I wanted to open up a discussion about adding a new feature since we are removing associations from the game! It doesn't need to be an association equivalent, and we may choose to just not add something new and improve upon what we have.

But since we are removing something, I want to have a discussion about adding something in it's place!

This is kinda unrelated to club ideas, but its a feature that was suggested a while and i personally thought it was amazing.

Many players hire out training. What if there is a safe account that is attached to every upgraded account. The safe account would give tou access to the animals and shows but cannot access profile settings or the bank. The player would give the safe account's user and pass, which is completely separate from their own personal user and pass. This removes security issues and will probably help encourage training!

As far as clubs go...

-I like the idea of a longer presidency.  I think it would encourage people are are actually dedicate to run versus people just running on a whim and then not doing anything.  

-I also like the idea of stud and sale ads. I was trying to do something similar with the Friesian Association.  Association chat boxes don't really get used anymore so maybe these could be transformed into something with specific purpose.

-Getting rid of associations is a major blow to the amount of unflooded shows availible so I think it would be great if clubs could make at lease two per week to compensate for this.

- Way back when, horse sims used to be big on having club cards which everybody liked to show case as kind of an elite thing. I think adding achievements for various club related things like winning a mascot contest would be popular and kind of along those lines.

I'll just throw out there what I suggested on another topic post: club awarded "achievement" type things for animal pages. That way if you win a club mascot contest, ect it will show up on the animal's page and give you some bragging rights. This can be with or without HPP awarded. Not sure how hard it would be to impliment a system that allows presidents to assign a small image and a short line of text for each contest winning though.

On the topic of longer presidencies, I dislike this for the reason previously stated. People get busy with life and being president for 3 months or so leaves a lot of room for vacancy. It's hard enough right now to keep someone involved for one month long terms.

I would like to see some more clubs added down the road, especially dog clubs, but all in good time. 

I do like the idea of being able to create two club shows per week vs the one.

Honestly though, because associations outnumber the clubs by such a large margin, only giving the clubs two shows per week still won't completely make up for the loss of all of the association shows (points-wise). It club numbers stay the same, clubs would almost need to be able to create 3 shows a week to make up the difference. Or two shows per week, but add more clubs. There's so many associations and taking all of those shows away is a huge blow to points.

I also dislike the idea of longer presidencies, for all of the reasons that trig mentioned.  

I actually like the idea of longer presidencies IF there is a VP to help run the club 

I know this is abit of a weird club suggestion....but what about clubs for the players? can still have horse & dog shows running on them to help with the show issue.

Clubs like:

Graphic Makers Club (or named something similar) can have contest to do with layout or picture design, or themed design using certain selected pictures. Can have tutorials and show links to tutorials, or cool fonts/backgrounds, or even to deviantart accounts.. Then could have peoples work sumbitted and players could recieve rankings for their ability - ie: platinum, gold, silver, bronze, etc.... or star ratings.

i cant think of another one atm but i am sure we can make more.... just though it may be interesting for some of our players. 

the thing i found most fustration about being a club prez was a total lack of interest in the clubs outside of registry. i think that the suggestion of some sort of award/acheviment needs to be awarded to get people in and actively supporting the clubs. As for the longer terms i see a lot of pro's and con. it would encourage only the most dedicated of players to be prez and there be more options for unique contests but for it to really work you'd need a vice prez, incentives/unique prizes for prez to give out. after being prez in 2 clubs for 2 now going into a third terms i found it very draining, having a vice prez to help advertise the contests as well as help contribute to prize pools and registry management would have been very helpful but at the same time i dont have any one really wanting to run agianst me lol i went two term as the only runner lol as there are no incentive to be prez it take a really dedicated player to be prez and as a result all the clubs have a sameness that makes them boring lol i've tried to spiced things up by having unique layouts in the clubs i run as well as free unique layouts on offer each term. but we need more prez's willing to do the same thing and for that there needs to be an incentive to make more player want to run.

What if we do like just clubs and people can run for president like usual and each show comes with 10 privates. 

With the privates you can bump the fee per anima in the club a bit and have more clubs (non-working, wolf breeds, dressage, etc.) i dont know know how much sense im making lol give more incentives for the clubs so they can get active again! I miss the days everyone battled for president. 

Also, since the hardest part when becoming club president is finding a layout, maybe someone can make layout for each club. That way that the stress of customizing the actual layout isn't important. They can focus on the actual club. 

