The thing that got me was not the size of the body shapes, but the proportion and posture of them. The lack of any female body shape in ANY of the body types just made this even worse. There were months of fans trying to tell SSO, trying to point this out, showing them how with a few tweaks all body types could look beautiful. Did they listen? No. Did they recognise the issue? No. They just ploughed ahead with a poor character design with massive issues and many bugs.

I HOPE they won't make us pay star coins for something that wasn't even hinted would be added after the MAIN update, when they'll add masculine types especially..

I'm just sad they don't have a thin fit model with some biceps, many horse girls are fit, especially the ones who work as stable hands. It can be a very active hobby/ lifestyle, kinda weird they didn't consider this and offer a body type that reflected that. Especially since canonically you would expect your Player character to be fairly fit if they're riding around Jorvik doing everyone's chores everyday.

Personally, as a skinnier person, I do wish I had an option for my character to represent myself. I also do not like how they have really made us childlike. As you’ve said we have no sort of curves at all (as well as that the clothing has shading, that look like we should have curves but we don’t..) , and I can understand that sso’s target audience is children, but I personally again do not feel represented. However I don’t think it’s right for people to discriminate each other based off of their desires for the game. But anyways, the biggest problem I had is that the characters kind of seemed rushed. They should have made sure everything is completely ready (such as all the animations etc.) before actually releasing. Especially the chat moderation as you’ve basically said, if they are going to make bigger body types (which sadly get discriminated against a lot 😕) they should make a better chat moderation to prevent CHILDREN from being bullied. But that’s just my two cents so, everyone is entitled to their own opinion though! ❤

They literally launched these characters without the model able to fit all the tack 💀 Like we knew they were going be unfinished but Jesus Christ, they were worse then expected

Star Stable handles bullying just like a school does lol. "Report if you see someone being bullied but we won't do anything about it!"

I can’t lie, I’m not a fan of the new characters… Will update when I hear what you have to say ❤

I’m so glad we have you to talk about these things rattle ❤

Just to be clear, I did not like the #RidewithUs movement, but I could understand the spirit of it, which was anti-bullying. Just wish some of that spirit would make its way into their game. Thank you to @xenon_pif4929 for helping me translate this! I used and incorrect screenshot, sorry about that guys! Here is the full translation of that screen! No idea how it slipped into that folder! XD 6:22 - IN POLISH - Start+ - walks somewhere [slang] - walking around the orchard - walks in the direction of their stash, trotting - about decryption: mean, not trusting, knows how to fight, devil although has gray hair(?), HOT, hard life as a kid Again, very sorry! No idea how it slipped in there. I clearly can't read Polish, my ONE weakness!

I really need to see where and two who the funds they get from private and public sources got to. Everything costs so much yet they can't afford to have a dedicated chat monitoring team? I'm calling BS

I've unsubbed to SSO's YT channel, and I'm considering uninstalling the game. The character update was the straw that broke the camels back for me (My character is extremely ugly and I didn't wanna use the 1 free character change). I already was having a hard time playing after the June update, then the HUD. I've also noticed that from another video, people can't just simply ignore wrong doers by clicking on them anymore. I'm going to buy Astride and ride along with it to see where that trail goes. I literally can't play SSO anymore. I just feel incredibly sad and angry with SSO. It used to be the place I could kinda just relax. It was boring to play after a certain point, but I could still play it and not feel sad or angry before all the stuff that happened in June.

I would have like sso to realease the characters some years later bc dont get me wrong, but i would rather ride around with a stick than an unfinished product. I would also like to say that i might think that they lost quite a lot of money and dont have much money to hire employees. They didnt think this would be soo hated. Another reason they might have released the characthers to early is bc of a tradition in Sweden where everyone takes a day off on Tusday,Friday,Saturday and Sunday. And i also think the charachters were rushed. Btw how did it go on the interwiew with the game themselfs?

I don't understand why they can't just make a slider for the body types? It can give a much wider variety of representations and you can include it from asthenic to hypersthenic body habitus. Also, no chat mods? T-T

It's also not weird to want to have a skinny character to represent your own body the best as possible because some people are skinny (even tho ofc many of us playing don't look like any of the body types anyway ) Also one thing I hope they fix is how the hair looks on at least some body types. On the one I use, the long hair goes into the back Also the bullying is stupid ☠️ the biggest body type isn't even that big 😭 even if it was why bully? Kids are mean af. Luckily even as a child I was never bullied on sso

Rattle, as a guy who is heavy and rides horses I applaud you for talking about this. I think star stable is being outrageous at times.

