Furcadia

Characters

Many types of furres in one place

• Feline (Cat)
• Canine (Dog)
• Lapine (Rabbit)
• Equine (Horse)
• Musteline (Weasel)
• Sciurine (Squirrel)
• Rodent (Mouse)
• Bovine (Bull/Minotaur)
• Ursine (Bear)

Worlds

• Naia Green, intended to be Furcadia's community center. Many Beekin volunteers gather here to help answer user questions.
• Challenges, a game-oriented area that includes boards for chess, checkers, "pillow wars," and others.
• Acropolis, an area for out-of-character socializing and dream uploads.
• Furrabian Nights, a Mature 16 environment. User-created content follows guidelines set in the new dream standards and is of a mature(Ex. Sex, Slavery, etc.) nature.
• Hawthorn (replacing Haven), a Mature 16 environment dream meant for the harsher, more savage side of Furcadia. It employs the same basic layout as Haven did, with darker patching and other content-related changes.
• Allegria Island, a popular location for dream uploads.
• Meovanni Village, an area intended for persona play (a form of simplified roleplay).
• Imaginarium, an area intended for deeper roleplay. Most roleplay-oriented dreams are uploaded here.
• The Wylde, a main map for Ferians which includes thirteen different biomes with habitats upon which players can upload their dreams.
• Vinca Nexus, the central hub connecting the rest of the main maps, as well as your destination if your character is ejected from another map or dream.

Secondary Worlds

• Welcomers Map, a tutorial area where new players learn about the game.
• Beekins Aerie, beekins map, beekin classes and meetings held here.
• Theriopolis, a roplaying map. Magic here is weak and barely exists.
• Goldwyn, a roleplaying map. Magic here is more prevalent.
• Dusk 2 Dawn, a dark, Mature 16 map.
• Town Meeting, a temporary dream where an annual "Town Meeting" is held, accessible only to Silver Sponsors.
• Silver Showcase, a scenic map where Silver Sponsors can upload on special portals, but anyone can visit
• Zephiroth, a flying island-themed map that only winged players or those summoned by winged players can visit.
• The five annual festival dreams, Jujinka's Spring Festival, M'Rill's Festival of the Sun, Jemmion's Rameen Festival, Wolf Howl, and Danival's Winter Festival.

Dreams

The primary focus of Furcadia is user-created content. To this end, the Furcadia game download includes an art editor and a map creating program. Users are encouraged to create their own virtual worlds, called Dreams, using these tools. These worlds can be uploaded to the Furcadia server and used for a variety of purposes, examples being role playing, a place to hang out with friends, or a number of other purposes. Dreams remain open to the

Roleplaying in a Western style Dream.

public area in which they are uploaded, so long as it is inhabited, and, if unoccupied, it is eventually unloaded automatically. Dreams can include the use

of audio files in the WMA, Ogg, MOD, S3M, WAV, and MIDI(.mid) formats, to name a few.

Most Dreams take advantage of a relatively user-friendly coding language known as DragonSpeak, or "DS". DragonSpeak allows users to develop interactivity into their dreams, ranging from a simple action like opening a door, to far more complex uses, such as a complete game of chess or lazer tag.

Dream owners are allowed to make and use bots to accomplish things that DragonSpeak cannot, but these are not officially supported by Furcadia.

Dreams run off several file types. ".MAP" files hold the main Dream layout, ".DS" files hold the DragonSpeak code, and ".FOX" (replacing the older ".FSH" format) and PCX files hold patch art for Furcadia. Every aspect of the Furcadia interface can be customized with Furcadia skins. Skins are made with a "marbled.pcx" file that is used for the background, two ".FOX" files (buttons.fox and the customizable dsbtns.fox), a settings file (skin.ini) and several fonts.

Many popular types of dreams are build-a-homes (where you can buy a temporary house from staff for free and decorate it with items, but is usually deleted after you leave the dream), hangout dreams (Usually featuring a bar or café area) and roleplay dreams. Furcadia hosts a wide variety of

There is no end to creativity

Furcadia itself is basically made up of several dreams, the ones made by its users, and the main maps.

Development

First opened to the public onDecember 16, 1993Furcadia is developed by Dragons Eye Productions inc.(DEP). Its engine was developed in 1994, originally for a preliminary graphical MUD project called Dragonspires, which featured very simplistic real-time combat, and used a DOS-based client limited to the 16 EGA colors. At its public release, Furcadia featured a graphical improvement: art with a 256 color VGA palette. New support for 24-bit non-remappable portraits (the first art to extend beyond 256 colors), and Windows Vista support were implemented in the April 6, 2007 "Kitterwing Edition." On Decomber 16, 2006 Furcadia became the first-ever MMORPG to celebrate ten years of continual service.

Furcadia was originally designed and programmed by Dr. Cat (known as Felorin in-game) and Talzhemir. Two additional people have since been credited as part of the creative team for their work: game producer Katie Bazor (known as Emerald Flame), who developed (and still coordinates) the Beekin volunteer staff project, and Aleksi Asikainen(known as sanctimonious), who created the game's editors and is now involved in coding the client and the server as the game's lead programmer.

The developers continue to make several minor updates to the code per year. Major updates to the code (such as the addition of new character avatars or improved Dragonspeak commands) occur approximately once per year. As of 2007, the game remains in a public alpha development stage.

Business model

Downloading and playing Furcadia is free of charge. DEP has publicly stated that Furcadia will remain free of mandatory playing charges. To fund staff and cover the costs of running Furcadia's servers, DEP sells several game-enhancing products, known in the game as Digos, sold in an online store known as the Digo Market(named after an in-game location). Possession of these game enhancements can last anywhere from one day to 'life' (an indefinite amount of time), depending on the product and package one purchases.

These Digos include premium avatars, in-game wings of several types, the ability to upload custom in-game character portraits, in-game roses, and small images, such as cupcakes or even engagement rings, that display in a character's profile (known as Desctags). Additionally, players may purchase 'Silver Sponsorships', which provide a number of game-enhancing abilities and features.

DragonScales are an in-game currency that may be used to purchase Digos. DragonScales may be purchased in the Digo Market, or received in-game as competition prizes or gifts.