This is an offshoot topic from the HP State of the Union to discuss a training/riding feature. I didn't want to de-rail that topic too much since it was already so long, so I'm making this topic to discuss it further.

Basically, how this would look is you'd be able to go to your animal's page and click on training. In this example, we will use a horse, but obviously this would be for dogs as well. Then you'd be able to pick from a list of options, like say Lunging, Grooming, Trail Ride, etc. If you chose Trail Ride, you'd then be taken to something like this:

It asks you if you want to ride in the woods, around the lake, or around the section. You choose around the lake.

(And then this is where you'd start to get feedback.) "You start your ride around the lake at a walk. It's a little windy today, and you're a bit worried that your horse may spook." It asks if you want to continue walking or pick up a trot. You choose to pick up a trot.

"You've started to trot and you can tell your horse really wants to go into the grass closer to the lake." It asks if you move closer to the lake, or stay on the path. You choose stay on the path.

"Woah! A rabbit darted out in front of you and your horse spooked! Unfortunately, you took a fall, but are not injured. You get back on and continue on your way." It asks you if you want to slow down to the walk or continue at a trot. You choose continue at a trot.

"You can tell that your horse is still a little bit high-strung, and you are having a hard time keeping them at a leisurely trot. You definitely don't want to fall off again!" It asks you if you want to slow down to a walk, continue at the trot, or stop and take a break. You choose slow down to a walk.

"Once you're back down to a walk, your horse seems to be calming down and now you are able to enjoy the scenery a bit more! As you're enjoying the scenery you notice something glittering in the grass." It asks if you stop to pick it up, or keep going. You choose stop to pick it up.

"You found 100k HPD! Nice." Continue on your way?

Etc., etc. And depending on how the ride went you'd get some points, and it would go differently each time. All of the scenarios would be short, and offer a small reward. There would be limits on them to how many you can do with each animal in a day, and they would be entirely optional.

This would be a feature that could be adapted and added to over the years, and we could also incorporate different disciplines into it, or even training things, like teaching your dog to sit.

Again, this would be entirely text-based. No animated, ride-your-horses-around kid type of stuff. HP is made of adults, and we intend to keep our audience.

So, let us know what you think! Any ideas or suggestions? Do you love it, hate it? This is the time to tell us ;).

I think this could be fun! A little something extra, and obviously optional so if people didn't want to do it they wouldn't have to! 

I feel like we are taking a turn towards HL...

Will this work for players on mobiles?

Will it slow HP down any?

Is it gonna be worth it pts wise to even implement?

You were right about getting jitters lol! But this sounds totally fun to me, and would defenitly attract me more to my 'pixels'
Especially when I already trained everything for the week.
Uhm I suddenly thought, maybe you can do it with energy points? Like 1 option is a few points. You can only train a animal 20 points a day, so when you spend your 20 points, you would get 'Whoah! Your horse seems a bit tired now, you decide to turn back to the stables to rest your horse'.

Just an idea.

To be quite honest, I am apphrensive of this idea, and majority vote may overtake my opinion, but this is my two cents on this idea; while I do agree that HP's base is quite smaller {smaller than most games} and that we need more players, I am worried how this will affect the game overall. I am mainly worried that we will build all this up, and that older players who returned may get peeved and quit again or that we will remain stagnant in bring in new people. I agree with Azalie on this. While I do not agree this is heading in the direction of Horseland, I do agree with Aza that this seems to be semi-targetting tweens or teens than the adult audience we are looking to gain. I also agree this is very similiar to games like Furry Paws or Howrse, which many players flicker on interest. Personally, I quit both these games because I lost interest over time in that sort of lore and preferred HP's way better.

Personally, I think the main issue is the economy of the game. When I was a newbie in 2013 my first line(s) I had running ultimately failed. I was not gifted at the time with the ability to do graphics as well or have the money to buy an Upgrade to sell shows/tickets so I had no ability to make money. Since we take great pride in our lines, we also do not open training to just anybody typically, so really that limits you on making money on the game.  This means you cannot buy new lines or shows typically and your lines fail, which make you angry and leave the game {on both sides of the fence}. I think we should more be implementing something that helps players get their lines going without worrying about going bankrupt or dying off; this would also lessen the horses we see with like 1500 points and bred early to try and sell into a market to make money or ultimately end up in the HA to be deleted.