I think what gets me the most about the "controversy" with the slimF body type is that it is skinny. If you compare it to the old body type, it doesn't seem skinny, but if you compare it to average real life human beings, it is. I think the issues people have with it don't actually stem from its weight, but rather its proportions; the thighs are incredibly slim, same as the arms, and the stomach is flatter than a humans would be without sucking in or shape wear. Players don't actually want "less weight", they want a more hourglass bust to waist to hip ratio. People think that that is weight, when in reality its just bone structure, and if you were to take the current slimF body type and increase the hips and bust, I guarantee people would think it looks skinnier. I can't believe I have to say this but obviously I don't think that people who are upset about not seeing themselves represented aren't valid, but I also think a huge part of the outcry has little to do with "not being represented" and huge amount to do with regular old fatphobia. The people who do have a more hourglass or pear figure, who really do look like the old model and who are upset about not seeing themselves being represented any more are being absolutely drowned out by bigots co-opting their feelings to fuel nasty comments. What's crazy to me is that I have seen very little in the way of bully and fatphobia against the 5 other body types and an overwhelming amount against the slimF body. As an underweight person whose body is nearly a copy paste of the slimF, I had to avoid chat on the night of the update bc it was full of people calling the slimF body (and by extension my body/me) fat and disgusting, yelling about how much they hated it in full caps, how they couldn't even stand to look at themselves, saying they were quitting the game after years of playing. They would rather never play a game they have sunk years and hundreds of dollars into again, than look like me. I cried over my body for the first time ever that night. Before SSO I had never once seen my body type represented in a game, which is wild when you consider how much fatphobia there is in the gaming industry. When I was customizing my character and saw all the models in game for the first time, I was so happy bc all the models looked so human, like average people I could pass on the street. The range of body types on release was a huge upgrade from what we had, while simultaneously being absolutely abysmal; you're gonna hype players up for this for over 2 years then drop with 6 options? SIX?? Sure they're releasing more but from what it looks like from the spoilers, they're just masculine versions of the body types we already have. IMO they needed at least 3 body types for each of the weight options; a masculine, a less curvy and a more curvy. Like I said above, I look like the slimF body, but despite the fact that i teeter between an A and B cup, my bust still manages to be bigger than that of the ingame model. The proportions of all the models make us look like children even more than the old model ever did, and I hate it. I'm an adult, I wanna look like one.

The thing that bothers me the most is the special moves animation that does not change no matter what move the horse is doing. Like when the horse is laying down or bows our character looks like their going to pass out from the whiplash they create from swinging their head like a hammer at a gingerbread house.

As someone who struggles with weight gain I think people need to realize that you can absolutely shame someone for being too thin and calling people who want their characters to look them fatphobic 🥴 is not it

I started with SSO in 2011 shortly after it's release. Back then I didn't fully realize that it is a multiplayer game cause with 25 years of age I was way older than most players and usually stuck to myself. Years later, when I realized the full dimension of SSO I began to think about on how to make it a safe place for kids. In the end, and some years older again and having experiences with parenting, I came to the conclusion that kids shouldn't be in MMOs. There's no guarantee to keep them 200% safe in a MMO or the internet in general, no matter what. My kids wouldn't be allowed to play stuff like this ever before they get old enough to buy a laptop themselves. There should not be MMOs for kids, period. Because it needs so much effort to make it safe and it's still such a huge responsibility to a company, that I simply think it's too much and absolutely impossible.

If I was a parent I would not allow my child near SSO. An unmoderated chat is simply too dangerous. And yes, unfortunately I could see the character change leading to bullying, it shouldn't happen but it was pretty much inevitable. TY for speaking out.

I didn't really like it.. it honestly doesn't look like me anymore, lucky if you like them though! But the faces are not very customizable..

On the broken/ bug part of the video I think you should have mentioned that they broke the Arabian horses beyond recognition. Im not kidding, this update replaced all their animations except for the rear and special move animations for brand new ones that are plain, broken, removed the arched neck on the trot, and their personality when they were idle and they now keep the head amd neck stuck in the same place on all canter and gallop frames like a rocking horse Not only that but they also changed the animations of the appaloosa model, which just had a new color added with the rainbow festival. What worries me the most is that they said they were working on this update for years and that they have been giving it their full attention for at least the last few months, as they should, only to add files in game for a new horse, tack, pets and other things for a brand new event during the summer when they added this update in, so clearly, their teams were separate and working on what gives them money, horses and pets, instead and working together to actually deliver the update the characters needed. They had the man power to make this update work and chose to focus on something else instead of working on the characters full time Also regarding the players that were locked out or still are, I have friends that suffered that fate and sent SSO an email to at least give them daily care for their horses while they couldnt log in, so their care wouldnt go down and they can go right back to racing once they can enter the game again, pretty reasonable request I think and SSO bluntly told them they knew of this issue all along and if they wanted to enter the game before it was patched they should ask to use someone elses computer, buy a new one or try the mobile version, and the way that email was written reeked of advertisement for their mobile game. Frankly, Im not giving them a single cent until the arabians are fixed, I feel robbed of the horses I bought which I have many since its my second favorite breed, and until they fix them I will keep saying that SSO scammed of all that money and replaced the prodcut I ordered for a cheap version of it that doesn't even look the same without my consent, Shame on them

