Howrse foal games from April 2011

UPDATE: Following the changes made by Howrse in July 2012, these foal games will no longer work. See the ALL NEW foal games here.

These foal games have been devised since the major changes by Howrse in April 2011. With the removal of the saltstone, the removal of the two-carrot bonus and the increase in gains from the 'double lesson' the whole way foals are trained has changed. So it's great news that StaciMM has come up with these foal games to allow for these changes. So a big thanks to her, and here is her guide. We've tested it and it works perfectly:


This will work for any size horse/pony and should NOT result in a seriously overweight/unhealthy horse.
Board your foal in a centre with carrots & clean, fertile meadows, and make sure morale is 100% when you put the foal to bed at 6 months old.


Put your horse to bed in the meadow each night. If the temperature is under 10C put your horse to bed in the box.


NOTE: Your horse will now need a companion to be able to do these games.


8 months
Groom/1 Hr Pasture/1 Hr Games/Turnip/Feed 4 pounds/7 Hrs Games/Stroke/Carrot/Water


10 months
Groom/1 Hr Pasture/1 Hr Games/Turnip/Feed 4 Pounds/1 Hr Games/1.5 Hrs Pasture/7 Hrs Games/Stroke/Carrot/Water


12 months
Groom/1 Hr Pasture/1 Hr Games/Turnip/Feed 4 Pounds/8 Hrs Games/Stroke/Carrot/Water


1 year 2 months
Groom/1 Hr Pasture/1 Hr Games/Turnip/9 Hrs Games/Stroke/Carrot/Water/Feed **Feed 2-3 pounds less than it recommends**


1 year 4 months
Groom/30 Minutes Pasture/1 Hr Games/Turnip/Feed 4 pounds/10 Hrs Games/Stroke/Carrot/Water


1 year 6 months
Groom/30 Minutes Pasture/2 Hr Games/Turnip/Feed 14 Pounds/10 Hrs Games/1 Hr Games/Stroke/Carrot/Water


At most ages you are feeding a little less than recommended so as to get ready to overfeed at 18 mos. You MUST feed 14 pounds at 18 months to be able to put your horse to bed with 20% energy. Do not feed more than 4 pounds on each day when it says to feed just 4 pounds. The horse is eating a little in the pasture, and will be at a good/healthy weight when games are done. A pony (or small horse) may need to be underfed slightly at 20 months.So good luck with your foal games. As long as you follow these instructions carefully, you will be rewarded with a perfect 1.2 GP gain on your horse.

Check out our post on Training Methods to find out what to do next.


Patsy

Wandering Horses madness!

Looking for the April 2012 Wandering Horses? Then click here.

Well we've never seen anything like it. Howrse has gone crazy. We're all going mad for Fortunes', Pioneers' and Shy's. And as a result of the competition frenzy, prices for passes and HoP's have gone through the roof. Now aside from the controversy that has been raging in the forums about the 'Shy' part of the competition (we'll talk about that another time), this has to be the most popular competition ever on Howrse.

And so, in the frantic scramble to complete the objectives in order to win (for 5 days only, remember) these special horses, people are desperate to get hold of Horns of Plenty in order to get thet elusive 'Champion' horse. And I have to confess, I've been happy to sell pass horses for the going rate. And it's a record for me. 81,000 equus for a pass horse? Yes it's true. Three times! And when I got my Pioneer horse, I sold the HoP that is awarded with it, for 150,000 equus!

Crazy times and crazy prices. I just hope everyone gets what they want and enjoys the madcap mayhem that is the Wandering Horses competition.

Good luck everyone.

Patsy

Wandering Horses and NEW features

Looking for the April 2012 Wandering Horses? Then click here.

We've already seen that showers are coming to the international game but it looks like plenty more new things as well as some changes are on the way. Now all of these things are currently (5th April) only applicable to some of the non-international sites. We got our info from UK Howrse. So here's what we've found:

Wandering Horses feature

For two weeks UK Howrse is running a 'competition' wherby you collect a variety of UFO's or achieve certain objectives. These UFO's and objectives give you points and when you reach 100 points you get to have one of the 'wandering horses' for 5 days. Each of the 6 horses requires you to do things such as log on to the game, buy HoP's, enter races etc. When you 'win' your horse for the 5 days you also get an "awesome gift' when you take care of it. So it looks like HoP sales are going to be busy!

New features

Again, on UK Howrse, there are some changes coming.:
Apples can only be given to other players' horses. This is a strange one and we're not sure why it's been introduced. Maybe Howrse have something planned for the weeks ahead.
Also, the Salt Block is disappearing. No! We love our Salt Blocks. Apparently you will now get more energy when feeding, to compensate.
The double-carrot advantage is now being replaced by a single carrot and single turnip which will just provide more energy. Hmmm. Turnips cost 50e don't they...?
The two lessons are combined into one. So now lessons will take twice as long, use up twice as much energy but give 2.5 times more money and 2.5 times more skills. They will also provide 4% morale. The exisitng benefit of the third lesson will be replaced by additional equus earnings and skill gains in the remaining lesson.

So we shall wait to see if the international game gets all these new features and changes. There's certainly a lot to think about. Let us know your thoughts as we always love to hear from you.

Patsy

UPDATE: See info on the NEW Wandering horses contest

EC shower coming to Howrse?

We've noticed that on several non-international sites such as UK Howrse, you can now buy a shower (see the picture) for your boxes in equestrian centres. Bizarre but true. Howrse describes the shower like this:

The shower is equipment for boxes in equestrian centres.It allows horses boarded in the box to spend 10% less energy on actions. That's why it's in such high demand among horse breeders and an asset to your centre!

