There does not need to be a thread at this point because the changes have been through preprod and feedback from that has been gathered.

They have then been discussed at length in this topic and feedback from that has been gathered. Admin are very aware of what people are saying. None of us is aware of what the vast majority feel because they do not post.

There will be a thread when the changes go live. That is the way changes normally happen. In fact, we are normally given no official warning at all about what is planned so from that point of view this pm is an advantage because at least we can plan and be ready for it

"""There does not need to be a thread at this point because the changes have been through preprod and feedback from that has been gathered.

They have then been discussed at length in this topic and feedback from that has been gathered. Admin are very aware of what people are saying. None of us is aware of what the vast majority feel because they do not post.

There will be a thread when the changes go live. That is the way changes normally happen. In fact, we are normally given no official warning at all about what is planned so from that point of view this pm is an advantage because at least we can plan and be ready for it - deimos""""





Soooo feedback has been gathered but the change will go through anyway.
Let's note that the vast majority of the feedback that WAS given was against this change

Another Tidbit: Yes the vast majority do not post...but those who do are often more experienced, more dedicated, and put more effort into the game. Seems to me that it would make sense to listen to them.....

Just because feedback has been gathered does not mean changes will be made. It will have been weighed up against the reasons that the changes are being made and if they are still more important they will happen.

Sorry I totally disagree with your second statement.

But Deimos, I think thats where a LARGE part of the problem is

Feedback is given and nothing is done as a result. Sure it might get glanced over by the higher powers of howrse, but nothing is done.
That’s where a lot of the player/mod/admin/“coder” animosity brews.

When we complain to the game team, we are told to voice our thoughts in preprod or the VIP forum - which we do, only to (usually) be highly censored and ignored by the higher ups.

As I pointed out the feedback only comes from relatively few players, normally those who are not in favour. That does not mean that everyone feels the same way. Admin and the developers do not make changes just to be annoying or make things more difficult. They do them for business reasons and to affect the balance of the game. They can see statistics, trends and needs in ways that none of us can.

What I do know is that they do listen carefully to everything that is said. If you go on to preprod regularly you will know that in the past players have influenced changes but in this case it appears that is not so. The whole idea of the Ambassadors is to get feedback on ideas before they even reach the pre-production stage.

No post in preprod or the forums is ever censored unless it breaks rules. Just because the 'higher ups' have other thing to do so leave most of the commenting in forums to mods certainly does not mean that they do not regularly read through. That still will not lead to changes just because some people are not happy.

I gotta say i agree with deimos on that one ^

something another mod said in a different forum as well is a good thing to keep in mind (not quoted)
it was something along the lines of when something is good you tell one or two people, but when something is bad you shout it from the rooftops..

While that's fair, I think "no news is good news" can also be applicable in this situation. If something is going well and good changes are put in place, people go about their game easily and happily. But if a lot of different people post about not being happy with a certain change it's worth it to take notice.

I've been on the game for over 9 years and have never been privy to one of their 'prepods'. Could it be that they are not interested in the views of non pass buyers.

I realise that this is a 'business' but how do they think that giving with one hand and taking away with the other is good for business. i.e. Introducing the co-management programme and then disabling it considerably.
These changes will affect not only the disabled members of the Howrse community, several of whom have actually put their hard earned money into the game, but also it seems, the team players who wish to remain as productive teams and who also put money into the game by procuring VIP memberships and the prolific skilling of their howrses.

It has nothing to do with being a pass buyer. Before the VIP accounts appeared, players were chosen for their knowledge of the game, and ability to test new things effectively. Now, the majority of slots are still chosen in the same way, and any left over slots are given to whoever VIP players click the banner and take a slot. Being a VIP player doesn't mean they buy passes.

Sorry to make this go on longer but you've stated that the feedback only comes from a relatively few players. Is it worth putting a poll out similar to what is done after an event, to see what the majority of players think? I know i for one dont like to throw my opinion out and an anonymous poll will be able to see majority views on it allowing those such as me can express their opinion on the change without worry

Players are able to rate the changes in the change log when the new feature is released. We don't normally get a poll in the forum after a new feature is released, but you never know.

By that point it is too late to affect change.

And to address delmos' post about the Ambassadors - we were not consulted on this change. I have previously posted in this thread my objection to it, as an Ambassador. I have gotten several messages from players, known and unknown to me, objecting to this.

