northberg

🌸 23, she/her - once an sso blog - all my artworks under #my art 🌸

[northberg]

Hi ssoblr! Finally posting here - this is my oc esther and her jorvik warmblood Greyspot <3 I've had them since 2014 and play on uk server cv (😩) im lvl 21, 19 and she/her!! Im looking for some sso artists to follow so please lmk if that's you!!!

[eveliwol]

That one silly trend

[doctordarkus]

Pixel Collector:)

[eelektrossfan]

I’m so excited for that graphic novel oh my god

[sinekq]

Some screenshot redraw for fun..

[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)

[captainlion04]

GIDEON AND CAM BABEEEYYYY FOR @tltfashionzine

[the-great-kraken]

newsreader just had to genuinely ask this man "why would an intergalactic warrior want to stand for election in clacton" unserious fucking country

[kardrath]

Vote Binface

I love Count Binface for many reasons, but this perfect parody of dodgy election leaflet bar charts is pretty high up the list.

[gwyoi]

horse cream puff …

[lamignonette]

[sixohsixoheightfourtwo]

[ellipuukangas]

~Commissions~

This has been a loooong long time coming, but Honey has finally had her surgery to remove the bothersome right eye that she's been blind in for most of her life. The operation went great, she's recovering well and a very happy girl.

I'd like to open up commissions again to help pay off the vet bill. The above examples are samples of the kind of work I'm offering at the moment. Perfectly happy to still draw people and other creatures too! Pop me a message here (or if you prefer Discord you can also find me there, just let me know your handle). <3

She's already got the bandage off but she looked very fetching in her octopus vet wrap. x3

[botanyshitposts]

it’s crazy to me that every seed in existence is a little chemical computer taking readings of temperature and moisture and minerals and all that to see if it’s able to grow yet and they’re doing crazy stuff like going into full dormancy and waiting for species-specific conditions etc etc and some seeds will do this in the size of a dust particle (see: orobanche) and some will pack in extra starch and food and do it in the size of a coconut or something… just dissected this flower seed at work that was a woody two-compartment capsule with one embryo per compartment, the whole seed a little smaller than a dime, and I swear to god it had a full soybean’s worth of embryo and food packed in there. it’s just unfathomable to me

[botanyshitposts]

sometimes a seed strikes me as being like a little spaceship with on-board life support and stuff. all that’s inherently certain about a seed’s existence is that its parents survived nearby, presumably, so if all goes well it’ll be set up for some kind of success falling where it falls, but ideally the seed won’t see those exact conditions, because being too close could also hurt the seed’s chances of survival… as could being too far away, like if it ends up in a different habitat or ecosystem and the right conditions never happen. The whole food-on-board strategy was a huge buff when they patched it in after ferns and other spore-bearing plants, but it’s still basically outer space, right? Just deploying a hundred ships to different planets in the same star system, hoping it’s not so different down there that it’s unsurvivable? like every seed is a chance and different plants are putting different amounts of food, effort, and strategy into those chances. so you get a million different seeds from a million different species and they all look and act different from the ground up. you know what I mean, man. you know what I’m sayin

[mikkeneko]

[elfdotter]

hot off the press!

[miggylol]

Spin the wheel. That's who's trying to kill you.

Spin the wheel again. That’s who’s trying to protect you.

(If you have zero idea about a name you got, spin until you see someone you recognize.)

Are you safe?

Absolutely not. I'm dead. 100% dead.

I might stay alive, but it'll be a really close thing.

I'll take some hits, for certain, but I should be okay in the end.

A few attacks might get through, but nothing concerning.

The attacker might be able to get in one lucky hit. If that.

I am the opposite of worried. I'm 100% safe.

…Look. I've tried picturing this. But I honestly don't know how to answer.

Voting ended onJul 14

(I've run this poll twice before, expanding it significantly for the second run. With about a year passed since that second run, I thought it was time to add another couple hundred names to the list and have another go.)

[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!

[ruth-westside]

The Lamplighter

Jorvegians have a winter custom of putting a lighted candle in their window in hopes of seeing the Lamplighter.

Also known as the Waxen Walker, it is made of candle wax with a heart of fire. However, the heart slowly melts its body, leaving a waxy trail wherever it goes. As such, it only lives during the winter months when the temperatures are cold enough to help it hold its shape.

It wanders from place to place, consuming the candles people put out for it, replenishing its own body with the candles and reviving its heart with the tiny flames.

Nobody knows for certain how it came into existence, but it is a gentle, peaceful creature that gives hope and protection to travelers who find themselves lost in the wilderness.

Perhaps it does not want others to suffer the same fate it did.

[ruth-westside]

Thank you, Old SSO, for accidentally giving Lampy a potential origin.

Winter, when Nature is at its most lifeless and Jorvik is at its darkest, is when Lamplighter pulls itself into a loose imitation of its original form so it can continue to be a source of life and light to the island's inhabitants when the sun can no longer do so.