Additional Upgrade/Paid Perks

[SageFeather145]

The only thing I worry about with the pony tokens is an elitist group developing like other horse games.

[Argent II]

Not likely. Everyone can earn PT.

[nyraeia]

I think all of these features are great and would be very useful.

But I think harvesting should be available for free players, too. Maybe it could be more effective for premium players - harvesting a pasture could take less time for them, for example.

Transfering embryos/storing DNA sounds really awesome, but I wonder if it wouldn't make premium players too powerful compared to free players.

[MuddyPuddles]

perhaps making it so everyone has access to the upgrades but free players have restricted use/limited access would make it fairer?

[Argent II]

I think giving players free access to things they could easily earn is unfair. If you've contributed nothing in terms of funds and haven't put any effort into the game, you haven't earned the privilege to use features that enhance gameplay.

[nyraeia]

I agree in terms of keeping some things exclusively for the premium players, but I think my definition of "easily" is a bit different from yours. For the last weeks, I've been playing a good bit on my second account (that has premium atm, so 12 days banked and halved regeneration) and I do a lot of local shows, which is the only option to earn PT for now.
Earning them is taking me ages. And I think I'm putting a lot more time into this game than the standard free user. I've earned a bit more than 100 PT in two weeks and I will not be able to earn all of them back in the few remaining days I have left.
This does not take level-ups into account, yes, but these get more rare the longer you've been playing.
Maybe we'll get additional ways to earn PTs "for free" in the future, who knows.
I'm not even sure what I'm arguing for right now, I guess I only wanted to say that "not putting any effort into the game" is a bit harsh.

[Argent II]

You're right. My definition of "easily" and "much effort" probably doesn't align with the general population. I "easily" earned probably 10,000 PT between my two accounts before the new year, between level ups and local shows. I "easily" gained a level every day or every other day or every few days on my main for weeks/months when I was actively using it, even when I started to get into the teens, twenties, and thirties. I played really hard on my main account for the first three months or so. I typically went through four years' worth of turns in less than an hour, and I would game in several hour-plus shifts throughout the day. My definition of "easily" is skewed. Since switching to my spare and playing less often, I have seen a slower rate of progress. But that being said, I still don't think that earning PT is all that difficult. After spending thousands of PT on adopting horses, I managed to earn them all back within a few weeks. Of course, I've been strictly breeding up until about last week, so I can devote all of my time to local shows, which makes things a lot easier. If you're more invested in training/showing, you'll have a more difficult time for sure. It helps to stick with level 1 LS, but taking up time with training will obviously decrease your chances to win a show and a PT or turn. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that earning PT really is easy, but you don't realize how easy it is unless you play enough. If you barely make it through a game year each week or each day, of course it's going to seem like PT take forever to earn; you aren't going through nearly enough turns to see the ratio of return. But if you're going through several years a day (every day, or whenever you play) then you see that PT accumulate rather quickly in terms of turns/PT earned.

[Weaving]

As someone who's been an outsider on many an online horse game because I couldn't afford to upgrade, I'm going to stick my neck out and say this game is really quite simple to advance in. I've been playing for less than a month and have multiple horses on the top horses and world records board for their events. PT are relatively easy to accumulate if you spend enough time at it, and they aren't all that expensive to buy if you don't have the luxury of time. As it is, I think the perks premium players get are set about right, if they were shared with free to play players then the game surely wouldn't make enough money to run.

[Warband]

I like these suggestions to add more member perks. =)

[Nightfeathers]

Huge yes from here! If we had these features I would almost certainly be getting premium right now lol. Excellent ideas!