Is anyone active anymore?

[BlackOak2]

Yeah... what they ^ said!

Eh... we're all awaiting some releases [on pins and needles] for awhile. Aside from that, there are a great deal of ways to play this game. And a player only needs to have a little imagination to figure out a good goal. After that, it takes commitment and patience to get to that goal. That said, the great thing about a game is that we can change or completely abandon the goal at any time.

Yes, releases have been paused. Yes, they've been put on hold (to come to us) for awhile now. So what? If a player, either new or old can't come up with SOMETHING to occupy their time on a game like this, then perhaps this game isn't meant for them. Perhaps they should head over to WOW (That's World Of Warcraft for those not familiar with MMORPG - And that's Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) or Rift... or Elder Scrolls... or EVE... or... I think my point is made there. If a person wants immediate action and interaction, something to get their blood moving, then an RPG, Battle Arena, Action or Shooter game is more suited to their desire.
This is a simulation game. These are a little notorious for being a bit slower. Actually, I might even consider this game moderately sandbox too... Anyway, it's not meant for exciting a player, rather, it's meant to stimulate the brain and encourage interaction through time and thought.

This game isn't made to be exciting at the drop of a hat, it's made for long-term play, chosen gameplay ideals and interaction with consequences and predictable outcomes.

...And I'm STILL kicking myself I didn't find the original release of this game! I could'a been an original player transfer! Eh... better a little late than never at all.

[horsegirl008_freezer]

Most of what Gabby guessed is true, it's just Larissa and I. We have two kids, full time jobs and responsibilities. We aren't working on HWO thinking it will make us rich. We do it for the love of the game. I check HWO multiple times a day to make sure there are no problems with the servers and to help users with any problems they may have. Larissa spends her evenings at the end of the day working on code with her laptop in front of the TV before bed. If we didn't care things would fall apart.

...

Thank you for playing the game and have fun! That's all we ever wanted and it makes us very happy to see people enjoying the game!

Thank you guys so much for working so hard for this game! It's so fun and realistic and it keeps me very entertained
You guys work so hard on keeping the game running and keeping the community happy...I know that everyone appreciates it

[Ish835]

I'm looking for some friends on this game. It seems every time I log in there are hardly any people on at all. I'd love to have some one to chat with and maybe even breed fun foals with.

Hi I need some friends on this game too I have lots of competition horses that we can breed together and a few untrained foals rsvp

[Hazel!]

I don't really blame anyone for thinking that HWO hasn't changed. It looks pretty much the same and there are key features that need updating that have been in the works for a long time. We haven't forgotten about it though and are hard at work. Everything we've done for a long time now is behind the scenes stuff just to keep the game running. I know it's not exciting but if we didn't do it HWO would stop working. This version of the game launched in 2014. That's almost 10 years ago and the internet has changed quite a bit in that time.
Most of what Gabby guessed is true, it's just Larissa and I. We have two kids, full time jobs and responsibilities. We aren't working on HWO thinking it will make us rich. We do it for the love of the game. I check HWO multiple times a day to make sure there are no problems with the servers and to help users with any problems they may have. Larissa spends her evenings at the end of the day working on code with her laptop in front of the TV before bed. If we didn't care things would fall apart.
I know we could make more money, but I refuse to add predatory monetization schemes or pay to win features to the game. HWO has a great community of helpful and friendly players and we want to avoid anything that could turn this place toxic.
We sometimes add silly things like goats because we are people who like to have fun, but we don't want to just release items or wearables. I don't think it would be a good look as there are more pressing issues with the game.

If you are worried that the game is dead though, don't. We've been around a long time. Larissa has been making horse games since 1997. The first version of HWO was launched in 2004! Check out the wayback machine to see some real web 1.0 HWO. https://web.archive.org/web/20050201033 ... nline.net/

Anyway, Larissa has fully migrated some of the HWO systems. HWO runs on multiple servers, always has, and now there is some redundancy. That project isn't done, but we've had to deal with other things along the way as well.
There was an attack using stolen passwords. They weren't stolen from us but we are a target for scammers/spammers trying the stolen passwords. That's one of the reasons we are looking to delete old accounts. Right now the plan is to only delete accounts that haven't been activated, and then accounts that are old and have no horses.
Larissa is writing a fancy control panel for admins to make it easier to do certain things. I don't want to get anyone's hopes up but it should make it easier to update the game in the future.
There are of course a bunch of bug fixes that no one will notice.
We fixed a huge issue with the help system. Go ahead and use the 'Help Me' button and expect a response within a reasonable time now! Sorry to anyone I've missed over the years. :oops:

We are well aware that people want geldings, private studs, better search, competition results fixed, etc. Larissa and I read many comments and just wish we had more time to do everything that you all deserve.

Thank you for playing the game and have fun! That's all we ever wanted and it makes us very happy to see people enjoying the game! :D

This is really great to know that y'all are still working on things (I was wondering myself), but you need proper channels to communicate this. Not everyone is trawling thru the forum threads, seeing your posts, and many people are not Patreon supporters (are you posting updates there?). You guys need to be communicating this in the news, even just to check in on occasion and let us know what's being worked on that month.

Honestly, prior to the recent goats post, the game looked like it'd been abandoned. If you don't want to be dealing with threads like this in the future, you need to be communicating. Nobody's going to notice the bug fixes if you don't post about them. Patch notes are amazing. Please start posting them!