Horizon

Happy Summer everybody and welcome to our fifth Real Talk thread! As per the usual setup, we’d like this to be an opportunity to hear from you the players in regards to sitewide concerns. When rough times do crop up, staff hope as a community we can pull together and support one another, and that’s also what this thread is about. We want to encourage communication. We also want everybody to feel Horizon is an inclusive, safe, and enjoyable place to be. So let’s hear your suggestions, questions, and feedback!

Please be aware any concerns that are of an individual basis ought to be brought up to staff directly, to avoid people being targeted. We want this thread to be a positive environment to address concerns in, thanks for understanding! Staff are available to PM or discord and we’ll always endeavor to get back to you ASAP.

FIXED
More announcements and greater staff transparency for rule changes/updates. - We hear you and have already begun! As a reminder you can check things out in the Site Change log too!
Adding a mention we are LGBT+ friendly and explanation of how trans characters are handled - Done!
Clarified SP claims in particular what counts as ‘important information’ - Done!
Clarified limits on initial puppy adoptions verses re-adoptions - Done!
All rules need to be written down - While we cannot anticipate every single instance and variant of the existing rules, if you are ever unsure of any example of a rule, please contact staff or post it here for sure!
Put in place a rule for re-using names - Done!

PLANNED TWEAKS
Rounds before entering a fight - While our fighting guide does cover this, we are looking into making it a bit more firm of a rule!
Clarifying returning pack wolves who are still considered by their pack as a part of said pack - This is an uncommon example but we do want to nail something solid down since it was brought up in the last Real Talk thread! 
Changing colours from the ‘sex’ field on profiles - This possibility will be looked at but not as our highest priority!
More group activities - While we moved towards this with a Secret Santa in place this month, we’re always open to considering more activities!

NOT CHANGING FOR NOW
Moving Horizon to a new website/setting - Decided against for now!
Three-day skip not applying to fights - To allow a natural flow in all threads and prevent total stall-outs, weather fights or not, no changes to the three day skip rule are planned!
Adding more genders aside from male/female - Not altering. While Horizon is a site that welcomes a broad spectrum of players and characters alike, given wolves determine gender via scent, the male/female option is there to express physical gender/pheromones (and physical only as any character is free to identity as whatever they like personally) without causing confusion ICly!

CRACKS MY KNUCKLES

Okay! It’s a small thing, but personally I’d like to see staff engage a bit more with the suggestion channel in the discord server? : C There’s been a lot of thing posted that just never got a staff reply or feedback and even though I’m sure we all know you’re very busy & i’m sure you keep an eye on the channel, it’d be nice to know what’s being considered and what’s not !

EDIT;; SORRY FOR DOUBLE TEXTING but i remembered this after OTL.. I might be the only one who feels this way (and thats fine! just wanted to ask anyway) but is there any possibility there could be some reconsideration on how the adoption process is done for site adopts? Personally i’d really like to see the people posting the adopts being able to post their own requirements for adoption!! I think the current system of sending a roleplay sample works fine, but when I post an adopt, I know I care more about what the roleplayer wants to do with the character and what drew them to adopt them than what their writing abilities are- i can see that from their posts most of the time!!
Nov 30, 2018 08:42 AM — Post #1

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AHH okay omg I’m at work rn but i just wanted to pop in here right quick.
I’ll take at least part of the blame for not posting in the suggestions channel on discord - I had replies written up and everything that I was just running by the rest of the team and it totally just…slipped my mind oml.

I’ll try and do better with that!!

I promise it wasn’t being ignored and honestly if you guys have things like that that u think we might be forgetting about pls yell at me on discord. I totally welcome reminders!!

i love u quinn < 3

I will very openly admit to having the Horizon server muted currently, and in fact all my discord servers are muted rn, while I’ve been dealing with leaving work and preparing for moving, because otherwise I just chat forever and accomplish nothing x: After I move, I will be unmuting!! I also *do* still respond to pings, so even if it’s not for me directly, if you ever need a mod and don’t know who to harass, harass me, I don’t care :P @ my name until the cows come home lol.

also double post to ur hearts content my friend

(we’re working on a post about the adoption thing now which is why I’m not… saying anything individually but YEAH we definitely saw it!!)

