I really included this on the survey for fun just because I know a few players in particular request it on every single survey, haha. What I did not anticipate is the overwhelming number of responses that did wants cats and also went back to the comments section to reiternate to me how much they wanted cats.

Soo, I kind of feel like we should talk about it, so I'm making this thread so that we can discuss it. Although, truly, no promises, this is not a decision anyone on the staff wants to take lightly and we didn't actually think the suggestion would be so popular. But, let's talk about it!

It would be a lot of work to add cats, but less work than you probably think. So it IS possible, buuttt.

My concerns are the following:

#1 it would be more information for the server to handle, and it would be more things happening internally. Our server should be able to handle this, but it's worth noting anyway. I think it would have to come with a massive clean up of old accounts and old horses/dogs (which should happen anyway, but it's a lot of work for a small organizational payoff right now, but if we were to add cats, it would be more necessary).

#2 it would be a pretty major deviation from the genre. Although, to be fair, I think only the old HL-style games have horses AND dogs. Most of the them these days are one or the other. So really, there's nothing stopping us from doing whatever we want. But we did just get new art that does not involve cats (although, yes, this could be fixed) and since our name is HORSE Phenomena, I think we're already at a marketing disadvantage because we don't have an inclusive name, haha.

#3 I don't know a goddamn thing about cat genetics, so if we all collectively decide that we want genetics and cats, that might be a problem.

#4 is kind of an expansion on #2, but HP is meant to be a specific type of old-school game, and I don't want to lose touch with that. That's our whole schtick. And I don't want to add things that would alienate players who really do want an old school horse and dog SIM game experience. But we are our own game, we're not HL despite the similarities, and we've been our own game for a whole decade, so I don't think we should be beholden to old industry standards just for the hell of it. So if truly you all want this, then YOU are HP's playerbase and you should get to decide how you want to play, you know?

Soo, tell me this:

Do you want cats? Why or why not?

I agree with Maha, and with Lakra!

Yes

I would LOVE the addition of cats, I'm more of a cat person anyway. Besides, why can't cats be associated with horses like dogs? Barn kitties! There is no other interesting game that involves cats and I would absolutely breed.. and train them! 

still #teamcats

i support kitties