Horse Isle: Legend of Esrohs Help Topics
1) Accounts
A) Policies
1.A.1 One account per player:
Each player is allowed ONE account. Any player found to have more than one account may be banned from the game. Never allow anyone else to use your account for any reason. (Remember, you do not need to log in each day to care for your horses; they only need your attention when you are online.) You will be held responsible for whatever anyone else does while on your account. NEVER share your password for any reason, nor allow your computer to "remember" your password.
1.A.2 More than one player on a single account:
At no time should you ever, for any reason, allow anyone but yourself to play on your account. This includes your siblings, your BFF, or anyone at all. Any violations that are committed on your account will be your responsibility whether you actually did them or not. If you have to leave the computer at any time, even for a few moments, log out of the game. Never leave your account up and running unattended.
The ONLY exception allowed to this rule is for a parent who is mentoring a young child.
1.A.3 Usernames:
Usernames must be 3 to 16 letters long. Letters only. We do not allow the use of numbers because of the confusion it causes, and general ugliness. Usernames must be made up of real dictionary words (no proper names, made-up words or deliberately misspelled words), packed together with the first letter of each word capitalized (no spaces).
Usernames must not violate any of our content rules.
BlueBunny is a good name.
SarahSand is NOT because it includes a real name.
Changing Usernames: Players are allowed a single free change to their username. Any future changes to a username must be done after having purchased an Identity Token. To change your username click the ACCOUNT link at the top of the website, scroll down and select the green link named CHANGE PLAYERNAME. Enter the desired playername you wish to use on the bar at the bottom to check if it is available. If the playername is available and you are absolutely sure you wish to keep it forever more, double check to see if it spelled correctly and accept. Please note that this change cannot be undone without the purchase of an Identity Token. Also note that your old username becomes unavailable to use by anyone else for 7 days once it is changed. This allows you time to give your buddies a chance at learning your new username and also allows you time to change back to your old username (option only available after purchase of an Identitiy Token) if you decide that your new username is not right for you.
1.A.4 Choosing Your Password:
Passwords must be between 6-16 letters and numbers long. Very common passwords (such as "password123") are not allowed and will be automatically prevented during signup.
Remember, your password should be a secret you share with absolutely no-one, ever! This includes siblings or best friends. A player who is your best friend today might not be so tomorrow. Keep your password in a safe place that only you know, and never allow your computer to save or "remember" it. Other people can easily find it if you do, and you will be held responsible for what they do on your account if they do.
1.A.5 Changing Your Password:
You can change your password by visiting your Account page. A link to a page where you can change your password can be found on the bottom of this page. Follow the instructions there. Remember to change your password if there is any chance anyone might have learned it. Changing your password every three months is a very good idea.
1.A.6 Retrieving Forgotten Passwords:
If you've forgotten your password, click on the "Forgot?" link next to the log in box. This will bring you to a page where you enter your username and email address. If you enter that correctly it will look up your security question. Answer that correctly and it will send you your password to your email.
If you no longer have access to the email address you used to create your account, please use the support panel below or contact support using support@horseisle.com. Be sure to include your username and what email you signed up with.
1.A.7 Protecting Your Password:
Because you are responsible for everything that happens on your account, it is vitally important that you do everything in your power to keep your password secret and safe. Here are a few tips.
Do not use anything that refers to you as your password. It is very easy for others to guess, or remember, things like your birthday, your pet's name, or your favorite food or sport. It's better to choose a random word that nobody will guess.
Do not allow the computer/browser to "remember" your password. Remembered passwords are never secret; anyone can get on your computer and read all your passwords very easily and quickly, and you will have no way of knowing that they've done it.
Memorize your password. Even writing a password down and hiding it in the safest place you can think of is not safe; siblings particularly seem always to find such things. If it helps you, make up a mnemonic. If, for example, your password is 12cats, you can remember it by remembering, "12 Cats Ate The Spaghetti." Just make sure you don't show off your cleverness to anyone! Keep your mnemonic a secret, too!
Do not use the same password on small fan sites, etc. The owner/workers on such sites may attempt to use the same passwords on the game sites.
1.A.8 Violation Points:
When you break rules, you receive violation points. No violation points are given automatically. Admins review abuse reports filed by other players and violation points are given depending on the severity of the rule broken. If the rule broken is extremely serious, an account can be banned immediately. More commonly, once an account reaches 10 violation points, it is given a temporary ban. The length of the ban depends on the rules broken and the player. Once unbanned, if the player continues to break rules and receive violation points, a ban can occur again either for a longer period of time, or it can become permanent.
Violation points time out after 60 days.
B) Subscriptions
1.B.1 Benefits:
Since subscribers pay all the expenses of the game programmers, artists, writers, server rental, bandwidth, etc. both for themselves and for those who play for free, subscribers have options that are not available to others. These include:
Option to buy a private island, on which to build a ranch or estate with a main house in the player's option of architectural styles (Plains Native American, Classical Greek, Victorian, Log Cabin, Tree House or Medieval).
Ability to buy and sell horses at auction.
Ability to lease horses to other players for set periods of time.
Ability to send items/money to other players via the Horse Isle Postal System.
Ability to sell subscription and horse tokens to other players.
Higher level Arena entry available.
Unlimited purchase amounts from player ranch stores.
Ability to offer any dollar amount and items in trades.
1.B.2 Ways to subscribe:
Rather than buying subscriptions directly, in Horse Isle: Legend of the Esrohs, one buys Subscription Tokens, which can then be redeemed in the game and/or traded to other players for Horse Isle money (see TOKENS at upper right).
There are two ways to get a subscription token.
Buy one directly from the website.
Trade for one that another player is offering. Remember that players can price their tokens however they choose, and that they're not responsible for pricing them in a way that you personally find affordable.
Participate in the Earn-A-Sub program if you fit the criteria. Click the SHOP button at the top on the website, then scroll to the bottom, click on the link "Earn-A-Sub Program" to learn more.
1.B.3 Giving a gift subscription:
Gift subscriptions are done via the Token System. A player may buy as many subscription tokens as they like and trade them to other players, or even send them in the game mail as a gift.
NOTE: DO NOT use the game mail if you expect to be paid for the token. See 'Selling subscriptions' for that. Any unsolicited items a player receives via game mail are considered gifts by default and no payment to the sender is required.
1.B.4 Selling subscriptions:
Before anyone may sell subscription tokens to other players, they must be subscribed themselves. Once a subscriber's own subscription runs out, that person will no longer be able to sell/trade tokens to other players until their own subscription is renewed.
Horse Isle sets no limit and makes no recommendation as to the price for which Subscription Tokens may be sold and/or traded. Different sellers will want different prices, so when shopping for a subscription token, you might want to ask different sellers for their prices before deciding from whom to buy.
Never, ever, trade for a promise of a token later. Do not click ACCEPT TRADE unless you are absolutely certain you are getting what you want then and there. If the other player is not offering you the token you want (if you do not see it in the Trade Window), do not accept the trade. Horse Isle will not reimburse players who paid for promises and those found trying to trick a player in a trade may lose their account.
C) Tokens
1.C.1 What are tokens for?:
In Horse Isle: Legend of the Esrohs, we've added "tokens" for players to use for various purposes. Rather than get a custom horse from the Pawneer as you did in Horse Isle 1, you buy a token either from the website itself (for real money) or from another player (for Horse Isle money). You then use this token to choose the breed, gender, and color of the horse you want.
