as we can, and that's where quantity is not the only thing to think about. We want to keep the site and game up and running smoothly without hiccups and issues due to the registration part, and just reduce general abuse of the registration system where users would intentionally hog accounts, those who really want or need an account will get one eventually. Even though a greater number of players is always fun to see, it cannot always be a priority since we need to look a bit further ahead than just that.

Staff has been considering this greatly over the past few months, considering ways in which we could give or take more on the current system we have. Ultimately, this choice is up to Razmirz, though, because he is the one who tends to the server, pays for it, and has the capacity to actually make those implementations. The one who is responsible for this server has to reflect upon his present situation as well as the future of the game and determine the best course of action. While it may seem irresponsible to some that nothing has been “done,” please consider that perhaps his knowledge of how the server works and his available time have factored into this. The reason the argument that “Feral Heart has its own problems” has truth to it in contrast to other games is that the problem we could fix (adapting the game to handle a population influx) is not so fixable. This is from what I know, at least, in regards to our limitations with the source code. ^^ Staff isn’t trying to curb its population in that we don’t want people to play the game. We have observed the game and we aren't blind to what you guys have been seeing. It saddens us when we see fewer players online, because we want the game to continue to grow and thrive. If you have a garden, you will try to care for it as best as you can, watering it and providing it with adequate soil. There are other issues that arise in your garden that you cannot control, however-- the weather or invading insects, for instance. Perhaps you would like to buy some blankets to cover the plants when it freezes over, or maybe you would like to purchase some quality pest repellent, but if you don't have the resources to buy those commodities… you have to make do with what you have. That doesn't mean you don't love your garden. It doesn't mean you're sitting back hoping to see it wither and die. Anyone who has been in a position where they have loved something but haven't had the control, the knowledge, the resources, etc., to care for it in the way they desire will understand what this means. Most all of us have been in this position one way or another in life. The reality is that life does not always present us with equal ability to conduct the means to establish what we want in the way that we want it.

I appreciate where you're coming from, Jango, and I hope you understand where I'm coming from. I've been looking through some of the comments on this thread, and it is evident that we have a community with a desire to see Feral Heart continue and survive as the game we love. I understand the positions you guys are in, and hopefully you can put yourself in the shoes of those who are working to hold up the game for what it is. In terms of course of action, it's still hovering in the air, because we have been listening to your thoughts and want to reflect your values in the game as well as maintain a clear-minded perspective on the reality of implementing those actions. It's rough for a community to deal with a place that isn't necessarily at the top of where it could be, especially when discouraged or when they see aspects about the game that are not what it could be. We haven't abandoned your opinions, though, and we're still digging around for the best option. ^^

Out of curiosity, (this one's to everyone-- poll time, maybe? c:), if the registration were to be brought back permanently, what would be your personal opinion on the possible outcome resulting in the game being taken down for periods of time? Would it matter to you how frequently or how long these stretches of time occurred? Would it be worth it if a registration were more accessible? Would the best outcome (tons of people fill up the game and populate the maps) be worth the risk over the worst outcome (the game is taken down for a long amount of time, possibly preventing new accounts to be made)?
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again NEW POLL
Post by: Jango_Fett on August 19, 2018, 12:35:49 am
gonna chalk up a quick response post because right now i'm having trouble reading the text[light text clustered together doesnt mesh well with me - no hostility to you]


but a lot of these big bad 'oh no' potential happenings are hinging on the fact that Feral Heart will reach a playerbase so big it could crash the server.
I believe the amount in question is well above 1,100-1,400 people, as that was the nearly consistent playerbase it had from 2011-2014.

Not to be rude but, Feral Heart doesn't have much to offer and I really can't see the Registration opening to a functional level being able to get enough people to crash it in the first place.
The time this would've happened has long past, the solution of opening the Registration is really just to keep the community afloat.
I could be wrong, but I doubt it. Games like these have a shelf life, and as is Feral Heart is almost ten years old. The fact that is has been around for so long is astounding in of itself.


As for the availability of Razmirz - Easy solution, maybe not so easy to implement.
Get additional help.
Or wait.

It's what is done on countless other games and servers, just having someone there as a backup so they can switch the server back on in case of emergency.

I myself was an emergency contact for a friend's Garry's Mod roleplay server while he was out on business for two months. Worked out fine then.
I would understand if you're hesitant to trust anyone with this kind of power and privilege, since, yes, depending on your control panel and how permissions work with it, there could be problems.



Taking down the server for a period of time wouldn't prevent it from crashing at other times due to overpopulation. Straight up, that's very obvious. Not even putting off the inevitable - It just wouldn't do anything other than kill the game faster.




I also brought up 'curbing the population', because the vibes I'm getting from this are similar to the ones I got during the great General Chat incident. Where the Staff Team weren't able to keep up with a simple General chat. That's a discussion for an older time, but nonetheless this reminded me of it.



