Redwood Valley Equestrian Centre || Discussion

[SydneyandStorm]

Ok a question for you Syd! (That others might like to know about too!)

If we cannot train our newborns - but horses only age by training them, how does one age a newborn? I went through the front page but couldnt see anything on it. I also find that in real life - newborns take on alot more information when they are younger 4and are alot easier to train when they are babies - alot more difficult to train as they age (I know because im dealing with a snotty foal whose roughly 4-5 months old atm and I really wish i had just started training when she was a newborn.

Thought it would be a good discussion and very informative for the sim-goers :)

Oh sorry, that must be a little confusing -- to age a newborn, you just have to wait a week until they would be a yearling and then train them ^^ The reason behind not training until they are a yearling is twofold -- one, so that aging can be accurate and you can't automatically age the foal up to a newborn, and two, because training in this sim refers to discipline-related training and I want to discourage people from physically training a horse hard too young, even though it definitely is technically more involved in real life ^^ Also want to let foals be foals, y'know? Since technically we don't really have a weanling state and newborns are still pretty dependent on their mothers c: Those are definitely good points, though, and it's definitely more complicated in real life!

[Oddly Shaded]

Cool Syd - thanks for clearing that up for me (and im sure others were interested in knowing that too!)

[SydneyandStorm]

Hi all,

Just wanted to open up the discussion on driving again. We had previously left it as such:

All right -- let's settle this issue of driving once and for all! ^^ Here are the details:

Currently, driving rewards high stats in chest, action, and coat. Amiable attitudes are most rewarded and mischievous attitudes are least rewarded. Equipment currently costs 200c for a bobbed mane and tail. All breeds are eligible to compete, but most of the competitors tend to be drafts. We currently have two out of 44 horses registered for driving, one of which may not be permanent.

Combined driving would be the driven equivalent of three-day eventing, which has a dressage portion of the test, a cross-country section, and a "precision" portion that mirrors jumping. They would be judged as follows:

CD dressage would reward high stats in neck, action, and coat. Amiable attitudes would be most rewarded and nervous attitudes would be least rewarded. Equipment would cost 150c for a bobbed mane and trimmed tail.

CD marathon would reward high stats in chest, forelegs, and hindquarters. Focused attitudes would be most rewarded and timid attitudes would be least rewarded. Equipment would cost 125c for a bobbed tail and splint boots.

CD cones would reward high stats in chest, shoulders, and hindquarters. Sensitive attitudes would be most rewarded and naughty attitudes would be least rewarded. Equipment would cost 225c for a bobbed mane and splint boots.

This would, hopefully, offer a lot more horses the opportunity to compete in driving. I'm open to suggestions, changes, etc. to help make this better -- just wanted to put down what I was thinking and help get driving back on the right track c: What do you guys think? Yay or "neigh" for combined driving? <3 Please make sure to let me know on here and/or the polls!

combined driving sounds really interesting! i might very well use it once i encounter enough coins to open up a mustang barn considering how varied they are. i think it'd definitely make the sport more open to all breeds.

It sounds like it would work well [. . .]

Sounds great

(All names removed except my own to allow for privacy)

We now have, out of 146 horses, four that are registered for driving -- two of which are no longer active in the sim, and the other two of which are owned by the same user and therefore cannot compete until another user adopts a draft and then competes it regularly in driving. There has been no increase in horses to be registered for combined driving either, which has made me consider getting rid of driving/combined driving altogether and not even bothering to think about those stats. As mentioned earlier, there is a big problem with the stigma about driving -- when it's driving, people think it's only for drafts -- which is not true, but I'm sure will perpetuate itself all the same. Combined driving, meanwhile, seems less like a draft event but requires a lot more work and equipment to produce horses suitable for it, and it will also certainly take me longer to judge. So at this point... I don't know what to do. I'd like to hear opinions from as many people as possible, and I want them to be honest, because at the end of the day, I need to know what to do about this and I cannot make that decision arbitrarily, because it isn't fair to have one person breeding horses for a discipline that has no interest and never being able to compete or sell the offspring as a result of that, nor is it fair to have one person entering eight horses in one discipline and one other person entering one horse so that the discipline still runs but the other person is never able to place well and it's just a straight moneymaker for the other user.

One possible solution is to have Carriage Driving and Combined Driving both exist, so that horses can be interbred between disciplines (like XC and jumpers or hunters and jumpers) and there's a wide variety of drivers out there, but again, there needs to be interest if we can do this. What do you guys think?

