[UPDATED] Devs' Corner: May 2024

Our developers have something to tell you! Every three (3) weeks, our devs will provide you with information about their work in the “Dev’s Corner.”

This publication is a way of keeping everyone updated on what’s happening with the game. We invite you to discuss and leave your feedback for each of the publications.

Note: All posts must adhere to the forum guidelines and be constructively made.

Take a look at our very first Devs' Corner publication!

Warm wishes,

The Howrse Team
 
Ow
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i do not believe ubisoft/howrse sells your personal info per se. but, they do use statistics to lure advertisers with directed marketing/sales for instance.

there 10's of thousand of players on howrse.
the majority are female
there are X number between the ages of 13 to 25
there are X number age 25 to 45
there are X number age 45 to 65
and there are a ton of geezers.

they also probably break it down into X number per country or timezone.
caribooster
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abc123cde wrote:

What's with the "Do Not Sell My Personal Information" link at the bottom of the page? When I click it, it brings up the privacy statement. In which when I search 'sell' it brings up "A3. We don’t sell or rent your personal information to third parties without your consent."

Does anyone know how to make sure consent is NOT given for howrse to sell my data to third parties? I'm concerned this may be an opt out rather than an opt in, like the tracking cookies which I found out about a couple of months ago and turned off immediately.


i just noticed the NEW link you mention. so i stopped and read it.

you have to opt out..and here's how..

A4. As mentioned above, you have control over the personal information you submit to us. If at any time you decide to remove your personal information from our database, you may do so by visiting your profile section or contacting us at http://support.owlient.eu/wizard. When you contact us, please include the name of the website you used to register and the email address you used to register with us so we can verify your request.
caribooster
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here's a thought for howrse admin.

empty safe haven. there are 1513241 pixel horses stored there. put them all up for sale via auction, and any left over, delete them from the server. think of the band width to be gained.

sell divines starting at 1000 passes, same with diamond apple. all other horses start at 10 passes..

announce a sales date so people can start saving for it. put up your pass ufo's at the start of the sale. auctions last 2-3 days. loads of real money to be made howrse. players will go nuts bidding on divines and da's. and ga's, foundies, uni's.

how's that for a promo idea

perhaps do it on bastille day..the storming of safe haven. free the pixels.
caribooster
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caribooster wrote:

here's a thought for howrse admin.

empty safe haven. there are 1513241 pixel horses stored there. put them all up for sale via auction, and any left over, delete them from the server. think of the band width to be gained.

sell divines starting at 1000 passes, same with diamond apple. all other horses start at 10 passes..

announce a sales date so people can start saving for it. put up your pass ufo's at the start of the sale. auctions last 2-3 days. loads of real money to be made howrse. players will go nuts bidding on divines and da's. and ga's, foundies, uni's.

how's that for a promo idea

perhaps do it on bastille day..the storming of safe haven. free the pixels.


Seems like a cool idea, but isn't most of the information for the horses in Safe Haven deleted? So how would that work? Would deleted info (like gp) just have to be made up by the admin?
blueribbonpony
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blueribbonpony wrote:

but isn't most of the information for the horses in Safe Haven deleted?


It is. Only the name and basic information are kept, the rest is deleted to make space on the server.
Same for "Horses donated to Ow".
Nalu93
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blueribbonpony wrote:

Seems like a cool idea, but isn't most of the information for the horses in Safe Haven deleted? So how would that work? Would deleted info (like gp) just have to be made up by the admin?
It is deleted, yes.

I'm not sure some players would want the horses they sent there sold though. Some players sent their horses there knowing they wouldn't be sold. They may not have wanted them, but they didn't want them to go to someone else either.
Legacy Ann
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caribooster wrote:

empty safe haven. there are 1513241 pixel horses stored there.