It's an interesting new item and one that would definitely be a boost for breeders. On the UK site today (5th April) showers are priced at 19,900 equus. However, it is the same as the price for boxes and meadows in that the price fluctuates. So expect the price to increase if and when it comes to the international version of the game. We'd be surprised if it didn't come to the 'main' game but you never know.

So will we soon be rushing off to buy showers for our EC's? Maybe next, we'll be buying jacuzzi's and saunas too!

Patsy

UPDATE: Ow has confirmed that the showers will be coming to the international site soon.

The Big Lottery has ended

Today, 1st April 2011, the Big Lottery has finally ended and in typical Howrse fashion, it finished at a different time than they had advertised. Ah well, never mind. The lottery has been hugely successful and popular with thousands of players entering each of the 8 daily draws. In fact it was so popular in the first few days that Howrse had to change the rules to stop massive amounts of prizes being handed out as well as to prevent cheating.

Originally you could exchange tickets with a friend 3 times during the lifetime of the lottery, but this meant enormous amounts of prizes were appearing in people's inventorys, which would have possibly undermined the game. For example on one draw, I won 840 apples! So Howrse changed the rules so that you could only exchange tickets with a friend once. A number of players had cheated by setting up multi-accounts and this was another reason for the rule change. Howrse also changed a rule which meant you could not take part in the lottery if your account was registered after the start of the competition. Smart move, we thought.

So players (including myself and LucyLou) were frantically sending and receiving friend requests in order to swap tickets. This became very confusing and it was hard to keep track of who had sent tickets and who hadn't. Howrse even set up a friend-making forum to make it easier for players to get large numbers of friends. Players soon realised that by deleting friends as soon as a ticket exchange had been completed meant you could get round the '10 friend requests per day' rule. A bit naughty but very useful.

So thousand of entrants for each draw and thousands of prizes awarded. Howrse added Nyx and Posiedon's packs to the items you could win, after the rule change. So players were also winning apples, Laurels, Eolus' Winds, Seahorses, Made to Measure Saddles, HoP's and of course bigger prizes such as Ploutos' Parchaments, Hermes' Winged Staffs and of course, Balios' - the new Divine horse.

I was very lucky. No I didn't win a Balios but I did win 7 Parchments and a Hermes' Winged Staff. Now LucyLou and I checked a large number of Balios winners and found that most of them had been registered on the game less than 300 days. So it appears that Howrse were possibly trying to prove that newer players have an equal chance of owning a Divine, by allowing more, less established players to win this fabulous new horse. Just our opinion of course.

And after several days of the Big Lottery, something totally unsurprising happened. Howrse started offering Balios' in HoP's. Well who'd have thought? We had to laugh when we saw this as the day the lottery started it was 100% certain that the new Divine would soon be available in Horns of Plenty - which you need to buy with passes of course. Oh well, that's how Owlient make their money as a business, so fair play to them. It was just so predictable it made us smile. We wouldn't be surprised to see that you can get one if you buy 30 passes. We shall see.

So, the Big Lottery was a success and an enormous amount of players took part. We'd love to know what you thought and if you'd like to see another one in the future. And if you were lucky enough to win a Balios - then share your good news with us.

Now, time to start saving for those passes....!

Patsy

Balios - the new Lottery Divine

Today, we welcome a new Divine to Howrse - Balios. He is the brother of Xanthos and comes in four different types - Solar, Lightning, Nebula and Snowflake.

On the 19th of each month he gives his owner a Nyx Pack - providing that they connected to Howrse the day before - very generous we think!

Now, at the moment the only way to get a Balios is to enter the Howrse Lottery and have a go at winning him. As I type only 1 Balios exists in the whole game - you can take a look at the first Balios won by clicking here. Currently Balios cannot be sold, although it looks as though this may change at some point in the future.

Balios is born aged over 740 years old and with 800 skills (although this may vary depending on the type). According to Howrse his skills will increase a little bit each day - rather like an Ocean.

So get buying those Lottery tickets and let's see if you're lucky enough to win a lovely Balios. I know I'll be trying...

Lucy

EDIT 9th August 2011: You can now win a Balios by being one of the first 30 players to complete the Jigsaw Puzzle contest.

Balios and the Lottery

Another day and another big event from Howrse. Today (22nd March 2011), sees the arrival of the Lottery and also a brand new Divine horse - Balios. Firstly, the lottery will run through to the 30th March.

To enter you buy one ticket with 200 equus, or you get one 'free' if you spend a Pass to buy a BM item. You can also buy a ticket for another player, as a gift. Be careful though as you can only buy 3 tickets for and one player for the duration of the lottery.

You also get bonuses for buying 30, 100 and 200 tickets. Not only that, every ticket you buy wins you a prize. You can even win another entry into the next lottery.

And there are some pretty cool prizes up for grabs. These include all the usual things you'd expect such as ageing points, Pieces of Cloud, Made to Measure Saddles, but also Hermes' Winged Staffs, a new BM item called Ploutos' Parchment and of course, the new Divine - Balios. Now this Divine has a pretty amazing feature - on the 19th day of each month he will gift you a Nyx Pack!

So get buying and gifting those lottery tickets and who know you could have a very big smile on your face, sooner than you think!

UPDATE: Howrse have made a change to the lottery which means you can now only gift a ticket to another player once during the course of the lottery. Apparently this was because a lot of players created multi-accounts in order to cheat. One bit of good news though, you can now buy 2 tickets for yourself for each draw. And there is now the possibility that you could win either a Nyx Pack or a Posiedon's Pack as well. So get buying those tickets!

UPDATE 2: The lottery has been extended and now ends at 12.00 Game Time on 3rd April 2011. Also, you can now win a Balios in a Horn of Plenty. What a surprise! The price of Pass horses has risen, as it always does when players are desperate for passes to buy HoP's. We even saw a Sleipnir for sale for 'just' 500e and 200 passes!

Patsy