"Astride dosen have much, but it dosent have a damm horse market" was so funny. My favorite astride feature is the new tack and being able to "kidnap" other peoples horses. I even moved a devs horse away from them during a livestream lmao
There have been so many (me included) players that played since the release that Warner about it. We tried so hard to make others wake up but majority of ppl didn't care. They puked out 300 coins for a pass and told off any negativity as "hate" and told us to shut up and leave the community if we so don't like it. But the thing is we all loved the game, it HAD potential. But the developers are crap af
i have been one of main negative voices when horses started to cost coins in the market. There are solid 20 super active players that must generate enough income for then to stay somewhat afloat. Like amount of cash they waste on this game is ridiculous. Devs don't care about game breaking glitches but they removed the breeding glitch literally 3 days after someone mentioned it in the main group. They have been promising dressage for years and then backed out after realising it will actually take time and effort to implement opposed to reusing Kyoto season for like 5th time and slapping new paint onto same tack we have already 10 swatches of. The game has been dead for months, the devs killed it. It honestly has such a loyal fan base and devs just exploited it beyond repair
Something that never ceases to baffle me is the disregard for the non-paying players. ETG's stance that if ur not paying ur opinion matters less (the way its framed its sounding like if ur not paying ur opinion matters not at all tbh) but like... Shoudn't the goal BE to turn non-paying players into paying players? You don't make any bit of the community happy when u write off those not actively paying as unimportant because that type of attitude will never turn those players INTO paying players. For all Star Stables faults, I can appriciate the attempts they make to make the experience better for non-paying players (assess to seasonal events to some regards, reworking the beginning quests to make them more engaging for new players, etc.) Which often turns those non-paying players INTO paying players, which SHOULD be part of the goal LOL
Looking back on it, it is hilarious how the SSO community immediately jumped on the train that ETG was going to be better than SSO before ETG launch. Now it is worse than SSO and way more money hungry. I'm glad the community learned from their mistake and are taking two potential better games with a grain of salt and not setting the bar extremely high.
Those kinds of breakdown videos make me really wish we had a Rattle for animal Roleplay games. This kind of stuff happens way too often in here too, and this entire situation reminds me of Fer.al's discord breakdown all too well, too. Man, solidarity with you horse game players.
I love horse games, I miss being able to ride again, but I will be honest the horse game community is so *exhausting* to be in sometimes. All these games we put high hope on like ‘ooooh this looks like it’ll be the one!’ only for our hearts to be either lightly bruised somewhere or flat out just stabbed out of us. (Or maybe its just me, don’t let me talk for you) its exhausting but we’re still waiting on the game that’ll hit most of the boxes of what we want or don’t want. I salute you Rattle for having the patience and endurance to keep up with ALL OF THEM AT THE SAME TIME, OH MY WORD HAVE MY PERSONAL STASH OF TEA
Yeah, I definitely agree. Sometimes I just take a few months where I don't involve myself in the community itself but just play the games and chill and try to be positive, or I just go on red dead online and do the races on there because there's actually good and the horses feel so alive lol. But tales of rain ravine has been my saving grace as of late! Definitely still upset that the game dev didn't communicate well, but now that the game is out on steam for free at last, I have finally found a game to love, even if it's still only early access. Can't wait for more lessons, show jumping and proper dressage to be added! ❤❤
The horses also feel like, not alive. Compared to Rival Stars they feel dead kind've. (I don't know if you have said this yet, but I just wanted to get my opinion on it)
I think it’s because they lack personality, they lack lifelike movements other than basic gaits, and there’s no way to bond with them. No grooming, no raising foals, and everything feels like a chore. The game is so dull and lifeless in general.
I'm glad I got out when I did. I'm someone who played this game for hours, every day, during the pandemic, set timers for shop resets and everything and even did spend a bit more money than I wanted to initially. I struggled a lot with the stable slot number, especially once breeding came out. Eventually, despite really trying to wait it out, I started getting bored of the game because of the lack of content and I also started getting whiffs of (overly) greedy monetary implementation. I tried revisiting every now and then, but every time there were just new ways to spend money and new cosmetics. Half the time the new competition courses were glitched and the leaderboards were led by cheaters which persisted even after they said they fixed it. Screw that.
yknow, ive never played a horse game. i may never play a horse game. but rattle uploaded? i'm running. i'm throwing everything to the ground and sprinting as fast as i can to the channel. i love your horse game videos!!!! (and its awesome to see a south african creator :])
Same!! I never had a horse phase, but I can't resist gamedev drama hehe, it's a special skill to get people outside of your target audience just as interested as you on a subject
I am never touching a game made by them. They will never receive any of my money - even if they change their ways. The way she thinks of customers is sickening. She acts as if she's giving us a gift, when all she's given us is coal dusted in a thick layer of poo, and demands we kiss her feet for it. The entire situation, and the way Molly acts, rubs me the wrong way. Makes me super uncomfy, and disgusted. She should be ashamed of how she's acting, but she's not, and probably never will. Never supporting etg, or any of her future projects. I'm glad I only spent 5 minutes in the game when I didn't know about the whole discord thing, I saved myself so much time and money.
