Better communication and update frequency

[GrimCamel]

I love this game but it's downfall is the long time between updates and the communication. Even if updates like bug fixes are made in the quiet they need to be advertised so the community can see the developer activity. To keep the community active, updates also needs to be more frequent. If it'd coders you lack, advertise it, artists? Advertise it. Money? There's a millions of ways to earn money to fund the site.
I don't need to tell you twice that your forum and chat feature is out of date by at least a decade, I'm sure that's in the roadmap somewhere but your community needs to know when things happen not that they're planned. I've played this game for about two years now and I see great potential if enough time are spent on game development. During my time the only big feature has been the tobiano and it still lacks completion.
Hire some scheduled coders or artists to keep the site moving forward in a more reasonable pace.
I've even contacted you in the past about a artist position to keep you going but that's irrelevant to the subject.
Even if there's no updates rolled out at the moment, we as a community need site devs and admin to stay in contact through newsletter and inform the playerbase about the current situation and what to expect this month. Weekly updates is the goal to strive for to keep a satisfied community but even monthly would be appreciated.
We need improvement and we need to know you're serious about this game and making it complete beta stage.
*mic drop *

[Tom]

I'm always available if you have questions. I'm not sure you understand how much time and effort have gone into, and continue to go into HWO.

[Baranduin Brewster]

Honestly, I don't see the issue with the Forums or Chat, this forum type has been utilized in two other horse games I played...the chatroom is different, but I don't have any issues with that. Is the forums issue your having the requirement of an upgraded account to message player? I for one, prefer not being messaged by everybody, and I know many other players agree.

I can understand them not wanting to get players involved, they did that in many other games that I played and it caused major issues amongst the players. By doing it this way no one feels anyone has any advantages. I also, weigh the updates and improvements, with the uniqueness of the game, how many other games do you know that offer an free upgrade (you do have to work a bit to get it)? Not many, most costs real money and many in the $30 - $50 for a 1 year upgrade.

I will admit I'm a pretty chill player, 10 years in the military taught me patience and that things will come in good time. I just watch the Announcements topic for any news on the updates, or ask in chat when the admins get on.

[h a z e l]

I love this game but it's downfall is the long time between updates and the communication. Even if updates like bug fixes are made in the quiet they need to be advertised so the community can see the developer activity. To keep the community active, updates also needs to be more frequent. If it'd coders you lack, advertise it, artists? Advertise it. Money? There's a millions of ways to earn money to fund the site.
I don't need to tell you twice that your forum and chat feature is out of date by at least a decade, I'm sure that's in the roadmap somewhere but your community needs to know when things happen not that they're planned. I've played this game for about two years now and I see great potential if enough time are spent on game development. During my time the only big feature has been the tobiano and it still lacks completion.
Hire some scheduled coders or artists to keep the site moving forward in a more reasonable pace.
I've even contacted you in the past about a artist position to keep you going but that's irrelevant to the subject.
Even if there's no updates rolled out at the moment, we as a community need site devs and admin to stay in contact through newsletter and inform the playerbase about the current situation and what to expect this month. Weekly updates is the goal to strive for to keep a satisfied community but even monthly would be appreciated.
We need improvement and we need to know you're serious about this game and making it complete beta stage.
*mic drop *

I've played quite a lot of online horse games and the forum on here is pretty similar to the forums on other games. (As Baranduin_Brewster pointed out) I also don't really see why the chat has to be updated if it works fine.
The admins have poured a lot of dedication and time into this game and the majority of players that logon frequently understand this and appreciate it. I can say that I am perfectly happy with the game as it is. I love this game because it is so realistic and I'm sure making it this way takes more work than other horse games. Apparently others agree with me because there are a lot of players that play frequently.

[GrimCamel]

I'm always available if you have questions. I'm not sure you understand how much time and effort have gone into, and continue to go into HWO.

It is actually difficult to understand with the lack of communication. If the site is a weekend hobby or a 24/7 workload is not brought forth in newsletters and patchnotes. The dev silence is way too big for a regular player like myself and I feel very uninformed about the timeplan for HWO. It would be great to know what to expect and when to expect

Honestly, I don't see the issue with the Forums or Chat, this forum type has been utilized in two other horse games I played...the chatroom is different, but I don't have any issues with that. Is the forums issue your having the requirement of an upgraded account to message player? I for one, prefer not being messaged by everybody, and I know many other players agree.

