Branik’s Blog - Rated R

Finally I got a start on the list of colors and their reference pics sent to the artist. Man this is a pain to get together, and I can’t help but feel like I’ve failed to really give her a succinct, clear guide to what I want. I had it all so clear before talking in chat with the folks in there months back, but when I went to put it into a single document, I went ppffttt and I don’t think it was very well done.

Anyway, what I sent covers bay base and chestnut base with modifiers but no dilutions. Totals 144 colors which seems like lots, but is a small portion of the big total. o.o

The next step is dilutions of bay and chestnut. *rubs head* I fear she’s going to get these colored faster than I can get reference lists to her.

I’m really frustrated by the helplessness of some players. It feels like they won’t help themselves, even when pointed to the answer they seek.

I have asked in the past what would make the self serve help sections better, but the feedback is typically very discombobulated. Often lots of people pipe up about forced tutorials, tests to get in, that sort of thing that is incredibly off putting to new members.

My frustration however is also off putting, so I have GOT to figure something out.

What is the problem exactly? I know we’ve gone round and round about the lazy factor, and the state of society, but damn there has got to be SOMETHING out there that will help!

Is it the design of the site? Is it too difficult to read? What is it? What can we do that will alleviate this? HONESTLY!

If you’re a self motivated person that simply goes and finds things on your own, you probably don’t see why they don’t do it themselves the same as I don’t. There has to be something that we can’t understand about it because we aren’t walking in those shoes.

The latest one to chap my hide was posted on the Commons here. First it was very hard for anyone to do anything but list all kinds of reasons, which the OP could go check out. There was no link(s) to the horse(s). Of course all anyone could have done was say they don’t know why because obviously they can’t see anything that would tell them because the horses both had healed before they posted.

 Anyway, they were presented with a list of things that included injured/ill causing them to not be trained. Now what kept them from finding the answer? Not realizing they could go look in the transactions? Assuming the answer wasn’t in the replies? I don’t understand.

The same thing happens when horses get disqualified all the time. Drives me batty. There’s a list of every possible cause in the FAQ. People need do nothing more than go through it until they find the one that fits. The DQs are conveniently divided into vet issues/qualification issues/performance issues. That -should- narrow down which things on that list they need to look at.

What changes would lead more people to go find their own answers?

Man what a pain in the keester! I have hundreds of reference pics I have nabbed off the web over the years for examples of colors/patterns.

I have this horribly disorganized system of sticking them unsorted into new folders, with the intention of going through them and identifying them and putting them into a nice compiled group… And then not doing it.

So in order to have as little chance of misunderstanding as possible between what I envision and what our SHG artist does, I’m putting a reference for every color we need. That means going through my umpteen folders and organizing and sorting and naming my pics I have collected.

That is how I’ve spent my whole day today. I’ll do 5 or 10, get tired of it. Refresh the commons. Do 5 or 10 more. (I hate such projects with a passion.) Answer a ticket that has come in. Do 5 or 10 more. All … day … long.

Got this to support today.

So long? SO LONG?!

Their order was submitted:

Subject: Custom Picture Orde -:- Message #14363 2008-05-09 15:53:40 NEW

It hasn’t even been TWELVE hours! *steam* *eyetwitch*

My definitely not polite response:

It hasn’t even been twelve hours. What are you on about “so long”? What do you think we are machines or something?

I’m still debating whether or not to click send. They’re associated to our twins person, so probably a kid. *continues debating*

People suck the life right out of me.

My reply:

The only rudeness expressed here has been by you in your most recent reply. You are hereby on probation in the game. Any further rudeness toward staff by you will result in your permanent removal from the game.

It would seem you are the one that needs to chill.

The person writing about twins has replied. Now I’m flustered about this. Man I really hate these tickets.

“SORRY! I didn’t mean to be rude!! I just thought it’d be great! I did see some mare & foals live though!! One was a arab mare, she had 2 fillies & another one was a mustang mare who the owners got from the wild, she had colts, one was a quarter horse mare, 2 fillies and the other one was also a quarter horse mare with 2 fillies!”

Now where did I accuse them of being rude? Was my reply mean? You can read the prior interactions here. What did I say to generate that reaction?

Here is what I am -thinking- of sending back:

I did not say you were rude. I understand that you thought it would be great. I explained to you that this game is about realism, so it is coded to be realistic. In real life nature does not care how big your farm is, it does what it is going to do. The same applies here.

Some mares on E-R do have twins. Very few. The rate is based on real life data. When they do have a twin pregnancy, what happens during it is based on what happens in real life. They can abort the pregnancy. This is the most common thing that happens in real life. They can lose one or both of the foals when the foals are born. The majority of times they lose one or both in real life. I again used the data collected from real life to base this on. Finally they can die themselves during delivery.

When one or both of the foals lives, they are normally stunted in real life because they did not get enough nourishment and room in the uterus to grow. The same applies in the game. Very rarely will you get a normal foal if it lives.

I am sorry if this reality upsets you, but the point of this particular game is to give people the most realistic experience of owning horses we can.

