General Discussion

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May 09, 2016 13:45:26

A long time ago I played around with Feral Heart, Impressive Title/World, and followed the creators of Aro'kai. As of late, however, any information on these three games seems to be locked, especially Aro'kai.

I suppose the intention of this post is just to survey if anyone knows what happened with them all? Feral Heart seems to have dwindled in numbers immensely, and Impressive Title/World is broken into so many different places, it seems. Aro'kai forums and their tumblr seem to be shut down, as well, so I can't find anything out on my own. I'm sad to see all this occur, but does anyone know what happened?

I'm not meaning to cause trouble or spam about any of this because I realize that there was an immense amount of spam from users asking when Aro'kai was going to come out, and I don't want to to cause a stir of this once more, especially given the somewhat inactive state of these games, and their creators.

My main concern with Aro'kai lies with the fundraiser that the staff were holding some time ago, and what happened with that. With the other two, I was wondering if there was anything in particular that happened to the games / staff that caused them difficulties.

Please ping me if you'd like to discuss or have something to share! Thanks.

Last edited on May 09, 2016 14:05:59 by RoadsideAvenue

Well tbh they are both games developed in spare time by just an artist or two, and didn't have the professional organization, money, and skills to actually create a fully functional game. At best they could be used for basic chat and roleplay, but there wasn't much added later to draw a larger community in. It's just someone's pet project that didn't go much farther than that.
If you notice most of the development is just art or character models on a basic grass field.

I don't know anything more specific than that, maybe someone else knows specifics. I tried both once but got bored because there wasn't anything for me to do beyond make a character.

korvas

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May 09, 2016 13:57:35

Well tbh they are both games developed in spare time by just an artist or two, and didn't have the professional organization, money, and skills to actually create a fully functional game. At best they could be used for basic chat and roleplay, but there wasn't much added later to draw a larger community in. It's just someone's pet project that didn't go much farther than that.
If you notice most of the development is just art or character models on a basic grass field.

I don't know anything more specific than that, maybe someone else knows specifics. I tried both once but got bored because there wasn't anything for me to do beyond make a character.

I understand that. I suppose for Aro'kai, I meant more of what happened with the fundraiser, and with the other two, if there was something that happened specifically to them that may have caused any difficulties they've faced. I have no intentions of starting either of them up seriously, since I don't really enjoy the type of gameplay they support. Either way, thank you for sharing!

RoadsideAvenue

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May 09, 2016 14:03:55

I understand that. I suppose for Aro'kai, I meant more of what happened with the fundraiser, and with the other two, if there was something that happened specifically to them that may have caused any difficulties they've faced. I have no intentions of starting either of them up seriously, since I don't really enjoy the type of gameplay they support. Either way, thank you for sharing!

@Paintedskies97

As far as Aro'kai goes, I heard the main dev got fed up of people asking for ETAs and other general information about the game and quit the entire project, telling off a TON of people (swearing heavily) and pretty much said "screw this game, screw you" and left it to the second in command or whatever. Since then there hasn't been much else about it?

I was pretty bummed out, but I didn't realize they had ran a fundraiser for it. I reaaally hope they didn't just take the money and then cop out like that, ESPECIALLY in such an awful way. That'd be a very scummy thing to do.

ViktorTalis

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May 09, 2016 14:33:58

@Paintedskies97

As far as Aro'kai goes, I heard the main dev got fed up of people asking for ETAs and other general information about the game and quit the entire project, telling off a TON of people (swearing heavily) and pretty much said "screw this game, screw you" and left it to the second in command or whatever. Since then there hasn't been much else about it?

I was pretty bummed out, but I didn't realize they had ran a fundraiser for it. I reaaally hope they didn't just take the money and then cop out like that, ESPECIALLY in such an awful way. That'd be a very scummy thing to do.

GhosTea Skins & Accents

@LittlePeridot

That's the thing I'm worried about. They had a forum post some time ago saying what they would do if they met certain goals, and even mentioned that previous donations wouldn't count towards these goals. The goals went up to $10,000 if I remember correctly. Which worries me, especially if the main developer left in such an awful way. On the deviantart page, I saw some users asking for a refund on their donation, so it's left me a little worried for those players.