I have to ask though - How does hoarding accounts kill anything other than the database? Does the source code also have the keys to the database itself and potentially wiping it, or deleting older accounts?
Because I know that isn't true, or at the very least, it's halfway.
I do recall a conversation with a friend who hadn't used her accounts from 2011 for years, and in 2015 was able to access all ten of them. Whereas other people were off for the 1 to 2 year amount of inactivity time and had theirs deleted.

So is the database wiping bot just flawed in the coding itself, is it actually a manual process, or what?
Because the hoarding/making excessive accounts is still not a valid excuse on its own merits if there's nothing explained/listed to back it up.


All that's been said are vague explanations that explain very little, or, are statements that brush over small details that are actually somewhat important. They've never been expanded upon, and if they have, they've long since been buried and were never brought up again.

at this point i'm just trying to get a clear answer, which you did kinda.
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again NEW POLL
Post by: ShadowFang1355 on August 19, 2018, 02:22:24 am
I remember being around in FH's earlier days, there was way more people online then. Why would a massive amount of people now be bad? It was fine before, why would it hurt now?

I don't really remember having any issues while I played with a massive amount of people on.

(I did leave for a few years though, came back sometime last year. I played for quite a while before going quiet though, so if there actually were server issues that I wasn't around for, give me a heads-up.)
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again NEW POLL
Post by: wolfdog01 on August 19, 2018, 06:02:52 am
Out of curiosity, (this one's to everyone-- poll time, maybe? c:), if the registration were to be brought back permanently, what would be your personal opinion on the possible outcome resulting in the game being taken down for periods of time? Would it matter to you how frequently or how long these stretches of time occurred? Would it be worth it if a registration were more accessible? Would the best outcome (tons of people fill up the game and populate the maps) be worth the risk over the worst outcome (the game is taken down for a long amount of time, possibly preventing new accounts to be made)?
I think a once a week opening for a few hours would work out fine. Would give a stable time frame for players who were serious about trying it out. Never thought about Raz dealing with the server issues, it does clear things up for me. Thank you!
I personally wouldn't mind if the game was shut down for a week to fix server issues, it might push more people to the forums. That's what I did when the server crashed lol everyone went here to scream about it and then you realize "oh...there is a forum here...and stuff..." For me, seeing the server have to get fixed every once in a while would remind me that FH is still going strong and staying busy enough to have crashes...it sounds weird but that's how I feel.
Either way, I do believe you guys are doing an amazing job with what you have been given. I am excited about the new patch (don't change any more markings! Had to redo some ref sheets!) and I know you guys will fix these registration issues when a good solution arises.
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again NEW POLL
Post by: Ame88 on August 19, 2018, 10:12:44 pm
Idk how exactly to phrase things here without my words some how being taken the wrong way. I do want to be honest, especially because I strongly believe that the staff should remain transparent with the community on most things.

The staff hasn’t turned a blind eye to this subject. I know it’s frustrating when we don’t give you a straight up yes or no answer to things or round about of when or if something can or will be done... but we are reading your concerns and taking deep consideration of things. Keep in mind that a lot of the decisions made here aren’t just out of the whim things. Things have been set to work a particular way for specific reasons. Certain systems also effect the way other systems work so there’s no easy or straight forward right or wrong approach to things.

Feral Heart is a game similar to some other games but with its own unique set of problems... most of which we can’t address and fix the way we want to because of the lack of the game’s source code. There would be much better approaches to things like registration or even the log in system if we had a means to properly correct the issues at root. For this reason many of the simple “fixes” proposed don’t necessarily work for FH’s case.

Truthfully speaking none of us like the registration the way it is.

It would be wonderful to just open it back up 24/7 again for one of the obvious reasons of it making it easier for new users to join. If FH registration worked this way we would definitely have a lot more new blood regularly coming into the community again. I think we all would love this...

But there’s always issues that follow particular decisions made, either leaving it open 24/7, or keeping it random, or having particular days/hours as open times etc... behind the scenes FH has been made to work at best as it could with its limitations. Sadly this doesn’t always mean that it is reflected well upon the player base, so it becomes more of a balancing issue:

 How to keep both the aging broken source code-less game alive and functioning as well as an ever changing and shifting community...

At some point things just can’t catch up, and certain sacrifices end up being made.

It’s no ones fault.

It’s frustrating. It’s frustrating to you, and us. It’s frustrating to all of us as people who care about and love Feral Heart and I wholeheartedly apologize for this.

While we can’t make exact promises, I do want to assure you all that this issue is still being discussed and considered. While we don’t have a lot of options we are weighing them and considering things... We share your concerns as deeply as you all do.

For as long as Feral Heart continues to run we will try our very best to work with things and consider all the possibilities. We’ve come a long way and while things may not have always worked ideally we are still trying our best.

Thank you all for your continued support and feedback.

In due time we hope to reach a decision that can healthily balance both the game/server’s well being and the community’s.