For us older players, I think we should have a way of "boosting" our horses when they reach a certain point level or age. One example would be is in a horse reaches 990k - 999k and they're close to a million, you should have an option that allows you buy a boost in the Cash Shop to make that 1 million goal. It is a bit frustrating when we have certain goals we want to reach but our horses are just shy of it and we can't afford/can't find the shows or tickets we need to bump them so we have to shuck extra the next week. I think this will also add more competition that we want as well.

Again, this is just my two-cents on the matter and it may be a stupid thought, but I thought I'd put it out there anyway.

To answer some questions:

Aza,

1. It should work on mobile as well as the rest of HP does! It will be text-based and not interactive/animated at all so it won't be like the mini game, it'll be words and links and maybe a picture or two.

2. It should not slow down HP at all because it would be turn-based (nothing happens unless you're there clicking links), so nothing would be taxing the server like things that run automatically do.

3. It would be small amounts of points, because showing is still the main focus of the game, but it would be more of a supplement (like how points from club registries and such are now). But that's something that would need to be hammered out.

Equ,

HP's target audience is ages 16-35 (or thereabouts), so we're not going to implement anything that would be marketed at tweens. Especially since HP is 13 and up officially. I would tend to agree if this were animated, but since it's text-based, I'm not sure that really is attractive to the younger market. I think the mini game we have has a better chance of attracting younger players than this would.

I'm not sure how this would affect the economy at all, could you elaborate on that a bit more? If anything, I think this would be more helpful to new players because it would give them a way to engage with their horses and the game without needing to have a bunch of money or buy and sell their lines. It would be an easy way for new players (or any players) to boost their points with no cost to them.

We do offer several ways to boost your points outside of shows and tickets. You can get 1000 points for registering with a club, you can trade HPP in for animal points, you gain points when you earn animal awards, and we frequently give them away in site contests and events. I think buying points from the cash shop would be detrimental to the game and would be even more of a way to "buy your way to the top" which is something people frequently express concern about on HP, and I think it would be the opposite of helpful to players who can't afford to do private shows or tickets - because then how could they afford to buy the point boosts?

I like the idea. I think it will help people spend more time on the game. Perhaps make it so that the training boost isnt a huge amount of points though, otherwise it might start to feel like a chore in order to stay competitive on the rankings, especially for player with large stables. 

This thought popped in my head, might be intriguing or a horrible idea, but I'm throwing it out there: What if training gave us " Training points" (separate from normal points) and depending on how many training points a horse had, it would increase the probability of a horse placing higher in class. Would be very small at first, and there could also be a cap so that horses don't have a 100% chance of winning. 

This feature wouldn't nessecarily hurt the economy, infact this has little to do with that sanction. I think I may have misunderstood what this feature may of actually been or my mind went off the rails entirely {which it tends to do frequently anymore}. I can see where the "buying your way up" could be a problem in that sense however. The main purpose was I was just more so thinking that because many of us are just shy of our goals in points {and I forgot we had the new award system that awards points at certain levels}. The HPP for me though is a bit more difficult as - personally - I don't get achievements all that often so its not as consistent for me as it would be for another player, but I do see how that "boosting" idea of mine would severely damage the market we have for tickets or shows.

So yeah, a very stupid idea on my part lol. Sorry Sam.

I actually think this will seriously boost the economy (as you can stumble upon money without spending any) and if you get points too? Great! 
I do think i want to stop and make a quick point and ensure that I'm reading this clearly though Sam: 

Etc., etc. And depending on how the ride went you'd get some points, and it would go differently each time. All of the scenarios would be short, and offer a small reward. There would be limits on them to how many you can do with each animal in a day, and they would be entirely optional.

Actually I should make an entirely NEW point having re-read this paragraph, I don't think you should get turns per an animal I think this should be per a player. 

The reasoning on that being that I have someting close to 100 paints on this account. If I got to do this a certain number of time per 100 animals (and lets face it, I have the time during the week to do this) then I would get an insane amount of stuff compared to a player who only has the time to do 8 to 20-ish animals. While this might seem unfair to some, I don't think it's fair for me to be able to get tons and tons of little prizes that add up JUST because I have the time to be on the game like 12 hours a day 5 days a week. Ya feel me? I would rather see it be more fair to a certain number of times per a player.

