Friday, December 24, 2010

Mist - the new Christmas Divine

Well here it is. The brand new Divine Horse! And you can get one by purchasing a pack pf 30 passes before 23.59 Game Time on Christamas Day 2010. Or if you've been lucky enough to collect enough Reindeer you may win one through the advent calendar.

Now Mist is the very first Divine that can reproduce. Here's what Howrse have to say about it:

Mist is a divine mare that has the ability to share its skills. Its skills vary from day to day: One day it'll be good at galloping, the next day it'll be good at endurance... It can reproduce with a Snow to give birth to Ocean.

Mist and Ocean can not be sold.
Mist
can only have one single foal.

Now we believe that you cannot use BM items on a Mist when breeding. So no Tears, Arrows etc. We'll let you know more as we find out.

Since Divines can only age naturally overnight it will take a few days before we get to see what Ocean looks like - so keep your eyes peeled!

Merry Christmas everyone,

Patsy and Lucy

UPDATE: We've both just received out Mist's and they are lovely. Let the breeding begin ....

Sunday, December 19, 2010

1400 'skillers' are here

It wasn't that long ago that LucyLou and I were excitedly trying to breed our first '1000 skiller'. Well, as you probably know - things move fast on Howrse and the top breeders and breeding groups work day and night to increase the skills of their horses.

And only in the last few days, we've reached another Howrse milestone. The '1400 skilled horse'. The one on the left (click to enlarge the picture) is number one as I write although, depending on when you read this, it will already be old news. Not long ago, when 1000 skills was the highest you could get on a horse, the Divine horses such as Xanthos', Sleipnir's, Snow's etc all seemed to be infinitely better and more valuable than 'ordinary' horses. And whilst Divine and Special horses are still valuable, the skills gap is narrowing every day. But, it's worth looking at this in a bit more detail.

Whilst the overall skills of one of the new, '1400 skill' horses is 200 higher than, say, a Xanthos; it's trotting skills may be only 87 and its jumping skills only 160. The Xanthos has 200 in every skill. But the 1400 skiller, may have more than 200 skills in four of its six skill sets. So which is the best horse? Almost certainly the '1400 skiller'. This is because more of its skills are SO much better than the Xanthos. Even in trotting where the '1400 skiller' has 87 against Xanthos' 200, the '1400 skiller' has 403 in speed which is double the Xanthos' and more than makes up for the lack of trotting skill. So in a trotting race, our '1400 skiller' would win every time against the Golden One!

However we compare Divines & Special horses against 'normal' horses, one thing is for sure. Eventually the skill levels of these ordinary horses will be higher than every current Divine & Special horse. Even the Cowbra which has 2000 overall skills.

But... Howrse won't let that happen will they? If we could all buy an ordinary Irish Hunter with 2300 skills then the market for Sleipnir's, Gypse's, Harlequins' etc would disappear. True, there are some horses such as Falabella's, Croesus' and Archimedes that are not highly skilled but still fetch a lot of money in the sales. But we, as players will always want a magical horse that is far, far better than any ordinary Arabian, Thoroughbred or Quarter Horse. So I think you can be sure that there will always be a new 'mega-skilled' horse just around the corner.

Like the new Divine horse 'Mist' which will be appearing at Christmas 2010. Now how many skills will he have I wonder?

Patsy

Objective 90 - Horn of Plenty

Objective 90 is an interesting one and we're keen to know how it works for you too. This objective simply involves opening a Horn of Plenty (HoP) and finding another HoP inside. I managed this with the first HoP I opened (click to enlarge the picture), so I'm wondering if it will be the same for everyone. Or was I just hugely lucky?

Let us know your experience. We tend to think that Howrse 'fixes' it so that the first HoP you open after completing/validating Objectve 89, will give you another HoP. In all the time I've played the game, I have only twice found a HoP inside a Horn of Plenty, so the chances are very small. If Howrse didn't artificially increase our chances, it could take years to complete Objective 90!

So let us know how you get on. Good luck.

Patsy