Big Birthday and Small Victories

Happy birthday, Felicity! It's a cool, sunny, gorgeous Sunday. No school or April showers to put a damper on your big day this year! Yay!

We're in the final week of Star Stable's Equestrian Festival, so naturally that has occupied a good chunk of our time this weekend. Even though we already bought all of the items we wanted that could be bought with spring tokens, we keep going anyway for the Jorvik shillings.

We're no pros at piloting virtual horses through virtual events, but we've sure been persistent. Fortunately for Clara and crew, it seems the Baroness and her butler were only watching during their more competent moments, ha ha. They earned the Silverglade Legacy Ribbon once again this year.

Nice sentiment, Baroness, but we all know this is basically a participation award. XD

We just happened to be riding Tigertin again this year for this "momentous" award ceremony. =)

Looking good, Tigertin!

It turns out it couldn't have been more appropriate, because Tigertin went on to win us our first ever first place ribbon! 

Granted, it was the Silversong Pony Championship, so it was a small pool of only 5 ponies, but we were still super proud! No need to go out and buy a palomino after all!

Well done! We love you, Tigertin! <3

Are the full-sized horses jealous? Nah. I think it's only us dolls who care. They do all seem to like hanging out with other peoples' horses before events and running courses with them, though. 

Note the flying manta ray pet on the far right! So cool!

We have collected a few more ribbons since: rare occasions where we make it through a course with no major issues and the competition is not fierce.

#5: Silver at Moorland for Frostflight!

#6: Bronze at Goldenhills for Riverrock! (Yay for a small pool of 4 horses, ha ha.) 

#7: Silver at Silverglade for Snowsecret!

#8: Bronze at New Hillcrest for Frostflight! (We were 3rd of 3... Smallest pool we've been in so far!)

#9: Bronze at Moorland for Tigertin! Now she has one of each color. <3

If you count the Silverglade Legacy Ribbon, that makes it an even 10. Good job, everybody! What an unexpected, happy surprise! 

While on the subject of championships, we did finally reach the point in the storyline where we helped rebuild the Baroness's racetrack, consequently unlocking the long-awaited Baroness's Championship.

Before:

The rebuilding crew:

After:

At the end of the rebuilding project, Clara and Magicmirror took the honorary first gallop around the track. (We love that it was a giant Shire to do this...)

Very fishy. Love the statue, though!

Brightbeam was Clara's mount for the first ever attempt of the Baroness's Championship. They managed to make it through and weren't even last!

Beginner's luck? The second whack at it a few days later was a disappointing fail, and then we finished but came in last on run #3. Hopefully after more tries, we'll improve a bit and enjoy it more. It's unfortunate the game won't allow you to practice all of the championship courses, though. We've found that so helpful on the few where it's offered.

On the other end of the festival's difficulty spectrum is the laid-back Red String Trail Ride. We usually rush through it anyway because of time constraints, but it's nice we don't have to. Our favorite random event is probably the sheep:

but the fairy ring of shrooms is very cool too:

Interesting side note: on our first day of riding the Red String Trail, we forgot to pick up the string at the beginning. So, we had to ride it twice. XD We'll never forget that again.

The wandering animals have made a reappearance too. To our relief, the cows and sheep are not glitched this year and will allow you to herd them more than a few feet. The donkeys are so especially cute!

Speaking of cute, I didn't mention it before, but it wasn't just the fancy ribbon that the Baroness gave Clara. She also gifted her with Sir Meowstache, a dapper tuxedo kitty.

We also brought home the only pet available with spring tokens, this cute cartoony squirrel. 

Finally, I just have to mention Mom's real-life win. Mom's extended family participates in a NCAA men's basketball pool every year for March Madness. After coming in with a heart-breaking (not really) second place in a tiebreaker with a family dog last year, Mom redeemed herself with a first place win in a tiebreaker with her uncle this year! (We couldn't make this stuff up!) Way to go, UConn Huskies! <3 <3

This means the big prize, Hoops the Beanie Baby bear, will soon be in her possession. =D

Equestrian Festival 2024

 The Equestrian Festival has returned to Star Stable! The Jorvik Stables area is decked out and bustling with festival activity, complete with those the fancy levading horses stationed by the entrances. 