I can understand them not wanting to get players involved, they did that in many other games that I played and it caused major issues amongst the players. By doing it this way no one feels anyone has any advantages. I also, weigh the updates and improvements, with the uniqueness of the game, how many other games do you know that offer an free upgrade (you do have to work a bit to get it)? Not many, most costs real money and many in the $30 - $50 for a 1 year upgrade.

I will admit I'm a pretty chill player, 10 years in the military taught me patience and that things will come in good time. I just watch the Announcements topic for any news on the updates, or ask in chat when the admins get on.

This forum structure is very old, I've also seen it being used in other browsergames through out the years. Technology evolve and with the game core being very forward thinking and ground breaking the forums are quite the let down. And no I do not see private messaging as an issue at this point of time, that wasn't mentioned in my post.
The chatroom should to be honest be included on the webpage as many other browsergames have done or something better. The chatroom is also of a very old looking model, Im not familliar with the extension myself but taking a chat program as something to strive for they should look at Discord's way of approaching the subject

I'm not sure why you making following statements. Communication between devs and the community is EVERYTHING. Look at big online games, they embrace feedback and express their gratitude to the fan's involvement. There is no online game w/o a community.
It seems like you are trying to defend the game here rather than providing to the discussion about improvement. Sure I also think the game is great as I've already mentioned but theres always room for improvement. I'm not here to bash anyone.

[GrimCamel]

-snip-

I've played quite a lot of online horse games and the forum on here is pretty similar to the forums on other games. (As Baranduin_Brewster pointed out) I also don't really see why the chat has to be updated if it works fine.
The admins have poured a lot of dedication and time into this game and the majority of players that logon frequently understand this and appreciate it. I can say that I am perfectly happy with the game as it is. I love this game because it is so realistic and I'm sure making it this way takes more work than other horse games. Apparently others agree with me because there are a lot of players that play frequently.

Yes ofc it works, same could be said for windows XP, it works but there was room for improvement thats why Microsoft continued their developments. I personally think it's better to keep things modern and user friendly. I think chickensmoothie also have the same old forum structure and has since I joined in 2009. Different forum structures has been released since then.
And I understand you love the game but that is besides the point

[h a z e l]

I've played quite a lot of online horse games and the forum on here is pretty similar to the forums on other games. (As Baranduin_Brewster pointed out) I also don't really see why the chat has to be updated if it works fine.
The admins have poured a lot of dedication and time into this game and the majority of players that logon frequently understand this and appreciate it. I can say that I am perfectly happy with the game as it is. I love this game because it is so realistic and I'm sure making it this way takes more work than other horse games. Apparently others agree with me because there are a lot of players that play frequently.

Yes ofc it works, same could be said for windows XP, it works but there was room for improvement thats why Microsoft continued their developments. I personally think it's better to keep things modern and user friendly. I think chickensmoothie also have the same old forum structure and has since I joined in 2009. Different forum structures has been released since then.
And I understand you love the game but that is besides the point

Okay, I'll take the fact that I love the game out of it if you want. I'll try to look at it from your perspective. I understand there are a lot of players that think more updates would be better. But I don't think this game was created to keep up with the latest updates. It was created to make a more realistic online horse game that is much like real life. The admins are more focused on working on genes and colors for the horses than updating chat and the forums as far as I know.

[Tom]

The forum software is phpBB, which last updated November 16th and I'm a developer on this game talking to you right now. You've used the help system before and I've answered you there as well. If someone has an issue with the game we take it very seriously and address it ASAP.
We work on the game and release updates as they are ready. Most of the effort goes into research of horse genetics and designing systems to represent and render them as images on the game. Quite a bit of testing goes on to make sure the results are acceptable and nothing breaks with the update.

I'm sorry you feel we aren't working hard enough or communicating often enough.

[GrimCamel]

The forum software is phpBB, which last updated November 16th and I'm a developer on this game talking to you right now. You've used the help system before and I've answered you there as well. If someone has an issue with the game we take it very seriously and address it ASAP.
We work on the game and release updates as they are ready. Most of the effort goes into research of horse genetics and designing systems to represent and render them as images on the game. Quite a bit of testing goes on to make sure the results are acceptable and nothing breaks with the update.

I'm sorry you feel we aren't working hard enough or communicating often enough.