Instead of wanting sso to add unrealistic Fortnite/anime like characters, with big butts and hips, large chest and super thin waist, advocate and protest for them to change the body proportions. We don’t really have to look like supermodels, and honestly It's hard to believe you when you say “omg I look like that and they didn’t represent me!!”. Obviously you'd like your character to be pretty and the standard body type for women in 2023 is still an hourglass figure with an insanely small waist, big butts and big chests. Some people are like that, but not most of them. Sso wanted to portray real bodies not to leave out anyone and not to make young girls insecure (because yes, they have made it very clear by now that their game is being targeted to children). And I can’t be mad at them about that: instead of representing the all liked “instagram model influencers” they opted for a more natural look. What they absolutely FAILED in, were the body proportions. The head looks too big, the chest is nonexistent, the waist is not defined and the legs are too short. Overall we look like toddlers, and not like teens, which is the age that our characters supposedly should be. Teens can have smaller waists and bigger boobs even if they’re still teens; they could’ve added hipdips to make the characters look younger and more teenage- so, but they preferred to make the waist larger, making them look like children. Again, it’s not a matter of representation, it’s a matter of making your job VERY POORLY. They could’ve been so much better if they had just changed the proportions to make them look like real teens. The issue with people like you is that you only like to complain and you don’t see the problem as its whole, rather only for how it looks in the end. You ignore the bigger picture and focus on one little detail. You criticise the final product and you don’t suggest different options. You want it changed not because it looks bad, but just because it’s not the body you want to play with, while the most important issue is that ALL the bodyshapes look out of proportion, so if they even added the most wanted hourglass body, it would still look bad because the proportions are shit. I will say it again: they failed the whole process of making them, they did not fail in representation. Also, not to mention but your speech on fatphobia is very weird: people have been bullying fat people both online and offline and the constant fatphobia is real and it's being brought out by the very same PLAYERS. I don't get why you blame sso for this one, and the chat filter is a completely different issue. Don't mix the two things, because they can be somehow related, but they can't be discussed together. By doing this, you try to shift the attention from the main concern (the fatphobia) to a less important one (the chat filter isn't working). Very interesting point of view to, once again, blame the game for not censoring the fatphobia, and not to blame the players who actually are bullying. But "kids will be kids, they do this all the time", right? If this was the case, and if this was applicable to everyone, then fat kids should "skinnyshame" skinnier players; but this doesn't happen, and I wonder why (but still, notice how you and other players get angry when someone says something about skinny people). I want to add that I am neither super skinny nor fat, so I do have a very clear point of view and I'm not teaming with neither of the two sides. So yeah, I hope you read this comment and I'd love to get a reply. No meanies, just pure facts and valid arguments.

Great points in the video! Another point me and my sister made was there isn’t any curve body types and there are only 3 white skin tones. And I am very pale I didn’t get one that matched my skin. Hope you have an amazing day!

6:21 There's nothing wrong in this chat room screen. These Polish people were Role Playing. They were describing their names and roles.

i just got back into sso, it was my childhood game back in 2013, and you’re the only sso youtuber i watch🫶 i love the way your videos are formatted like video essays but arent boring at all! thank you for the new video! and my opinion, i personally love the new characters, but i understand those who don’t! i still get kinda iffy about peoples comments about the bodies tbh. i agree not having a body type that resembles the old one is frustrating, but ive seen some really fishy comments, calling the new bodies “thomas moorland” or “lovely peaches” bodies! i think thats outwardly just mean.

I am kinda over the fatphobia. Like, it's just one of the many shapes bodies come in. And merely existing doesn't mean I glorify my body type. I just happen to look like this. I Take antidepressants and have hormonal issues, so I look the way I look. I like it when games don't make me feel bad for something I can only partially control. Weight gain is so much more complex than just eating to much, and I will not hide myself or be ashamed for the body I happen to have. And SSO should really, really stop kids from getting bullied. Guess what the overweight girl that gets bullied into insecurity does? She stays home and feels hopeless, maybe she even starts literally eating more to cope. Don't let bullies invade her home as well. As a teen I felt so gross I was ashamed to go out in public, I went on countless diets that left me with a shitty nutrient-balance and all that just because my body wasn't liked. I love the outdoors and swimming in the local lakes, but for years I didn't because people made me feel like my presence was an insult. Bigger bodies are just bodies. Our mere existance does not glorify anything. I just want to be myself and participate like everybody else. Beauty is, to many, Independent of size or health. It can be very pretty to be unhealthy, and very unhealthy to be a certain size, but they do not have to correlate. I am plus size. I didn't choose my health issues and nobody should assume that battling depression or a hormonal disorder is just "to many burgers". Sure, some people have that type of eating disorder, but they don't deserve insults, but support to become more confident and eventually make better choices and be happy.

The new characters are so far from ready for use, I have so many bugs going on, e.g. rider keeps on with riding movements when horse is standing, tools like hoofpicks and buckets becoming attached to the character after finishing a task etc etc. This goes way further than just the lack of personalization that they have promised us, and I say promised because they talked about the option to create ourselves as we are in-game. Which is far from possible with the current limitations, they also can't tell us that they do not have the capacities to create a better avatar creator when they have an annual revenue of about $18 million. They have the money to hire people short-term to create something better. Some people say we should be grateful, but this game costs too much money to offer so little.

I feel like people do the bullying in the chat rooms is because they know Star Stable will do NOTHING. Yeah sure you get a chat ban, but I've reported so many people and I was always told to ignore people.

I feel 50/50 on the model, I don't miss the old ones, they NEEDED an upgrade, and SSO is for sure going in the right direction! But I feel they needed to add more and prepare a bit more for this HUGE change. EDIT: As a plus sized person, I feel a bit torn about the backlash. I've seen many people downright bodyshaming the new body types and its really been upsetting me, I completely understand wanting more, but skinny people have been represented more than plus sized people in the past, I'm NOT saying they shouldn't make a few more skinny body-types, but I'm saying some people are being straight up disrespectful, and expecting a change.

