Furcadia

Furcadia has--or had--potential, but it has seriously gone wrong. Its roleplaying universe and system, with its detailed pantheon and geography, its strange but original brand of vampires, and its unique philosophy of player-character interaction, made it worth looking into. However, the Furre! RPG rules are poorly designed; they are convoluted and incomplete, with half-explained skills and statistics, tables of conflicting information, and HTML that refuses to print properly.

All that is just the tip of the iceberg of Furcadia's brokenness. The yiffers, twinks, and Goths residing in Furc make it fall far short of its kid-friendly, PG-13 ideal. Perhaps Furre! would make a decent MegaZeux game...

What can I say about Furcadia? Well, it's a little chat room with graphics where you can choose to be a feline, canine, musteline, rodent, equine, or lapine furre. Later you can buy a Phoenix, Dragon, one of three different kinds of wings, or a personal portrait for your little furre to have, but a lot of players don't bother. You pick your colors, make a description, choose a name, and then are set loose on the unsuspecting denizens of Furcadia.
It is made by Dragon's Eye Productions and can be found at www.furcadia.com.

There are players who run around helping furres and get a special badge. They are called either Beekins or 'People who are way too into this game'.

It has eight main maps. Meovanni; a mostly non roleplay map, New Haven; for newbies and people who like it there, Vinca; the central map, where you can head to any of the others, Allegria Island; where people can post their own maps, called 'dreams', Imaginarium; a roleplay map where people can post their dreams, Acropolis; a socializing map where people can post dreams, and Challenges; where you can do little activities and run mazes and such.

Some people actually try to roleplay. I'm not one of them, so I can't say how good the roleplay is on Furc. Personally, I tend to stay in Meovanni and talk about things. Some players... ok, a lot of players... are idiots. However, there is an ignore feature. Now that I think about it, I sort of want an EDB for Furcadia. Yeah, eat that guy! He's ANNOYING!

You are provided with a dream editor and dragonspeak editor to make your own dreams. Dragonspeak is like the code that runs the dream. You can do a whole lot of things with it, from color-changing floors to slot machines to a switch that moves furres when you walk into it.

There are also ways to make bots, furres who just stand there and respond to commands, with a botmaker program. I made one once, but it's long gone and I remember nothing about it so I can't help you there.

Some players make very cool dreams where you can roleplay in Hogwarts, or play murder mystery games. Some of them, however, make dreams just so they'll have a private place to 'yiff', or have cyber-sex.

Furcadia isn't too bad, but it's not for people who expect to be able to chop things up. So feel free to go check it out, but beware of freaks.

Choose fur, choose name, choose species, choose hair, choose eyes, choose vest, choose pants, choose badge, choose stripes, choose pants. Choose life.

Once a roleplaying paradise for a scant few, evolved from a corny little human fighting game called DragonSpires. Now a horrific fascist dystopia, Furcadia is fast approaching its 6th year anniversary. The once lovable Owsla, the police of Furcadia, have convoluted and twisted into various factions known as the Beekins and Guardians. The Beekins are an organized group of individuals in the guise of helpers for newbies. They really just want to force their Shoutcast radio stations on you, and eventually succeed to the all holy rank of Guardian. The Guardian is the judge and the jury. If your actions are deemed unworthy of the game, they will dispose of you. If they do not like what you say, you are gone. If they don't like what you are, you are gone. They are the Thought Police.

Furcadia has turned from freeform roleplaying game into more of a glorified chatroom. You have your option of staying in the public areas, or taking your sex partner into a private "dream". Furcadia's package comes with the tools you need to construct these dreams. The population of the game has exploded over recent years, and the furres have divided into groups that don't mingle well together. The roleplaying is still present, crammed in a little corner of Furcadia called the Imaginarium and Goldwyn. If you're the type of male preteen who can't get enough cybersex with other male preteens, then Furrabian Nights is where you'll want to make your home. For the female preteens, New Haven is a great place to run around trying to impress the Beekins so they will invite you into their ranks. The Challenges map is a broken hellhole in which you can find countless lost newbies wandering around, trying to get a grasp on their surroundings.

Allegria is where you can wander into other people's dreams, trying to get a glimpse of the naughty acts they're engaging in. They will most certainly kick you out 5 seconds after you've downloaded their 5 megabyte custom patch made specially for their dream. And then there is Meovanni. Meovanni was the original Furcadia map, back when you had to have a pillow under you to sit down, and everyone could hear you shout. A good number of the furres in Meovanni are the veterans, the ones who just can't bring themselves to go to the other maps. There are stray newbies wandering around too, but the captive veterans often snap on them, and make them feel very unwelcome. The furres aren't very pleasant there.

Furcadia is free, more or less. Constantly you will be witness to advertising of addons you can purchase for your character, like wings, the ability to become a dragon, or to have your own custom portrait. Occasionally, the game's cocreator, Talzhemir, will try to push some of her artwork or sell books for amazon.com. Many poor children with creditless parents will beg and plead for you to transfer your wings and things to them. Some will even befriend you just to get at your addons. Noone will claim to have bought their addons, they will all claim them to be gifts. You'll find yourself wondering where they came from in the first place.

Furcadia has been around a long time, and has a very diverse population. Whether you want to satirize with peers while standing around a pine tree, or chat it up with 40 year old fursuiters who use way too many emoticons, Furcadia is the place for you. But be warned. The game has a strange pull on your soul, and the longer you spend on it, the harder it is to leave. Many of us couldn't leave if we wanted to. Many of us do want to leave. But we keep going back. To our second home. The oppressive and the free. Furcadia.