Talzhemir's Frequently Asked Questions




Yup, I sure do get a lot of questions!
Thanks for playing Furcadia, and thanks for checking out my FAQ.


INDEX

0. "What is in the next Update?"

1. "How do I get to be a Guardian?"

2. "My __________ isn't working! Please help?"

3. "How do I make a Bot?"

4. "Please help me with my Dragonspeak?"

5. "How do you do Patches?"

6. "How do I get music in my Dream?"

7. "How do I get Wings?"

8. "How much for just the wings, and no print?"

9. "How can I be a Dragon? How much does it cost?"

10. "How old are you? Are you female in real life? Are you single?"

11. "Why don't you add fighting?"

12. "Are you going to support roleplaying?"

13. "What is the difference between Persona Play and Roleplaying?"

14. "What happened to the Roleplaying? Furcadia used to be full of it!"

15. "Are you going to add real inventory?"

16. "What is your ICQ?"

17. "Are you a Beekin?"

18. "How did you turn off /whispers and give me an answering machine message?"

19. "How do you do that thing where the whole game hears you?"

20. "Could you add [this new Race] to Furcadia?"

21. "Please Charter my Guild?"

22. "Is there going to be another update?"

23. "Are you going to add more permanent Dreams?"

24. "What is Vinca 2? I've seen it in my directory."

25. "Do you know any good Patches?"

26. "How many Ivory Billed Woodpeckers are there left?"

27. "What is a mouthbrooder?"

28. "Why do Wings cost so much?"

29. "Why do ________ cost so much?"

30. "Will you please announce this on the opening screen for me?"

31. "I have some suggestions. Can I have your email?"

32. "Will you make me a sketch?"

33. "Please help me with my Dream's Dragonspeak?"

34. "Could you add male and female walking shapes?"

35. "When will __________ be done?"

36. "Are you `THE' Talzhemir?"

37. "Is Furcadia going 3D?"

38. "Do you get free Digos?"

38. "What is 'Chartering'? Why is it down?"

  • 0. "What's in the next Update?"

    • (In the last update, my "invention" of the "Local Species", went in. That allows your Dream to have 1 extra Walkabout of your own creation, and use DS to change anybody into, or out of, that "avatar". Silver Sponsors now get TWO Local Species.)

    Bulls are the next free avatar. Faeriefurres, pretty sparkly exotic six-winged creatures are going in as a for-pay avatar. If we are lucky, we'll get Bears in. Maybe, maybe not.

    Only Felorin knows what new DS is going in. I've suggested a new set of Conditions that go something like this: "...and there are less than or equal to (###) of Object (###) on the ground in the whole Dream." "...and there are exactly (###) of Object (###)" "...and there are less than (###) of Object (###)..."

    Something like a "buddy list" is probably the biggest improvement to the game so far. We've wanted to have this since Day 0, yet we've never quite gotten to it.

    Character creation is getting a makeover. It will NOT be as fast as it used to. The big tradeoff is that the handling of multiple alts will be smoother.

    Sanctimonious is working towards Furcadia being full-color. With luck, items will be 256-colors-per-item this update. That means upgrading the Editor, so it might not come around this update. The Interface will be fullcolor.

    You might have heard rumors of a new permanent map; that's true.

    Furrabian Nights has gotten a makeover.

    We're introducing 18+ Age Verification. No access to currently available areas of Furcadia are going to change. We are going to introduce new 18+ ONLY maps.

    On the technical side, every Update is somewhat "traumatic" for everybody. Unexpected things, things nobody could have anticipated, go wrong. By now, we've learned to 'expect the unexpected'. To prepare yourself for Updating, I've gotten the following info...

    Before the Update, please prepare yourself by getting in touch with two or three "Moving Buddies" by exchanging Emails and/or ICQ/AIM/Trillian/etc. info.

    1. Be prepared for interruption of service. During the Update, it's likely that normal service will be interrupted. This is because our regular machines for running the game also become download servers. We try to avoid this by having "mirror" sites, but we seem to get far more furres than we had before every time we Update!

