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 SO8 - if it happens 
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Post Re: SO8 - if it happens
hello all, SO6 is still one of my favorite games although I have not played any game for awhile.
I said this before the release of SO7 and I will say it again now.
Starters Orders will never reach its full potential unless its played on servers where everyone plays each other in real time.
Real time multiplayer.
Not many may want to hear that but I wish you all the best.
Mark, thank you for a wonderful game :)

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Mon Apr 18, 2022 1:05 am
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Selling plater

Joined: Sat Mar 18, 2017 3:59 am
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Post Re: SO8 - if it happens
An editor or method to edit jockey/trainers attributes/reputation prior to single player game start for more immersiveness.


Sat Oct 01, 2022 7:28 pm
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Selling plater

Joined: Mon Jan 23, 2023 11:41 am
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Post Re: SO8 - if it happens
Please I need Starters Orders 8 RIGHT NOW!!!!


Mon Jan 23, 2023 11:44 am
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Joined: Fri Feb 12, 2016 3:31 pm
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Post Re: SO8 - if it happens
it simply has to be available to play on the latest macos for me to be spending any money on it


Sun Feb 12, 2023 4:54 pm
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Post Re: SO8 - if it happens
Hi Mark,

I have been an avid player of the game since SO6 and this game is by far my favourite in terms of the horse racing experience it offers. It really is a fantastic game and one can only imagine all the dedication and hardwork you put in to bring the game to this point.

Being a racing diehard and being around the industry on a daily basis I have a few suggestions to improve the game. I have read much of the discussion on here without adding my own input but I think an app that follows the breeding/training/racing backbone SO6-S07 offers is fantastic and would put SO ahead of competition like Rival Stars, Photo Finish etc. which only offer a very limited basic although fun experience. A lot of these games promote in-app purchases but are free games, not sure how but in terms of popularity a good game that gets users in to grow the user base may be what is needed to capture some of this market share. A PVP race format would also be highly popular.

None the less, I have always been a desktop player and these are the changes I would like to put forward for your consideration:

- Game interface rehaul: menus etc. dated, gfx dated, need more silks and customisation options, maybe a place we can make our own from scratch

- Commentary: This was has always been a massive downside for me that I haven't seen mentioned. Being from Australia our racecallers do a fantastic job of putting us on the edge of our seat and can make a great race a classic race with some memorable commentary. The commentary in-game does the opposite. My suggestion would be to maybe outsource some call action words or triggers to race callers from different regions to provide a more authentic feel. I can help with script and arrange at least here in Australia.

- Schedule: Whilst coding is out of my depth I have almost perfected a schedule and experience of the Australian Racing Circuit, as I have found the scheduling, prize money, race conditions, jockeys, owners etc. to be much outdated and takes away from the racing experience. I know there may be red tape with name likeness potentially. My suggestion would be to source out some of the work to other dedicated users that have this kind of in depth knowledge about their regions. It took me 20-30+ hours to finalise this.

- Handicapping & Racecourses: Someone on this forum did an amazing job with race courses and scheduling for Australia. Whilst I find it unnecessary to have 1000 courses big and small it is a really good experience when you can have unremarkable horses in unremarkable races, especially when you are doing a hardcore rags to riches run. My suggestion would be to include the more notable courses for every region. This extends to the handcapping feature, not sure how handicapping works in UK etc. but Australia use a points system and I've always found it frustrating when I have average or underperforming horses who wins a lowly races or maiden or places as a juvenile in a listed race and then have to live with a 100 rating. A systematic handicapping system would be another great feature, I feel the ratings system in game needs a rehaul.

- Breeding: Whilst I think the breeding system is fantastic I would like to see a more realistic outlook and books for stallions. Stallions should be having somewhere between 30-80 yearlings per season (within reason) and I feel not enough commercial incentive is put on training and owning the next Frankel from a breeding standpoint, the AI in-game should be lining up to book and pay big dollars for the elite horses where as I struggle to book horses as Group 1 winners for mediocre prices if they are not my own mares.

- In-game rewards system / Currency: A system that promotes high achievers and people who want to put money into your game. Whilst I like the idea that this is not a pay to win game, allowing people to buy a currency that can be exchanged for features and certain rewards appears a great business decision.

