Breeding to a popular stud…

[Kent Saunders]

My one and only thought here, is a player that breeds 2000 horses a season buys or buys from the exchange XXXX GP's to support his/her herd. A player that breeds 200 horses buy or buys from the exchange X GP's. GP's make the game available for everyone. Think Income for the owners. So if you force stables to slim down to a much smaller number you take income from the game owners. I love the game, it is one of 2 hobbies I have and I hope it keeps going as long as I can play
PS...I have enjoyed this thread for the most part.

[Tim Matthews]

My one and only thought here, is a player that breeds 2000 horses a season buys or buys from the exchange XXXX GP's to support his/her herd. A player that breeds 200 horses buy or buys from the exchange X GP's. GP's make the game available for everyone. Think Income for the owners. So if you force stables to slim down to a much smaller number you take income from the game owners. I love the game, it is one of 2 hobbies I have and I hope it keeps going as long as I can play
PS...I have enjoyed this thread for the most part.

Good point, and it's very likely nothing will come of this discussion and we will all carry on. You could also think of it this way - increasing some costs for those who run very large barns could also increase revenue for the game while also encouraging a gameplay style that is closer to what the original intent was. It's a balance, and not an easy one to find.

[Eric Nalbone]

I wouldn't see it as stomping on anyone, as it's a progressive tax. Little stables don't *have* thousands of mares, nor do they have $17m, so their plan to just bombard the SIM with foals (most of which will literally never work, race, be named, or do *anything* cause they don't gallop properly), while great in theory, really isn't gonna happen.

If we had an API where I could suck down the count by breed, breeder, gender, type (division, if set), and eventual gallop comment (which, for obvious competitive reasons, the SIM should never expose to other players without a player's consent, so this would probably have to be done by a neutral arbiter), you could go to town on the data set and the total money supply and figure out how to keep it all to a reasonable ratio that doesn't result in yearlings selling for $27 million or whatnot just 'because'. And I say that as one of the original proponents of the 'pay absurd abmounts for a yearling in ways that don't make sense' when I paid $16m for Mirror, just because I wanted her and was * I didn't get Cheer the prior year. Look them up. The best thing that ever happened to me in the SIM is Susie Rydell outbidding me on Cheer, in an absolutely infuriating event for me, and me finding a way to make sure I got Mirror. The rest, as they say ... well, just follow Mirror's pedigree. Point being, a world where all of the SIM had to manage their resources, not just new players and low-level players that haven't gotten established, would be great.

Anything you implement is designed to guide behavior towards what is 'wanted' and away from what is 'not wanted'. I view things that drive people towards thoughtful engagement in the game rather than mindless mashing of buttons as good. Making it pricier but not prohibitive to mash buttons like crazy is fine, but IMO I'd rather a smaller pool of engaged players who learn pedigrees, become thoughtful breeders, good trainers, and positive community members than someone who is just in the SIM as a weird little corner of the world where they've found a numbers game they can exploit and do so against internet strangers.

Driving people towards fewer, more thoughtful breedings, raising the day rate (a lot), and prompting people to divest themselves of B-tier mares would force a lot of big barns to sell great mares that could help a lot of small barns make a lot of progress by getting access to stock that just isn't available to them that often.

As for the filly fee in game points ... just breed some colts, don't pay the fee. I promise, colts are fun too. They win races just like fillies, and if you get a good one, they turn into an ATM at the end of it. Obviously I'm very much into broodmares, they're the lifeblood of your stable, but when you're breeding a mare thats likely going to give you an allowance horse (not their gallop, what you think the class level of the horse is eventually gonna be) just get a colt, geld it if it doesn't immeditaely show stakes promise, and have a lot of fun winning races. The races are the payoff in this game. As someone else said, simhorseracing, not simhorsebreeding. We only do the breeding thing to get more horses to race (coincidentially, this is why Signaling is not retired. When you get to the summit, enjoy the view, don't hustle down the mountain when you're not sure if you'll ever be back up).