    2. For your safety, please ONLY download from furcadia.com or from a site linked to our DOWNLOADS web page. Please do not download from any web page other than these, even if they look and claim to be official.

    3. Please do not get your new copy from a friend. This is to minimize the chance that they innocently pass Ad-Ware or Spy-Ware or a virus on to you. Virus checkers do not find or remove Ad Ware or Spy Ware, and both can damage your computer. In addition to having virus-protection, I recommend running both AdAware and SpyBot Search & Destroy. AdAware catches some that SpyBot doesn't, and SpyBot catches some that AdAware doesn't.

    I've already seen alot of the new features, and we're all really excited. Because many of these features can't come out without certain other features, this Update has been our most difficult yet. I liken it to giving birth to a baby that insists on being sideways. We really think you'll be very pleased.

  • 1. "How do I get to be a Guardian?"

    • -Please click     here for more information about this.

  • 2. "My __________ isn't working! Please help?"

    • -You can type     help     on a line by itself in the Furcadia text box. (I'm not a Tech Support furre; I can't help you.) As the Beekins are volunteers of different specializations, it can happen sometimes that there isn't anybody on who can help you. In that case, Furcadia's Tech Support can be found:     here. If you would like to report a bug, please go here: REPORT A BUG

  • 3. "How do I make a Bot?"

    • --Dragon's Eye doesn't officially support Botmaking. That doesn't mean that we don't *like* them. It simply means that, as a policy, we devote zero time to teaching people how to use them. I've heard that Sanctimonious's Bot programs are quite good. Here is a URL:     Sanctimonious's Bots

    For a few months in 2002, I ran the Mad Botters' Guild, whose purpose was to help furres learn to use FurBot, and possibly learn to code their own (no guarantees of that). Unfortunately, the Mad Botters had to be discontinued because after a month, there were zillions of requests for teaching and NO teachers. Because of the shortage of teachers, it is typical that those who make Bots usually do it entirely on their own.

    Here is a web site with specific info on several methods, done as tutorials: Furcadian Online Explorer

  • 4. "Please help me with my Dragonspeak?"

    • --We have the Beekin Masons for this now:     Beekin Masons To contact one, you type    help learning DS    in the text window (and press return). Your best chance is during primetime: 8-11:30 FST. (You can see what time it is FST by typing    time    on a line by itself.)

    You can also check with the Dreamweavers' Guild. I can't accept Dragonspeak students anymore. There is another option besides the Beekin Masons that you might try: Find a Dream with Dspeak that you think is pretty good, and ask the owner nicely if they would help you.

  • 5. "How do you do Patches?"

    • --Try the following web page. If you can't understand it, find a Dream with a nice Patch, and ask the creator really nicely for help.     Patch Info

  • 6. "How do I get music in my Dream?"

    • --See     NEW COMMANDS.

  • 7. "How do I get Wings?"

    • --See     WINGS.

  • 8. "How much for just the wings, and no print?"

    • --The print comes free when you buy the wings, so, same price.

  • 9. "How can I be a Dragon? How much does it cost?"

    • --See     WINGS.

  • 10. "How old are you? Are you female in real life? Are you single?"

    • --Sorry, I don't answer personal questions about my RL self. Consider me, IC and OOC, `Unavailable'.

  • 11. "Why don't you add fighting?"

    • --"Fast" combat (like a "mud", Ultima Online, Everquest, or Nexus) takes a ton of coding, and it doesn't fit the kind, loving, and helpful mood we prefer Furres to generally be in. A decision was made early on that this game shouldn't revolve around greed, hostility, egos, and violence. I understand that life-and-death conflicts are a valid part of in-character action, and add to the drama of the world, but all too often, it turns into a way for one player to force their will on another player, making it aggravating and annoying. So the only kind of combat we're likely to have is the "slower" roleplayed kind, with custom-crafted poses and, for those who participate in an RP guild, character sheets and dice rolls.

