We just recently added a new game feature that will help fill some of the Green and Blue Restricted Tournaments. Normally, these tournaments require 8 participants. If, at the time the tournament starts, there are only 5 participants, we simply insert 3 pool horses to participate, ensuring we have reached the minimum number of required horses. Yes, this lowers the purse, but it brings you racing action instead of a canceled tournament. The purse distribution is modified in accordance with the number of horses that make it to the final. Less competitors to race against, less reward. This is basically the same premise for our General Tournaments – more entries build up the purse, therefore, less entries/less competitors pays out less.
In addition to adding the additional horses (up to 3), we also lower the number of preliminary races. By doing this, we ensure more racing competition among players and less against the pool horses. More information can be found on the Blue and Green Tournament signup forms. You can also find more information on this topic in the Get Help section.
The next new major feature to be released is our Championship Race Program. This program rewards players with larger stables and active horses in tournaments. We have generated a formula that allows players to fictitiously bet on these championship races utilizing tokens. Those tokens are earned daily and are tied to your stable size and how many horses you have competing in tournaments (Yellows do not count).
Utilizing your tokens, players will have the opportunity to win thousands of dollars in prizes when correctly fictitiously wagering on these champion simulated races that run every 30 minutes. Though the program is open to non-VIPs, VIP players have a chance to win substantially larger prizes.
Other new features in the works:
We have significantly increased the speed of the website - in some cases, up to 200% (depending o the page). We’re running the final tests now on our development servers and plan to move this live next Monday. Pages that were taking 3 to 6 seconds to load are loading at a second or 2 at the most. This has been a four-month project, but I know how important it is to provide the fastest online gaming experience, and that is something we have not been able to do. After playing around with the development server today, I was actually in awe at how fast the site was loading. Again, if everything goes well, this exciting racing game feature will be available Monday.
Other features include an easier process to breed multiple horses from the same sire and/or dam. This feature is actually complete; it just needs to go through testing.
Probably the biggest update is the brand new desktop client. Though it’s still a couple of months away, I plan to display a video of it in the next week. Every transition is within a single interface. The interface is easy to use, smooth and fast. We’re also consolidating functionality, intertwining it more with our website. At the same time, for the hard-core fan, we’re providing more statistics and more features for training your horses faster and more effectively. For the novice player, he can turn those features off, making the desktop client very simple to navigate – the best of both worlds!
Part of the new desktop client will be a significantly enhanced jockey intelligence program, which will help with the stretchrun, giving horses that have the energy and courage the opportunity to find a clear lane or path and charge home.
We’ve released quite a bit over the last five months. After these three big releases – Champion Race Program, much faster website and new desktop client – we aer going to slow down on the feature release, focus on the mobile version of our game and try to enhance the user experience or game flow.
Looking forward to a great Triple Crown racing season and, of course, making our game more fun, exiting and enjoyable for all our members.
Puddles
The game has had many recent additions to encourage players to get immersed in the great activity of horse racing.Hrf has always been the best horse racing simulation online.Pleased to hear the upcoming aspects that will be added.For me the best new features will be the new jockey ai and the new desktop client.Congratulations to Puddles and the HRF team for the effort you are putting into the game.Best wishes.Hope all the changes/additions work well.
OK my major Question with the new desktop client will horses run the same in tournys as in the new desktop client,
now they don't , you can run a 100 races with a horse every time he'll come from way off the pace then in the tourny they will set the pace, then you'll give jockey instruction to start slower i swear it makes em take off faster, is this going to be addressed with the new jocky AI
Will the new desktop client support all the Horse files we have bought for the old client? Will these files just transfer over to the new desktop client?
Question for Puddles ?
If 7 horses are entered in a tournament and 1 pool horse, does that mean all 7 will automatically progress to the the final, even if they dont even run in a prelim ?
BLUE 12525 is an example of this.
If all the new additions come out have as good as they sound it will be great. Knowing how new software has a habit of biting me on the butt I hope you guys have a good run getting it up and running.
I experienced the same lack of response to jockey instructions as "sapadog". Additionally, in a recent green restricted tournament a pool "ringer" ran wire to wire in fractions that would have run the wheels off of Secratarient. WE don't need that kind of help.
Whats coming up sounds great. More speed for loading is always welcome. I can hardly wait for the new desktop client. Even with lower purses, I appreciate not having to enter 6 tournaments before one opens for my horse. My only question is, if something does not work as it is supposed to (like Yellow Tournaments), will it eventually go away? Three cheers for all the ideas, and especially for the graphics improvements (but better looking, and even more, better moving horses please).
Whats coming up sounds great. More speed for loading is always welcome. I can hardly wait for the new desktop client. Even with lower purses, I appreciate not having to enter 6 tournaments before one opens for my horse. My only question is, if something does not work as it is supposed to (like Yellow Tournaments), will it eventually go away? Three cheers for all the ideas, and especially for the graphics improvements (but better looking, and even more, better moving horses please).
Looking forward to the improved jockey AI and the new Client, especially.
When are we going to find out who the new HRF sponsor/ investors are?
Puddles mentioned new sponsors/investors in a blg late last year, I think it was.
Just wondering when he's going to anounce that to the community.
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"And down the stretch they come!..."
@21Burns:
Thanks =) And yeah, sometimes in between there are some flaws in launch week of some new functionality, but the team is always quick on addressing anything big popping up asap, so it gets smoother again quickly with added functionality =)
@Mangani: should be soon now.
@Sapadog:
The team will work on reducing such inconsistencies further, yes.
@Sdj777:
Replied to you on that question in the forum thread, so just for the others seeing it here:
Yeah, your horse files will transfer over and be usable in the new desktop client =)
@SCHIPGAL:
Thanks, i'm glad you're looking forward to the new features and improvements =)
Excited to get the players to try it all, too, i think with all these there should really be something to like for everyone =)
And yeah, the team is constantly evaluating which features work well or not, how much etc and doing tweaks to functionality everyday based on play reactions.
The puzzle program, yellows and match races for example were updated several times in the background on the server side since the initial launch.
If a feature turns out to be no good even after considerable tweaking we'd also consider cutting it.
Regarding the yellows i think the major issue a bunch of players have with it is that it took focus away from some other tournaments etc which lead to those not filling up to some degree. So the team does various things to get those filled up more again.
The yellows themselves are well received regarding lots of people playing them.
So we have to get the side improved of more people getting into the higher tourneys etc, too.
@MOSESISMINE:
Puddles will surely do a big announcement once all is ready on all sides. For now, i'll leave it at just saying it is a very major force in horse racing =)
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