Why I'm not a consistent player...

[Wingless Flight]

I usually get bored of this game after a month or so... but I keep coming back.

Why?

Because it offers genetics you can SEE on your horse. No other horse breeding game has that level of detail. This game has something special. A core of gold.

BUT its extremely rough around the edges for a game that launched 4? 5? years ago. I understand that there's only two people working on it, but I would prefer an increase in monetization so the developers can hire someone who can work on this game full time than the extremely frustrating lack of progress I've observed over the years. Right now I'm spending the minimum amount of money on it; I don't think this will ever be a complete game and I don't see much motivation from the developers towards refining the game, which keeps me from investing heavily in it. The cosmetic items introduced in the store seems like bandaids to keep interest/ add something new in stead of addressing the core issues that plague the game.

Its disheartening to see the heading of the player skills still titled _____________ Skill Tree (which seems very much like a placeholder heading) and the retired horse profile still being temporary. Training history has been coming soon for years now. Then there's a particularly annoying glitch where the 'rehome horse' popup menu doesn't disappear after you rehomed the horse and return to the pasture page. There's dozens of these little issues and little annoyances, but they can add up. After all this time we still can't customise our avatars. I'd love being able to do that.

Then there's the big stuff. The economy of the game is very unbalanced. The game needs geldings, desperately. Its way too easy to get super horses. It's too easy to make money and there's very little to spend it on. Personally I'd like to manage my farm, because the gets monotonous from repeating the same thing over and over.

I apologize if I come across harshly, but this is thoughts I've had for the last several years. Before I had this account I had another one. See my frustration as a good thing, because I care enough (because there is something genuinely GOOD about this game) to get frustrated in the first place.

[Abbih]

I get what you're saying. I'm not consistent either. I really struggle with games like this where time only progresses when you want it to because then it can kind of turn into a whoever had the most time, becomes the best players. And I don't like how you can cycle through generations of horses in a matter of hours. But I keep coming back because this is one of the best games genetically. There's one other game (which I won't name because I don't remember if it's against the rules or not), and it's genetics are really solid, but all horses of a breed use a specific image (they aren't generated images), so you don't get to see conformation, and all of the colors are pulled from a bank (so there isn't as much variation). But what keeps me more interested in that game is it's slower paced (which, that's just a difference of the games, nothing to change, but that lets still be a very active player, without having to dedicate hours to the game). And the other thing that keeps me interested is that they are constantly updating it. And I get it, this isn't the creators full time job (the other game has a team of developers and has turned it into their full time job), but it can be discouraging as a player to only see updates or news every few months.
Now, don't get me wrong, I love this game, there's a reason I've kept coming back to it for so long. But it can get a little repetitive and I get bored.

[JewelsD]

I totally get where you're coming from. I've signed up to be patron and there's literally nothing posted since April. None of the cosmetics they said back then have been released and there are no updates to the quality of life issues we players have.

I do love having the babies and seeing their colors and how they look, and seeing if I can breed faster and faster racehorses. I'm curious to see if there's a hard limit to how fast a thoroughbred can run. I hope there is.. I would hate to see a TB running a race in .01 seconds. Each foal is like a little treasure box. That's why i keep playing, but I sure would like to see some work done on the interface.

Like how about giving us a temperament gauge instead of just words -- especially since there's obviously degrees of calm, even-tempered, spirited and high strung. It would be nice to see where on the spectrum the horse is. that would certainly make evaluating a colt easier. You could tell by looking at a real horse how frisky it was feeling.

Also, why can't we look back and see our horse's performance in a local show that day. If we miss the score, there's no way to find out what it was. That's not realistic of a real horse show.

There are tons of suggestions that have never been addressed and lately no feedback at all from the developers. I'd be HAPPY TO SPEND MONEY HERE if you'd just give me something to buy. More updates to the account for purchase, like I've listed before. Better search pages, better categorizations of studs and horses for sale. Better competition management and the ability to see what shows your horses is registered for. Being able to see what your local show results were for the entire turn. Stuff like that. I'm not the only one who'd be willing to pay.

[Tom]

Hello!
I'd like to thank you all for playing the game and taking an interest in it. I know it can be frustrating to see the slow progress in the development of it. I'll try and quickly run down a few things while I have a chance here.