  • 12. "Are you going to support roleplaying?"

    • --YES. Our current plan is not to code "our" RP rules. I am going to do for roleplaying, what Dragonspeak and Patches do for worldbuilding. I'm working on a construction kit that lets you make your own character generation engine, or use one "off the rack". Furcadia's default will continue to be Persona Play (Freeform), so participation in RP will be entirely voluntary, but a Dream owner will be able to require someone to complete character generation to enter. Note that this system, called Feenixspeak, will also be used to make questionnaires and other things. Roleplaying will not be in the paws of our staff, though. It will depend on volunteer Rahs and Gamemasters. (Talzhemir's RP-related notes can be found here:     RP Notes )

  • 13. "What is the difference between Persona Roleplay and Strict Roleplay?"

    • Persona Roleplay is casual and spontaneous; it's done without any real rules. If you haven't officially agreed to any kind of limit to your character's power or background, then what you're doing is Persona. I tend to devote more time to supporting SRP than PRP, because PRP can be done anywhere, anytime, but SRP takes a lot of hard work. SRP is seriously held back by Furcadia's code; it would greatly benefit from many functions that are still being coded, that Persona RP tends not to need. "Ban by computer ID & IP" is the #1 example, and we plan to have that in an update.

  • 14. "What happened to the Roleplaying? Furcadia used to be full of RP!"

    • Yes, it did. IT STILL IS. But Roleplayers are picky about the "right" way to play, so the wiser ones don't try to do it in the non-private areas. They generally feel that if you're going to be present, you should contribute, not just watch, and they generally strongly dislike OOC interruption. They usually have a strict definition of "twinky". Roleplaying actually requires somebody willing to enforce rules, and an organization to teach people those rules. Rather than try to enforce any one flavor of Roleplaying, we leave it in the hands of Dream and Guild owners. To help you find the Roleplayers, check out these links:     GUILDS

  • 15. "Are you going to add real inventory?"

    • --Ooh, that's a question requiring a complex answer! We probably will not support a single unified what-you-see-is-what-you-control-G system of inventory. Objects with pictures will not be given specific stats or coded effects. This will be left up to each Dream creator.

    Because of our decision to eventually make Dreams permanent and let individual Dream owners "patch" what objects exist in their Dreams, the issue of inventory was made much more complicated. Our decision to add coded roleplaying aids has made it necessary to also consider such things as Rah/GM/Continuity-control over inventory, buy/sell-related commands, concealed/unconcealed commands, readied/unreadied commands, the ability to prove an item's stats to someone else, etc.

    The most likely outcome at this point is that a) inventory will be a web-related function accessed by Furcadia game buttons, b) persona players will be able to list, describe, and trade whatever they wish in their inventory, c) those who join an RP Guild will have a second inventory reflecting what items their character possesses when in-continuity on Guild grounds, with options for the Guild's Gamemasters to have total control of its players' inventory and control over the creation of that continuity's virtual items and what each item's stats/powers are.

  • 16. "What is your ICQ?"

    • --I have way too many Furres listed already; sorry but I can't add even just one more.

  • 17. "Are you a Beekin?"

    • --No, I'm the writer, artist, and co-designer of Furcadia. Felorin and I are the original creators of the game. We were joined over the years by Emerald Flame and Sanctimonious, who have, through MASSIVE contributions, earned the title of "Creator" as well.

    I often pitch because the various Beekin groups could use a paw from time to time.

  • 18. "How did you turn off /whispers and give me an answering machine message?"

    • --I use "FurBot".
    NOTE: Silver Sponsors can type 'whisperson and 'whispersoff.

  • 19. "How do you do that thing where the whole game hears you?"

    • --It's a special command that only a few Staff can do. It's not something anyone could do if only you knew the "secret words".

  • 20. "Could you add [this new Race] to Furcadia?"

