The Endless Forest

The Endless Forest is a free online multiplayer game developed by Tale of Tales.See: Wikipedia:Tale of Tales (company) Players control a human-faced deer wandering a repeating map with other players. The game spawned a small dedicated community that reached other social media platforms, such as DeviantART. Despite minimal gameplay, the community remains active.
Players call their community "The Endless Forest Community," mirroring the name of their main forum. Some players shorten this to "TEFc," and those within it may be called "TEFers," however TEFer may not be overly common.Help: Information on TEF Community for Fanlore Article, The Endless Forest Community, blog post. Mar 12, 2022. (Accessed 3/15/2022)
== Gameplay ==
Gameplay is minimal in The Endless Forest, with the game instead effectively acting as a 3D chatroom. However, players cannot communicate directly through typing or voice chat, instead relying on commands that make their deer bellow or perform full body animated emotes. Instead of having usernames, players create a "pictogram," shortened to "picto," which is a combination of rune-like characters they choose to combine into a unique image.
Though players start out as identical fawns, after several days, the fawns grow into adult deer, which can be customized with pre-made skins and objects. This makes it common for players to have the same or very similar appearances.
== History ==
The Tale of Tales Endless Forest website was accessible as early as 2005, but not all Wayback Machine captures remain viable, instead displaying as blank white pages. The website would begin to display for The Endless Forest in 2006. The Endless Forest main page. Jun 22, 2011 (Accessed 3/12/2022) 
In 2015, it celebrated its 10 year anniversary, and the forum admin went into detail about TEF's beginnings. The post revealed its long history with art gallery financial support.
Tale of Tale's main developer has been working on a re-make of the game (TEF II, or The Endless Forest The Second Decade) since 2017, which he has constantly given updates on via both his personal blog and TEFc.Category Archives: The Endless Forest, Michael's Blog. (Accessed 3/12/2022) The remake was funded by donations from the community. Donors would receive rewards such as in-game cosmetics or 3D printed deer based on the game's models.Fundraising. (Accessed 3/12/2022)
In 2011-2012 academic Debra Ferreday published a paper in the journal Feminist Theory and then an edited book chapter, both about The Endless Forest and its community.Ferreday, Debra. "Becoming Deer: Nonhuman Drag and Online Utopias." Feminist Theory, vol. 12, no. 2, Aug. 2011, pp. 219–225, doi:10.1177/1464700111404288.Ferreday, Debra. "Affect, Fantasy and Digital Cultures" in Digital Cultures and the Politics of Emotion: Feelings, Affect, and Technological Change edited by Athina Karatzogianni and Adi Kuntsman. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230391345_5
==Fandom==
===Terminology===
*Abio- Shortened name for the Abiogenesis
*Big Zombie Deer/BZD- Nickname for a Halloween character played by the developers, named Velocity.
*The Blue Bowl- Community name for a patch of blue flowers/berries in the birch forest area
*M&A/The Gods- Nicknames for both of the developers, Michael and Auriea
*Peacocking- A prank/game played on a sleeping deer. Players cast spells on the sleeping deer to see if they can decorate them in the "peacock" cosmetic set before the sleeping player wakes up.
*Pictos- Shortened form of "pictograms," the rune-like icon that represents individual players. 
*Picos have spread- a phrase used to mean the game has loaded in enough for the player to see other player's pictos.
*The Playground- The oldest community named landmark
*Set- The word meaning a combination of cosmetics, including horns, masks, and pelts, that come together to complete a single outfit.
*Spells- Animations and actions under the "Forest Magic Actions" commands in game. Spells can give other players cosmetics, worship the gods, or remove cosmetics from yourself.
*Spell-Spamming- When someone casts spells on a deer repeatedly, for any number of reasons
===Community===
The Endless Forest Community forum is the main official location, outside of the game itself, where players congregate and roleplay. Players also communicate outside of official sources, such as through Discord servers and Toyhouse. In the earlier days of the community, players also used MSN and Skype.