<3





I’m going to bounce off some of what Suragaha has stated here, but I’ll add on a few thoughts of my own. Hopefully I can help clarify a few things. c:


You also do not explain why these "simple fixes" won't work with Feral Heart. What are the simple fixes?
I'm loosely aware of how the registration works, and from what I can gather with what little[AKA, none] information I have... The source code shouldn't be having an effect on this.
But then again, I don't know if it's just website side going to the game, or what. Because no one explains anything.

I would be understanding if you guys didn't know because you aren't aware of what's even in the source code, but again, you haven't told anyone anything.


In regard to the “simple fixes,” a large part of this originates from how the game is built. The game is not designed to be a huge MMORPG. It’s just not. Perhaps it was a future desire of LKD's to incorporate room for a larger playerbase, but as Feral Heart currently is, it can be easily crippled by a large influx of users on its server; this is what caused the initial crash back in 2010, which led to the game having to be temporarily taken down. This is what is meant by the game is buggy. Without the code, we don’t have all of the ability to “make” it easier on the server. Flurr above mentined this, too. ^^ The current random registration system certainly has its existence promoted by instigating ways to prevent people from hoarding accounts, but the main reason is because the server is not meant to handle so many people playing online at once. (Which we have seen actually occur in the past, actual history and not hypothetical suspicion. It's only natural for staff to be worried about this, because we don't want to put the community in a situation where they cannot even enjoy the game as it is. Staff have stated this publically in the past.) A significant concern with opening the registration full time is: what will happen to the server if this is done? In the past, the constant influx of people lead to Razmirz having to spend quite a bit of time simply trying to get the game working, let alone any other bug fixes he was able to conduct. The question then is, if we were to make the change to permanently open registration, will the game be fine when Razmirz may not be in a position to quickly and constantly fix a game that has bugs like those? If work calls up, if personal problems arise? Will the game be better off having experienced those changes, when we have foreseen how badly it can go in the past but unsure of how well it will do in the future? Because the responsibility of the server lies soley on one individual, this can be a very tasking effort. This is when personal incidents and life begins to take a toll. The concern of the moment is if we should open the registration to allow more folks to join in, but the concern of later will be if we can even keep the game online. If one takes into consideration what he is capable of himself, the time he has allotted to dedicate, estimated how much time it would take to rectify an influx, this vastly affects the decision. The proceeding question is what is the best to do for our game—it seems like a very cut and dry answer on the surface, but there is a lot more to which it boils down. Feral Heart could potentially be unplayable for stretches of time if Razmirz is not available to constantly fix it. This is why staff have to consider if it’s worth it. Is the risk of making registration more accessible worth the potential of no one playing at all? Of course, the other factors do factor into this, as some have mentioned in prior posts, referencing the issue with players hoarding accounts or creating extra ones to stir up trouble. It’s a complex problem.

In terms of transparency, this isn't something concealed from the community. I myself has stated the gist of the explanation above previously, and I have seen other staff members doing so, as well. The reasons for why there has been past hesitation for implementing the registration permanently, full-time, has been referenced quite a few times. The issues we cannot fix "simply" in terms of the game's bugs (ex. a better security precaution than the login-page, a better adapted server to maintain large amounts of people) have been stated publically before. You have said yourself that you only have a loose understanding of the registration, so perhaps the explanation I have provided above will help to shed some light and fill in any gaps. The reason for why the registration is the way it is has already been posted publically on the very rules section of this forum:

General Information Regarding FeralHeart Registration
Why does the registration work this way?
A lot of people ask the question "why" the registration work this way, and the reason is quite a reasonable one. Feralheart is really just another game online, taken care of and run by people in their free time out of mere interest and love for the game itself. We want to make sure it works as well as we can, and that's where quantity is not the only thing to think about. We want to keep the site and game up and running smoothly without hiccups and issues due to the registration part, and just reduce general abuse of the registration system where users would intentionally hog accounts, those who really want or need an account will get one eventually. Even though a greater number of players is always fun to see, it cannot always be a priority since we need to look a bit further ahead than just that.

Staff has been considering this greatly over the past few months, considering ways in which we could give or take more on the current system we have. Ultimately, this choice is up to Razmirz, though, because he is the one who tends to the server, pays for it, and has the capacity to actually make those implementations. The one who is responsible for this server has to reflect upon his present situation as well as the future of the game and determine the best course of action. While it may seem irresponsible to some that nothing has been “done,” please consider that perhaps his knowledge of how the server works and his available time have factored into this. The reason the argument that “Feral Heart has its own problems” has truth to it in contrast to other games is that the problem we could fix (adapting the game to handle a population influx) is not so fixable. This is from what I know, at least, in regards to our limitations with the source code. ^^ Staff isn’t trying to curb its population in that we don’t want people to play the game. We have observed the game and we aren't blind to what you guys have been seeing. It saddens us when we see fewer players online, because we want the game to continue to grow and thrive. If you have a garden, you will try to care for it as best as you can, watering it and providing it with adequate soil. There are other issues that arise in your garden that you cannot control, however-- the weather or invading insects, for instance. Perhaps you would like to buy some blankets to cover the plants when it freezes over, or maybe you would like to purchase some quality pest repellent, but if you don't have the resources to buy those commodities… you have to make do with what you have. That doesn't mean you don't love your garden. It doesn't mean you're sitting back hoping to see it wither and die. Anyone who has been in a position where they have loved something but haven't had the control, the knowledge, the resources, etc., to care for it in the way they desire will understand what this means. Most all of us have been in this position one way or another in life. The reality is that life does not always present us with equal ability to conduct the means to establish what we want in the way that we want it.

