2024 State of the Union Address

Welcome to the 2024 SOTU Address, coming to you only a month late this time (haha!)...because June is a busy time for those of us working in education.

For those of you unfamiliar with what a SOTU is, it basically allows everyone to look back at the past year and what happened, reflect on that, address anything we want to address, and as well allows each of your HP admins to reflect on our jobs and what we hope to work towards in the next year. 

Game Updates

(As always, you can find changes to the site itself in the Change Log as they happen!)

• Anonymous Suggestions/Feedback form


• Addition of the Birthday Club Calendar


• Revamped the News page (the one you see when you log in!)


• Dog breeding requests don't delete automatically anymore.


• Your home page under the Shows drop-down tells you how many of each type of show you can still create this week.


• Overhaul to revamp and streamline the Help pages.


• Updated the Rules page for better spacing and grammar.


• Bank balance is now visible on the Store page.


• General overhaul of all HP pages for formatting, rewording, etc.


• Animal names on the "Registering your animal in a club" page is now a clickable link.


• "Animal sent to the Humane Alliance" and "Congrats, your president of a club" messages now have titles.


• Changed "Lac La Croix Indian Pony" to "Ojibwe Pony" as a reconciliation effort.


• Two shifts in admin portfolios (more on that below!).


• New Referral page in the Edit Profile to show who your player # has referred to HP.


• Animal Pedigrees now show 5 generations.

Staff Updates

In the past year, we have had to say goodbye to a few staff members, and looking back it's a bit confusing because there were some repeat names coming and going...

In June 2023, we had lost Ephemira as a Moderator right before last year's SOTU, and gained Moorfine shortly after it. Then shortly after that, we lost Mango as an Event Coordinator, and gained back Saturnia. Fast forward to January 2024, and we again lost Saturnia as an Event Coordinator when she decided to go off and be a mom (how dare she!!), and before we could hire someone to fill her spot, we also lost City of Angels (also an EC). We then hired back Ephemira, and as well invited Foxi to join us on staff for the first time. 

Which brings us to today...Binny, our loong-time administrator (and Queen of the Social Media!), has decided to step down from her position on staff, no matter how much we all try to talk her out of it (and believe me, we tried!). See Blitz's words below to find out how things will work with her position in the future.

A Note from Blitz, your Director of HP

-waves-

In last year's SOTU, I waxed poetic about revamping the pages on the site and how coding never works the first time (still true!). I'm very happy to be able to say that I accomplished my big goal, however, of reviewing and revamping every page on the game...updating formatting, rewording content, and even completely redid the help pages! Honestly, some of what I have been able to revamp for HP has even impressed myself that I was able to figure out how to make the coding work (for example, the 5-generation pedigrees we now have for animals). Coding expert I am not, so things like this working out always makes me happy!

There are two more accomplishments I want to take a moment to highlight from this past year: player feedback/suggestions, and Pride Month. At the beginning of each month for the past year, I have reviewed the previous month's form submissions for feedback and suggestions, and made a forum post detailing what they are and what my responses to them are (or one of the other admins' responses, at times). I'll be honest, every month when I open the form responses, I cringe and squint at them with one eye closed, hoping someone's not going to use the anonymous feature of that platform to absolutely hand me my ass. I'm extremely thankful that no one has abused the feature, and I have yet to be ripped apart, so thank you everyone for that (haha)! On the flipside of that, I just wanted to acknowledge Pride Month this year on HP. I was truly blown away by how the majority of players on the game used it an opportunity to celebrate the month in a very positive way, be it as someone who is 2SLGBTQIA (out or closeted!), or someone who is an ally. The amount of bright coloured rainbows, supportive statements in player names, show names, etc. throughout the month was honestly so exciting to see, especially when our offline world is increasingly becoming not as friendly. So I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who did that, it was so nice to see, and really reminded me that, even when we all sometimes don't get along and there's drama, at the end of the day we're a community who comes together to support each other.

Lastly, as I stated above, our beloved Binny has decided to leave staff after many many years with us. She has promised me she will NOT be a stranger and will continue to play HP in essentially the capacity she is right now. What does this mean staffing-wise? We're still working on that, however in the meantime, BV will be taking over our social media presence, I will be reclaiming the Discount Candy Day stuff, and Koni will be taking on the periodic site surveys. If that changes down the road, I will let you know!

Also just a quick note to say that the server migration is still a work in progress. The server people are taking their sweet-ass time on it, so one of my immediate goals is to make sure it happens and happens as smoothly as possible! I do have some other minor things on HP I want to accomplish while I'm off this summer, however I'm holding off on them until after the migration so that it doesn't undo whatever I've done.

As always, my inbox is always open, and contrary to popular belief I'm not scary and I don't bite unless provoked ;)

Happy playing! ♥

A Note from Koni, your Head Administrator

Hey there everyone! Wow, I have to say, it has been a crazy year and we're only halfway through. Starting January 2025, I will be working on starting up our Breed Spotlights from a few years back, as well as working on some incentives for becoming a breed ambassador. Also, as I'd said in a previous SotU, I will be making it my mission to be around more, and be available to you players for anything you may need when it comes to the game. As the Head Administrator, I still want to make sure you are all ENJOYING your time here on HP! Do you have a question on how something works? Has a player made a rude comment and you don't know how to respond? Notice someone has incorrect credits on an image? My inbox is always open and all reports/comments/etc remain anonymous. I look forward to growing with you all this year. Here is to a fabulous rest of the year!

A Note from Broken Vow, your Community Manager

Another year already? Ooofff! Haha! Thank you all for continuing to support all the activities and events going on throughout the seasons! Without your involvement HP would be a little less fun, so thanks for keeping spirits up and bright! This year was a pretty good Mascot year! Those involved cheered one another on and everything in general seemed to run much smoother this go around. Yay! Feedback from the year prior helped adjust areas that many commented about and even prompted me to run a survey even before sign-ups opened up. Thinking of doing that again before next year's Mascot Season. Participation in the Photography Contest has risen, so I'm glad you guys like the available prize options. Many beautiful player submitted pictures each month! Go check it out if you haven't done so before! I've recently taken over the Pet of the Month feature and have been enjoying seeing all the cute critters filling up my inbox! With increasingly low Player of the Month nominating & voting going on I'm heavily considering switching that spotlight up to run similar to how the new Pet of the Month feature is operating. That way it'll open it up even more to everyone who wishes to participate instead of seeing their name in the nominees list and only to be discouraged when the votes went towards another for that month. So keep an eye on the News for any upcoming changes! Thanks for being you and for allowing me to continue with keeping HP a fun little place to be. ~Broken Vow 🙂

Here's to another year of awesomeness on HP!

♥ Blitz, Koni, and BV

-bump-

So sad to lose our Binny :'(

We love you bin! Always here to chat no matter what :)

So sad to hear about Bin :(

Wishing you all the best in your new chapter, Binny!

THANK YOU, BINNY ❤️! 

Thank you for your hard work all these years Binny, I'm so glad you're sticking around even if it's "just as a regular player". It would be empty without you!