That's not the answer, and you know it's not the answer.

1) Every player must UNANIMOUSLY decide not to buy passes. That's almost impossible because the game's whole POINT is to pit us against each other to be the very best like no one ever was. If a group suddenly stops blupping, you can bet the group tailing them is going to overtake them without an ounce of regret. That's just how it works.

But let's say we manage it. Let's say that by SOME MIRACLE everybody sees these forums (it's only a small 4% that frequents the forums by posting) and decides not to buy passes...

2) If Howrse does not see revenue (because people are not buying passes), they're just going to pull the plug. Period.
Do you all remember Howrse.jp? No? Or Howrse Turkey? Also no? Yeah, that's how long they lasted, the poor dears.

It's impossible to safely advocate for a pass strike. It never worked in the past and it won't work now, I'm afraid.


Also, I'd like to point out that YES, Howrse does listen to us sometimes, because last year we DID win with the Pinatas.
Pinata 10 had the Button plait, but by complaining we got a Free Falabella.
So your voices are (sometimes!) heard, and it's important to voice them.

Of course, we lost ZOwey, who was the only admin fighting the good fight on preprod. I can't say about the other admins since they haven't been around much .

They are gifts, if you don't buy passes and just play the game for free I mean clicking a few times never hurt anybody. You don't spend anything to get the items, therefore they are gifts

You don't pay for them, so they are gifts

Actually, stopping buying passes was not my point. My point was if howrse keeps ruining events buying passes will use be useless and unprofitable, I was not telling players to stop buying passes.

^^ I was telling howrse to stop messing with events and such otherwise people will stop buying passes just out of common sense.

Oh yeah, but then again, they then release 3 weekend promos per week, so people are not going to stop, because they must be the very best like no one ever was.

I know somebody on the French server with FOURTY JADES. FOURTY.

Unless all divines are going to start moving over to the way Koekje was released, then people who can't buy passes are just stuck. but point taken.

Another thing that makes me mad, Jade SHOULD pay you back 15,000p you spen ton him if you filled the meter within the year, not take like 3 years. Libra was released for like 1,200p a while ago, she would pay you back within the year. Things are so costly now, I have never been so tempted to buy passes for a divine. but $150 for 1 Jade? I don't think so howrse.

It was 9 old passes. It was a pretty good offer.
Reminder that the Zodiac divines were "A line of cheap divines, made to allow every player to get one within the year and give everyone a chance". Oh, how the turned have tables!

You still have to work for the prizes. Playing the event, regardless of passes, is the work. You're spending your time completing a goal or an action, whatever, within the event to receive a prize for it. You can't not play the event and still receive "gifts". You have to play the event for the potential to win prizes. There is an exchange there.

And they're certainly not "free". Free doesn't just mean the absence of money (equus, passes). You have to use your time to work to win the prizes. Sometimes you do have to use inventoried resources, or complete objectives that require using equus, whether that be donating or spending it. Work doesn't have to mean exhaustive either, it can mean a simple click of a button. Or, it can mean the players who generously go out of their way calculating every event and divine, coming up with the best strategies to play efficiently and win, etc. Regardless of the amount of work, there is work involved in winning these prizes. Clicking a button may not seem like work to you because you have your own perception of what work is and means, but you're still doing an action for the potential to win/claim something, which is again an exchange. If they were gifts, you wouldn't have players complaining every promo that their effort put in wasn't worth the prize they won.

I'm not saying I agree with the original poster above who you are quoting, but I do think "prize" is the most appropriate and accurate term to use regarding the items you can win in the promos. Technically "gift" isn't wrong, but it's not the most accurate term. In this context, prize is the better word.

Aaaahh, the old discussion of free and payed....

I would have to agree nothing is free. Even not buying passes makes you useful for Howrse if you play the game for good and you are successful. My account has over a million of free passes generated over the years. I did not buy them, true, but they came to my account from other players who actually spent real money on them, and in my turn I did spend those passes on things in game. So, in fact, I did generate much more profit for Howrse than someone who bought 100000 passes with real money. The game is enaging my time and mind, so this is how I WORK for the passes I earn here. It's the same as if I work in real life and then spend my real money on passes. I see no difference. In both cases I put into it effort and resources like time and brain power.

So there's actually no point in arguing. The raw truth is NOTHING comes free and nothing is a gift. We all pay for these "free" things one way or another.

Here's what I just posted on Preprod re the event currently on there:

I wish I could like a post more than once...

Yeah, literally the only reason I have a divine is because I lucked out on the event GF for the Merlin game. Otherwise, I would have had no chance, and I don't even TRY to get the event divine because I know it's not happening and I'm just going to blow my passes for nothing. I just used the event fleece because it didn't cost passes, and there wasn't anything to lose if I didn't get Merlin, because it would just be some other event prize.

I suppose it's still probably better for me than others because I am a customizer player and I like the tack.

It's too bad that I don't have passes for the Zodiac divines because my birthday is coming up in a couple weeks and I wanted to have Cancer. I did try one GF, juuuuuuust in case, since some people have gotten that luck, but nope.

The tack is useless to me, but it does sell for a little bit of money and looks cool, so could be worse I guess. I personally only play the game to collect divines and never having spent money on the game, I don't find it impossible at least. But howrse is beginning to make it very difficult to make the passes for divines. Events need to have good items, good items get me passes, passes get me divines. But now it's turning around and my pass reserve is growing smaller and smaller by the day.

I wonder if part of the problem at the moment is they changed all the admins. With the current 'blast' even we told them on preprod we didn't like losing the 'long game'. But maybe they just didn't understand the difference. So now we have an event thread full of people saying they miss it. I'm actually finding it a little jaw dropping that there's so many who agree on that...

They're doing their best, but you can notice the difference lately.
Like, you can see that they're present in the bug reports and quick with their answers, I'm just perplexed at their lack of presence in the Feedback sections...

The problem with the fragments is that it takes ages for the divine to cycle back around and when it does it usually costs more to get it than it was previously, even if you had the meter semi full. The fragments would be a good concept if they "recycled" old divines into new promos instead of creating new ones for each event, that way you could top up your meter through the event and finally get it.

I agree, but at the same time the site needs to make money from pass purchases. I think the better solution would be having the divine be priced more cheaply in luck items when they cycle back round.

I understand that, but as someone that actually does buy a whole lot of passes that wouldn't just stop if Howrse changed the way they handled it, if anything I'd probably buy more to get copies if it is a divine I really like.

Hey everyone with access to preprod:

Having a great discussion here. There's also great discussion on proprod. But there's hardly anyone on there at the moment. My post from preprod which I posted here currently has 19 likes. On preprod it has 1....

May I suggest that anyone who has access to preprod gets over there and gets your voices heard! Post to agree (or disagree) and like the posts you agree with. It's what preprod is for.... We only have a few days before it closes.

is there going to be a promo this weekend ?

Nothing on Twitter, so possibly no...?