I appreciate where you're coming from, Jango, and I hope you understand where I'm coming from. I've been looking through some of the comments on this thread, and it is evident that we have a community with a desire to see Feral Heart continue and survive as the game we love. I understand the positions you guys are in, and hopefully you can put yourself in the shoes of those who are working to hold up the game for what it is. In terms of course of action, it's still hovering in the air, because we have been listening to your thoughts and want to reflect your values in the game as well as maintain a clear-minded perspective on the reality of implementing those actions. It's rough for a community to deal with a place that isn't necessarily at the top of where it could be, especially when discouraged or when they see aspects about the game that are not what it could be. We haven't abandoned your opinions, though, and we're still digging around for the best option. ^^

Out of curiosity, (this one's to everyone-- poll time, maybe? c:), if the registration were to be brought back permanently, what would be your personal opinion on the possible outcome resulting in the game being taken down for periods of time? Would it matter to you how frequently or how long these stretches of time occurred? Would it be worth it if a registration were more accessible? Would the best outcome (tons of people fill up the game and populate the maps) be worth the risk over the worst outcome (the game is taken down for a long amount of time, possibly preventing new accounts to be made)?

I honestly tried to avoid replying to this topic twice, other than to put my suggestion down in attempt to maybe help, granted it was essentially the same as everyone elses. Now that I've read through what the staff had said, my suspicions and guesses have been put to rest.

First off, thank you Nynx for explaining this. It really clears things up for me. I'm always fascinated with how things work in FH, and honestly wish I knew more. But I agree with your statements wholeheartedly. Seeing as Raz is the only one tending to the server itself; fixing issues, adjusting things, paying for it... He does a lot for FH regarding the server, and if FH is over populated and all these problems arise, then how much of a strain would that be on Raz? A lot I can say. It's not easy being the only one tending to technical issues, and I'm sure that in of itself is a headache. Basically as I see it now that there's been some light shed on things, when we're all asking and even sometimes demanding that the registration comes back, we're unaware of what we're really asking for. Possible issues, stress on Raz, and whatever else. As Sura and Nynx said, they gotta way in the bad just as much of the good to make the best decision possible for FH.

As for your question, personally I wouldn't feel comfortable with the game possibly crashing and burning to then be brought to the repair shop. Sure yeah, having TONS of players flood in would be nice, but, then they couldn't even play if the server crashes. I'm sure it would happen often, too, once we get a plethora of players just swarming around trying to enjoy themselves when it finally comes back online. I can imagine it would get frustrating after finally making an account, but the server is down for who knows how long, let alone not even being able to make an account. Not to mention the work would be put on Raz to get things fixed and set up again. Between work and daily life, I'm sure that would be tedious. My only suggestion would be having at least one day of the week open all day for people to make their accounts, so that way they aren't guessing and have a set time they can come over and make their account. Only a suggestion, though!
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again NEW POLL
Post by: Lucius on August 21, 2018, 04:59:47 am
Out of curiosity, (this one's to everyone-- poll time, maybe? c:), if the registration were to be brought back permanently, what would be your personal opinion on the possible outcome resulting in the game being taken down for periods of time? Would it matter to you how frequently or how long these stretches of time occurred? Would it be worth it if a registration were more accessible? Would the best outcome (tons of people fill up the game and populate the maps) be worth the risk over the worst outcome (the game is taken down for a long amount of time, possibly preventing new accounts to be made)?

I think the frustration arises from not knowing when the registration will open. I think a solution that could meet both parties in-between would be to have a scheduled registration.

Seeing as registration was closed at the end of September 2012, calculating the average amount of users registered per month would have to start from October 2012 and end at June 2016 (the months after that show 0 new members, despite that being false).

That comes down to 91331 / 45, which equals an average of 2029-2030 new users every month with the current system (according to the statistics center).

Maybe the registration could be opened at the beginning of every month until it reaches the cap of users allowed to register for that month. The cap could be, say... 2000-2500 or something. That way, people will know that if they missed registration, they can just wait until next month. I think it would eliminate at least some of the frustration.

Or it could be opened weekly, on Sundays/Mondays, with a cap of 465-582 new members before it closes again.