I'll further add that the reasons being given are valid. This is not one of those things where people are just objecting to a change for change sake. This is going to affect many accounts/players. You can kiss the sentimental accounts of deceased players goodbye, for one. While I realize this won't affect the bottom line of Howrse directily, it is incredibly poor PR, insensitive to the nth degree.

There has already been plenty of feedback both on here and in preprod. In my opinion it is already to late to change anything.

No. Ambassadors were not consulted on this change because it was obviously already in the pipeline. These things take weeks and often months in development so the ideas would have been discussed and formulated long before Ambassadors were appointed.

If you check the most famous 'sentimental' accounts you will see that they are not being touched by anyone but are being left on the system. I would suggest that is something that still may be possible with permission of the account holder where possible or the family if they wish. That is what this is all about - valid permissions

Don't you think there's more value listening to players, rather than insisting "Ubisoft knows what they're doing"? Players are the lifeline of Howrse, and without them there is no profit. I think it's pretty clear at this point that the game is fading. Player activity has dropped, sales have dropped, interaction has dropped, etc. The most important thing in marketing is the customer; that can't be argued. They are the source of income, which is clearly not being taken into account. Ubisoft is a successful business, from what I can tell, but Howrse is not going to be one of those success stories. Not anymore.

And I would have to argue that the backlash against the upcoming comanagement changes is popular opinion, at least among the players who pay most of Howrse's bills, the teams. It's going to screw things up for them pretty terribly. These are experienced, senior players, the backbone of our player base, being told "well you're not the majority so oh well!"

I mean, at the end of the day, can you sit back, look at Howrse as a whole, and say "I'm happy where things have gone"? I can't. Oh man I can't say that at all.

I'm not trying to target anyone with what I'm saying, since I know mods/admins are not directly responsible for changes or should suffer for said changes. I just want Ubisoft to */listen to us/*

Also, as a note- don't you think anyone who has comanagement with another player, who has to /approve/ that comanagement via their account, is pretty valid already? What part of that is no longer valid?

The part that is no longer valid is when people are using accounts which have not been visited by the owners for months and maybe years to gain advantage for themselves. They do not have the owners permission to do that. And with the new data protection laws recently introduced it may be that the company is breaking the law by allowing it

Ok so...(quoted from diemos)
“The part that is no longer valid is when people are using accounts which have not been visited by the owners for months and maybe years to gain advantage for themselves. They do not have the owners permission to do that.”

The issue here isn’t that players use accounts that haven’t been used by the owners. Thats pretty much the only part of the whole thing that people are ok with; removing co after 30 days unless extended

How can anyone be visiting other players accounts without the owners permission? That is not co-management. Co-management means that the owner has given their permission for their managers to visit their accounts. If you are visiting someone’s account without their permission then you must have either cracked their password or else you are just multi accounting.

FINALLY! This response has come the closest to addressing the real issue here - the lack of concern over what the players are thinking. THANK YOU!

This whole thing should have been handled differently. Fine, send out a message. But the message should have stated the legal reason why this change was necessary (if we believe that). And then there should have been an acknowledgement of how this would affect players, teams, etc. And finally there should have been an apology from the Howrse team. That is called PR. The powers-that-be here never seem to indulge us with sympathy or empathy. I can easily provide a definition of those terms if they are foreign concepts to management as it appears they are. I work in customer service. I spend my day, every day, apologizing for things I not only didn't cause, have not control over, or even when it is the customer in the wrong. Why? TO KEEP THE CUSTOMER COMING BACK. It is called customer service! And by the way, I also work for a global company, an extremely, extremely successful one. Customer service is a top priority which is one of the main reasons the company is as successful as it is. We have some policies that cost the company money every day due to cheaters but we keep these policies as it makes the majority of our customers - the honest ones - coming back time after time and spending money.

With the new European GDPR laws, *every* website that contains certain types of personal data requires permission and the opportunity to deny that permission.

There are other ways of doing it, for example, the subscription-based websites I manage sent out emails describing the new laws and giving each user the opportunity to ask for their information to be removed. This appears to be how Owlient are doing it ...

How to deny permission: take away co.
Done.

if the user that sent out the co-invitation is logging in and out of their account they can at any time without any need to giving any reasons cancel that co-sharing with 1 click on a "cancel" button. They don't need to go to legal department to get permission for that. They don't need their co-partners concent to kick them off.