- Online mode: Whilst this isn't as simple or straightforward ploy as racing is so unique and diverse my idea to implement this feature sounds very refined to what it could be. Each user can wager currency / play for fun in contention for the trainers premiership. I.e. you put X users in a live R2R scheduled experience with X amount of races and X amount of resources for season (maybe more veteran players can acheive better starts / facilities through the in-game rewards system). These users then utilise their resources and horses to perfect a schedule to maximise the amount of points they can win with certain races worth X points. At the completion of the season the user with the highest number of premiership points is the winner and is rewarded with whatever. This would work fantastic in highly competitive environments like HK or Sydney.

Again I only highlight these because I am so passionate about your game and the potential it has to be more than niche.

If you need any assistance with game, I am happy to help and I hope my ideas and suggestions are well received.


Thu Feb 23, 2023 3:30 pm
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Joined: Mon Jun 16, 2008 1:03 am
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Post Re: SO8 - if it happens
I've been compiling a list of improvements for SO8, though I've yet to post them. Most are related to immersion rather than play-ability. One that continues to rankle me are stud fees for top stallions. There are 21 stallions with a stud fee of over $1M in my save, with the top producer commanding a fee of nearly $8M. He's by far and away the best producer, and yet because of his stud fee received only four mares last year and just two the year before. To keep me playing, the AI needs to be competitive so it's in my best interest that the top stallions are available to improve the AI stock.


Wed Mar 01, 2023 2:22 am
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Post Re: SO8 - if it happens
I have noticed on the new SO "Classic" 2D game, that PHOTO FINISHES are included, can this not be added back to 07 as in previous incarnations ?


Wed Mar 01, 2023 12:18 pm
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Joined: Sun Jan 24, 2010 5:41 pm
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Location: Newburgh, Scotland
Post Re: SO8 - if it happens
The schedule needs a major overhaul, it is way way out of date and inadequate.
Graphics need an overhaul. Horses and courses.
Commentary as mentioned one or two posts above is abysmal.


Wed Mar 01, 2023 3:00 pm
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Joined: Tue Oct 11, 2016 6:44 pm
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Post Re: SO8 - if it happens
for me, the most important thing is dynamic conditioning/fitness ratings. We should not be able to run horses every two weeks from January-December and the horse ALWAYS be at peak fitness and condition.


Tue Jun 27, 2023 2:40 pm
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Post Re: SO8 - if it happens
Degaussed wrote:
for me, the most important thing is dynamic conditioning/fitness ratings. We should not be able to run horses every two weeks from January-December and the horse ALWAYS be at peak fitness and condition.


if you do manual training they wont be


Wed Jun 28, 2023 3:19 pm
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Post Re: SO8 - if it happens
Please Please Please Mark...

Address the glaring deficiencies of the current racing schedule. Whilst the ability to greatly increase the yard capacity now exists there is no reasonable fit for purpose race schedule to accommodate for this. I usually have a yard of around 150 horses once I'm into the game breeding ,perhaps more but try to stick to around this number, selling any surplus horses.

I consistently end up at certain times in the season having to enter 2/3 horses in the same mdn/nvc races just to get a run and for some at some distances there are very slim pickings. Also handicappers at certain distances/class/ages just run out of race choices to be entered in through the season again meaning a lack of races for some and others having to be raced in the same races as other stablemates.

A max of 3 meetings per day of 8 races is just not enough for any sort of string size akin to my example to have reasonable options to make entries that I wish for.4 meetings of 8 races per day would be at least some improvement, 5-6 for me is what's actually needed and would make a real difference in terms of realism and game enjoyment for me to want to play this game again. Unfortunately this one issue is that big a deal for me it has meant I stopped playing SO7 through frustration and will certainly not be purchasing any future versions unless this issue is resolved I have followed the game since SO5 and seen great changes and improvements in other areas but for some reason I find completely hard to fathom, the racing schedule, the very heart of the game, has had no surgery whatsoever.

I started to make my own schedule for SO6 but soon realized the restriction of only 24 possible races per day was the stumbling block to being able to build what I wanted and what I felt was fit for purpose. I've never seen a response to any of these schedule queries from Mark or anyone else on here that gives a reason why it cannot be increased to more races per day and why it's been consistently ignored as other areas of the game have outgrown it.

