Salamanders??, This would be fun! Options

[Guest_Andromeda Juno_*]

Here's a fun idea for the next pay avatar.

Salamanders! They could walk on unwalkable water, opening up new realms of exploration! The chould have a tornado or tounge flicking ability! The patching oppertunities would be superb!

Salamanders would rock!

[Guest_Rekkath_*]

I beleive Salamanders from legend lived in lava and fire like salamanders of earth live in water.

I think fire-breathing (notice, DEP, FIRE BREATHING, forgot that on dragons) salamanders which can wade in lava would be awesome.

[Aeronyth]

That sure would be a funny looking avatar...

[Hollyberry]

Perhaps it could be a free avatar? I personally wouldn't want to use it, but I think it'd be nice if there was a free avatar with a "special" ability.

[Guest_Rekkath_*]

DEP has made it clear (and continues to reinforce) the fact you will get NOTHING special until you pay money for Furc.

Special DS scripts, (recently) a dream only winged players can reach, the silver sponsor stuff, abilities, etc.

It's pretty cut and dry:

You want the most outta furc?  Your gonna pay for it.



Anyone else notice Kes, the artist who made the dragons for furc, didn't even get a year of use for it?  Kes has to pay for the dragon just like everyone else.  Awful /rude/ of DEP, don't you think?  They use someone else's avatar and barely even give them thanks, much less the ability to USE what they made.

My two cents.

[Deathdog3000]

I beleive Salamanders from legend lived in lava and fire like salamanders of earth live in water.

I think fire-breathing (notice, DEP, FIRE BREATHING, forgot that on dragons) salamanders which can wade in lava would be awesome.

Salamander is also a species of real life lizard.

That would be cool...
I was also thinking mabie a free sparrow species that could walk on cloud tiles but as a down fall they could be increadibly short as.

Anyone else notice Kes, the artist who made the dragons for furc, didn't even get a year of use for it?  Kes has to pay for the dragon just like everyone else.  Awful /rude/ of DEP, don't you think?  They use someone else's avatar and barely even give them thanks, much less the ability to USE what they made.

No offence to Dragon's eye but. THAT IS DISGUSTING TO PAY FOR YOUR OWN ART!

[Aeronyth]

Anyone else notice Kes, the artist who made the dragons for furc, didn't even get a year of use for it?  Kes has to pay for the dragon just like everyone else.  Awful /rude/ of DEP, don't you think?  They use someone else's avatar and barely even give them thanks, much less the ability to USE what they made.

Did kestrel actually draw them, or are you just listening to furcadia gossip?

Proof of your information would be nice.


BTW:  Free furcadia users DO get things.  I suggest you read this thread: http://www.meovanni.com/cgi-bin....;t=7044:  In short:

Farrier wrote:

Over the last year, there have been the following "Pay" features added:

1) Zephiroth: including changes to the a) join and b) summon commands, and changes to a) wall and b) floor attributes to make them "flyable".
2) Silver sponsorship: including the ability to a) change colours and species at will, to b) change your portrait once a month, and to c) upload into the silver sponsorship dream.
3) Butterfly wings.
4) Two commands introduced for paying furres (detecting when a furre turns into a dragon/phoenix)

Hmm. Well, I'd say that was four changes, but if you count each feature/command/DS line of that separately, it's maybe ten changes. That's quite a lot!

In contrast, all that the nonpaying people have seen is:

1) `join, `summon, `sheild, `decline
2) Dreams-within-dreams: including uploads-owner, uploads-shared, uploads-all, pads-owner, pads-shared and pads-all commands.
3) `unloading dreams.
4) unshare command.
5) Online detection.
6) Dragonspeak increased from 3,000 to 8,000 lines.
7) Resuming of downloads, and downloads are faster.
8) These forums.
9) Password and email changing.
10) And only 28 new DS lines for general use!
[also lots of bugfixes, tweaks, etc that are too small to be mentioned, a server upgrade, etc]

Aww.  The poor free users didn't get anything.......Right.



This post has been edited by Aeronyth: Dec 30 2002, 06:49 PM

[Youlanda]

I always thought upper members of DEP could give stuff away to people or something..

[Aeronyth]

I spose felorin could if he was feeling really generous.

