Interface makeover

[BlackOak2]

I actually really like the idea of choosing a low-render style option. To turn off some of the fancy things. I like looking at my horses in the pasture, wandering around, but if it means I can have more information in my pastures' view or more information on my farm page, personally I'd prefer to downgrade certain things.
As long as the horse's profile page remains intact, I can forgo the pasture view of the horse's wandering around altogether, or have some lower-grade version of it, or better yet, the option to turn it off and on. The option to turn it off and on, might be like the option to 'Edit My Farm', just a button that will load it for you if you choose to see it, or turn it off, if you choose to not see it. One that remembers and defaults to the last preference.
I don't know if that's a viable option. But it sounds good.

[Silverine]

What if, in addition to the classic pasture and barn interface, there was a separate list interface? You wouldn't need to show images of the horses, just names and pertinent information such as breed, age, etc. There could be different sort options - I'm imagining a default sort by ID numbers, with the option to sort by name, breed, or gender, as examples. Then when you click on the horse's name (or a separate link) you're taken to the horse's page rather than loading the information into the current page.

The lack of images and moving pastures would help reduce load on older machines, and there could be a maximum number of horses displayed per page of the list to reduce load further. Sorting by specific characteristic would allow people to find horses faster (if they're like me and their pastures get crazy disorganized seemingly within seconds after organizing them).

I personally like the size of the pastures. It adds to the realism of the game, especially with greater numbers of horses causing damage to the grass. Though I would not be opposed to a larger pasture as long as it doesn't adversely affect game performance.

A secondary suggestion: When on the horse's page, looking at the list of places to move them to, it would be nice to see how many horses are in the new area (0/12, 8/12, etc) rather than just knowing if the area has open space or not. I don't know how much extra power that would take to implement but it would be very useful.

[Tjigra]

I vote leave the pastures the way they are, AND add a list, a roster, whatever, without fancy pictures and stuff, just information. Horse's name, gender, age, breed, colour (this could encourage people to put down at least something in the "colour" box), condition, short notes, whether or not the horse is for sale, for stud, pregnant, and most important - where the horse is. Trying to find a specific horse you know is there but don't remember which barn or pasture is the one thing that annoys me most, to be honest. I keep my own spreadsheet with notes on each horse, but that only helps me keep track of on which account the horse is, if I'd change notes every time I move someone around, I'd spend more times making notes than playing.

[Farant]

I vote leave the pastures the way they are, AND add a list, a roster, whatever, without fancy pictures and stuff, just information. Horse's name, gender, age, breed, colour (this could encourage people to put down at least something in the "colour" box), condition, short notes, whether or not the horse is for sale, for stud, pregnant, and most important - where the horse is. Trying to find a specific horse you know is there but don't remember which barn or pasture is the one thing that annoys me most, to be honest. I keep my own spreadsheet with notes on each horse, but that only helps me keep track of on which account the horse is, if I'd change notes every time I move someone around, I'd spend more times making notes than playing.

That's exactly what I'm talking about all this time. You're spending more time fighting against the current interface than actually playing.

[ST0RM]

I vote to leave the pastures the way they are, AND add a list, a roster, whatever, without fancy pictures and stuff, just information. Horse's name, gender, age, breed, colour (this could encourage people to put down at least something in the "colour" box), condition, short notes, whether or not the horse is for sale, for stud, pregnant, and most important - where the horse is. Trying to find a specific horse you know is there but don't remember which barn or pasture is the one thing that annoys me most, to be honest. I keep my own spreadsheet with notes on each horse, but that only helps me keep track of on which account the horse is, if I'd change notes every time I move someone around, I'd spend more times making notes than playing.

That's exactly what I'm talking about all this time. You're spending more time fighting against the current interface than actually playing.

Another problem I've noticed is in your player's profile (mine on anyone's) where it says how many horses you can own I think it should say how many you have versus how many you can own (e.g. 5 of 8 horses) that way you know how many horses you can buy and/or breed.