Howrse 'survey'

You should all be getting an email from Howrse (in your Howrse email on the game) about now, which is entitled 'Satisfaction Survey'. When you read it, this is what it says:

Hello ......,
We are constantly striving to improve our users' gameplay experience. That is why we are currently conducting a satisfaction survey to identify our community's needs and wishes.
To participate, click here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/XBJ7H7M
Thank you for participating.

The Owlient Team

So I decided to have a look at this survey (run by SurveyMonkey) to see how Owlient (Howrse) wanted to assess my satisfaction with the game. Well, what a surprise. The survey actually has nothing at all to do with customer/player satisfaction. The whole 'survey' is designed to find out about your mobile gaming habits. They ask questions about what sort of phone you have; if it's a smartphone; how much time you spend gaming on your phone and if you've ever paid for any games on your phone.

So, clearly Owlient (and their new owners Ubisoft) are simply doing some market research to see if it's worth developing either a fully mobile version of Howrse and/or other mobile games to tempt you with.

So, feel free to complete the 'survey' but just be aware that is more to do with marketing than with customer satisfaction!

Patsy

Unicorns in Horns of Plenty

Another day, another promotion. Howrse has just announced that as from today (12th January 2012) until Monday 16th January at 12:00 game time, you win a baby Unicorn in Horns of Plenty (HoP's). As Howrse say in their announcement" The gender, breed and coat are randomly selected amongst the ones already available on Howrse"

Currently the announcement says that the promotion runs until the 16th December 2012! I'm pretty sure this is a mistake which should say January 16th but I've posted a question about it in the forum and so far, the reply from Sarah Kat is not clear. I'll update as soon as we find out.

Happy Uni-HoP-ing!

Patsy

ps The picture is of one of my own Uni's with a GA coat on. You won't win a Uni with a GA on of course.

UPDATE: This promotion definitely ends on 16th January

The Snowball Fight

Find out about the 2017 Snowball Fight here

Edit - This is an old post relating to the snowball fight in 2012:

Once again the Snowball Fight is upon us. Well the format is the same as always. Whilst you're logged on to the game, you will see, from time to time, snowball 'UFO's floating around your screen. Just click on them and you can win yourself a nice little prize.

The prizes are mainly small things such as aging points, apples etc but you can also get BM items and even Horns of Plenty. And the great thing about the snowball fight is that whatever you win, you get a second one to give (throw) at someone on your friends' list.

And when the contest finishes at 12:00 (game time) on January 16th, the players who have thrown the most snowballs (gifts) will win items including a Nyx Pack, 100,000 equus and an Achilles' Heel.

So get throwing and good luck!


Lucy

The highest-skilled Donkey on Howrse?

We rarely talk about Donkeys on Ultimate Howrse, but I have always loved them and found to be intriguing to breed. I know many players love their 'Donks' and enjoy breeding them too. Now as you may or not know, Donkeys are designed to work differently from Horses in the game.

When you breed Horses, you increase their GP by blupping and training properly. This way, Horses's GP and inborn skills increase with each generation. Donkeys are different.

If you BLUP and train your Donkey correctly, the next generation will be born with a LOWER GP. So to increase a Donkey's skills is unusual. Only careful BAD(!) breeding and no training will increase the Donkeys' GP. Strange but true.

Thanks to some wonderful breeders, who have produced Donkeys with very high GP's, I was lucky enough to get two such foals. From these two I bred Taffy.

So I have now have my  rather splendid Donkey - Taffy who, I think may well be the highest-skilled Donkey on Howrse right now with an amazing 702 skills. And whether he is or isn't the highest-skilled, he is still a Donkey and as long as Howrse have them, I will be very happy. So if you haven't thought about breeding Donkeys, why not give it a go?

Now if only we could breed Mules ....

Patsy

Palomino Sleipnirs are here

Happy New Year everyone and what better way to start 2012 than with a new Divine. Yes, for those of you who managed to get  all 12 Greyfells in the Christmas Card competition, today (the 1st of the month) you can transform one of your Greyfells into a gorgeous Palomino Sleipnir.

I was up early, despite it being New Year's Day and was the third player on Howrse to transform one of my Greyfells into the new Sleipnir. This was done by finding the one Greyfell which had an 'Action' button added to its page. Clicking this gives you a message box and then an email which confirms that your Greyfell is 'transforming' into a Palomino Sleipnir. A minute later - he arrives!

They are the same as the existing Sleipnirs - 1500 skills, all male, cannot reproduce but they can be sold. They are 422 years old and 16.3 hands high. They also have a GP of 1080 with 54 greenstars. 

So here he is in all his glory. For those of you, who have been lucky enough to get one, remember - he can't run away now so you can relax, enjoy your beautiful new Sleipy as well as the New Year!

Patsy

Greyfell(s) to Palomino Sleipnir update

As you may know, Howrse recently made a couple of changes to the Greyfells. One was that you now get 2 diamonds instead of 1 diamond every time you bring your Greyfell back to life. The other change was that you can now give Greyfells' Philosophers' Stones to make them immortal.

So the question came up in the forums (from me actually!) asking if all 12 Greyfells needed to be mortal (have no Philosophers' Stone) in order to produce a Palomino Sleipnir on the 1st of the month. I was asking because I didn't want to put a Stone on one of my Greyfells and then find out that they must all be mortal (have no Stone) on in order to get the Sleipnir.

I was contacted by Jacinta92 who very kindly, sent a ticket to Contact about this. Howrse came back saying that it did not matter -  you can give some of your Greyfell's a Stone and you will still be able to get your Palomino Sleipnir on the 1st of the month.

So for those of you who are lucky enough to have all twelve Greyfells', you can relax and look forward to getting that wonderful, new eight-legged Divine.

Good luck!

Patsy

Send your penguins & polar bears to the North Pole

Finally from today, Christmas Day you can now send your penguins and polar bears off to the North Pole. And they can bring back a variety of wonderful gifts for you.

Now the number of polar bears and penguins you have will determine what they can bring you. You can see all the details from the Howrse home page. Items include aging points, 5th Element coats, Black Orchids as well as new items like the Treasure Chest and Achilles Heel.

We will tell you more about these items very soon. In the meantime, just be careful about how many penguins and polar bears you send on each expedition. You have until 31st December at 23:59 to send them on their journeys. After that they will not be able to go to the North Pole.

The time each expedition takes depends on the value of the items being collected. So 20 turnips take just a day but the Treasure Chest takes 8 days - so plan carefully!

We will be back soon with more information and help but as it's Christmas Day there are other things to do!

Merry Christmas,

Patsy