Farmsteads and more!

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Hey EVers, we have some big news today!

Farmsteads!
Farmsteads have finally arrived live in-game!

Farmstead is the new term for the combined orchards and farms feature, which allows all players to grow your very own treats for your horses! Orchards will grow green, yellow, and red apples, while farms will grow carrots and turnips. Farmsteads integrate with the in-game seasons feature and growth reflects these seasons. Plants and trees require regular weeding and watering, but will also suffer from overwatering, as real plants do. Your Farmstead can be accessed in the dropdown menu under the Home link.

Seeds are acquired from the general store - to plant a seed, select it, then click the plot you wish to place it in. Use the watering can to water a plot, and use the shovel to remove a plant or tree. Weeds are removed by simply clicking on them. Plants can be harvested, when ready, by clicking on them.

In the farm:
It costs $25,000EVD to purchase a farm, which has 25 available plots. Seeds can be sown in spring and summer, and plants can be harvested from in spring and autumn. During winter all of the plants will die back and no activity will occur. Plants will grow along with progression if they have been watered and weeded, but will neither grow nor wither if you do not progress. Plants require six days of growth to ripen and to be ready to be harvested.

In the orchard:
It costs $25,000EVD to purchase an orchard, which has a maximum capacity of nine trees. Trees can be planted from spring to autumn, and harvested at the end of summer, which in terms of game time would be the weekend when the site is in the summer season.

Trees will grow along with progression if they have been watered and weeded, but since they take a long time to mature, they will grow every day whether you progress or not. Leaving them unwatered and unweeded while not progressing will result in some growth, but it occur much more slower than with care. Trees in the orchard require four seasons of growth to mature (four real-world weeks), and once mature will bear fruit every summer without having to be replanted. One season is required before the tree will bear fruit - ensuring consistent weeding and watering will increase yield from the harvest.

Please note that, as a completely new feature, it is unknown how exactly Farmsteads will integrate with the game, in terms of the balance of production, and any unpredicted bugs that didn't come out during Beta testing. Please be patient if problems do occur, as this initial implementation is a trial of sorts. Updates to the feature will roll out as we further understand how it works into the game. Thank you for your understanding! :)

Bug Fixes
*Outstanding breeding requests will now be cancelled when a horse dies
*Some decor items getting scaled with foals has been fixed
*Some horses showing [1/1] for equipped backgrounds when no background was actually equipped have been fixed; unknown how this issue came about, please report if it happens again
*Silver displaying wrong on some horses has been fixed
*Topics can no longer be edited to have a blank title, making them inaccessible
*Some issues flagging posts for deletion have been fixed, some individuals may need to adjust pop-up block settings

Updates
*Leisure riding location themed backgrounds are now findable in their respective locations
*Leisure riding now has more stat-gain events based on your choices and your horse’s discipline - these new events will give +1 stat point, and are many times more likely to occur than the original stat-gain events, which were purely random (these random stat gain events do still exist, the new events are in addition to them, and do not replace them)
*As a special surprise, decor items that previously only worked on adult horses now work on foals too! The only exception is fly sheets, which function for adult horses only. Other decor items like halters, Santa hats, and rump stars now will show. :)

*Mod and admin crowns now show within a message view, so roles will be even easier to see at a glance
*The support page clarifies reporting bugs via the bug zapper or via ticket for game-breaking instances (old references to the bug boards have been removed)

That’s all for now, stay tuned for more updates that are on their way!

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Posted by

River
Posted on
2020-05-11 12:20:05

Comments 12
Thank you for all of this!	Posted by Akvelins ⚜️ (#93735) 11th May 2020 at 12:41:16
:) :) :) Happy!!!!	Posted by 💜ℱℯ𝒶𝓉𝒽ℯ𝓇 (ℱ𝒢) 💜 (#72812) 11th May 2020 at 12:57:20
Ooo love that colour of fly sheet!!??	Posted by Silver Falls (#125884) 11th May 2020 at 13:01:42
Thanks for these! In relation to integration of farmsteads/orchards, I would personally vote that player-run operations either have the ability produce items with a greater stat gain/chance of higher stat gain; OR that items available in the general store be limited (maybe hourly?) so that there's incentive one way or another to buy from another player.	Posted by Sonoma (#66116) 11th May 2020 at 13:02:02
I just have a feeling that market will be even more flooded with apples and turnips and they are already at ridiculously low prices so not sure about the whole idea... We get them already from school rides. If we grow them on top of it, then it'll be a way too much on the game...	Posted by ℒ🍓Lenka (#122784) 11th May 2020 at 13:10:27
*in the game	Posted by ℒ🍓Lenka (#122784) 11th May 2020 at 13:11:15
Wouldn't it be better if we could grow something which is not already available in the game from other sources ?	Posted by ℒ🍓Lenka (#122784) 11th May 2020 at 13:17:10
The feature has been planned for rather a long while, with the intention to allow users to grow their own treats so they wouldn't have to purchase them from the general store, and to make the process engaging (aka implementation with seasons). It's not required for anyone to do, but is an option for everyone. As stated in the post, with the feature being new the way it integrates into the game may need fine-tuning, and updates or upgrades to it will be done as needed. As the feature is explored and adapted, we request your patience and understanding. It's like a new baby now, and needs to be treated gently as we see where it goes.	Posted by River (#51565) 11th May 2020 at 13:59:35
Sure, I understand, I'm more thinking out loud than criticising :)	Posted by ℒ🍓Lenka (#122784) 11th May 2020 at 14:05:58
ooooooo this is so awesome!! I am looking forward to this! Thanks River	Posted by Whispering Oak’s (#123644) 11th May 2020 at 14:09:36
I’m laughing at these comments about too much produce. Can we have a peppermint factory too?	Posted by Sparkles (#88639) 11th May 2020 at 16:15:27
A peppermint tree ! :D	Posted by ℒ🍓Lenka (#122784) 11th May 2020 at 16:21:18
How long till we get Thestrals? And maybe really poorly animated pvp/riding mini games? :p	Posted by Kaioti Blue Ranch (#54733) 11th May 2020 at 19:00:10
Very cool! Thanks for the bug fixes and updates. I'm off to take a look at the farms and orchards!	Posted by «» Only the Wind (#55431) 11th May 2020 at 19:58:45
Nice	Posted by ɦօʀֆɛɢɨʀʟ (#124387) 12th May 2020 at 04:33:43
Very nice	Posted by Jason (#112226) 12th May 2020 at 10:39:27
Where do you get those decorations? Those wings look absolutely fabulous!	Posted by Forevertime1 (#125831) 12th May 2020 at 14:04:14
The wings are from the August event, which coincides with the Perseid meteor shower.	Posted by River (#51565) 12th May 2020 at 16:06:46
That foal is absolutely adorable! My heart just exploded. I would seriously die for the bean haha	Posted by Bexx (#126198) 12th May 2020 at 18:47:34
Awesome stuff! Thanks River, and the rest of the team!	Posted by Midnight Outlaw (#98451) 12th May 2020 at 22:35:36
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Farmsteads and more!