I don't really have much to add or say to the state of bugs and slowness because I honestly have not actively been playing the game besides breeding and showing once in awhile. This is largely due to life changes though. I recently had a baby and I live on a farm so summers get to be busy for me keeping up with the farmwork and with a new baby on top I struggle to have a lot of time for myself. 

With that being said, what time I do have to play the game has gone into helping players, doing/researching bug reports, and volunteering to help Curly make new art assets so that some of the workload is taken off her shoulders and the game can continue to receive new art. 

I do also recognize that Bed and Curly are extremely busy people and agree with Mewlie that they are doing the best they can with a 2-man unpaid team. It's exhausting and can lead to burn out. I feel this sometimes myself when working on art and bugs. I always try my best to get down to the root cause of a bug report and help provide as much information I can to Bed so that she doesn't have to spend hours to trying to figure it out as some of those reports are really hard to replicate. It helps so much when players also try their best to explain and go into detail on a report! I appreciate everything Bed & Curly do as they work extremely hard. 

With that being said, if a crowdfund or patreon was set up for the site to try and help fund some of Bed's time or server upgrade if that is needed, I would 100% help and support that. Some ideas that could be offered for gift tiers would be like design a custom color/pattern for the exisiting in game blankets or tack items, design a marking or variation, maybe some type of badge/trophy or custom name color in game and/or on Discord, recognization in game credits, small tier donation could be like breed coins, free tack set(s). Maybe the top tier/donation (not sure what the proper dollar amount would be) could pick the next art re-do or the next breed added to the game? Just throwing ideas out there that wouldn't cost a lot to add and wouldn't require code time. 

It's really heart breaking to see the frustration on both sides. This game is also my escape and hobby, and I'd hate to watch it tank over this. I wholeheartedly agree with Mewlie - as a player I understand the frustration, and as a person I hate to see how disheartened and tired the staff are.

@Curly, @Bed - what can we as a community do to help? A role for helping research so that burden can be off of you guys? Monthly gofundme/crowdfund/whatever else goals?

accidentally double posted, ignore this. ;_;

To me this could be said so simply, stop putting in new things. Fix all the bugs, big and small, but most importantly you should fix the older bugs first. The white gene bug is over 6 months old. 

I like the idea of a Patreon for HoFa, but personally I do not have confidence in putting more money into this game right now.

I highly agree with what Stirfry stated above. If you guys have to continue putting money into artwork rather than coding why not slow down on new features and put the priority into fixing bugs? With new features new bugs will come and they will just continue to pile up.

Honestly, on a normal basis - I get highly irritated with games that have a 'release it now and patch it later' attitude. But in this case, there is just 2 people working on this project along with the moderators. Yes I definitely agree the lag is rough at times and bugs are still present. But at the end of the day I think the game is doing REALLY good considering the fact that the team working on it is so small. 

My only complaint with the game considering the circumstances has to do with the fact that I am mentally disabled and so it is very difficult to work through executive dysfunction and do all of my horses in 1 day. That being said, I did decide to buy 100's of horses LMAO.... But in all seriousness, my point is that I can turn a blind eye to the other parts of the game that are seen as 'unfinished' or 'broken' by other players because of the small staff working on the game. I feel that everyone needs to remember the larger scope of things in situations like this. Hofa is not being built by a triple A dev team or by an army of people like what you'd see in businesses like EA or Blizzard. This is literally 2 people and a handful of moderators. 

This is my genuine honest opinion. And, I hope I haven't offended anyone with anything I said. I personally find that the bugs and progress are in PROPORTION to the staff working on this game. However, I also don't see anything wrong with doing what everyone here wants however. That is, focus on the bugs rather than new updates. Personally, I don't mind what the community decides, as if my opinion matters most (which it doesn't, obviously!), my only point is to keep things in perspective. 

I appreciate all the hard work that Curly and Bed put into this game to make it what it is, but at the same time, if you're getting stressed out by the workload then there needs to be some sort of balance and boundaries in place.  As someone dealing with this personally IRL, I know it's easier said than done, but you guys are going to burn yourselves out if things continue at this rate.

I LOVE this game.  I recently took a break though due to the stressors of real life and also due to lack of progress with the game itself.  Crossbreed Campaigns still aren't being accepted/reviewed and it's frustrating for those of use trying to build up the breeds we want to see and are paying money to hopefully bring to fruition.  My horses have been frozen for almost a month now because it's like "well what's the point?" right now.

The artwork is LOVELY and I love the harnesses and wolves and other updates recently released, but there are other things that need to be addressed first.  I like the idea of involving the paying members more in the conversation, and also fully support a crowdfund for the game to help ease some of the stress off of Bed and Curly.  I wouldn't be able to invest much but do use this game as a stress reliever and would love to see it thrive even more.

Just my two cents.

This post is so inactive, and yet most who replied are still active :)

I think that says a lot about the game. Its come a long way from 2022 and while it still has a ways to go, there is a lot of new things coming and I am excited for it

I am too. I think there are still a few things the game has to work on but otherwise it's come a long way!