St. Patrick's Day falling on a Monday this year has meant most celebrating is going on this weekend. Warmth and wind had been the story here in West Michigan over the last few days: our first of multiple "false springs," probably. It's now dreary and back in the 30's. *Sighs* We don't do much to celebrate St. Patrick's Day, but our big, shiny shamrock did make its way out of storage to hang in prominence this year, at least.
On Star Stable, we've put in a bit more effort: cycling through our green tack and apparel and even sometimes riding a green dragon. On the big day itself, our Irish Cob, Pandapie, will be the horse of the day, of course! Sir Meowstache, a matching kitty with green eyes, will ride proudly in the saddlebag.
But going back to the green dragon, our awesome Jollyjoust made his way to level 15 quickly, spending about equal time in his dragon and horse forms.
On his way there, he even won two ribbons!
Jollyjoust also had the honor of being Clara's mount when she tried out dressage training with her club. Only the instructor and one other club mate showed up for the first session, but they didn't let that stop them.
We decided to join last minute, hence no chance to deliberately dress for the occasion. Wichapi and Copper looked fantastic, though, must say! So elegant and realistic!
We had a great time and learned a lot. The instructor was positive, encouraging, and patient, which we really appreciated.
She even recorded a short video of the best sequence of the night. We could then see what it looked like to an observer in real time - so helpful! Fingers crossed this will continue to be a weekly event, and that more club mates will join us.
The game-wide excitement this week: Star Stable unveiled its new Hanoverian!
The first sale barn area in Jorvik Stables now proudly displays all 7 variations of the Hanoverian, available for the usual "fancy new horse" price of 950 star coins. The relatively new Friesians are squeezed in with the Lipizzaners in the second sale barn over.
As you can see, Star Stable didn't do anything crazy here: no dilutes or pintos, just real-life acceptable Hanoverian colors.
They have two special moves: a bounce jump animation...
...and a bucking animation.
Not sure why the bucking had to be a thing, but it will add new possibilities for role plays, etc., I suppose.
Alas, just like the Dartmoor Pony and the Mustang, they do the Flehmen response every few seconds when idling. We find this unappealing, even more so than the snoozing or excessive head tossing Star Stable also seems very fond of. Hence, we don't see any Hanoverians in our future. It's a shame, because I think they are beautiful otherwise. Oh well, it makes us even more sure we want a Dutch Warmblood or Selle Francais in the herd someday.
Some far more disappointing news to us personally: this alert that came up the same day the Hanoverians were introduced.
Sadly, Milton, Mom's faithful 2015 Macbook, isn't capable of upgrading to 13. So, come April 23, our days of playing Star Stable from wherever we want on our personal laptop will be over. *Sighs* The end of a very happy era. We're lucky we'll still have the option of playing on the family desktop computer, at least. For any players out there on older devices without any other options, we feel for you. It really bites.
It's the price we pay for liking fancy graphics, I guess. Maybe it's time to start exploring other games? Or get back into HI3?
To end this on a more positive note, the "stable screen of doom" bug, as we took to calling it, seems to have been squashed. This makes playing much more enjoyable: we can click away to our hearts' content.
Next time we post, it will officially be spring! Until then!
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