I'm all for clearing up the safe haven horses, and/or removing the safe haven completely, since it's wasted storage, but I'm not sure how I feel about selling the horses from it. We wouldn't want to sell Retired Coats, since that would bring back deleted copies of the coats and totally crash the market. And I collect horses that were born in 2007, 2008 and 2009, there would be a surge of those too (theoretically, since that info isn't kept). Actually, the more I think about it, it would crash any market- diamond apples, companions, retired helio's rays, divines, etc. Don't get me wrong, I would *love* to get some of my safe haven horses back, but it just isn't realistic.

I would be up for allowing us to bring back certain horses that are account bound and couldn't be sold, but beyond that I don't think it's possible.
Glory Days
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i'd love to know the percentage of people who sold their horses to safe haven, that did not want them resold.

i'm also baffled that howrse would consider what people would want. there are many things and issues that have been requested by players that appear to be ignored. yes, dev takes time, but it can also take years with no movement.

basically, if people do not want their horses and do not want them sold, then send them to heaven. heaven could be cleared out too. not all horses there can be revived with a pandora's box. huh, i just checked, it looks like my heaven sent horses are mostly gone.default smiley :o

howrse does not appear to worry if it crashes market on any type sales.

a way howrse could prevent flippers from profiting from the sale of safe haven horses is make them non resalable. there are hoarders who have no intention of selling these rare howrses--ever.

selling the more rare types would give others on the game the opportunity and ability to complete their collections. and howrse could make real money selling passes to help fund the research on why the lag exists.

prior to howrse stopping those who had access to another's account via co manage, there were dirty players who would empty a trusting player's account into safe haven or dump them into direct sales for 500e. very glad that was stopped. .

opening safe haven to auctions sales could give former owners an opportunity to buy back their favourite pixels.

regarding deleting background info on howrses donated to ow, when i first discovered horses being given to ow, they had their stats. i guess things change.

moreover, why do we donate horses to ow? ow should be buying them from us for the same prices offered by safe haven.

ow's ec used to be available to look at. that has been removed. why?
caribooster
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I've personally Safe Haven'ed horses in the past when I deleted previous accounts and did so with the knowledge that they wouldn't be resold; these horses were ones I didn't want other people to have as they were personal to me and I wanted them to stay with the account in someway and didn't want to kill them/they were immortal, so I'd honestly be quite upset if I found out that they were being resold to the highest bidder.

This idea was put forward so often in the old ideas forum and was turned down for the following reasons - the details are deleted to clear server space, also because the majority of the horses, pre objective, were put their at the owners choice, something which should be respected.
Oathkeeper
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read sec 6 of the terms of use.

it boils down to :we do not own or control any thing on the game. howrse can do what ever it wants with "our" horses/accounts.

if your account is deleted, there is no having the horses stay with the account. the account is gone. the pixels are now random. they may or may not (most likely) ever be seen again.

rather than safe havening horses, you don't want others to ever have a chance at owning the horses you have created/generated, it is best to just delete the account with the horses attached,

otherwise it is just stacking horses up in the safe haven and using the bandwidth.

Are you sure you want to place this horse in the Safe Haven? Be careful, you will not be able to retrieve it later...**but howrse can if it chooses to do that.
caribooster
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caribooster wrote:

Are you sure you want to place this horse in the Safe Haven? Be careful, you will not be able to retrieve it later...**but howrse can if it chooses to do that.


Im pretty sure one all the horse's details are deleted, they are gone permanently which would make it impossible to restore the horses, let alone that many. It clears server space while allowing players to still see the horses they placed in it. That, and it reduces the amount of useless horses that nobody wants/had a connection to.

Its a cool idea in concept but I doubt it could ever come to fruition
jsniper
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personally, i did not like seeing horses i placed in safe haven. most were uni duds. it was a reminder of fails.

also, if we are to discuss howrse respecting players, please consider and remember when unannounced it changed the gp on foundies for all breeds. players had invested time, passes money (real and equus) to create generations of non inbred horses NIB.

that decision was to placate new players to the game who didn't like that their new foundation horses could not keep up with players who had breeding horses for years.

the decision to change the foundation gp did not respect those NIB players, nor the breeders who had worked for years to get the gp up on the breed/s of their choice. .
caribooster
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It doesn't mean they have to disrespect players who made the choice to let get of their horses in a way they saw fit. I'm very aware of the GP change of the foundies and how it was handled, I also remember the backlash it caused, but I don't think it is a good comparison to make, mainly because the foundie GP change didn't change existing foundies or change something that the players had pre change, but buying from Safe Haven is literally taking from people who made a choice, which is a MASSIVE difference to making an overall change to the game.

