Has private breeding slowed down the game?

I don't think wiping the game would be a wise move, I think a lot of players would straight up quit tbh. I think a recode is very unlikely when Equiverse is considered a completed and playable game. It does have problems that should have been dealt with years ago I agree, but we're only seeing the impact of that in the last couple years. Steps have been taken to try fixing it but more need to be taken. 

I also disagree with different currencies for decoration/selling art. I don't understand the constant annoyance with the art community, yes it's a sim game but EVERY sim game with a forum has some kind of art community, and it's all horse art at the end of the day, and another form of income. You don't have to participate in it, but trying to exclude it just because it just happens to quite popular with players isn't very fun either. 

Resetting/curbing the stats, I would agree with. But not getting rid of everything. I think you underestimate how attached people get to pixel ponies on here.

I would honestly quit the game if it was reset. I don't do much with the horse side of EV, but I do enjoy the horses I have and I would be quite upset if they were wiped just because some think that a total wipe would benefit the game.

As for the art community having art specific currency. I don't agree with that either. Like maple said, every sim game that I've been on has some form of art community. This particular art community has the best price to art ratio that I've seen. Also, this is the only place that I can usually almost always afford art for the characters that I've purchased. I can't always afford to buy art on DA or other sites, because it's expensive. The art community here isn't really hurting anything. If you don't like the art community on the game, you don't have to participate. 

Maple, I do get very attached to my pixel ponies lol. Take, for example, The Legend of Zelda, Breath of the Wild. I get visibly horrified if my horse takes the slightest bit of damage :') I find that my pixel ponies are very reliable, not to mention cute. I just like having them, an entire collection, if you will, as I cannot(yet) irl. I don't think a major recode is necessary, but a few bigger updates for functionality would be much appreciated.

"The art community here isn't really hurting anything. If you don't like the art community on the game, you don't have to participate."

I have to disagree with this. The art community is the primary reason behind the current economy being a hot mess. It's extremely harmful to the game's economy. I am not sure what games everyone else is talking about but other games I am familiar with don't allow buying and selling artwork. They are okay with sharing, trading, etc but it is not allowed when it comes to selling and buying. Other games I used to play also monitored their art community heavily and are very strict with their rules when it comes to selling and buying. The biggest difference that set EV apart from other games is that I noticed is that EV has a lot of players who only come here solely for arts, not the horse game. A lot of active artists have their horses locked infinitely or they just simply don't own any horses.

From what I've seen, the art community plays a big role in determining the valuation of EVD and EVC. If an artist decided that 1 EVC equals 300k EVD, almost everyone will follow. They also can afford to pay 300k for 1 EVC when most of the non-artists cannot. They do that because they can afford it but when they do that, they basically blocked most of the non-artists' chances at buying credits. The art community also is a primary driver behind the inflation that screws up the economy even further.

I am sorry but I do not think the artists should hold that kind of power especially when most of them don't even play the game anymore. I think the art community needs to be heavily regulated at least to make sure that they don't get free reign over the economy again. Otherwise, they will just hoard money and just sit on a pile of credits and millions because they don't play the game. They will only spend it on arts so all credits and money will only go to the art community instead of back into the game.

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As for the Recode.

I am not sure why it's "unnecessary" since EV is "completed". I know plenty of completed games that undergo recode to modernize and improve things. I know a few games that created v2 with the intention to leave the v1 running as is because of players being attached to their pixels. They ended up shutting down v1 every time because everyone abandoned v1 for v2 as soon as it was up and running. I guess it's just me but I've been to many recodes and did a lot of beta testing so I am used to losing my pixel horses. I've seen it happen many times and the game always survives despite players claiming that they will leave because they will lose their horses. I think everyone here overstates how attached everyone is to their pixels. I've seen this in every game, tbh. Most players ended up embracing the changes once they realized that the changes actually are good and that they enjoyed the new version. Harsh, but new players quickly replaced the ones who left.