However, there should be a pm informing about the legal change, and with functions of the game will be affected. there could be a section for co-management (if it really is affected by the law) that says

"due to this update, we need You to read this information about co-management, how it is used and how co-managements data is used to accept this new conditions to be able to use this function like before." The reasons, the information, the how-this-work and how-we-use-this-information should be written down there.

If this said user that gave co after reading this information would say "Oh I don't want them to be on my co" they would just cancel the co-sharing. There.

Why?
Because a lot of people doesn't know how their personal data has really been used before and what is different now. Or they simply don't care. Or they simply are more into just using the sites trusting their information isn't used in a malicious way. doesn't matter, they still need to be informed for this very reason and given the chance to consent to this changes.

If the owner of the account that sent out the co-invite to other members havent logged in for 30 days, it is reasonable for that co-management to be terminated by the system (unless said co was extended ).

The updated GDPR law was made to give the user more power over companies. Previously the companies took ownership of your personal data/information (shared and browsed) . They didnt need permission to do so and removing old hotmail associated with your account was impossible. Even when you changed your email under settings the company/game/whatever would still have traces of your old information hidden,linked to your account... with made it easier for them to direct ads specially at you.

the update allows the user to demand for their information to be taken down, deleted mm. If you don't agree with a site using your data in a certain way (for example, a game is showing your location on a map, useful and necessary when you use google maps, other map-app mm), they cannot use that information anymore. They have to stop,period.


I just wonder if this new GDPR law will make it easier for artists who'rs art has been stolen and still exist in creation space to be taken down easier. A user can report your coat for too heavily referenced photo (depending on with server you send it from, it may break rules you are used to,and on others its not against the rules) without proof (with is pretty nice if you cant find the source but know it is plagiarized), but if you want to take down your own creation off the game (creation that was stolen) you need PROOF that you are the original artist. the law itself does not say that you have to prove that you are the artist of said art. With this update, I hope it means they will take down the said stolen art at once without requesting wips of a 5-6 years old coat.

Changing a feature to fit a "law" is not giving the user a chance to decide. The choice is being made for the user and forced down their..eh... gaming mouse? (or throat) to submit to it. Proper solution would be 1) sending out information about what, how, when and why 2) information about how this affects (in this case co-management) part of game 3) share details how information,data collection works, how it's used, where and why 4) option to accept this changes (allows you to use co) or disagree (this would cancel all co-managements you may have).

I understand why players want certain accounts (like players who have passed) to be alive. But I cannot say this is possible, since the real owner of that account (those who created them) cannot consent to this themselves. This decision (if the account should stay active or not) should be made by their family members only. As hard as it is to see them go, this is how it works in this cases.

But i dont get it. Any information i put into this game, i put into it willingly.
Every player i allow to visit my account through co management is done by me WILLINGLY, and i am fully aware of the information they will be getting. I can also remove the ability to access my account quite simply and quickly.
Isn't there a way to change co man so that certain information cannot be shared? Similar to what nix said?


I am not as against having to click a button before i log out as i am against not being able to have more than one person on the account at the same time. Why?


The GDPR laws sounds so much like an excuse because it was brought up several days after the pm was sent out and there was more backlash from the players, almost as if they were looking for a way to back themselves up with something that was put into place several years ago.
If this reasoning was included in the pm i received, i would have been much more likely to believe it.


Answer me this.
YES or NO does howrse care at all about the opinions of players? I have not seen this question answered anywhere, on any forum. If yes then how do they show it and what do they do about it?

I understand only letting one person be on at one time concerning co, considering it should make it easier to have some kind of 'history' to show who did what on the account- with their usernames in case you have many people in co. Then there's no pointing or arguments if something unexpected does happen due to the feature (which I doubt would be happening regularly- you should trust who you have on co.) Something strange happened on your account since you were last on? Just head over to your account history and see who exactly did what in the last few hours. That fixes problems I've seen some people mention about co since it came into existence.

But to make it that you need to recheck an option to let co revamp every time you log off- or even have you log off for it to work is frustrating. Is there no way of "player has been off for [time stamp], co managers now have the ability to log into account." Even let it go for an hour, the moment the player hasn't been active for an hour- regardless if they're still automatically logged on somewhere- then co should allow players in?
Especially for people who don't log off, having to come on and off constantly to allow co to actually take place? There's no point in it, it's just another frustrating step that just isn't needed.