    • --Furcadia has so few Races because every new Race adds considerably to the size of the download. Every second longer it goes is a moment in which the download might fail. If that happens, the downloader is more than 50% likely to give up on Furcadia forever.
    The ones we started with were chosen by going over FurryMUCK data. These six covered over 95% of FurryMUCK's population. As the Internet itself changes (such that bandwidth is MUCH higher for even the slowest users) then we consider adding others. The current Next-Do list is:
  • Deer
  • Bugges
  • Byrddes (Avians)
    Although I normally appreciate input, your suggestion for what to add next will probably fall on deaf ears. If you'd like to have your say, please add to the official pinned Forum thread on Suggestions/Avatars.     All Suggestions, of all types, must go here, please.

  • 21. "Please Charter my Guild?"

    • Chartering has been officially phased-out except that Dreams that were Chartered still maintain their official reserved spot. When "Group Packages" are implemented, they will be granted a year's Group Package free, as a form of "grandfathering", but after that, will have to pay for their spot like everyone else.

    Owning the name of a character who held a Charter will not give you ownership of a Guild. We're in contact with the owners via email, and if you don't receive their email, you aren't the Guild's owner. (Those who have retired as owners of the Guild have already sent us information on who their successor is, so please don't email us claiming to be such.)

  • 22. "Is there going to be another update?"

    • --Yes. Furcadia will very likely have many updates; we've only just scratched the surface of what it is we'd like this game to be. We're still working hard to fix bugs, and implement new features.

  • 23. "Are you going to add more permanent Dreams?"

    • -- In future, we want to make it so that ALL your Dreams are "permanent". This has been the plan from the very start of the game. (and no, we will never charge money for the privilege of having a permanent Dream. :)

    We probably will add very FEW non-private/communal Dreams. Instead, we really need to work on improving Acropolis, Challenges, and Imaginarium, and the rest, when time permits.

  • 24. "What is Vinca 2? I've seen it in my directory."

    • --This is a Dream we activate for VR WorldCon, in which we participated in 1999. We recreated a few of the events of a real science fiction convention, by having real-life guests log in to Furcadia and appear at the Hotel CaliFURnia. For those who don't know it,     Worldcon is where the Hugo Awards are handed out for SF/Fantasy authors, and it's always held in a different city every year, hence the name.

  • 25. "Do you know any good Patches?"

    • --No, but Rhydia does!     Rhydia's Page (You'll also find some interesting Furc-related software and the like here!) My Bookstore Patch, featuring balloons, cave walls, and picnic supplies, is posted HERE

  • 26. "How many Ivory Billed Woodpeckers are there?"

    • --According to the Audubon Watchlist, "At least one!" Thought to be extinct since 1948, the Ivory Billed Woodpecker, a bird as long as your forearm from elbow to fingertips, was rediscovered in the forests of Arkansas. More than 120,000 acres of land (including the spot where it was sighted) has been purchased by The Nature Conservancy, and is thus safe from logging.

  • 27. "What is a mouthbrooder?"

    • --A mouthbrooder is a type of fish that keeps its eggs or baby fish in its mouth for safe keeping. Several cichlids do this. The female picks the eggs up. The male releases a cloud of milt at the dark spot on her side. She turns and quickly inhales this, which fertilizes the eggs. There are also species in which the male is the mouthbrooder.

  • 28. "Why do Wings cost so much?"

    • --Dragon's Eye does not have any venture capitalists or investors; we;re entirely funded by you, the Furre players. Money from wings sales goes directly to feeding/housing of coders and artists, and replacing broken hardware. It also goes to paying for the cost of making prints, Tshirts, etc., which in turn bring more money in. Wings sales are our greatest source of income. We've done well enough to keep Furcadia going for several years. With your support, we'll keep going for many more.

  • 29. "Why do _____ cost so much?"

