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SIMperior Status-- Worth More Than You May Think
Original article written by Kelley Wachter posted 11 years 0 weeks agoWhen I first found the SIM, I was looking for a FREE horse racing or equine themed online game to play that didn’t require me to put out any financial information into some gamemonger’s hands. I was mostly looking for something I could enjoy without obligating myself to a “small monthly fee” or “membership dues.” I stumbled upon www.simhorseracing.com, loved the fact that you could enjoy play without having to buy in and that the SIM had more than several positive recommendations, and thus jumped into this virtual horseracing world about ten SIM years ago.
If I had wanted to at the time, purchasing Game Points (GPs) was the way to spend money in the SIM. At the time of my game entrance, GPs were generally used to buy silks, buy horse headshots, create horses, breed to GP stallions, and subscribe to the SIMperior Edge by upgrading to SIMperior status. I wasn’t much interested in the first two (at first), had no overwhelming need to do either of the second two, and the subscription to the Edge was something I figured I could manage without.
According to my Game Points transaction history page, I first purchased GPs on June 30, 2009—five months and ten days after I joined the SIM. My first GP trade in was for a 20 week subscription to SIMperior status. My second was my own custom SIM silks. After floundering for more than a SIMyear without much more than the FAQ and some weak investigations into gameplay via the Forum, I think the Edge and the sorting options available with SIMperior were instrumental in increasing both my success and my enjoyment in the SIM. With all of the hypomates, equipment checks, headshots, silks, and other what-have-you now available via GPs, the one thing I would HIGHLY recommend to any player in the SIM is a subscription to SIMperior status.
A few weeks ago, I failed to renew my SIMperior status partly by accident (I was extremely busy in my real life) and partly by intention (with money being tight, I had told myself this summer that when the time came I did not really NEED to renew). At first I figured I would at least make it until Game Point and A Half Day came in November. I grossly overestimated myself. Wow—for me it was almost worse than going back to the pre 4.0 days. There were so many little but significant things that I had taken for granted that are part of SIMperior status—it’s not just about the Edge, though that is my weekly highlight.
The number one thing that I missed was the ability to sort my racing barn by last start. ACK! With over three hundred fifty horses in my racing barn at the turn of the year, I was in a real pickle to figure out who needed to be entered. And THEN, when I got to a horse that needed a race, I realized that the available races were no longer sorted automatically for me with regards to the horse’s preferred surface and distance. Double ACK!!! No wonder I misentered turf sprinters in dirt routes and vice versa so often in my first season!!!! I also found that I could look up a group of horses by age, but because I no longer had the option of selecting a horse’s preferences, I couldn’t just pull up “dirt sprinters” to go through my two year olds who would be eligible to race in the early weeks of the season. And THEN, when I had the horses sorted into the right races, I realized that I had lost access to Premium Park, where at least one horse had previously been entered, and had also lost auto shipping--which meant that I had to scramble to get horses to the right tracks on time—quite daunting when you might have 30 to 50 horses in on one night!
The sorting by type option (or lack thereof) also came to play in the breeding barn, which is where I thought I would do some early planning for breedings to stallions whose fertility might expire at any point this season. While a lot of my mares I know backwards and forwards, some newer ones I didn’t know simply by name alone……and thus spent ages combing through for certain mares (i.e. I knew I had at least one dirt sprinter I wanted to breed to Look Marvel but couldn’t remember off the top of my head what her name was and had to sort through my one hundred plus Thoroughbred mares).
And speaking of choosing pairings for breeding—what the heck would I do without yet another value of SIMperior status-- the Stud Book? Not only does the Stud Book allow you to look at a group of stallions by “class” (i.e. Paint Sprinters, or Turf Routers, or All-Weather milers), it also lists rankings of stallions, including who the top Freshman dirt sprinting sire is or which stallions have the most Steeplechase winners. Each stallion who is actively standing at stud also has a personalized page available for viewing which lists how many winners he has on each surface, what his percentage of stakes winners are, who his top earners are and who their respective broodmare sires are, other stats such as average earnings per starter, and also progeny sired by him currently on the sales page or up for auction.
Other benefits of SIMperior status are access to the Horse Whisperer who can tell you more about your horses’ weather preferences, ability to see the Speed Figures your horse is posting (something I have found more and more helpful as I have progressed in the SIM), and text message alerts regarding the SIM. This last is something I just recently started taking advantage of and it has helped me to remember when an auction is ending that I have bid on a horse in, lets me know my race night results without having to completely log in to the SIM, and also lets me know when I have private messages in my inbox. Needless to say, I didn’t even last a week before I succumbed and purchased GPs specifically so I could renew my SIMperior membership.
In conclusion, let me say that I think if you are hesitant to buy into Game Points and the Bloodstock Agent Hypomates and Equipment Advice from Mary Weather aren’t enough incentive, then I will repeat myself—having SIMperior status has been instrumental in increasing both my success and my enjoyment in the SIM. The holidays are coming and if you receive a money card from a well-meaning relative who has no clue what you really want and you are looking for something to spend it on, by all means invest in a SIMperior membership—it will be worth it within five minutes!! With a rate of 1000 GPs per $1.00/US purchase, one week's worth of SIMperior costs 2000 GPs, but the most popular choice of subscription is 20 weeks for 20,000 GPs. Or you can go for a full year's worth (52 weeks) for just 45,000 GPs. And if you can do it, the next Game Point and A Half Day is November 6th—get 1 ½ times the value of GPs for your money!
**Author’s note—other than typical article payment, I was not otherwise compensated or coerced by anyone at the SIM to try to bribe you into spending anything!!