The cap would mean that the amount of members who get to register is the same as right now, except that people who want to join will be able to plan accordingly instead of blindly waiting for RNGesus to bless them.
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again NEW POLL
Post by: Jango_Fett on August 21, 2018, 05:45:36 am
Out of curiosity, (this one's to everyone-- poll time, maybe? c:), if the registration were to be brought back permanently, what would be your personal opinion on the possible outcome resulting in the game being taken down for periods of time? Would it matter to you how frequently or how long these stretches of time occurred? Would it be worth it if a registration were more accessible? Would the best outcome (tons of people fill up the game and populate the maps) be worth the risk over the worst outcome (the game is taken down for a long amount of time, possibly preventing new accounts to be made)?

I think the frustration arises from not knowing when the registration will open. I think a solution that could meet both parties in-between would be to have a scheduled registration.

Seeing as registration was closed at the end of September 2012, calculating the average amount of users registered per month would have to start from October 2012 and end at June 2016 (the months after that show 0 new members, despite that being false).

That comes down to 91331 / 45, which equals an average of 2029-2030 new users every month with the current system (according to the statistics center).

Maybe the registration could be opened at the beginning of every month until it reaches the cap of users allowed to register for that month. The cap could be, say... 2000-2500 or something. That way, people will know that if they missed registration, they can just wait until next month. I think it would eliminate at least some of the frustration.

Or it could be opened weekly, on Sundays/Mondays, with a cap of 465-582 new members before it closes again.

The cap would mean that the amount of members who get to register is the same as right now, except that people who want to join will be able to plan accordingly instead of blindly waiting for RNGesus to bless them.

But then that opens the system to a new form of abuse - Taking up as many slots as possible, because now they're not only on a timer - There's a finite amount of them.

A group of trolls or people who wanna mess around could easily set up multiple e-mails and grab some of those account slots, barring people who've been waiting a while from getting to make even one.


If you're gonna have it open at certain times with a public schedule, don't have a cap limit. You cannot erase alt account making, but adding a kind of 'power' to doing so won't fix things either.
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again NEW POLL
Post by: Skat on August 21, 2018, 02:25:18 pm
Out of curiosity, (this one's to everyone-- poll time, maybe? c:), if the registration were to be brought back permanently, what would be your personal opinion on the possible outcome resulting in the game being taken down for periods of time? Would it matter to you how frequently or how long these stretches of time occurred? Would it be worth it if a registration were more accessible? Would the best outcome (tons of people fill up the game and populate the maps) be worth the risk over the worst outcome (the game is taken down for a long amount of time, possibly preventing new accounts to be made)?

Ah I will clarify some things here, whilst I agree with Lucius but I want to add some things from my point of view, if I may.

A short Disclaimer, I'd like to apologize in regard of my typos and spelling errors: Enlgish is not my main language and sometimes I don't realize I make the mistakes until I re-view the comment for a few times. Also this is not an attack, just my personal opinion to the matter. Please don't take it to heart or see it as an offensive threat as I am trying to find a logical explanation that can be seen as legit, thank you.

I understand that Ferah-Heart is an old game and the source code being unexistant is making things difficult for all of you yet so far it doesn't seem to be a huge impact on the game's flow since there are so many changes that have been made without it, you're already making so much progress, however the game will obviously crash eventually but every game faces that sooner or later and as long as the lack of having access to source code is on the table it makes the FH more vulnerable.

But in the old times the whole 'crashing' thing happened when the game was first attacked by bugs(assuiming they weren't noticed or weren't fixed in time to prevent more and more to pile up) in 2012, most of them were kept under control eventually, the second huge server crash was literally when the hackers begun hacking accounts, causing another solution (/login page) to be born and the third crashing that had appeared into the game(the most frequent one) was when bugs violated the code, overloading the game, forcing the server to shut down, thankfully Raz fixed the issue but if, according to what you say, the bugs sum up with anything new added to the game, these things are to be seen -- it can happen to any game especially the ones with an older coding system like FH's.

But I don't really think the member limit would be a cause of crashing otherwise when everyone is chilling into The Grounds, the game could just crash since 90% of the game's community settles there as it's the only solution when it comes to roleplay seeking. Yet most of groups move into a private map so there's nothing really to over-load the maps anymore so it can hardly even overload.