Yes the software but the forum structure. And it's not that kind of communication I'm trying to address here, I know very well you guys are quick to respond on issues that might occour but I'm refering to communication aimed at the entire community and not reports etc.

I'm not saying you aren't working hard enough, as I said I cannot know that due to lack of communication in forms of regular newsletters and patchnotes. But I am however pointing out that you might want to add additional workers to create a reliable update schedule to roll out content regurarly.
Your work is still great and I'm glad to hear you're still keeping the good work up

[Baranduin Brewster]

I'm always available if you have questions. I'm not sure you understand how much time and effort have gone into, and continue to go into HWO.

It is actually difficult to understand with the lack of communication. If the site is a weekend hobby or a 24/7 workload is not brought forth in newsletters and patchnotes. The dev silence is way too big for a regular player like myself and I feel very uninformed about the timeplan for HWO. It would be great to know what to expect and when to expect

Honestly, I don't see the issue with the Forums or Chat, this forum type has been utilized in two other horse games I played...the chatroom is different, but I don't have any issues with that. Is the forums issue your having the requirement of an upgraded account to message player? I for one, prefer not being messaged by everybody, and I know many other players agree.

I can understand them not wanting to get players involved, they did that in many other games that I played and it caused major issues amongst the players. By doing it this way no one feels anyone has any advantages. I also, weigh the updates and improvements, with the uniqueness of the game, how many other games do you know that offer an free upgrade (you do have to work a bit to get it)? Not many, most costs real money and many in the $30 - $50 for a 1 year upgrade.

I will admit I'm a pretty chill player, 10 years in the military taught me patience and that things will come in good time. I just watch the Announcements topic for any news on the updates, or ask in chat when the admins get on.

This forum structure is very old, I've also seen it being used in other browsergames through out the years. Technology evolve and with the game core being very forward thinking and ground breaking the forums are quite the let down. And no I do not see private messaging as an issue at this point of time, that wasn't mentioned in my post.
The chatroom should to be honest be included on the webpage as many other browsergames have done or something better. The chatroom is also of a very old looking model, Im not familliar with the extension myself but taking a chat program as something to strive for they should look at Discord's way of approaching the subject

I'm not sure why you making following statements. Communication between devs and the community is EVERYTHING. Look at big online games, they embrace feedback and express their gratitude to the fan's involvement. There is no online game w/o a community.
It seems like you are trying to defend the game here rather than providing to the discussion about improvement. Sure I also think the game is great as I've already mentioned but theres always room for improvement. I'm not here to bash anyone.

The reason I asked about the messaging, is because that is peoples main gripe about the forums (and it is part of the forums). You never explained what your issues were with the forums (just it was out of date).

The game isn't a 24/7 job for the Admins/Developers, and it shouldn't be. I am defending them and the game, saying that there is only two people working on the game, therefore people need to be patient. I do agree with there is no online game without the community, but to expect that the developers should drop everything else they need to do, to work on this game is just not realistic. Expecting them to hire outside help (or accept volunteers) is also not up to you or anyone else. By them working on the artwork themselves, it is their game with their art and they can tweak things to their standards. It also avoids legal issues, if an employee/volunteer gets upset and leaves (I have seen it happen) and gets in a tizzy about copyrights.

I do agree with communications, which we have in the Announcements or Comments and Suggestions topics, Looks like wearables are on deck...updates take time, and effort and the game developers have done a great job keeping things realistic (as much as pixel ponies can be anyways). We waited a bit of time for the Tobiano/Facial/Leg Markings to come out (mostly as the artwork didn't come out as Larrisar wanted it), personally it was worth the wait. There is a list of things that need to be worked on (Geldings, Approve Mare, Training Tickets, etc.), I don't disagree with that...just it will take time.

As far as Discord's Voice/Text Chatroom, its basically a social networking type platform...

There are too many youngsters on this game that have no understanding of Internet safety, and I (I suspect the Admins/Developers, as well) could see it being used inappropriately. We've already dealt with a bunch of creeps being inappropriate and youngsters treating the chatroom as a dating site, the chatroom as we have it Tom can ban people that need to be banned. I'm not familiar with Discord enough to say if it is possible for the Admins to ban people as needed or not. I like having the chatroom separated, doesn't bog my browsers down, when I have all four running with the game that way.