There are also tokens for buying other things, such as subscriptions. Again, you can either buy these from the website or from other players if they are selling tokens that they have purchased.
In order to use a token, click on INVENTORY, and you will see TOKENS near the bottom. To the right will be a VIEW button. Clicking on this will show you how many tokens you have and what they can be used for. Decide which type of token (assuming you have one) you would like to use and click USE. A dialog window will appear showing you what options are available to you.
1.C.2 Horse Tokens:
A Horse Token may be redeemed for a horse of a breed, gender and color of your choice. Horse Tokens are explained in more detail under Horses->Ownership->Horse Tokens, but, in quick review:
Horse Tokens, like Subscription Tokens, are bought with real money via your Account page. Standard Horse Tokens cost US$8.00 each, or US$30.00 for a pack of five. Super Horse Tokens, which have additional options to help you get the exact horse appearance you envision, cost US$15, or US$60 for a pack of five. Like all tokens, horse tokens are are bought through PayPal, and will show up in your inventory as soon as PayPal lets us know that you've paid. (Depending upon how you've paid, it may take as little as one minute or as much as five business days for PayPal to clear the transaction and let us know about it.)
Click INVENTORY->TOKENS->HORSE TOKENS->USE in order to see a window offering you a list of breeds available. Choose the breed you want, and another window will appear showing offering you choices of gender, color and a few other points. Super Horse Tokens will allow you to refresh through an unlimited number of possible horses until you see one that looks exactly as you want! Make your choices with the greatest care! You cannot change them, nor can you ask for a replacement horse once the ORDER HORSE button has been clicked.
Keep in mind that while there are options to select, You will still receive a horse that may not match exactly what you wanted. There is a large element of randomness and individuality to all horses on HI2.
When you click ORDER HORSE, the horse will appear in your HORSES list, named "Ordered Horse." Remember, once you've ordered a horse, it cannot be exchanged for another. All claims of "I ordered the wrong horse by mistake" will be ignored.
1.C.3 Subscription Tokens:
Subscription Tokens come in One Month and One Year.
One Month Tokens will add 31 days of membership to your account. If you use a One Month Token while still having 10 days left on your membership, the 31 days is added to the 10 days you already have; so you would have 41 days of membership.
One Year Tokens add 366 days of membership to your current membership total, whatever that may be.
1.C.4 Club Tokens:
These expensive tokens allow a dedicated player to start their own club, which other players may join. Use of a Club Token sets up a Club, with the user of the Token as the Club Owner. Clubs are described in more detail under Players -> Clubs.
1.C.5 Trading for Tokens:
Tokens can be used at any time. In addition, subscribers may sell and/or trade tokens (of any kind) to other players for Horse Isle money. This is done via the TRADE system.
Caveat Emptor! That is, "Let the buyer beware!" Never, but never, make a trade for the promise of a token! If you do not see the actual token you want offered by the seller on the TRADE screen once the seller has clicked DONE, DO NOT accept the trade! If someone insists their trading is not working and you must pay first, they are lying. Do not fall for it. If you agree to trade for a promise, you will get nothing, and Horse Isle will not reimburse you for anything you offered in return.
1.C.6 Zeus Tokens:
These may be awarded at the completion of a quest. They are not sold in the game shop, but may be sold from player to player. Up to 25 Zeus Tokens may be used on a horse. They can be used to increase a horse's genetic stat by 1 point (4 points for grade horses.) Stats cannot be increased above 25 (100 for grade horses.)
2) Arenas
A) Entry
2.A.1 Sports:
There are a wide range of Arena sports in which you can participate on Horse Isle 2. In addition, we offer competitions of three different overall levels. These are:
Desert Race (Beginner)
Jumping (Intermediate)
Jockey (Intermediate)
Reining (Intermediate)
Cross Country (Advanced)
Barrel Racing (Beginner)
Cutting (Intermediate)
Draft (Intermediate)
Beauty (Beginner)
Note: Only the Listed and Group III arenas (the lowest levels of competition) are available to those who play for free. Group II and I arenas are reserved for subscribers.
Most of these arenas have four levels at which you can participate. These are:
Listed (the easiest level of competition, with smaller prizes and entry fees)
Group III, (one step up, for horses who have begun serious training)
Group II, (another step up, for seasoned competitors)
Group I, (the highest level of competition, for the very best horses and riders.)
As you go up these levels, the gameplay remains the same but the entry fees are higher, the much higher rewards of winning at the higher levels make up for the expense.
2.A.2 Entry Fees And Requirements:
Entry fees for most arenas are as follows:
Listed competition: HI$1,000
Group III competition: HI$2,500
Group II competition: HI$5,000
Group I competition: HI$50,000
Entry fees for arenas for some intermediate and advanced arenas may be 2x to 3x more.
The stewards in charge of each competition will tell you the fees if you ask them.
Entry fees are not refundable under any circumstances once the minimum number of players enters a competition. If you leave a competition lobby before the competition begins, the competition will go on without you and you forfeit any fees you have paid. Please be careful not to leave the lobby if you intend to compete.
All arenas except Beauty (LeafTon) and Drafting (GlacierTon) require that a horse be completely tacked (saddle, saddle pad and bridle), and have some wear remaining in their shoes. Riders are required to have a helmet.
Neither you nor your horse may compete if either of you is too hungry, thirsty or tired.
2.A.3 Competing at the Appropriate Level:
One of the biggest complaints we had in Horse Isle: The Secret Land of Horses was that a few very advanced players were constantly competing against beginner players/horses in order to achieve an easy win. This is not going to be possible, to a very large extent, in Horse Isle: Legend of the Esrohs. Each level of competition will only allow you to enter if you have not won up to a certain number of races or events. Once a horse has won the maximum number of events for that level, it will not be allowed to enter at that level again. This works as follows:
For the Listed Race (green carpet lobby) horses can win a maximum of 25 times and gain 1x exp per win. All players may participate.
For the Group III (blue carpet lobby) horses can win 250 times max and gain 2x exp per win. All players may participate.
For the Group II (red carpet lobby) horses can win unlimited times, and gain 2x exp per win. Groups II and I are limited to subscribers only.
For the Group I (black carpet lobby) horses can win unlimited times, and gain 2x exp per win.
Riders are not required to have a certain number of lower level wins before they can advance. You can start at whatever level you like. Riders are, however, required to be wearing a helmet when competing.
Beauty arena has no horse win limits since the outcome is completely random.
Keep in mind that unlike Horse Isle 1, experience does count in this game, both for you and for your horse.
2.A.4 Rules:
Players must compete fairly using the system that the game provides.
Participating in "Paybacks", where the winner of the competition promises to refund the arena entry fee to those who entered in order to rapidly gain experience, is a reportable offense as it is considered to be a light form of cheating.
Anyone can enter the competitions and no one needs to, or should, give money back to the other competitors.
2.A.5 Bonus Arena System:
The Bonus Arena system is intended to promote competition. A specific arena is declared the "Bonus Arena" every time the World Event changes (so every 15-30 hours.) The Bonus Arena pays out more money than do other arenas:
Listed: Pays out 200% of entry fee to participants (make money even if you lose!)
Group III: Pays out 200% of entry fee
Group II: Pays out 100% of entry fee (cannot lose money, even if you lose)
Group I: Pays out 50% of entry fee (losing puts less of a dent in the wallet than normal)
The Bonus Arena is drawn randomly from the 8 competition arenas. The Bonus Arena will never be the same twice in a row. Because of the nature of mathematical randomness, certain arenas may appear to be drawn more often than others, but be assured that it will all even out eventually!