I think we need to take a few things to consideration, I might miss some due to having all of these in my brain and more ideas come up or forgotten since I don't have them written anywhere.

|> The game used to have 700-800 members daily and due to having large maps in the past it was harder to produce lag in a single area - since the members were scattered around and we rarely had any crashes from bugs as I remember and I've been around ever since 2012.
             || I think it makes alot of sense that the game can crash easier now that the main default map is a medium sized square-ish ball of cereal(not saying it's your fault, you've been pressured more than enough to pop out the update and kudos for acctually making it but it has 0 space for people to roleplay while seeking for a rp in the meantime) and if too many people will gather around it will cause the game to over-load in a single area. But we didn't have problems in the past even after the new maps were in the way, except the times where there were too many people in fluorite and the place was capped and we had to do something about it, but other than that the game was satisfyingly neat to play so why would it be a problem now that we have less maps to be worried of? ||

Since the old maps were deleted and now the new maps have less space, it would also make sense that the game won't crash as much it has less things to load, as long as the members are using the rest of the maps, of course. Measuring the old FH with the updated version 200-300 members daily isn't a tiny bit satisfying especially when 15% of these are usually double-tabbed accounts, either for rectuitment or multi-rping and it is considered a huge loss to the community but according to your statement it's still enough to overload the server and the new update can make it even worse at this rate so is it a dead end and we just discuss over a loaf of bread?
       
                     i) You've seen that, despite with the bugs and the lack of source code, there was always a way to prevent problems, either if it was limiting the over-population, restarting the server but it was always kept under control even when the update of South pole, Atlantis and misc. appeared which could threaten more bugs to spawn to the game but it never happened, instead it expanded the roaming of characters and places like fluorite plains and Bonfire island were less laggy and easier to access.

It's just sad how people don't use the default maps to roleplay anymore as it's not fun and whenever something is about to happen, people immediately judge it and it ends up in a local chat war, they refuse to help new members and are occasionally rude -- always people complaining about how bad the game is but own atleast 5 accounts of their own. And this is why we need new members, to show 0 care of the old community and get some possitivity and new ideas for new roleplays.

With the loss of fluorite and south pole we lost the casual roleplays of Hyenas vs Lions, sabertooth, wyverns and dragons, deer and horse roleplay versus wolves, warrior cats meeting up with random lions and making the game simple and fun and there were plenty of mapless roleplays for people who can't download maps for plenty of reasons so it maintained some balance. Now we lost that since there is a little to no interest on roleplaying in mapless areas and it's not appealing nor has the space to explore and members lack of motivation and it decreases the game's population so it loses more than it gains.

I understand you're tyring your best and nobody blames you on that but I think we need to see that the game is slowly losing its shape and it will eventually be forced to open its registraction back because of so many upcomming games threatening its reputation. We just want to make sure this drastic measure won't happen too late to see the game dying in front of our eyes. Hence why we're here.

We understand why you're denying opening the registraction and why we must retreat to this problem but please hear us out and atleast consider giving this option another chance;

|> At this rate, as lucious calculated, alot of accounts have been set-up whenever the registraction has opened, average-speaking to 200-300 accounts per person, meaning this would be enough to over-load the server's database since the numbers increase drastically. But no problem had occured yet and alot of people had double accounts before the registraction limit, sharing it with new people so there were even more active members when the registraction had closed and the game was still steady.

|> Each time a crashing happened was when a bug appeared. This bug could be anything. From code violation to direct attack and the game's server was being shut down, which was proved to be the case most of the times.

Correct me if I'm wrong but If the game crashed due to overload of members it was probably because there was something bypassing the protection of the server and attacking, abusing a bug or due to time of not fixing one bug or finding a solution to it -- or even knowing of its existence -- to avoid it being manipulated, another glitch appeared then another one after it and it slowly corrupted the server's code and it begun crashing. Assuming you mean more members = bugs will happen more frequently and will pile up until there will be enough work undone to get the server overloaded and unable to work.


    || I don't think 300 members can be the cause of this nor 700, since crashes did happen but rarely enough for everyone to enjoy a good piece of gaming. And yes, this might cause a few bugs to pile up but since private maps are more of use now, it is way harder to face a glitch since it will get harder to load another member in.

              i) It's safe to say that we're far from having the game crashing as it's average member population used to be 700 and anything below it will be difficult to cause crashes.

             ii) The game won't grow overnight so we can allow some space for new members to explore the game and if we don't have new members the updates will pretty much be in vain since the community grew old and not enough will change other than probably finding a new map to recruit these typical 3 roleplays that exist in the game nowdays. No new members = harder to bring motivation and population to new concept as the old community might get bored of the update and leave a few months after the hype is gone.

              |> Opening the registraction in the process of an update will make the game attractive and it will grow a bit. The statistics of the site when showing members is calculating an average number of how many are on.  It doesn't mean they are precisely 200-300 members on, it might be a bit more or a lot less and we prefer to avoid the latter.

I think a good solution to this is to open the registraction every second/third Satuday for 3-5 hours or for a whole day. Even if it will get a mouthful of members, I don't think the process will increase rapidly and the members will take a long while until it reaches 700 again.

My thought can imagine that if this happen the game will eventually end up with 500 capped members online daily which is a good cap and not as far from the current one yet it's close enough to the previous one. As Lucius, again, stated we could open the registraction on a specific time and once we reach cap we can close it again.

I think this is an average desicion to, atleast, be taken into consideration assuming that it will ease the frustration and will make things more simple and pople won't be so tense to have a 'good looking' character to be accepted in roleplays etc. (which makes no sense to me but somehow this appeals in the community).

