world's nr 1 biggest SSO hater

Evelyn Northbank, NA night sprinkles, lvl 26. club: Sad Snowflakes. main

[fagstableonline]

i hate this game but i cannot quit its like im fucking soulbound to it or something

[dharmaart]

An older painting I never got around to posting. I've always really enjoyed painting golden hour lighting especially on grey or white horses.

[exmoors]

Ok no more today good night horses

[eyrri]

Turbo & Astra for pintopony

[sinekq]

Some screenshot redraw for fun..

[indecorum1989]

www.facebook.com/indecorum1989

[alart]

commission for @/kasettetape on Twitter

[similartoacat]

SSO would have been way more successful and would have had way less trouble if the game was targeted to teenagers and not little kids and actually tried doing something with the old storyline (when it was more creepy and mysterious than just magical and whimical)

That was the wind y'all, a round of applause for the wind

[gracestuff-sso]

This is my roman empire tbh, because SSO used to be for pre-teen to teenage girls.. most of the older playerbase found the game at like 10-12 years old and it was so interesting because it was a horse game that had mystery and story to it, not just: "make your horse pretty and win the competition!" 🩷🎀

Star stable featured puzzles, mystery, danger -themes of sisterhood, friendship, pressure from expectations, loss and death etc.- it was DIFFERENT! and people loved having a game focused around the animal they love with a real adventure alongside it rather than just shopping or competing -especially young girls/afab people who have never been the target audience of most games until more recent years- we always had extremely basic and stereotypical feminine games given to us

At some point they've decided they want their target audience to be younger kids, while at the same time being aware that most people keeping jorvik alive are the teens that grew up but keep coming back; so now they want to be both interesting/mysterious and dumb down challenges for convenience and so the little kids keep playing

And I hate thinking about what could have been if they just kept their focus on a slightly older target audience

Jorvik used to have mystery but not enough to scare you off; it actually made you more curious about the land... now it's all bright and colourful and it just doesn't feel the same, and I don't think the new style is an issue because they can have their new style and still create an atmosphere of magic and mystery

Anyway who said that?

[highhorsegirl]

ok no i want to clear things up (below cut because i ranted whoopsies)

sso was always targeted towards kids. approx. 8-9 and above. which it STILL IS (officially, it's said to be for ages 8-18) they're just catering to TODAYS standards for such kids (fried patience mostly). what type of games kids can play has shifted during the years. hell, what type of game ANY given audience can play has changed drastically. i think the most obvious shift can be seen if you follow the Elder Scrolls series progression. Daggerfall and below is a literal nightmare and is notoriously difficult, most modern players play with a mod to "make it playable". Morrowind is easier, but won't lead you easily, it's difficult still. Oblivion has a massive shift in difficulty (the addition of the quest marker... wowee). Skyrim practically leads you by the hand through every single quests (now you can see the quest marker in the world itself? what) and most puzzles are ridiculously easy. all of these games are for the exact same audience, made by the same people, and is in the same world/series, but the difficulty levels and gameplay style is heavily simplified because people as a whole don't have patience anymore. it's also been censored (Daggerfall had tiddies and a book with explicit smut in it for like 1-2 pages, that was nerfed heavily for Morrowind but there's still... references. Skyrim? lmao what is a sex) and just generally made less graphic. because idk, potential wider audience? barely?

so no i don't think it has anything to do with them changing age range (because they haven't) but them expecting kids to be stupid now. which is unfortunately partly right. swedes do you remember that article where 4th graders couldn't use scissors properly? yeah.

also all of this doesn't apply for ssl and other pre-sso games, only sso. though ssl was for a pre-teen-to-teen audience too lol. our expectations are just very different now and tbh that's also a huge shame

(i also think it's partly because laws regarding age restrictions has changed. when sso initially released there was none of this coppa-certification stuff. what was needed for a 8-18 yrs restriction game back then was different, now there's new/updated laws in place that they must follow)

[gwyoi]

horse cream puff …

[mylittlehony]

Flexy stretchy itchy scratchy.

[elfdotter]

hot off the press!

[charl0ttan]

horses cant scratch themselves but humans cant go fast. we support this legandary partnership

[druggonaut]

Wrong! Humans irrelevant and obsolete now

[charl0ttan]

agnostic horse: we just dont know where scratch posts come from

[elinefromsso]

I just finished the first book in the Sould Riders series, Jorvik Calling by Helena Dahlgren and man, I’m definitely headcanoning Anne as autistic.

She has had trouble fitting in and conversing with her peers, feels like she doesn’t fit and had hard time making sense of other people’s emotions. She thinks of herself as awkward with other people, she thinks horses are easier to read than humans, since people don’t always mean what they say or tell the truth. She’s found a friend in Concorde and is surprised by the other girls asking her to tag along with them during the Light Ride. Anne mentioned going to therapy and at the end of the books she thinks that talking to Fripp is easier than talking to other people, and that she should discuss this with her therapist. There was also some mentions of her wondering about ”rules” in social settings, if she’s acting in a right way or not when socializing.

I relate to her so so so much, as an almost 30 year old all this sounded so familiar it almost made my heart ache. Can’t wait to see how her character is written in the next books in the series.

[fagstableonline]

my own conrad maarsden design (mostly blend of old + new)

i hate the new conrad sso design, they made him look so generic 😭😭😭 i literally dont get why they made the new design so much more,, conventionally attractive ? they shaved down all his facial features until he fit more into the safety of modern beauty standards

why does every character even need to be attractive when theyre updated? girl its a game for kids, let the characters look like normal people maybe ? its not that hard i promise

[with-milk-and-sugar]

ive come to the realization that i just sorta love jorvik as a fictional world much more than i enjoy actually playing sso. so finally finally finally i understand why i sometimes get a horrible urge to play and then log off within 15 minutes lol. dont know why it took me years to realize but better late than never!!

[cloudmancy]

More 'please draw my bike as a horse' commissions from yesterday! Although a lot of bikes look similar in colours, it's always nice when people tell me about how they see their bike so I can pick out a breed and personality.

Horse breeds & backstories for these under the cut:

The first commissioner said they imagined their bike as stocky draft horse because the bike is built solid and super heavy and durable. I picked a Clydesdale:

Here's a Clydesdale draft horse! I went with a brown horse and brown bags with black tack, to match the style of the really strong and durable horses that pull carts. This one's in a more ceremonial get-up, similar to the drafts that pull parade floats and such. I hope you like him!

The second bike's owner said that the brake cables had been modified: "the bike brakes like sh*t and I always crash into others when they brake in front of me. It's a bit dangerous bike, but still love it". I went with a Thoroughbred.

Racehorse!! I think a bike with brake issues is very Thoroughbred coded. I gave them a bit of a mischievous expression and the hot pink accents on the bike for the saddle and leg wraps. I hope you enjoy!

They even drew my design afterward, which I think is so cute...

The last one is a tribute to a bike that the owner no longer owns since they got a car. I wanted something springy and elegant:

The Kent Northwoods Springdale feels like a very classic, elegant sort of bike, so I went with an American Saddlebred. These horses have a really distinct, really high head + neck carriage. They've got five different paces, including a special type of pace called the 'rack', and they're shown both saddle-seat and in halters around the ring! It felt like the right vibe. This one has a simple halter and a show cinch on. I hope you're happy with it!

[drizzledrawings]

Horse girls are the backbone of this world