I love how , despite the often aggrivating topics, your videos always make me laugh aloud. Your comedic timing is simply great. (and softens the impact just enough for the gravity of the problem to be properly absorbed )
Another job well done, Rattle. Unfortunately I was a beta tester as well for this game and backed the game, I had so much hope for this game and liked only a few technical things about the game. While that being said it still needed attention and work. Over 2 years later none of these technical things I liked about ETG had been "fleshed" out or expanded upon. When I had hopes that they would focus on gameplay aspects and at least SOME sort of way to grind for premium currency- the updates continued to be about seasons (which are great!--- if done correctly). They've dropped aspects of the game that would have gave players a diverse experience- a true shame. From the get go at launch they've operated under the lens of $$$ and it's a shame they refuse to work at mending their community. Thank you for sharing these videos to bring exposure to those who did not see all that goes on behind the scenes, keep up the phenomenal work ~ ♥
Remember times when TMQ would roast developers for shitty practices in their articles? This was such a chore to read through, all this corporate lingo and zero challenge imposed on ETG ideals. Guess being entangled in the business side of things just really makes you feel less sympathetic towards players as years go by.
ETG is such a deep wound for me, I played the first year it came out and fell in love with the whole game, even though it was always expensive, it seemed worth it with the regular updates and addition of new content, I thought we would be able to eventually retire our older horses in order to save our favorite horses and keep the stable clean but they just gave us 36 stable slots and abandoned any plans for a pasture/retirement system and that means I have to abandon my game once I max out my stables and dont want to sell anymore of my favorite horses. thats my biggest complaint is that all the money spent on custom horses and breeding gets tossed away in game for close to nothing. its honestly quite a disgtusting and ugly thing when you realize how much passion and hard work gets dumped so easily. the least they couldve done would have been adding nore stables and a pasture like rival stars. i bred myself into a corner and im not willing to sell any of the horses i have, theyre all too rare and hard to breed, so the game ive spent easily over $200 USD on just sits with no activity. its shameful. this was all before pintos even, imo pintos ruined the game for good in a weird way..... God I miss my flaxen chestnut welsh cob Willow so much.... I sold her to make space for higher pot horses but i wouldve retired her just to have a joy ride here and there but the devs just have their heads too far up where the sun doesnt shine to see what people want and need. RIP what etg could have been 💔
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I'm not there yet, but I can see my stables filling up and I am very much convinced that I'm going to be in the same boat as you in a short while. I don't understand how a game can be this badly developed and designed, but here we are. It's a tragedy of a game. Not gonna lie.
Man when I finally was able to access it (why did the us take so long to get access !?) I loved the game and was so hopeful for incoming features. The dressage was my favorite part- jumping got boring and repetitive so quickly and there's only so long I can fill my day with training my horses levels up before I never want to login. I got the game for the promised dressage. Was a paying player and still abandoned it because they didn't do jack all for the game.
I'm also absolutely dying at the idea that "we just wanted to make a horse game, we didn't care how it would be monetised!!" Uh. I've literally been in discussions on making games in niche markets, like horse games. Even if you aren't presenting business models for grants, how you're going to monetise the thing is step number one in planning. The base mechanics need to be crafted with the monetisation plan in mind. Is it pay up front? Is it free to download with paid bonuses? Is it progression gated? You kind of need to know these things very early!
I'll say this for the 100th time, goddamn I am happy I got out of there when I did.. It's still a shame things went the way that it did. We had such an awesome community in the closed beta.