Of course, players who don't care for the active bonus arenas are welcome to compete elsewhere!
B) List of Arenas
2.B.1 List of Arenas:
Below is a list of the arena competitions on Horse Isle 2, and the cities near which you will find each arena.
NarrowTon: Barrel Racing Arena
PlainTon: Jockey Arena
DryTon: Desert Race Arena
MeadowTon: Reining Arena
LeafTon: Beauty Arena
TigerTon: Cutting Arena
MarshTon: Jumping Arena
GlacierTon: Draft Arena
AngleTon: Cross Country Arena
Hanging on the walls in the lobbies of the various arenas you will see banners and shields. The colors of these banners and shields let you know which Horse Stats are necessary to compete well in this sport. Banners represent the major stats, that is, those which are most important for your horse to be trained in; shields tell you the minor stats which, while not as important, will certainly help. The colors are as follows:
RED: Speed
GREEN: Strength
CYAN: Endurance
YELLOW: Conformation
MAGENTA: Agility
BLUE: Intelligence
Yes, intelligence does count in this game and, in fact, it can be trained, too!
2.B.2 Barrel Race:
The Barrel Racing Arena is located on Narrowed Isle, south of NarrowTon. The object of this competition is to have the fastest time around a clover-leaf course of three barrels, rounding each in their proper order (right, left, top as viewed from horseback) and without knocking any down, and then racing back to the start line. Just follow the path that you will see on the ground and you'll know which way to go.
Some breeds are especially suited to Barrel Racing, and thus have an inherent bonus skill that comes into play in this arena. This is +100 to the Agility (AGI) Comp Stat.
In this arena, Strength (STR) directly affects a horse's acceleration speed. Speed (SPD) determines the maximum speed at which the horse can run. Agility (AGI) determines how fast your horse can turn while moving at speed. Intelligence (INT) will lend a small bonus to your score. The Conformation (CON) stat is not used in this arena.
2.B.3 Beauty Arena:
In Horse Isle: Legend of the Esrohs, we have formalized the popular beauty contests that players like to hold and enter, into the Beauty Arena. In this arena, horses are stood before a judge, who then appraises and complements each one as he sees fit. The first horse to be complimented five times is the winner.
Stats do not matter in this arena; the outcomes are entirely random.
2.B.4 Cross Country Race:
The Cross Country Arena is located on Angled Forest Isle, east of AngleTon itself. In the Cross Country race, you will not only have to refine your jumping skills, but your ability to think ahead and prepare how best to efficiently and safely follow a fixed course. There will be some hints along the way, most notably red and white flags on either side of a jump or turn. You can remember which way you're supposed to go by just remembering that "Red on the Right."
Along the way, you will encounter hills, valleys, and a few tight turns. You will encounter obstacles of many different kinds. Some jumps are low and wide, requiring speed; others are higher, requiring jump power. Each one will require its own judicious mixture of the right speed and right height. Doing well in the Cross Country race requires that you master a number of controls:
The UP and DOWN arrows are used to set the target speed that you want the horse to race. The UP button increases it and the DOWN button decreases it. Remember, the faster a horse is going, the faster it will tire, and the wider its turns will be. Find a good steady pace for your particular horse.
Use the LEFT and RIGHT arrow keys to make the horse turn to the left or right.
Holding down the SHIFT key will set the horse's Jump Power; that is, the maximum height a horse can achieve. Be careful setting this; over-jumping will tire your horse unnecessarily.
Double-pressing the SPACEBAR has the horse do a "super jump," with the same jump power as you've set, but with a little more speed.
Horse Stats effect performance as follows:
Speed (SPD) directly effects maximum forward speed. Agility (AGI) effects turning ability (harder to turn when moving faster). Endurance (END) effects how long a horse can keep up its maximum effort. When END goes to zero, a horse's speed and strength will be reduced.
Strength (STR) effects a horse's ability to jump and to accelerate and climb hills.
Some breeds are especially suited to Cross Country, and thus have an inherent bonus skill that comes into play in this arena. This is +50 to the Endurance (END) Comp Stat and +50 to the Strength (STR) Comp Stat.
2.B.5 Cutting Arena:
The Cutting arena is in TigerTon. Cutting, or cow cutting, is an event wherein a horse moves a single cow out of a herd and tries to keep it from rejoining its fellows. This kind of competition requires a very agile horse who is very quick thinking. In real life, a horse does the work of cutting all on its own once the rider selects the cow to be cut from the herd. The cow moves identically for all competitors in a single event.
The Left/Right arrow keys cause the horse to move in those directions. The Down arrow will have the horse slowly walk backwards. The spacebar is the Lunge key. Holding it down will slow the horse quicker, and will place a stopped horse into the "lunge" position. From the lunge position, holding left or right arrow, then releasing space, will "lunge" the horse quicker in that direction of the arrow, causing the horse to either turn more quickly, or giving it instant acceleration, depending on the angle of the horse.
Horse Stats are used as follows: Speed (SPD) accounts for a horse's Left or Right max movement. Endurance (END) + Agility (AGI) give the maximum amount of Lunge Power. Strength (STR) accounts for a horse's acceleration. Intelligence (INT) gives a bonus to the final score.
Some breeds are especially suited to Cutting, and thus have an inherent bonus skill that comes into play in this arena. This is +100 to the Speed (SPD) Comp Stat.
2.B.6 Desert Race:
Found in DryTon, the Desert Race arena requires that you race your opponents to reach several different Red "Orbs" in the 3D desert scene. You may collect the orbs (by galloping into them or over them) in whatever order suits you. The first one to collect all of them is the winner. Watch out that you don't get caught on a cactus!
Here is how the stats are used in this competition: Speed (SPD) effects how fast you move. Agility (AGI) affects how fast you can turn while moving fast. Intelligence (INT) adds a number of bonus points to your score. Strength (STR) effects acceleration. Endurance (END) determines how long your horse's maximum speed, strength and agility last.
Some breeds are especially suited to Desert Racing, and thus have an inherent bonus skill that comes into play in this arena. This is +50 to the Endurance (END) Comp Stat and +50 to the Speed Comp Stat (SPD).
2.B.7 Draft Horse Arena:
In the GlacierTon Drafting Arena, horses are asked to pull a load of a certain weight. How much weight they pull in this competition depends upon the horse's strength and your own ability to do some simple arithmetic.
Your horse's strength (STR) stat determines its maximum pulling power. But for purposes of this competition, it increases the score you get for giving a correct answer. Endurance (END) decreases the penalty caused by your giving an incorrect answer. A horse's Intelligence (INT) can give bonus points.
Some breeds are especially suited to Draft, and thus have an inherent bonus skill that comes into play in this arena. This is +100 to the Strength (STR) Comp Stat.
2.B.8 Jockey Arena:
In the Jockey Arena, found in PlainTon, you'll be competing not only with other players, but with computer generated horses and riders who will try to block your way. Your task is to find ways to get past them all, and win the race if you can. The winner of the event will be the player who beats all the other players to the finish line. Use the arrow keys to speed up your horse or slow it down, or have it move to the right or left; use the spacebar to sprint your horse through a gap in horses ahead of it.
In this event, a horse's Speed (SPD) affects forward and backward movement; Agility (AGI) affects how well a horse can move to another lane, as it were, or, from inside to outside and vice versa. A horse's Intelligence (INT) will give a point bonus to the horse's overall score, and its Endurance (END) affects how long it can run at top speed before it becomes tired and has to slow down.
