[Rules] FAQ






HellOw Everyone,

This topic is meant to answer some of your most frequently asked questions.
The answers have been added in spoilers, please expand the spoiler to see the Answer.


Q: Where can I find all of the rules for the game?
A: You can find all of the rules here:

My Karma Page
Item and Pass Trafficking
Player held contest rules
Keep Howrse a great community
The breeder’s manual
Forum rules
Help Center rules


Q: How does cheating affect Howrse's ecosystem and its players?
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A: Players who cheat gain unfair advantages over the rest of the community. This situation is not fair and devalues the time invested by the rest of the community who play the game normally.

Q: What is Pass or Item Trafficking?
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A: Pass and Item Trafficking is performing a transaction outside of the available settings and limits offered by the game.

Q: What is multi-accounting or multi-using?
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A: Multi-accounting or multi-using are players who create more than one account per server or share accounts with several players.

Q: Can I use a gaming mouse, addons, or tabs?
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A: Using these are not against the rules per se, however if you overdo it, it can be seen as cheating. If you are using any of these, please keep it within reason.

[UPDATED] Q: Can I offer a horse for my contest or giveaway?
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A: It is no longer allowed to offer horses as prizes.

In 2018 this rule was updated as offering any gifts that cost the other player a fee falls within the Item and Pass Trafficking rules.


As of January 31, 2024, the team has decided to allow horses as prizes for 500 equus again.

However, please remember that, while selling a horse for 500 equus is allowed in most situations, we reserve the right to sanction users who use such sales to sell horses for real money, to liquidate all horses on an account, or any other behavior that goes against Howrse’s terms of use.

Q: What can I offer for my contest or giveaway?
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A: You may offer any in-game item that can be given to the winner through the free gifting options already in the game.

Remember, if the winner must pay any kind of fee, this prize is not allowed. For example: Offering a Stallion cover, etc.

Q: When will you make it so we can trade horses for free?
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A: We’ve shared this suggestion with the whole Howrse team. We use your suggestions like this to further develop the game. However, we can’t guarantee changes will be made or changes will be exactly what you would like them to be.

Q: Why hasn’t support responded to my request? Why does it take so long?
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A: Contact Us answers every request received and in the order your most recent response was received.

Delays can occur when several requests are received. Make sure that you do not submit multiple requests regarding the same issue or question, this can severely delay their response time.

Q: How do you determine if someone is scripting, trafficking, or cheating?
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A: We use effective tools to identify accounts that are scripting, trafficking, or cheating.

Each identification is thoroughly checked by members of the team before sanctions are applied.

Q: How do you determine what sanctions are given?
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A: We have set sanctions for each rule. Each set varies on the severity of the cheat, how often you break said rule, etc.

Q: Can you give us what sanctions are given for each rule?
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A: We cannot provide this data

Q: I think someone is breaking a rule, should I report them? How do I report them?
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A: Yes, if you see someone breaking a rule you should report them. There are a few different ways to report:

If the broken rule is in the Private Messages; click on the ‘Report abuse’ option for each message that breaks the rules.

You may also add the player to your Black list to stop receiving their messages, you can add them to your black list by clicking the ‘Add to black list’ button’ at the bottom of the conversation.

If the broken rule is in the Forums, click on the default smiley :( for that comment to report it.

If the broken rule is on a players presentation page, click on the ‘Report an abuse’ button at the bottom of their profile.

You may also message a Moderator or submit a request to Contact Us.

Q: Why can’t we talk about politics, religion, sexual orientations/preferences, etc?
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A: We strongly support your freedom of speech, religion, sexual orientation/preferences, and beliefs.
However, we feel that Howrse is not the appropriate place for such topics.

Since our players are from all over the world, we do not want to try and decide what is okay or what isn’t, one side of an issue to feel targeted.

We will try to keep adding to this FAQ for quick references in the future. If you have a question regarding a rule, please ask on the appropriate forum topic, ask a Moderator, Administrator, or submit a request to Contact Us.