The fact that they're using AI is bad enough, but the fact that they're using *bad* AI is just laughable. I remember one ad where a horse had five legs, another where the horse's face was horribly stretched, and the ones in your/Abigail's video have bits as nose and lip piercings 😆
It should be illegal for any company to use Ai in places where they could hire actual people instead of using a program to steal images from those people.
im not surprised about any of this, this is insane and totally expected lmao, but seeing all the seasons theyve done so far is CRAZY. all for money, and so obvious. i cant BELIEEVVEE theyre making ANOTHER GAME already when they didnt even put all of these previously promised basic gameplay features in the one they have??? also, with WHAT MONEY? btw, for some reason 22:37 REALLY cracked me up LMAOO
Fr tho- instead of adding stupid passes, seasons and horse breeds they should focus on making new disciplines. Tbh i like showjumping and its one of my fave disciplines. But if its the ONLY discipline,the game gets boring quickly when there aren't any other disciplines. I'd like some xc or dressage,Heck maybe even some barrel racing, just to make the game less boring. (AND OMG THE HORSEY ON THE THUMBNAIL IS SO CUTSEY)
Alice baffles me. For someone claiming to be an industry professional, it's incredible how little she understands community and company management. Despite having a lack of knowledge, she continues to interview individuals and companies on these subjects, and with no real knowledge of the history of the company or the issues at hand asks soft questions that don't really point out the issues of her interviewee and just muddy the waters even more. I suppose being one of the few/only horse game journalists doesn't require any real knowledge, though.
I think Alice is very pro-developer, so the plight of the player will always play second fiddle for her. This is a problem because those are customers and without customers you don't have a game. I do understand that there is a lot of misinformation about devs online, but you can educate about that without needing to put players down. And that is the part I've always felt Allice struggles with in her articles. Being pro-dev is awesome, but you can also be pro player as well!
its so sad bc this game looked so promising i remember thinking wow this is gonna be a new like top 5 horse game but unfortunately it fell off due to poor management
It's just so sad, as this game really had potential. The horse models and animations really stand out and I have never seen such a good attemt to translate real riding into game controls. It really shocked me to hear they are considering ETG close to completion - that is ridiculous and just confirms that it was the right decision to not spend any more money on the game quite a long time ago. I really wonder what those 20 people are working on. I think there is so much room for small improvements that should not be too hard or time consuming. Just to mention one example, since launch players are asking for an option to change the manes and tails and all they managed to do so far is remove the braids from breeding. I really don't mind paying for a game if prices are fair and if I actually get some value in return. Sadly most "free to play" games don't manage to find a good balance and there's just always the chance that after seven years the devs just tell their players, sorry, but we are not able to deliver what we promised, so we consider the game complete now and move on to the next project.
Why make another game if the first one isnt done yet? And you have tales of rein ravine who was made by one person, and ETG who was made by a few and STILL isnt done after 7 YEARS! Just quit....
30:32 Hearing Rattle praise SSO in any way makes me quite happy lol. Ik they’ve done a lot wrong but I still feel they deserve praise when they do something right. If I may ask Rattle, what exactly where the positive changes you were referring to here? :)
Guys the breeding is fine in other games it’s a week and you even have to wait for it to grow if you don’t have patients that’s what happens and plus you don’t always have to GIVE REAL MONEY. I havent spent a penny in the game and I have season pass
35:04 I died 🤣 Gosh am I glad I never invested any money in this game. I tried it for a bit but thought it was boring and the colours, although nice, are too bland. I made such mistake once with an ubisoft game, 'Horse adventures, Tale of Etria'. For different area's you needed specific 'divine' horses. I bought 3, each €20,00. Then one day they just quit the game without much explanation. I contacted google play, but there was no way for me to get a refund, it was too long ago. Really too bad, it was such a nice game.
If ETG got a accurate add made: *Narrator voice* "ETG The spent your money simulator Disguised as a Horse game." If mollie wanted stabilaty she should've started with a couple Smal games to build that before taking more risk... Community would be easier to manage that way but No mollie wanted to Gamble at the cost of her futere game dev career.
After all of this: How about Neigh I´ve played it for 2 weeks after release and found it to be the most boring horse game ever. Yes, you can spend money but otherwise there was (apparently still is) nothing to do. The one thing that put me off so much was/is how ugly the game is. That style is ugly af. It´s lifeless, undetailed, sad colors, very depressing. The characters, the horses, how dead everything looks like. There is no love in it and knowing now how unprofessional the dev is I´m not surprised. It´s a better asset flip. The game (or all games) are a businesses. You treat it as a business! You treat yourself and everyone else professionally like a business does. Not like a little fan project that your besties play.
