RIP General

[SpringLeaf]

After about 15 minutes on the game, I noticed one single movie clip showing up. I, and many others, clicked it. It revealed a person in the General color saying, "I want General back." Then more popped up, all saying the same thing. We don't have to live with General being gone. We can figure it out, together. As a community. In Red's post, he said that the staff wasn't to blame for not telling us. But you know what? They were, a little. I don't care that they didn't give an announcement. I don't care that they didn't tell all of us.


I care that they would do the right thing. That they would just contemplate in their minds, I'm going to make an announcement about this. Doing the right thing is what matters most in this kind of situation. I end this post with one more sentence.                    



Doing right will reward you, doing wrong will bring you down, doing the right thing will result in peace, not war, doing the wrong thing will result in war, not peace.

[Squee]

At the end of the day the staff will have their hands full with movie spammers. Since we can't take the time to sit and type out an advert that reaches all corners of the map anymore (due to restraints with movies and now the lack of public general chat) and those trigger happy people who end up typing something short and uninteresting every 2 seconds because they don't have to retype it things have in a way gone downhill for Feralheart... And I do not mean any disrespect towards the staff and Razmirz for their decision when I say this.

After all there's upsides to the lack of general but do they really surpass the downsides now? It's only been a few days but I'm already getting so frustrated without general because it's just a mass of irritation looking through dozens of movies posted at the exact same time and find out it's just the lazy people who type 'Jun mah RP plz!!!', pull a face and waste time.

General was abused, the privelage disregarded by many, this is true and we all know it.
 
You asked for open-mindedness and I've tried to give you that but it has to be said.

I personally think the removal of general will prove to be a mistake in time. There may be benifits to the loss of this chat, but I honestly believe we had it better off with it still around.

Agree to disagree.

But there are better solutions.

Don't take away a toddler's toy because they dropped it, you'll only be deafened by the reaction.

I'm sorry if I came across as disrespectful, I am grateful to everything the staff does to keep Feralheart running efficiently and if I in anyway upset anyone with my opinion I am greatly sorry. But I am only one of thousands and my opinion does not need to matter if you do not want it to. I'm alright with that. I just had to say it...

[xXThexDoctorXx]

I've been watching this topic for the past couple of days and after seeing some of the comments by the members and the mods I've decided to speak my bit.

Now I'm going to speak from experience since I have been a mod before. From what I've seen and read it seems this change was done without thought.

The first big problem is, there was no community consultation. Did you ever consult the community saying, "Hey, do you think we should change this?" No, you did it because you, the mods, thought it would make things better. As you can see, it didn't.

Now lets look at what should have happened after seeing some of the feedback. You can clearly see that 95% of the community is extremely upset by the change. As a mod, you should have thought, "Hey this isn't a good idea maybe we should change it back." And it should have been changed. Your community is the biggest part of this game, without them, there is no FeralHeart. If you can't comply with the request of your community then you don't need to be a mod.

I'm not saying that your doing a bad job as a mod, you have done many things to benefit the community and the game but here you have screwed yourself over.

The second big problem, is that the mods are not taking responsibility for their actions. You can say that it was not your fault that the community didn't know about the change, but let me ask you. Who controls the forums? Who controls the news? Who controls what happens with the game?  You. You control all of that. Whether you want to admit it or not, you are at fault.

The people of this community are going to fight for what they want, they always do. Some of them will go to the absolute extreme to make a change. Eventually you'll have to comply or risk losing the driving force behind this game.
I know your going to read this and say hey, this guy has no idea what he's talking about, but trust me, I've been under the pressure of having to make big decisions and I've learned a little about people and what they'll do to get what they want.

My advice, start thinking about what the community wants.

Hope to see some changes soon.

- ThexDoctor

[Smiling.Sin]

I'm really trying to be *calm and respectful*.

What I'm noticing is that the 'well-known' members {Admins, mods, and other 'popular' people} are for this change, while the general population seems to be either neutral about or against General being taken away. Usually the people who are for this make cases about spam, trolling, and being inappropriate in General chat. Well, what do you expect, people? Are you blind? Of course you're going to have people doing these things, it's the same way in life. What you can do is not be lazy and either turn General off, block them, or ignore them. People have stated THAT as well. See, you just need to listen to your community, which you obviously haven't been doing.

Part of managing and maintaining a game is NOT BEING LAZY. You were given power for a reason, don't abuse it or think that you can do whatever you want. We need more mods and admins considering that those who have the position seem to be having a tough time doing their jobs in FH. I know you all have 'lives' and that managing a big game like FeralHeart isn't easy, but that's why you have the community. There are a lot of nice, loyal people that are willing to help you, and there always have been. You just need to be more creative and bold. Also, you need to keep us INFORMED. I don't care if Kov's gone to be honest.

When in doubt, ask the community, or loyal members. WORK TOGETHER. That's the only way FeralHeart's going to get better. I've seen it going downhill for a while, and more and more people have been going in the dark lately. Do you think that FeralHeart is starting to become a hopeless, impossible project that's dug its own grave? Right now, I do.

This isn't just about General anymore. This is about EVERYTHING. So go ahead, say what you want to say about this, state your opinions about this topic. We'll be watching to see what happens to FeralHeart after this.

