*Multiple registries for a single club

In real life breed registries it is common for them to have multiple 'books', where different types or quality of horses belong in each one, depending on breed standards and such. For example, a horse that meets at least 90% of the ideal breed standard might go in the Elite book, while the rest in the Main book, and crossbreeds that may make good breeding stock in the Appendix book. Or sometimes it's split by body type as there's different sub-types within a breed, so Book A might be for more solid draft-type horses, Book B might be for more slimmer smaller horses, and Book C might be for ponies. This helps address the fact that in some breeds different breeders can focus on very different things, making it easy for horses of a single breed to all be registered in the one spot, while still providing some segregation that makes it easy to find only certain types of horses.

In the context of EV, a club that wanted multiple books for their registry could have separate books for the main breed disciplines, maybe others for high stat horses of particular disciplines, another for high conformation horses, and perhaps another for horses with desirable colours. They would choose what books to have and how many, and their requirements, rather than it being a game-defined setting. Players would just submit their horses for registration as normal, then the president would decide which book(s) a horse would be placed in via checkboxes, or reject it entirely. It would function a little like horse divisions, especially when viewing the stud book or registry. On a horse's page where it lists registrations it could now say "Registered with the Gypsy Vanner Club: Conformation Book and Elite Dressage Book", or similar. It should be possible to move horses between books after they're registered, as they may change colour, stats or discipline over their lifetime, such that it makes them eligible for other books, or ineligible for their current one.

At the moment we often have a bit of a one-size-fits-all registry with clubs, as breeders can focus on lots of different things, which means registries don't really offer any benefit in terms of distinguishing registered horses apart from unregistered horses. By having multiple books within a club some would be more elite and desirable than others, thus providing that distinguishing mark and encouraging registration, without excluding any horses or breeders from the club. This would keep all breeders of that breed in the one spot, hence helping keep the club active and social without splitting players amongst multiple separate clubs all doing roughly the same thing.

Although this system would create a lot more work for presidents, it would be optional as to whether a club has more than one book, and with the proposed game feature of clubs and groups getting merged, and allowing up to 10 admins, I think the workload would be manageable amongst so many people.

I'm keen to hear what everyone thinks of this idea, get suggestions, critique, etc.

Last edited on 2017-08-10 at 11:13:40 by River

This sounds very helpful, especially if this was used for the stud book as well, it would help people looking for studs find studs that go well with their mares.