i’m not sure if this has been brought up before, and i wasn’t sure where else to put it, but it seems like the antler spirit symbol doesn’t work. you can take the quiz and get it, but when you click “Add to Profile,” it sends you to an error page and doesn’t add to your character’s profile. i checked the list of active characters and no one has antler, either. it may also be worth noting that, on the spirit symbol quiz, antler is referred to as “horn” when you get it. someone’s probably already noticed but i haven’t seen any mention of it and i’m not sure how long it’s been broken.

also, i wanted to give my two cents on gabriel’s suggestion about different adoptable requirements. i think that’s a great idea, and wouldn’t be very hard to implement, either. all it would really take is a little addition on the adoptables page saying something like “feel free to add your own requirements for auditioners (i.e. why they’re auditioning for a character, etc.)” so that folks know it’s alright to do that if they want. i remember someone doing something like that last puppy season for a pup that needed to be readopted, but i don’t remember who. right now, though, the procedure for adopting characters on the actual adoptables page seems a bit strict and closed to other requirements. then players are free to just add in additional requirements to the adoptable’s description.

The spirit symbol quiz is broken and has been for years!  I don’t think I have a way to fix it, but I’ll look into it when I have the time. It might be back-end stuff that we can’t get to.

That said, if you do happen to get antler as your result, just screenshot your webpage (including time and date on your computer, please!) and I can set it to antler manually.  I’ll see about making note of that somewhere… :)

That said, antler is a pretty ‘rare’ alignment. This doesn’t come up often because it’s just not very often anyone gets it. The only two wolves I can think of having ever earned or asked for it were Ink (before I was staff) and Mako!

We’re talking about the adoptable stuff. I’ll get a reply for you guys soon!

Hey guys, thank you for your patience!

As the adoptable rules stand, we can see how it seems like you are meant to be judging the audition based on the sample alone. It really was never meant to be this way! Part of why we took adoptables ‘behind the scenes’ and into direct PM between player and hopeful was to make sure people were getting good players without the public pressure of an immediate yes or no when the joining thread went up.

After an audition is sent in in the form of the initial RP sample, the player adopting the character out is completely welcome to request more or make more inquiries as they see fit!  If you want to request more info up front, you can totally indicate that in the adoptable form.

To make this freedom more clear, we’ve added this to the adoptables procedure page (which you can check out for yourself):

The person who owns the adoptable is then free to discuss or inquire about the character and how you would play them however he or she likes to see if you are the right fit for the adoptable. Just remember not to OOC plan any future intentions!

I’m real late to the party, sorry guys.

Multiple Sires.

Okay, before you beat me with a stick and tell me that it’s not physically possible, just hear me out. I think it would put a lot more variety in colorations and personality traits and other things. 

For example:

Wolf A and Wolf B mate, but in her heat Wolf A mates with Wolf C.

Wolf A and Wolf B fill out the form as normal but at the end you can toggle something that’s along the lines of: Did your wolf mate with any other wolves during her heat? If so, you may include these wolves here. There is a 15-20% chance your wolf will have pups with characteristics of the two males instead of the one. If your wolf mated with more than two, there will be a 5% chance that the pups will take on characteristics from two fathers, chosen randomly from the selected amount of wolves.

Because of this, and since it’s a stretch I don’t have many high hopes, but there could be a 1/100 chance that a mutation could occur from this. We have odd colored eyes, and odd markings that you wouldn’t really see on wolves irl, so why not mutations?

Mutation chance:
If a mutation is present: (5-100) 5% chance

Mutation list:
these have a 5% chance in obtaining.
Albinism: Pure white fur with red or pink eyes. Susceptible to skin irritations, blindness and others.
Melanism: Pure black fur, it does not turn grey or white with age.
Piebaldism: White patches in coloration.
Chimera: Black patches on fur (two embryos fused together. ex. one half of body is black while the other is white.)
Dwarfism: Tinier than the smallest wolf. Unable to run as fast as others.
Gigantism: Bigger than the biggest wolf. Slower but more powerful.

these have a 95% chance of obtaining.
Floppy ears: Self-explanatory. Both ears are floppy.
Heterochromia: This is already allowed but it’s two colored eyes. This is a genetic mutation.
Thinner fur: Less than normal amount of ‘fluff’, barely changes through the seasons.
Heavier, fluffier fur:: The fluffiest of fur. A big pillow. I’m running out of ideas. Best built for northern areas.
No tail: self explanatory.

pls we need more variation

Multiple sires is actually possible physically speaking! And it is very much something staff have already agreed to discuss for the coming breeding season, but we’ll likely begin to nail things down come autumn ingame.

