Community Reminder - Summer 2024 (Northern Hemisphere)

[BlackOak2]

Welcome to the first Community Reminder since the new format has become live.

First some preliminary notes:
After some initial personal debate, I decided 'official' Community Reminders could and probably should appear under the Community Newsletters Forum. Why? Because at least my Community Reminders have as much interesting events, happenings and insights about the community as it has reminders for our community members. They'll also be much easier to find and reference.
I'll still link them in my Quicklinks and archive them on regular cycles, but having new forums for the new format is quite nice, indeed!
Why do I quantify the Community Reminders as 'official'? Because even though any community member can write a Community Reminder, some may think a rant qualifies as one instead. Our community is all-inclusive (with little argument to the contrary), but sometimes even I have trouble defining the difference between a vent and something that should be said as a Reminder.
So when tackling one, feel free to apply it in the Community Newsletters forum, but remember to format it in a way appropriate to serving as a Community Reminder and not a rant or a vent.

Included in this release:
The New Chat
The New Forum


The New Chat

This section will be really short.
With the new format, we've been upgraded to a new chat. Chat is no longer an HWO standalone, but has become a part of the Discord community. Should you want to use chat, you will need to be signed up to, or create a Discord account.

The old rule of posting five times (and having them approved) in the forums before joining Chat, is still in effect (as far as I'm aware). Also, HWO rules are still in effect on the Discord hosted HWO chat.


The New Forum

Perhaps I'm a little late on this point, introducing the new forum that admin has given to us with the new format. But even if some think it a little late, sometimes it's better to introduce something once people have become a little more accustomed and comfortable with the new releases as a whole, first. And then, there's all of those that play the game itself and completely ignore the forum entirely. So, this is an introduction for all of those that have become comfortable with the gameplay and all of those that forget, ignore or otherwise, the forums themselves.

Admin has setup the new forum with a number of new (and often asked for) additions. Of these, the Services forum and the Community Newsletter forum are the most interesting (perhaps! ), but there is also the exciting and brand new forum of AC Breeding Projects.
Ooo... What's that???

I'll introduce it next.

When you click on the Community link, it opens up a drop down menu with Forums as the first option. Below that, you'll find Search Forum (that has it's own drop down menu), Farm Directory, Members, Chat Room and Online Now.

Should you click on the Forums option, our basic forum overview opens. It doesn't look very different from the old version, just a little more streamlined and perhaps has a better color scheme.

The very first section is headed Community Projects and currently there is only ONE subject: AC Breeding Projects.
This is an important one for our community and for admin.
Opening this forum introduces you to just three topics, right now. The first is a topic entitled Adoption Centre Breed Expansion Project. This topic introduces you to what this forum (mainly) will be about and what it will be used for. The other two topics are on the very first two breeds that will be officially released into the Adoption Centre itself.

WHAT??!!

Yeah, I said it!
When each of these breed topics are posted, worked through and finished, we'll have these breeds released into the AC and available for adoption, just like those other ancient breeds we already have access to. What does this mean for the community else-wise? Will they be the same amount of PT? Will they be locked until the account has completed the quests goal for that breed?
Yeeaahh... I don't have the answers to these questions. They may be the same PT or they may be more, dependent on the difficulty of creating that breed from the original ancient breeds of the AC, kind of like how the breed books increase in price with the difficulty of the recipe. We will all have to wait and see.

I'm not going to give any additional insights for a number of reasons, but if I've perked your interest, take a closer look yourself.


The second heading is General Discussion.

As before, this heading has Announcements as it's very first subject. I really need say nothing additional for this subject.

Below that is Weekly Development Updates. This subject will take you to the HWO Paetron site where admin posts weekly on the game development, themselves and other interesting little tidbits. You can choose to support the game financially on a monthly basis, here. They have three tiers to choose from and all of them are quite modest. The Bronze Pony is only $2 dollars a month. Silver Pony is the mid tier at $5 a month and finally the Gold Pony is $15 a month. Remember, this game is a labor of love. Some of us can't financially support the game for many reasons while others can. If you can do so and you want to, Great! The community as well as admin, adore you for doing so. If you can't... well, the game is still free to play and doesn't have a pay-to-win style. Maybe one day you'll be in a different position. And you're still adored. And, there's still the PT you can single purchase if ever you're able.