[Nikolas Payne]

What do you mean 'furcadia gossip'? It's not like anyone has ever denied Kestrel drew the dragons. Go ask Felorin. Go on. *Shoos.*

Besides, do you honestly think someone like Kestrel would have to pay for items, morals aside? Trust me, if she wanted too, it would be easily within her grasp to get someone else to buy her a dragon. Now, she might have morals against that, but there's no horrible atrocity being committed here by making her 'pay for her own art'. Moreover I'm fairly certain Felorin/whoever would give her for free in light of that fact.

But I digress.

[Jeshy]

Most of the people who play this game ARE young. They ask their parents to pay for it, and if anyone has parents like mine (which I'm sure they do) you'd get smacked upside the head for asking to pay for some "cheesey little game."

I don't think everything should be free, but it would be interesting to have a "special" ability on a regular free character. Furc has to make money somehow. (But it's not exactly like they're running low on funds.)

[Ridia]

Well...

I've been on Furcadia for I-don't-know-how-long-not-as-long-as-that-'veteran'-person-I'm-so-scared/in awe of.

Probably about two years, one year of which was spent with non-regular useage, and this last year is daily... extended daily... useage.

To date I have had/have currently:
3 dragons (I gave one away)
1 phoenix
1 set butterfly wings
1 set Tri-wings
1 portrait space.

And I didn't have to pay a cent for any of it. Why?

My friends love me.

From my experience as a 'paid' user of Furcadia, I'll say this much:

Dragons are fun, but they're big, bulky, have the 'dead draggy pose' and if you step onto a really tall item their head dissappears... and they spit hearts.

Phoenixes are better, and their power is fun, but when you DO flame, people b**** at you for lagging them. Phoenix bonfire! VENGANCE AGAINST THE LAGGY HORDES!

Wings are the best, small, no laggy special powers, and cute, but I'm tired of the butterfly wing's misalignment.

I have an ucky, old, non-remappable portrait. And I'm stuck with it. For life. Till death do I and said portrait part.

Also, I don't mind summoning strangers to Zephiroth (spelling?) but whisper me first, I'm probably not there. And, if I don't like a person, I have a nasty habit of summoning them to a secluded little island in the middle of the clouds. Take your chances.


Even being a paid user isn't as fun as some people think. I'm starting to like running around 'naked' of my avatars. People don't even recognize me without them.

...Any whispers asking for one of my avatars will result in being placed on ignore. My friends (mostly my boyfriend) gave them to me for a reason (and some I acctually earned through commissioned art).

[Guest_Rekkath_*]

Again, weak-minded individuals twist my words...


I didn't /down/ DEP for anything except the theft (basically) of Kestrel's stuff.

And yes, I do have proof.  Kestrel's dragon patch was being used nearly a year before dragons were added to Furc.  They were a popular replacement for equines, back before dream-specific patches.



I'm not complaining.  I play on Ultima Online and Everquest.  I respect that it's DEP's right and authority to want to make some profit for a game they've worked fairly hard on.  In fact, i'm grateful that they offer so much free as they do.

I was only pointing out that they /do/ put more focus on pay services than free services.  In fact, if it weren't for the fact that non-paying customers eventually become paying customers, I doubt they'd work on free services at all.  But that's their right, and it's not, in any way, wrong or greedy.


Now, what IS wrong and greedy is their theft of the Dragon avatars.  (I don't beleive the portraits were Kestrel's, tho.  Kes' was much cuter and not as cool.)
Even if Kestrel did voluntarily let them use it, I think they could at least give credit.

[Ridia]

If she made the dragons, and isn't getting free dragons, and WANTS a dragon (See, it's the WANTING that could make a diffrence) I'm sure that if she WANTS a dragon for free she can raise Hell.

But that's her business, not our's.

[Guest_Rekkath_*]

But it's the fact DEP didn't /offer/ to give it to her.  Or give anything, for that matter.

As an owner of an RPG myself, I give extended rights and benefits to my artists, including copyright retention.  If they ever wanna remove their art, they can.

[Felorin]

I hate to sound hard-nosed about it, but posting false defamatory statements about Dragon's Eye Productions is libel.  We have no intention of suing anybody for it.  Nor do we want to remove posts about Dragon's Eye, Furcadia, or any other games we might make just because they're negative.  That would restrict the open discussion of any flaws or needed improvements in our works.

But we would appreciate it if you would make sure to get your facts straight before publically accusing us of something.  False accusations can unfairly damage our reputation, or even reduce our income, for something we didn't even do!  And while we won't sue or delete the posts, you'd better believe I'll set the facts straight any time we stand unjustly accused.