The Endless Forest had a fan group created on DeviantART in 2008, which as of Mar 2022 has 1,710 members. When it moved to a new group in 2019, it did not recover the same popularity it once had, only having 106 members. Group members would make fan art of their deer characters, share real deer photography, and concept art of in-game skins they came up with. It also hosted group events, such as its 2011 TEF fan art calendar event.2011 TEF Fan Art Calendar! theendlessforest DeviantART. Jan 8, 2011 (Accessed 3/12/2022) According to Wikipedia, 1 of 5 players discovered The Endless Forest through DeviantART, however the reference for this data has since been lost as the website source has gone down, leaving it unproven.The Endless Forest, Wikipedia. (Accessed 3/12/2022) 
Some players have credited DeviantART as being a "great place to find folks" and player wyldflower said "The fanart of people’s characters posted there had a big role in introducing me and many others to the game." At least one player, named sighthoundlady on DeviantART, had a piece of The Endless Forest fanart chosen as a daily deviation on DA in Feb 2013, which is an art piece chosen by staff to be featured prominently on the website.We'll See, DeviantART. Jan 8, 2013 (Accessed 3/15/2022) As of Mar 2022, the piece has over 900 favorites and 11k views.
Some players who played The Endless Forest went on to create their own deer-based communities, mainly Ehetere, who created the popular Fawnlings DeviantART ARPG in 2012.~Ehetere's Commissions Store~ .:open:., blog post. Oct 27, 2013 (Accessed 3/12/2022)
When asked how the community had changed from the early days to 2022, players had a wealth of opinions, with one of the main consensus being the community had actually become more active with time, particularly outside of the game. This contrasts with other animal based MMOs like FeralHeart and Furcadia, which in 2022 are considered to be "dying."
===Roleplay===
Roleplay is one of the main ways players interact with one another, often using a combination of the client game and a 3rd party text or voice chat (the usage of which would have been less common during the early years of the community). Players will often upload "blog" entries on TEFc as bios for their characters, including drawn images and detailed information on their deers.Whispers In The Forest, character profile for Athwardra. Jan 12, 2022 (Accessed 3/12/2022) These biography pages on TEFc go back to 2008, leading to pages full of old, broken embedded images.Biographies, last page. (Accessed 3/12/2022) DeviantART and Toyhouse are also depositories for character images.
Characters aren't always human-faced deer, despite this being the only character model in game. Character profiles often depict sphinxes of various other animals, such as human-faced dogs, human-faced antelopes, and regular deer without human faces. Player Jacklo discussed the unique aspect that roleplaying sphinxes gave them.
The Endless Forest was known for having community-driven roleplay events. One such event was "The Fairytale: Interactive Storytelling." This was an event run in Aug 2010 by a player named Terabetha that had several other players invested in the interactive story.The Fairytale: Interactive Storytelling {CSS}, The Endless Forest Community Forum. Aug 6, 2010 (Accessed 3/18/2022) 
Another was an event run in Feb 2013 by player Iaurdagnire. In this event, players fought off carnivorous "minions of Velocity" through art and storytelling. Specific in game animation emotes were used to signal who was pretending to be said minions, and to "kill" one in game, other players had to hit the "creatures" a certain amount of times with their antlers. In the end, 131 creatures were killed, which Iaurdagnire touted had increased from the previous year's kill count of 60.V: Your Supremacy | War Drum, The Endless Forest Community Forum. Feb 18, 2013 (Accessed 3/18/2022) According to the blog post, the game's developers changed the weather in game for the event both years, showing their support to the roleplayers. A significant amount of art was made by players for the event.
===Controversy===
While some players are reluctant to discuss past controversies, other players from the TEFc forum briefly listed a few. Most players seem to believe the bulk of community discourse has been centered around the difference between how players have roleplayed. Another much more specific controversy was related to players giving away, trading, swapping, and otherwise "hoarding" rare pictograms. 
Player Uitleger gave an overview of a few past issues.
==Fanart==
File:TEF DailyDeviation sighthoundlady.jpg|Daily Deviation by sighthoundlady
File:TEF Nele-Alanthea.jpg|craft art of an TEF fawn by Nele-Alanthea
File:TEF Iaurdagnire.png|art for the War Drum community event by Iaurdagnire
File:TEF Evern.png|half canine half deer TEF OC by Evern
==Archives & Links==
*theendlessforest, the original fan club on DeviantART, founded 2 February 2008
*theendlessforestart, where the original fan club moved in 2019
*Nov 25, 2005 Capture of the official website
*endless-forest, official LiveJournal community, created 23 September 2005
==Meta/Further Reading==
*Ferreday, Debra. "Becoming Deer: Nonhuman Drag and Online Utopias." Feminist Theory, vol. 12, no. 2, Aug. 2011, pp. 219–225, doi:10.1177/1464700111404288.
*Ferreday, Debra. "Affect, Fantasy and Digital Cultures" in Digital Cultures and the Politics of Emotion: Feelings, Affect, and Technological Change edited by Athina Karatzogianni and Adi Kuntsman. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230391345_5
==References==
Category:Furry