I've been playing this game for a little over a year, i think. I'd seen the reviews as well as share a home with someone who used to play but, mostly due to the lack of anything to do in game, no longer does. I was warned to stay away and to definitely not spend my money here, but i wanted to see for myself, and now here we are.
It's important to note, as two people who share a location, that my roommate and i also share an internet connection, but we do not share a computer. Apparently i've now been banned for "multi-accounting" even though this account was my one and only. In any other game like this, i would probably reach out to staff at this point to talk to them about it, see if maybe there was a mixup and they meant to ban someone else with a similar user, or if this has something to do with my roommate and i both having accounts; and if that's truly the issue, then explain the misunderstanding and see if the ban could be reversed. However, knowing how they tend to handle being wrong, i really just don't feel comfortable with initiating that kind of interaction. Some of the confrontations i've seen frankly just turn into bullying on their end, and i'm not at a mental state where i can really handle that right now.
I think i'm mostly concerned about this in particular because the game is aimed towards children. What would happen if, in a family setting, a parent and their child or children all signed up to play together? A good parent might want to play alongside their child, or at least check out the game atmosphere to make sure they feel it's age appropriate, they feel comfortable with their kid in that environment, etc. it's important to note that their game rules DO NOT make exceptions of multiple accounts tied to one household for multiple people, including family members, which in itself doesn't really make this game in any way safe for kids, especially when noting in some other complaints and reviews i've seen that there is blatant evidence of predatory behaviour on this game.
While i'm here, i figured i might as well add in some other things that make me feel this game is worth one star, as listed below.
- the game is advertised as being a sort of open world adventure, but there's no adventure to be had. The landscape is absolutely devoid of life, the ambient soundscape is ear grating and blatantly fake, the music is so annoying that i had to mute it. The only incentives to explore are the ridiculous amount of space you need between each ranch/club, and a handful of features that are neat at first and get old extremely quick as they are reused to death.
- making money is extremely difficult. If you are not in the top 1% your horses will never sell except to the traders at extremely low prices. Collecting any items worth selling is boring, repetitive and very time consuming. Some of the places needed to access for the most desired resources are locked behind a paywall.
- there are no quests. Not even a main story. The only consistent entertainment in the game are the hourly mane events (some you may not be able to participate in as they're player built and sometimes have arbitrary, exclusionary rules), and frequent game events which basically cycle through the same handful of server wide "minigames".
- the chat filter is atrocious. I really appreciate the attempt to block profanity, but i've seen inconsistencies like "boob" is blocked but "boobs" is not; maybe not that specifically, but i'm sure you get the jist. I think "vomit" was also blocked for some reason. There's some i found that are really, really vile, to the point where i can't help thinking they may have been intentionally left unblocked because there's no way the devs didn't know to block them.
- graphics are sub-par. They're so ugly they're charming, but the animations look so robotic and janky they've caused me to have motion sickness. When the changes were made, i noticed many other people complain of the same thing, but were basically told to suck it up because that's how it's going to be now. Can't help but think they're trying to get on the level of starstable or upcoming titles like astride, ranch of rivershine, tales of rein ravine, that horse game, etc. unfortunately, people are leaving because they're bored and changing the animations isn't going to fix that.
All in all, my recommendation would just be to not bother. In the time that i played, i followed the rules, bred some really nice horses, easily spent over 1k on mobia to support the devs, and accepted the flaws for what they were without complaining. I tried to have fun in my own way, never stirred the pot, but was punished for something i didn't do with no explanation at all after playing for over a year. Save your money. Play literally any other game, just don't bother with a barebones sandbox game that will waste your time and money.
spent about 1k on mobia in a year.
I have played HI2 for a few months and in that time I loved it. And here I am talking about the actual GAME, not so much about the staff. The players I met were fun, horse-loving people out to adventure, make friends and quest. I had no troubles with them. The game itself is unique and while HI2 had many limitations (like chat filter strictness, the things you could do with your horse, uniform horse appearance in-world...) I was addicted. It was just so beautiful.
I had no experience with admins myself, but my sister got banned accidentally. She sent a mail to support and they very kindly apologized and got her account back. End of story.
HI2 was runied by inflation (mostly) and is pretty much dead now.
I play HI3. This game is still in development but I absolutely adore it and will never leave. The width of the world, horses, people, all of this is amazing. We need to be more considerate when rating the content because this is still under very heavy development. I say it is fantastic the way it is and keeps getting better. THE GAME I MEAN.
Now, people. Most of players are great guys. Once in a while people come from social media to HI3 and bring their drama with them, their text language and treat the game as what it is not - a chatroom and a social media type. I hope we don't get more of those.
As for the LGBT+ thing, I don't think that should be rated mature of treated as anything offensive and the staff SAID in the notice that they aren't against it. Dunno about Connie, but one person does not represent the whole game. This is a HORSE GAME. Boyfriends, girlfriends, relationships and sexuallity are not important here and should not be the focus. I mean, you can mention the person in chat or your relationship, but why on earth would you need to discuss your love life on Horse Isle?
While being inclusive towards LGBT+ is definitelly something to be done here and would be common sense, if there is no need for a relationship to even be mentioned, don't do it. This is not a dating game.
There are rules, follow them.
And don't bring any of the drama.