I can't see how we can improve the game with all existing horses, tbh. Based on what I heard and saw with the current EV's code system, it sounds extremely complicated. If we make some kind of modification, we will have to expect that the lines will be broken and genetically inaccurate. IMO, I would leave the game if we go down that path again. It will make EV look extremely unprofessional with all lines being extremely inaccurate and unkempt. From what I've seen, it already has happened several times in the past such as culled breeds getting to be switched into different breeds resulting in a bunch of inaccurate pedigrees. It's one of the reasons why I avoided long lines like the black death plague.

Last edited on 2022-11-22 at 18:54:18 by 𝕷𝖚𝖈𝖎𝖆

I think it's not the whole art community that is the problem, but rather, as you said, the ones that don't play or have their horse locked. I also don't like how the art community has the power to decide how much EVD 1 Credit is worth. Abbey could(and maybe should) just say, "1 credit is worth about 75k. If you want to sell credits, you can go above or below that a little, but no more than 300k credits." or something like that, just give us a rough amount of how much 1 EVC should be worth. I wonder if maybe something could be done about the 'Art Comm. Nobles' that hoard EVC and EVD, maybe just give them a warning that, "Hey, that's not really fair to the rest of the players and is ruining the economy, plus, it's not how EV is meant to be played."

Edit: I just checked and Yeon is still sitting on 477,051,498 EVD and said that they still check in to deal with people. So, why can't they give away their money to, say, 100 people? That way, the entire fortune is divided among only the dedicated breeders or something.

Last edited on 2022-11-23 at 10:31:38 by Kali Pickles Horses

i think this is all a bit off from the topic of private breeding sorry, but it's strange to see blame being put on artists with no talk about EVC being much more accessible to people with money in real life. anyone with enough money can buy tons of EVC and list them for $600k or so, driving prices higher and higher over the years. is the reasoning that they are supporting EV financially, so there's no need to criticize their effect on EVC pricing?

in my opinion, if we're going with the angle that artists who have played EV for decades should "just go" because their advantage is affecting other people, then anyone who spends money on EV should be seen the same way because of the advantage they gain over the rest of us by spending real money.

So how is it that they're ruining the horse side of the economy if they're not playing it? To me it looks like there's a split of the art side and then the horse side. The horse side sells their horses for what they like and they don't worry about how much EVD other people have from what I've seen. (I could be wrong though, just stating from my view) The art side determines what their art is worth. Most artists that accept EVC in their sales equal 1 EVC to 100k-150k EVD. I've even seen some that equal it 1 EVC = 75k EVD. The artists aren't the ones hiking the price of EVC up. It's players who sell the EVC in the Credit Shop's Credit Sales tab. Also if you look, the art community is big here. By telling them to go back to DA is in a way gatekeeping the game. This is a horse Sim with an art forum. There's going to be art. 

As for the other sims, we can't talk about them here. So I'll say this. I've played another very well known horse Sim. The art community is huge there and the prices are outrageous and unaccessible to most newer players unless they hard core play the game for a solid year. There's another horse Sim that has a big art community that I've played. It's a bit more accessible to newer or "poorer" players than the other. I've also played a lion Sim where their credits equaled 1 mil of their currency. Same thing with a wolf Sim i played. It was outrageous.

Yeah, art prices don't seem to be the big issue. Collaboration and a stagnant market seem much more pressing. 

I spent a lot of time loking through horses lately, and it seems like a lot of lined horses are either private or there's inbreeding. It means that it takes a lot to actually get clean lines, so I can see why people can be protective of those lines. And what was pointed out about finding people with similar goals that are equally active is seems spot on. It might be a controversial take, but...maybe EV needs to keep the breeds limited or limit them even further. 