The dragon avatar artwork was worked on by Jaguarbie Danir, Kestrel, and a bit by Talzhemir.  Jaguarbie did the original dragon patch we were thinking of working from.  Then Kestrel did another dragon that looked better in some ways.  Talzhemir combined parts of the two - I can't remember if she got Kestrel to do some final touch-up work on them after that or not.  The portraits were done entirely by Talzhemir.  Jaguarbie received two free dragons, one for herself and one for her fiancee' at that time.  Kestrel has done other artwork for us since then on a volunteer basis, and she's gotten a lot more than two free avatars for a year.  Sometimes she's insisted on buying things to help support us, though we would have given her some more for being so helpful.  All the art in Furcadia that wasn't drawn by Talzhemir has been used with full permission of the artists who drew it, in some cases they were even asked if they'd draw it for us.  So none of it, including the dragons, is in any way "stolen".

As far as working more on for-pay stuff than on free stuff...  That's just nonsense.  (Although we would have every right to divide our time however we wished, and if we spend 99% on pay stuff and 1% on free stuff, we'd still be more generous than a lot of game companies are.)  The vast majority of the game is free.  We didn't charge for ANYTHING until 1999, so all the work we did in 1996, 1997, and 1998 was totally spent working on free features - the ability to walk and talk, hundreds and hundreds of floors and objects you can build your dreams out of, the dream editor, the DragonSpeak language, the main maps, the website, etc. etc.  From 1999 on, most of our work has been on free stuff like fixing server bugs, adding more DragonSpeak (the next update has about 110 new DragonSpeak commands, all free, which I designed and implemented personally and am very proud of, and a new DragonSpeak editor that Reunion made for us with some feedback from me and some other folks), improving our web pages, keeping the business running, expanding the HUGE volunteer program to give more free help to people for free, going from just dealing with troublemakers to adding groups to help you with questions about dream making, dragonspeak, art, patching, or tech support...  Running events and festivals and contests, and lots more.

As for only encouraging free stuff because new players eventually become customers...  Most don't, frankly.  1 to 2 percent of Furcadia players ever buy ANYTHING.  98 to 99 percent are getting a free ride, financed by those few.  Which is, I suppose, why a lot of people complain that we're not giving them the kind of service/features/whatever that we are "supposed" to or are "obligated" to...

Because people don't appreciate things they get for free.  They appreciate stuff they had to pay for a bit more, on average...

Anyway please cease with the libellous remarks.  Kestrel was given a dragon for her work, and can have another free dragon for the asking any time.  Ask her yourself before you go around spreading false rumors about her or about us.

[Guest_Vampirina_*]

Rekkath said:

But it's the fact DEP didn't /offer/ to give it to her.  Or give anything, for that matter.

Not to sound offensive, but how do we know if she was offered a dragon (or anything else)? That sort of thing wouldn't exactly be made public.

We're not Kestrel. We don't know what she has or doesn't have, or wants and doesn't want. Maybe she's got a dragon and doesn't like it anymore and thusly doesn't use it. Maybe she's got wings and no dragon because they better fit her drawn character design. Or maybe she's got a phoenix. Or maybe she HAD a dragon, but gave it away.

Either way, that's Kestrel's business, not ours, and to make allegations like this is just pointless. If Kestrel has a problem with the way something is being handled as far as "payment" for using her creations, she would take it up with DEP herself, most likely out of the public eye. As long as she doesn't have a problem with it, why should we care?

And I think salamanders (or generic lizard like species, at least) would be pretty cool. So would bears or dolphins, or a million other things. Odds are if such a feature is added, it won't be free. Otherwise, we'd have a million morons running around in salamander form spurting fire while blocking water passages in dreams or something. :P

Maybe it would be free if it didn't have something "special" attached to it, like the lapines. I think aside from earning Furcadia some $$$, charging for "special" creatures is a way of keeping people from abusing such a feature. People get annoyed when paying customers use the dragon breath or phoenix flame. Imagine how big an uproar there would be if anyone could do it. Not to mention the lag it could potentially create. :P

-Rina

[Guest_Rekkath_*]

Hmm, I stand corrected.  My apologies.

Long story short, I overheard a conversation Kestrel was having with her friends in which she told them she didn't get anything for it.


Apparently, this isn't the case.  So I give my heartfelt apology for my uncalled for slander.
I'm sorry.


(edit, addition)

I accept responsibility for perpetuating a false rumor.  I'm sorry.



This post has been edited by Rekkath: Dec 31 2002, 07:31 PM