Some breeds are especially suited to Racing, and thus have an inherent bonus skill that comes into play in this arena. This is +100 to the Speed (SPD) Comp Stat.
NOTE: Due to lag between players, realize that just because it looks like one player won the competition, it does not mean they did. Remember to check the score board once the competition is over.
2.B.9 Jumping Arena:
The Jumping Arena (found in MarshTon) is somewhat like the "Advanced Jumping" of HI1, but requires that you are in control of more factors. You may use the up and down arrows to control how much vertical effort (strength, STR) a horse puts into a jump, and the left and right arrows to control how much horizontal effort (speed, SPD) is required. It will take just the right combination of both of these factors to do well with each different kind of obstacle, and there are several. Your horse's endurance also plays a large role here; high endurance improves the horse's starting score.
The jumping course is extremely difficult, and, at beginner level with ordinary tack, it will be nearly impossible for anyone to achieve a clear round. Don't despair; our jumping course is scored more like "Hunter over Fences" in real life, where the quality of the jumping effort counts as much as the fact that the horse cleared the jump or not.
Stats that are used in jumping include primarily STR (strength), SPD (speed) and END (endurance).
Some breeds are especially suited to Jumping, and thus have an inherent bonus skill that comes into play in this arena. This is +50 to the Strength (STR) Comp Stat and +50 to the Speed (SPD) Comp Stat.
2.B.10 Reining Arena:
The Reining arena is found in MeadowTon on Meadow Isle. Reining is a very popular sport especially in the western United States. It is something like dressage in that the horse must complete a certain pattern at a certain speed, but there the similarity ends. Reining features rapid pirouettes, sliding stops and other flashy maneuvers. It is a precise competition; you'll have to keep your horse on track and moving at the required speed. Use the up and down arrow keys to speed up or slow down, and the left and right arrow keys to turn.
A number of statistics effect performance in this arena:
Strength (STR) effects acceleration speed. Speed (SPD) determines the maximum speed your horse can achieve. Agility (AGI) effects how quickly your horse can turn when moving at speed. Intelligence (INT) allows for greater distance from targets and still getting yellows and greens. Conformation (CON) keeps a horse on track. A lack of conformation causes the horse to turn slightly on its own once in a while.
Some breeds are especially suited to Reining, and thus have an inherent bonus skill that comes into play in this arena. This is +100 to the Intelligence (INT) Comp Stat.
C) Requirements
2.C.1 Overview:
In order to compete in an arena, enter the arena from outside. You will immediately be in the Listed Race lobby, the lowest level of competition. By following the signs you can get to other levels.
Inside each lobby, you will find a scoreboard which shows the results of the last few competitions at that level. You will also find a steward to whom you talk in order to actually enter an event. To do this, click on the steward and then choose ARENA. You'll be shown the requirements for that level of competition, and the names and horses of other competitors who have already entered. You will then be asked to choose which horse you would like to enter. You can only enter one horse per competition.
Arenas pay out experience as well as a purse. Experience is earned according to this formula: RoundedDown:((Number of competitors you beat)^1.5 +1) to both you and horse.
Arena Money Payout: (Percentages are per single entry fee)
Winner gets 160% + 40% for each player beat
(3 or more competitors) 2nd gets 30% of the purse, + 30% for each player beat
(4 or more competitors) 3rd gets 10% of the purse, + 20% for each player beat
(5 or more competitors) 4th gets 10% of the purse for each player beat
If a player leaves the lobby that they signed up for an arena event in when the event starts, the entry fee is forfeit, and the arena will not start for that player. The score will show up as 0. While this shouldn't be a problem with the low-level competitions (Listed Race and Group III), you might find you have to wait some time for a more advanced competition to get enough entries to start. If you want to compete in a competition such as this, it might be a good idea to line up a few fellow competitors beforehand and agree upon a time to meet in the arena lobby for that competition. Be sure to give yourselves ample time before the event begins to all get there.
Horse wins are NOT counted in the Beauty arena.
2.C.2 Horse Equipment:
For most arenas, you need a horse fully tacked with a Bridle, Saddle Pad, and Saddle. In addition, a horse needs to still have some wear left in its shoes except in the Beauty Arena. The correct type of tack (English/Western/Aussie) is not required in this game.
2.C.3 Horse Stats:
In addition to the horse statistics required for each arena (see under the individual arenas to find out what they are), horses also need to be healthy and well cared for. A horse who is tired, hungry or thirsty will not perform at its best. Also note, that having low stats will decrease the horses performance in most arenas even if they meet the minimums.
The list below should give you an idea of how your horse's current statistics will effect its performance.
HORSE STAT FORMULAS
Gene Stats = +/-25 Breed Stats
Each breed of horse has a set of base statistics for speed, strength, agility, endurance, conformation and intelligence. In addition, each individual horse will vary from the breed norms by as much as plus or minus 25 points. This is set at the time the horse is generated.
Base Stat Ranges:
The genes a horse was "born" with (in game terms) are not the absolute extent of its talent. Training and various other bonuses can affect these statistics to a large extent. A Horse can be trained up to double it's genetic stats. So, a horse with 322 Genetic Speed, may be trained up to a total 644 Speed Base Stat.
Competition Stats
The following Bonuses and Reducers Multiply against the Base Stat to arrive at the Competition stat. You want to avoid any Stat reducers whenever possible!
Bonus Stat Ranges: (+3x max altogether)
+ Tack Bonus[+.0x-1.0xbase] (saddle-0.5x, bridle-0.3x, pad-0.2x)
+ Companion Bonus[+0x-.6xbase] (big-0.3x,mid-0.2x,small-0.1x) (Takes 30 days for full companion bond to apply)
+ Shoe Bonus[+0x-.1xbase]
+ Days Owned-Bond[+.0x-.1xbase] (0-90days effect)
+ Horse Affection[+.0x-.1xbase] (500-1000pts effect)
+ Horse Mood[+0x-.1xbase] (500-1000pts effect)
+ ESROH Ability Bonus[+0.3x] (One for each of 5 stats)
+ Player Experience [+0.3x] (0-100,000pts effect)
+ Horse Experience [+0.4x] (0-10,000pts effect)
Horse Stat Reducers:
- Health [-0x-.5x] (0-1000 effect)
- Affection [0x-.1x] (0-500 effect)
- Mood [-0x-.1x] (0-500 effect)
- Hunger [-.2x] (0-500 effect)
- Thirst [-.2x] (0-500 effect)
- Tired [-.2x] (0-500 effect)
Player Stat Reducers:
- Hunger [-.2x] (0-500 effect)
- Thirst [-.2x] (0-500 effect)
- Tired [-.2x] (0-500 effect)
TOTAL RANGE: 0-4000 points for each stat
To see this detailed formula explained for your horse click the STAT CALC button on one of your horses.
To see where your horse is, competition-wise, at any given time, refer to the COMPETITION STATS on the horse's page. All arenas utilize the Competition Stat to determine your speed, etc. in the game.
2.C.4 Money:
Entry fees into the arena can cost a lot of money. Fees are typically $1000 for a Listed Competition, $2,500 for Group III, $5,000 for Group II and $50,000 for Group I, for Beginner and Intermediate competitions. For Advanced competitions (e.g. Cross Country), prices are double this. Check at the individual arena for competition prices.
2.C.5 Player Stats:
You cannot enter an arena when you are Starving, Parched or Exhausted. In addition, riders must wear helmets (which is a tool bought at tool shops, not clothing; it will not be seen on your avatar).