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Finally, the volume as a strategy vs. GPs as a strategy comment, and why one is more valuable than the other is an absolutely easy (and passionate) answer. Rant incoming. Those of you who have been spared my 'wall of text' rants for the several years I've been quiet on the forum, I'm sorry, you get one today. Read (or skip) at your pleasure:

Encouraging things that make the game a financially viable enterprise that is worth people's time and energy to operate (and I suspect it operates at a loss, but The Steward would have to disclose private information for us to actually know that ... but I think this game is a charitable labor of love by a lot of people, not a source of generational wealth for anyone) is a good thing, and people with the resources to support that should absolutely be given a helping hand and encouraged to support something we all love. I know that's unpopular, but like... people with kids and families and mortgages and car payments and grocery bills and credit cards and lawns to mow and taxes to pay run this game. It isn't here because of voodoo magic. It requires resources. Servers. Upkeep. Development time. People to watch idiots like us argue on a forum (been there, done that, I do not wish to go back to my days of forum moderation).

Encouraging GP activity while making sure you don't tip the competitive balance too far into a 'pay to play' world is a completely valid strategy, and one I'm massively in support of because, ya know, I want the game to exist. Not die.

We did that once (game dying), a long time ago, in 2008-2010ish when Emily had the temerity to like... go to college. What nerve. Never again. Emily, your higher education days are over, please! I spent a loooooot of time in the fall/winter of 2009/2010 in a Princeton student coffee shop building lists of mares helping as the SIM got back going and building out the International Stud program (anyone else geriatric enough to remember Lucrezia Borgia, one of the late/great Scott Eiland's superstars? Yup. Bred that one in a coffee shop before I had to hustle off to Econ 101 or Italian 305, cause I wanted to help get the game back on its feet after the hiatus. I've still got all the old Excel sheets building out the mares and matings and such, I'll dig 'em out of my Google Drive backup here soon).

I'm 37. I've been playing the SIM since I was approximately 12 and using a dial up modem, and when race results were an *excruciatingly long* thing to get posted (and we were only running like... 30 races per raceday, and the database updates ... jesus christ, the database updates took forever), you could breed two foals per year from each mare, years were 12 weeks long (today that means... Hello Midsummer Classic and Travers holiday!) and I was breeding stars from mares sired by Dehere, who I'd wager very few people playing the game today even know of https://www.simhorseracing.com/horse.php?HorseID=657. My first homebred stakes winner is *60* sim years old, and didn't age in the two years the SIM was shut down (so if you make that adjustment, he'd be approximately 66, depending on how you account for when years were lengthened). I've *probably* spent more time on this website than I wager any person not named Emily, Laura, or Jon. I've met lifelong friends (too many to list), found connection in extremely unlikely places (Lucas Davenport and I had some absolutely wonderful meetings in upstate New York, outside Saratoga, when life put us in each other's paths completely at random as I graduated college *15 years ago*), and I freaking met my wife, who I've been married to or dating since meeting her at a SIM event in 2009, through the SIM.

So yeah, anything that contributes to the viability and financial health of the game I am 100% for. Never anything that ruins the community, but I am absolutely all-in on any quality of life improvements that encourage people to spend their hard earned discretionary income supporting something that has been absolutely, essentially, and fundamentally central to my life and many others. The friendships and connections made through this game for me and many others aren't just like 'Oh I won a SC race' they're 'Oh. My life has actually fundamentally changed as a result of this game.'

If you're gonna object to mechanisms that encourage and enable people dedicated to the game to get a little reward for supporting it, I can't do anything for you. If this sounds like a grouchy, crochety old man griping, it's not that - it's appreciating how far the SIM has come and being 100% in on supporting the people, expense, and effort that it takes to keep this thing running. If those efforts are objectionable in any way to people I just don't know what to say (other than the thousands of characters I've written above).

[Kelly Haggerty]

I think some of you are wrong and some of you are right about some of the things said and all of your opinions on the matter.

I respectfully disagree

Lol, I think I am gonna like this guy

[Nini Panini]

Me clicking into this thread for the first time:

[Andrew Chillin]

Tl;dr Eric said git gud but kinda comes off as an arrogant *guy. It’s a lot to read, I know. Follow me for more tips and tricks, going to interpret the Bible next.

[Nini Panini]

Tl;dr Follow me for more tips and tricks, going to interpret the Bible next.

No thank you I hear dear old dad's interpretation every day. Apparently I'm going to hell

[Andrew Chillin]

Tl;dr Follow me for more tips and tricks, going to interpret the Bible next.

No thank you I hear dear old dad's interpretation every day. Apparently I'm going to hell

Atleast you’ll be in good company.