1. It's pretty normal to get bored of a game. It would be weird to play one game constantly forever. I'm old and I mostly play old games. Some of my favourites I haven't played in years, but I still go back to them. It's a mark of a good game.
2. It's totally okay to name and link to other games you play. We like to play other games too!
3. Yes there are a lot of things we had planned to do that feel like they have stalled. Life has been very busy and things just keep coming up. We haven't had much time to work on the game and update to the Patreon fell to the bottom of the list. I know it goes against what marketers will tell you, but when we get time to work on the game, we work on the game instead of making posts about it. I know that's not ideal and it makes players feel like there is no progress and they don't like being in the dark. I'm sorry.
4. What we have been working on:
   • A new server. The game is actually quite active and has a lot of players. I won't get into the technical details but the game requires a handful of services from different companies to handle the bandwidth, date, and computing of the game. Since the game has launched the services offered by server hosts have changed and we are working to migrate the game off of one system and onto another. This will make the game less expensive to run and should hopefully resolve some of the rendering issues we have. Missing horse images should be much rarer when this is done.
   • Another test server. When you develop a website you can't make changes to the live copy without testing them first because if you made a mistake the whole thing could go down. So we have another copy of the entire game running on another server. It's old and slow and out of date so we need to setup a new one. It's about half way done and should be up soon. When that is done then changes to the game that players can see should come much faster again.
   • Halloween items. I know, this is a big one! I love Halloween, it's my favourite holiday and I have barely had time to come up with new Halloween items, let alone get them into the game.

I'll stop there for now. I just want to let everyone know we are as frustrated as you all with how things are going. Due to the pandemic I have both of my kids at home with me during the day for remote learning. There have been health issues in the family and all around this year hasn't been great. Horse World Online is still a top priority for us though, and we do work on it as much as we can. I try and read all of the suggestion threads, but to be honest most suggestions are repeats and there are only so many ways I can say geldings will come when we get the veterinary system in, which is a big job!

Please keep enjoying the game, keep your comments coming and feel free to ping me for whatever reason. I do read them, even if I don't always reply. Thank you all.

[Soaring Hooves]

The game could improve for sure. But you all gotta admit, it's the best one.

Hello!
I'd like to thank you all for playing the game and taking an interest in it. I know it can be frustrating to see the slow progress in the development of it. I'll try and quickly run down a few things while I have a chance here.

1. It's pretty normal to get bored of a game. It would be weird to play one game constantly forever. I'm old and I mostly play old games. Some of my favourites I haven't played in years, but I still go back to them. It's a mark of a good game.
2. It's totally okay to name and link to other games you play. We like to play other games too!
3. Yes there are a lot of things we had planned to do that feel like they have stalled. Life has been very busy and things just keep coming up. We haven't had much time to work on the game and update to the Patreon fell to the bottom of the list. I know it goes against what marketers will tell you, but when we get time to work on the game, we work on the game instead of making posts about it. I know that's not ideal and it makes players feel like there is no progress and they don't like being in the dark. I'm sorry.
4. What we have been working on:
   • A new server. The game is actually quite active and has a lot of players. I won't get into the technical details but the game requires a handful of services from different companies to handle the bandwidth, date, and computing of the game. Since the game has launched the services offered by server hosts have changed and we are working to migrate the game off of one system and onto another. This will make the game less expensive to run and should hopefully resolve some of the rendering issues we have. Missing horse images should be much rarer when this is done.
   • Another test server. When you develop a website you can't make changes to the live copy without testing them first because if you made a mistake the whole thing could go down. So we have another copy of the entire game running on another server. It's old and slow and out of date so we need to setup a new one. It's about half way done and should be up soon. When that is done then changes to the game that players can see should come much faster again.
   • Halloween items. I know, this is a big one! I love Halloween, it's my favourite holiday and I have barely had time to come up with new Halloween items, let alone get them into the game.

I'll stop there for now. I just want to let everyone know we are as frustrated as you all with how things are going. Due to the pandemic I have both of my kids at home with me during the day for remote learning. There have been health issues in the family and all around this year hasn't been great. Horse World Online is still a top priority for us though, and we do work on it as much as we can. I try and read all of the suggestion threads, but to be honest most suggestions are repeats and there are only so many ways I can say geldings will come when we get the veterinary system in, which is a big job!

Please keep enjoying the game, keep your comments coming and feel free to ping me for whatever reason. I do read them, even if I don't always reply. Thank you all.

[ExRaceHorseChamp]

Hello!
I'd like to thank you all for playing the game and taking an interest in it. I know it can be frustrating to see the slow progress in the development of it. I'll try and quickly run down a few things while I have a chance here.

