Should the famous studs available in the game be restricted to those that are…
Alive
Still breeding in real life
Neither
0voters
It has been brought to my attention that the realism of FF is slightly…strained…by the fact that we have famous stallions in the game who are not available in real life. (Man O’War died 60 years ago, Lonesome Glory was never a breeding stallion to begin with, etc.)
So…should FF retire the famous studs who are
No longer alive?
No longer standing at stud?
The plus side to retiring studs is that FF would have leeway to add more recent studs (Smarty Jones? Invasor?), as members desire. New studs must be 1) alive 2) retired from racing 3) standing at stud to be considered for addition to the game.
While I recognize there was a desire to have real-life studs to start off with in FF, I feel like the stallion population of FF has reached a point where there really isn’t a need to keep trying to splice in Real-Life. (It creates discontinuities, for one… if there’s a Triple Crown winner this year, and he becomes a stallion in FF, that makes no sense, since FF has its own winners for those three races for 2007.) I’d be happiest if there were never another RL stallion added to the game.
Real Life current stallions would be cool. However with even words from you out of game lines just are not worth much if anything in this game. Even horses with the same created lines it doesn’t mean anything within this game. So I don’t think it would much matter if you retired the unavailable in real life stallions, and added in the others.
I voted for current real life stallions, but I think they need to have strick qualifying criteria. We have a heap of in game stallions so we don’t really need a heap of non-game stallions that we have no evidence of how the FF code treats them.
I think that we should let the ones that are in the game now run there course. Retire when they are supposed to and die when they are supposed to. At that point we could on a limited basis add in real life stallions, maybe 2 or 3 a year with the criterion you had outlined above. You could then take suggestions, put up a poll etc. to let the members have there say as to who they would like to see.
I see the FF code as doing the same thing as real life. You just don’t know until the 4th or 5th year of offspring to see what you’ve got as far as a useable stud. Yes I would dearly love to see the Man’o’Wars and Secretariats follow the real life breeding patterns but they don’t. I also think that when people are looking to join they need to have some sort of name recognition in the horses they are looking at. I had no idea that anything with “Highland” in the name was a good thing, but I’ll tell you I learned real quick after the first few months!!
Heh heh… it took me a while a rereading to understand what was being asked. :
Anyway, I think that since we seem to be shooting for reality, it would be cool if the racing world in this game is as close to the racing world of real life. Therefore, I stuck my vote in still available for stud because it seems to me that we’re trying to be like the real world as possible.
But, I never noticed before, so another direction wouldn’t even faze me. ;)
I voted for currently standing-at stud stallions, but was going to say that I honestly wouldn’t mind either way since they ARE separate from RL horses in that the best aren’t necessarily the best. I’m all for realism, plus I think it would help members who aren’t up-to-date on today’s top stallions get motivated to learn a bit more about the racing world. Names like Secretariat & Man O’ War are already well known enough & likely to show up in generated pedigrees anyway - adding some new RL studs would add some variance, I think.
But now that you’ve mentioned that the “old” RL stallions would stay indefinitely & are listed as being 90 years old or whatever (I hadn’t realized that, being new to the game & without any breeding stock so far), then I’m even more in support of switching to stallions who are currently standing at stud in RL.
I dunno…I kinda like things just the way they are.
Last year Shanthi retired several RL stallions, simply because they weren’t getting bred to, and introduced 3 new ones. If we’re going to phase out studs then I’d rather it was done by that same criteria. If people aren’t breeding to them then there’s obviously just not that much interest in them and they have served their purpose, in that case.
For me, having a horse who’s descended from a RL stallion is cool, but it’s not the only factor I’m looking at for breedings. Tiznow and Rahy and Giant’s Causeway are cool, but just because they’re ‘more real’ than other studs doesn’t automatically make me want to breed to them.
I voted for those that are still breeding in real life, but I would have no problems if the existing RL studs were all removed. They were useful when the game was just getting started, but now they’re doing 2 things that I don’t see as being great.
Discouraging mare owners from breeding to FF-bred/raced stallions. Sure, people still send mares to FF-raced studs, but a lot go to the “famous” guys because we perceive them as being a better bet (plus they generally have more foals to look at since FF breeds its mares to them).
Creates confusion with the recent massive influx of created horses with real-life lines. When I created the pedigree submission I didn’t anticipate people taking auction catalogs or Pedigree Query and just entering massive RL horses. I imagine it’s very confusing for a new member to join and identify that horses that are by Secretariat in game are actually related to each other, but all the horses who are by Hoist the Flag are, in fact, not related at all.