Yay! A new upload from my favorite KZfaqr!

I have been so looking forward to the new characters and too have been very effected by comments especially when the beta was still going on. To hear people say that even option 1 is still "fat" definitely struck me, as I've worked to build up confidence about myself for years and had finally felt good about myself. My body isn't like option 1. Not even 2 or 3 probably. So where does that leave me, when so many people say that option 1 isn't thin enough? People post a lot of things online that they don't think about, so I became scared of the update that I've looked forward to so much and especially after hearing about all the bullying going on, I decided to keep my chat closed and not read any Social Media posts about the update. Though I'm happy to say that whenever I did look into it - at least on my server - noone was bullying or leaving nasty comments, which I was really glad for. I am really happy to play on my option 4 character and desperately await the fix of the saddles, so my powerful butt doesn't swallow the back of it anymore... xD

Honestly, it's sad with many harassing me due to me either liking the new characters and myself using a bigger body type. Many disgusting words have been said as being told to 'off' myself, also to go outside and go on a diet..- It turns to me just logging onto the game for druid training and logging off. With it too, school has been rough with getting bullied for being a bigger body type and SSO was my safe place but my character I wasn't connected to, and I felt so happy with the launch of bigger body but myself hasn't been that happy due to all this harassment I get.

I mean, the shaming of larger bodies is horrific in itself, but I'm more shocked by the normalization of shaming women/girls who do not have/have little curves. "Looks like a child" "Lmao like a box" "Ironing board" "At least I actually have curves" Are all things I've seen whenever a woman/girl doesn't have "enough" of a chest, or butt, or curves that rival that of Jessica Rabbit in response to these new bodies. I've literally seen people deny adult women with smaller frames and small breasts are actually adults, insinuating they're underaged, they're minors, and whoever is attracted to them is a predator. Now, it would be more of a problem if the heads on these new characters were smaller and more "mature" like instead of actually looking childish (the "lack of" curves would be a little more reasonable as they are "children", but it's still a problem) , but the fact people get so upset about larger bodies being shamed (I don't condone this if the rider in question is reasonably sized for their horse, and if they're too big for said horse, shaming isn't the answer but telling them they're in the wrong is) then turn around and call skinny girls with no curves "children" and defeminize them is mind-blowing. I think it's struck a nerve with me personally because I'm of drinking age and yet I don't have a large bust. I've been shamed for my smaller breasts, had them compared to raisins "jokingly" by someone I thought was a friend, been told my insecurity and BDD over my bust is "nothing" compared to my ex with large breasts, and to see it in the SSO community by the same people who cry fatphobia is a slap in the face. They know what it's like to be shamed for their bodies, yet they do it right back and brag about "at least not looking like a child". These bodies need to be worked on, no doubt. I think scales/sliders would be the perfect solution to this. A few body types like thin, mid-size, plus-size, and muscular to get the base down. Head size, bust, buttocks, thigh width, hip width, etc. are all great ideas for sliders. That way we can get the correct proportions to ourselves/whatever character we want without having to compensate for what is missing.

For anyone interested gonna include here a simple translation of the screenshot at 6:22 ^^ (the text is in polish Bdw) - Start+ - walks somewhere [slang] - walking around the orchard - walks in the direction of their stash, trotting - about decryption: mean, not trusting, knows how to fight, devil although has gray hair(?), HOT, hard life as a kid It’s just the start to a typical roleplay so I’m not sure why this was shown as an example of poor chat moderation lol (unless it’s because other languages shouldn’t be used on English servers but still a bit weird to me)

i feel like the game will die sooner or later completly if they dont start to fix it

100% agree with you. I'm 28 now, but as a plus size girl growing up in America, I was CONSTANTLY bullied for my larger size throughout school. I still enjoy SSO in my spare time and I was so excited for the new character update, but seeing all of the backlash, the body shaming, the bullying, and the lack of empathy from SSO has really put a sour taste in my mouth for the game and the developers.

I hate it when people call others fat phobic for being honest about this fact: You should not glorify obesity. It causes a lot of health issues. AND I AM LITERALLY BATTLING OBESITY RIGHT NOW. IF ANYONE TRIES TO FORCE ME TO BE HAPPY IN MY BODY I ABSOLUTELY WILL THROW HANDS AND IT WILL NOT BE PRETTY.

I got body type 4, not seen a single comment about it. Hope everyone experiences the same. #StopOnlineBullying

I hate that my avatar now looks like a 10 year old when I'm a 22 year old. thanks SSO

It's just so funny how they act like these updates and problems are so big when there are simple solutions to them, like adding a slider tool for personal adjustments on all categories of the characters traits.

i'm one of the weirdos that like the new characters

Here's to the adult players who haven't logged on in ages and are just checking back to watch our childhood comfort game burn.