I don't have anything more to say, unless someone brings up a new point. If I had the power, I'd do anything I could to get FeralHeart to full glory. But I don't. Sometimes I wish I did. It's only wishful thinking. Maybe I'm just a fool. Who knows? I hope FeralHeart can be reborn again, but its crumbling and nobody seems to care anymore.

[charcharwolf2]

I don't think it is a terrible idea, it'll reduce general spamming that is for sure. But I'll miss you general. I think we all will. ^^

[Fishlioness9565]

Thanks for the update, and it wonder how it'll affect the game

[Dire Night Wolf]

I'm probably going to go against most people by saying this, but I'm totally fine with general being gone.

Sure it's lonely sometimes without the random discussions and catching up through the green chat, but I have seen a little bit more of that FeralHeart where people used to gather up across Fluorite and roleplay with others for the fun of it, without flashy announcements and 'Who has the most members' competitions, sometimes even getting the occasional random lonely guy hop in there without getting chased away.

I can say that without general, I've made new friends whom I would have probably not seen before. I'm the lonely type who doesn't join big restricting and "MUST be ACTIVE" groups, I rather simply walk across fluorite and see who I meet. Sometimes I get to practice my roleplaying skills, other times I get to have a nice conversation with a group or another solo player and more often than not, I make new friends with people I meet every day I spend wandering. In my 2 years on FeralHeart, I used to love getting on simply to see what roleplay I could stumble upon or what is that group talking about, etc...

Not that this was any different when general was here, but it was a LOT less prominent. I used to walk on hour's end and I saw no sign whatsoever of small random roleplays. Everyone was out advertising on general and when I used to walk up to packs in hope of roleplaying, I got a nice: "Our territory, out!"

What's worse was the advertisements. I once joined a group that seemed promising. We roleplayed for thirty minutes before we were told to advertise for 'more' members (as if 23 members just "wasn't enough"). For the entire day, we did nothing but shout in general "Join our awesome pack! Etc..." and this went on for a week before I declared that I had enough and left.

To me, this is a nice, refreshing change to the typical routine I had of going on and going off. I do hope members will grow accustomed to it, as I do enjoy the respite from constant trolling and arguments. I am also very grateful for this change as I have been able of finding some of my friends whom I haven't seen for months and getting together for roleplaying, even attracting others (something not possible before, as very few people were groupless and willing to hop into a roleplay).

I obviously do not get on at the same times as other people here, so what I have said might have been or might have not been already experienced by others. I am just stating my opinion that I like the change, nor do I want anyone on my back trying to convince me that I am oh so wrong. I have seen these changes while I've been around and while I wasn't that involved in the community, I probably will come around like before. It's because of this change that I "came back" so to say. Usually I would log on, see what's going in game before going back off, I felt incredibly bored because no one in fluorite had a daily non-restricting roleplay. It was all big flashy groups of 30 or more players that lasted for months with MUST be ACTIVE daily, so no wonder I lost taste after being 'forced' to roleplay when I didn't feel like it, just to stay in the group in case something interesting happened (because other than groups it was the VOID of boredom).

But yes, for the long run I think it might be beneficial for people like me,

Thank you for reading.

[ZombieKitteh]

What I feel has already been said countless times. I never chatted in general much but honestly with your community dwindling as it is (from the lack of updates mind you); roleplaying and finding nice roleplays is hard. Now it's been made harder. Movies only have so much limited space to type informaiton. You can't fit in everything there about your awesomely mapped roleplays. Or add other needed comments. It makes a ton more work for roleplay owners, which mind you are already working hard to keep our roleplays alive.

I await the day a IT server has a map maker. ;3

By the way spam and trolling in general could be avoided if staff and moderators did their actual jobs. Thanks.

Staff, you dun goofed.

Ps: Sitting on a rock idling and calling everyone "floofs" is not doing your job. Do you know how long it's been since i've seen an actual mod red text appear in chat? Months.

[StarWarsWolf7]

Hate to be bishy about this, but I don't know who thought this was a good idea. Sure general was spammed sometimes and such, but never did I ever see people trying to role play on it. It was used primarily for advertisement. I find it kind of ironic that so many people are always upset about movie spam, and now with general turned off, that's going to get much, much worse. Advertising is going to be awful, as many people would spread out in the plains to advertise, not just clump at the stone bridge or the n/z. So local advertisement in my opinion, is not going to work well. The stone bridge is always spammed with lion prides and warrior cat groups, so literate role plays are going to have a hard time advertising. I just think this is a very poor idea, and as far as I know, it's upset a lot of my literate friends and companions. I suggest just leaving it alone and allowing people to turn of general like they used to if it's bothering them. Or get MOD's to patrol general a little more, perhaps? Instead of sitting there on that rock at the n/z? Since it's so "offensive," maybe it should be monitored more as opposed to totally disposing of it. And come to think of it, what happened to the MODs talking in red chat in the plains anyway? That seemed to be effective. So why not just actually have them do their jobs as opossed to socializing. Thank you; just my opinion :I

[Riddlestyx]

Bad idea. Surely you staff have acknowledged how this place is dying away, and doing this is not going to help your chances of keeping the game up. Unless you just don't give a crap anymore and wanna be lazy, like you all already are. It's not just about general being gone, it's just another sign of the staff not caring at all and trying to find ways around their jobs so they don't have to get off their asses and actually take action in game. Welp, can't wait for Aro'Kai to come out.