I've been a member of this game since 2012. That's 7 years - wow, I feel old. This game is definently a huge form of nostalgia for me. Whenever I used to play when I was younger, I'd get up extra early just to hop on FH before the servers got too full; anyone else remember that? I've met people I'm still friends with now, and some old friends I still think about from time to time. I think this game has a wonderful sense of community and enough members who are eager enough to keep it alive to do something, to push the game in the right direction, but if we keep letting it go on how it is now, it's only a matter of time before the game dies out for good.
The new maps are nice, all the extra bits and changes that the staff has made to the game have been wonderful, but they're not enough.You can change the aesthetics of a game all you want, but they're forgetting to use FeralHeart's biggest strength to their advantage - community.
I think registration needs to be open, always. This game isn't as popular as it used to be and less and less people know about it. It's mostly in the minds of nostalgic, young adults like me, and I'm sure, a lot of you. We need to bring in new kitties, young roleplayers like how we used to be, get the name back out there again and make FeralHeart known again. Doing so might even bring back more Veteran members, too.
Bringing back General Chat wouldn't hurt, either. Again, the staff should bank off the community atmosphere, and you can't have a community without communication. I understand the point of this game is to roleplay, but sometimes, people just want to chat with one another. General Chat was how I met my best friend of 6 years now. If spam was the problem there, then we need more supervision in the chats. No matter the game, if there's a chat box, there's spam. I hear the argument that General Chat was too broad of a chat, that everything got too muddled together; a General Chat for, well, chatting, and an Advertisement Chat for roleplays. Movie is frustrating to use, and never enough room to communicate your ideas to other people. It's made advertising hard and kind of frustrating. The two chats would allow people to toggle in between and turn off the fast-moving General Chat to focus on local, group, or ad making. Bringing back this feature may even allow for some mire Veterans to return.
Again, I don't think FeralHeart will die, but I think it's hanging on a string right now. If the handful of people who still care about and love this game act soon, we might be able to breath some life back into the game.