Love this video, I personally picked one of the bigger body types because I do think it fits me and my character and looks beautiful. I won’t say I love the new characters or body types and wish they had more for other people, but mine feels like it’s fits. I’ve gone through my share of bullying in this game because of it though, but at the end of the day, no one can change my mind on how I feel about myself and my character ❤ (You brought up so so many good points in this video and I loved it! Especially everything about the timing, keep up the great work Rattle

I didn't experience the bullying yet, i always hated my body but im trying to embrace it and be healthier and one of the body types looks exactly like mine

i havé a very strange body type. my hips and booty are wide thanks to the women on my dads side, but i’m very skinny on top. i want a type to resemble me, but i chose the closest one (the smallest one). the second i entered the game i saw people saying they didn’t like the update so that justified their racism and body shaming towards other players/the characters. i literally was mortified. i’m 18 years old, i know these people were probably kids but i couldn’t even put it past teenagers anymore.

i know this video is like nine months ago, but i wanna say this tbh The problem I see is mostly that no one wants to be like they are irl, they want to be skinnier, curvier, blonde, black-haired, brown-haired, with green eyes or maybe blue, heterochromia, etc. You want to be the "pretty" version of yourself or an oc, which I can understand. Personally, I am a bit skinnier than the slimF bodytype, and I don't feel "exclused" or smth like that, I just feel like I can't be myself, because my characters are not childs! And that's also the problem of a looooooooooot of other preople who want curvier characters. Another problem is the proportions of the characters, which makes it look childish. It has slim legs and not too much hips (even though those are human proportions! I know tons of people who look like that, which is fine! Don't feel ashamed

Also, if you go to press r hotkey and then try to pet your horse that way it makes you stand up now. It's broken asf. AND, after you do chores, you end up with a item from them, like a hoofpicks for example. Even when grooming in the washing stall, you now end up with a broken horse and you can't move unless you press space a bunch of times.

All of the hate for skinny people going around in the SSO community rn is exactly why, a few years ago, I was stuffing my face with junk food, and forcing myself to eat more when my body didn't want to. It got to me, and I hated my body, and people's attitudes about it, so much that I wanted to gain weight. It disgusts me how people think its okay to treat skinny people, as if we’re not people too with our own insecurities and desire to be seen. Just because one group has reveived more representation, does not make it okay to exclude them, and be jerk about it. The SSO community's attitude about it is far more upsetting to me that the actual lack of a skinny character model.

Honestly, I think there is sufficient skinny body types, BUT they just don't look skinny because all the proportions are messed up. Make the torso and legs longer, but the overall character smaller, make the heads smaller and then it'll look much better already. As a big girl mystelf, I was really looking forward to this update and seeing about 80% of people shouting how there's not enough skinny types when there wasn't a single big one in years really gets on my nerves. I entirely blame SSO for not making the skinny options actually look skinny and just hope they fix it eventually.

When in the editor the faces of the new characters look like they have mumps. Thank god it looks better in the actual game.

I loved the old characters and these seem really rushed. Some parts are amazing and i love more diverse body types, but we look like 12yo. Also, while some hairstyles have improved a lot, the main ones i used became a completely different shape and color, which is weird. I paid for white hair, not blonde.

I think it's very nice in thought to add bigger body types but I really cannot believe they didn't expect to have to double up on moderation, i guess maybe it strikes me as somewhat naive and a bit of a virtue signal to want to market to players with those body types but not being able to also adequately deliver the same "safe" gaming space that SSO describes itself as for those players. I'm not larger so I could be assuming here, but I guess I see gaming as escapism, and one of the biggest sins you can do to a player is disrupting that and reminding them of the mundane and depressing parts of everyday life like fatphobia. I guess I feel like there was a dialogue that could've been accessed before it had ran its course to where it is now, and SSO, naively, didn't think to do that; but of course, that seems to be reflected in a lot of this player model update, what with the feet not even...going into the stirrups...WHAT. HOW... Like you said they had the #RideWithUs movement, so I thought that could've been perfectly geared up to also tackle bullying here. I would've pre-planned for this sort of issue and had something to combat it personally :v

Ready

does anyone remember when actual in-game moderators would actually help people with bullying or chat issues on the big servers? i don't get why star stable doesn't try to invite active players who are over 18 to be moderators now.

I loved the update at the start. Slowly I began to hate it as bugs and body shaming began to escalate. I chose one of the large body types and I got bullied to the point I changed it.😢

First time I heard about this, I guess I need to hop on the game again. I don't play it that often nowadays. I think the peoeple up in arms about "you're just mad you can't be skinny!" are.. being extremely unfair. body types deserve representation, and I don't think it's out of left field for people to be upset the only new proffered body type is different from the original. Where the old one was very feminine (and I've always been an advocate for SSO giving people options to appear more masculine or androgynous), this one is. well. androgynous. Which is good, yeah, but if they're making new body types, go all the way, yknow? Let there be boobless options alongside boob options. I understand its a kids game, and I'm not asking for an anime-esque boob slider, just the option. That way everyone has a way to represent themselves. Nothing wrong with a model thats not feminine or masculine, just that it's good to have all the options. All bodies are beautiful, any size shape weight or anything. They're personable. It's not bad to have options to appear more masc, feminine, or androgynous. Everyone has their own preferences for how they want their own bodies to look. And on the subject of bullying, I will go over to SSO headquarters and bonk them on the head myself. Children cruel, and they don't understand how horrid their behavior is unless something is done about it. There has to be punishment, some way to stop them. SSO has to put effort into moderating this, for their own reputation and for the players. Stuff like this is traumatizing.

