DEBATE: Lethal genes on Equiverse

No support,

I do support realism in this game. To an extent. Adding lethal genes would frustrate a lot of people and make them game more difficult to enjoy.

Creating pairings already takes some people (like me!) **hours**! Add in the possibility that some goals may die after being born due to a lethal gene would be a nightmare.

People put in a lot of time and thought to building up their herds. Please don't take the fun out of our pixel ponies.   :(

I wouldn't like this new addition. 

With some of the breeds, there aren't a lot of options in terms of gaining good stats along with a good conformation. Adding a lethal white gene makes breeding harder for some of the smaller breeds. 

I am also not a gene junkie and I'm not sure that I would recognize a lethal white gene if it showed up in one of my horses.

This is a summary of my own research so far:

A summary of all the known white genes:
W1: white spotting as a foal, solid white as adult. Not present in any breed on EV? Maybe lethal homozygous.
W2: consistently solid white, found in TBs. Maybe not lethal homozygous.
W3: very close to solid white, found in Arabians. Probably lethal homozygous.
W4: probably solid white. Not present in any breed on EV.
W5-W8: sabino-like spotting. Found in Tbs (W5-W7), Paints (W5) or Icelandics (W8).
W9: solid white. Not present in any breed on EV.
W10: ranges from minimal sabino-like markings to solid white. Found in American Quarter Horses and Paints.
W11: solid white. Not present in any breed on EV.
W12: sabino-like, found in TBs. Could be lethal homozygous?
W13: solid white. Maybe found in quarter horses?
W14: solid white, found in TBs.
W15: sabino-like when heterozygous, solid white when homozygous, found in Arabians.
W16-W17: solid white. Not present in any breed on EV.
W18: sabino-like. Not present in any breed on EV.
W19: more minimal sabino-like markings, probably found in Arabians. Predicted to be "probably damaging".
W20: very minimal on its own - usually heterozygous makes 2 socks on rear legs, homozygous makes 4 socks and blaze, but W20 paired with another W allele can create solid white or extensive white horses. Found in many breeds, very common.

Sources: source1 source2 source3


So in reference to the breeds on EV:

Arabians:
- W3 is probably equivalent to EV's W, and is probably lethal homozygous, although Arabians don't have W on EV.
- W15 seems to be labelled Sb on EV, as Arabians technically don't have Sb1. Definitely not lethal.
- W19 is too rare to justify being included here.

Thoroughbreds:
- W2 is probably equivalent to EV's W, but is not lethal.
- W5 seems to be labelled Sb on EV, as Thoroughbreds technically don't have Sb1. It's probably lethal homozygous.
- W6, W7, W12, W14 may be too rare to justify being included here.

Quarter Horses:
- W10 is sabino-like and could be considered loosely equivalent to EV's W even though solid white is atypical and rare. It's probably lethal homozygous.
- W13 may be too rare to justify being included here.

Paints:
- Has W5, which is sabino-like, so EV's W doesn't appear to be equivalent to this. Sb1 is separate to this.
- W10 - same as for Quarter horses.

Tennessee Walking Horse
- Maybe have W1 and W3, but it's unclear. Possibly others.

Appaloosa:
- Might be the same as Thoroughbreds and Quarter Horses, i.e. W5, W10, W2?, but no clear data available.

Shetland Pony, Mustang, Chincoteague, Minis, Gypsy:
- Insufficient data. It's not clear what sort of W gene is present (if any) or whether it's lethal.
- The white horses I've been able to find so far for these breeds are due to other genes, e.g. Lp, Sb1, etc.
- W20 present in most breeds, but this only causes minimal markings, and is not lethal homozygous.

So to summarise: it looks like making WW lethal is not simple or uniformly justified, since the equiverse W gene is fictional, and only loosely based on existing genes. So for some breeds lethal homozygous will be correct, for others it won't be. OO is pretty clear cut though.

The following breeds have some sort of homozygous lethal dominant white gene:
Solid white gene: Arabians, Quarter Horses (maybe), Tennessee Walking Horses (maybe).
White spotting gene: Thoroughbreds, Quarter Horses, Paints.

The following breeds have dominant white genes that are not lethal homozygous:
Solid white gene: Thoroughbreds
White spotting gene: Shetland Pony, Mustang, Appaloosa, Chincoteague, Minis, Gypsy

Last edited on 2017-05-06 at 19:49:40 by UlyssesBlue

 SO here is my opinion. I see a lot of very high priced stallions some of which are still too expensive for me to consider breeding to. If say a $100,000 stallion is a carrier of the lethal gene would it not reduce the value of said stallion? I know I wouldn't choose to use a $100,000 stallion carrying a lethal gene for any of my mares. Also will the stallion owners be guarenteeing a live birth with a partial refund or free rebreeding if the foal dies like some do in real life?

  I only occasionally ID genetics I would be forced to ID all of my horses to guarentee I am not passing on these genes. That's a lot of money for me to spend to know what I have in my barns.
  I am against this I find this game relaxing and having this new system added would make the game stressful for me and no longer fun to play
 

Appaloosa would likely have anything that QH and TB has due to interbreeding.

@UlyssesBlue - Etalon is a joke, but that's not for here. I can elaborate privately though, if that's of any interest.