Well? (man I hate dealing with these kinds of tickets.)

First I spent time chasing the “shoeing bug” that wasn’t a bug. Then I dealt with a player that wants twins.

>.>

<.<

They wrote:

HI~

Why cant you let horses have twins if thier big draft types? I’d like to have twins once in a while cause I dont have a lot of $$$. PLZ let me know. Thanks.

I replied and tried to explain why being a draft wouldn’t matter.

The size of the foal is relative to the size of the mare. Being bigger doesn’t make it safe.

They wrote back. Apparently they really want twins.

Still. Do you think like once every game year each blue ribbon player can have a set of twins?

I tried to explain why that would not fit into E-R.

No. This game is about realism. Not some fantasy world full of fluffy bunnies where mares can have twins just because you paid for an account.

In real life mares rarely have twins where she and the twins live. Usually the foals die. Often the mare dies with them. That is how this game is.

I don’t know if how I explained it is going to work, if they’ll understand why it just isn’t an E-R thing to let players get a set of twins just because they’ve got a blue ribbon. I mean mother nature doesn’t care what kind of farm you have. Twins is twins.

I really hate those tickets a lot. :-\

So I spent a few hours trying to find the master color list file for E-R v4 today. I apparently hid it really good on my computer. LOL Once I finally found it I began compiling the master color list file for SHG v1 to send to the incredibly generous artist that has volunteered to do the work.

Let me just say, this list is complicated and big. Man what a list of colors needed. No, I’m not going to share with you what they are. LOL Suffice it to say, it is into the hundreds for just solids.

Hopefully I’ll have the list compiled tonight, and then tomorrow I can put links to examples for each for her and get it sent to her.

On the bright side, I think I came up with a way to work on the SHG code without the physical pictures.

thirdpeppermint Says:

“Something that comes to mind though is this. I think a big part of the problem is players like yourself can’t separate me the person from the game. You were trying to discredit what I said as me the person Nikki on the Commons. By all means you are more than welcome to do so in a non game related conversation. The problem came when you broke the law doing in trying to do it, and me the Admin of E-R dealt with it. You became angry at me personally because you didn’t like my opinion, and when I enforced the rules I bet you even thought to yourself that I had just abused my powers because I was personally involved in the conversation and you had challenged what I’d said. Be honest. You did think I only used my powers to suppress your rebuttal didn’t you.”

No, I realized it was impossible to discuss things with you because you would go about, accusing me of violating copyright on something that the author said didn’t have a copyright BUT that they would prefer the article was always posted in its entirety.

That’s a convenient excuse to hide behind, pretending you can see the future and know what I would do, but fact is you can’t see the future. You broke the forum rules. It is that simple, but you just can’t admit you did it and that I was just enforcing the rules.

On top of that, you obviously never bothered to read it, because it showed how your article was completely misleading and incorrect.

I read it and found it to be lacking compared to the articles published in peer reviewed publications on the subject, and dismissed it.

Your other problem is calling people names when you’re angry or frustrated. I see that a lot. They may not include swear words, but when they don’t they’re names you might hear little children call each other or (in some cases) a mean old teacher call their elementary student.

Please, if you’re going to accuse, provide some references so we can all see what you are basing your accusations on.

That’s why I left. I’m never paying for the game again.

So?

I care about how professional companies are and this game is definitely not.

It isn’t a “company” so what does that have to do with me?

If you honestly just want a playground for your friends, then disregard my opinions.

That’s all it’s ever been. You just assume it to be some corporation of professionals out to make money.

I’ve just never met an online horsie-sim game owner that actually had forums and websites dedicated to hating her.

I have. Oh you should hear how people talk about Jeff that owns Showdog. There was a yahoogroup of Jeff haters. Oh and the things they say about Jackie that runs Equination. Lots of haters out there.

Around the time I split from VHR, its owner had people going around the net posting all over, starting forums, starting LJs, and even chat rooms dedicated to bitching about her and her game. Two people hounded the VHR entry on Top Webgames posting horrible things about her for over a year, and filed complaints with the BBB because she gave out one of their real names and address to other players who then harassed her and her husband that had cancer because they thought she’d made her husband up. (And you think -I- am unprofessional?!)

FYI we’ve had no BBB complaints from paid players in four years, and one from a free player that was told the BBB doesn’t deal with free stuff.

Check out our competition like Orbis Games 3 complaints in the last 36 months, or Third Row Productions 5 complaints in the last 36 months, or WhiteOakStables.net/Design1Online.com that has also had 3 complaints in the last 36 months. (WOS is smaller than E-R based on the number of upgrades and the number of horses in the game, and a lot of their upgrades don’t ever expire.)

You know I must not be doing as horrible at this game running thing as you make it sound.

There’s been a reason why the forums have been dying. Haven’t you noticed that the threads aren’t posted with the same fervor and joy anymore? People are afraid of making a mistake and they don’t want flamed.

