*Stable Hands

(I don't know if this has ever been discussed before, since I never use the forums. I apologize in advance if I am dragging something up.)

I used to play a horse sim (that has since shut down) that allowed other players to be "hired" as stable hands. You had to send a "helper request" and when accepted they could help look after your horses for you, eg. Feeding, mucking out, showing, etc. They used your resources. If the employer ran out of feed, or brushes, the stable hand could send them some of theirs and bill them later. There was no set fee for stable helpers, players agreed on fees privately. Helpers were limited, and couldn't breed, sell, or move your horses.

Why add this?
There's no need to lock your account for short term absences, weekends, trips, etc. Hiring yourself out as stable hand could also be a way to make some cash for players with extra time on their hands.

Problems:
There was a lot of "good faith" transactions with this, but I never ran into any trouble with the small community I played with. With this larger game, there may be more issues. Maybe a system that allowed the hired hand to "collect pay" after each horse was fed, watered, brushed, and mucked out. The pay would come out of the owner's bank account. I also don't know how hard this would be to code, so it may not be practical to implement.

Thanks for your time and consideration,
~Dren

Last edited on 2017-08-10 at 10:53:47 by River

I know the site you are talking about, it was Capalls I think and that was a pretty awesome feature and allowed the stable hand to make income.

Or members could offer their services In order to get money (take care of the horses, show them ect.)?

You're right Mic, it was Capalls. :)

Yes Orla, my thinking exactly!

I need this because I am lazy. ~

SOMEONE ELSE WAS ON CAPALLS? OMG OMG OMG

anyway! I remember this!! It was really really useful! It could be great, I mean ofc I 'd be picky and only let people I trust help out. But it could be super helpful, even if just for people with a TON of horses who can't always show them all or something.

I think this would be interesting feature to add only in case if there is a system of assigning treats similar to what we had at old EV. This way there would be a guarantee that a stable hands won't mess up with treats. But this is just my opinion, I'm a bit of freak control when it comes to my horses. 😜

I'm a little on the fence about it. What if the hired person didn't get on for some reason while you're gone? What if that period of time was long enough for your horses to die from neglect? It's a good idea in theory... But I could see things going wrong, since it's not a failsafe.

And Rook, I believe Abbey will be adding assigned treats which will be included in auto-care.

I am on fence as well..
I love the idea of stable hand because it will give people who can't do art a different way to earn income (like me! I can't do art but I know that I will make good stable hand).

However, I am concerned about trust system. It would be horrible if someone hired someone and ends up losing all horses due to neglect. If we can come up with a system to prevent that, then I am supporting this.

Maybe, stable hand will lose money every time they didn't do their job?
Like we set price:
Care: $50
Training: $100
Showing: $100

If stable hand fed horse and training, but didn't show, they lose money like they will pay $100 to owner. It will encourage stable hand to do their job.

It wouldn't be perfect, but what if the job was automatically put back up into the 'market' for job hunting if the person assigned to those horses didn't do the work for a certain period of time? The creator of the jobs could set the time at which the job would go up for market. There could also be a notification if the stablehand didn't fulfill the job. But such a system may not be enough to keep players safe, and it would require a lot of coding. :/

I would say no but I did not click the do not support. It would be easy enough for me not to hire outsiders if this was added. I would much rather pay an AI hand to do the work, or lock.

Perhaps if the job of stable hand wasn't assigned to a particular player, but just had an open advertisement on a job board (not a forum board, something automated), where it was a first come first served basis, and anyone could take on the task, and do some or all of the needed task, and others could do what was left and so on, and they'd receive money based on how much they did. Did that make sense?

Horses dying/being sent to the rescue under someone else's care is a very valid reason for saying no. The game I mentioned before didn't have those risks.

What if the owner could set their account to automatically lock if their horses weren't taken care of for more than 24-48 hours?

Perhaps this game is better suited to locking accounts during hiatuses, but a stable hand could still work with you while you were actively playing, like Zell mentioned. I'm sure taking care of hundreds of horses can be tedious. ;P

i love this idea because sometimes i do not get on and forget to lock my divisions or account. but theres worry of a stable hand not doing his or her job well mabey there culd be multiple stable hands because i know nobody is on every single day all the time

I think multiple stable hands is a good idea.