Even having the basic schedule as it stands and allowing for players to increase it if they so desire with an editor to have more meetings and races each day would be ok, I don't mind putting the work in personally. This for me is my only request for SO8 which is the difference between me buying and not doing so.

I wish Mark and everyone playing well for the future.

Cheers
Paul


Sun Sep 17, 2023 10:41 am
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Joined: Sun Jan 24, 2010 5:41 pm
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Location: Newburgh, Scotland
Post Re: SO8 - if it happens
HeadsandTails wrote:
Please Please Please Mark...

Address the glaring deficiencies of the current racing schedule. Whilst the ability to greatly increase the yard capacity now exists there is no reasonable fit for purpose race schedule to accommodate for this. I usually have a yard of around 150 horses once I'm into the game breeding ,perhaps more but try to stick to around this number, selling any surplus horses.

I consistently end up at certain times in the season having to enter 2/3 horses in the same mdn/nvc races just to get a run and for some at some distances there are very slim pickings. Also handicappers at certain distances/class/ages just run out of race choices to be entered in through the season again meaning a lack of races for some and others having to be raced in the same races as other stablemates.

A max of 3 meetings per day of 8 races is just not enough for any sort of string size akin to my example to have reasonable options to make entries that I wish for.4 meetings of 8 races per day would be at least some improvement, 5-6 for me is what's actually needed and would make a real difference in terms of realism and game enjoyment for me to want to play this game again. Unfortunately this one issue is that big a deal for me it has meant I stopped playing SO7 through frustration and will certainly not be purchasing any future versions unless this issue is resolved I have followed the game since SO5 and seen great changes and improvements in other areas but for some reason I find completely hard to fathom, the racing schedule, the very heart of the game, has had no surgery whatsoever.

I started to make my own schedule for SO6 but soon realized the restriction of only 24 possible races per day was the stumbling block to being able to build what I wanted and what I felt was fit for purpose. I've never seen a response to any of these schedule queries from Mark or anyone else on here that gives a reason why it cannot be increased to more races per day and why it's been consistently ignored as other areas of the game have outgrown it.

Even having the basic schedule as it stands and allowing for players to increase it if they so desire with an editor to have more meetings and races each day would be ok, I don't mind putting the work in personally. This for me is my only request for SO8 which is the difference between me buying and not doing so.

I wish Mark and everyone playing well for the future.

Cheers
Paul


Couldn't agree more except for the final bit about an editor. Unless this was so simple to use as just ticking a few boxes to increase days and meetings then it doesn't solve the glaring fault with the game schedule. I too will only be purchasing if this is sufficiently resolved.


Wed Sep 20, 2023 1:32 pm
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Post Re: SO8 - if it happens
Quote:
Address the glaring deficiencies of the current racing schedule.


The schedule issues (non feature related) have been discussed before and a number of improvements have been made (for SO8) which have helped considerably.

Trainer race entries for horses are improved. Trainers also now increasingly try to place unraced horses (avoiding the pools of horses that never seem to race). In fact currently hardly any horses from all age groups seem to get left out now.

There are more options for lowly rated horses at different points during the season.

There is an XL schedule mode that increases max meetings to 4 and increases the game pool by 30%. This currently works fine. Due to low level changes to how the sim works there is no reason the max number of meetings per day couldn’t be increased again but it would have implications for pool sizes etc.

The work log is here (it needs updating): https://www.startersorders.com/so8.html

Twitter has the most updates regarding news and features these days: https://twitter.com/Starters_Orders


Wed Sep 20, 2023 2:53 pm
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Post Re: SO8 - if it happens
I skimmed through it last night and love the stable management stuff and especially the breeding queing (not correcting the spelling, tis wat it is.).

Can't wait to see the new UI.

Any chance that we can remove or lower the number of sellers and claimers and maybe hcp races in a vanilla schedule?
I know you said it wasn't easy to change due to AI entries or something, sorry if I got that wrong.


Tue Sep 26, 2023 2:49 am
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Joined: Sun Apr 05, 2020 4:44 am
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Location: Ireland
Post Re: SO8 - if it happens
Can you please add using jockeys in different countries an update please.

Make it much more realistic?

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Wed Sep 27, 2023 11:04 am
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