Author Topic: FH History Help for Fanlore!  (Read 2236 times)

Offline Patchlamb

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FH History Help for Fanlore!
« on: August 11, 2020, 10:37:02 pm »
Hello all, I vaguely played Impressive Title and FeralHeart when I was pretty young. Now I'm trying to fill out the Fanlore wiki page for it but I'm afraid I may not know enough about it. I'll eventually do some digging into the forum and other places (maybe the game too, later on) but it's always good to ask the fan base directly! If you don't know what Fanlore is it is just a wiki for fandoms to put down their histories. Check out FeralHeart's page here-> https://fanlore.org/wiki/FeralHeart

If you can, please answer some of my questions below, or otherwise you can also join Fanlore and help write the page yourself. Feel free to skip questions. Thank you!

1. Do you consider Impressive Title and FeralHeart to be mostly the same game, sans a few things?
2. How long have you played IT/FH?
3. What do you call the fanbase for IT/FH, if anything?
4. Are there any instances of controversy, issue, or drama within the community you think should go on the page? (don't post anything public you don't want other's to see! Feel free to message me privately about this but remember it may go onto the Fanlore page)
5. What's it like being in the community in general? How do things work?
6. Do you RP in game and on the forum at the same time or is it separate? I hear "packs" have Discord groups as well.
7. Are there any big names in the game, like characters/groups everyone knows/likes or knows/dislikes?
8. The game appears to blend with other fandoms, such as Lion King and Warrior Cats. Any info about that that's useful or interesting?
9. Any major history events, such as in-game events, serious hackings, parties, meet ups, etc?

Offline LaughingWolf

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Re: FH History Help for Fanlore!
« Reply #1 on: August 14, 2020, 05:08:11 pm »
1- I never played IT, but I consider FH to be an evolution of IT, as FHU will be an evolution of FH, when released.
2 - long enough that I know a lot of things from a lot of different people.
3- that's a strange question. It ranges from people who want to escape from their personal reality for a while to kids that just want to run around as a dog or a cat. That question is by leading and tries to make us name a particular group of people. They're the userbase.
4 & 9: do you want the real history or whatever Raz or staff decides to approve of? Because there's a lot they won't approve of but is history regardless of that approval.
5- I'm honestly no longer part of this servers community. I've moved to FN:FH (a 1.13 mapped server hosted by the fhu staff as a safer option for those who no longer consider FH safe) and eventually fhU when it goes live. How do things work.. another oddly worded question. Here? Poorly. Staff doesn't communicate anymore, and they have become a bitter set of people.

6-nobody uses the forum anymore. It's dead. The only time people post are to those forum games, or when drama pops up. This thread has huge potential for that.

7- when the game had a population, yes. From fnaf to hetalia and even Pokemon. But this server is now and has been for some time, stagnant.
8-useful? About as much as any rp does. Improved writing, creative and even social skills. Also can drive someone to research how real animals do things, or are colored etc.
9- there's a long history to fh and a lot of it is not pretty. Staff probably won't allow that story to be told.


Offline Patchlamb

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Re: FH History Help for Fanlore!
« Reply #2 on: August 14, 2020, 08:09:11 pm »
An interesting reply with some informative tidbits. Thank you! Hope there are more replies, even if the forum is apparently "dead" :(

Offline turtlies

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Re: FH History Help for Fanlore!
« Reply #3 on: August 14, 2020, 08:35:41 pm »
I'm not familiar with Fanlore but that's a pretty solid start so far! I would recommend maybe reaching out to some of the users who were quoted first, I'm aware some might not be comfortable with their statements being directly used like that. Plus some events can be explained very differently depending on who you ask so I'd recommend trying to get the full scope of things.