2.C.6 Tack Bonuses:
Certain kinds of tack may only be used at certain levels. One star tack can be used anywhere. Two and three star tack cannot be used in Listed competitions but may be used elsewhere. The higher levels are restricted to Groups I and II.
The following lists the most valuable Tack Sets (saddle/pad/bridle) in HI2.
--------------------------------------
5-STAR LEVEL: Esroh Tack +100% $250M
--------------------------------------
4-STAR LEVEL: +80% Main Stat +60% All others; $10M
SPD: Lightning
STR: Hercules
INT: Wizard
END: Odyssey
CON: Glorious
AGL: Ninja
--------------------------------------
Expedition Tack: +70% all stats: $10M
--------------------------------------
3-STAR LEVEL: +60% Main Stat +40% All others; $2M
SPD: Peregrine Falcon
STR: Gorilla
INT: Dolphin
END: Camel
CON: Peacock
AGL: Jackrabbit
--------------------------------------
Adventure Tack: +50% all stats: $2M
--------------------------------------
2-STAR LEVEL: +40% Main Stat +20% All others; 500K
SPD: Racing
STR: Power
INT: Clever
END: Marathon
CON: Fancy
AGL: Nimble
--------------------------------------
Touring Tack: +30% all stats: 500K
--------------------------------------
1-STAR LEVEL: Various Base Tack: max:+20% average; $1k per stat
3) Economy
A) Banks
3.A.1 Banks are safe:
Money can never be lost or accidentally spent/traded while at a bank. Only money on hand can be spent in stores, player trades, quests, etc.
3.A.2 Banks cannot be robbed:
There is no way to have money stolen from a bank account. Random Events, etc. cannot affect money in a bank account.
3.A.3 Banks provide interest:
Banks provide a small amount of interest every hour. You get a very small amount for every dollar you have in the bank. This can add up however, if you have a lot of money in the bank.
The bank interest rate is .01% per hour. Which works out to 87.6% APR(Annual Percentage Rate) and a whopping 140% APY!
The max amount of money you can receive interest on is $250,000,000.
B) Classified Ads
3.B.1 Classified Ads:
If you wish, you may place a classified ad on the Community Board at any City Hall. These ads remain for 1-24 hours and are readable at all City Halls. They also broadcast to all players online when placed. The minimum cost for a 24hr ad is $5,000 but increases as the classified ads gets full (cost = number of ads^2.5, minimum 5000).
There are discounts for placing for less than 24 hours. ($3750 off base price for 1 hour).
Classified ads are being reviewed by helpers before posted (as discussed in the Support > Helper System section). Therefore, it might take a few minutes until your ad is posted. If you've been waiting for more than ten minutes, you can send a request for an ad review via the help chat. Remember that the helpers might be busy, so don't spam the help chat with requests for your ad to be reviewed. If the ad breaks the game rules it will be rejected and won't be posted. For more information about what makes an ad illegal please refer to the Detailed Game Rules > Advertisement.
C) Earning Money
3.C.1 Earning Money:
There are several ways to make money in HI2. The main ways are listed below.
Questing is discussed in more detail in its own category. In this game, "quests" are tasks or missions done for a non-player character, or NPC. These range in difficulty from Novice (simple to complete and not time consuming) to Master (brain-teasers which may take a long time to puzzle out!) In general, harder quests pay more money, but they also take longer to complete. Players just starting out are recommended to start with Novice and Intermediate quests.
Minigaming is also discussed under the Quests category. There are minigames all over the isles- both in and outside of buildings. Minigames are generally puzzles in nature; they include games you may have seen before, like crosswords, sudoku, and painting games, as well as games that may be new to you, such as Morse Codes and marble slides. Like quests, minigames are ranked in difficulty from Novice to Master. All minigames of the same level pay out the same amount of money.
Gathering/Selling Items is a way to make money that also allows you to explore the isles. It's discussed in more detail under the Gathering sub-category in this section. This method involves gathering items that grow wild across the isles and selling them in general stores or to other players.
Competing is discussed in the Arenas category. The top finishers in each arena event earn back their entry money and a tidy profit on top! Keep in mind that arena events take practice, so while competing can be a great way to earn lots of money, it will take practice and training, and often upper-level tack and companions, before you're good enough to win a lot.
Tasks and quizzes are repeatable tasks/quizzes given by NPCs, for which you earn money upon performing. For example, working for an NPC (by doing deliveries or finding items), and solving quizzes with an NPC. You can find a list of the available activities by clicking CHECK on the community board in the city halls. These activities are similar to quests, yet they are not quests, and you won't receive any quest points for completing them. When offered such a task, there'll be a note which states that the proposed activity is not a quest. Most of these tasks are limitless, and you can engage in them as much as you want. The payment is not identical between the tasks. Some pay more than others.
Crafting is another way to earn money. Before selling items to the store, check if you can craft something from them. You'll receive more money for selling a crafted item rather than for selling its ingredients.
D) Gathering
3.D.1 Foreign Importer:
Whenever a new quest is released, there seems to be quite a run on certain items. You might want to consider not doing brand new quests right away, but if you must, and you cannot find items out "in the wild," most of the Harbormasters are also "Foreign Importers," who sell otherwise gather-able items at rather high prices. Consider carefully before buying! If you pay too much for objects needed to complete a quest, you can actually lose money on the quest!
3.D.2 Gathering Flowers and Foodstuffs:
Fruiting bushes and trees, and flowering plants, can be found all over Horse Isle. Usually there will be several fruits on a bush or tree and often only one flower per plant, though there are many species where you can pick a number at a time.
You can pick these by clicking on the tree, bush or plant (remember, not all trees and flowers are pick-able). Options such as SHAKE or PICK will appear if there are mature fruits left on the plant. (If there are such things, you will be able to see them among the foliage.) Once a fruit or flower is picked, it will take a while for another to grow in its place. However, don't despair, there are plenty of plants available on the isles. Remember you don't need pick everything in sight just because you can. Leaving some for others is always appreciated.
Flowers, cattails and the like are a somewhat different story. All of these grow through several stages, and in most cases you can only pick these at certain times. For example, you can only take a cattail when the cattail itself has finished growing. But some flowers can be picked in the bud. Be aware, however, that picking flowers while they are still only buds will cause it to take that much longer for the same plant to produce a mature, useful flower. Be careful picking flowers that grow around NPC's homes. They don't like having their gardens looted!
There is a great variety of edible and non-edible plant life in Horse Isle: Legend of the Esrohs, but not all of it grows everywhere. Explore the isles completely to find out where things grow. Almost everything grows on more than one island.
3.D.3 Mining:
All over Horse Isle, you will find outcrops of rocks that will yield various coinage metals (gold, silver, and copper), as well as iron ore. In order to mine these, you will need a pickaxe. When there are ore or nuggets available for mining, you will see that part of the metal-bearing rock glitters. Once the ore has been mined, there will be no more glittering. Load bearing rocks will "recharge" after a while, but it's too long to simply sit around and wait for more mine-able minerals to appear.
Load bearing rocks can be found all over the islands. Some outcrops are larger than others. To mine the nuggets or gems, click on the source and click MINE.
You can tell roughly what kind of material a rock outcrop produces by the color of the rocks. Whitish rocks produce gold nuggets, gray rocks produce copper nuggets, and black rocks produce silver nuggets. Brownish rocks produce iron ore. Almost always, you will come upon an outcrop which only produces one kind of metal. However there are a few outcrops widely scattered across the isles in which more than one mineral can be found.