While I'm also pretty sad to see such a destructive end to the project, since I had been looking forward to its completion for years, it's even more upsetting to see that there are still users who are affected by this complete shut down.

RoadsideAvenue

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May 09, 2016 14:45:23

@LittlePeridot

That's the thing I'm worried about. They had a forum post some time ago saying what they would do if they met certain goals, and even mentioned that previous donations wouldn't count towards these goals. The goals went up to $10,000 if I remember correctly. Which worries me, especially if the main developer left in such an awful way. On the deviantart page, I saw some users asking for a refund on their donation, so it's left me a little worried for those players.

While I'm also pretty sad to see such a destructive end to the project, since I had been looking forward to its completion for years, it's even more upsetting to see that there are still users who are affected by this complete shut down.

@Paintedskies97
feralheart is pretty much dead. no more updates can be made to the game. the creator, kovulkd, abandoned the project and didn't give out the source code. what you play now of feralheart is as much as you're ever going to get unless you start installing player-made mods which are all over the forums.
as far as impressive title goes, the original game was shut down in 2010. the same creator made feralheart, it was supposed to be an improved impressive title. he gave out IT's source code, and different servers started springing up. some are still active, some are in the works, the IT community is a mess.
as far as arokai goes, i'm fairly sure that's also dead. it's really sad, i was looking forward to it, but as the years passed and no progress has been made my hopes for it sort of dwindled down to nothing.

sneer

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May 09, 2016 15:09:53

@Paintedskies97
feralheart is pretty much dead. no more updates can be made to the game. the creator, kovulkd, abandoned the project and didn't give out the source code. what you play now of feralheart is as much as you're ever going to get unless you start installing player-made mods which are all over the forums.
as far as impressive title goes, the original game was shut down in 2010. the same creator made feralheart, it was supposed to be an improved impressive title. he gave out IT's source code, and different servers started springing up. some are still active, some are in the works, the IT community is a mess.
as far as arokai goes, i'm fairly sure that's also dead. it's really sad, i was looking forward to it, but as the years passed and no progress has been made my hopes for it sort of dwindled down to nothing.

she/they
fr+1

@vulstal

I apologize for never answering! Thanks for the background info on FH and IT. It's a shame about them both. As far as Aro'kai goes, I had given up years ago, but it still upsets me to see an end of something with so much potential.

RoadsideAvenue

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May 11, 2016 11:00:36

@vulstal

I apologize for never answering! Thanks for the background info on FH and IT. It's a shame about them both. As far as Aro'kai goes, I had given up years ago, but it still upsets me to see an end of something with so much potential.

@Paintedskies97
despite the fact that the IT community was once my online home, where I met almost all of my current online friends and acquaintances, I've been away from it all for so long that I don't really remember the details of what happened.

seems like most of us who were really active on and dedicated to IT could never get into FH - for some reason, nothing was the same after it was released and the original IT community pretty much fell apart. safe to say that KovuLKD completely lost interest in all that....it's very sad )~:

as for aro'kai....woah, it's news to me that the forums had been closed! it's been a long time since I was active there at all. I'd been following that project ever since it was first announced, under the name decayed reality....that was a LONG time ago, it feels! honestly, it had been going on for so long with barely any updates that I never really trusted it to take off. it was a big project, and if I recall correctly, one of the main issues was that the team was having a rough time finding a programmer for the game.

that's horrible to hear that those who contributed to the fundraiser were just left hanging. Superfluous (I think she goes by Onowl now? if i'm remembering right).....was extremely talented and always seemed to be a very calm, cool, collected, mature person. I didn't know her very well but we did interact on IT a number of times. I suppose I can't blame her for getting frustrated after years of outside pressure to release the game or give information, with apparently little help in the way of animating, modeling, programming, etc...it would be difficult to keep momentum going for that long. but there's no excuse for taking peoples' money and posting no information about refunds.

that's a really disappointing end to what could have been a gorgeous game....)~: I hope she comes back at some point and clears things up.

