Would you want to bring back custom horse images?

sooo, would y'all wanna bring back custom horse images? I'm trying to think of ways to implement it that wouldn't be super hard for the mods to keep up on...

This isn't a suggestion- yet btw x3

Method of Implementation #1
Have a sort of "art Gallery" where you submit an image(600x450p or less, probably would have to save as JPG files to keep the size down, I'm not good with bytes and junk so I wouldn't know the file size), and a horse of your own, a moderator approves or denies it, and the image gets updated. There could be a fee between $5,000 and $15,000 maybe :3

I think it could be useful for grade horses(Feathers!!!), moveable decor, and different horse sizes+shades+markings, without having to code the decor, horse sizing, and make new art for markings and colors. Same with tack, we could make our own custom saddle pads, in different colors and styles. Same with racing tack! I really want clean white tack for my racehorses instead of silver :P And bell boots, polo wraps, and other leg wraps and boots :D 

Also this is a new method of polls without polls, just like one of my comments below to 'vote' :3 

Last edited on 2023-04-18 at 11:06:32 by 𝙺ᵃˡⁱ 𝙿ⁱᶜᵏˡᵉ'ˢ 𝙷ᵒʳˢᵉˢ

Yes! I would like this!

No, I wouldn't like it D:

Do you mean custom mages photo manipulations or semi custom photos based on breed art?

like being able to upload your own image in place of the existing artwork, as I heard was possible a great while ago at lvl30 :D

It was suggested before but was dismissed as copyright issues could arise. If EV would like to avoid copyright issues, moderators should check all images uploaded, but it could put a huge load on them.

I am neutral on this.

But, I do have one question regarding the copyright issue.

How does that differ from tags, layout manips, signatures, etc? There's a risk of copyright issues with selling tags and other artworks. I find it confusing that we allow those things but not custom horse images. Horse characters are a thing and it's basically the same. Creating custom artwork for our own horses is similar to creating a character.

Last edited on 2023-04-19 at 08:36:01 by Lucia

I agree with Lucia, why aren't tags a copyright issue? and how can free horse stock be verified as that?

but c'mon, feathered grade horses :3

Custom horse images were allowed but weren't used by anyone at the time (I only had a couple horses with them and I think 1 other person had one). This was when we only had horse art, so Abbey made the decision to remove custom images in favour of the new tack/decorations at the time. 

From a mod view, horses are a lot less visible than tags and signatures are, so they would be harder to moderate without any kind of acceptance system.  Tag / signature / art sales are moderated as much as you can realistically expect. Players can also report uncredited or suspect works for investigation if they are not for sale or know they are stolen/traced/etc.

However, given how players already abuse the flag for deletion function for no discernible reason than "clean up" and constantly flooding the backlog, I don't feel it would be fair to also be moderating an image submission system as an unpaid volunteer.

Personally, and not as a mod, I wouldn't be fussed if it was added or not. I've already used the system and found it more effort than it was worth to create single use art for each horse I wanted it on. Update fees could be interesting money sink but I think there would be complaints. Using it for things like size wouldn't seem like a bonus to me when it would be much easier to have it coded in, the only reason why it hasn't been already is because of the breed art already being fixed sizes, so you can only scale them down and not up, the height would be inconsistent across breeds. So it's pretty meh to me at this point. 

This would also be better as a suggestion if you are wanting a poll? It can still be discussed and voted on there.

Last edited on 2023-04-19 at 10:42:40 by maplɛ

@ Maple,

We can easily set up a report link on every horse with custom images. If someone notices, they can report it. TBH, if nobody notices it, then there's no harm or legal risk since nobody is aware of its existence. As soon as someone notices it, they can report it.

As for mods, yes, I do agree that we shouldn't add more burden to the current mods alone. If we ever introduce that feature, I think we should expand our mod team (and replace the inactive ones). We also can divide up roles instead have mods doing it all. Have a mod that is in charge of deleting posts and another one in charge of image reports, etc. As you said, it's an unpaid volunteer so there's no harm in hiring more mods. I understand if we paid mods and we couldn't afford to hire more. It's an unpaid job, we can hire as many mods as we need and it will cost EV nothing.

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Personally, I rather have more official breed arts for recognized crossbreeds. I like it when the art style looks uniform. However, if we aren't doing that, then I think we should allow our players to create their own art. We have a bunch of grade horses that do not match their current artwork. It would be nice if a drum horse actually look like a drum horse not some kind of generic warmblood. I've been to games that have a toggle option where we can turn off all in-game tacks, decor, etc so it will not clash with custom images. We can do the same thing here.

Last edited on 2023-04-19 at 11:17:37 by Lucia

Re: "I think we should expand our mod team (and replace the inactive ones)."

Indeed. It appears that River, Maple, and Eliza D are the only truly active mods :( And IMO 6 total mods isn't really fair to you guys to do all the work here, considering y'all have lives outside of EV. 10 would probably be fairer, especially because of timezones. Maybe 2 mods to approve horse images and the other 8 to do all the other mod-ly things...

The problem would still be the lack of visibility even if you added a report button. It's not always players that report, sometimes the owners of the image themselves might find it -and they aren't very happy that it is being used or not been taken down before then. It could quickly get out of control and unmanageable in a worst case scenario. 

I just don't think custom images would be likely to return as we have decor and different weights/images for grades have been discussed and mentioned in the roadmap further down the line. It's a lot of effort to have the art done. 

Just because mods aren't visibly active doesn't mean they are not moderating the discord or helping with behind scene things i.e bug testing and information. It's really not necessary to have more than 3-4 moderators for a game this size, 10 would be a bit too much. 

@ Maple,

From our acknowledgment, there's zero confirmation for Grade Horse artworks. So far, it's just an idea that gets discussed. There are plenty of ideas that got discussed and ended up in the trashcan or forgotten deep inside a dusty filing storage. To me, as long as it's not confirmed, we shouldn't block any similar suggestions. Assuming that we will get artwork without any official confirmation would be a mistake. Obviously, I would rather have official artwork, but as I said, I rather have custom art instead of nothing. There's the possibility that official artwork will be abandoned and then we have nothing. 

I wouldn't suggest that we move forward with this until we know for sure that we aren't getting official artwork, tho. I think this should serve as a potential backup plan if the official artwork plan fell through.

If we are truly that concerned about the lack of traffic. We can simply create a system where players submit their custom artwork for approval before they can add it to their horse. Something similar to a popular dog online sim game that cannot be named here. That will prevent stolen artwork from being published. Again, we can simply hire a mod or two that is dedicated to the artwork only.

Last edited on 2023-04-19 at 13:29:36 by Lucia

Like what I said with the Art Gallery, submit a horse and an image, a mod approves it, and then it gets updated.