As someone who recovered from an ED I'm horrified at the amount of comments that say theres no skinny characters. I think we lose connection with what humans look like because the smaller models ARE skinny but realistic skinny, not cartoony skinny. We are so used to seeing anatomically impossible skinny characters that people call more realistic body type skinny characters big.. Honestly all these comments kind of triggers my ED and I'm holding my heart for all the younger kids who play whose skinny character is called big or fat.

Oh wow, three minutes ago? I'll have I check this out later. My biggest gripe with this update was how much they pushed for inclusivity while making it. "inclusive" just turned out to be exclusive the other way around, which left a large part of the fandom feeling left out. Just as expected, other parts of the fandom are immature and turning to whataboutism and other classic arguments: "The old characters weren't inclusive either!!!" No, but this was meant to be an improvement, otherwise what is the point? It is a ridiculous argument, yay.. Starstable still sucks with other words, just the other way around. Hallelujah. "If you don't like them just stop playing!" Ah yes, I shall stop playing a game I used to like and paid for instead of giving constructive criticism, that is bound to fix all of my problems. I'm just tired at this point, the pandering, the shouting, the radio silence from the team... ugh. I've lost hope. Why can't people just be honest, transparent and reasonable?

Thank you as always Rattle for discussing the topics we want to!! I don’t know why we are shocked that it was a disaster. It took me 29 attempts to get in the other day, changed my character (chose of course the big girl cause, I am!) and instantly got bullied. Luckily I’m an adult who’s heard every fat comment there is since I was a child so nothing upsets me anymore but my god. I feel so sorry for kids who will find this upsetting. This game needs to stop now! It’s becoming unplayable with the bugs. For something they’ve worked on for so long to release like this…. It’s a ‘told you so’ moment

Unfortuanately, they have done this so often, that I was expecting the game to be broken by this update. And I was expecting the characters to be unfinished upon release. I don't understand why SSO is alergic to releasing finished products.

THANK YOU so much for adressing the chat moderation issue! This is something that has been in the worst state possible for years by now. I personally am old enough to shrug kid's comments off ingame, but i for sure know there is a younger audience that will remember the bullying, name calling and whatever else is going on in the chats. I got so annoyed by the global chat, i barely even read or type in it anymore. It's ridicoulus. I don't even understand why Star Stable hasn't hired actual humans for chat moderation in general. Why rely on an AI that clearly isn't working for YEARS now? There will always be someone who finds a workaround to talk about black listed words, phone numbers, to bully other player, etc. I hope SSO wakes up and realized how dangerous their global chats actually are. From bullying to online predators, for god sake, they need to do something. I personally would apply as chat moderator for SSO instantly. Everything to make this game as safe as they say it is!

At least we have a candle... and I assume it works.

I would really love to have like a short curly type of hair someday! The new long curly hair styles are beautifull

About the chat: ive seen multiple swear words, or not so sfw stuff being said in my server and i was shocked. I wish there was an in-game report system/bug report system

I wish I knew why there are so many bugs that rarely get fixed? Or why updates that aren’t recycled take years to happen, YEARS, and they aren’t even that big, and when they DO get released they are riddled with bugs? What are they doing at work...?? How much work is actually getting done? What is going on? Are they understaffed or are they lazy...??

I understand all of the frustration with the new character models, personally i could care less about the new body types, but i know thats a big thing for others. The bugs definitely need ironed out, But my thing is, I think sso realesed in a "Rushed" state because of the pressure, so many people at least that i witnessed hounded sso about player models, and they probably just gave into the pressure. I personally love my new character, and will definitely love it more if/when the bugs are fixed. Also would like to touch on, I myself am a bigger girl, and i choose the thin type because tbh thats what i would want to be, i dont want to play a type that resembles my own because i hate it, sso is an escape for me. Because i am now actually too big to ride a horse, sso let me do that.. I personally have never been bullied in sso and ive grown up enough that i can just ignore it now if it does happen. but some kids cant, especially if said Kid has mental disabilities like i had...so i agree they really need to buckle down on it.

Yay, so happy to have more Rattle content! Having watched the video, here are my thoughts: The character update was definitely a necessary change and one that many players had been requesting. Overall, I love the variety in skin color, eye color, hair, etc. However, I do agree that the body types seem a bit odd. There is no "figure" to these models, with flat chests, bell-shaped torsos, and puffy chipmunk cheeks on the faces. For me, it's not necessarily a question of the body weight of the character but the lack of typical body features that most female-identifying players have in real life. When I first logged on, the first words out of my mouth were, "Woah, why do I look like a dude?". At the end of the day, I am happy to see the update, though I hope some things are tweaked in the future. Edit: And I am so happy that male-identifying players are finally able to adjust their models to better represent their identity!