I'd like it if there was a way to select all the animals you wanted to register for one club, instead of having to do them one by one from the drop down list.  :)

So here's my two cents:

I'm not a fan of having longer terms for presidents. Like stated above, it leaves a lot of room for abandonment of clubs for periods of time (yes Blitz is in charge of checking that, but then someone else who did not go through the voting process would become president and that's not really fair).

I'm also not a fan of having a VP. HP is a wonderful place because there are so many different opinions to things so we tend to get well rounded views. With that being said however, I worry that two people who think they're on the same page actually aren't and that would cause problems. For instance say you're having a mascot contest and cannot choose between two animals, which could end up causing more trouble than it's worth.

I do agree that there would need to be more in order of shows because of the sheer number of associations out there and how unflooded their shows are. Speaking from an economic standpoint and the rule of supply and demand, prices for spots in private shows would increase. This would make it more difficult for people to be able to train their animals well.

I love the idea of having a weekly allowance, but I think it should be specifically for the clubs and not the presidents. That way the prezzi’s are not required to put in so much of their own money throughout the process.

Love the idea of adding new clubs, and personally, i'd love people to have longer terms to. That way, people could get really involved, and there would be time for things like training contests, mascot (voting) contests, etc, and would really give way to possibly bring in new breeders. For instance, running a 3 month training contest for a specific breed has the potential to get more breeders involved (upping activity) as well as the off chance of brining in "quality" animals, ones that people would buy if the original trainer did not want to keep them.

Auctions! I would personally love the horse auctions. However, I would want this to run for a couple of weeks and not just one. It would really help me get into a new breed, by buying into lines, or selling my own horses to incite some interests in Azteca's or Thoresians. Also, if someone is selling a line of horses, there could be an option to sell multipul horses at once? That way, if a line is being sold, people don't need to have a gajillion pages of Paint's or something.

Studbook. This has been mentioned above. I feel that so many people on here feel the need to hoarde their lines, due to breakage and other things. However, those that would be willing to have an open stuf would have an easy way to advertise. This also could potentially save lines that could have been lost. For instance, having an unpaired female because of a boo-boo I made when buying store horses, so I have an extra, but would really like to breed her, so I go to the stud book to look for a studly stud to pair her up with.

AND THE SPENDING BUDGET. I cannot say this enough. I've never run for a club because I do not have the means to provide the clubs with my own money to make worthwhile contests. So giving a club a 10m budget, would allow for mascot contests, fun activity contests, etc. Also with this, adding a club donation button. See, if I was interested in seeing a certain club flourish, I wouldn't mind donating 1m straight to the club, and that way, I know my money can only be used for contest-esque things, rather than being taken and not used for that purpose.

Ill probably think of more later, but this was just my quick ideas of the things I saw above. :)

Clubs already have a donate button, next to Club Money, and that goes straight to the club not into the Prezzi's pockets. Having a weekly allowance just for the clubs would be great too, maybe some how adding that option on the Bank Page, or could be added by Sam each week. Whichever would be less difficult to do of course! xD

I'm really liking the idea of adding a couple more clubs in and some extra show making abilities! With the clubs I agree with having a nomination of which clubs to add and then say a couple weeks voting period for all players, that way it's another way we can be all involved on the decision making!?

Maybe for the long term presidencies, shorten them to 2 months instead of 3? If for instance the president becomes inactive during that time the player who came in second with votes would be the one to take over.

I know this would not a huge change to the came but I would love to see the horses age added to their information on our home page. I know personally I have the horses age in their name but I often forget to change that on a weekly basis. I would be nice for it to be show automatically and change just like their points. This might also work to show day they age for the same reason. 

I know I don't participate in the clubs as much because since I'm not an upgraded member, it won't let me run or vote.

Oh god if we could get a club allowance. I have basically been running the gaited club on and off for like... ever. Usually going several month stretches and I just could not hope to afford funding contests month after month after month. The donate button has always been there, and I'm pretty sure I'm the only person that's ever clicked it for gaited. 

I'm kinda surprised association shows are being brought up as much as they have. I never used the shows even in the associations I've owned over the years. If I ever used anything other than just random enterall, I was buying private slots. 

A SELECT ALL BUTTON FOR CLUB REGISTRIES PLZ? I've brought up accepting registries before, but Chelsea has a point for requesting as well. Suddenly I feel so bad for everyone that's submitted their whole retirement account at once.

