I'm sure most of our members know by now that Horse Racing Fantasy has launched new jockey, bettor and trainer tournament leader boards. They can be accessed under the recent winner badge on the left navigation of the community or at the bottom of the left navigation main menu or from your stable page. There is a lot of cool information here. We will be updating the leader boards several times a month with more statistical information. This will be a continuously evolving project. Don't expect many changes right away, but expect new add-ons at least once or twice a month. If our racing community has suggestions, there's a thread in the forums called New Leader Board. Read it and post to it. We look forward to your input, but please remember that we are loaded with tasks and your ideas must stay focused and be on track with our direction.
Next week we are launching a new tool on the stable page. It is a trainer horse history tool. We have received a ton of support emails pertaining to how horses age and why horses are at certain ages. You will simply go to your stable page, click on the horse in question and an entire history will be brought up. It will be very clear to any member of our horse racing community why their horse is the age shown.
Next week we are also releasing several other new features - one I think a lot of players are really going to enjoy. You will now have the ability to change the gender and color of your new purchased horse from your stable page. This feature is absolutely free to our VIP members. Another great reason why you want to become a VIP. Now you can come up with the greatest names and be confident that the color and gender will be appropriate. No more issues like calling your horse Mr. Gray and it's a black female. You will only be able to change the horse once and the gender and color change must happen prior to entering your virtual horse into its first tournament. Personally, I love this feature and can see how a lot of players will have a blast using it. With 15 colors of virtual thoroughbreds to choose from, it will add more excitement to the game. We're not sure if this feature will be available for non-VIPs for a fee. It may just be a VIP feature.
We're adding another enhancement product called Lasix. In the world of real horse racing, Lasix (a duretic) is commonly used to assist thorughbreds who have breathing problems specifically related to bleeding (not as bad as it sounds). Giving your horse Lasix can improve your horse, not by making him faster (no, that won't happen), but allowing your horse to run a longer distance. Lasix will be applied for each tournament you enter. If the treatment helps your horse once, then it will help your horse always. If it doesn't, no need to try it again in the future unless you tried it in a really poor situation. But, that's part of our racing game's strategy.
We're doing quite a bit of work on our actual game itself. We're adding features that will help people who are having a problem with slow graphics. We are also adding the ability to delete retired trainer game horses. We're also simplifying the navigation to find your trainer game horse and work with him/her. We're enhancing the communication piece between the game and the server. You can kind of look at it as increasing the size of the pipe so more information can be passed quicker. This is all part of our future strategy as we tie more and more features together between the game and the community. Another big step on this new release is, finally, for the first time in our game's 11-year history, we will be able to operate on non-English operating systems. Get ready for more international players, making us truly a universal community, which is part of our plan.
Other features in the works. We have a long list of features and enhancements in the works. We're doing some more programming to further increase the server speed. As you know, there have been times when the community pages serve up slowly. We're not a website, we are processing an unbelievable amount of data. We've made some huge progress in the last couple of weeks and it will only get better. We will soon be passing your trainer game horses' full traits to the game so if your horse is inconsistent, you'll be able to see that inconsistency in the game and not have to wait for the tournaments. This will help big-time when evaluating your horse. New features, such as a special bonus program attached to tournaments for VIP members, is being designed. We're also launching next week an enhanced PPS tournament scoring system that will clearly separate the jockeys and allow the middle and lower-tier players to gain experience and win more events. The current system we're using does not really represent a player's true scores and ability. This is another step in leveling the playing field for the jockey and bettor games.
The list goes on and on. We are designing the Mentor Program. I'm very excted aut it We are designing a program that allows VIP members to create trainer tournaments and have the community vote on them. Ifapproved, those tournaments will be available to all members to enter. Clearly, we are trying to create more player interaction. We have just started the design phase of the Auction Program and the Trainer Tournament Sponsor Programs. These are two very complex and sophisticated add-ons, but they add huge value and further enhance the game for sure.
This week, I attended the big game conference in Los Angeles. E3 is always an exciting event. We met with some of the biggest names in online games and game distribution. We absolutely feel that there is a huge validation by industry experts in what we're doing - and that we can build something that far exceeds any other horse racing game ever. We're paying very close attention to what's working and what is not in the game industry. We're consulting with top experts and are feeling more and more comfortable that our game and community can not only help the sport of horse racing, but can become a social game loaded with skill and action that will appeal to a large, more broadbased audience, and this is something we need in order to build out our long-term objectives. I did not mention a lot of the development that is going on - there is a ton! Please be patient with little bugs you may find. Please understand that our trainer game is just 5 weeks old. We see certain issues and we're on top of them and each week, the game will become more appealing and the community can really enjoy not only what we have, but what we will have.
