*Unlock Tags through Gameplay/Achievements

I'm so happy we now have basic tags for everyone! And now that it's a thing, I think it might be fun if you could unlock other tags through achievements (breeding a certain number of horses, participating in an event, winning 1st/2nd/3rd place in so many shows). This is probably way, way too complicated, but it could also be cool if you could change the color of the horse in the tag, based on the colors and breeds of the horses you've bred. I'm expecting this to be shot down right away, as I am well aware of the coding, art, and server space costs involved, but decided to mention it in case it sparks other ideas.

This whole idea may cost more art and server space-wise than it's worth, but it could be a neat way to show off some of the things you've accomplished in-game. Maybe other players could see the tags you've earned (there could be an option for disallowing other users to see you tag collection).

This is something I've seen on other sites, though those sites did not allow custom tags, which may render this entire idea moot in some of your eyes. But I still think it'd be a neat alternative if you don't have funds to buy your own tag or the skills to make one. Also, you wouldn't be able to get these tags in any other way than unlocking them, and if they looked nice people would probably still use them. I had a lot of fun on the sites trying to unlock more avatars, and something like this may encourage people to play the game more so they get this added bonus.

If this idea is added, I would also strongly encourage a database to be added where you can see all of the tags available (this would be a separate space from where you could choose a tag out of the ones you've unlocked). That way, people would know what tags they want to try for, and it would also limit confusion as to what's a custom tag and what's an unlocked one.

Last edited on 2017-11-08 at 11:02:04 by River

The only problem is that as soon as the first person unlocks it and displays the tag, Deluxe members can then just copy the image URL and paste it into their custom Tag box, making the achievements kind of irrelevant.

I think anything unlockable by achievements would have to be something that's not already customisable (e.g. tags and signatures) - maybe special tag "frames" or "nameplates", or any other idea that others may come up with.

Oh, that's true. I didn't think of that. Thanks for taking the time to comment on this, Abbey. : ) Maybe others will come by and have some ideas as well!

I really like this idea but Abbey has a great point unfortunately :P
tag frames would be cool as well, like if you had a horse in the top 10, 3rd, 2nd, or 1st spots in the hall of fame, you could have different colored frames with horseshoes and/or the horse's name, and if you as a player were in the hall of fame you could have a plain frame in different colors. If you had both then maybe the choice to pick between which one.

maybe there could also be different frames for collectibles. if you had all the plushies maybe a gold frame with a tiny plushie on top or something.
Participating in seasonal events could unlock more too

I don't support the additional tags, as I think that there are already plenty for the tagless to choose from.  Anything else should be an incentive to upgrade an support the site-not to mention to support tag artists if you can't do one yourself!  And of course that thing that Abbey mentioned.

But I DO support achievements in general! I think they could be fun and something fun to work towards, and could be displayed on our member pages. They can be all sorts of cute little icons and trophies, depending on what its for!

IE: "Happy Horse Trophy"- maintain 90% or more on your horse's happiness for 7 days straight.  "Trophy" or item displayed can be a pile of treats- apple, carrot, a few strewn peppermints!   There could even be a level of degrees- cardboard, bronze, silver, gold...platinum? 

Cardboard- 1 day
platinum- every single day of your horse's life

that sort of thing XD

I especially love the idea of achievements, and also the idea of the award for some of them being a tag that can't be used without you earning the achievement. I also like the idea of some sort of trophy cabinet where you and others could see all the awards you'd earned. Maybe the awards you hadn't earned yet could also be listed on that page, with progress bars showing how close you were to achieving them, which are replaced with the trophy image or similar once complete. Perhaps only some achievements would award a tag? Others would award different things, depending on context, difficulty, etc. Tags would make sense for image participation awards (snowball fight comes to mind - you could get one that aligns with your team).

Abbey has a good point that deluxe owners could easily just use the url of any image of someone else's achievement tag, so that's an issue that would have to be resolved. Abbey's suggestion of a tag frame or similar being used instead would work, although I don't know how much people would like a frame or other decoration on their tag. Personally, I'm ambivalent, and would much prefer tags.

Perhaps one solution to people using tags they hadn't earned would be for all earned tags to be customised to include your name? Then if someone did try to use yours it would just look silly and it would be obvious they weren't using their own. These semi-custom tags would be done automatically, same as how the old horse image system worked. It would just be a simple background image (the tag unique to the award) with the player's name added as text over top, aligned centre bottom, or something like that, then the whole thing merged into a single png image.