If you don't mind spelunking, you can find gemstone-bearing crystal formations in caves. If the crystals are sparkling, you can mine from these with your pickaxe. You'll probably get some quartz, but occasionally you'll get rubies, emeralds, sapphires and many other types of minerals.
E) Inventory
3.E.1 About Your Inventory:
Your INVENTORY screen allows you to examine your entire inventory (everything you own that isn't either a horse, or on a horse). You can also look only at certain categories of items:
Quest Items. These are items you need in order to complete a quest. They cannot be traded, sold, dropped, thrown away or mailed. All your quest items will be in this category, regardless of whatever category they might also belong to.
Tack. This category shows you whatever tack or other horse equipment you have that is not already placed on a horse.
Food. Anything you happen to be carrying that you yourself (well, okay, your avatar) can eat.
Feed. Things your horses can eat.
Rocks. Ore, nuggets and gemstones.
Tools. Hammers, picks, screwdrivers, shovels, rakes and various other items.
Keys. There are plenty of buildings, drawers, diaries, gates and so on that can only be opened with the appropriate key. All the keys of which you are in possession of will be shown here.
Tokens. Tokens you happen to have will be listed here, subdivided by kind.
3.E.2 Carrying More Inventory:
Your inventory has a few vital statistics- slots, weight, and bulk.
"Slots" are the number of different types of objects you can carry. Subscribers can get more slots by adding on to their ranch houses. Each ranch house level adds 15 slots.
The next two stats refer to specifics about the type of inventory you're carrying. The weight (heaviness) and bulk (total size) of an inventory item is shown by clicking its icon in the inventory list. The more horses you have, the heavier weight and greater bulk of inventory you can carry.
Note that selling horses, or buying items, when your inventory is close to full might lead to a situation where you're inventory is over your bulk limit. In this case, you won't be able to collect items (including pirate treasures and lucky finds), and won't be able to ride your horses. The only way to solve this is by selling items to stores/players, or put them in a recycle bin, until your inventory is not over bulk anymore.
In addition, the Pack Rat club bonus increases weight and bulk capacity by 50%.
F) Jobs
3.F.1 Earning Money:
There are no "steady jobs" as such available for players in Horse Isle: Legend of the Esrohs.. There are, however, plenty of ways for you to make money. Questing for NPCs is the most profitable (as well as the most interesting) of these, and you'll find it rewards you in other ways as well! You might also mine gems and other minerals, and gather foodstuffs and flowers, to sell to NPCs and to other players.
3.F.2 Gem Miner:
Gems are found in caves on the Mountain Isles. In order to mine them, you need to own a pickaxe.
When you go into certain caves, you will find colorful gems on the floor and walls of some parts of the cave. If these gems are sparkling, they can be mined. To mine for gems, simply click on the sparkling gems. Usually you will mine a piece of quartz, but sometimes you will get amethyst, rubies, emeralds and many other kinds of gems.
Treasure chests in caves sometimes have gems in them. A closed box may be opened and treasure removed. An open box is empty.
Both mine-able gems and treasure chests "regenerate" gems and treasure after a while, but that while is rather too long to be worth standing around and waiting for! Get out there and explore!
3.F.3 Job Minigames:
Certain minigames will offer for you to perform a task over and over again for an amount of money. These are considered Job minigames. There are four levels: Easy, Medium, Hard and Master. All these jobs have different daily limits; you may only do each a certain number of times per day.
Job Minigames are accessed by clicking on the JOBS boards which can be found various places around the Isles. On isles with large towns, you'll find them in City Halls. Otherwise they will be in dock houses. If there are no docks, you'll find them on trees near rowboats.
These are an excellent way to earn money for boat travel if you run low during an adventure.
3.F.4 Rump Artist:
If you own an Art Design Kit, you can create Rump Art -- designs that Horse Painters in the large towns will paint on horses' rumps. This whole process is explained in detail under GAME -> ART.
G) Stock Market
3.G.1 What is the HEX Stock Market?:
Banks offer the ability to participate in the Horse Isle Exchange. It's a single stock that you can buy at whatever price it is currently selling for. This will give you a certain number of "shares" of that stock. Over time, the value of these shares will go up or down. At whatever time you decide, you may sell these shares at the current value. If you sell the stock for more than you initially paid for it, you will make a profit.
Stocks do not earn interest. Keep in mind that they are a long term investment (it may take anywhere up to several weeks, or even longer, before you can sell them for more than you paid for them), but they can be very rewarding if you are patient.
3.G.2 Can the Stock Market Crash?:
Yes it can. In rare cases, the Stock can actually go bankrupt! If this happens, everyone who had any money in it will completely lose it all. You will be left with no stocks. This is one of the risks you take when "playing" the Stock Market.
3.G.3 How high or low can stock prices go?:
There are no limits to the highs; the lowest they can go is HI$1, unless the market crashes and the stocks become worthless.
4) Game
A) Art
4.A.1 How custom art system works:
In order to make custom art, you will need to purchase an Art Design Kit, which is quite expensive. This kit allows you to make "filled-polygon" art (described below in Drawing in Horse Isle: Legend of the Esrohs.). In order to use your artwork, once it is completed, you will need to submit it for review, where player helpers will ensure that your artwork meets game rules. This is done via the Manage tab of your artwork and costs $10,000. If accepted after review, you can then use the art on your horses, on your personal or ranch profile, or on a club profile if you own one. You may also offer that artwork for sale to other players through the Rump Art Painters by paying to be offered by them for a week. You earn your set art price each time the art sells.
4.A.2 Drawing in Horse Isle: Legend of the Esrohs:
The Horse Isle: Legend of the Esrohs drawing system might take a bit of getting used to, but you'll find it well worth the effort. Here are the steps you'll need to master:
Choose a color. There are 256 possible colors for you to use, and you choose them by moving the color sliders up and down. You will see three: one for red, one for blue, and one for green. Select the amount of a color you want by clicking on it. That color will be outlined, and the combined output of the three settings will be shown in the large rectangle above the sliders.
You may change your color at any time, but changing the color will start a new polygon (see below).
Select a drawing tool. There are a number of different tools for your use. The topmost one is the one you'll use most when trying to draw objects such as horses. The rest all draw the shape you see, which you can make as large or as small as you like.
Draw! Rather than drawing actual lines, you draw polygons. When you click your left mouse button (or right, if you're a lefty--you know the drill!) the spot on which you clicked will be the the first anchor point for your shape. When you move the mouse and click again, you will see a line from that first anchor point to the one you just chose. A third click will give you a triangle, filled in with the color you're using. A fourth click will give you a quadrilateral, etc. Experiment with that top tool to get a feel for how it works.
One thing to be aware of, however. In the main, you will be making large, colored-in areas by drawing an outline of clicks/points. (Think of it as stretching a large piece of pizza dough into the shape you're trying to draw by pulling it to the edges of the drawing.) You can, if you like, draw another point across or through the polygon you already have. Wherever the new drawing overlaps with what you've already done, whatever is thus "covered" will be erased. You can use this technique to make some very interesting effects.
If you don't like what you've done, click UNDO. This will erase that entire polygon.
To let the art system know you are finished with a polygon, either click on the tool you're using, choose another tool or another color. The polygon you've just completed will then show up on the right side of the screen under "Small Preview." They are shown here at approximately twice the size that they will appear on a horse.