In short, you're comparing a change that didn't hurt already existing horses to a change that would be a slap in the face to those that made a decision where they had the final say in where their horses ended up. In my opinion, Howrse suddenly allowing buying from the Safe Haven in any way would be theft, because those horses are still tied to the account that put them there, so therefore someone else's property.
Oathkeeper
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the account is/was deleted. howrse owns everything. one can not steal what one already owns.

please provide proof/ copy a link to where it states that safe haven is forever that is written by howrse admin/owners, past or present.

try comparing it to the sale of your childhood home. would you have the right to demand years later that the current owner was not allowed to do renovations or tear it down? you moved out, they took over.

no, once the account is gone, it is gone. there is no claim to it. you might not like it, but it is a fact.
caribooster
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caribooster wrote:

here's a thought for howrse admin.

empty safe haven. there are 1513241 pixel horses stored there. put them all up for sale via auction, and any left over, delete them from the server. think of the band width to be gained.

sell divines starting at 1000 passes, same with diamond apple. all other horses start at 10 passes..

announce a sales date so people can start saving for it. put up your pass ufo's at the start of the sale. auctions last 2-3 days. loads of real money to be made howrse. players will go nuts bidding on divines and da's. and ga's, foundies, uni's.

how's that for a promo idea

perhaps do it on bastille day..the storming of safe haven. free the pixels.


1. REALLY cool idea. default smiley (b)default smiley <:o)
2. I think in the long run, wouldn't that add more bandwidth than save it? Even if only a very small percentage, say 1%, was purchased, that's still 15,132 more horses in the game...I'm guessing more like 5-10% will be bought though, which is up to 151,324...which...well, there's 18,238,902 horses in the game...I guess it's not that much, but it's something.
2.1 Also, of the whole safe haven was deleted, that's only 8% of the horses in game...and it's not even comparable in terms of data if most of the safe haven data is deleted.
2.2 Anyway, enough numbers lol. I guess ultimately, this might make some impact, but not that much, but it's still definitely something! default smiley ^)
3. There's also the concern several players brought up about most of the information of the safe haven horses being deleted...which means they really can't be brought back as regular horses... default smiley :s
4. There's also the concern about the buying market...I think that in short term, it definitely will change things, but then the "gold rush" will be over, so to speak, and the "gold" will become rare and valuable again. And so, in the long run, it will be alright. Anyway, markets are dynamic changing systems... but really I think the question is not what the impact will be, but IF THIS IS EVEN POSSIBLE (due to much of the safe haven horse info being deleted). default smiley :s

----- HOWEVER -----
1. Here's a good point:
caribooster wrote:

personally, i did not like seeing horses i placed in safe haven. most were uni duds. it was a reminder of fails.

Not all people use the safe haven exclusively for unifails, however, I would agree that probably a LOT of horses in the safe haven are likely unifails. So if howrse DELETED all the safe haven UNIFAILS, I wonder how much space that would save... plus lol, I don't like seeing my unifails either...
2. I wonder if there's something else we could do to use (other than give them strokes) and/or clean out the horses in the safe haven...
3. I still like the idea of using the safe haven horses in an EVENT somehow. default smiley 8-)default smiley :ddefault smiley <:o) THAT is still a really cool fun idea and probably totally possible!