This is the first festival we're getting to experience for a second time. We've found it very similar to last year: same quest line, same structure, same token system. Unfortunately, a lot of the items available with tokens are also the same. We've been faithfully participating every day, so we're probably going to have a boatload of unused tokens by the end. 

Here's the first new set. Not really our style, but the color scheme is nice.

The second new set is peach-themed. We prefer it to the vintage sage ensemble above, but unfortunately peach is not a great color on Clara. 

Get past the helmet and gloves, and alas, everything else is repeats from last year.

Progressing through the festival quest line has been easier the second time around. We snuck past those GED guards with the box of fireworks on our first attempt! (Still not sure how we managed that!) 

It took a good half dozen attempts to successfully evade Sabine when she was chasing us on her demon horse Khaan, but even that seemed much more possible this year. 

Group races, where you have to get at least one other player to race with you, are still not our favorite. We're more proactive this year at asking others to join groups, at least, and we have only failed a group race once so far, knock on wood.

Dressage is back again, and thank goodness the difficulty seems to have been dialed down a bit. Also a welcome tweak this year is that you get 20 shillings each time you practice the test instead of diddly squat. After last year, we were scared to attempt "dressage mastery" with the "3 strikes you're out" scoring system and no trail of guiding arrows. After many practices, we finally attempted it today with Artie and did just fine, even on the circles, which were once a beast to get right! What a huge relief!

The most stressful part of the festival for us is participating in championships, which we try to do at least once a day. These take place every half hour at various courses around Jorvik, where you race head-to-head with a group of other players who have entered. Championships happen year round, but there's added incentive to do them during the festival: tokens, extra shillings, and free travel to the courses.

Here's one we watched briefly from the sidelines, which was quite entertaining. (We seem to be able to participate in all of them except for this one, the Baroness's Championship, this year - must be we're not far enough along in that branch of the game's quest line yet.)

And here are Clara and Magic raring to go at a starting line... or as raring as they ever get. XD We pass the time leading up to each race by clicking on other players to see what their horses' names are.

Since there's no difference in reward for 4th place vs 16th place, we're always pleased just to make it through the course. (Still definitely not a given. We fell off a cliff once, went through a checkpoint the wrong way another time, and - most recently - got stuck in construction equipment. In summary, if there's a way to royally mess up, we'll find it at some point.) 

On this particular championship with Desertdash, we were partway through a "catch the balloons" quest when it was time for the race, so we went through the whole thing with balloons trailing along behind us. XD

When nothing goes catastrophically wrong to disqualify us, we usually end up somewhere in the bottom half of the pack, but Des lived up to his name here and somehow pulled off a third place! Maybe it was the balloons?

Our first championship ribbon ever! Well done, Des!

We thought it was a fluke that would never happen again, but Des managed it again later the same day!

Wow, what a good boy! <3 

Here's bronze ribbon #1:

And bronze ribbon #2:

He's feeling pretty proud of himself, and with good reason! He was cool with Brighty borrowing the red ribbon on "wear a ribbon" dress code day, though.

After a Saturday morning that included several lackluster championships on Artie (it's us, buddy, not you), we entered the Silversong Pony Championship on Tigertin. It was kind of a perfect storm: lunchtime, only ponies allowed, only 5 entrants. It seemed to us we did ok, with only one pony visible ahead of us for most of the race, but you never know with lag, etc. how you're actually doing. Lo and behold, she really did take second place!

Way to go, Tigertin! <3

How appropriate: bronze for the liver chestnut and silver for the pony with "tin" in her name. Maybe if we buy a palomino, we might someday have a shot at gold? Nah, let's not get crazy.