Last Updated: January 31, 2024

Best Regards,
The Howrse Team
Ow
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What would count as ''overdoing it'' with a gaming mouse?
ᴇᴜɴoɪᴀ
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ᴇᴜɴoɪᴀ wrote:

What would count as ''overdoing it'' with a gaming mouse?


I doubt you would be given an answer to that question as it leaves a 'ceiling'for people to potentially work up to, but not over, to stay within fair use?

By not stating, people will have to regulate their own use and ensure themselves that they are not going to be potentially deemed at gaining an advantage over other players.
haffyfan
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Surely this would be more beneficial in the gameplay forum?
Bell_z
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Ow wrote:

Q: Why can’t we talk about politics, religion, sexual orientations/preferences, etc?


It is very well-known that religious content from Christian players are widely tolerated on the international server, and nothing is being done about it. When the topic is brought up, several people confirm that they received religious content in their private messages and nothing was done upon reporting such messages as a rule-break. When I personally contacted the mods or admins about heavily religious, almost-if-not-totally preaching profiles, nothing concrete was done either.

Freedom of religion, ok. What about freedom *from* religion? The game is French, let us bring on its international version one of the most important parts of French culture, one that ensures everyone feels comfortable.

If players from the LGBT community aren't even allowed to simply state who they are because the words are black-listed, why should one be confronted to lengths and lengths of religious content on way too many profiles? If you're going to black-list a single word describing one's romantic interest, then also black-list a single word describing one's religious affiliation.

It's nice to state here that the game is not the appropriate place to bring up such topics, but if in practice you limit the expression of only a handful of those topics and let the others be freely talked about (including in harmful ways, cf. players explaining why you shouldn't trust science and indeed follow their beliefs), then it's not only ineffective but also unfair and can make the social side of the game an unpleasing place to be, to say the least.

Welcome to Howrse international server: where writing poetry in another language than English gets you a warning and your presentation deleted, but you can preach your religion all you want.

All of the other servers I have played and still play on have none of these issues. There is no reason why this server should be allowed to be different.
Lifvsleda
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haffyfan wrote:

I doubt you would be given an answer to that question as it leaves a 'ceiling'for people to potentially work up to, but not over, to stay within fair use?


What I gathered from this is that Howrse won't give you clear rules so you don't know when you're breaking them and then they hit you with an unfair karma dock or ban default smiley (h)
If they only wanted you to use something a certain amount then how does anyone benefit from not knowing the amount? default smiley xd The rules and clarifications on this game are wack
Crystal Clear
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Interesting how they updated the trafficking info, and now it appears they've made something totally innocent and within the game's rules punishable?? Listing BMIs as "for sale" on your page is now evidence of trafficking folks. Even though the item exchange literally allows for BMIs to be traded for equus, thus being bought and sold. The team really should further edit and provide clarification on this, because even if you assume that they just mean selling untradeable BMIs is trafficking (which it 100% is), the way it's currently written implies that it's all of them, and that could pose some problems.

Also totally agree with the opinions being shared here. Writing strict rules about a broad number of topics, and failing to enforce them equally is completely unfair. Years ago, someone started a topic in the gameplay forum to ask how to report a female player for having a profile picture featuring her and her girlfriend. I got an automatic forum ban for saying that being [her sexual orientation] isn't inherently wrong and doesn't explicitly break any rules. I then had my presentation deleted because I had added the reason I was temporarily banned from the forums. Yet the religious propaganda (almost exclusively from christians) is EVERYWHERE and is almost never removed, even when reported. I personally would be fine with all these "controversial" topics being allowed, but it really grinds my gears how some are excused, while other players are sanctioned just for sharing basic information about who they are as a person.