    • Furcadia is in a constant race with our own popularity: the more Furres who play, the bigger a machine we need. If we don't, Furres will start getting icky messages like "Out of Dream Servers" (ICKY!) or even "Server full. Please try again later." (EEEEEK!!!) We pay "rent" on "bandwidth" from an Internet provider; this costs us thousands of dollars a month. We also wear out equipment: there are parts of our hard drives that run at a sizzling 130 degrees F, for example, and their engines eventually burn out! A few Digo items come with tangible items, such as the Pawtograph books, prints, and T-shirts. We order those in bulk so we sometimes need a "chunk" of money saved to get them printed. I understand that for some furres, $15 and $100 are a LOT of money. That's especially true if you live in a place where the exchange rate to the U.S. is not so good. I wish there was a way to scale prices down with allowances for age, income, currency exchange, and so on but there just isn't a practical way to do that. (In future, various Dragon's Eye staff are going to be appearing in other U.S. states, maybe even other countries. When we do, I will recommend that we do a "live" Digomarket, with prices scaled down alot to offset exchange rate and local economy. That will also give us a chance to meet with y'all in-person.)

  • 30. "Will you please announce this on the opening screen for me?"

    • --I can sometimes do this if it's important enough. A wedding or birthday, no. The name, location, and URL of a non-Chartered Guild, no. A Furry convention, maybe. Requests for announcements go to the Scribes, who are the main furres responsible for announcing them.     Submitting Content to the News Channel

  • 31. "I have some suggestions. Can I have your email?"

    • I wish I could read all the things Furres would like to say, but Furcadia has over 40,000 active users. So, I don't even *see* unsolicited email, sorry. As time permits, though, Felorin and I look at the Forums. Suggestions made here, such as ideas for DS, have often made their way successfully into the game. Please, *do* make you suggestions here. Before you write, you might want to read what has already been suggested, because sometimes there are explanations of why it isn't such a good idea *or* it might say, yes, we're already planning to do that. After your suggestion is made, you'll probably see a few posts "slamming" it; this is usually just normal criticisms. Try not to take it personally! More often, you might see a number of suggestions of variations of what you suggested. These "hammered on" suggestions are usually the ones that turn out to be the most valuable to Felorin, Sanctimonious, Emerald Flame, Kunnis, Cironir, Bellana, and all rest of the Dragon's Eye staffers.

  • 32. "Will you make me a sketch?"

    • --I've stopped taking commissions for sketches, but if you're interested in art from me, I am still available with rates starting at $100. I'm pretty open-minded and, unlike a good number of "Furry" artists, I don't reject any subject. I just charge more. ;)

  • 33. "Please help me with my Dream's Dragonspeak?"

    • --From time to time I spontaneously invite furres to come to my Dream to talk about Dragonspeak but I can't schedule these events. I recommend that you ask     The Dreamers Guild

  • 34. "Could you add male and female walking shapes?"

    • --I'm sorry, but no. This question isn't as simple as it sounds. Early on, Furcadia's predecessor DragonSpires had both genders. As a direct result of this, the atmosphere was different. Amongst the major problems was abusive behavior towards females and strong adult language that the filters could not prevent.

    The need for Guardians would have been much higher and I was never in favor of having the game be forever patrolled by "babysitters". I was faced with a VERY hard decision here: to risk my livelihood by taking the chance that we'd have a game that we would have to ban anybody under 18, or to make a game that I felt confident even 10 year olds could have a good time playing!!!

    I knew there would be time for four or five shapes. We could have males and females but we'd have to have limited it to canines and mustelines. Or I could dump the females and have canines, mustelines, equines, and rodents. I opted for having no genders, and twice as many shapes. Unless we're charging for it, I'm inclined to add 1 new Types, not an extra version of an existing ones. Having to have three winged versions already makes adding one new type a huge chore.

    If we were to go over to having females now, it would cost as much time as it takes to modify 400 frames of animation. Even if there was time to add the second genders, the size of the download is still a MAJOR limiting factor for Furcadia, and it still is. Furcadia's market includes people with slow connections, who can't play real-time action games and often can't afford a game that charges a monthly fee. It also includes people who have slow connections because they live overseas.

