Spanish Mustangs in HoP's

No surprises here. Yes, the new Spanish Mustangs are now available in Horns of Plenty (HoP's). However, right now, they are only available for a limited period.

From today until 20th February 2012 at 12:00 Game Time - you have the chance of winning one of these new 'Wild' horses in a HoP.

HoP's cost a pass each so if you really want one, you'll have to spend some cash - either real or virtual.

Good luck!

Patsy

Ow's Spanish Mustang

A new type of horse is coming to the game very soon. And it's not just a new breed either. Currently if you visit Ow's profile page, find the 'Other Horses' tab at the bottom and look at the last row - you will see the new Spanish Mustang. Now this new horse is not an ordinary horse. However, it is also not a Divine or Special horse. It is, in fact a 'Wild' horse - the first of it's kind on Howrse.

So what's special about it and how can you get one? Well, as it's a wild horse it needs to be tamed before training  can begin. There are no details about how this will be achieved, but it may well be that you will need the help of other Spanish Mustang owners to tame your own horse. Once tamed, the horse can then be trained and entered into competitions as normal. However, every year of his life until he is 80, you will get a Diamond from him.

Now to get one of these new horses, I'm afraid it's not great news for most of us. To get the very first Spanish Mustangs - you will need to come in the top 100 places of the Western Grand Prix. Now the current Western objectives run until 4th March 2012, so we're assuming that players who finish in the top 100 of the Western Grand Prix over the next 3 weeks will win a Spanish Mustang.

According to Ow, the first 100 Spanish Mustangs to be tamed (as mentioned, we don't know how this works yet) will be given a unique number and also have a slightly higher Genetic Potential (GP) than all the other Spanish Mustangs.

So - most of us will never finish in the top 100 of the Grand Prix, so guess what? Yes of course - Spanish Mustangs will soon be available in Horns of Plenty (HoPs) so if you really want one, you can try your luck with a HoP.

As we get more information we will of course share it with you.

Good luck!

Patsy

Apollo's Lyre

Since the new features have come in today on Howrse there are lots of questions being asked the changes.

One of the main things players are asking about is the Apollo's Lyre.

NOTE: You can no longer change your horse's Lyre by clicking on the plus symbol next to your horses name.

To change your Lyre, scroll down your horse's page and look just under where their skills are displayed. There you will see the options Animation, Coat, Landscape, Name and Companion. Click on Name and you will be taken to the old Lyre page.

Lucy

New Howrse features February 2012

It has just been announced by Ow in the Events forum that there will be a series of new changes launched tomorrow - Wednesday 8 February 2012. Some of these we already know about - the proposed karma changes for example but there will be plenty of other new features too.

The new features have already been implemented on UK Howrse and the various other servers so we're assuming that the same things will be happening on international Howrse. Read below to find out more about the changes due to happen. These are lifted from the Change Log Page on UK Howrse, so they might not be identical on the international version but we're pretty sure most of them will be.

Western Riding

• Western competitions have been introduced in the game
• Your horses must now have a speciality before they can take part in competitions. The competitions your horses can join depend on what their speciality is.
• Your equestrian centre has to be specialized before you can organise competitions. The types of competition you can organise depend on what your equestrian centre's speciality is.

Changes at the Grand Prix

• The winnings given to the 5 best participants in each Grand Prix competition have changed:
1st = 40 x Diamond
2nd = 20 x Diamond
3rd = 10 x Diamond
4th = 5 x Diamond
5th = 2 x Diamond

• If you have access to the Grand Prix, you can now join both Western Riding and Classical Riding competitions at the Grand Prix

A completely revamped karma system

• All players start with a maximum of 10 karma points that they can lose if they don't follow the rules.
• By losing karma, you can be refused access to certain features like the forum or sales. Find out more
• You can win back 1 karma point every 30 days you log in, as long as you have less than 10.
• Your old karma points have been converted into gifts

Hidden bids

• Pegasus Account members can now create hidden bids in auctions. Every hidden bid costs 1 diamond and lets you bid on a sale without other players seeing your bid. Find out more

More advantages with diamonds and passes

• A new pack is being offered at the black market: the Bonus Pack
• You can now buy certain bonus items with diamonds:
◦ Golden Spurs
◦ Daphne's Laurels
◦ Seahorse
◦ Boreas' Lunge
◦ Eolus' Wind
• Griffin and Phoenix companions are now sold for diamonds instead of passes, and at a lower cost
• It's now more profitable when you credit your breeder's reserve or your equestrian centre reserve, and when you credit ageing points with diamonds and passes
• You can now use passes to buy diamonds
• Note that diamonds can no longer be traded with other players

Unicorns more valuable

• Unicorn bonuses have gone from +6 to +15 in dressage
• Unicorns now earn you 1000 Equus every time you send them to the Safe Haven

And also...