As you draw, you will be drawing polygons/lines on top of pre-existing ones, so make sure you draw your backgrounds first. There is no way to move polygons forward or back.
4.A.3 Where art can be used:
There are several places where your own artwork can be used in the game. You may put your own artwork into your player or ranch profile; set it as artwork for a club of which you are a leader; or use it as a "rump painting," which is put on a horse as a decoration by the horse painters in the towns. In order to do this, your artwork must be submitted for player helper review and accepted.
You may also purchase artwork from the Rump Painters in towns to be applied to your horse's rump. Once applied, this artwork remains until you select to remove it (also at the Rump Painters.) Removal is free.
You can also set up an art gallery accessible from your profile, and show other players your art skills. Only art pieces that were reviewed and approved by the moderators can be presented on this gallery.
4.A.4 Submitting artwork for review:
If you have created a piece of artwork that you would like to use on your own horses, in your profile, and/or sell to other players via the Rump Painters, you must submit your artwork for review. Art review is done by player helpers with over 100 helper points. After two helpers have approved your artwork, it will be available for use.
Art approval is based on two criteria:
Is the content of the artwork suitable for use here? In order to be approved, an artwork must be:
Original art. You may not copy someone else's art, fan art exempted. Website logos or any text not in the dictionary is not allowed.
Game appropriate. The content must comply with all game rules. Artwork must be G-rated and not likely in any way to cause offense to other players. No religious content is allowed. No reference may be made to other players or clubs.
Is the artwork original, or is it a copy, or simply too close, to something done by someone else?. This is a purely subjective judgment call on the part of the reviewer. Whether you agree with their decision or not, if your artwork is not approved for use in the game, the decision is final.
There is a cost of HI$10,000 for submitting your artwork for review. This fee must be paid whether your artwork is approved or not. This fee will be subtracted from your cash on hand when you click the SUBMIT button. If you don't have that much money on hand, you will not be allowed to submit an artwork until you do.
Note: Once a piece of art has been approved, you can no longer change it, or save another piece of artwork with the same name.
4.A.5 Buying Rump Art:
All the large towns except GlacierTon have outdoor Horse Painter booths. By clicking on the booth owner, you will be presented a list of patterns available, and once you choose one, you'll be asked to choose the horse on which you'd like that pattern painted. Subscribers may spend as much as they like on artwork each day; non-subscribers are limitted to $50,000 per day.
Purchased rump art remains on horses until you choose to remove it. Removal may be done for free from any rump painter.
4.A.6 Selling your art:
Once you've completed a work of art to your liking, you can offer it for sale to other players via the Rump Painters who are found in some towns. Once the work is approved by player helpers, go back to your MANAGE ARTWORK page. You have the option of buying a week's worth of showcasing at all the rump painters. You set the price that each rump painting should earn you, and every time the painting is sold, you earn that amount.
Once a piece of artwork has been bought by the public, it cannot be deleted. You can remove it from your list of art provided it is not used on any of your own horses. But it will still remain on other people's horses who have it applied. Since once something is offered to the public it will be there forever, make absolutely sure that this is a piece of artwork you want out there before you submit it.
How much you charge for a piece of artwork you've done is entirely up to you. The charge that other players will see for having it painted on their horses will be whatever you charge, plus the Rump Painter's markup (which will vary from town to town,) plus the standard fee of HI$1,000 for doing the actual painting onto the horse.
4.A.7 Art Contests:
Every three days, an Art Contest is held. This Contest is game-sponsored and open to all players who choose to enter. Entry is free.
Entering an Art Contest. The contest cycle lasts three days. At the beginning of the cycle, the game announces the theme for the contest. You may view the current theme at any time by typing !art.
You have one day from the time of announcement to submit your entry; you may submit one entry per contest. Submission of artwork conforming to the theme is done from the Manage tab of the artwork. Unlike other artwork submissions, you do not need to pay a review fee or have artwork reviewed by player helpers in order for it to be considered for the contest. You will only need to pay a review fee if you also intend to submit the artwork for profile use or rump art.
Moderators review all artwork submissions before they are submitted for viewing by the public. If your artwork does not conform to game rules, it will be rejected and will not receive reviews. Since we want voting to be impartial, if you somehow sign your artwork it will also be rejected.
Voting on an art contest: On the second day of the contest cycle, the contest is open for all players to view artwork and vote. Typing !art at this stage will bring up the voting screen, where players view artworks one by one. Players may assign a rating of 1 to 5 to each artwork, with 1 rating the artwork as "Just OK" and 5 being "Wowzers!" Scores are determined by your artwork's average score, not its total number of votes, so you don't have to worry about your art possibly not receiving as many votes as someone else's.
Artwork is submitted anonymously- your name will not be attached to your work to maintain an unbiased voting process. You will not be able to vote for your own artwork.
Results: On the third day of the cycle, results are announced! The top 25 artworks, as determined by all players, will receive a monetary prize- $25,000 to the winner, $24,000 to second place, and so on down to $1000 for the 25th top entry. Players may view the winning entries by typing !art.
Results of contests are archived at City Hall, and may be viewed from the Community Board even after the end of the contest.
B) Button Bar
4.B.1 MYSELF:
Click here to view various information on yourself. This is where you can find out how hungry/thirsty/tired you are, where you are, how much money you are carrying, and what skills you have acquired.
Under this button you will also be able to find out information about various things you have, and various information you've gathered from the game. You can look at your skill levels, your recipe book, and make up and manage artwork if you have the Art Design Kit.
Your subscription status will also be found on this page.
You will also find ways to modify your avatar and the page that people see when they click on you here, under Profile.
You can change the way you look at any time during the game. Some of these changes are done via the PROFILE button, and the rest by visiting the barber and clothing store. The PROFILE button also allows you to add some information about your player character and some artwork.
Modify My Current Status. Clicking this button allows you to modify your chat status to Available, Busy or Unavailable. You can also modify your current mood to a number of different choices, which other players will see when they look at your profile.
Modify My Descriptive Profile. This option allows you to do several things:
-- You can enter the country you come from. Please note that only the county is allowed! You may not put your city (even if there are more people in it then are in most countries!), state, province, territory or department. Only the country is allowed.
-- You can list your favorite breed.
-- You can add news about your player-character.
Modify My Character's Appearance. This option allows you to change the way your player character looks in several ways. You may choose your age, skin color, eye color and hair color from the pulldown menus provided. You will need to choose an exact hairstyle and your clothing by going to the towns and visiting the barber and the clothing store. You will find that there are plenty of ways in this game to make yourself look truly unique. In addition, you may change the way you look, the way you do your hair, and what clothing you wear at any time during the game (except during competitions).
4.B.2 INVENTORY:
The INVENTORY button shows you what you are carrying around with you, or have stored at your ranch. When you click this button you will see a window which will ask you for further details. You can look at everything you are carrying all once, or you can look at specific groups of items: for example, quest items, food, horse feed, etc. This should make it easy for you to keep track of what you own. Also you may redeem purchased tokens from this area.
4.B.3 HORSES:
The HORSES button will show you a list of all the horses you own and/or are leasing. Unless you specify otherwise, the horses are presented in no particular order. To change the order in which you see them, click VIEW on a particular horse and then click the PROFILE button. Doing this gives you several options. You can:
Change the horse's name.
Write a short description of the horse. You can do so in several different colors if you like. The available colors and how to use them will be explained elsewhere.
