The Ultimate Howrse Summer Giveaway

It's summer and here at Ultimate Howrse we're enjoying the sunshine. And when it's sunny, Patsy and LucyLou like nothing more than to share our good mood with you - our wonderful readers.

So we have devised a brilliantly simple contest for you to enter. And when we say simple - we mean simple. You don't need to know anything to enter and anyone who plays on International Howrse can play. All you have to do is post a comment below that includes your Howrse player name. How easy is that?

OK, so what do you win? Well we are offering three fantastic prizes. The winners will be chosen at random so everyone has a fair chance. You can win:

First Prize: A Helios' Ray

Second Prize: A Ploutos' Parchment

Third Prize: A Squirrel

Rules:

• Only one entry per person
• You must post your Player (user) name in a comment to enter
• You can add more to your comment if you wish. Feel free to say hello!
• You must be registered on the International version of Howrse
• You must have a Karma of at least +1
• You must spell your player name correctly or we cannot verify who you are
• Absolutely NO personal information is to be included, such as your email address
• Winners will be notified by Private Message on International Howrse
• If you are under 16, please get your parents' permission to enter
• Prizes will be sent via the Item Exchange and via Gifting

The contest closes at 8pm GAME TIME on Friday 15th July 2011. So make sure you enter and get your friends to enter too.

Good luck everyone!

Patsy & LucyLou

UPDATE: Once the contest closes at 8pm game time on Friday 15 July 2011, we will choose the winners by drawing the names from a hat. We will then contact the winners by private message, on Howrse. After this we will publish the list of winners on Ultimate Howrse as soon as we've contacted everyone.

UPDATE 2: The contest has now closed and we are notifying the three winners. We will publish the names of the winners soon. Please note, several players entered the competition after the deadline, so they could not be included in the draw.

Sapphire- the new Divine horse

This is Sapphire - the latest Divine horse to come to Howrse and he arrives by way of the current 'Fruit Salad' contest. Like the Ruby Divine, Sapphire gives you diamonds which can be traded to give him more skills or to buy items in the Black Market. 10 diamonds equals 1 pass and Sapphire gives you a diamond on even days and 1000 equus on odd days. So if you look after him every day, you will have enough diamonds to trade for 1 pass, every 20 days!

Howrse also says this about Sapphire: Sapphire is a precious horse. Each time he wakes up, he asks you to come and join him on another player's page. If you follow his instructions, Sapphire gives you a diamond on even days and 1000 equus on odd days.

Each Sapphire comes with a Philospher's Stone and a Water of Youth. Like most Divines they are male and cannot breed and currently they cannot be sold either. This may well change so we'll let you know if and when you can get Sapphires in HoP's or in the sales. They also have 1200 skills split evenly amongst speed, jumping, gallop etc.

Now the only way to get one of these lovely horses right now, is by cooking up a potion using the following ingredients:

15 x Horseshoes
5 x Pegasus Feathers
15 x Ingredients of your choice

But even that isn't quite enough. You need to have made 30 potions throughout the course of the contest too.

So get those potions brewed and maybe you too can soon be the proud owner of a magical, diamond-giving Sapphire!

Good luck,

Patsy


UPDATE: We understand that the issue with Sapphire's not working properly has now been fixed.

Howrse Magic Potions - The Fruit Salad

Starting today until the 16th of July at noon game time Howrse have introduced the Magic Potions competition. You have to collect ingredients for a Fruit Salad and then trade your potions in for Black Market items, companions or the new Divine, Sapphire.

Howrse have also introduced a new breed - the Gypsy Vanner - who can be won during the contest.

Also, because some of the potions require Unicorn horns, for the duration of the contest Howrse have added in two more unicorn breeding times:

10:58 game time
and 21:58 game time

To enter the contest simply click on the link from your Howrse homepage.

Happy Fruit Picking !

Lucy and Patsy

Thank you to our readers

Since LucyLou and I started Ultimate Howrse in September 2009, it has gone from strength to strength. And we are delighted. We are especially pleased with all the comments and feedback we get. Not only that, it's great to see you all helping each other too.

We have always aimed to be the number one place for players to go when they want help, advice or news on Howrse. And with your help, we really are getting there. You, our readers, are part of a huge worldwide community of players who visit Ultimate Howrse in growing numbers.

And speaking of numbers, since we began we have had over 56,000 visits with more than 113,000 page views. And we now average over 300 visits every single day. And this is brilliant because the more people who visit, the more comments are left for you to read and enjoy. We try to answer every question you ask, but often other players provide their own answers too, which really helps us out. You are certainly a very helpful and supportive lot!

