It's all good! Topics like this are alright so long as all conversation is civil, of course.
General Chat and the old map's removal... General Chat was removed due to how hard it was for moderators to, well, moderate it. This was before my time as a staff member, but it's what I've read, heard, and talked about with others. However on the contrary, some of the staffers at the time didn't have an issue moderating it. All things considered, I feel that adjustments were made so that it would be easier for the staff at the time to moderate. If it was brought back now there wouldn't be much strain on moderating it due to how slow it is, however if things were to get busy again, it would be labeled to possibly be removed again if moderating it becomes a hassle once more.
The maps. I do not agree with how these new maps were introduced. It was like a rug being pulled out from underneath everyone, with a new rug being thrown on top of them right after, essentially suffocating them. I wasn't a staff member when this happened so I received the full slap to the face alongside everyone else. If changes had to be made...at least give the community a heads up first. Tell them what's going to happen to the maps and let them have that time to see them off.
Ficho Tunnel's layout was cumbersome to navigate, and the other maps felt too similar to one another. I see it as a missed opportunity that a wider range of biomes were not represented (no desert? no jungle? no swamp? just the same rolling mishmash grassland with minor differences in the terrain and palm tree to acacia ratio?) and a shame that more thought wasn't put into making the maps feel both varied and cohesive. As they were when I last looked at them, they suffered from the usual pitfalls that many open world style games do: huge areas with few points of interest, haphazard terraforming, and poor flow. Quantity over quality. The original maps were nothing stellar, but at least each one felt reasonably distinct, and for an overhaul I guess I expected more.
Of course, I understand that the people behind the scenes have their own artistic vision that doesn't need to align with mine, and there are limitations to how much you can do before encountering performance issues (especially for players on older machines) - if you're reading this, I'm sorry for knocking your work! It's an honest critique and in all fairness, one probably marred by the rose-tinted glasses permanently glued to my face. I appreciate the improved attention to certain details, particularly the greater rock and foliage density, as well as better terrain variation. The new maps look more realistic and fleshed out, I just have a lot of little gripes over what I see as unrealized potential.
I agree with you completely. All the maps are all too similar. They are all a savannah esque feeling, with Cherika, Seaside, and Eastern as exceptions. I can't say too much on this topic, and I WISH I could say more (I'm literally dying to), but I will say that I'm very sure that more biomes to implement have been thought of. c;
1) What on earth has transpired in the time I've been absent? I get the feeling there's been a falling out of sorts. If so, how has it impacted things? What is the future of FH?
Everyone will have their own explanation and viewpoints on this, so what I say may, and probably will, vary from what others say.
I personally feel it's a big combination of things over the years of this game being up. In no particular order; sudden changes to the game without notice, players feeling suppressed and censored, frustrations on both ends coming out in a not so pleasant way, and keeping changes to the game away from the players until it actually happens.
As for FH's future, things have been planned. The game will still be around for the foreseeable future.
2) I presume FHU is "FeralHeart Unleashed," but what is it? Is it a FH server using FH's source code? Or is it meant to be a totally separate game, just using assets from FH? I know that for years people have been inquiring about the source code to no avail, as no one was able to contact KovuLKD. Has this changed?
FHU, or as I personally call it, FU, is a server that uses FeralHeart's source code, but it is entirely separate from FeralHeart. It's not a continuation of the official game but just another server that uses it's source code. How it came to be is another story, though.
ame summed up your questions with some pretty decent answers -speaking as someone who's been involved w/ the community for a decent amount of time now but i'll still throw my own two cents into the topic where i feel i can address.
i'm someone who has over the past few months spent a lot of time in all the maps and i feel inclined to agree. i love each and every map but i feel like the base items do well detailing and fleshing out maps, but are incredibly redundant, not to mention pretty much only four/five of the same textures are used on the ground. grass, sand, rock, rinse and repeat. i'm hoping there's been more contact with meshmakers to expand upon the current "default" items they have for mapmaking because there's so much to be done - and that any new maps utilize more of the fun textures the base game already has.
i've talked about my hopes of more biomes ingame and perhaps elsewhere.
all in all i don't know where the line'll wind up being between having a simple game that can run on most computers vs. complexity and beautiful visuals will lie. i'm hoping they stick closer to the first and keep letting the community do their thing with the latter.
all i can really say for certain is i know maps are going to keep being detailed... but we're probably never going to get something as expansive as say.. south pole or fluorite plains ever again.