Wow, the time you put into this video and the quality with all the effects Is amazing! :O Of course... we saw this coming. Rip another horse game :') 20:11 broke me... That was way to funny :'D
I downloaded it for fun around a year ago... it was just bored. I mean, I really hate the trend of mobile-games with waiting on stuff for endless hours/days, not to speak of the money you can spend on that damn things. But ETG was plain boring from the first minutes I dived into it. They really just made a shop and did some gameish stuff around it to klick on... that's it.
32:22 so if something is immoral and disgusting but works well then it’s completely fine. That’s a stance and a half, one conmen and Disney villains would agree with
Rattle, you always have me laughing! The crap this company pull has me adding whiskey to my coffee too! I must admit I didn’t read the article, I have no interest in the game whatsoever now but thank you for bringing it to us in such an informative and hilarious way! I can’t believe people are still paying these ridiculous prices??!! Like you say, can buy a full AAA game for less than you can spend on this mobile crap! Keep up the amazing work! (Chicken kickers for life!!)
I love that you make these videos on ETG. The prices they charge for the little amount you get in the game is appalling on its own. Let alone all the other drama AND the fact I spent money on the game when I first got it and my game randomly got deleted and they wouldn’t get back to me about trying to reinstate my game. Lost money and time. ETG was a big disappointment
I remember the first and last time I thought about buying anything on this game: I was going to make a custom horse, but realized it wouldn't make a horse higher than the rank I was, despite lowering their skill ranges to the events I was doing and that the horses themselves weren't worth buying because they had no options. I also couldn't show them off, no multiplayer aspect, they just... weren't worth the money. Then I saw the prices, had Korean MMO PTSD Flashbacks and uninstalled it.
With the amount of talented people I’ve seen in these bad situations who just want a good horse game to come out, I feel like we could all just band together and make one ourselves lol. All thats missing is the piggy bank
"Star Sable changed for the better when community complained" beg to differ with that opinion, I'd even dare to say that this is the worst SSO has ever been, but the rest of the video is great.
@@YTRattle I respect your opinion, but to me they certainly aren't succiding if they are trying. Weekly updates from last few months were the worst they ever been, to the point I actually miss them adding new races, now it's either stuff to buy, small (and I do mine small) fix of something, something that doesn't even add gameplay, and IF it does it is less then a minute. Story quests, when we get them usually consist of few lines of dialogue and last 2 minutes max. And, although they added Halloween event (which from what I've seen seems to be just a repeat of last years anyway) the last 2 were practically completely absent (Bday being removed completely in favour of a medieval area). This all led me to quoting the game again, and honestly I don't know if I will come back this time, and I am not alone, even few RU-vidrs from my country stopped playing because they fin d game boring and stagnant nowadays.
I’m starting to feel like horse games wanted to make us feel the same excitement as PC games such as Pippa (I don’t know the English name, my bad if it’s wrong, I mean Alexandra Ledermann). Those games gave us a plot, horses to care for and to bond with but also, some fun way to make money INSIDE the game. As they were on CD, we didn’t have the option to pay and pay and pay. Tales of Rein Ravine brought back that feeling of simple enjoyment, only focusing on the gameplay and not constant calculating money to see what we can do. That feeling is even harder to recreate for mobile games and games who plan on releasing unfinished product. Like ToRR, devs should focus more on what we can do in game, rather than the beauty and animations of horses. Because we will have a better experience if we have actual things to do rather than just look at ponies. I remember having so much fun in quests that I didn’t even had the time to critique horse animations ! Anyways, thanks for your video, I quit ETG last year and tried it again… it’s horrible. There was nothing to do back then but now ? There’s even less if you don’t pay. Not for me, definitely.
Well explained, thank you for the video Rattle! I hate to be that one person, but could someone tell me what song did she use in the background between 6:55 and 7:11? I'm indebted.
I was always sceptical of ETG. I remember seeing it when it was in development and thought they'd had huge dreams. Then it became a mobile game. I don't play mobile because of the micro transactions and ads. And now I am watching it crash and burn..