Seems the recent issues were covered thoroughly but I'll list a couple other situations and give a quick hopefully unbiased synopsis. (some posts might be broken but I'll send the major links):
- Removal of general chat - One of the major chats that was visible throughout the entire map and often used for advertising was removed, causing major backlash. (X)
- Hacking incident - There was a situation involving 'hackers' taking control of accounts, I'm not sure if this was a serious threat or more of a trolling thing, but this led to the implementation of the login page which has to be open on the player's browser if they wish to play FH. (X, X)
- Buttswing - Minor in comparison to other events, but Buttswing was one of the actions/animations players could do alongside other dance moves. This caused issues with players performing this action on top of other players, particularly ones whose characters were laying down, as it mimicked inappropriate behavior not really suitable for a game generally aimed at kids/tweens. I don't have any links but this action was replaced in one of the newest updates.
- No Mod October - Genuinely not sure how much I'm allowed to say on this topic... but the thread is public. (X, X)
- The Update #1 - For the first time in forever, FH was given an update! This was before any access to the source code, but it was a major event to see a game we previoiusly thought was gonna remain the same forever get some sort of update. (X)
- The Update #2 - The source code was acquired, much to the shock of pretty much everybody. (X)
(If anyone smarter than me wants to correct any of that go ahead i have bad memory)

I guess it's worth mentioning Feralheart has a lot of frequent events, in the past there were the Monthly Preset Contests, every so often the Movie Nights and Official Feralheart Radio events are held. There's also MOTS (Member of the Season) held seasonally to choose three members of the community that seemed outstanding in some way.

The News Archives is a good place to find info on events. Threads in the Game/Forum Discussion boards might not be as relevant of issues.

Good luck with this project!


he/him
bro what if i put my feralheart cave next to yours.. bro what if they only had one flattened bush mesh to lay on and we had to share... haha just kidding... unless...?

Offline LaughingWolf

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Re: FH History Help for Fanlore!
« Reply #4 on: August 15, 2020, 12:58:00 am »
Correcting your update #2. Raz has always had a broken version (as he's told it) of the code, I believe that is what was used for 1.17, to add the sliders etc. That was the shocker, that its always sorta been there, but hadn't thought to use it until then.

Quote
Seems the recent issues were covered thoroughly but I'll list a couple other situations and give a quick hopefully unbiased synopsis. (some posts might be broken but I'll send the major links):
- Removal of general chat - One of the major chats that was visible throughout the entire map and often used for advertising was removed, causing major backlash. (X)
- Hacking incident - There was a situation involving 'hackers' taking control of accounts, I'm not sure if this was a serious threat or more of a trolling thing, but this led to the implementation of the login page which has to be open on the player's browser if they wish to play FH. (X, X)
- Buttswing - Minor in comparison to other events, but Buttswing was one of the actions/animations players could do alongside other dance moves. This caused issues with players performing this action on top of other players, particularly ones whose characters were laying down, as it mimicked inappropriate behavior not really suitable for a game generally aimed at kids/tweens. I don't have any links but this action was replaced in one of the newest updates.
- No Mod October - Genuinely not sure how much I'm allowed to say on this topic... but the thread is public. (X, X)
- The Update #1 - For the first time in forever, FH was given an update! This was before any access to the source code, but it was a major event to see a game we previoiusly thought was gonna remain the same forever get some sort of update. (X)
- The Update #2 - The source code was acquired, much to the shock of pretty much everybody. (X)
(If anyone smarter than me wants to correct any of that go ahead i have bad memory)

I think the downward spiral started with the hackening. Happened on thanksgiving a few years ago, as you wrote. That started with, obviously, the server being forced down for a while only to come back with the login. So much complaining about the login happened, in-game, but people were still in game despite that. It did issue a huge drop in population, because people used it as a reason to move on to other platforms or just on in life.

After that, the big update to change the 'classic' 1.13 maps to what is mostly the current set (Eastern Pass was different, Kibou Ridge didn't exist, and Ficho was a little different too, from 1.17). The community had wanted more maps, but they generally didn't expect a full replacement and a whole new, more cohesive world. I think many of them didn't want that at all, to be honest. Many complain/ed that it was a little too cohesive, and that they felt closed-in with the new map styles with the large borders. For a long time the favorite was Cherika and Kiwi right after the big change.

The next thing that happened to further drop popularity was the drama that led up to what is referred to as NMO. Simply put, everyone made bad decisions. The short version is that when the map making team for what would be the Eastern Pass, Kibou Ridge and Ficho update, were finished but Raz had disappeared, and the Staff then had taken it upon themselves to try to blend old FH maps into the new existing ones. It wasn't agreed upon that they should do this by Raz, and even as part of the map-making team, i had no idea they were doing it. When Raz turned it down eventually, one of the staff posted it on the forum either out of spite or to force Raz' hand by "showing him" how popular it would be. Of course Raz also reacted poorly to that, so.. All in all, it was a series of unfortunate choices by the staff and by raz himself, leading up to nearly not having any moderation staff. That never really came to fruition, I don't think, because they did eventually talk it out, and the game moved forward, with the originally agreed upon update that included Kibou Ridge, along with Ficho and EP's updates.

