Post by Gemma on Jan 2, 2013 10:45:45 GMT -5
Hey everyone,
For those of you who don't know me, I'm Gemma. I am the Equus-Sims Programmer, and have actually built the entire new system from scratch, something which has taken nearly six months to do. On my part, a lot of effort has been put in. I've taken days off from uni, sweated and even cried when things have been failing, and I know all of the other staff who have had a big involvement - Christina, Eris, Lotte and others - have put in so much effort it's nearly unreal.
So why the change?
For any of you who have been here for a while now, you'll know that manually updating websites and checking emails and all, it can be a really big pain. It takes a lot of effort. New Equus was designed to minimize the number of emails which needed to be sent, and make the transfer of horses between members a lot simpler.
The admin@equus-sims.com email address which I'm sure you've all emailed at some stage currently receives over 500 emails a day, and became overwhelming for the staff to manage. Bear in mind that even when the registry applications were closed, you were all continuing to send emails about it every day, only adding to the stress of this. Drastic action needed to be taken and we needed to put in place a system where the number of registries and the number of registry applications for horses was more uniform and controlled. And so the idea for new Equus was born.
Please note, we all have lots of horses. I think I have about 30, most of which don't get the attention they need. A unanimous decision was made between the staff to limit the number of horses being registered on the system, with the intention of making it extremely easy to earn more credits to create new horses.
Horse Credits - Why?
We're on quite a small server, and if we allowed everyone to add all three hundred of their horses, it would become a total mess. The server would probably crash and no one would be able to play.
You can easily earn horse credits and if you think you have a new idea for earning horse credits, please suggest it. We have, and always will be, open to suggestions. The AMR system (Active Member Rewards) is a new thing we've come up with - It's as new to us as it is to you and will change quite a lot, depending on how things are going. You can easily earn Rewards (in the form of credits!) by doing simple things like posting in your scrapbook or even opening a stable!
New Aging System
The new aging system, 4 real months = 1 Equus year, is merely a suggestion. We have never, and will never, forced an aging system on the members, and anyone who wishes to use an alternative system is completely free to, as they were here.
Will this forum close?
Yes. The entire point of the new Equus was to move us all to a place where everything is more organised, including the moving to a new forum. The new forum provider is a lot better, too! This forum will be left up for a while to allow people to collect any posts and pictures they need to, but this forum will close permanently. We're sorry for any inconvenience caused.
To conclude:
And finally, the Equus-Sims Staff are a team of dedicated volunteers. We are not a business, and we are not paid for what we do. All of the work we've put into developing the new Equus has been done in our own free time out of the goodness of our hearts, because we all love Equus. Please mind your attitude when speaking with the staff, because Equus-Sims has never tolerated rudeness or bullying amongst its members.
And remember, change can be a good thing, just give the new Equus a try!
PLEASE ASK QUESTIONS BELOW. REPLIES NOT SEEKING HELP OF SOME KIND WILL BE DELETED. THANK YOU.
For those of you who don't know me, I'm Gemma. I am the Equus-Sims Programmer, and have actually built the entire new system from scratch, something which has taken nearly six months to do. On my part, a lot of effort has been put in. I've taken days off from uni, sweated and even cried when things have been failing, and I know all of the other staff who have had a big involvement - Christina, Eris, Lotte and others - have put in so much effort it's nearly unreal.
So why the change?
For any of you who have been here for a while now, you'll know that manually updating websites and checking emails and all, it can be a really big pain. It takes a lot of effort. New Equus was designed to minimize the number of emails which needed to be sent, and make the transfer of horses between members a lot simpler.
The admin@equus-sims.com email address which I'm sure you've all emailed at some stage currently receives over 500 emails a day, and became overwhelming for the staff to manage. Bear in mind that even when the registry applications were closed, you were all continuing to send emails about it every day, only adding to the stress of this. Drastic action needed to be taken and we needed to put in place a system where the number of registries and the number of registry applications for horses was more uniform and controlled. And so the idea for new Equus was born.
Please note, we all have lots of horses. I think I have about 30, most of which don't get the attention they need. A unanimous decision was made between the staff to limit the number of horses being registered on the system, with the intention of making it extremely easy to earn more credits to create new horses.
Horse Credits - Why?
We're on quite a small server, and if we allowed everyone to add all three hundred of their horses, it would become a total mess. The server would probably crash and no one would be able to play.
You can easily earn horse credits and if you think you have a new idea for earning horse credits, please suggest it. We have, and always will be, open to suggestions. The AMR system (Active Member Rewards) is a new thing we've come up with - It's as new to us as it is to you and will change quite a lot, depending on how things are going. You can easily earn Rewards (in the form of credits!) by doing simple things like posting in your scrapbook or even opening a stable!
New Aging System
The new aging system, 4 real months = 1 Equus year, is merely a suggestion. We have never, and will never, forced an aging system on the members, and anyone who wishes to use an alternative system is completely free to, as they were here.
Will this forum close?
Yes. The entire point of the new Equus was to move us all to a place where everything is more organised, including the moving to a new forum. The new forum provider is a lot better, too! This forum will be left up for a while to allow people to collect any posts and pictures they need to, but this forum will close permanently. We're sorry for any inconvenience caused.
To conclude:
- The aging system is a suggestion and you may choose to either follow and ignore it.
- Horse credits will be staying, though you may continue to have all of your horses listed on your own site, and earn more credits to add them gradually to ours.
- Depending on the show host you may be able to enter unregistered horses into schooling shows.
- This forum will soon have registration disabled and posting disabled.
- You are allowed to express your discontent for the new features, but anyone being unnecessarily rude to staff members will be suspended or banned accordingly.
And finally, the Equus-Sims Staff are a team of dedicated volunteers. We are not a business, and we are not paid for what we do. All of the work we've put into developing the new Equus has been done in our own free time out of the goodness of our hearts, because we all love Equus. Please mind your attitude when speaking with the staff, because Equus-Sims has never tolerated rudeness or bullying amongst its members.
And remember, change can be a good thing, just give the new Equus a try!
PLEASE ASK QUESTIONS BELOW. REPLIES NOT SEEKING HELP OF SOME KIND WILL BE DELETED. THANK YOU.