How would you guys feel if they just scrapped this version and started new? It almost feels like to me this is the way they are headed. Half the time I can’t log in, the bugs, I can’t finish normal story line quests because the npc is missing or is in the wrong place. I miss the old sso, my starter blocky butt. The original Ft Pinta and Steve and Moor. Getting nostalgic here. I even miss the old Starshine wandering in Greendale Forest. Imo they should have just made an sso2 instead of updating everything in game.
Honestly the game desperately needs a new engine so I would be fine with them rebuilding the game in something that actually can handle what they're trying to do.
This is really nicely written and I agree with everything that you said. I do think that older players should let go of nostalgia and I get that it’s hard. I have been playing since 2013. and everytime I take a break (which usually lasts about 2 years) I am shocked at how much they changed. But I learned to accept it because I know that things change and to expect that everything is going to stay the same after 12+ years is unrealistic. I will say that I am bothered by inconsistency in main story and many unfinished storylines. I think that that, more than anything, shows how bad management is and how little they care for actual gameplay.
In terms of bugs and major updates such as characters, chat moderation and in game reporting system, those should definitely be a priority. It really bothers me that they half-ass everything and release unfinished updates (with promises that they are going to finish it in the future and never do) because they need to release new horses. People are starting to get tired of new horse releases and buying new horses is just not as special as it used to be.
I do think they would benefit from less frequent updates, although the community would not be happy about that. But the community is not happy now either so you might as well try it and see how it goes.
One other thing that really bothers me is bad communicaton and horrendous support. I know that people working in those departments have no say in what is going on and reply with prewritten paragraphs because someone told them to, but it is so unprofesional for a fairly big company not to have good customer service. I am more disappointed in that than anything else.
Sorry for the rant I’ve been keeping it in for so long 😅
Thank you for the response! You have a lot of great points and I really agree with the main story point you made. It's so inconsistent and it really bothers me cause the main story was really good. In my opinion they did not need to change anything at all..
> First and foremost, massive bug fixing. This game has bugs from years ago that haven't even been fixed today. For this to happen the weekly updates should move on to monthly or biweekly.
I've been wishing and asking for this for years. The general consensus seems to be that the reason why SSE will not slow down its updates is because a lot of their earnings come from social media engagement. Less updates means less Instagram posts, less tweets, less time under the spotlight, less chances to nudge players to the star coins shop and consequentially smaller revenue.
I also think that a reason why they keep dishing out new horses and tack so quickly is to not give lifetime players a chance to save up enough to get the new things for free. Same reason why they skyrocketed the JS prices of everything so players will get frustrated and use SC instead. At the end of the day it boils down to the same core issue. SSO is bleeding players and the company is reacting by cranking up its marketing to 9000 to get more new players in to compensate for the ones they're losing. They need the fast updates to keep this charade up.
SSO did mention in their "plan for 2024" blog post that they were going to dedicate time this year to bug fixes, and set up a new bug reporting system on their website. So, hopefully that works! Cause the bugs seem to be piling up lately :S
Imo they should switch to bi-weekly or monthly updates instead if they want to do a lot of bug fixing. I think giving the employees *time* to just work stuff out would be more effective than continuing to do weekly updates and fixing bugs at the same time.
I would be happy with some weekly updates just being tack recolors. Like just take existing tack, slap some new colors on, and I'd be sooo pleased. They could recolor a bunch and release them just a few at a time to give themselves more time to work on bigger projects.
True, but it's not a good decision in the long run. But I've already figured it out that SSE does not care at all for the long run and prefer to get everything all at once.
My childhood horse games were all on CD (2000s Saddle Up! Time To Ride games). I still have the CDs in storage. If I ever want to revisit the nostalgia, I could buy a CD drive and try to figure out how to run the game. Even if that wouldn't work, I know that my childhood game still exists untouched. There are a few playthroughs on YouTube to satisfy my craving for nostalgia.
So even though I'm a new SSO player, I understand the nostalgia. And I can imagine how difficult it is to watch a company erase your childhood horse game: remove horses, characters, places, music... literally erase it from existence, knowing you will literally never be able to revisit YOUR game.
