Saturday, December 3, 2011

Christmas Scratch Cards

It's nearly Christmas so it's time for Howrse's Christmas contest. This year you have to collect Christmas scratch cards which offer gifts and the opportunity to win the new Divine - Greyfell.

You can win cards in the following ways:

- The first time you log in each day (3 cards)
- When your horses win competitions (up to 3 cards a day)
- By buying them in the flash sales (you can buy 1 card in each type of sale every 4 days)
- By trading them. If you scratch a card and it's a duplicate of one you already have you have the option to trade it for another card. Be careful though, you don't know what you might get in exchange and each trade costs 2 diamonds.

Some cards contain gifts such as aging points, Made to Measure tack and BM items. Other cards allow you to complete the 5 Christmas puzzles. If you complete a puzzle by collecting the 5 cards needed you will win the new Divine Greyfell. If you complete all 5 puzzles you win an extra Greyfell.

Other cards offer you penguins and polar bears. These are like the reindeer from last year. Between Christmas day and 31st December you can send them to the North Pole and they will come back with gifts such as aging points, equus and Harmony Packs. The more you have, the better the gifts they bring back.

You can see your cards by going to your player's homepage and following the link. To scratch your card simply click and move your mouse over them. Then click the Activate button to claim the prize (if you have a duplicate it's at this point that the option to trade will appear). There are 50 Christmas scratch cards to collect in total.

Happy Howrse'mas!

Lucy


Wednesday, November 30, 2011

New features and all new objectives / acheivements

A new round of features & changes that have been introduced to Howrse. Here's a brief summary of those new features:
  • New achievements
  • Rookie horse competitions
  • Unicorn 5th Element coats
  • Archimedes 'face lift'
  • Sleipnir 'run away' and 'invoke' removed
  • Reserving coverings for your own mare no longer requires your login name
Of these new features, today we will be looking at the new achievements/objectives. Following on from the 90 previous objectives, numbers 91 to 100 have been introduced. And so here is our guide to getting them:

  • Objective 91 - Buy a horse over 25 years with 0 skill points
This is obviously a simple task. However, as always happens - at present the price of horses that fir the bill for this objective are crazily expensive. They were selling for 800,000 equus + yesterday but have dropped to 400,000 equus today. If you want to risk it, you can pay that much for one, pass the objective and then re-sell it for the same price. Beware though - prices are falling so you may be left out of pocket. Ultimate Howrse's advice: Wait for the excitement and prices to come down

  • Objective 92 - Have a (certain number) of living horses
Another straightforward one this. Just buy a few more horses of any quality and you're done. The number you have to buy is determined by how many horses you already have. I had 76 and needed to get 86. Ultimate Howrse's advice: Hunt the auctions for bargain horses.

  • Objective 93 -  Win 1 equus in a competition
This is actually not too difficult. You will need a useless (!) horse and then enter it into the lowest-ranked race you can find. Ultimate Howrse's advice: Check your horse's genetics and enter him into a competition for which he has the lowest genetics.

  • Objective 94 - Get a Pandora's Box by trading items
You'll need to head to the Item Exchange for this one. Now you are best to check in the Find Items area first to see what people are offering for a Pandora's Box. Then you will have an idea of what is trading. But be careful not to give away an item of lesser value. Ultimate Howrse's advice:If you already have a Pandora's Box, simply offer it in echange for another one! Worked for me.

  • Objective 95 - Find a saddle cloth, whip & blanket all on the same horse
For this one your horse must have none of these items to start with. Then simply age your horse, putting him in the box each day, until you find all three items. Ultimate Howrse's advice:Putting your horse in the box for 6 or more hours each day seems to improve your chances. Shouldn't take too many days to find them all. Took me 7 days.

  • Objective 96 - Give an apple to a horse born on 29th Nov 2009
This one was tricky at first but now players who have a qualifying horse are posting links on their page to a horse born on the correct date. Dr Zig is one. I did it the long way round by checking the Breeder's Production on the highest ranked players until I found a horse. Took ages but I gor there in the end! Ultimate Howrse's advice: Depending on where you live, due to timezones, you may find some 29th Nov 2009 horses don't work. You may have to try a couple to get one that validates this objective.

  • Objective 97 - Give birth to a Holsteiner breed horse
I haven't done this one yet. As with No.91 - the prices of Holsties are through the roof right now. If you own a pair then you're all set. Otherwise you're going to have to pay. After that, just breed the pair and you're done. Ultimate Howrse's advice:Wait for Holstie prices to come down. It will happen! 
UPDATE: A couple of people have said you do not need the mare to be a Holsteiner.

  • Objective 98 - Reach a reserve that ends in 3333
I loved this one. It's pretty simple but can be tricky to achieve. What I did was to look at my reserve and then change the last 4 digits the threes. Now you need to work out what the NEXT occurence of 3333 will be. So for me, my reserve is 47,855,209, the NEXT time 3333 will occur is when my reserve reaches 47,863,333. So 46,863,333 MINUS 47,855,209 = 8,124. So I need to get exactly 8,124 equus to reach a reserve ending in 3333. What I did was, once I had my target number, was to sell a horse for exactly that amount. Of course, it was worth abouth the right anount, but to be sure it sold right away, it was a little cheaper than I'd normally sell it. Of course you can sell saddles, droppings etc or even BUY something and bring your reserve DOWN to the correct amount. It's actually just a bit of simple maths, so have fun. Ultimate Howrse's advice: Remember that any races you have running may finish and earm you equus just as you're trying to complete this objective. Make sure no races you've entered are about to run.

  • Objective 99 - Win 10 competitions with a horse bred from Ouranos & Gaia (non-Divine and non-Special)
We all have a Foundation horse when we start playing Howrse, so that's what you'll need to complete this one. If you don't have yours then they are always for sale although they can sometimes be harder to find. Prices for Foundies may well increase for a while whilst these objectives are new, so it may be worth waiting of you don't own one. As for the races, well it may take some time but you'll get there. My Foundie got his 10 wins in two (real, not Howrse) days. Ultimate Howrse's advice: : The new Rookie competitons will help with this one.

  • Objective 100 - Find Secret Page Number 3
Ah the old secret page. At Ultimate Howrse, secret pages are one of the most requested things we're asked for. Now as with all secret pages you MUST be able to see the objective in your list of next objectives AND be logged in to Howrse. Otherwise it will not work. So, how to find it - as previously, you need to open a new tab on your browser and paste in: www.howrse.com/ow/THE ID
Now THE ID is where you add the ID number of the player who is at the top of the rankings on the day for competition wins. You can find this player under the Ranking tab and then Breeders. In the bottom half of this page you'll see a ranking for the 'number of competitions won yesterday'. Click on the name of the player at the top of this ranking. Once on their profile page, if you look in the URL bar at the top of your screen you'll see the web page address. this includes the player's ID. So, for example on my profile page this is what you will see: http://www.howrse.com/joueur/fiche/?id=1406178. That last number is my ID. And that is what you need for the secret page number 3. Ultimate Howrse's advice: : Today's URL that you would paste into your URL bar is: http://www.howrse.com/ow/26530587 Obviously this may change each day - so be sure to check.


We hope you find this guide to the latest objectives useful. Ultimate Howrse cannot guarantee how well they will work for you but we have tested them ourselves and have researched on Howrse so hopefully you will be successful.


Have fun and enjoy all those goodies!

Patsy