SIM 8.0

[Rochelle Bos]

Rochelle, I would rather see the rules remain in place and protect the names of horses who have won that much money...especially for the mixers where a stakes win, might only get the winner $25,000 and it's very hard for even stake quality horses to bump over the mark that keeps their names protected.

Also, just because a horse dies in AJ, it doesn't mean at some point it wasn't a great horse and it should have it's name protected.

I have, and have had in my stable a good number of pensioned million dollar earners that were rescued from AJ. Various people here had rescued them from there, or they owned the horse and gave them to me as they knew I had a big pensioners band and would enjoy the headshots on these old former famous runners. I've also found a few in AJ on my own and took them in, just because I loved the headshots. : )

These were horses that did great things on the track and their names should be protected in my opinion. Those listed below were owned by me upon their deaths, but I don't think that should make it right for just me to be able to reuse their names. I didn't breed nor race any of them...just owned them upon their deaths.

Just to name a few... older simsters will remember a few of these, I'm sure. : )

Hemi Cuda
Desert Force
Startled Awake

[url=https://www.simhorseracing.com/horse.php?HorseID=52521]Profile in Courage

And two I can't link for some reason: Astonishing and Caterwaul.

There are plenty of names out there that we don't need to be reusing names of stake winning horses. I also don't want to have to go through my own list of high end horses that I bred, who are now dead and have to figure out a way to keep their names off of other people's horses.

For me, the idea of the name Foremost on any horse other than my little allowance winner bothered me so much that the Steward renamed her to Foremost II while she was still alive (but very old)...just so I could reserve the name and make sure no one could grab it if she passed away and I didn't get onto the game site in time to save that name.
Foremost did not win enough money, nor win any stakes, so her name would not have been protected. But it would still cost a fortune to have to go in and try to protect names of other big runners who's names I could lose control of if anyone could just reuse the name of a dead horse.

Stormy

EDIT: I CANNOT make the links for Astonishing and Caterwault show up properly. Caterwault shows up as Astonishing...even though I have the correct horse ID number in place. ??? And my last link is showing up the way you see it...as a link rather than a name bracketed by the link codes. I've double checked everything... so ???

Stormy the only think I changed about the current rule is that the horses who are player bred and have not raced can be released without bothering Em I also changed the wording on the second point but it’s the exact same meaning. (Horse’s have to have earned LESS than $150k, the current rule says they must NOT have earned more that $150k, same point, less words )

Also I have rescued some pensioned horses who had great racing lives from AJ myself This suggested change is only to make it easier to release names from horses who haven’t raced.

[Dawn Palka]

In all seriousness, I would like to see a feature that shows you the name you chose for your racehorse so you can check the spelling. F'rinstance, You have chosen What's His Face. Is this correct? Sure beats having to pay $5k to change the horse's name or bugging Em for a correction. And what's this about our earnings being wiped out?! Am I misunderstanding something?
Another thing: instead of killing off the companions when their horse dies, how about a rescue page where you can adopt them for one of your horses? And/or the ability to assign one of your cats/goats to another horse when you GP it? You could only do this one time for each companion.

[Rochelle Bos]

For me, the idea of the name Foremost on any horse other than my little allowance winner bothered me so much that the Steward renamed her to Foremost II while she was still alive (but very old)...just so I could reserve the name and make sure no one could grab it if she passed away and I didn't get onto the game site in time to save that name.
Foremost did not win enough money, nor win any stakes, so her name would not have been protected. But it would still cost a fortune to have to go in and try to protect names of other big runners who's names I could lose control of if anyone could just reuse the name of a dead horse.

Also, under the rule change I suggested Foremost (now Foremost I) wouldn’t have been eligible for a name change since she has no breeder listed in the system.

And with the current rules you would have been able to release her name yourself to reserve it with your game points since she was raced with under $150k earnings as well as alive, in your ownership, and pensioned.

[Stormy Peak]

Foremost was a CAM, a create a mare. I actually chose her breeding when I first joined...as part of signing up for the game. Em created the mare, and I raced her. I suppose that would make EM the breeder...but I consider myself the breeder too, since it was my 3 choices of these horses to be in her pedigree: Sadler's Wells, Darshaan for dam sire and Secretariat for a second dam sire. I think the name protection has worked fine all these years and there's no need to mess with it. Horses that have done well have their names protected, which is good for the History of the game...no connecting a great horse with one 20 years later that is a claimer, barely making money in the claiming races and using the great horse's name.

Also.. someone mentioned spelling check on names... I use Google Chrome and I'm pretty sure it checks the spelling for names, and I don't see how putting yet another pop up to ask if that is what you want to use for a name is productive....seems like a person can check that stuff on their own if they are not sure of the spelling...and also since a Lot of names are misspelled on purpose...a regular spell checker won't work anyways. Youseewhatimean?