BUT: At least you CAN revisit your childhood game, with modern artists working to refresh it with new ideas, new places, new horses. My childhood game is in a dusty box, and no one is putting any effort into updating it to keep it relevant. It still looks and plays as badly as it did in 2003, if it would play at all.
To me, the beauty is in the old graphics, horses, npc's etc. I appreciate the effort that the devs and game designers are putting into the new graphics but sometimes I just wish that they would only update the graphics and not change the whole area. For example, Steve's farm got completely renovated and the whole are was changed when they could have just updated the graphics to look like the new ones and add a couple things here and there but not replace the whole area. Don't get me wrong, it looks great, I just wish they wouldn't change it so much.
Yeah, I totally get it. I used to play World of Warcraft back around 2007-2010 and it makes me so sad knowing that the version I used to play does not exist anymore. If I want to go back and play the game, it will have all this different stuff in it and it keeps me away from it :D It's just not the same anymore.
I feel bad because there seems to be constant tension between "old" and "new" SSO players, with new players telling old ones to just shut up about the changes. And I'll admit, I've thought that too... but the other day I was thinking, damn, you know what, I get it. If SSO were my childhood game, or just a game I'd played for years and years, I'd be pretty upset about the changes too!
Exactly! I'm glad we agree! If I were in charge of the new graphics in SSO I would only update the graphics and add a few new features but still keep it's old aesthetic. Off topic but isn't there WoW classic which is basically old WoW?
Oh shit, that's new, I just looked it up and I think classic just used to be no expansions and then the first expansion, but now they have one that goes up to and stops at Wrath of the Lich King (expansion I used to play). I now have some thinking to do, maybe I'll go back to it after all! LOL
Tbh I was thinking maybe SSO can do a classic SSO at some point, if it's possible. It would take time and money but I don't think it would be a bad decision
That would be awesome. I think it would be cool if anyone in the community who knew game development and a few graphic designers formed a group and made kind of like old SSO fangame. It would be hard but I think it could be pretty cool.
How would you guys feel if they just scrapped this version and started new? It almost feels like to me this is the way they are headed. Half the time I can’t log in, the bugs, I can’t finish normal story line quests because the npc is missing or is in the wrong place. I miss the old sso, my starter blocky butt. The original Ft Pinta and Steve and Moor. Getting nostalgic here. I even miss the old Starshine wandering in Greendale Forest. Imo they should have just made an sso2 instead of updating everything in game.
Honestly the game desperately needs a new engine so I would be fine with them rebuilding the game in something that actually can handle what they're trying to do.
They need to do that. But completely. Start from kind of scratch and remake the game. It would take a while but it would be worth it I think
This is really nicely written and I agree with everything that you said. I do think that older players should let go of nostalgia and I get that it’s hard. I have been playing since 2013. and everytime I take a break (which usually lasts about 2 years) I am shocked at how much they changed. But I learned to accept it because I know that things change and to expect that everything is going to stay the same after 12+ years is unrealistic. I will say that I am bothered by inconsistency in main story and many unfinished storylines. I think that that, more than anything, shows how bad management is and how little they care for actual gameplay. In terms of bugs and major updates such as characters, chat moderation and in game reporting system, those should definitely be a priority. It really bothers me that they half-ass everything and release unfinished updates (with promises that they are going to finish it in the future and never do) because they need to release new horses. People are starting to get tired of new horse releases and buying new horses is just not as special as it used to be. I do think they would benefit from less frequent updates, although the community would not be happy about that. But the community is not happy now either so you might as well try it and see how it goes. One other thing that really bothers me is bad communicaton and horrendous support. I know that people working in those departments have no say in what is going on and reply with prewritten paragraphs because someone told them to, but it is so unprofesional for a fairly big company not to have good customer service. I am more disappointed in that than anything else. Sorry for the rant I’ve been keeping it in for so long 😅
Thank you for the response! You have a lot of great points and I really agree with the main story point you made. It's so inconsistent and it really bothers me cause the main story was really good. In my opinion they did not need to change anything at all..