I remember there was a period of time where a whole bunch of people from IT and Aro'kai were trying to release their own games along the same lines. there were several forums for multiplayer animal games that were obviously never going to be a reality because the people in charge didn't really know what they were doing or have any experience, haha. seems like that whole community has kind of fallen to the wayside )~:

@LittlePeridot - do you happen to know if there's any screenshots or anything of her posts, or any other details of what happened? O~: I just did a little googling and saw that her tumblr is password-protected and none of her other accounts are accessible either. what a severe reaction...!!!

gazehound

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May 11, 2016 12:34:48

@Paintedskies97
despite the fact that the IT community was once my online home, where I met almost all of my current online friends and acquaintances, I've been away from it all for so long that I don't really remember the details of what happened.

seems like most of us who were really active on and dedicated to IT could never get into FH - for some reason, nothing was the same after it was released and the original IT community pretty much fell apart. safe to say that KovuLKD completely lost interest in all that....it's very sad )~:

as for aro'kai....woah, it's news to me that the forums had been closed! it's been a long time since I was active there at all. I'd been following that project ever since it was first announced, under the name decayed reality....that was a LONG time ago, it feels! honestly, it had been going on for so long with barely any updates that I never really trusted it to take off. it was a big project, and if I recall correctly, one of the main issues was that the team was having a rough time finding a programmer for the game.

that's horrible to hear that those who contributed to the fundraiser were just left hanging. Superfluous (I think she goes by Onowl now? if i'm remembering right).....was extremely talented and always seemed to be a very calm, cool, collected, mature person. I didn't know her very well but we did interact on IT a number of times. I suppose I can't blame her for getting frustrated after years of outside pressure to release the game or give information, with apparently little help in the way of animating, modeling, programming, etc...it would be difficult to keep momentum going for that long. but there's no excuse for taking peoples' money and posting no information about refunds.

that's a really disappointing end to what could have been a gorgeous game....)~: I hope she comes back at some point and clears things up.

I remember there was a period of time where a whole bunch of people from IT and Aro'kai were trying to release their own games along the same lines. there were several forums for multiplayer animal games that were obviously never going to be a reality because the people in charge didn't really know what they were doing or have any experience, haha. seems like that whole community has kind of fallen to the wayside )~:

@LittlePeridot - do you happen to know if there's any screenshots or anything of her posts, or any other details of what happened? O~: I just did a little googling and saw that her tumblr is password-protected and none of her other accounts are accessible either. what a severe reaction...!!!

wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

^{- furaffinity

- twitter

- youtube}

@gazehound

I can understand that. FH was really cool at the time, but looking back on it, I could always sense that I would get bored, just because there wasn't much to do. Role play in a medium other than pure text is extremely difficult for me to get behind, because it's naturally intimidating. And since there wasn't really any reward for exploring, and no enemies to fight, there wasn't a reason for me to play, especially since all the RP's were very... bland. Mate-begging and constant pups screaming for their mothers included.

That was my main concern about Aro'kai. I remember very clearly reading either on the new forums or on their tumblr about the fundraiser, and seeing that quite a few people were extremely excited! Whether or not people donated and she ran away with the money, I can't say for certain, but it is a concern of mine, since I have seen people on the DA group ask for refunds. I understand, the pressure is a lot to handle and can be extremely overwhelming when you have literally hundreds, maybe even a few thousand people screaming for the release date and new content to play. But ending the project so violently wasn't the right thing to do, either. I remember being more active on DA at the time and seeing one of my favorite artists join in with modeling, so I guess my worries also stem from knowing that those I connected to or at least admired in some form may have been lured into a bad situation. :(

And you're right, the communities of all of these types of games have pretty much died, as far as I can tell, which upsets me immensely. While the games were never perfect they clearly had a good following! They had purpose for some. So it's sad to see it all fall apart. It's like watching a part of your life rot in history, and knowing that no one will ever be able to really remember or find information in a few years.

@LittlePeridot

If you get around to this thread and happen to read gazehound's post, could you please notify or ping me as well?

RoadsideAvenue