[ADDED] Account auto-lock

Sometimes life happens and you can't always get on Equiverse to take care of your horses. I'm thinking that for deluxe members who've likely spent a great deal of time and effort building bloodlines, account auto-lock would protect their ponies. After 3 or 5 days wihout logging in, their account and horses would lock until the user logs in and unlocks the account. This solves the dilemma about sending an inactive user's horses to the rescue center vs. deceasing them. Thoughts?

Quote from UlyssesBlue: "Sometimes life does happen, and it's not always possible to get online. For you guys with great mobile coverage, good quality internet services, and no chronic illnesses or similar, you'll probably never have this issue, but not everyone is as lucky as you, and I feel we should be empathic to those who have to cope with this sort of stuff. Resurrecting an entire herd is prohibitively expensive. This suggestion provides a good means for people to protect their work. "

Edit: Can be an optional setting if you don't want it enabled - originally suggested as a deluxe feature. The reasoning behind that is that there is a credit item that can be used to revive your horses, and I don't want to take money away from Equiverse that is being used to support it.

Last edited on 2016-05-19 at 09:09:12 by Demure (Jenneth)

I don't Support because there are basic members who put a lot of time into their lines and they can't always be on as well. All of my money on here go's towards my lines, shows, care, etc. I'm pretty serious about my lines. Just because we don't have a deluxe account doesn't mean we aren't serious about our lines.

I think this should be available for all members.

I'm a deluxe. I don't think that it's something that's needed. The nice thing about people not locking up is that it does actually clear out horses so that the game doesn't get clogged up with horses in locked accounts that people aren't ever coming back to.

I personally liked it when inactive horses went to the rescue center because it gave people the chance to save them or to grab them for themselves to incorporate into their own lines. Them just dying kinda irks me but it is realistic - so, yeah.

I don't support. In this day and age, except in certain circumstances, it is not hard to access the Internet...

I've twice lost lines I've worked incredibly hard on (and in one case spent a LOT of EVC on them) because I failed to lock my account. Does it suck like crazy to lose them, yes. But it's just a game and everything can always be gained back. And most people on here are kind enough that if you explain the situation, they'll often times sell them back to you.

I actually believe this was also suggested before and got no support then as well.

Support, although would like to see it as an option for all accounts, not just deluxe.

Sometimes life does happen, and it's not always possible to get online. For you guys with great mobile coverage, good quality internet services, and no chronic illnesses or similar, you'll probably never have this issue, but not everyone is as lucky as you, and I feel we should be empathic to those who have to cope with this sort of stuff. Resurrecting an entire herd is prohibitively expensive. This suggestion provides a good means for people to protect their work.

I've edited the title to take out "deluxe feature" suggestion. Ultimately, it's up to Abbey whether to make a feature applicable across all accounts or deluxe only. My rationale behind suggesting it as a deluxe feature is that the spectral draught (I think) is a credit item, and that is money that is used to support Equiverse, so I don't know that it is fair to take that money away to be used on another free feature.

Excellent post, UlyssesBlue

I like the idea of this from a player standpoint, but don't see it as being viable from the perspective of running the game. :/

For better or worse, games like this thrive off of requiring players to come back; it's just the way it is. Without incentive to keep returning, it's harder to get people to do so. Knowing that it doesn't matter whether you return or not, because there won't be any major consequences for not logging in for an extended period, makes it less likely that people will feel the need to come back. There'd still be an advantage in terms of stat gain and money if you're doing diligent daily care, true. But if this feature were implemented, it would essentially remove all "risk" from the game, so that there's no reason you *have* to come back and play. I think most games need that element of consequence in order to keep an active player base.

To be honest, the ability to lock your account already feels like a vast compromise, compared to games I've played in the past where you're just out of luck if you can't log on, no matter what the reason.

Though Ulysses Blue does make an excellent point regarding the fact that easy and reliable internet and phone data services are not equally distributed for all, and that's something I really wish I had a good idea for addressing. :/

As a player I would enjoy the sense of security, knowing my work is protected, and feeling less pressure if life does in fact get in the way. And I hate the idea of someone losing a lot of hard work due to circumstances outside of their control. But I worry that this would overall have a damaging effect on the game, and I don't know how to reconcile that. :/

Last edited on 2016-05-19 at 22:16:58 by «» Only the Wind

When i didn't have internet access at all (save for blocked sites at school) for about a year unexpectedly, I just didn't invest my time in sim games that require constant care. No muss, no fuss, no support.

When life is predictable, manually locking is a suitable solution. When you get dealt one of life's more horrible surprises, it makes all the difference to have a safety net in place.

Regarding the point about player retention, I think if anything players are less likely to stick around if they suddenly find their entire herd and tons of work has vanished, and the only way to retrieve it is to pay a huge amount of credits to resurrect it. If a safety net existed there would still be benefits to playing regularly through the stat increases and so forth, so I disagree that adding in a safety net would remove the need for people to play as much.

I support this! Because, even you can't get on because your ill/busy, buy what if you are on holiday and there is no wifi, and you are a way for a week or so.

I definitely support this. I went on a trip once where the wifi was horrible and only worked in some places and I couldn't use cellular data because I was out of my country and I don't have an International plan. Anyways, the locking function wasn't working because the wifi was slow, and I couldn't care for my horses for the same reason. Luckily, the trip ended right before most of my horses were going to die, so I got back in time to care for them, but most people won't be as lucky as I was. So I fully support this.

I support this because I can not always afford to pay my internet bill. So for a whole month I am off and If I am not able to lock up my account before hand, I lose all my horses that I put hours into. Also, I was recently sick with appendicitis. I wasn't able to access equiverse while I was in recovering, and the whole thing happened so fast that I never got a chance to lock up my horses. I've lost all my horses twice, and I had 30+ horses both times. But I had a suggestion. Maybe instead of just auto locking, it could be something you turned on in your homepage. Like, you have the option to turn on auto locking.

I think this idea could work well to support the game if this were a credit bought thing. Like how auto showing and auto caring is. Except with the auto-lock feature, it doesn't have a count down for when it expires.
perhaps the auto-lock feature has one use. If your account gets auto-locked once, then when you log in and unlock again, the auto-lock deletes and you would have to purchase another one from the credit shop if you need a safety net again. That way, the game is still making income and we have a means of a safety net.

I like that idea, Siren!

EDIT: It's like an insurance policy for your horses

Last edited on 2016-05-28 at 16:28:06 by Demure (Jenneth)