It seems drama peaks right around the time of an update as of late. From there, there was the character-maker update in which we saw new sliders and other changes that helped usability. That, I think went off without a hitch other than people being 'shocked' about suddenly having the source code available. And like I said above, sorta. lol

For a time things were peaceful, quiet, and numbers were slowly dwindling as same-shit-different-day got boring for many that would eventually turn into almost the entire poplation of the game just hanging out in The Grounds, some of them not so much as talking to eachother, just being there as far as anyone would be able to tell. Through that period there was some rumors and stories of staff misbehaving and former and/or retired staff retaining their moderation tools and some were abusing that ability.

We eventually come to the last few months where it came to a head when someone asked about an innocuous thread being deleted. People were removed without reason beyond having a link to fhU or simply watching the questioning thread to begin with. It snowballed and eventually things that the moderation staff I hope really regrets happened, happened. Through that, it may have been the final straw for many members. Since then many have self-deleted their profiles, and moved onto FN:FH and are awaiting FHU. Simply put, many felt threatened by the staff here, and some may still feel that way, so they left.

The Fhu thing is a total 'nother ball of wax that I am not going to get into because those who are/were directly involved were either banned for their involvement or self-removed for the same reasons. Its not my story to tell, except to say that Raz has become very bitter, and I think it's catching on with the staff.

Offline Patchlamb

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Re: FH History Help for Fanlore!
« Reply #5 on: August 15, 2020, 08:20:38 pm »
Wow.. I'm sorry to have encouraged y'all to talk about things that seem to be a sore spot, though I should also say I certainly didn't expect it. I write a lot of articles and edit existing pages on FL so I'm no stranger to writing controversy, but I'd honestly not expected so much from FH when I initially thought it'd be fun to give it a page. I enjoyed the game for a bit when it was IT and I was a kid but was never in the community past that, so I of course had no idea so much had apparently been happening! As an impartial third party/outsider all I can really say is... sorry everyone here seems to have been through heartache. :C It can't feel good at all to be in a community for so long and then feel like it's rotting away due to one thing or another.

Besides all the issues in the last few years... have there not been any great, happy moments? Any times when everyone came together and enjoyed the staff and community? Maybe a large, friendly RP group that used to frequent the game or something? I hate for the page to have such a long bit on community issues without having more sprinklings of happy times throughout it, too.

Also, what is FN:FH? I'm assuming a player-owned server like FeralHeart Unleashed?

Offline Telluric

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Re: FH History Help for Fanlore!
« Reply #6 on: August 15, 2020, 09:56:42 pm »
i'll say that a lot of the time the game's vibes are.. apathetic. they've been like that for a while.. after 2019's drama even i was dissuaded from rping in local in the grounds - something i was comfortable with doing since 2017. it had become too quiet in the game for me to feel comfortable in breaking any silence.
but i will say there was always a sense of unity over seasonal events - the summer/halloween/whatever parties always drew a crowd and even people who hadn't touched the game in a while or mostly stowed away in private maps would jump out and have fun for a few hours.
usually work hindered me from showing up to these specific events, but i know plenty of other users who can back me on this one.

as for fn:fh it's a server hosted by a different community - it's feral-heart 1.13 in the modern era. no login page, working general chat, etc. i call it a buffering server - it's up to sorta generate hype and keep the crowds around for feralheart: unleashed.
i myself haven't played, there's some members on the game who were formerly in this community who i'd rather not be around.
plus i'm lazy as hell and don't wanna reinstall markings/items if i don't have to.

anyways, yeah, there's not much else to be said. a real aura of chill hasn't really been around this game for a long, long time, and when it does come back it's never for very long, always quashed out by a loss of interest or drama sparking up. sorry you have to walk into such a drab time, but i do appreciate your enthusiasm to learn all the same.
hope this helped.
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