- Puddles
How about the addition of a career mode feature? Their are many, if not most, in this community that would love it and have kicked around some ways to tie it into the community-centered direction of the game. Some have commented that they would pay to play or become VIP's for this alone. And I don't think it would distract from or change the ultimate direction of the game in any way, just add to it. Ultimately HRF is leaving alot on the table by not offering it.
That's good information. But what about the updated performance reports ? With better and more useful information on your horses. And what about the characteristics of your horses showing up more in training races while in private mode ? So you can have a better idea of what to expect when entering a trainer tournament race. Right now, it's almost like night and day between the two. I have seen these topics addressed by you and was wondering when they can be expected. Thanks.
I've noticed your efforts to promote the concept of building out a career mode. The truth is, we do quite a lot for solitary players. The adding of quite a few new horse files and, of course, the prebuilt races are geared more toward the hard-core sim members in our community. Originally, this game was a hard-core sim game and for 9 years had a very loyal but very limited user base. I am not at liberty to discuss one of the features that is being designed now for a 2010 spring release, but it will be the ultimate experience for the hard-core racing sim advocates. I don't think Puddles or any other individual in management will get into discussion on this or any other aspect of career modes. It's hard to be the developers of Lear Jets and ice cream machines at the same time. But, I know Mike has a big place in his heart for the original players of the game and their quest for certain features. A lot of money is at stake and some very big plans are being rolled out. I can't imagine under any circumstance them getting off track right now. But, what's on the drawing board will go beyond anything that any sim player could ever imagine. It's absolutely incredible! It's just going to take resources and time to do it. We just don't have those right now.
dontbetonme -
I did address this issue on passing the characteristics to the game. It's in the section where I talk about the game update itself and the enhancement of the communication piece. Regarding your other issue, the performance report is being modified and will be tied into the trainer instructions. As I said in my post, too much in the works to list it all. The time frame could be a week - it could be three weeks - depends on a lot of other things. I also wanted to address your comment on "night and day" - basically, how horses act in training and in a tournament. I notice in your barn that two of the three horses you have still in training are associated with the extreme inconsistency trait. You wouldn't really get much help on the Midnight Lute and all of the other horses, even when the information is passed to your game, but what you will get is more of a verification of the high level of inconsistency associated with certain stallions and dams. Really, the feature of testing your horse's ability in the game will be much more beneficial from the more consistent sires and dams where some additional logic can be applied and patterns can be identified. Just like in real racing, our players have to be patient in identifying their horse's ability. It may take a tournament or two (or three), and that's if you're a sharp player and can read between the lines, to understand what makes your horse tick.
it all sounds and is great but where are SECRETARIAT and RIVA RIDGE. am waiting on them for my sim seasons. i hope we are not waiting for the movie on BIG RED to come out.
Thanks for addressing this. As always, the news is exciting, especially in the message that I read between the lines.
I have this fear as well, since the movie has been "in production" for a solid 2 years now without moving an inch toward actually being made. But lets keep faith in the crew here, everyone is doing an awesome job with the game! And as for the movie, personally I would'nt want it to ever come out if it were'nt awesome enough to be worthy of its name-sake.
Thanks Mike for responding. I will be looking forward to the updates. Also, I had a total of 9 horses in my stable. One of the 9 was from the specials (Midnight Lute and Gold Beauty). Another was from Dr. Fager and Ta Wee (special mare). Both are still active at this point. The other 7 involved none of the special or inconsistent sires or dams at all. Out of the 7, all have been retired except for 1. So as you can see, I wasn't one that hopped on the Midnight Lute bandwagon. I spent alot of time coming up with what I thought were good breeding combinations and ended up having to retire almost all of them because of inconsistency of what they show in training and real tournament races. But it's awesome when they do finally win a tourney race : )
Having discussed ad nauseum the community aspect in advanced mode it seems no satisfactory solution is even on the drawing board. I am a VIP in name only and HRF is just another icon on my desktop. Seems that the only issues that get addressed are those relating to the Trainer game and the affect on tournament play. Mick Jagger isn't the only one who can't seem to get satisfaction.
Somehow my last post here did not make it -- I must not have followed through somehow. Anyway, this is very exciting news, but as one of those hard-core sim players, I am wondering when the foreign horse files will be released. I heard May, then I heard June, so I don't know what the schedule is. Also, I seem to recall in some previous post that after the Triple Crown races were over, there would be some 2009 horse files. Any information for us on these new horse files?
Puddles,
I would have to say that the information given to us in this blog is remarkable. I am really looking forward to the Mentor Program. I think it is great that we will be able to change the color and gender of our trainer horses. This game just keeps better and that is what I love about it so much. Keep up the good work!!!
They do not respond to ANYTHING except current Trainer game issues. New ideas or Community points requests are ignored either here or by e-mail.
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