6:13 I genuinely can’t say anything in the chat cause apparently saying , nice horse , or any real chatting Is not allowed in CHAT

Honestly, such a great video, as aways. Keep on the great work

Back in the day they used to have actual humans from the sso team play on the servers and they reported/took care of possible hackers/bullying/inappropriate comments directly in game (this was on Swedens biggest server Air star). Now I understand they have a shit ton of servers, and this would require a lot of resources and employees that they most likely dont have, but damn.. that was a better way of dealing with this chat shit... They have recordings of the chats, just like any other online game, and they could possibly search for specific words, see who used them and give them warning/block/ban etc? I think... They fo sure need to fix their chat.

This is the body types we have in game rn square, square>rectangle, rectangle, rectangle (), rectangle ( ), rectangle ( ), so there are no female types here. I understand this is a kids game but just look at the npcs of the soul riders and normal npcs aren’t the we (our characters) supposed to be teenagers??? Or pre-teens?? This game is “for girls” right then make us look like girls. I also wish we could have changed our face shape, eye shape, and nose shape, instead of the presets they made…And the whole bullying how can they not know that ppl where going to get bullied…

"buy ai is so good, its a future" - well its not.... I've always loved my character, among other things, because she was skinny like me - I'm on the upper limit of anemia but I feel good and there's no problem with it, now even the skinniest model is "normal" not skinny, I don't even see the second me anymore who can actually do something for horses but just someone else for who I can't even choose face and well I'm not the only one who have that problem

The Cyberpunk music was a great choice 👌

I don't understand why sso would release this update even when they still have more body types to add. People were constantly telling them to hold off -- to wait until the characters were tweaked to look better. Their posture was off, the anatomy is funky, and there is a considerable lack of body types. Representation isn't just about adding bigger body types -- and this is coming from someone who has a bigger and curvier body irl. There needs to be another skinnier option for those who identify as that, and they need to fix the fit models to look more anatomically correct. There is also a considerable lack of female anatomy on nearly all the bodies. It is NOT a bad thing to give these characters hips and breasts. Growing up as a young teen, I had those things! By not creating body types with those assests just furthers the idea that having hips and a big chest is over sexual and a bad thing. Which is so dumb because it's completely natural. I would have also liked to see them create curly hair styles before release. They included darker skin tones, yet failed to create hairstyles for POC. I would have liked to wait for these new models rather than deal with the consequences of releasing them too early. And I'm glad you said something about the chat system. You're right-- kids will be kids. And kids can and will bully. I am 22 years old, and seeing the comments some players were making about the bigger body types in the global chats were extremely upsetting. As an adult, that hurt! And I can only imagine what young girls seeing those comments would have felt. Sure, those kids saying those things were in the wrong, but it is sso's responsibility to make sure those comments never even make it into the chat in the first place. It is also their responsibility to reprimand these people when such things are said. There isn't even an ignore option anymore, so you can't just put those players on ignore and move on. What were they thinking???

Couldn’t of said it better myself!

You thoughts in this video were mine exactly. Thank you for taking the time to research and review all this objectively. I feel alot of players are just ignoring and disregarding those of us who see these issues.

Thank you for being so honest.

I think a major thing is that the majority of people are not seeing is that the new character model is actually a more realistic size compared to the horses in SSO. If you look at real people riding horses in real life you'll see that the new character is actually not that far off (unless you only look at small people riding huge horses). I think the real problem here is that we are so used to seeing the tiny character that we've lost perception of what is actually normal.

also with the new interface idk if that was on purpose but i can't even ignore ppl anymore

3:59 I haven't played SSO in forever. Did they add unicorns?

Why don't they add sliders for muscle definition, weight, chest size, curviness etc? That way everyone is happy.

Thanks for saying it out loud... The feet aswell as the BIG BALLOON CHEEKS ARE KILLING MY MOOD.... I have ONE... ONE hairstyle that I like until now on the new character that does not make me look even more cotton stuffed on the cheeks... I HATE IT... :((

I do not understand why SSO makes all these errors. They are a successful company with 10 years plus experience, many professional workers and a big community. Not like they started this business yesterday. So why? Why didn't they anticipate all these issues?

I’m just happy about the new characters

I fully agree. And I will add more! Star Stable promised to honor Violet Flowergarden half year ago and they did NOTHING to fill that promise. Not To mention Zony ans Vega sounds like horses not like zebras as they did in past. I arleady send a report. 3 months ago... and it still wasn't fix making me sad 'cause it was making them unique. For the polish chat scene - they were just role-playing :) I am from Poland. Anyways great video. Someone just HAS to tell the truth between those sweet lies SSO is giving us everyday.

i would love to have more coulors for the hair. i want pink hair. i think we have to just adjust to the big changes. please dont bully eachother. thats is so sad.