Except that is an untruth. They aren’t dying. Everyone has access to the forum statistics and can plainly see that this winter has been our biggest since the SMF forums were installed over two years ago.
Monthly Summary New Topics New Posts New Members Most Online
May 2008 179 2018 10 38 (only 8 days of stats for May 2008)
April 2008 734 7510 29 51
March 2008 785 13930 39 105
February 2008 849 13634 31 49
January 2008 908 18317 50 51
December 2007 838 13878 35 43
November 2007 876 15028 66 43
October 2007 644 7013 102 48
September 2007 457 4313 34 39
August 2007 546 3919 26 32
July 2007 502 4117 41 47
June 2007 435 3570 59 75
May 2007 358 3444 18 51
April 2007 429 2654 24 27
March 2007 357 2518 17 34
February 2007 288 2004 28 28
January 2007 320 2099 45 45
December 2006 310 2419 37 48
November 2006 206 2174 41 32
October 2006 214 1839 52 53
September 2006 157 2145 26 23
August 2006 236 3326 30 21
July 2006 392 3810 66 34
June 2006 271 1652 59 24
May 2006 311 1839 97 24
April 2006 249 1248 220 25

I was worried that if this kept carrying on it would mean the death of ER

Oh I wouldn’t worry about that. We set a record month in sales February, grossing $8,500. We’re like the third largest all breed/multiple discipline browser based horse game.

To go back farther I would have to go log into SHG’s stats.

Yes, that really does say that over fifteen THOUSAND folks visit E-R a month. Between six and seven MILLION page views.

Suffice it to say, it has been very steady growth since the release of v4. I’ve tracked trends for over four years now, and there is always a decline in activity when the weather turns warm, but it begins building back up during the summer break and into fall straight through ’til spring again.

But of course you, without any of this data, have determined the game is in danger of dying because I have opinions and express them, and enforce rules in a way you find unpleasant.

and I thought you realized it was safer for the company

What freakin “company”? I’m a person that made a game. This is something I started for fun because we were sick of how Nef ran VHR, that happened to get popular and help my husband and I get back on our feet financially. It’s a hobby, that I pay business and self employment taxes for to make the IRS happy. As long as it makes enough to pay its own way, it’s going to be online.

Companies set out to make money. Profits even. Companies budget for things like advertising. Prior to 2008, you probably couldn’t have bought a saddle for what we’d spent to advertise. We just didn’t bother. We have advertised this year to see what it would do.

I’ve started to post this a few times since I started this blog, but I haven’t been able to put it into words. Even now I’m sitting here going hrm how do I say this?

I’ve watched many game owners over the years. Some take zero interest in how people behave on their games. Others are interested in people adoring them. Some are such control freaks that they try to force people to play the way they want. They code things in the games so that if people make the “wrong” choices they suffer for it, and the only way to succeed is to play their way. If they play the game too, some of them keep blacklists of people not allowed to have stock from their bloodlines because the person did something they don’t like.

Anyway, I never liked the atmosphere on games where players ran wild, screwing each other over. It is utter chaos, every man for himself, complete anarchy. It’s stressful to be in such a place.

I never liked the atmosphere on games if the owner is such an utter control freak that you have to play they way they want, or suffer. I don’t like the atmosphere where the game owner is using their player base as a bunch of ego stroking yes men.

I always had two things I envisioned for my role. One was to be the simulation of the judicial system in real life. The other was to ensure that players didn’t create chaos that stressed the rest of the players out. There are plenty of games that allow anarchy to rule where those players can go be happy. A place where quiet civilized folks that believe in manners and good graces can relax and enjoy seems to be rare.

But I can see I do not have the temperament to achieve my goals. I get too personally involved. I can see how I get, and I’m sadly not above getting down in the mud with people. LOL The Maddy case shows it. I even get entertainment and stress relief from it.

So I have sat and wondered:

A) Why do I give a rat’s butt that someone lies or not? Why do I feel that they should get a lesson in life that might help them on down the road? I’m not their mama. People joke around with me that I’m mother to thousands of kids.

B) Why do I care if players get more from the game than just entertainment? I know that it makes me feel good to get the thank you notes from someone that says the game/game community/me punishing them/me taking the time to talk to them made a difference for them in life. But why do I feel the need to do this? This is supposed to be a business and I keep cutting my income because I often put the need to try to help kids/people learn they can’t go around acting like that ahead of making money that I actually need to live on.

C) Why can I not just sit back and be that calm cool impersonal judicial system I  wanted to be? Why must I get so personally upset or worked up over things? I know, I know. It is my personality. But see I know that people could learn just as much as far as not being a cheat if I simply ran them through the E-R Court System as I’d intended and didn’t get -personally- involved. Why do I not just do that and let that be the end of it?

D) Why have I gotten so much worse about this in the last couple years? Or have I? Was I always that bad? Is this some twisted manifestation of my unused useless maternal instincts? Can’t have a kid so these instincts and drives are desperate for something to ‘mother’?

I really hate when I hop on some other games and I see an owner acting like a jackass and I go, “ouch, that is so like me.”

I’m not sure if I’ve actually said what I wanted to say, but wouldn’t it kinda be nice if I could just be that calm cool collected judicial system and not get personally involved? :-\