Frustrations

[Greg Czechowicz]

I know this may rub some folks the wrong way, and I enjoy this game, but personally I am very frustrated. I am approaching almost one full year of real life time in the game and just feel like development / QOL fixing is almost non existent in this game. There is no development road map, I see people post in the one small thing thread but usually nothing comes out of it. As a gamer, if I put in a lot of time playing a game, I like to know there are plans to make it better, add new features, to fix small things, etc. Unfortunately that doesnt seem to be happening. Here is one example that has driven me nuts with a lot of other things like this. If I am on a horse, and I do a workout at 5f turf and click give a workout, why does it go back to presetting 2f dirt for that horse? Especially if that horse is selected as a turf router? When you do mass training this wastes a ton of time. I didnt know what thread to put this in so I apologize if its in the wrong one, but just feel that the direction of this game is becoming stagnant.

[Randall Allen]

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[Greg Czechowicz]

Randall,
With all due respect, being a web developer / programmer myself, pre-selecting a drop down with what you just entered takes a minimal amount of time.

[Greg Czechowicz]

bumping this to hopefully see some comments from other folks.

[The Admin]

I'll chime in...

feel like development / QOL fixing is almost non existent in this game. There is no development road map

You are correct, we don't have a development road map. We have more ideas than we can ever get to. We implement those and user requests as time permits. In the past calendar year, there have been about 200 updates to the code.

I see people post in the one small thing thread but usually nothing comes out of it. As a gamer, if I put in a lot of time playing a game, I like to know there are plans to make it better, add new features, to fix small things, etc. Unfortunately that doesnt seem to be happening.

As you can tell from the "One Small Thing" thread, it was created years ago and literally was asking for input of one small thing to add to the SIM. It is now the ongoing place for ideas and suggestions. It is a place we look when we have time to add or improve the SIM.

The SIM has been around for 23 real years. Some of the SIM's history is written in articles like this one. The SIM was born, and continues to be a father/daughter project. The SIM is extremely different than back then - we certainly do innovate and improve the SIM regularly. We have every intention to continue the precedent that we've set over the years.
99% of the SIM is run by 2, yes, only 2 people. One knows horses and the other knows programming. Both of us have day jobs, so the SIM is our side project frequently on nights and weekends. But you will continue to see slow and steady progress.

Here is one example that has driven me nuts with a lot of other things like this. If I am on a horse, and I do a workout at 5f turf and click give a workout, why does it go back to presetting 2f dirt for that horse? Especially if that horse is selected as a turf router? When you do mass training this wastes a ton of time.

I don't recall hearing this idea before, but I certainly could have missed it. As you mention, preselecting an item in a menu is very easy. But this feature as you describe it would require a persistent setting for each horse. Very doable, but requires a place to store it in the database - much like storing horse types or home locations. Possibly a 6 hour project.

just feel that the direction of this game is becoming stagnant.

It saddens us to hear that anyone out there perceives that the game is stagnant. We will continue to do our best to prioritize our ideas and player requests and implement them as time permits. We will never compete equally with large gaming companies. The players in the SIM community are what make it very special and unique.

Thanks for your input and concern.

[Greg Czechowicz]

I appreciate the response very much. The training thing doesnt need to be persistent across a DB if that takes too much time. A simple like if form.distance = "5f" based on the form one just submitted would be sufficient. If one is doing trainings for the next few weeks horse by horse this would be very very helpful. Adding on to that, if we can do trainings / race entering more than 2 weeks out that would be very helpful as well.

[Durzo Blint]

The players in the SIM community are what make it very special and unique.

I know it does not get said enough, so I'll take this opportunity to say (as someone who has played for over 3 real life years) that I have enjoyed every minute of playing this game! There are plenty of us that see and appreciate the time and effort you both put into the game and the community to make it enjoyable and fun for all.

[Tammy Stawicki]

I've been playing this game since 2008 and I can say it's anything but stagnant. There have been amazing changes through the years and there continue to be add ons. As mentioned this is a farther/daughter "hobby" so yea it doesn't evolve as quickly nor is it as shiny as something that is professionally produced by dedicated teams of employees, but I think any long-term player would agree with me that it is very clear constant effort is put into improving the game.

[Tammy Stawicki]

That being said I do think there would be SIGNIFICANT interest in the ability to set default workout conditions for either individual horses or better yet in my opinion horse types

[Dylan Christensen]

Has the SIM ever thought about hiring an intern? I know the sites income doesn’t justify hiring another full-time developer. However, having a part-time intern around to work on/fix little things and work on his/her skills would be mutually beneficial.

The budget still may not permit it but it’s a thought

Edit: the idea is you can just focus on big things and the intern does the small ones.

[LA Pepper]

when i started playing this game 15 yeas ago, it already was perfect. There have been countless changes and improvements since then, to the point of being overwhelming to me. Many new features I just dont use especially if they detract from the realism I look for. I honestly cannot fathom how much a new player has to learn to play this game at this point / I at least got to learn the new things over 15 years.

[Cleo Patra]

I appreciate the response very much. The training thing doesnt need to be persistent across a DB if that takes too much time. A simple like if form.distance = "5f" based on the form one just submitted would be sufficient. If one is doing trainings for the next few weeks horse by horse this would be very very helpful. Adding on to that, if we can do trainings / race entering more than 2 weeks out that would be very helpful as well.

Except it doesn’t work that simply because the same page/code does mass training, and versatile horses exist. There’s also a game dynamics element where players SHOULD have to take the time to check your workout distances and surfaces before you click.

[Greg Czechowicz]

Cleo,
You do realize that I do take the time. Thats how I noticed that for the horse that I just trained him at 5f turf, was now preselected to train at 2f dirt. Easy to make mistakes this way thats why I suggested it should be preselected at the turf and distance you just did to prevent a horse from training at the wrong distance and surface.

[Danny Derby]

I don't recall hearing this idea before, but I certainly could have missed it. As you mention, preselecting an item in a menu is very easy. But this feature as you describe it would require a persistent setting for each horse. Very doable, but requires a place to store it in the database - much like storing horse types or home locations. Possibly a 6 hour project.

You can't fit this in to the next sprint?

[Cleo Patra]

Edited to correct the context. I wasn’t referring to you specifically. I was talking about game dynamics. There needs to be a certain level of attention paid by players, rather than just mindless clicking. My post wasn’t an attack, just pointing out several challenges in the “simple” code changes we request that aren’t always simple.

Perhaps the simplest coding-wise solution is to change the dropdown so the default is a blank option, aka “Please Select Distance/Surface” so we can’t accidentally work everything 2 furlongs dirt.