Ok time for another incredibly long comment because boi i have a lot of things to say on this topic / topics First things first, I thank you Rattle for this wonderful video once again. While I don't see myself agreeing with everything this time around, it is still a good video and certainly reflects the many issues sso is currently facing So time to go through everything and give my takes on things because... reasons. The missing body options: I can wholeheartedly agree with what you have said here. While I will say that sso has promised to add future body types which is also something you mentioned, i agree that a bodytype more befitting the original one would have been much better and probably caused much less outrage. Personally, I really like the look of the new models however that does not mean that i do not understand or agree with the criticisms raised here. Although I will mention it is beyond difficult to please everyone especially with a community like sso's that seems to only think in extremes sometimes. Although I can't fully blame them for it given the history of everything that went down with the game even if i personally don't agree with it. The broken update / bad timing: Ok I would be a lunatic if i did not agree with the fact that the initial state of the game as it came out was beyond broken. HOWEVER what I will give sso is that they fixed a huge amount of issues within the next few days via hotfixes. As i do not know when this video was recorded I obviously don't know if these fixes were already present at that time. The crashing issues were fixed incredibly quickly along with many other major issues. While not everything was fixed of course, the most damaging ones have been and that in quite the record time. I dont entirely blame sso for the buggy mess that it was though. Or well... I do, but also kind of understand? its difficult. It should have been tested more, yes, but if you take into account how much people have been screaming at sso to update the characters, its no wonder they did not want to delay it *again*. Not to mention these issues did not appear during the testing phase of the character beta. And seem to only really be issues that appeared as the updated was launched on the live servers. Considering the absolutely ancient code of the game... I can only imagine how difficult it must be to implement such a huge update which they also mentioned was necessary for many other aspects of the game. As this seems to have been quite the roadblock in several areas. Still it is a rather fucking messy state of the game and I am sure many of these issues could have been fixed much earlier The bad moderation: Ok so.. there is a lot to this that i am not sure you are aware of, but it is something that is making the rounds in german sso communities. Sso some time ago released a press report that showed the financial state of the game. In 2020 during the height of the pandemic their revenue was around 44mil, the year after it went down to approx 20 mil i think and the year after it went down even more. Around the same time sso also moved offices into a much bigger office which is more on the outskirts of stockholm (so likely also cheaper), close to offices of epic games and paradox, which are only 1 or 2 block away i believe. Due to this cut in revenue sso was forced to lay off around 15 percent of their workers, many of which were hired during the pandemic and most of which in the social media team, meaning sso as of right now is in no position to hire new moderators and has to rely on reports to help with this. While the game is far from dying and i do not wish to make a panic here because their revenue is still in the many millions and they do make money, it could potentially reach a state that is more difficult if it continues this way. If you would ever potentially be interested I would have no issue fully translating a video by a german youtuber who breaks this whole topic down in detail potentially in a voicecall or just via text even if that would be a lot of writing. While I do agree that the moderation and bullying right now is absolutely awful, there is not super much that they can do as of right now unless they were to hire unpaid moderators for the chat, which also would take a lot of time away as theyd need to make sure the applicants are fit for the jobs. Final words of this whole book of a comment. Thank you for the wonderful video once again!

nah cus i cant even open the game without my PC crashing anymore, i can play genshin impact on max settings whilst having lots of other apps open but even OPENING sso is just not possible for me anymore://

Sso crashed my computer when i was trying to update yesterday lol, also im annoyed that they didn't put the skinny option in at launch bc i used my free customization before I knew i could be skinny and now im probably gonna have to pay which sucks.

its been difficult to catch every issue but oh just reach out to us, we look into every single report!

I agree with everything you have said. Where can i find your discord server, if you have one?

Amazing video Rattle. Powerfully spoken. You're one of the best defenders we have against everything that goes on in this game. I think the thing that scares me most about the bullying going on is that the thinnest body type isn't being considered "thin" by players when it's actually quite thin...it's frightening that people think that it looks fat because this is the kind of thinking that leads to pushing others into body dysmorpha and eating disorders. I don't even get how anyone could look at that body and even begin to describe it as fat. It simply isn't, and I fear for every single kid who is going to be scarred by the bullies making them feel terrible about their weight.

Man I really wish I could still enjoy this game. I used to play it almost every single day since I got it when I was 7 in 2015/16 but I really just can't get into anymore since they started doing these updates. It's not that I'm being "nostalgic" about the old SSO or "growing out of it" it's just straight up bad now and it's a massive pain to play. It could be so much better if they'd just listen to their community for once.

they should make the character editor to a shop so you can keep what you bought already and change more often

The bugs are ridiculous at this point, knowing how much money they receive. This crap would never happen with Path of Titans.

your ✨Star Stable✨ voice always makes me laugh! thank you rattle for another great video, you never fail to hit all the important points. this update has caused a lot of people to leave SSO, and sadly i am among them. however, the sims 4 is coming out with a new ranch expansion pack (horses included!!!) so it gives me solace knowing i can migrate to another game and continue to indulge in my love for these animals. as an SSO player since 2013 i’m going to miss it, but i just can’t keep playing anymore (figuratively and literally, with my game constantly crashing lol).

I've been playing starstable since 2012. This game was my childhood..for the last 3 years I've watched the game sink itself. I'm so sorry, but after the character update I don't even want to turn the game on anymore. I just don't want to play anymore.

As someone who is “skinny” with curves, I was very disappointed to see that nothing even similar to my body type was included. Not to mention how different the characters look compared to the original ones. I’ve been playing since the beginning and looking as screenshots of the old game compared to now makes me so sad. Yes the game needs to be updated but there’s a big difference between update and change, and sso has completely changed. Will i continue to play? Idk, it just doesn’t feel the same anymore.

I just hope that if they do add a bigger chest size to the characters there’ll still be flat chested options. I was actually able to make myself look like a guy for once with this update