Feral Heart

just added some cool new screenshots!  Our closing plot to Chapter One takes place on Friday evening, so catch us before then and be there for the start of it all, the end of the beginning !

Thanks to everyone for all the kind comments, it's very encouraging!

To put it simply, this is a realistic to semi-realistic canine role play, primarily stray dog, set in the deserts of New Mexico.  If I could describe the RP in a simple blatant sentence, I'd say it's basically a cowboy western take on stray dogs but ya know, not actually.

We now hold two packs in our role play: 

Los Sabuesos (Lows suh bway sohs) is the pack of old and of legend.  El Viejo, the first dog to take to the desert, started Los Sabuesos.  They dwell on an abandoned ranch and have a fair bit of resources that have helped them survive, but still they can struggle in the hunt.  All dogs who walk the highway are taken in by Los Sabuesos, all dogs are seen as a Sabueso at heart.  Although, some dogs have shown distaste for wolf-dogs and coy-dogs, believing that they won't truly walk with El Viejo in their death, because of how 'their kind' treated him...
This ''distaste'' to say the least, helped in the creation of the new pack.
El Estrago (El Eh Stray Go). They believe that not all dogs are of El Estrago blood, and that they must prove they are through trials of strength.  They live in the lands of outcast and lesser resource, the lands of coyote and lobo alike, in an abandoned mine, and they seek to create a new blood of stronger dogs.  They believe El Viejo would be disappointed in what Los Sabuesos is and has become.  They were originally started when wolf-dogs felt they were being treated poorly, and had a call to arms that forced them out of the territory.  But they take all dogs willing to prove themselves... all dogs willing to face the consequences if they fail.


In our role play, we offer the opportunity to read about lore, or simply learn about everything naturally just as your character would if they were taken in by the stray haven of Los Sabuesos.  Our staff play plot advancing, lore friendly characters that show our story to offer an interactive and advancing environment without being overwhelming.

You have the option to have personal character development and casual small RP sessions, to drama-filled, intense, plot-wide event sessions that are scheduled if you'd like to show up and participate in those as well.  We try to offer spotlight to different members in said plot sessions when we can, trying to give equal opportunity for everyone's character development.

Lastly, our role play offers a no-pressure environment.  You aren't pressured to be online, we don't kick for inactivity.  The most we do is server sweeps to keep things clean.  Beyond that, this is an "at your leisure" RP that is great for those of you who have jobs, school, etc. 

Our role play needs a few more members for some interesting but still member-driven plots that are being planned, one taking place on this Friday evening (tomorrow!)
Chapter Two of our role play is now beginning.  You can view a full plot recap under our forum's plot info board here!  http://highway550.boards.net/board/11/plot-recaps




- Can I make a wolf or coyote character?
Because lobos aren't specifically in this region in mass amounts if at all, wolf characters are limited to a family group.  Auditions for them are currently open.  You're pretty much almost guaranteed a lobo if you present a fully completed audition.
Coyotes are very common, you can have one, but it can't be your main character.  Just ask a staff member before you make one, and before they do any pack interactions to make sure it doesn't affect any plot stuff or other stuff that could be happening.

- Do I apply?  Send an RP sample?
We prefer and enforce a thing I call "eventual literacy" in that you don't need to join and already be a great RPer, we accept those who may need improvement, we don't require any RP samples.  Just hop into the discord and paste a short description, optionally a picture or screenshot under los-sabuesos-bios. 

- Can my character be a loner?
You'll miss out on a lot of the plot by having a main character as a loner, so we don't allow it.  Loners are not permitted to stay in the pack's territory and 'use resources' so pretty much all loners are often previous pack members who deserted or were sent to exile in the outskirt territory of Rabid Ridge.  In other words, have a main character be in the pack, you can create a side character that is an exile/has somehow failed pack life, if you wish.

- What kind of dog can my character be?
Upon joining you can be literally any dog that is realistic.  We do allow all eye colors, but the rest of the dog, it's backstory, it's behavior, all realistic.  We got chihuahuas, we got caucasian shepherds, we got big staffordshires, we got elderly hounds, we got tiny border terriers, we got three legged mutts... The only thing we never allow is poodles and komondors because matting can be deadly, and albinos because skin and health conditions.  You also are not allowed a half dog half wolf immediately upon joining because we have certain rules to keep wolf dog to dog ratio realistic, but you can make one after having a normal dog character.
If it's not an albino, poodle, komondor, or half-wolf, and it looks realistic, we'll work with it.

- Can my character be found by the pack?
Yup, just find a place for your character to be found by a scout in your chosen pack.  Keep in mind new and young pack members are given another pack member to teach and mentor them in the ways of the pack, called a blood brother. You can find your own mentor OOCly, or ask someone who has their characters up to teach.

- Can my character be a pup?
Pups need an NPC mother, or you can play their mother, or you can seek out a mother.  Either way you just need to acknowledge they have a mama, and then sure.  If they aren't nursing any longer, their mother can be recently deceased from dehydration or something.

