Hi all,

I've had an idea that I think could take gameplay to another level. It would be a build upon the league to create the most realistic possible way of playing the game.
If we had a real life schedule with all races running from 1st January to 31st December, which I and i know some others have created, in real time, and players entered horses and like in real life they got older, then we'd have essentially as close to real life game as possible, with as many owners as people entering, with real races from the lowest levels to the highest.
We could even create trainers so as we are the owners and breeders and then we allocate a trainer for our horse just for the sake of realism, we would of course be the ones 'training' them and entering them in races.
We would breed horses from our own games, and then enter them into the league when they are 2 as breeders/owners would in real life. Also, if its possible to do, something that would really be amazing, if say a champion horse from the league comes to the end of his 3 year old season, if his player/owner retires him, he will retire to the player/owners stud located in his own game, and i dont know if this is possible now, or possible to make it so, but other players could send horse files of some of their mares to the owner of the stallion and he breed these mares with the stallion in his game and once the foals are born, send the horse file back to the owner of the mare to own the foal. This would create a very realistic game I feel and I think it could be possible. We could figure out a way of making some sort of currency for owners to charge stallions, we can also have options for owners to buy horses from other owners if they so wish, if we had a good currency system running, which would also be important for prize money.
I'm not sure if we would have enough players for this, but we could have an international element to it, whereby owners decide which country they have their horses, or can even choose to send some horses to international trainers, and they then run in those international countries, in effect as big owners do in real life. If there isnt enough players for this, I could make a number of owners for each country so there is always local horses from those countries, and im sure others with realistic intentions could do the same, so the game has a complete worldwide feel to it.
I realise it may be complicated and a lot of organising, but I think it would be worth it, and I would be happy to take the mantle.
I think this would be an advancement on the current league as it would cater for everyone, and be the most realistic possible way of playing the game.

Does anyone have any thoughts and ideas about this?

Thank you

wow sounds like a huge undertaking and not entirely sure its even possible

so would all this be done from one persons game as TBH i dont understand how you plan to do it
if its like the league you will need race runners running races everyday all year round I'm not sure who
would commit to this can you please explain a bit more what you are planning.


if this plan is run in one persons game it wont work anyway as other peoples horse files cant be sent into
other peoples game as i say can you expand more on your plan

It is just an idea at the moment, thinking on how games are played online, I imagined it could be played on an oline forum where people watch the races there, and enter horses into races on a website as such. Similar to how many online virtual horse racing games work. I am not sure about horse files, i dont know if this is possible, but I was thinking that if horse files exist somewhere in the SO folders, then they could be sent to other users and introduced into their games, if this isnt possible, then maybe there would be a way to do this on a website that will host the league, so as studs can be held there and horses sent between players.
As i say, its just an idea, i dont know if its possible, but I feel it must be, however i have no idea about how difficult it my be to do. I'm sure there are others here who know far more than me about this type of thing.

My thoughts are that we have realistic schedules that match real life very closely. If we have enough players to create enough horses in the game, in real life there is something like 15,000 horses in training, if we reached similar numbers, a little less, then I think its possible. If there was a website for example to host the game, then players could enter horses in very much the same way they do in the game, and hopefully if we had enough players, (even if we didnt maybe we can make an option for players to have more than one 'owner', similar to the multiplayer game, so for example if i had five different owners for who i controlled horses for, then this could mean that we could make up the numbers if we had fewer players) then races would get filled with realistic numbers.

This is what mark should do in SO7 via a centralised and automated league server. For as long as the league needs volunteers it is a pipe dream.

I don't know much about being able to host the game on a central website, but it feels like it should be something very possible to do? If so, I don't think it's a pipe dream, I think it would be possible

I have run races for the online league and competed within it for several seasons, there is a website that manages the schedules and entries, developed on a volunteer basis and managed and maintained in a like manner. But the races themselves are not on the site, they are run via a separate application called the racekit that mark developed. The race runners get and install the application, then the league chairman downloads entries from the website to send them to the runners via Dropbox. It takes about 4 hours plus to run say 16-18 races each week. The recorded races horse files and form cards then go off to the comms team who spend likely the same amount of time recording the race commentary. Results are then uploaded back to the website for form records, handicapping is then done manually, add say another 2-4 hours for that same 16-18 races. And finally the finished product is put onto the forums.

This is all very manual, time consuming and entirely run by volunteers, and the league as of right now barely gets enough people willing to give the time. You want to multiply that process by a huge number to cover races everyday, considerably more than just about get done weekly for 13 weeks. So yes it is a pipe dream without a massive amount of development from Mark to take away the manual effort.

I would say it would be a very nice pipe dream and really what I think the SO7 online element should look to achieve.

Josh

Pipe Dream more like impossible

Of course its not impossible. Most games nowadays have an online play mode. There are many many virtual horse racing games online that work in this exact way! It would need a site to host the game, so as players can play the game essentially the same way as they do in their own private games, online. If someone can explain why this is impossible, i'd like to know

My point is it would require development from Mark, he is not working on SO6 as I expect he is too busy with SO7 thus it is Marks development in SO7 you need to petition. There is also a not inconsiderable cost of having an online servers with the bandwidth you’d need and the whole support layer. It is in no way impossible as online gaming has long since cracked what you suggest on a wide range of formats, but it can only be done via development in SO7 in my view and I have seen nothing in the notes that suggests this is in his thinking.

Thanks githyanki, you definitely know a lot more than me about this! I appreciate that there could be a significant cost to hosting the game online, but as far as everything else goes, would it be particularly difficult? It seems to me that most of the things needed are already present in the game.

Thanks
Joe

I have been asking for this from Mark for a while although I have not been on the forums a lot lately.
Mark is in essence a one man band and a good one at that!
But to get the SO series to the next level you will need the backing of a major game player to invest and add a number of people to help Mark. Mark at that point would have to give up some of his sovereign control of the game. Not sure Mark is willing to go down that path. But then there is always the crowd fund me path. The future is in taking away the manual part of the online league.

Cheers all.

I agree! Out of interest, what is the rough cost of running a game like this online if anybody knows?

I admire your enthusiasm but lets get one thing clear here.....SO6 is not designed to run as an online multiplayer game.
The only reason there is an online league is because of the volunteers performing tasks "offline".
The only "online" element to the League is TOM that was custom built to manage the online stables and race nominations.
No matter how much money you throw at this idea SO6 will not run "online".

If you would explain why Jango, there is no reason why it couldn’t work, lots of games run online, what is it about SO that makes it not possible?