That said, the list is fairly accurate, except for the fact that many of the horses from "all-white" horse families test heterozygous for their family mutation and W20, and some with more sabino-like spotting or very little white at all just have their family mutation, meaning the W20 is what is making them "all-white" by boosting their family mutation.

There are also W21 which has been found in an Icelandic horse and W22 in the Airdrie Apache line of Thoroughbreds (many members being heterozygous with W20 as well).

There is actually no scientific evidence to suggest, let alone support, the idea that any of these mutations (besides W4) are homozygous lethal because there have been few, if any, breedings of heterozygous family members together.

Tennessee Walkers don't have any known W mutations other than W20 and Sabino-1. Just for educational purposes.

In my opinion, W should not be homozygous lethal in the game. I never stated otherwise. Nor should it be a catch-all all-white gene. I would love for there to be at least three mutations of it - one to represent a mutation that actually causes an all-white phenotype, one that causes a more sabino-like phenotype, and one that is essentially W20. Mostly because adding 21 new white spotting mutations to the game would be insane, and most of them are family-specific anyway, none of those families actually existing in the game.



Frame? Definitely. I would definitely like for frame to be homozygous lethal in game...

Agreed, vos. I think having multiple dominant white genes would make a lot of sense. Most are too rare to justify being included on EV, but the very common ones seem to be W5, W10, and W20. All are vaguely sabino-like on their own, but a mix of two different ones tends to result in solid white, or close to it. W5 and W10 are homozygous lethal, but W20 is not. Homozygous W20 just gives four socks and a blaze.

If you wanted to expand on this you may also be able to justify adding W2 to just the Thoroughbreds and W3 to just the Arabians, which have solid or near-solid white phenotypes, but only the latter is homozygous lethal. And if you're going to change genes, then you might as well rename Arabian's Sb as W15, and rename Thoroughbred's Sb as W5, although in the latter case this would be non-trivial as that would mean you'd end up with some W5W5 horses, which should be lethal. Perhaps make all such horses W5W20? Since TBs have W20, and the phenotype of that would be solid white.

@Kuk
Thanks for the info. I've updated my other post.

I do not support this. I support being realistic, but it would make the game more frustrating to play for me and many others, because the foals would die after a day, and I don't support so many dead horses.

I like the idea of having lethal genes, but I love biology and genetics. With the warning Abby mentioned it would allow players who weren't genetic geeks to play. It would also add another layer to the game for people who do like challenges. 

I voted but no but I would change that to yes if the warning was added.

Boy, I lock my account for a bit & come back to a discussion about genes that would kill foals. That will teach me to move! lol!

Okay, so I am terrible at understanding genetics and really only know how to breed for chestnuts (Chestnut Clyde obsession). I like my genetics explanations as dumb downed as possible. With that said, I did take the time to read all of the descriptions & explanations in this post. Now Os, Ws & numbers are swirling around my brain.

After piecing & puzzling everything together this is what I've come up with for those of us who are less knowledgeable about genetics. I think I've got everything correct. Ready?

• 1. If these genes are implemented we will NOT have to reveal all the genos of our horses. This is because the color white & the marking Overo (Frame) are shown right on the horse's page for free.



• 2. It should be EASY to try to avoid these genes. Just try NOT to breed horses together whose colors are listed as white or whose markings are listed as Overo (Frame).



• 3. For the genetics challenged like myself, even if I did begin the breeding process with 2 white or 2 Overo (Frame) horses, per Abbey a beautiful warning would pop up to catch our attention.

Wait!  These two horses both have a dominant Overo allele.  It's possible for these two horses to breed a Lethal White foal - are you sure you want to continue?

• 4. Lastly, should a genetics challenged, very tired or terribly distracted player happen to miss the above warning and still breed the 2 white or 2 Overo (Frame) horses together then there is only a 25% chance of the foal having these lethal genes. Which also means we have a 75% chance of the foal NOT receiving these genes, therefore, not dying at birth.

I think you summer it up beautifully Valzed and I appreciate the time you took to do that!

Well summarised, Valzed. Only a few small corrections:

- if a horse has both white AND overo, their colour will be listed as white, and the only way to tell they have overo would be to genetically test them. So in this rare and unusual case genetic testing may be necessary, but that's it. Even if you don't, I think you'll still get the warning message come up if you tried to breed this horse to another overo, so you'd still know about it without spending money on the horse.

- White and Overo aren't the only colour/pattern names you'd have to watch out for. There's also Frame Splash, Tovero, etc (i.e. overo with another pattern present). Basically if the pattern contains any of the words Frame, or Overo or Tovero, then the horse is Oo.

I'm glad I got most of it right. My brain still hurts. ;) 

I actually geno test all of my horses so for me I'd be able to see if a horse was white & overo. But if the warning still popped up then those who don't geno test would still not have to invest the extra funds. (I know would feel better & more secure if the warning still popped up for this particular combo.)

Hmm... well, even if we add Frame Anything & Tovero to the list of things to avoid it's still a small list and hopefully one we could all remember. The guideline would be to NOT breed any 2 horses who are listed as white or have markings listed of Overo, Frame Anything, or Tovero.

I hope I've gotten it all straight now.... 

Just be glad horses in the game don't have a range of expression for each pattern gene... Frame horses in real life can have absolutely no physical indication of carrying O. That would make things super complicated XD