Stormy : )

[Gwayne's World]

Wish list of new features in SIM 8.0:

- Pegasus Races, not in the context of the multi-million dollar races, but as in the fantasy creatures.
- More companion animals! Dogs, pigs, mini horses, crocodiles, humans?
- Introducing CAT SHOWS for the companion cats!
- A cool SIM theme song that plays whenever you log in, perhaps of the late 80s heavy metal variety so you know how much of a badass you are for playing with fake horses.
- You can use numbers and more punctuation in horse names, and horse name limits are now 40 characters! Have fun!
- The Steward launches a campaign for President of the United States
- Final Furlong compatibility: Use your own Final Furlong arcade game cabinet to take control of one of your horses for each set of results!
- And so much more!

The beginning strains of this song when you log in .......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGZmUee8ChY

[Cleo Patra]

Can we get a G1 focus page that showcases all the Grade 1 races for each week? And maybe the races that have trophies can have them shown beside the race name. So:

(Trophy) RACE - DISTANCE (Circuit)
Won by HORSE trained by PLAYER and bred by PLAYER
Horse stats - Sire x Dam
2nd: HORSE (TRAINER) - 3rd: HORSE (TRAINER)

Maybe have the page link off the front page somewhere or in the Winner’s tab have a link at the top to this weeks G1s. Have all the weeks at the top so you can flick through as the year goes along and sort by division. Serves the dual purpose of highlighting the G1 winners and also being a good resource for SIMMY or HoF voting.

[Rochelle Bos]

Foremost was a CAM, a create a mare. I actually chose her breeding when I first joined...as part of signing up for the game. Em created the mare, and I raced her. I suppose that would make EM the breeder...but I consider myself the breeder too, since it was my 3 choices of these horses to be in her pedigree: Sadler's Wells, Darshaan for dam sire and Secretariat for a second dam sire. I think the name protection has worked fine all these years and there's no need to mess with it. Horses that have done well have their names protected, which is good for the History of the game...no connecting a great horse with one 20 years later that is a claimer, barely making money in the claiming races and using the great horse's name.

The only think I am suggesting we change is making it so that players can release the names of AJ owned/dead player bred horses who have NOT raced. This would not change anything for horses that HAVE raced.

For example say you want the name About to Strike. He is a pensioned playerbred horse who is owned by AJ. Never raced but players are unable to release the name, the change I am suggesting would make it possible for players to release the name themselves while keeping created real life horses' names safe (eg Tapit, Ruffian and Secretariat) which, as far as I understand, is the reason that horses must have raced to be able to release their names.

[Nick Gilmore]

I know this was mentioned in the “one small thing” thread but would it be possible to change the "Release this name for reuse” conditions to:

• The horse has a breeder [if BREEDER does not equal NULL?]
  AND
• The horse has earned less than $150,000
  AND
• The horse is owned by Alexandra Jaysman (releasing the name will decease the horse)
  OR
• The horse is deceased and was owned by anyone
  OR
• The horse is alive, but pensioned and owned by you.

Rochelle, my friend, you now have 241 names reserved...I think that’s plenty enogh that you don’t need to troll the pages looking for more

[Rochelle Bos]

I know this was mentioned in the “one small thing” thread but would it be possible to change the "Release this name for reuse” conditions to:

• The horse has a breeder [if BREEDER does not equal NULL?]
  AND
• The horse has earned less than $150,000
  AND
• The horse is owned by Alexandra Jaysman (releasing the name will decease the horse)
  OR
• The horse is deceased and was owned by anyone
  OR
• The horse is alive, but pensioned and owned by you.

Rochelle, my friend, you now have 241 names reserved...I think that’s plenty enogh that you don’t need to troll the pages looking for more

I know right, and wow! Is it really that many?! That’s a LOT of GP

[Nick Gilmore]

[Stormy Peak]

...............For example say you want the name About to Strike. He is a pensioned playerbred horse who is owned by AJ. Never raced but players are unable to release the name, the change I am suggesting would make it possible for players to release the name themselves while keeping created real life horses' names safe

About to Strike

I don't want to just keep the Real Life horses' names safe... I want to keep the great Sim horses's names safe too. And that is what the rules are doing.

As for non raced horses, I get that... I've had to request a name or two from Em also. But as long as Em is fine in taking those requests, I'm fine too...as I only run into a situation maybe once or twice a Sim year where I would like to reuse the name of some horse that was player bred, and never ran a race. I'm not sure if others run into this situation that much to worry about it?

I would much rather see improvements made that really affect things done on almost a a daily basis....like getting the drop down choices in the race entries cemented into 1 place. One has to look here and there for the race, track, age, circuit...etc...conditions as the stupid things are not in the same place each time...depending upon whether you are entering a 2 year old, or an older horse...female, male...etc...

Stormy

[Rochelle Bos]

Maybe I run into the problem more often than normal because I name horses for other people too, not just my own at least once or twice a week I find a name I like trapped, I usually move on because I don’t want to bug Em.

And then when people send horses I named to AJ unraced I feel serious attachment, but with only 5 AJ horses a week ($5k each) and another $5k to rename the horse when I want to get the name off the horse, it adds up.

[Gwayne's World]

Put a players lifetime training stats on their profile page. If agreed to by the player of course.

[Rochelle Bos]

Put a players lifetime training stats on their profile page. If agreed to by the player of course.

I love this idea!

[Brian Leavitt]

Can we have a bloodstock agent that can tell the difference between a freak and a productive?