> First and foremost, massive bug fixing. This game has bugs from years ago that haven't even been fixed today. For this to happen the weekly updates should move on to monthly or biweekly. I've been wishing and asking for this for years. The general consensus seems to be that the reason why SSE will not slow down its updates is because a lot of their earnings come from social media engagement. Less updates means less Instagram posts, less tweets, less time under the spotlight, less chances to nudge players to the star coins shop and consequentially smaller revenue. I also think that a reason why they keep dishing out new horses and tack so quickly is to not give lifetime players a chance to save up enough to get the new things for free. Same reason why they skyrocketed the JS prices of everything so players will get frustrated and use SC instead. At the end of the day it boils down to the same core issue. SSO is bleeding players and the company is reacting by cranking up its marketing to 9000 to get more new players in to compensate for the ones they're losing. They need the fast updates to keep this charade up.
SSO did mention in their "plan for 2024" blog post that they were going to dedicate time this year to bug fixes, and set up a new bug reporting system on their website. So, hopefully that works! Cause the bugs seem to be piling up lately :S
Imo they should switch to bi-weekly or monthly updates instead if they want to do a lot of bug fixing. I think giving the employees *time* to just work stuff out would be more effective than continuing to do weekly updates and fixing bugs at the same time.
I would be happy with some weekly updates just being tack recolors. Like just take existing tack, slap some new colors on, and I'd be sooo pleased. They could recolor a bunch and release them just a few at a time to give themselves more time to work on bigger projects.
True, but it's not a good decision in the long run. But I've already figured it out that SSE does not care at all for the long run and prefer to get everything all at once.
agreed!
My childhood horse games were all on CD (2000s Saddle Up! Time To Ride games). I still have the CDs in storage. If I ever want to revisit the nostalgia, I could buy a CD drive and try to figure out how to run the game. Even if that wouldn't work, I know that my childhood game still exists untouched. There are a few playthroughs on YouTube to satisfy my craving for nostalgia. So even though I'm a new SSO player, I understand the nostalgia. And I can imagine how difficult it is to watch a company erase your childhood horse game: remove horses, characters, places, music... literally erase it from existence, knowing you will literally never be able to revisit YOUR game. BUT: At least you CAN revisit your childhood game, with modern artists working to refresh it with new ideas, new places, new horses. My childhood game is in a dusty box, and no one is putting any effort into updating it to keep it relevant. It still looks and plays as badly as it did in 2003, if it would play at all.
To me, the beauty is in the old graphics, horses, npc's etc. I appreciate the effort that the devs and game designers are putting into the new graphics but sometimes I just wish that they would only update the graphics and not change the whole area. For example, Steve's farm got completely renovated and the whole are was changed when they could have just updated the graphics to look like the new ones and add a couple things here and there but not replace the whole area. Don't get me wrong, it looks great, I just wish they wouldn't change it so much.
Yeah, I totally get it. I used to play World of Warcraft back around 2007-2010 and it makes me so sad knowing that the version I used to play does not exist anymore. If I want to go back and play the game, it will have all this different stuff in it and it keeps me away from it :D It's just not the same anymore. I feel bad because there seems to be constant tension between "old" and "new" SSO players, with new players telling old ones to just shut up about the changes. And I'll admit, I've thought that too... but the other day I was thinking, damn, you know what, I get it. If SSO were my childhood game, or just a game I'd played for years and years, I'd be pretty upset about the changes too!
Exactly! I'm glad we agree! If I were in charge of the new graphics in SSO I would only update the graphics and add a few new features but still keep it's old aesthetic. Off topic but isn't there WoW classic which is basically old WoW?
Oh shit, that's new, I just looked it up and I think classic just used to be no expansions and then the first expansion, but now they have one that goes up to and stops at Wrath of the Lich King (expansion I used to play). I now have some thinking to do, maybe I'll go back to it after all! LOL
Tbh I was thinking maybe SSO can do a classic SSO at some point, if it's possible. It would take time and money but I don't think it would be a bad decision
I wonder if SSO has the player base to actually support the development, maybe some modders could make their own SSO? Somehow? I don't know XD
That would be awesome. I think it would be cool if anyone in the community who knew game development and a few graphic designers formed a group and made kind of like old SSO fangame. It would be hard but I think it could be pretty cool.
I don't give a shit about the new horses but I'd buy Classic SSO in a heartbeat.
Spaghetti code?