These absolutely bonkers "guidelines" to "not overdo it" with items they've already told us do not break the rules are entirely unfair as well. It is either a clear statement that they WANT us to accidentally "break rules" so that they can slap us with sanctions (look at what happened to that top TB team last year), or they're half-way admitting that whatever software they use to detect scripting and other forms of cheating isn't sophisticated enough to differentiate between actually cheating, and players who use allowed efficiency-boosting accessories or methods properly.
ringettegurl1313
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ringettegurl1313 wrote:

These absolutely bonkers "guidelines" to "not overdo it" with items they've already told us do not break the rules are entirely unfair as well.
YES!!! Back in 2017-18 (?), Linkclump was used by a lot of players. It's a browser extension that opens multiple tabs at once. Mods told us it was fine to use and we even shared (in a VIP topic) how we set up the extension to our personal liking. Then the great Spring Clean Up of 2018 happened and players that used LinkClump were deleted.

It was said LinkClump was a form of cheating as it helped a player play faster. All it does is open tabs. It doesn't interact with the page at all. It's the exact same as if a player set up multiple page URLs in a folder on their favorites. Lots of players lost their accounts with no option to fight the deletion because they used something they were told was ok.
Crystal Coven
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Q: Why is there no sales/covers forum?
Foxi723
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Foxi723 wrote:

Q: Why is there no sales/covers forum?
There used to be one years ago, but it was abused from players posting item trades instead.

The sales and cover filters are quite extensive that so long as someone lists what they're selling (which most do anyway), it's really easy to find it with the search filtersdefault smiley :)
Legacy Ann
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Wondering if Howrse will ever publicly address the rampant trafficking going on in the Auctions almost daily
BrandNewEyes
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BrandNewEyes wrote:

Wondering if Howrse will ever publicly address the rampant trafficking going on in the Auctions almost daily


what do you mean by trafficking
but yes i hope so
FairAgent101
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"Can you explain what sanctions will given if a rule is broken?"
"No."

Why even put that in the FAQ? That's not even an answer.
Crookedstar915
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You can't have more than one account on one server, right? Asking for a friend.
Rose Wilder
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No, you can’t, you’ll be sanctioned and face one of them being deleted

You can have accounts on different servers though
jsniper
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@jsniper

Ok, thanks. That is what I though default smiley :)
Rose Wilder
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Crookedstar915 wrote:

"Can you explain what sanctions will given if a rule is broken?"
"No."

Why even put that in the FAQ? That's not even an answer.


the problem is there is no one answer. It might depend on the severity of the action and whether or not the person keeps doing it despite warnings for example. So, "no" is probably the most honest answer they can give as circumstances may dictate the sanction.
minkthepink
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By Retired breeder, 17th June 2023 00:35:48
2
BrandNewEyes wrote:

Wondering if Howrse will ever publicly address the rampant trafficking going on in the Auctions almost daily
What do you mean?
By Retired breeder, 17th June 2023 00:37:44
Bell_z wrote:

Surely this would be more beneficial in the gameplay forum?
Yeah, but isn't the Gameplay Forum for questions only?
By Retired breeder, 17th June 2023 00:38:11
Oh, whatever, these ARE all questions, forget it default smiley :p
Related to @Crystal Coven's message, is LinkClump banned on Howrse now?
LaurentzSpace
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The Game Play forum should be renamed The Help forum. It is far less confusing. And there are threads in the Events forum that are not about events at all. I hope that gets fixed at some point.
Emerald01
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i wish that we could get more ageing points that would be awesome.
divine
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i wish they would add more ageing points
divine
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divine wrote:

i wish that we could get more ageing points that would be awesome.


You can buy aging points in the Black Market for passes, and they drop randomly when you wake horses each day. You can also win them in events and get them as UFOs. They can be hard to get at first but they add up quickly.
Crookedstar915
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LaurentzSpace wrote:

Related to @Crystal Coven's message, is LinkClump banned on Howrse now?
I'm not sure if it's officially banned (specifically in the ToS) but we've been told that opening multiple tabs to farm quicker is ok as long as the number of tabs is reasonable. The problem? Everyone's definition of reasonable is different. I've heard of players that open 50 tabs, to me that's excessive. Personally, I only open max between 8-12.
Crystal Coven
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