When it’s the same name in the male position on the pedigree, no matter where it is, or in the female position on the pedigree, people will think they are related, as the name is the same in x horses pedigree and y horses pedigree. You can’t expect much else, no matter if it’s a real life horse or a made up horse. Unfortunatly it just comes across as common sense. Which is what I got my hand slapped for before in FF.
That hand slapping has taught me that created lines are nothing and that in game lines are everything. Which decreases the value of any created horse in this game, to me that is. I’m not perfect but that has become my understanding of the game. So any non-game stallion without a race production record in the game is a non-valuable horse to me.
It would also be hard to go with real life breeding studs since we are in the future and can not guess when a RL stud would no longer be available for stud, or possibly die.
After reading all of the different responses I have to agree that we’ve had enough foals sired in the game by Famous stallions to carry on many of the most popular bloodlines (look at how many A.P. Indy foals are jumping around) and by phasing them out and only leaving in living stallions (not ones that were born 70 years ago) it will leave more room open for FF bred stallions.
FF famous stallions are on the pricer side as well which is fine by me as I don’t really have a problem putting down 50k for a breeding, but putting in less FF stallions and restricting to ones that are alive is going to create a higher demand for FF bred stallions and likely more breedings and chances taken for foals with the game stallions.
Adding in 2-3 new studs each year as well will help generate more interest for real life stallions within the game, and I believe create a stronger gene-base so that we will not create in-breeding. Sounds like a good option for me
However… I think we should start this as of 2012 giving everyone time to get their last breedings in order for this year and get some lines going that they may want to keep when the stallions are gone, and plenty of time for organizing new studs to be added for next year. Could likely also include a nomination process near the end of the year near Horse of the Year voting for nominations/voting for new stallions to be added the next year.
I voted for currently standing Stallions… I think a more realistic stud listing is the best… The greats from he 30’s 40’s and so on are well represented in todays FF horses… last year seen the retirement of 5 famous stallions who were not being used… and the introduction of 5 modern stallions… Saddler’s Wells, Rahy, Giant’s Causway (Grandson to Rahy), Tiznow and War Chant…
I also think that the real life stallion roster should be limited to 15-20 of the total stallions standing in FF… currently there are 29 standing for the 2011 season… maybe for 2012… retire all the dead or non-standing stallions, and bring in a couple, then the following year, figure out if some of the current RL have retired or died… retire them and bring in a couple more RL stallions… but I really think 15-20 should be the limit… maybe even only 10… Thus giving FF bred & raced stallions who qualify to stand at stud… would have a better chance of attracting quality mares & thus improving their odd of siring top racers like them selves…
It really makes no difference one way or the other. I happened to vote for no RL studs because all we’re talking about is names They don’t breeding like their real life counterparts so putting the name of a real life stud on a created horse can only lead confusion and/or disappointment for a new player.
This game is it’s own reality. The breeding lines are unique to this game because they developed over time just like in real life. Studs come and go the only real issue is not getting the real and created breeding lines confused. The very best thing about his games is breeding and developing. Using your own intuition, observation, and research to develop a bloodline is … well it just is
you can always have people put in their suggestions, choose say a dozen or so to use but post say twice that amount for everyone to vote on and the “12” (or whatever number chosen) with the highest votes gets put in as the new studs. I know there are plenty of nice ones out there, Bluegrass Cat, Malibu Moon, Sir Shackleton, Redattore, Giants Causeway, Lonhro, Octagonal, Tiznow., Redoutes Choice, ETC.
I Think that its a good idea if plenty of people agree to bring in some new blood. There are even plenty of Sunday Silence Progeny to bring in to take his place also. well thats just my thoughts, I love it the way it is but any new studs is fun for us all!!! lol
I love the fact that there are the Man O’ War/Seabiscuit types, etc. Sure it’s not real, but as Paul stated, to paraphrase, it is FF real. We seem to be trending the other direction, and that’s cool as well. I don’t think it’s a huge issue either way.
I vote to keep em. I think it’s fun and adds a little excitment to the game. I mean we’re playing with scripts of html. It doesn’t need to be absolutely 100% realistic.
I like having real-life studs, because it adds an element of chance to the game (I’m breeding to a real-life multi-millionaire, but can he really sire great foals in the game??) and gives players a chance to live our real-life horse owning dreams; i.e., I would kill for a Smarty Jones baby. I do think it’s a good idea, though, to restrict breeding to these stallions according to their real-life status… at least to those who are still alive.
Hmm… I’m going with “still breeding in real life” because, as said before, it goes with the realism of the game, which I know you’re trying for.
But… foo… in that case, there goes my dreams for a War Admiral baby for my stable XP Ah well. I’m pretty sure I’ll still love the site no matter what you do with it :3
