I'm pretty sure Star Stable called the Western Festival "Camp Western" in previous years, but whatever you call it, it's back! The first thing we noticed when we logged in was that our home stable has been decorated for the occasion. Such cheerful sunflowers!
Two thumbs up on the tack room decorations. <3
The next thing we noticed: there's a new western-themed Trailblazer Track! The color scheme of the western set, white and blue, is lovely!
We're not fans of the shirt (crop top with crop jacket over it), but the rest of the set is nice. We're way more excited for the free stable care coupons and horseshoes from the master blacksmith.
Star Stable made lots of changes to this event this year. There's a hub in Moorland for the first time, which allows non-star riders some limited participation.
A wagon can then whisk horse and rider off to the other hub in Starshine Ranch for free. We LOVE this feature and so wish there was a wagon from Starshine back to Moorland... Maybe next year?
The wilds around Starshine Ranch are totally wolf, bear, and bull free this year! This seems to have bummed out many players, but it was welcome news to my sisters and me. While the beasties did keep things interesting, and the wilds feel emptier without them, it is so much easier and less stressful not having to deal with them!
Cantering unconcernedly through the formerly-wolf-infested grassy expanse between the beach and Starshine Ranch. If you're wondering what's with the donkey's legs, it's actually two overlapping donkeys. XD
Making things easier is a theme this year: revamped task board, cowboy hat icons indicating which activities pertain to the Western Festival, no more trying to find treasure chests and horses that aren't plotted on the mini map. We're down with all that.
The aspects we miss: gold mining, ways to earn free pets, and a token shop. We're still enjoying the event without those things, of course, but it was more fun with them.
Our favorite ranch chore, herding three ranch horses down to the beach, has returned with different ranch horses from last year.
We do still get to find three missing ranch horses, but all the challenge is gone. The NPC specifies the region to search, and their locations are plotted on the mini map besides. (It's like somebody put GPS trackers on the horses - smart!)
The missing horses vary somewhat day to day. As you can see, one of them is a Phoenix duplicate. =)
sometimes they space themselves well...
...and sometimes not.
Back at the Moorland hub, Clara is helping out both Dorith and Jasper grow massive pumpkins for an end-of-festival contest. Every few days, they both grow identically bigger, so I'm guessing it will be another tie.
Conrad's strength contest (whack a target with a mallet) has migrated there, and you can do a new twisty cross country race around Moorland.
The other new race we've gotten so far is a western trail type one where you navigate through obstacles as well as go over some small jumps - quite fun!
Rootin' Tootin' Race
The premise of another new task, moving hay bales out of the road because the hay truck drivers are locked in their trucks and can't do it themselves, is rather ridiculous. However, it is quite satisfying to move these by ramming into them at various angles.
We do still get to do a timed three minutes of gold mining a day. This has made us much faster at mining!
Sadly, Gary Goldtooth takes all the gold at the end of each session. We do get a set amount of Jorvik shillings for participating, at least. And we quickly earned an amusing but totally impractical stack of 5 hats.
Here is someone else modeling the full stack:
What's odd is that all of them except the must be stacked and cannot be worn on their own.
As expected, we did get another edition of the Champion Ranks. My sisters and I are growing weary of these, especially now that the ribbons aren't nearly so fun - each one just a progressively fancied up version of the one before. But at this point we still enjoy participating and watching the other players and horses, so we're going for it and working our way steadily towards the daunting 250-point goal.
It's cool to see so many other people embracing the western gear for the festival!
There have been so many bay brindle Quarter Horses in these - more on that later!
Here's a look at some of the ribbons. We still have a long way to go before earning the last one, but you get the idea.
Thanks to all the championships and western-themed activities, Phoenix blazed his way to level 15.
the final sparkle
The other horses are now back in the rotation and enjoying their beast-free western activities. Star Stable has lost no time trying to get us to buy even more horses, though.
They timed the release of their new American Quarter Horse well: right at the launch of the Western Festival. We took a long look at them in the Starshine sale paddock and have also seen many being ridden around Jorvik. They are all gorgeous! Four of the stunning color variations are below.
The old American Quarter Horse has been renamed "Jorvik Quarter Horse" and has good reason to hang its head low now. The new and improved ones seem to be way more popular than they ever were. We definitely want a new one in our herd, but not at their current 950-star-coin price tag. We'll bide our time until they eventually show up in a bazaar.
The western event exclusive color variations of the Mustang, American Saddlebred, and Mule have returned at lower cost than last year. They are all quite nice, but the discount isn't that deep, and we're not in love with any of them.
The latest bazaar doesn't have us tempted at all, since we already have a representative of all four breeds in our herd (Brightbeam, Honeyhollow, Willowwind, and Kitekey.)
Looking good, guys! Hooray for American breeds!
Until next time!