    Every byte added to our download increases the chance of a disconnect during download. If that happens, they may try again. But they're very very likely to say, "Heck with this-- I'm playing NeoPets!" and then we've lost a potential Furre. Our download size is already severely pushing the limits.

    I *do* agree with everybody who says, it would be nice to have female figures. I'm still open to that possibility. But something would have to change that counteracts the abusive atmosphere problem in a way that doesn't depend on us having to police the game more.

    Another (less significant) problem is that, in the year 2001, wearing skirts is subtly associated with a menial position, more and more. Waitresses, female secretaries, female nurses, female receptionists, cheerleaders who are there to lead the worship of male athletes, stereotypically all wear skirts. In modern times, women don't all have long hair, they don't all have big Lara Croft sized breasts, and they don't all wear skirts. Maybe it's just as well that Furcadia's avatars are unisex for now.

    One question Talzhemir honestly can't answer:
  • 35. "When will __________ be done?" --`I don't know.' All "How soon" and "When" type questions are answered this way.
  • 36. "Are you `THE' Talzhemir?"
    Yes. :D Nice to meet you!

  • 37. "Is Furcadia going 3D?"
    This is a rumor that's been going on for as long as Furcadia has been around. It probably got a boost in 1997 when a furre announced that they were creating "3D Furcadia". (They weren't affiliated with us, they just thought they could use the name.) Every so often somebody decides to do that. So far, nobody has, yet, and we aren't currently planning on it.

    The short answer is "No, probably not." If you'd like a little more explanation, read on.

    What has actually been discussed at Dragon's Eye is making *just* the walkabouts 3D. The reason we might want to do this is to expand the repertoire of motions for the characters. Provided that all the characters remained bipeds, they could be given waving, dancing, handshaking, etc., animations. (If you want to know first-hand how this affects roleplaying and the feel of the game, you can check out The Sims Online or City of Heroes, which do this as well and smoothly as can reasonably be done in a multiplayer online game.)     talz.coh.gif

    In my opinion, making Furcadia 3D, as in, run on a 3D engine like The Sims, would cost too much. I don't think we can afford it. We'd have to spare development time for creating a MAJOR technology or we'd have to license it from a third party. Another alternative is to base it on an open-source library that was made free. Currently, the only such project that looks promising is Eternal Lands.

    For an example of what a free 3D game might be like, I suggest downloading and playing Eternal Lands. (Tell 'em Talzhemir sent you.) Eternal Lands's 3D code is open source, and it's quite skillfully done, made by experts at optimization. It is not running with the level of variety of items and avatars that Furcadia currently enjoys, but that's probably mostly because Roja hasn't had time and inspiration to create all that yet.

    Eternal Lands is a flavor of 3D known as "low poly". To show as many furres on one page as Furcadia does, this is the route we would have to go. The figures you see in Eternal Lands are made of only a few hundred polygons (while City of Hero's are around 5000).. Somewhat akin to origami, low poly is the most difficult form of 3D modelling. It only works successfully in conjunction with an extremely good 2D "paint job", its "skin". Animation of these models is a time-consuming job in which the figures are re-posed and the successive frames are saved in a special file format. You can't just have generic motion-captured walk-data that gets applied to every model; it's done all over again for each character. (Yes, I know Mortal Kombat was done by laser-tracking a guy in a suit with dots; that isn't how 3D motion data is done in low poly).

    Having gotten a 3D engine, Dragon's Eye would then have to redo all our walkabouts, and all the items. I estimate that to be a minimum of 2 years of development time. (City of Heroes took 5 programmers, 9 artists, millions of dollars, and 3+ years. They nearly went out of business shortly before launching, but were bought out by NCSoft.)

    One pay-off for 3D would be the ability to change the viewpoint (valuable to some but maybe not so valuable to everybody) and being scalable to different size screens without the art being hurt (of great value to everyone, because the most standard screen resolution is now 8X what it was when Furcadia began.). We can achieve that scalability in other ways.