I do like this idea, particularly because it is text based and not animated. I don't think this is going toward HL at all, I think this is simply one more way to add in ways to help new and old players alike & I would be more than happy to assist in writing up senarios if this is a way you go with the game!

I like it. It could bring more interest and keep people around more during the day, besides training, chat, graphics, and forums. I like that the limit is placed on how many times you can do this with each pixel, not a strict limit per day. The fact that it's optional is also great, so we can do this as much as we want to. I'm guessing small prizes means the ones who take advantage of this can't get too far ahead of everyone else, whether per each pixel or player...

Regarding Siib's point, I kind of agree. It probably isn't fair that the people with more time can benefit more from this, but it's a bonus. Kind of like how private shows and tickets can't be afforded by everyone. They're bonuses for a reason. You get more rewards when you put in more effort.

EDIT: On second thought, maybe there should be a limit per player as well? I can just see people hoarding pixels they don't actually train just to reap the benefits.

oooo a choose your own adventure type thing, this sounds like fun! I'll admit I did get the jitters until it was explained better.

sounds good to me as long aas it doesnt go the way HL did, I also think Siib has the right idea, a certain number of times per player not per animal, I have lots of accts with plenty of animals and I dont work so I could really reap the benefits but I dont think that would be fair to others that dont have what I have, animals and time :) 

I like this idea. Taking into account everyone else's points of view, I think we can all agree we don't want to see it head in the HL direction at all, so I'm glad to hear it'll be text-based instead. Maybe it can have a couple of player achievements incorporated, such as 10, 25, 50 "rides" taken?

I like this idea! Like what siib said, a limit per player. I have a ton of animals and I never. Sleep so I have a lot of free time. But I also do believe this can help keep players around longer, specially the new ones! They see it as a way to earn HPD and not have to be a top artist or anything.

If it was text-based I think it sounds really fun! Low pressure fun, some small rewards for those who enjoy it.

more clicks all around!

I think this would be an interesting thing to implement and I'm for it. I do agree with Sib and others though; I would definitely make the total rides allowed per player instead of per animal or per account. This not only makes it more fair for the general population, but also removes stress to min/max their attempts over all accounts. I'm not even sure if HP has the technology in place to do it this way though.

I would even recommend a certain amount of rides per week instead of per day (similar to the banking "collect funds"). This allows people with busy schedules the option to use all of their rides in one day when time allows or over several days instead of feeling pressured to find time each day.

We're not turning into HL lol. The most significant thing so far that shows us that we are NOT going the same way as HL, is the fact that Sam is making this very public and giving everyone the opportunity to express their opinions, thoughts and concerns, unlike HL that did it entirely behind the player's backs.

I think this sounds amazing and really fun. We need something else to do here, and I don't mean that in a bad way. 

I think this is exciting! I know for a fact we're not headed down the HL path, so I'm okay with it! 

Paints since 6-8-14

Ok I have to admit it when I initially saw the whole ‘interact/ride’ your horse I honestly said out loud ‘NOOOOOO, it’s just what hl did wrong’ but after reading what the idea is I can see this being a fun edition to the game but I do agree with sib about a daily player limit or that limit being an overall weekly thing but tbh I did also completely forgot that ho did have a mini game too lol so it have to be on horses pages for folks like me with less than perfect memory lol

OHH and just so this stays well away from hl even further this should not affect a horses energy this will discourage folks who are in a project/point goaling from playing the mini games 

I really like this idea, especially for new players. I came back from a 2 year hiatus, and even though I had been playing the game for years before that it was still difficult to get back into the swing of things with training, private shows, buying layouts, etc. And it is optional so if you don't like the idea then don't participate. I think where HL went wrong was they forced everyone into this whole brand new game atmosphere. We are making changes here, which I like, but they aren't crazy drastic and they're optional. I know you said the target audience was 16-35, but I feel like this would keep younger kids around too. It can be intimdating to ask for help in chat or post in the advertising room for the first time so I think this would be a way for new and/or younger players to get comfortable with the game and then venture out into the HP social world, if you want to call it that.