As for club presidents becoming inactive, our current procedure is usually that a staff member takes over for the remainder of the term. 

I do like the idea of a club card. Back when I... uh. Attempted. To run contests. I would usually make a small banner graphic for the winner to display on their page. Granted, I usually only had one player that ever bothered to enter... Or respond to my messages. However it's just getting people to make them. Not everyone that runs a club has the means to buy nor make a graphic, which is one of the reasons why I offer so many free layouts that I've coded for clubs. So people can spiff up the page without breaking their banks even more.

Link Tree

Why not wait until the associations are gone to see what the clubs do...

we already get acheivements for club super donators and some other stuff...

i like the idea of animals getting acheivements for their pages...

i like the idea of clubs having more than 1 show...

maybe you can give an acheivement for certain amount of votes attained...like if you get 250 votes you get said achievement...

it was also be great if we could have a "default" layout incase prezzis cant find a layout...

maybe a more points for registering animals...1k isnt really much....

I think a performance club would be good...pretty much sums up all disciplines and could be based like the blue ribbon society, since performance horses in real life are of high standards...

Sorry if these are duplicates, i didnt read all the posts!!!

Presidents having longer terms has definite pros and cons. The major pro being more time for contests and activity, the con being the President gets busy (in RL) or possibly even bored and stops running the club. However, another con (in my opinion) is all lengthening the term of president does is, lengthen it.

I'm concerned that it won't actually boost club activity but just lets the same person run the same club for 2 months (which is sometimes what happens anyway). If you have an idea for a long term, say for example, training contest, then maybe just make sure you are president for the next month? As people have already pointed out, 1) the same players run the same clubs (or just any club) month after month, and 2) there's not much competition in the polls so running double terms would probably be easy. Also, if it isn't easy (say someone really wants to run the club and is getting votes) then isn't that something else everyone has been wanting-- competition in the polling? So yeah, maybe in that case you may have to work a little harder advertising your presidency and dish out a little more money for votes, but isn't that just part of the game, or at least supposed to be? I'm not against longer presidency persay, I'm just thinking it may be a little pointless in the long term. Lol, no pun intended.

Also, just a thought on adding a "presidential budget"-- I know a long time ago Sam was trying to get inflation down on the game by taking money out of it. I know there's been lots of progress doing so, but wouldn't adding a budget to clubs reinflate the HP economy?

I like the idea of achievments for horses and dogs on their pages. I think that'd be fun.

I would like to see something brand new come in replacement of associations instead of just an improvement to clubs. Unfortunately, I don't have any ideas. I do like the "HP studbook" idea though. Maybe as well as the studbook part, we could also have an animal auctions.

Okay this is gonna be a little long and possibly very windy as I just write my jumbled thoughts from my brain.

1. I personally like the longer Presidencies, as long as there is a vice president. Longer presidencies give a chance for more activity and allow the presidents to enact and carry out more ideas and plans. If the president disappears then the vice president steps in. If the vice president disappears then staff intervene. Or the President and Vice President could work together for the term. Whatever would work best.

2. I would love love LOVE the HP Studbook. Like you have no idea how much I would love this idea. I feel it would allow for more competition and make it easier for active breeders to find each other when need be.

3. I actually used to play on a different sim site and the horses actually had disciplines as did the shows and there were different ranks as well. And you had stats that you had to worry about like Stamina, Conformation, Speed, Endurance, etc. Certain stats helped towards certain disciplines others did not. But all in all it wasn't just points that you had to worry about. You had to worry about many aspects of the game and there would be ranking systems for all of it. I really liked it. But then that site changed owners and well the second owner kind of destroyed everything and the site died. Not really club or association related, but we could implement something similar to increase the competition around here.

Right now I can't really think of much else to put here but I'm sure that I will think of something else eventually.

I like the idea of more clubs kinda merge clubs and associations together. because their some great associations. also in real life their arw many different clubs.  like have the more popular stud boooks: AQHA, Sporthorses, Thoroughbred, Warmbloods, etc, and pucppick certain clubs that were most active for the dog association.  something like that

I'd just like to second what sassafras said above, if you want to hold a multi month contest then you need to be actively campaigning for votes to be re-elected. I don't think that is difficult at all to be president term after term right now. I don't really feel like extending the length of terms will significantly benefit the clubs at this time.