I am sorry if something didn't make sense. I haven't gotten sleep and I was quite exhausted while typing this. Feel more than free to heckle me if I said something already answered or out of line and thank you for taking your time reading this, I appreciate it.
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again NEW POLL
Post by: Ame88 on August 21, 2018, 08:42:10 pm
Out of curiosity, (this one's to everyone-- poll time, maybe? c:), if the registration were to be brought back permanently, what would be your personal opinion on the possible outcome resulting in the game being taken down for periods of time? Would it matter to you how frequently or how long these stretches of time occurred? Would it be worth it if a registration were more accessible? Would the best outcome (tons of people fill up the game and populate the maps) be worth the risk over the worst outcome (the game is taken down for a long amount of time, possibly preventing new accounts to be made)?

Ah I will clarify some things here, whilst I agree with Lucius but I want to add some things from my point of view, if I may.

A short Disclaimer, I'd like to apologize in regard of my typos and spelling errors: Enlgish is not my main language and sometimes I don't realize I make the mistakes until I re-view the comment for a few times. Also this is not an attack, just my personal opinion to the matter. Please don't take it to heart or see it as an offensive threat as I am trying to find a logical explanation that can be seen as legit, thank you.

I understand that Ferah-Heart is an old game and the source code being unexistant is making things difficult for all of you yet so far it doesn't seem to be a huge impact on the game's flow since there are so many changes that have been made without it, you're already making so much progress, however the game will obviously crash eventually but every game faces that sooner or later and as long as the lack of having access to source code is on the table it makes the FH more vulnerable.

But in the old times the whole 'crashing' thing happened when the game was first attacked by bugs(assuiming they weren't noticed or weren't fixed in time to prevent more and more to pile up) in 2012, most of them were kept under control eventually, the second huge server crash was literally when the hackers begun hacking accounts, causing another solution (/login page) to be born and the third crashing that had appeared into the game(the most frequent one) was when bugs violated the code, overloading the game, forcing the server to shut down, thankfully Raz fixed the issue but if, according to what you say, the bugs sum up with anything new added to the game, these things are to be seen -- it can happen to any game especially the ones with an older coding system like FH's.

But I don't really think the member limit would be a cause of crashing otherwise when everyone is chilling into The Grounds, the game could just crash since 90% of the game's community settles there as it's the only solution when it comes to roleplay seeking. Yet most of groups move into a private map so there's nothing really to over-load the maps anymore so it can hardly even overload.

I think we need to take a few things to consideration, I might miss some due to having all of these in my brain and more ideas come up or forgotten since I don't have them written anywhere.

|> The game used to have 700-800 members daily and due to having large maps in the past it was harder to produce lag in a single area - since the members were scattered around and we rarely had any crashes from bugs as I remember and I've been around ever since 2012.
             || I think it makes alot of sense that the game can crash easier now that the main default map is a medium sized square-ish ball of cereal(not saying it's your fault, you've been pressured more than enough to pop out the update and kudos for acctually making it but it has 0 space for people to roleplay while seeking for a rp in the meantime) and if too many people will gather around it will cause the game to over-load in a single area. But we didn't have problems in the past even after the new maps were in the way, except the times where there were too many people in fluorite and the place was capped and we had to do something about it, but other than that the game was satisfyingly neat to play so why would it be a problem now that we have less maps to be worried of? ||

Since the old maps were deleted and now the new maps have less space, it would also make sense that the game won't crash as much it has less things to load, as long as the members are using the rest of the maps, of course. Measuring the old FH with the updated version 200-300 members daily isn't a tiny bit satisfying especially when 15% of these are usually double-tabbed accounts, either for rectuitment or multi-rping and it is considered a huge loss to the community but according to your statement it's still enough to overload the server and the new update can make it even worse at this rate so is it a dead end and we just discuss over a loaf of bread?
       
                     i) You've seen that, despite with the bugs and the lack of source code, there was always a way to prevent problems, either if it was limiting the over-population, restarting the server but it was always kept under control even when the update of South pole, Atlantis and misc. appeared which could threaten more bugs to spawn to the game but it never happened, instead it expanded the roaming of characters and places like fluorite plains and Bonfire island were less laggy and easier to access.

It's just sad how people don't use the default maps to roleplay anymore as it's not fun and whenever something is about to happen, people immediately judge it and it ends up in a local chat war, they refuse to help new members and are occasionally rude -- always people complaining about how bad the game is but own atleast 5 accounts of their own. And this is why we need new members, to show 0 care of the old community and get some possitivity and new ideas for new roleplays.

With the loss of fluorite and south pole we lost the casual roleplays of Hyenas vs Lions, sabertooth, wyverns and dragons, deer and horse roleplay versus wolves, warrior cats meeting up with random lions and making the game simple and fun and there were plenty of mapless roleplays for people who can't download maps for plenty of reasons so it maintained some balance. Now we lost that since there is a little to no interest on roleplaying in mapless areas and it's not appealing nor has the space to explore and members lack of motivation and it decreases the game's population so it loses more than it gains.

