Our big interview

As promised, here is our interview. We were kindly asked to be interviewed by red_chick94 who has interviewed quite a few players on Howrse. Anyway - here's her interview. We hope you enjoy it:

red_chick94 interviews LucyLou and Patsy

This is my first combined interview I’ve done with two great players, LucyLou & Patsy. Please let me know via pm or on here if you like combined interviews.....

Hi you two! Do you feel privileged to be the first players to have a combined interview with me?
(P) Oh most definitely. Having looked at your list of illustrious interviewees, I feel honoured to be interviewed at all!
(L) Absolutely. I hope we can do the interview justice.

So, how did you two meet/get to know each other?
(L) We actually know each other in 'real' life. We used to work together and one day I introduced Patsy to Howrse, via a conversation about the price of turnips!
(P) Yes, that's right. I have to admit, I was a bit sceptical when I first saw the game but I thought that any game that had fluctuating vegetable prices in, had to be worth a look.

How would you describe each other in one word?
(L) Hilarious (but I mean that in a good way - she never fails to make me laugh!)
(P) Inspirational.
(L) Awww, thanks Patsy.

So, I noticed you had a fabulous website. Can you tell us about it?
(L) Well it's basically a help site/blog that we set up together for the players of Howrse.
(P) As LucyLou says, it's really just intended to help players of the game. However we find it helps us too. We find out loads of things we never knew, when we're researching for our postings.

How did you think of the name?
(L) I'm not sure really. We wanted it to have the word Howrse in so people could find it easily. Patsy came up with the Ultimate bit.
(P) As LucyLou says, we definitely needed it to have Howrse in the title. I chose 'Ultimate' as I thought it summed up what we wanted the site to do, it's easy to spell and has a memorable sound to it, I hope!

Why and when did you set it up?
(L) It was Patsy who came up with the idea originally. We both get so many questions from players each day asking for help so she thought it would be a good idea to make a site where we could share all the knowledge we have about the game. Hence Ultimate Howrse was born.
(P) Yes I suppose it was my idea. But as soon as I discussed it with LucyLou, she was really excited about the whole thing. We launched the site on August 31st 2009, with an article about how to take care of your first foal. Since then we've had over 39,000 unique visits and more than 81,000 page views. Our readership is based mainly in the USA, with the UK second and Canada third. But we have readers from all over the world. Places such as Guam, China, Iran and Brazil.
(L) Wow. I'm impressed by Guam.
(P) Oh there's loads. Angola, Belgium and even Christmas Island. In fact we have readers in 101 countries around the world.

What is your aim with your website?
(P)We have a pretty simple aim with Ultimate Howrse - to help players enjoy the game as much as possible. We wanted to create a site outside of Howrse where people could come and find answers and information on the game. As it turns out, it's not just us providing the help - other players come on and answer questions and share their knowledge too.
(L) I agree with everything that Patsy has just said. Sometimes it's quite hard to get your question answered on the Howrse forums so hopefully we're providing another place for people to go to get help and advice, as well as news and special features such as interviews. Like this one!

Are any new features going to come to UH?
(P) Something we've just introduced is videos. We found that sometimes trying to explain how to do something is quite difficult just using words. So what better way than to use video?
(L) I really like the videos - we've just posted one showing what happens when you wake your Gypse up in the morning. Not a lot of players get to see this as they don't own one (me included!) so it's a really nice thing to show. And also very hard to explain by just writing about it.
(P) In the future we may get into Facebook and Twitter but for now we just want to build a community around Ultimate Howrse. We average around 300 visits a day, so right now, we just want to make sure we're doing all we can for our readers and contributors.

Do you find it hard to manage this game and the website?
(P) I have to say that it can be rather time consuming but I'm always conscious that we need to keep the site up to date. I'm always the one who posts about any 'breaking news' coming from Howrse. Things such as a new Divine horse, new features or a new competition. I like us to be the first for important news because a lot of players search Google for information when something major happens in the game. So I love it when we are there with the answers - or most of them at least. LucyLou does a great job of writing about things such as training, breeding or running your EC. Mainly because she knows what she's talking about and I don't.
(L) LOL thanks Patsy. I find it quite hard to do both. Sometimes I'll be in the mood for playing the game rather than writing about it and at other times vice versa. Patsy has to keep me on the straight and narrow! But yes, I really enjoy helping players with the 'nitty gritty' elements of playing the game.

What do you two enjoy doing the most on this game?
(P)That's easy - making money!
(L) That's easy for me too - skilling horses.

Can you two tell me a random fact about yourselves?
(L) I wrote my University Mathematics dissertation on 'Equations of length seven over free groups'.
(P) Nice! Hmmm, I can't quite compete with that. However, my voice was once used as the voice of a cuddly bear that was sold in gift shops. I had to say things like "Happy birthday" and "I love you" in a cartoon voice. Strange but true.

You both have great rankings. What has made these rankings achievable?
(L) I've been playing the game since 2007 and after about a year I realised that to get up the General rankings you need to buy horses, and lots of them. So that's what I did and still do to this very day. The highest I've been is 6th overall but these days I'm quite happy to just be in the top 10. In fact, just today I went back up to 8th - it's a lot harder these days though.
(P) I have to confess to being a bit inconsistent. I'm currently in the top 10 of the Breeders' wealth rankings and I achieved this mainly by buying horses in the auctions and then selling them at a profit in the direct sales. I do buy passes too which helps. But I get bored easily. About a year ago, I was in the top 20 of the Breeders' wealth rankings but decided to spend nearly all my money to buy 1561 horses which got me to 19th in the General ranking. And then, I sold them all and got back into the top 20 of the Breeders' wealth rankings! Random.


Do you agree that having a close friend on the game is useful?
(P) Absolutely. I'm actually quite rubbish at playing the game and if it wasn't for LucyLou's patience and advice I'd probably have given up about 900 days ago!
(L) Yes definitely. We help each other out all the time and it's great to have someone to talk to about the game. Most other people would think I'm mad.
(P) You are mad.
(L) Thanks for that!

You’re ECs are looking great as well; however have either of you made a mistake within the EC?
(L) Oh I'm terrible with my EC. I'm forever forgetting to plant crops, get new employees and extend my horses board. I am proud of my EC's ranking - when everything is as it should be - it took a lot of time and hard work to get it up there.
(P) I made a brilliant mistake with my EC recently. I accidentally bought 50 DO (small) boxes instead of manure! No joke - 50 of the little devils. I had to destroy them all and only got half my money back. I'm a bit stupid like that sometimes. Other than that, my favourite trick is to forget to extend my employees' contracts. Doh.

Can you tell us who inspires you most on the game?
(L) Anyone who's above me in the General ranking - I know how hard they must have worked to get there. And also Patsy inspires me too - with her vast amounts of money and herself restraint when it comes to spending it!
(P) Well obviously LucyLou because she keeps me going but also players who do things like play the game without buying passes or people who produce really creative GA coats. I just admire players who play their own game really.
Finally...if you two could swap seats with each other and play each other’s game for one day, would you do it? If so, why, if not, why?
(L) Oh I would, definitely. Although Patsy might find she has considerably less money when she comes back the next day as I would spend it all buying lovely horses! That's my downfall on Howrse; as soon as I have money I spend it.
(P) It would be great - to have all those horses and all those PM's to deal with. Not sure I could cope with the lack of equus. I may have to sell a few Divines! Hmmm. maybe we should just stick to our own games. Things may just get a little messy!

(L and P) Thanks for a great interview. We've really enjoyed ourselves. Happy Howrsing.


Patsy