Under the Weekly Development subject sits General Chit Chat. This is as it has always been. Anything that doesn't fit in any of the other forums goes here. Also found here is the *Official Name Change Thread*, the Share your farm! and the HWO Patreon subjects. Found in this forum is also my Quicklinks, but mine isn't sticky-ed.

Next up is Real-Life Horses. This is one of our new forums. Likely because we have had a lot (a ton, really) of real-life stories, questions and conversations regarding our real horses, admin has found interest in including a very specific forum for it. So, think about this forum next time you want to talk about your real heart-horse (or otherwise).
Currently, Tom still wants to hear about your real horse stories, the trials, tribulations and how you got them fixed in his topic Tell me your horse stories! There's also Your Dose of Freya, the only other topic in this forum currently. Don't know who Freya is? Freya is the filly of a mare named Mojo who made her first appearance (topic) on HWO back in 2018 when her owner opened an in-game contest to name her. Later, her owner posted updates as well as the trials and tribulations of her being covered by a Knab stallion. Freya is the resulting foal, now 2 years.
She is the unofficial foal of the HWO community. Not the only one, but likely the most famous, around here, at least.

Next up is our exciting Community Newsletters! Although it seems our current newsletters have fallen to the wayside (and I still have the links in my quicklinks), one day soon enough, they'll come back. This time, we may not have one topic for each newsletter and just write new replies as we go along, they may actually be new topics for each one. Hopefully, we'll be able to keep this subject clean and not have off-subject topics appearing in this forum.

Finally, in the General Discussion section sits our Contest forum. This is as it always was.


The third heading is Breeding.
This is also as it was before.

We have three forums in this section. They are What Colour Is My Horse?, Breeding Communities, and Farm Logs. As a quick overview, all horse color questions (that's HWO horses, not real-life horses), belong here. Breeding Communities are for specific breeds and specific breeding clubs (i.e. all racehorses, not breed-dependent). Please keep this subject as formal as you can. And finally, the Farm Logs are for our own personal uses. Use the Farm Logs to keep track of your own projects and even public projects you've joined, but as your own goals, points or things to remember. The Farm Logs are their to fill-in any of the random works we want to keep track of. Try to keep your topics clean, it'll help you keep yourself on-point.


The fourth heading is Marketplace.

As before, we have Horses for Sale and Stallions at Stud. But new to this heading is Services. Like the Sale and Stud forums, please use the new Services forum for both Looking For and Offering ads.
If you're running a service or a list of services, please create a good-looking topic where all of your services can be handled in that one topic. This includes keeping it up-to-date (also bumping when appropriate) and maybe even changing the header to 'Open' or 'Closed' so the community can see, at a glance, if you're taking new clients or not. Just like in real life, even on games, if things look professional and well-organized, you'll increase your chances of more clients. And, as always, a solid reputation will take you even further.
As far as Looking-For ads, please use full sentences and always link the horses you need in for services. It's also very helpful to apply your budget. Especially for newbies and returnees, our community has a lot of help and aid, so including such things as budget and degree of understanding [the game] so we can cater to your needs.


The fifth heading is Knowledgebase & Guides.
This is as it always was.

Use this heading for all of your questions and all of our guides.
All questions belong in the Gameplay Questions & Help and all guides should live in the Guides & How To. The only exceptions to these rules is if you have a specific question on something in a guide or a specific question that a guide should answer but doesn't (or doesn't answer fully for you). In this case, asking the question in that guide is completely acceptable and in a sense, expected. After all, how can a guide fully cover what it's supposed to cover if somebody retains a question on that subject?


The sixth (and second to last) heading is Technical.

We've always had this heading, although I think it has a new name this time. Anyway, we have three subjects here. First is Bugs and Errors, like before; Change Log v3, which is new for the new format and Comments and Suggestions, as we've always had.

Do I need to explain anything more for this heading?


The very last heading is Guest Discussions.

It has just one subject, Public Questions & Answers and is essentially defunct. But there's a lot of old information in it that could be helpful when investigating or hunting something from awhile ago. It is a locked forum, so nobody can post anymore.


This concludes the reintroduction of the forums.
--END--

[Ravenmire]

This is brilliant, thank you for this! As much as I am familiar with navigating the site now ( ) this is extremely helpful for new & returning players, as well as for the rest us to have important forums collated into a reminder post every so often

Thank you for your continuous & helpful presence!

[BlackOak2]

You know it!

But really, Thank You, Ravenmire, although unnecessary, it does help to be reminded we're appreciated, from time to time.