• You can now rename horses, give them affixes and move them to a different breeding farm, all at the same time using the link: Modify Profile
• Your horses' results in competitions page has been completely redone
• The riding school page has been removed. You'll find info on lessons in your equestrian centre office
• The My Account and Edit My Account pages have been merged
• Red excellence stars now count for 10 green excellence stars on horse pages
• There's no longer any limit to the number of items you can have in your inventory
• Bonus items now appear in the Bonus tab on horse pages, and not in the items box as before. You can now give your horses bonus items by clicking on the Give a Bonus Item link in the menu on their page.
• The Sapphire divine horse now offers one diamond or 1000 Equus based on its age in even/odd months, rather than even/odd days as before
• Greyfell divine horses' health can now increase when they are immortal

There are also a series of new Western Objectives which relate to you entering the new Western style competitions. These earn you gifts including a new breed of horse on the UK version but we'll tell you more when all this has been confirmed on the international version.

Happy Howrsing,
Lucy

New Karma System

From February 1st 2012, (UPDATE: It's been confirmed that this will now happen some time during the 8th February) Howrse are overhauling the way Karma works on the game. This is a significant change that will affect everyone who plays on Howrse. A thread exists in the Events Forum which has all the details, as well as many pages of comments from players.

Here are the key things that you need to know about the new Karma system:

• Every player will have their Karma set to 10 (the new maxiumum limit)
• If you break a Howrse 'rule' you may be sanctioned Karma points
• Loss of Karma results in certain sanctions & removal of privileges
• The lower your Karma, the more limited access you will have to the game

So your Karma will be directly linked to what you can do within the game. Here is Howrse's list of Karma and how loss of Karma will affect you:

• 10 Karma points - Full access to Howrse
• 8 Karma points - Access to EC forums is removed
• 6 Karma points - Access to ALL forums in the game is removed. Access to gift giving & item exchanges is removed
• 4 Karma points - Access to ALL horse sales is removed. Can no longer propose artwork in the Creative Space
• 2 Karma points - Access to private messages is removed
• 0 Karma points - Player automatically banned from the game for 2 months

After 30 days with no further breaking of rules, you regain 1 Karma point. There is much more detail in the Events Forum. This includes information on other sanctions that can be imposed on you that will not remove Karma as well other information.

Two other important things to note. Firstly, you will no longer receive a pass for 5 Karma points recieved. So no more passes from Karma. The maximum Karma anyone can get will be 10. Secondly, when this new system comes into effect, if you have 6 Karma points or more, you will get one Diamond for each Karma point that you have. If you have 1 to 5 Karma points, you will get 1000 equus for each point. If you have zero Karma, you will receive 1000 equus.

If your Karma is negative, you may find some access to the game is limited until you have 'earned' your Karma points back.

Regarding Affixes, we don't yet know what will happen to these, for those players who have gained extra affixes due to their existing Karma.

We will bring you more news on this major change as it happens. Please feel free to ask questions or post your thoughts.

Patsy

Another Howrse Lottery

There's a new Lottery on Howrse - it runs until 6th February at 00:00 Game Time.

The top prize is a Jade Divine horse followed by a set of 10 passes and 100,000e. There are also lots of smaller prizes available ranging from Philosopher's Stones to apples and aging points.

To enter you simply need to click on the button that has appeared at the top of every game page saying 'The Lottery'.

You can get tickets in several different ways:

• Use your equus to buy as many tickets as you like. Unlike previous draws you can buy an unlimited amount of tickets for each draw but the price triples each time. So you first ticket is 100e, your second 300e, your third 900e and so on.
• Use passes on the game (excluding buying horses). For each pass spent you get 3 lottery tickets.
• Have your friends send you tickets (this is limited to 5 tickets per draw).
• Get tickets when your horses win competitions (limited to 2 per draw).

The lottery also offers stars as prizes. The more stars you earn he more prizes you can win. So for example when you've earned 5 stars you get 1000e and if you manage to earn 2000 stars you get a pegasus account subscription free for 6 months!

In the first draw I managed to get a months' free Pegasus account - so get buying those tickets.

Patsy

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