So we wanted to say a big 'thank you' to all our lovely readers who continue to use Ultimate Howrse as their first choice for Howrse help. And don't forget, you can post a comment or question on any of our articles or you can email us at: ultimatehowrse@me.com. You can also follow us by clicking on the 'Follow' button on the right hand side of the page. That way you can become part of the Ultimate Howrse family.

So let your friends know about Ultimate Howrse and then they too can join the biggest and friendliest Howrse community on the internet!

Happy Howrse-ing,

Patsy

Ruby - the new lottery Divine

Meet Ruby, the new Divine Horse who you can win in the latest Howrse Lottery.

Like most Divines, Ruby is male and cannot be bred or sold. You get him aged 83 years and 6 months. He has 1200 skills, is immortal and has a Water of Youth already on him.

Every time Ruby has a birthday he earns his owner 5 diamonds. Now diamonds can be traded to give Ruby more skills or to buy items in the Black Market. 1 pass is equivalent to 10 diamonds. Every other day that isn't his birthday Ruby gains a little in height. He starts at 22 hands so he's going to be a very tall horse!

Only 1 Ruby is won in each lottery draw so cross your fingers and good luck. (I do hope I'm lucky enough to win one as I think he's very pretty...!)

Lucy

Howrse Lottery June 2011

Well Howrse has bought back the ever popular lottery, where you can buy tickets and win some great prizes.

Until 27th June you can take part in the draws and win anything from apples to the new Divine Horse, Ruby. Every ticket you buy will win you something so its worth taking part.

Draws take place every day at 0:00 - 2:00 - 12:00 - 14:00 - 16:00 - 18:00 - 20:00 - 22:00 Game Time. For each one you can buy 2 tickets yourself at a price of 200 equus each. You can also send your friends tickets (although you can only send them one throughout the whole of the lottery) and they can send you tickets back. For each pass you spend you will receive 2 tickets for the next draw (although this doesn't include horse purchases. So basically you need to spend them in the Black Market). In addition, you also get one ticket per draw for winning a competition with any of your horses. This is a new way to get tickets which I think is great as it gives everyone more chances to win.

You can enter the lottery by going to your homepage (the page you get when you first log in) and clicking on the lottery banner.

Lucy

The Black Pearl

There have been a few changes to the Black Pearl and Golden Apple coats over the past week, including the introduction of some brand new items that you can submit illustrations for. Here's an overview of how the Black Pearl now works.

The Black Pearl now lets you submit illustrations for Golden Apple coats (as before), Helios's Ray (backgrounds for your horses' pages) and the Horn of Gold (coats for the companions).

The Black Pearl costs 2 passes and you need 5 karma points to be able to use it.

Creation of illustrations

To create a new illustration, you can use any computer graphics editing software such as Paint, Photoshop or Gimp. You're not allowed to just submit a photograph - it must be an illustration or drawing and it must be your own work - don't copy it from anywhere or you risk having your account suspended. Make your illustrations as life-like or imaginary as possible.

If you're not sure where to start, many Howrse players provide outlines of horses (line art) that they've given their permission for other people to use and submit as coats. Check out the Black Pearl - free line art forum post if you'd like to use one. So you could start with of these and just colour it in any way you like!

To send your illustrations, you must use the templates provided by Howrse:

• for the Golden Apple
• for Helios's Ray
  • A black frame marks the position of the horse to help you position your landscape properly
  • The frame and the horse it contains must be erased before you send your illustration
• for the Horn of Gold
  • The top frame is for the awake Companion
  • The bottom frame is for the sleeping Companion

Your image must be placed on the transparent space on the provided template. You must not change the size or format of this template.

Make sure you follow Howrse's instructions or your artwork may not be accepted. You must save your work as a .PNG file.

Publishing your illustration

Now, when you send in your illustration via the Black Pearl, it won't be published right away.

Firstly, Howrse will check it to see if it meets all the criteria for submission and then it will be sent to the Creation Space for other players to vote on it.

If your illustration wins the vote then it will be published on all versions of Howrse at the end of the month (including the different language versions). You will also earn passes as your illustration is used by players - see our post on the Creation Space to learn how much you can get.

If your illustration doesn't win the vote then it will appear again in the Creation Space the following month to allow players to vote for it again. If after 3 months, it still doesn't pass the vote, it will be removed.

If your illustration doesn't get voted on to the game then you will get back the passes you spent on the Black Pearl. However, if your coat isn't accepted because it doesn't fit Howrse's criteria - which can be found on the Black Pearl page you won't get your passes back - so be careful!

Good luck with your illustration submissions and let us know how you get on.

Lucy