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

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

New features on Howrse - rosettes, unicorns and more

Howrse have just announced some new features.

You can now win Rosettes in competitions. In competitions with a prestige of more than 75% it is now possible to win a rosette if you come first. The amount of equus you win also doubles if you win the rosette. There are two new rankings to go alongside the rosettes - one for the number of rosettes won per player during the month and one for the number of rosettes won per horse over all time.

Note that it is only possible to win the same rosette once with a horse. So if you enter and win the same race more than once it won't give you another rosette.

You can now also choose the time you breed your unicorns at. This is great if the old unicorn breeding times of 6.23 am and pm GMT were in the middle of the night for you. You can change the time once every 30 days. It will now also say on a female unicorn's page if she was covered at the right time, with the right breed etc. This will make it much clearer for people buying pregnant unicorns in the sales that they are getting the genuine thing.

Howrse have also introduced some new rules to make reserving EC boxes a bit simpler:

• You can reserve a box for the player of your choice, even if there's already a horse in it
• When you move a horse, it will now be given priority and placed in a box reserved in its owner's name
• A horse boarded in a box with a shower in it can only be moved to another box that with a shower

And finally these small changes have also been brought in:

You can filter Golden Apple and Helios' Ray creations by their dominant color

When a male donkey is put up for sale, all coverings it has offered that haven't yet been accepted by a female are canceled

Previous achievement levels no longer appear on player profiles

You can now search for horses in sales using the 5th element

Philotes' Stroke has been added to the Horns of Plenty

Divine horses now have in front of their names so you can pick them out more easily

Happy Howrsing,

Lucy

Halloween Magic Potions

As its Halloween next week, Howrse are providing us with lots of contests to celebrate. They've bought back the popular Magic Potions, this time with a Halloween theme.

Until 7th November at noon Game Time you can make Magic Potions and win yourself some great gifts. Each potion requires you to collect the right ingredients to make it and win yourself the gift. For example, you need to collect and make a potion with 2 x Phoenix's Tears to win yourself 1000e. You can make a maximum of 3 potions a day.

The top prize is a gemstone Divine - either a Ruby, Sapphire, Jade, Emerald or Amethyst. To win one of these horses you need 5 pegasus feathers, 15 horseshoes (found in HoPs) and 15 ingredients of your choice (all the same). You also need to have made 30 other potions before you can unlock this gift.

You can collect ingredients in the following ways:

	Remove the horns off your Unicorns
	Remove the feathers off your Pegasuses
	Collect the Halo by using a Pandora's Box
	Find the Horseshoe in the Horns of Plenty
	For the other ingredients: with UFOs, when your horses wake up on their birthdays (maximum 6 per day), when your horses win competitions (maximum 6 per day), while your horses play with their companions (maximum of 3 per day), in the Flash Sales, the first time you log in every day, in the Horns of Plenty

You can get to the Magic Potions contest page by going to your player's homepage and clicking on the link. To get to the Flash Sales (where you can buy extra ingredients that you are missing) follow the link from the Magic Potions contest page.

Happy potion making.

Lucy

Halloween Candy Fight

It's nearly Halloween and so of course it's time for some fun on Howrse. To celebrate the spooky day you can take part in the Halloween Candy Fight.

Until 8th November at noon Game Time the regular UFOs have been replaced with various types of Candy (otherwise known as Sweets if you're in the UK!). If you catch a Candy you can throw a copy of the gift it gives you to a friend.

The players who throw the most gifts during the contest get the following prizes:

• 1. to 10.: 2 x Harmony Pack and 100 000
• 11. to 50.: Harmony Pack and 50 000
• 51. to 100.: 50 000

It is only possible to RECEIVE up to 15 gifts per week but you can throw as many as you can catch.

To take part you need to visit the contest page which can be found by going to your player's homepage and following the link.

So get sharing!

Lucy

Wandering horses are back

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

Yes, the Wandering horses are back on Howrse and as before, there are some great prizes to be won. However, like the last time, achieving all the objectives is both difficult and expensive.

When the Wandering horses contest last appeared in the game, many players were upset because they felt it favoured players who could afford to buy passes. Well, it looks like it could be the same this time round. We shall have to see if Howrse offers a helping hand to ensure more players get a chance to complete all the objectives.

Some of the objectives are pretty straightforward, such as the one to win Cochise. You simply need to be congratulated a number of times. So simply congratulating players should mean that they will return the favour. Other objectives include entering competitions, logging on and getting your horse to play with its companion.

Strangely, some objectives are adjusted so that the number of horses you have, affects how many points count towards that objective. Whilst others don't. For example, on the 'taking lessons' objective to win Columbus, it doesn't matter how many horses you have - you get 3 points per lesson. I have 79 horses but LucyLou has 7237 horses. However, on the 'playing with companions' objective to win Lucy - the number of horses does matter. I get 0.3 points per hour of playtime but LucyLou only gets 0.08 points. Strange.

Aside from that, the objectives are fairly straightforward, if a little daunting. As for the objective that means you must buy passes - well all we can say is that a lot of players will feel that is unfair. Others will say that Howrse have to get people to buy passes in order to make money, because they are a business. We can see both sides of the argument so we shall let you have your own say on that one!

If you manage to complete all the objectives you will win one of the new Divine horses - Jade. The first 65 players to finish get a Jade, with the runners-up winning a Ruby.

Oh and for the duration of the contest, there will be two extra Unicorn breeding times at 10.58am and 9.58pm. Remember that these are both game times! And of course the current breeding times of 6.23am and 6.23pm game time, are still there for you to use.

We will post more information as we get it. In the meantime, let us know how you are getting on and ... good luck!

Patsy

How to get karma

OK, so karma seems to be a bit of a 'secret' topic on Howrse as you're not allowed to discuss it in the forums. We're not entirely sure why (maybe it's to stop a deluge of questions) so we've put this post together to give you the basics of how karma works, how to get it and how to lose it.

This is what Howrse says about karma:

'Karma responds to your reputation within the game. The higher your karma, the better your reputation and you gain access to more areas of the game. Likewise, negative karma is a sign of a bad reputation and may limit your access to certain areas or features of the game.'

Here's how you can earn karma:

• You get a karma point for every 30 days registration on Howrse
• You get a karma point for every set of 10 passes you buy
• You get a karma point every time 5 people you have sponsored reach their first karma point.

These are the only ways to obtain karma. Occasionally you can also win karma points in contests and promotions such as the recent jigsaw puzzle contest, although these occasions are rare.

Well, once you've got karma you can do several things with it:

• You earn 1 pass for every 5 karma points you collect
• You gain access to the private sales once you have 3 karma points (although new players can now 'buy' their way into the sales by purchasing the Business Key, even if they have less than 3 karma points)
• You can create 1 affix for your horses for every 2 karma points you collect
• You can create breeding farms once you have 3 karma points

You will find that players with higher karma command more trust and respect on the game. It is a measure that you are a longstanding and fair player. For example, if you are trading horses or BM items with another player it is usual for the player with the lower karma to fulfil their part of the trade first.

And don't forget, if you break the rules you can also lose karma in several ways:

• By posting rude or offensive messages, advertisements or spam via PM or in the forums
• Having inappropriate content on your page or in your EC forum
• Selling a horse for more than 20 passes or a divine for more than 200 passes (using other horses to do so)
• Cheating
• Having more than one account (multi-accounting)
• Trying to steal other players accounts

That's a quick overview of karma - remember if you play the game fairly you will never have any problems about losing karma.

You can check out your karma by going to profile - my account - my karma.

Lucy