Many thanks for any answers! <3 Please note, however, that I want to hear actual opinions and/or suggestions -- "All of that sounds good" is really unhelpful to me because I need to make a decision here and want to know what you guys are actually thinking cx Thank you! <33

[caf.]

honestly, much of the reason i haven't had a lot of horses registered in driving is because i simply haven't encountered many that had high enough stats to justify them being used for it - even my draft stallion has better stats for western pleasure and dressage than for driving. most horses in-game nowadays have high stats in all the common event stats but don't seem to very cut out for any discipline besides these, so i do think that the problem could be solved by putting into the game a few horses with stats tailored to driving.

i think driving has, sadly, lost a lot of interest - i feel like there's not enough information and excitement out there for it. perhaps a (small) driving event could be in order? (i'm always willing to submit ideas for this!)

i'd love to see the discipline stay, but i honestly think it's a mixed problem of not enough skilled driving horses and not enough interested players.

as a side note, i feel like the cost on combined driving is a tad prohibitive - unless the three phases are opened up as competitions in their own right, i can't really see players paying 3x as much for a single discipline unless the prizes offered are particularly substantial.

[SydneyandStorm]

I appreciate the response, caf.! ^^ I have tried to make a few driving horses on occasion, but unfortunately they usually have high stats in another area too and then other people adopt them and use them for the other discipline they could be skilled in ^^' Of course, I'd like to introduce some PMU rescue horses with driving stats in the future if we choose to keep it, so maybe then cx

The combined driving one would be a lot like 3de -- so higher cost at first, but higher reward in the end ^^ I may also consider doing a western version of 3de but that would come later too xD I could see having a few of those events be separate though, maybe -- problem is that they aren't usually in real life so I'm not sure how realistic it would be to do that... What do you think?

[caf.]

my local eventing show facility is having a marathon driving competition this month - as well, driven dressage and obstacle cone driving often look a lot like the breed show classes i've been to! i wouldn't say it's terribly unrealistic - perhaps large-scale competitions of this type aren't so common, but then neither are driving shows in general, so i can see it being reasonable. i understandif it gets to be a lot for you to judge, though!

now that i think about it, perhaps the driving tack in general is somewhat deterrent as well. after all, most tack can be used for more than one purpose - driving tack, not so much. just a thought, not sure if it really matters enough to make a difference.

i do have one horse that could potentially be successful in driving or hunters (equal stats in both disciplines) - perhaps i could alternate him back and forth depending on which classes need more entries! since he's part of my feral horse program and not my event program, i wouldn't mind switching it up with him!

[Oddly Shaded]

I enter my horses into driving simply because their stats support it. My horses are bred for driving and i dont want to miss out because of that. If i enter them in something else they will lack and hence not win as big. Its all based on stats. So maybe introduce more draft breeds with driving stats to users who will actively use them?

[SydneyandStorm]

Well, in all fairness, we did have to do the same thing with gaited shows -- and the horses that were bred for that did have to just go with their second best discipline and then funnel the bonus stats to support that discipline ^^' Training, natural talent, and attitude also play a huge part as well, if that makes it any better -- I just can't support a discipline with only one person, and the test driving horses I've made haven't had driving assigned to them, you know? But of course, if there's enough interest, I'll be happy to keep it in -- I just can't make a ton of horses and have them all go to waste or all go to one person so that shows can't run ^^' I remember it was like that on the old RVEC thread, so I don't want that to be happening again! <3

[Galaxy Thoroughbred]

I would like to see driving continue and I would certainly put a horse in except I haven't got a draft. But I am very intrigued in Oddle Shaded's driving breeding programme but yeah. Perhaps one of my horses would have stats but currently, I'm on like 900 c XD. I am offering up a yearling though so maybe after I could perhaps invest in driving. I just think that there are a lot of more well like warmblooded sportssss.., that made no sense at all but like dressage and cross country and the such.

However I am truly interested in driving and competing but, lately I've just been a bit swamped with school here in Australia starting up again to think of showing. My main true purpose from the start was to breed and well, that's what I've been doing. But hopefully if the selling is a success I might try competing more avidly again.

[SydneyandStorm]

So is the general consensus to bring carriage driving back, promote combined driving more, or include both carriage driving and combined driving in the sim?