1. It's pretty normal to get bored of a game. It would be weird to play one game constantly forever. I'm old and I mostly play old games. Some of my favourites I haven't played in years, but I still go back to them. It's a mark of a good game.
2. It's totally okay to name and link to other games you play. We like to play other games too!
3. Yes there are a lot of things we had planned to do that feel like they have stalled. Life has been very busy and things just keep coming up. We haven't had much time to work on the game and update to the Patreon fell to the bottom of the list. I know it goes against what marketers will tell you, but when we get time to work on the game, we work on the game instead of making posts about it. I know that's not ideal and it makes players feel like there is no progress and they don't like being in the dark. I'm sorry.
4. What we have been working on:
   • A new server. The game is actually quite active and has a lot of players. I won't get into the technical details but the game requires a handful of services from different companies to handle the bandwidth, date, and computing of the game. Since the game has launched the services offered by server hosts have changed and we are working to migrate the game off of one system and onto another. This will make the game less expensive to run and should hopefully resolve some of the rendering issues we have. Missing horse images should be much rarer when this is done.
   • Another test server. When you develop a website you can't make changes to the live copy without testing them first because if you made a mistake the whole thing could go down. So we have another copy of the entire game running on another server. It's old and slow and out of date so we need to setup a new one. It's about half way done and should be up soon. When that is done then changes to the game that players can see should come much faster again.
   • Halloween items. I know, this is a big one! I love Halloween, it's my favourite holiday and I have barely had time to come up with new Halloween items, let alone get them into the game.

I'll stop there for now. I just want to let everyone know we are as frustrated as you all with how things are going. Due to the pandemic I have both of my kids at home with me during the day for remote learning. There have been health issues in the family and all around this year hasn't been great. Horse World Online is still a top priority for us though, and we do work on it as much as we can. I try and read all of the suggestion threads, but to be honest most suggestions are repeats and there are only so many ways I can say geldings will come when we get the veterinary system in, which is a big job!

Please keep enjoying the game, keep your comments coming and feel free to ping me for whatever reason. I do read them, even if I don't always reply. Thank you all.

I've played many different horse games like SSO **Star Stable Online** & that game was fun ,butttttttttt , it kept updating EVERY WESNDAY & I get it some games do that, but I don't want to have to update a game for 2 hours a day every week to get into the game, yes HWO isn't updated as much, buts that's what I like , I can get up everyone morning go to the login page get into my acct/s & check my notifications & horses/foals/ponies/ect unlike SSO I have to update every Wesnday just to get into the game & than have it crash on me,while hwo i can just get on & not update.

[Farant]

Hello!
I'd like to thank you all for playing the game and taking an interest in it. I know it can be frustrating to see the slow progress in the development of it. I'll try and quickly run down a few things while I have a chance here.

1. It's pretty normal to get bored of a game. It would be weird to play one game constantly forever. I'm old and I mostly play old games. Some of my favourites I haven't played in years, but I still go back to them. It's a mark of a good game.
2. It's totally okay to name and link to other games you play. We like to play other games too!
3. Yes there are a lot of things we had planned to do that feel like they have stalled. Life has been very busy and things just keep coming up. We haven't had much time to work on the game and update to the Patreon fell to the bottom of the list. I know it goes against what marketers will tell you, but when we get time to work on the game, we work on the game instead of making posts about it. I know that's not ideal and it makes players feel like there is no progress and they don't like being in the dark. I'm sorry.
4. What we have been working on:
   • A new server. The game is actually quite active and has a lot of players. I won't get into the technical details but the game requires a handful of services from different companies to handle the bandwidth, date, and computing of the game. Since the game has launched the services offered by server hosts have changed and we are working to migrate the game off of one system and onto another. This will make the game less expensive to run and should hopefully resolve some of the rendering issues we have. Missing horse images should be much rarer when this is done.
   • Another test server. When you develop a website you can't make changes to the live copy without testing them first because if you made a mistake the whole thing could go down. So we have another copy of the entire game running on another server. It's old and slow and out of date so we need to setup a new one. It's about half way done and should be up soon. When that is done then changes to the game that players can see should come much faster again.
   • Halloween items. I know, this is a big one! I love Halloween, it's my favourite holiday and I have barely had time to come up with new Halloween items, let alone get them into the game.

I'll stop there for now. I just want to let everyone know we are as frustrated as you all with how things are going. Due to the pandemic I have both of my kids at home with me during the day for remote learning. There have been health issues in the family and all around this year hasn't been great. Horse World Online is still a top priority for us though, and we do work on it as much as we can. I try and read all of the suggestion threads, but to be honest most suggestions are repeats and there are only so many ways I can say geldings will come when we get the veterinary system in, which is a big job!

Please keep enjoying the game, keep your comments coming and feel free to ping me for whatever reason. I do read them, even if I don't always reply. Thank you all.

Hello Tom!
I want to say that cosmetics are not that important. Game could live without new images, but there are more important problems. Endgame is practically non-existent, I can't spend my millions anywhere. Rankings are broken, they don't provide accurate information. Interface needs some serious overhaul, it doesn't provide us adequate tools for managing big projects.
I guess if you reveal how to make items for the game, people would gladly create them. Ofc if it's not too complicated, but why don't you give it a try?