[Jack Meyer]

This is the best strategy.....Play the game the way you want, keep playing it until something makes it not enjoyable anymore then quit. It's been done many times by many players over the 10+ RL years I've been here and I'm sure more will come and go. When something comes up that makes me not enjoy the way I play the game, I will certainly bow out and continue on with life, and there are a few things I'm seeing on here that would probably push me that way, and that's fine.

[Carolyn Eaton]

A player decided to mass breed to one of my secondary stallions this year -(the stud hypo's well, and in his handful of offspring he has a minor stakes winner). If another player decides to mass breed to my stud to see what breeding crosses "stick" - I'll just say thanks and move on.

As to Eric's post - which I loved - is right on. The game moves on, changes and develops as time, interest and technology allow it. The game will be different in 2 years and much different in 10. Some changes I've liked and some not as much - but I'm still here because I find it fun. When I don't have fun, I change something in the way I play.

[Craig Mcgee]

I am now saying my piece as I am the one who races the most horses per sim year and one of the so called mass breeders in the game. IF you are saying I am breeding to lower caliber mares just to make more horses you are dead WRONG. Currently I have 1218 Blue hen mares, 465 quality star mares that I will soon be auctioning and NO formidables that I breed. I pension all my formidable mares and never breed them. IF you are thinking of ways to make me cut back all it is doing is making this game NOT FUN for me. I race everything from productive and up and eventually all my solids and under get pensioned I NEVER sell them to other players. I spend tons of sim cash in auctions at seasons end on leases each season to get new blood into my barns. I run everything all divisions in Appaloosas Paints and Quarter horses while dabbling in TB dirt routers. Without the income I make with my mixers I would not be able to dabble in TBs. I may even start dabbling in other TB divisions. But if you make me start running a smaller barn I would not be able to do that. Why should I get punished for being disabled, retired, have ADHD and an addictive personality. I spend 6-8 hours a day on the sim as it is my only way of staying sane as I am unable to work. Sorry to go off but why should I have to change my game play just because someone else doesn't play the way I do.

[Craig Mcgee]

A player decided to mass breed to one of my secondary stallions this year -(the stud hypo's well, and in his handful of offspring he has a minor stakes winner). If another player decides to mass breed to my stud to see what breeding crosses "stick" - I'll just say thanks and move on.

As to Eric's post - which I loved - is right on. The game moves on, changes and develops as time, interest and technology allow it. The game will be different in 2 years and much different in 10. Some changes I've liked and some not as much - but I'm still here because I find it fun. When I don't have fun, I change something in the way I play.

I agree with Carolyn here but like I said above why should players with bigger numbers have to play like those with smaller numbers.

[Eric Nalbone]

Tl;dr Eric said git gud but kinda comes off as an arrogant *guy. It’s a lot to read, I know. Follow me for more tips and tricks, going to interpret the Bible next.

Guilty as charged, and I'm thrilled that my first foray into the forum in years has reinforced the prevailing opinion of me in the SIM. There's a reason I stepped back and kept quiet for a very long time.

I have no opinions on the bible, but if you'd like me to wax poetic on the Stud Book, just ask!

[Craig Mcgee]

Tl;dr Eric said git gud but kinda comes off as an arrogant *guy. It’s a lot to read, I know. Follow me for more tips and tricks, going to interpret the Bible next.

Guilty as charged, and I'm thrilled that my first foray into the forum in years has reinforced the prevailing opinion of me in the SIM. There's a reason I stepped back and kept quiet for a very long time.

I have no opinions on the bible, but if you'd like me to wax poetic on the Stud Book, just ask!

Oh and by the way welcome back to forums all is fair in love and the sim.

[Andrew Chillin]

Tl;dr Eric said git gud but kinda comes off as an arrogant *guy. It’s a lot to read, I know. Follow me for more tips and tricks, going to interpret the Bible next.

Guilty as charged, and I'm thrilled that my first foray into the forum in years has reinforced the prevailing opinion of me in the SIM. There's a reason I stepped back and kept quiet for a very long time.

I have no opinions on the bible, but if you'd like me to wax poetic on the Stud Book, just ask!

Break down the correlations and your opinion on freak percentage/stakes percentage vs pedigree vs hypos. Then we can talk about your interpretation of routers: speed vs stamina. What do they mean to you in the data we can see.