As for the idea of mutations while some things like thicker or thinner fur is perfectly accepted (You can see my own lot for examples, Yuna from the south more tropical regions is very thin furred and suffers in winter and even passed this trait on, wheras my mountain-born stock have thicker, heavier coats).

We definitely have odds in place for passing down hetrochromic eyes already which we’ll look at if they need altering for breeding season as well. Albino wolves I’m afraid aren’t going to be seen in Horizon due to no known cases in real life, but melanstic pure blacks are 100% allowed. Piabald wolves aren’t a realistic marking in real life therefor excluded from our markings as per the more realistic appearance rules, and I don’t think there are any known cases of chimera wolves either.

We’ll discuss giant or dwarf wolves but we do already have a pretty good size range, and we also had runts this year included in rolls as well. Things like floppy ears and no tail are welcome, but we likely won’t be rolling for them for breeding season - that sort of tweak/detail can be included by puppy players if they so choose, so long as it’s a realistic or mostly cosmetic thing - if there’s ever any doubt don’t hesitate to ask staff about it :) 

For heterochromia then, could we put a pause to the creation of wolves with it? I see a lot of wolves that have it and I’ve only met two people in my entire life that have had a form of it. It’s generally pretty rare and personally, I don’t really like seeing 500 wolves with it.

Maybe it could only be passed on and since it IS a mutation, it can only be created if the dice rolls for it?

If not, it’s fine. Just a suggestion :)

It seems.. counterproductive to ask for more mutations and then also ask for a cap on one of the few fun and interesting mutations we already have?? I don’t have any wolves with het. but I like having the option. It’s cute. It doesn’t hurt anything and I’d be sad to see it go as a free item.

i’m with chris and poe. i think mutations that are already welcome should be left up to parents to roll on or use themselves rather than adding another category to mating rolls, especially since illnesses are already imposed during rolls. but i do think that it might be smart to compile some sort of list of allowable mutations similar to heterochromia for folks making a wolf? heterochromia does seem to be the primary cosmetic mutation that folks go for, and i don’t think it would hurt to encourage a little more variation in that way.

one thing i would like to see, though, and i’m not sure if it’s possible, is more options for builds on profiles, particularly an option for overweight wolves? as it stands now, it seems more like a sliding scale vaguely geared towards musculature, and how that affects size. my character calocedrus is gonna grow up to be a pretty chunky boy, but not particularly muscular, so the only option i have for him is “stocky,” but willow and margarita are also considered “stocky” yet neither of them are nearly as chunky as he’s going to be. willow in particular is characterized as “curvy,” but again, the only viable option is “stocky”

fortunately, written descriptions can help with that potential confusion, but it’d be nice to skim a wolf’s profile and see a couple of additional build options that don’t leave any room for questioning “is the wolf sort of muscular, curvy, or chubby?” i hope i’m making sense lol

Have we done a Skype party in a while? 2019 Horizon Style Skype Party?

I am 100000000x down.

This is just an observation, not an attack at all. Coming back after 4+ months makes things seem drastically different than they might seem to someone who has been on the site the whole time, and if this is the new modus operandi, cool. Ignore.

I’ve just noticed apps sitting for hours to nearly a day while staff is online, super simple maintenance requests ignored while others are taken care of, and general oversights in the cbox when staff is actively online. I’ve never seen it quite so…slow-going on the site, and maybe that was an executive decision made by staff, I wouldn’t know. I also don’t know who is handling apps and who isn’t, but I know it’s at least 3-4 of you. Not saying everything needs to be answered within seconds, but it’s a little disheartening to see a quality, new member hyped up and ready to go with no response and people mentioning it in Discord with staff not responding either on Discord or on the site.

There also just seems to be a consistently large time gap of when most staff are online vs. when everyone is either super scarce or offline. I know Fao and Chris are in totally different time zones, and people have jobs that are probably exhausting by the time they get home, which is fine. That’s life. I don’t have an answer, just perspective.

I absolutely understand the dynamics of both sides, so please don’t take this as a flag of war at all because that is the last thing I ever want to throw your guys’ way having been attacked on that end a number of times. I know how hard it can be staffing. I guess just a little mind boggled.