I understand you're tyring your best and nobody blames you on that but I think we need to see that the game is slowly losing its shape and it will eventually be forced to open its registraction back because of so many upcomming games threatening its reputation. We just want to make sure this drastic measure won't happen too late to see the game dying in front of our eyes. Hence why we're here.

We understand why you're denying opening the registraction and why we must retreat to this problem but please hear us out and atleast consider giving this option another chance;

|> At this rate, as lucious calculated, alot of accounts have been set-up whenever the registraction has opened, average-speaking to 200-300 accounts per person, meaning this would be enough to over-load the server's database since the numbers increase drastically. But no problem had occured yet and alot of people had double accounts before the registraction limit, sharing it with new people so there were even more active members when the registraction had closed and the game was still steady.

|> Each time a crashing happened was when a bug appeared. This bug could be anything. From code violation to direct attack and the game's server was being shut down, which was proved to be the case most of the times.

Correct me if I'm wrong but If the game crashed due to overload of members it was probably because there was something bypassing the protection of the server and attacking, abusing a bug or due to time of not fixing one bug or finding a solution to it -- or even knowing of its existence -- to avoid it being manipulated, another glitch appeared then another one after it and it slowly corrupted the server's code and it begun crashing. Assuming you mean more members = bugs will happen more frequently and will pile up until there will be enough work undone to get the server overloaded and unable to work.


    || I don't think 300 members can be the cause of this nor 700, since crashes did happen but rarely enough for everyone to enjoy a good piece of gaming. And yes, this might cause a few bugs to pile up but since private maps are more of use now, it is way harder to face a glitch since it will get harder to load another member in.

              i) It's safe to say that we're far from having the game crashing as it's average member population used to be 700 and anything below it will be difficult to cause crashes.

             ii) The game won't grow overnight so we can allow some space for new members to explore the game and if we don't have new members the updates will pretty much be in vain since the community grew old and not enough will change other than probably finding a new map to recruit these typical 3 roleplays that exist in the game nowdays. No new members = harder to bring motivation and population to new concept as the old community might get bored of the update and leave a few months after the hype is gone.

              |> Opening the registraction in the process of an update will make the game attractive and it will grow a bit. The statistics of the site when showing members is calculating an average number of how many are on.  It doesn't mean they are precisely 200-300 members on, it might be a bit more or a lot less and we prefer to avoid the latter.

I think a good solution to this is to open the registraction every second/third Satuday for 3-5 hours or for a whole day. Even if it will get a mouthful of members, I don't think the process will increase rapidly and the members will take a long while until it reaches 700 again.

My thought can imagine that if this happen the game will eventually end up with 500 capped members online daily which is a good cap and not as far from the current one yet it's close enough to the previous one. As Lucius, again, stated we could open the registraction on a specific time and once we reach cap we can close it again.

I think this is an average desicion to, atleast, be taken into consideration assuming that it will ease the frustration and will make things more simple and pople won't be so tense to have a 'good looking' character to be accepted in roleplays etc. (which makes no sense to me but somehow this appeals in the community).

I am sorry if something didn't make sense. I haven't gotten sleep and I was quite exhausted while typing this. Feel more than free to heckle me if I said something already answered or out of line and thank you for taking your time reading this, I appreciate it.

I just wanted to make a few small comments~

The reason why they removed Fluorite is because the map was so big, it was a huge strain on the server, if I remember correctly from what one of the staff had said on a different thread (I forget which one). The maps are smaller in order to put less strain on the server so it can hold everyone, if my assumption is correct. I'm not a big tech person, but I'm just grasping at straws here.

The staff do consider all our ideas! =) I'm sure they read through almost, if not all the posts here on the forums if they can. I know they take our ideas and throw them around to see it's potential and see if it'll work, but if it won't benefit the game in the way we think it would, then they're refrain from using it. They're always looking for the best possible ideas to better the game! cx
Title: Re: Bring Back 24/7 Registration To Grow Again NEW POLL
Post by: Kuri on August 22, 2018, 08:44:28 am
Out of curiosity, (this one's to everyone-- poll time, maybe? c:), if the registration were to be brought back permanently, what would be your personal opinion on the possible outcome resulting in the game being taken down for periods of time? Would it matter to you how frequently or how long these stretches of time occurred? Would it be worth it if a registration were more accessible? Would the best outcome (tons of people fill up the game and populate the maps) be worth the risk over the worst outcome (the game is taken down for a long amount of time, possibly preventing new accounts to be made)?

             ii) The game won't grow overnight so we can allow some space for new members to explore the game and if we don't have new members the updates will pretty much be in vain

Umm.  i'm not sure if a population explosion would cause a melt down anytime soon.  It'd take a while & the noticeable build-up would probably allow time to slow it again, should the need arise.