ULTIMATELY, howrse and the devs know what impact this could have on the data and software of the game and what is possible and not possible. default smiley (ow) It would be cool if they considered doing something new with the safe haven, cleaning it out, or using it in an event somehow! default smiley ^)
Sky-spirited
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Please add back the amount we have in our inventory on the new Black Market pages, I shouldn't have to go to my overall Black Market section to know the amount I have, especially considering we had this pre change.
Oathkeeper
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Above discussion: not going to happen. Safe Haven is one of Howrse's ways of reducing data in storage by deleting most of the info about those horses. If they can retrieve them for a few days, it's because they have backup copies of the site for a few days (as used for Preprod). After that the data will be gone.

Meanwhile, Howrse's attempts to persuade people to get rid of horses are getting even more disgusting. See the new link on the objective page.
RowanGreen
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I have to agree with RowanGreen. It's disgusting how you are encouraging players to kill off their horses especially for a horse that doesn't reward nicely unless you're willing to kill off hundreds of horses. I'm also disgusted at this. And I cant think of a better word to describe it.
ShadowKokufu
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the yaga sill (or what ever that horse is named), kill off is more than disgusting. at first i went at it, and then realised,

1. i was burning through ap's
2. you can kill off your horse just as fast by over feeding it, than starving it. at least you build up more manure.

3 default smiley (b). this is the most deceptive. your ranking is based on how many horses you own. so by killing off 20 per day you are actually harming your account.default smiley (li)

you have to kill off a ton of horses to even just move up the gift giving scale for the tree horse.
not worth the effort or the cost to your account.default smiley :@
caribooster
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caribooster, I too noticed a lot of those things, too.
And it's extremely disgusting.
Sure, they're pixel horses. I'll probably never even remember them, whenever I quit in the future, but I think this is a horrible lesson for those younger players out there. You're basically teaching them that life is expendable, Howrse.

Also, I thought about how this "special offer", like you say in your first point, completely empties your AP stock. What if you don't have enough APs? You have to purchase them, with passes. What if you don't have enough passes? You have to purchase them, with real money.
Is this "special offer" really a benefit to us, or Howrse?
Just a thought. I am NOT saying all of Howrse is evil, or that their leaders are utterly corrupt. But greed can consume anyone.
*shrugs*

Your third point, caribooster, huh... I never thought about it that way. Again, this "special offer" seems less and less special by the minute.

And 5 years? You can get 6x the amount by doing it normally... sending an old, old horse to heaven. Honestly, that's better in the long run. Sure, sending any horse, at any age, is easier, but is this really the best way to go about things?
soᴘʜɪᴀ
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I said too twice, haha. Excuse any typos in there.
default smiley :p
soᴘʜɪᴀ
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Regarding some of the previous few posts I'd just like to make a few points here:

These are not horses, they are collections of pixels. There are far too many of them and I believe that could be part of the problem with the lag that has proved so difficult to deal with.

Modern children watching YouTube and various video games know a lot more about death than most of us even want to think about. The vast majority of them understand very well the difference between the virtual world and the real one.

You are expected to be polite at all times which means that rants about Howrse and the people who manage it are not allowed.

If you have feedback that is fine. You may take it to Contact Us or post it politely and constructively in the forums. Any further inflammatory or derogatory language will be censored.
deimos
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I appreciate the Devs reaching out to us and raising the horse covering limit from 100 to 300.
While I'd have preferred a no-limit situation, 300 is still way better than a measly 100.
Nalu93
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I personally don't mind the limit, it gives other players a slightly better chance of having their coverings taken, not just the same horse being used constantly.
Oathkeeper
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Stunned at the new coverings limit. How on earth can it be considered "cheating" to offer more than that?

I ask, puzzled, as someone who has often made a ton of equus by having the first 100 blup stallion of a new breed available for coverings on the day the new breed arrives, some of them in the past managing a high three-digit number of covers in a single day. That's hard work that allows a greater number of players to get in on a new breed from day one, and certainly not any sort of "cheating" default smiley :o

Shocked to see that a 100-cover limit had even been considered default smiley :o

Nalu93 wrote:

While I'd have preferred a no-limit situation, 300 is still way better than a measly 100.


Agreed.
Dr Zig
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