    One major down side is that we couldn't give everybody a free 3D editor the way we give away a free art program (FSHeditor.exe) with every download of Furcadia. There are very few free art programs, NO "good" free art programs. Free 3D programs exist but take a very long time to learn to use and they are not very good. I guesstimate the number of furres who could make art would be reduced to around 200.

    Many Furcadia artists already despair of being able to do quality portraits and Dream art because they don't own Paint Shop Pro or their computer is too wimpy to run Photo Shop. (Many of them still do not know that they can get what I use, Paint Shop Pro, for around $25 on Amazon. Paint Shop Pro

    This problem would obviously be much worse if they had to pay $400 for a Maya license or $1500 for a 3DSMax license. I've heard it suggested that we force everybody to use "cracks", a.k.a. "warez", which are free. I can not consider that an ethically acceptable solution. It deprives the people who honestly worked hard on it of a piece of the profits; it exposes innocent people to a very high risk of virus and trojan infection (Maya and Max are amongst the top 10 programs most frequently hacked to introduce a trojan). On top of that, it's justifiably illegal.

    Even if we could get around the difficulty of 3D software for creators, a further barrier exists: training. I consider at least 1 class (high-school level) in mechanical drawing a prerequisite to using 3D art tools. After that, you usually need a 1 month minimum course (if you "cram") in "CAD" (computer-assisted drawing). All those people who make Quake levels, Half-Life models, and so on, have all gone through formal training first.

    Unlike 2D art, 3D art is not really open to being self-taught, or picked up from friends as you go.

    My opinion is that a 3D game would be wonderful, but making *this* Furcadia *into* that 3D game is a bad idea. We may yet create a separate game that is all-3D or a hybrid of our current 2D Patching and 3D walkabouts.

  • 38. "Do you get free Digos?"
    I get one free because I help make Furcadia. After that, Felorin and I have to buy them. We could have given ourselves infinite Digos but this keeps it special for us, too. Sometimes I give mine away as prizes, for example, I awarded my own Phoenix to the winner of the Asian New Year Contest.

    Emerald Flame coordinates all the Beekins, and so she does festivals. She gets access to infinite Digos to give away on special occasions as prizes for contests.
  • 39. "What is 'Chartering'? Why is it down?"
    The Chartering program was begun years back when I investigated what were the most common reasons for a roleplaying-oriented Dream to fall apart. I discovered that the #1 reason was that the Dream's owner often didn't communicate accurately what the Dream was intended to be. Furres would join, optimistically imagining the Dream would fit their personal vision, only to find out different a week later.

    To prevent these misunderstandings, and to stabilize RP Dreams, I put up a Chartering form (now defunct but you're welcome to read it). All Chartered Dreams were required to put up a web page answering all these questions. As a reward, Chartered Dreams were given a link from the official Furcadia web page.

    I usually had to email the Rah (Dream's owner) requesting they clarify this or that. It took approximately 45 minutes to Charter one Dream.

    Eventually, the program was stopped, in part, because we did not like the bickering over "permanent spots". We also didn't like having to hassle "innocent" furres who accidentally uploaded to the Chartered spots, which were not marked in any way.

    When Group Packages go in, only the Group alt will be able to upload to a reserved location.

    • I'm on Furcadia fairly often but, alas, I usually have to turn my whispers off. If you see my Dream is up, it's probably my little island bookstore, so please do come in to visit, and say hi to anybody else there! *If* you can find me in a Dream, feel free to ask me questions I haven't already answered here. (No need to get my attention by saying my name or asking if you can ask; just go ahead and ask! :)

    "Talz, I *HAVE* to talk to you!"

    Well, if you've already asked the Beekins by typing 'help', and they couldn't answer, you can email the question via service@furcadia.com. If it is indeed a question that only I can answer, then it will get to me.