Pirate 101 (from Kings Isle, the same creators as Wizard 101) is an on-line multi-player role-playing system of pirate adventure and battle — in the sky, no less. Yep, flying pirate ships.  It’s a decidedly family-friendly game throughout, though it has “adult” and “child” areas as part of it. The interesting thing is this: As you can see from the preview trailer, and in the picture below, there are plenty of anthropomorphic player characters to be had and played, as well as the more traditional human sort. Visit www.pirate101.com to find out how to get started with the game.

image c. 2012 Kings Isle

Some say there's no money in porn. But furry porn? That's a different story.

Crowdfunding has proven very popular, funding projects from digital aardvarks, roleplaying rats and space-abducted foxes, to fluffy ears, Furcadia's 'Second Dreaming' and seemingly every other work by M.C.A. Hogarth. Twokinds raised enough to buy a good-sized house.

Furotica is largely a no-go for industry leaders Kickstarter and Indiegogo. But it's become a lifeline for Ben Tao, Eric Lai, and Barry C, whose adult crowdfunding site Offbeatr (covered in August) lists five successful projects to date — all furry. [tip: Ripner Cabbit/EarthFurst]

So how can you raise $4000 (or $40,000) for your dream project? We asked those who've done it, while taking a closer look at this new funding platform and talking to its CEO.

A new ten-minute survey has been released, aimed at furry fans 18 and older.

The survey, which contains "items on personality, personal life, and basic demographics", was created to support research at University College Cork in Ireland, and is intended to "gather data on the kinds of people that make up the furry community":

The use of the internet to support a shared interest and activity is very interesting to me, and I also am curious about the more sexual side to the fandom.

My study will attempt to determine two things - 1) Who are the furries? (assessed by simple demographics) and 2) What is the place of the Furry fandom in the context of the existing literature on internet behaviours?

It was initially distributed on Inkbunny, where a researcher has been answering questions.

Compare: Latest survey results from the separate Anthropomorphic Research Project.

Maru may be the biggest star in all the interwebz. The Scottish Fold has previously been voted the internet's favourite cat, and cats may just be the Internet's favourite meme. To quote Katie Milner, a student at the London School of Economics and Political Science who recently submitted a thesis entitled "Srsly Phenomenal: An Investigation into the Appeal of LOLCats":

LOLCats are often considered to be the archetypal Internet meme, a piece of often entertaining cultural currency that spreads rapidly through social networks and media platforms. However, unlike most Internet memes whose potency tends to wane after a short period of time, LOLCats have remained relevant and popular for the better half of a decade, inspiring a devoted following.

This necessity of cats to the Internet has been recognised in cartoons, such as Maslow's Hierarchy of Internet Needs, but now seems poised to break out of the box.

At the end of August, Minneapolis in the USA will play host to the first Internet Cat Video Film Festival. The phenomenon, once constrained to YouTube, is about to about to extend its claws into the real world.

A recently-reported bug in Fur Affinity and its subsequent exploitation has led to several user accounts being banned for periods from a few days to a few months. The bug allowed a user to modify an image file and then upload a giant avatar, unconstrained by usual FA limits.

The bug seems to have originally been found by Scott J. Fox, who posted about it on Twitter and made an FA journal which was later deleted. Around 10 hours later he was suspended from the site for three months (now seven days). Dragoneer maintained that the suspension was appropriate, saying that:

Promoting people to exploit an issue with "Enjoy breaking FA!" made your intent quite clear.

Also involved in the giant avatar episode was Benchilla, who served as an FA forum moderator for seven months in 2010. Initially he was suspended for two weeks, subsequently calling the episode "harmless fun" and the bans an overreaction. Less than an hour later, his two week suspension became a permanent suspension, and his forum account was soon banned as well. Dragoneer clarified that the two week ban was for the avatar, and it was extended because of his "previous history of hijinks" with the site.

Fur Affinity has just released a new thumbnail system and promised further updates for the site over the coming week. As I've criticised FA for not providing updates, I can't very well ignore this development. So, first off, congratulations to FA for doing basic site maintenance. However, the promised updates appear little more than a coat of paint to distract from the real problems.

It appears Earth Eternal is not so, as it was shut down for the second time on November 21^st, 2011 at 9:00PM EST. No reason was cited, but the game's website (and that of its Japanese version, Ikimonogatari), were withdrawn, with an announcement on the project's Facebook page the sole notice — much to the outrage of fans in the comments.

Earth Eternal, which was billed by some as a furry MMORPG, and which went offline in September 2010, is about to be relaunched in North America under its new ownership. Formerly run by SparkPlay, the new version, described as revived and revamped, will be operated by Outblaze and TurnOut Ventures. Although rumors have abounded for months that a relaunch might be forthcoming, it was only recently that there has been a more definitive announcement that a beta would be launching shortly.

The new game will have some differences from the old. Only twelve of the twenty-two character races from the original will be available. There will no longer be a browser version, and a Facebook account will be required. The changes to the game made it impossible to preserve characters from the original, so all players will need to start over (and according to their website, characters created for the beta release will be deleted at the end of the beta period).

Some have already been playing the Japanese version, and report that the character models have been somewhat altered to a more Japanese styling. Despite some differences, the overall look and feel and the gameplay are much like the earlier incarnation of the game.

(Vikie Foxfang assisted in writing this article.)

Urlesque recently held Catfight to find the Internet's most popular cat.

The contestants were from the various famous Lolcats residing on Icanhascheezburger.com. The cats are an internet sensation of various felines in user-captioned pictures meant to entertain people.

The final battle was between Ceiling Cat, the cat god who divinely inspired the lolcat bible and Japanese YouTube star, Maru.

See also: MSN Today features cats in hats