My messages
Your internal mail: the messages from other players, and those the game sends you.
A counter in the menu shows the unread messages, and it is taken up in your dashboard.
Four folders, one single list
The messaging has no tree: it is the Folder filter that plays that part, and it cannot be removed. Four values, Received, Sent, Archived and Trash can, and you always arrive on Received.
Reading a card
- The title, which opens the message in full.
- The date, displayed in bold as long as the message is unread.
- The sender, whose nickname leads to their card — or the list of receivers if it is a message you sent.
- The beginning of the message. The card shows only a preview of it: the whole text is read in its card.
- Two buttons: Reply and Trash can.
Filing, and what it implies
The actions menu moves the selection from one folder to another. The destinations offered depend on where you are: from Received or Sent, to Archives or Trash; from Archived or Trash can, to any of the others. Definitive deletion is always offered.
Two things to know.
Filing a message counts as reading it. An unread message that is moved is marked read in passing, and the menu counter drops by as much. That is intended, but if you empty your box without reading, you lose track of what there was left to read.
A message taken out of the Trash can comes back normally. The trash can is not a particular state, it is a folder like the others: as long as it is there, the message is recovered intact. But not for long — see below.
How long a message is kept
This is the most useful point on this page, and no screen says it. The game deletes messages at their term, every night, and the term depends on the folder:
| Folder | Kept for |
|---|---|
| Trash can | one day |
| Sent | one month after sending |
| Received and Archived, message from a player | six months |
| Received and Archived, automatic message | one month |
Three practical consequences. The trash can empties itself the next day: what you put there is lost, so file nothing there that you will want to read again. Archiving prolongs nothing: the term is counted from the date of the message, not from the filing — archiving serves to tidy, not to keep. And an important message therefore deserves to be copied elsewhere: a contract agreed by mail will no longer exist in six months.
The filters
The sort — by date, sender or title —, the folder, the mark (read or unread), the world, the nickname, and the keywords.
The keywords deserve a mention of their own: they search in the very text of the messages, and not only in the titles. It is the only search of that kind in the game, and the quickest way of finding again a conversation of which you remember only one detail — a horse's name, a price, a word. Do not look for a dedicated button: it is that field.
The nickname filter, for its part, looks at the sender and the receivers: so it finds a whole exchange with somebody, in both directions.
Writing
The New button. The detail — the multiple receivers, the clan, the friends, and the non-subscribers' quota — is in New message.
The automatic messages
A good part of your mail comes from the game: horse bought, race cancelled, invitation, care taking fees, mating reserved. Those messages carry a mention saying which type they are, and each type can be cut individually: see Automatic messages.
Many contain an active link taking you straight to where there is something to do — the race concerned, the sale, the clan requests page. It is quicker than retracing the path through the menus.