One thing i personally feel that alot of failed horse games have in common is devs who either lack 'outside of box' way of thinking or just were not around the internet, now why do i say it; alot of issues between the devs and community (not talking specificly about etg, just horse games in general) tend to arise when two things happen, either there's no communication or the devs refuse to 'get out of their box' aka they're building a home from the inside, they know how it looks from the inside, but they refuse to hear or see on how it looks from the outside- basically they're lacking the ability to accept criticism which of course isnt anything new but what i personally find interesting is the reasons for this criticism aversion. It can be like rattle mentioned multiple times; toxic positivity and the devs seeing the criticism as hate but it can also stem from belief that the people in the community know nothing about game production and dont know what they're talking about, which isnt a BAD assumption per say- it takes a bad turn once the devs start to compleatly disregard what people have to say Another thing that i mentioned was not being around on the internet, now why do i say that? Because 'small' game communities (by small i mean games that arent really- steam or google play games, more like roblox or something along those lines, not always of course) and modding communities especially can teach you alot about ethics; how a developer should interact with their community, how its okay to say no to suggestions but to also explain WHY that suggestion isnt particularly good, that its OKAY to DO take in suggestions, that people who give criticism just want the game to succeed- if only developers took some time to exist around or in those communities i feel like alot of them would've been better, now obviously leading a project and being apart of a community are two quite different things but- in alot of ways (especially if you were in a really good community with really good devs) it plants that seed of respect for those devs in you and subconciously makes you want to become the same, thats something i personally expierienced
31:57 I feel like you need to make a decision when it comes to making games, and that’s whether you include AI content ie lying to your players for profit, OR being straight up and honest with your audience which will gain you massive respect in the long run. The first option is the cheap, quick way to gain players, but it’s certainly not going to gain your company any respect from anyone
I haven't gotten back to playing ETG for gods know how long, I might play the game again but slim chance that I'll just not touch the game ever again. It's a shame that a game that could have had potential is just lead to die by the creators.
I love everything about this video! Reading the Article on Mane Quest literally hurt, I barely could stand all this lies and sugarcoating! But well, isn't the first time Alice is sugarcoating heavy topics. But holly hell was I annoyed by Molly's hypocrisy! Your video sums it up pretty well. Damn I am upset again over this disaster!
I'm on a strict diet too.. can't eat dairy gluten corn or any fats... it sucks and I'm so hungry ;-; Anyways when I first started equestrian the game I was actually quite excited until I saw the controls and I honestly didn't really have anything to do since I had to pay for everything... so I just deleted it, I think the game was doomed from the start.. classic horse game moment..
I just wanna give every mod and ambassador that was mistreated by this laughing stock of a game developer a hug or whatever other form of affection they are comfortable with
I accidently put the rough first draft of THIS vid into the playlist! XD I wasn't aware people could watch it there! So after I posted this one, which was the correct, I deleted the old one. I'll just remove it from the list! Sorry for any confusion! ♥
I remember finding their channel on RU-vid and following the game's development for a while. When I found out it was for mobile, I unsubscribed from the channel right away and never had any interest again.
No matter how greedy a company is, it will never match the level of emptiness of my wallet and by extension my refusal to give them money when i find their product not worth the coin. Jokes aside, I gave up on this game some time ago. Them deciding to NOT add dressage which was a huge part of the game's original advertising, NOT add foals which were also talked about a TON over the months, and essentially no substantial features has solidified my decision to never touch this game again. They are greedy, disorganized and if they claim otherwise, blatantly stupid. The whole argument that in order to add dressage (which is already 80% in-game) they need to change the riding system is absolute crap. You literally already have everything you need, the only thing we needed was a copy of the jumping comps, just edited to be based off flatwork instead of jumping obstacles. On another note, the fact they failed to make an appropriate riding system, yet they knew what they needed to add in the future is abysmal to me. What sort of programmers are you hiring when they cannot properly set up the core code needed long-term for everything else? Their whole framework isn't good, if any of their claims are really true, which means they are probably going to struggle with/drop many more upcoming features that are dependent on that framework.
I quit the game a very long time ago because it was boring from the very start. At this point, i would not be surprised if Molly is just trying to buy a swimming pool to swim in everyone's tears while counting her money😂
Regardless of all critics, I simply enjoy the game and since I'm a very patient person, I don't mind saving up on coins for a long time to buy a new horse
I’ve stopped having interest in the game since they shut down their discord server, and said that they would bring it back up in a week/a month. That was nearly what, a year or two ago? I reinstalled the game once, and I have no interest to play the game again. I liked the mechanics at first, but it’s so pay to win that I’m glad I haven’t touched it in a while.
Yeah uh hello, Molly? Paying player here, should you happen to drop by this lovely creator's channel. I have spent money on your game, and I have been vocal on social media about it. Pretty sure it was a small coin pack (sorry I couldn't spare more than that, wouldn't be able to afford my monthly car insurance if I went one tier higher) just the once. Why once? Because it was plain as day what was happening to your game. I quit while I was ahead, did my best to politely warn others and SURE ENOUGH-- y'know what, no. Rattle had it right, it's "tea" time.