- Am I allowed items?
Any items are allowed as long as they were given to the dog by their owner and the dog has an attachment to the item.  For example, someone in the RP has a hat, completely fine because that dog has an attachment to the hat.

- Can my character be a wolf-dog or coy-dog?
half dogs can only be made after you have a normal dog character to keep the ratio near realistic.
Coyotes are far more common and can be made at anytime, each user is allowed one coy-dog and one coyote.

I began the making of Usikate Tamaa when FH was uh, hitting some rough slopes not too long ago and I thought this game of my childhood would be shut down or die out at least.  Maybe it still will, hopefully not.  But this cheesy little project is supposed to take on a realistic capture of the franchise that somewhat inspired a lot of FH (at least I think so)- and that is the Lion King.
Usikate Tamaa in itself means 'do not give up.' cheesy, I know.
So by realistic capture I mean that I am going to try and do the whole wildebeast canyon and waterfall and such, but it'll be more realism based rather than based on dryland to jungle.  The mainland, Usikaa plains, will have two smaller camps with one large pride rock.  These camps will be first come first serve.  The map will likely only be open to african based RP's though, as it wouldn't be entirely fair to claim a camp for like, a wolf RP or something?
I would completely stick to the lion king's environment but I also wanted this to be my original work too, and I didn't want someone to get on me if I messed something or something wasn't exact to the movie.  I also just have my strongest points in realism based things.

The meshes featured are both mine and not- I edited them a bit and transferred them in game, but they're just commercial use textures put onto default objects.

I am taking suggestions for future landmarks and stuff, feel free to shoot me some pictures.  Gentle suggestions, not full on 'will you do this for me' requests.  This is for the whole of FH!
I don't have too much done yet, but if you'd like to follow the project, check out my dA @ rookfox.deviantart.com c:


And then here is a few scenes from the wetland.  It has been renamed to Crocsnap Marsh, which doesn't sound as cool but there's not any alligators in Africa and I learned that after a google search and feeling like a dingus because I already posted this.  Oh well! 

Part of the reason I'm sharing this besides getting some hype up is because I am open to ideas, suggestions, reference/inspiration pics etc for new areas to add in.  I would like it to be a genuine map pack and right now there's just the giant mainland and the wetlands.  I don't think I've really asked ideas from the community before but since this was inspired by the community, I mean I gotta ask.

I'll be posting more on my dA, Rookfox, soon.  Hope y'all enjoy ovo

I really appreciate the time put into updating FH and I'm happy to see it's still being updated after so many years.  I haven't had an issue with the game at all before.
Just some information before I begin, I run FH through an application for macs called PlayOnMac which helps run windows exes on macs.  So far this has not effected anything but maybe it's worth mentioning.  I do not run any harsh mods, retextures, ENBs, etc on it because they aren't mac friendly.

I excitedly downloaded the new FH and ripped apart my old FH to install my RP's map, my RP's presets, and my maps and objects. I was careful in doing this to not replace any of the new FH's files, assuming they needed to be in tact of course.  I deleted anything default from my old FH as I was copying stuff in so that they wouldn't paste and replace into the new FH, and made sure I wasn't replacing anything upon pasting.

Yesterday and today it worked fine post installing of my old stuff but progressively throughout my day today it's just.  I don't know.  Maybe corrupting?  Slowly becoming more and more unrunnable.  I haven't even gone into the new maps, just my same old map and the grounds.
I think the issues began after recruiting today, so in a public map.  I've been randomly freezing, crashing, more so than usual (i only crash when changing into maps, typically) and then when I try to reload, a lot of the time it'll start and freeze on just a white blank screen and not get to the menu.  I can get to the menu a few tries later or after a few minutes which is a nuisance when I'm trying to recruit or in the middle of a session.  Again I say I appreciate the update and I know this is likely a me problem, so please don't take my slight annoyance as annoyance with the staff or map creators.
A few times when I did surpass white screen stuff, I wouldn't be able to switch characters from the first one in the line.  It would freeze upon clicking an arrow.

Fortunately PlayOnMac has a debug thing which debugs applications for you.  I used debug once or twice which still required one or two restarts to get past the white screen but I could get on quicker.  Things were looking up!

And then, just now, I used debug like I use on any problematic application annnnd I came back to FH to find that plants... don't render anymore?  And only plants is the weirdest part... I can see rocks and the building in our RP's map.
I will note that the old FH would allow me to debug without any issues, so that's why I'm very confused here.  I mean I've been running FH like this for years, and never have I had so many issues.  I'm worried because Raz said this is the first of many updates which is exciting and great, FH is my childhood man, but if I'm having this many issues with the first one then now I'm a little down.

So now that I've explained my issue, I do have two questions.
1) the obvious one of does anyone know what's going on or what corrective action I can take and
2) is there somewhere I can download the old FH and if I can, does it allow me to connect to the same server that new FH does??  Like I said above, I ripped apart my old FH to install things to the new one ):

FH worked perfectly fine with me installing my old stuff onto it at first and I didn't install anything else at all since then.  I don't have additional mods or preset sync or poor connection, I don't know what to do.  Suggestions appreciated!