Why so much lip, Hanoverians?

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!

Jollyjoust

Goodbye, February. Hello, March! The end of our long winter is finally in sight. 

Being mostly stuck inside is not all bad, though. We have gotten around to some serious questing the last few weekends on Star Stable. Most exciting for us was finally unlocking Wildwoods, which immediately became my favorite area of the game. 

Heading to the previously locked tunnel:

This quest was extra fun because NPCs (Clara's good friend Raina, some Jorvik Rangers, and their horses) made the journey with us. 

Clara's weed-whacking skills came in handy once again to clear the thick brush. Goodbye, red "ye shall not pass" icon! Eerily, the forest seemed to try its best to send them packing even once it was gone. 

Two of the party had to turn back to get this ranger medical attention, dwindling the team to 5.

They were caught in a thunderstorm not long after...

...and intense, close-range lighting caused the lead ranger's young horse to spook big time.

The ranger fell off, and the horse, Shay, bolted. Clara and Garnetgazer took after him...

...and the storm ended as quickly as it came on.

They kept going anyway, and the redwood forest is incredible! 

Finally, they arrived at the long-abandoned ranger station and set about making repairs.

Clara was tasked with fence repairs...

... and then had a close encounter with the legendary deer!

He appeared again later to lead them to a stream...

...and a root bridge magically grew across the gap so that they could proceed!

He led them to Jorvik Wild Horses!

The first three were Rosemary and two foals under her watch.

They talk! =D We had no idea!

The horses were even more surprised to meet a human, and a talking one to boot. The various Foresters all seemed pretty welcoming, but not so much the Warriors.

The Mystics give off Pandora vibes - they even have blue highlights! 

We are so happy we get to keep doing quests out here with the wild herds! Best part of the game so far, in my opinion.

After finishing a few, we got a text from "Spymaster" urgently needing us to come to his hideout. We navigated our way to his hideout in the mountains using the map, only to reach impenetrable closed doors. We're assuming this means we're not far enough along yet in the main quest line. 

This text pops up every time we log on now, which is pretty annoying. It gave us the push we needed to face spy mission #2 to GED headquarters.

Thank goodness for do-overs! We got caught by the guards so many times before remembering how to hide behind boxes. (Just crouching behind them isn't enough - you have to click a "hide" icon instead.)

Not the best shirt for this quest, ha ha. The white stands out from a mile away.

Eventually, Clara made her way to this sinister gathering of the bad guys, complete with mysterious glowing portal.

She overheard their entire conversation...

...and then got quite a monologue from Justin 

Even though Justin let her go and even gave her a shortcut for escaping, we spent a pathetic amount of time wandering around into the same dead ends and repeatedly getting caught before finally stumbling upon the shortcut. We probably couldn't find it again if we tried. It was such a relief to finally get back to Brighty and our ride out. (How did Brighty fit in that little boat, though?)

Clara returned to Elizabeth in Valedale and reported all the goings-on. 

1. Katja arrived through the portal to be the 4th Dark Rider, completing the group

2. Justin seems to be there cooperating of his own free will 

3. Lisa is "neutralized" and hidden somewhere in the Graydew Mountains

4. Mr. Sands indeed has the lost Light Ceremony Book. They intend to use its information to perform the Light Ceremony backwards to free Pandoric power, then somehow control it and use it to take over the world.

Fortunately, Elizabeth went on to inform them that the good guys, the Keepers of Aideen, made copies of some important chapters of the Light Ceremony Book and hid them. Clara will no doubt be tasked with tracking them down (and Lisa too) eventually. We'll leave that for another day. 

Our other big piece of news to share: another horse bazaar came to town for a week! The horses on sale this time around were the Hollow Woods unicorns Tynan and Phoebe (669 star coins), the Jorvik Wild Horse (689 star coins), and the older two dragon horses, Faramawr and Aldrach (379 star coins.)

We aren't tempted by the unicorns, since they are based on the Paso Fino, which we already have. 

We all LOVE the Jorvik Wild Horses, even more so now, so we are super tempted by them! Here are the other color variations not pictured above.

This is the first time they've ever been on sale in the two years we've been playing the game. However, after much deliberation, we've agreed our favorite is actually Duskgrim, one of the two Halloween Jorvik Wild Horses, who can color change between iridescent black and cremello. Hence, as hard as it is, we will pass these guys over and keep our fingers crossed that Duskgrim will return (and not cost an arm and a leg) in October.

And oh, the original dragon horses. They are based on the rather outdated, clunky Jorvik Friesian. As Felicity mentioned in her last post, I prefer these dragons to the new ones: their mouths are more horse-like and less reptilian, which makes them seem less sinister. Also, the more we view them in both forms in the preview area, the more they've grown on us all. Another significant shift since last time they were on sale a year or so ago: if you toggle off the magic coat, it stays toggled off now. This means we could let him be a goofy grullo horse nearly all the time if we wanted, and just "unleash the dragon" for special occasions. Much more appealing that having to see a dragon every time you enter your stable!

Our clear favorite of the two: the green/grullo one, Faramawr.

Lily wasn't as on board as the rest of us, but the discount on this guy was so good that she didn't try very hard to talk us out of him.

So, on last day of the sale, Jollyjoust became ours!

He started out in dragon form, naturally.

The first ride! 

(It sure is fortunate that there is a break in the spikes where a rider can comfortably sit!)

And here's horse form!

Coincidentally, our buddy Leni bought both Aldrach and Faramawr at this sale.

Now we can really twin out if we feel so inspired.

We think of him as a gentle, vegetarian dragon. He does have a mouth like a horse and can disguise himself as a horse, after all. =)