Coincidentally, though, one of the most tempting of the discounted "festival only" horses is a palomino sabino English Thoroughbred. It and its fleabitten gray counterpart are both available for 510 star coins. There in the background are two less tempting Lusitanos, discounted to 570 star coins.

This buckskin Andalusian is available for 570 star coins as well.

Same goes for these lovely Arabians, but since we already have Des, they're not on our radar.

Tempting, like I said. We love the coloring of both, and the 40% discount...

The palomino even has a heart-shaped spot on its hindquarters, which we would see quite a bit from our perspective when riding...

Hmm, we'll see. We do really like them, but they are overall less streamlined than many more recently-added breeds, their faces aren't as attractive as some, and they look a little bowlegged from the back... So, we'll probably just keep saving up for when a breed we absolutely love goes on sale, as difficult as it is to resist their limited-time-ness.

At any rate, we sure are enjoying having such a wide variety of equines to participate in the festival with us this year. By the end of this weekend, we'll be through the rotation with everybody. <3

A Snowy St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day! It gave us an excuse to finally have Clara wear the green pants and beanie from the free Celtic set, which haven't seen the light of day before, ha ha. Not only has Clara been riding Snowy today, but it's also snowed a bit here in real life. 

Snowsecret has been getting quite the workout. He's seen most of Jorvik now, including this especially pretty spot on Paddock Island. 

He soared through his experience levels and celebrated each with his trademark levade.

 

Fittingly, he reached his max experience level this weekend: the final weekend of winter. (Vacation over, other horses! Everybody's back in the rotation.)

Some of our questing brought Clara by bus into Jorvik City, where horses can't go. We don't generally plan this ahead of time, hence Clara shows up still in full riding gear. We've discovered that while horses are not allowed, pets are. Here's Icy the fox making her way up the escalator at the mall, ha ha.

Another quest had Clara trying to help a couple get their couch into their upstairs apartment. All efforts failed, so they gave up and gave Clara the couch. It's now sitting pointlessly in our inventory. Hopefully someday it will be of use.

Clara hung out with Alex to help her record an audio tour of some noteworthy sites in the city. We found this one the most entertaining.

I know I've said it before, but I'm so glad it's Alex and Linda we are getting to know first. Maybe the other two currently missing soul riders, Lisa and Anne, won't be as annoying as they seem, but I'm not holding my breath.

Oh, so that's what she looks like without a helmet. We'd almost forgotten. XD

We worked up the nerve to finally go through the gates to Scarecrow Hill. (Linda did not come with us. Smart girl.) Then, we were promptly caught by one of the beings on brooms (turns out they're scarecrows, not witches) and dumped back outside the gates. Anticlimactic. 

So, off we galloped, Linda looking like she could slip off Snowy's rump the whole way.

We dropped her off at Silverglade's library and then galloped out to Valedale to talk to Elizabeth.

We did dig up 3 helpful book passages. Sounds like we're going to need 4 keys to get into that tomb, and I'm sure they won't be easy to find. Until next time...

In other less epic news, Star Stable introduced a new horse breed this week, the Selle Francais. All of them are quite good looking, but of course I'm most drawn to the two pintos.

Maybe they'll grow on me, but I'm still partial to the other recently-added warmblood breed, the Dutch Warmblood. The Selles spend a lot of time with their ears back while idling and do a lot of head tossing, whereas the Dutchies seem more happy and chill. I especially like the dapple gray one below.

Along with the release of the Selle Francais came a limited-time show jumping competition with new, more realistic rules. Penalties are added for knocked poles, refusals, hooves touching water in water jumps, and going over the allotted time.

I remember back when we started playing Star Stable, it came as a surprise to us that hitting jumps did not affect the end result, since it does on other horsey games we've played. So, it's not earth-shattering they want to implement realistic rules, and we'll roll with it if need be. We were also fine with it the way it was. The flashes of red and sounds of the jumps being hit were enough motivation for us to try to improve. Interestingly, the first time we tried out the new course, we jumped it totally clear. We haven't been able to do that since: always hit at least one bar. Oh well, we'll keep trying!