The idea to wipe the database and give like... a certain number of custom horse vouchers to each player seems fair to me. And players who don't do the horse part of the game could always trade or sell off the vouchers they didn't want. But players attached to their pixel ponies can recreate them. A fresh start could perhaps allow everyone to vote on what breeds and specialties to prioritize. Then maybe if growth among the player base is good, for each EV anniversary a new breed could be added in?

You have such a good point, I'm not sure where I stand anymore. I have seen some outrageous credit sales for just shy of 1mil... And with the horse vouchers, maybe if someone has say, 83 horses they can choose how many horse vouchers they get as long as it's within their original number. That way, we could recreate our horses, but the players with 1000+ horses can choose to get only 100 or so horse vouchers instead the full 1000. And I have seen some horses for sale that are up for more than they might be worth, and the same with items. There are people trying to sell Winner's Circle backgrounds for 250,000 EVD, though they may just be listed to get it out of their inventory, I'm not sure.

@ Deer Creek:
If the art community and horse community are 100% split, then yes it will be a non-issue. However, there are a lot of non-artist players who buy art and etc. Therefore, we have money from the horse's side moving to the art's side and that money is most likely to remain on the art's side infinitely instead of returning to the horse's side. The art community is hoarding the money and credit from the horse community and keeping it mostly inside the art community. In order to keep the economy healthy, money needs to be constantly moving back and forth instead of staying on the art side. 

Right now, the art community slowed down a lot so it seems like it's not a major problem right now. A lot of artists who don't play the game started to leave the community for good as well. However, it's a different story if you take a look at its history. There are times when the art community activity was extremely high. I mean, I heard about this game for years prior to joining, and the most common thing I heard about the game was "the game is broken and mostly dead but the art community is very active and really good." I didn't bother to join for many years because I am not interested in a dead game until someone told me that the game is still alive and mostly functional just that it's not as well known due to the art community. There are posts talking about issues of jacking up the prices in the art community, etc. You need to remember that EV is in this version for years. We are seeing the result of years of running. Right now, we are in the middle of a recession as well. 


The Biggest Problem in EV
1. The Horse Market
2. The Economy

I think it's important to fix BOTH not one or the other in order to ensure the game's success and thrive properly. In some way, they are also connected.

The Horse Market
We already began to discuss some of this. We like to blame it on the private breeders but if we take a look at the roots of the problems, we will always find that it's due to how the current game system is designed and due to the oversaturated market. We cannot fix the oversaturated market without wiping the slate clean. We will need to do the recode to change how the breeding, training, and showing system work. 

The Economy
We need to stabilize the economy. We need to control inflation as well. Right now, the cheapest credit available in the credit sale is $688,888. The reality is that the credit will NEVER reach that level if nobody is buying them for that price. Therefore, there are players who can afford to pay $500,000 per credit which allows the seller to realize that they can jack up the price higher and higher to test out what's the maximum price the buyer is willing to pay. The seller wants to ensure that they receive the maximum profit they can get out of credit.

We need to understand that the inflation caused by the art community will impact the rest of the game in the long term. The artists who don't play the game are more likely to have more wealth than non-artists that's playing the game. Suppose the artist needed a credit to buy an artwork, so that artist brought a credit for $500,000 since she can afford it and she felt that the art does worth the price. Now, the seller sees that 1 credit = $500,000 instead of $75,000. That seller decided to sell a customized horse since she is switching the breed. Do you seriously think the seller will sell that horse for a reasonable price below $100,000? No, that seller will jack up the horse's price to above $100,000 and justify it by explaining that they paid 15 credits to customize that horse. Theoretically, that horse should be worth over 7.5mil so the fact that it's being on sale for just above $100,000 is generous. Now, we have a horse with a jacked-up price and someone probably will buy it because it's a customized horse. 15 credits are impossible to get now since it's $500k per credit now so it's actually cheaper to buy that horse instead of creating your own customized horse. Everyone else will start to price their horses accordingly to match the market. With the market being hard to navigate, we will see the number of players switching to private breeding growing. The market becomes oversaturated and the horses start to lose their value because nobody is buying them now. Bam, recession. That's where we are right now. All of these happened over years, not right away. 

Last edited on 2022-11-23 at 08:07:22 by 𝕷𝖚𝖈𝖎𝖆

Wow, that was explained really well! I'm worried that people will just leave EV because the economy is falling apart, instead of sticking around to push to fix it. Right now, EV has 37,378 players. A sim game I used to play has 16.7k players right now. When I was playing it, it did have much more, but the difference is the horses. We have 813,073 horses. The other game has 3 disciplines: Dressage, Show Jumping, and Cross Country. Plus the Eventers do all 3. The inventing horse pop. is 1.1mil, the Dressage is at 54,992, 51k XC horses, and 44k Jumpers. So even though we have more players, they have more horses. Plus, 900 foals were born today alone. So the issue isn't the number of players, it's the players that are actually playing for the horses. Their art community allows changing the horse artwork to make it feel like yours. So, when someone buys artwork, there is not a single player with 0 horses, so the money spent on art goes back into the horse/art community, as they are 1. I think we are too divided in some ways.

My apologies, Yeon :( I did not know that you did raffles, I never participate in anything like that. You did earn that fortune, but might I ask: how does one acquire so many credits? if you got a good amount of them from other players, does that not mean that you are sitting atop credits that other people paid their own money for? but dang, that's a lot of money :o

oh, and btw I did say 'could', not that you should. 'tis merely an idea, not a suggestion or something that I think is necessary.

Last edited on 2022-11-23 at 09:30:53 by Kali Pickles Horses

@Kali - You've said it yourself in another post that you have only been a part of EV for 20 something days, so around a month. You haven't seen the raffles that Yeon has posted, because the last one that he posted was several months ago. He has earned every bit of the money that he sits on. His art is absolutely PHENOMENAL and very well sought after. So just the fact that he has offered to raffle off his art and not sell it, shows how generous he's been in the past. His art could very well go for $25+ USD because it's so good, but he chooses to sell the adopts and customs he makes for less. As for the credits that Yeon has, it's simple. People have paid for his art in credits. If I'm not mistaken, he priced his credits for 50k-100k EVD so 40 EVC would equal 20 mil EVD at 50k per 1 EVC. I've gladly paid 20 EVC for some of Yeon's work. As well as happily paid 10 mil, because the art is WORTH it. 

@Lucia - A lot of those non-artist players also sell art they've gotten from other places as well. So the art community is trading the EVD around. I'm sorry. I just don't understand your point, so we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Unfortunately, Yeon's statement kind of proves my point on the art community hoarding all currency. While I can see that Yeon is sitting on 500mil (which is a very common sight for well-known artists), I can't see that they have 300+ credits. The horse's side could've used those credits for upgrades, auto tools, genetics tweaks, etc. Personally, I struggled to gather the necessary credits to get 6 months upgrade and auto care because there are not enough credits in the market. The few credits that are in the market are priced so high that a single credit could wipe out my bank. I also have to compete against wealthier players in buying credits. The wealthier players are willing to pay 200k while I only can afford 60k per credit at that time. It's frustrating to hear that someone is sitting on 300+ credits when it could've gone back into the market and helped drive down the ridiculous prices. It makes me wonder how many inactive artists are sitting on a large number of credits that could've been gone back into the market.

With low supply and high demand, it's natural that the price will be extremely high and we will be dealing with a major shortage. If we have a high supply to meet the demands, then we won't be dealing with high prices and shortages.


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We also have a whole another problem of players not being willing to pay their IRL money for credits as well. Personally, I can afford to buy credits with my IRL money but I choose to not due to my low confidence in EV's longevity. I already mentioned this in another thread but I've been to a few games that got shut down overnight and I am worried that EV may go down this path since I am seeing signs of it. I don't feel comfortable wasting money on a game that potentially will disappear overnight.