Set the horse's Favorite Ranking. Clicking the FAVORITE button will allow you to pick the horse's rank from a menu. Whatever horse you decide is #1 of all your horses will be listed first in the horse list. Whatever horse you pick as #2 will be listed second, and so forth. If you have two favorites, and can't decide which one you prefer, you can rank them both #1 if you wish. Horses with the same rank are not shown in any particular order. When you first acquire a horse, it is given a Favorite Ranking of #9.
Make a note as to whether or not the horse is for sale. You can choose from never selling, not now, for a good price, or for sale.
4.B.4 PETS:
The PETS button shows you a list of the various companion animals you have. All of the pets you own show in this list whether or not they are partnered with a horse. You can name your pets by using the PROFILE button that shows up when you VIEW the pet.
4.B.5 PLAYERS:
Click to view lists of players online, lists of your buddies, members of whatever club you are in ("clubbies"), manage mutes, and locate players on the game map.
4.B.6 QUESTS:
The QUESTS button brings up a page which gives you a good deal of information about your quests. On this page you can find out how many quests you have done, how many quest points you have, what quests you have in progress and what kind of progress you've made so far on them. Also there is what bonuses and what minigames you've completed.
Very important in this window is the information you can get on what stage of a quest you are on. For each quest you are currently doing, you will be told what you have done so far, and sometimes you will be given a hint on what needs to be done next. This will make it a lot easier for you to keep track of what you're doing. Refer to this window often.
4.B.7 CRAFT:
There are currently three different types of crafting you can do: cooking, sewing and crafting.
Cooking allows you to follow recipes, depending upon your level of skill. Recipes for various things from cookies to fabric dyes can be found all over Horse Isle. You can eat, use, trade and/or sell the things you make.
Crafting allows you to make items for your horse to wear such as saddles, bridles, halters, boots and so on. Craft plans are found all over the isles.
Sewing allows you to make things with fabric or knit/crochet them from yarn. You can collect cotton with which to make cloth and thread on many different isles, but wool comes only from ranch owners who keep sheep on their ranches.
Crafting is discussed in more detail in the next section.
4.B.8 MAP:
The MAP button shows you a map of all the known isles of Horse Isle 2. Strongly dashed lines show boat routes between major towns. Lightly dashed lines show boat routes between smaller islands associated with a major town. Black dotted lines represent rowboat routes which only go between one specific isle and another. Blue dotted lines show where there are underwater tunnels between specific isles. Red dotted lines on the isles show the wagon routes.
When you move the cursor, you will see a red rectangle. By holding the center of this rectangle over a part of the map in which you are interested and clicking the left mouse button, you will get a close-up view of that part of the map.
4.B.9 TOOLS:
Brings up a list of tools you currently own, and allows using those which are usable at various locations. If you see a USE button next to a tool, you actually use those tools to dig, rake, etc. at a certain spot. Other tools, like the pick-axe, the torch, the underwater helmet and the riding helmet, need only be in your possession.
If you are in a situation where you find yourself needing to use the same tool over and over again, you can click TAB (left side of your keyboard near the Q) in order to use again the last tool you used.
4.B.10 HELP:
Clicking the Help button allows you to access this Knowledge base from within game as well as submit an abuse report if another player is harassing you, or in other ways breaking the rules.
4.B.11 QUIT:
QUIT simply logs you out of the game.
4.B.12 SETTINGS:
The SETTINGS button allows you to change such things as the volume of the background music (Music) or sound effects (Sndfx) for the game, set low or high detail, and manage which players you want to hear and which chat channels you want muted. You can also show or hide the minimap, border and compass rose from here. There are also buttons on the right side of the box allowing you to clear either side of the chat, resize the chat, shuffle the background music or temporarily hide all the players.
Temporarily hiding players is in case you need to click on something (an NPC or world object for example) and there are too many other players in the way.
A Pedometer is accessed from here as well. Turning it on counts the distance you travel which is needed for various quests. Clicking the button again will reset the pedometer. Leaving the current area will close the pedometer until started again.
C) Chat
4.C.1 Chat System:
There are several different chat modes available to you:
NOTE: In all chat, proper capitalization and spelling is required. Trying to say a players name Redviolin will fail, because proper caps was: RedViolin. This is important to understand before getting frustrated.
Area Chat allows you to chat with all the players who are on the same island or in the same building as you.
Buddy Chat allows you to chat with all your buddies, no matter where they are.
Club Chat allows you to chat with all the members of whatever club you are in.
Private Chat allows you to speak to a single player only.
Arena Chat allows you to chat with the other players in your arena event. It only works while the event is going on.
Help Chat is only visible to moderators and administrators. It allows you to find help if you simply cannot find the answer on your own.
In order to use these different kinds of chats, you can either choose them from the menu on the far left, or use the following shortcuts:
/a for Area Chat
/b for Buddy Chat
/c for Club Chat
/Playername for private chat.
4.C.2 Private Messaging Other Player:
There are two ways to privately message a player. You may use the drop down menu, select 'Private Chat' then type in the player's username in the next box that you wish to speak to. Once you have messaged a player using that box, the username will remain in the box so you can simply select it in the future.
The second way is to use a shortcut. You may type /PlayerName then your message to contact someone.
4.C.3 Submitting a word for the Dictionary:
1) When on the game: Click on the Help button on Toolbar
2) Select -> Dictionary addition request:
3) Choose the type of word:
Valid word missing from dictionary
A fun expression/HI specific word
A common/good horse name
A commonly used (in English) foreign word
4) Type in the word
Be certain the word is spelled correctly and not already in the game
Be certain it is Not a common first name or last name
Be certain it is Not a common or accidental misspelling
Be certain it does not violate any of our Rules
If it's not already in the dictionary, make sure it's a commonly use word, not just something that only you will use.
It must be a single word with no spaces or punctuation of any kind.
5) Click on: Submit word for review
Guidelines and rules for what is and is not allowed in the Dictionary:
Names: Must not be real names.
Not all caps. No abbreviations that are not common.
No Text/Leet speak.
No Cities with a population less than 1,000,000
No offensive words, no religious words, no "weird" words that really have no meaning and are just something you have pieced together.
If celebrity or music artist name, content for such must not contain violence, adult content/themes or substance abuse.
Movie/Game names must not have content containing violence, no adult content, no substance abuse. This includes Anime.
D) Crafting
4.D.1 Overview:
As you go through the game, you will learn how to do a number of things as they are done on Horse Isle. These include such things as making tack, cooking and many others. You'll start at a basic level, able to make and cook simple things. With practice and experience, you'll be able to rise through game levels to be able to craft larger, more complicated and/or more valuable things.
4.D.2 How the Skill System Works:
Crafting (making useful objects out of raw materials you find) is more complicated in Horse Isle: Legend of the Esrohs than they were in Horse Isle 1. There are five skill levels to each, which are explained in their own categories.
The crafting skills are worked on a point system. When you begin the game, you start at the lowest level of each, and you gain three points of crafting skill per hour. You can use them immediately, or save them until you have 48 hours worth of points. You cannot have more than 48 hours worth of points saved up.
After you have crafted a certain number of points worth, you will move up to the next level which earns more points/hour. This allows you to craft more or better creations.
Level 1, earn 3 points per hour
100 points = Level 2, earn 5 points per hour.
1,000 points = Level 3, earn 8 points per hour.
10,000 points = Level 4, earn 12 points per hour.
100,000 points = Level 5, earn 17 points per hour.
4.D.3 Constructing:
As you travel around the Isles, you will find tons of raw materials for crafting all sorts of things: ores for metals, fibers from which fabrics can be made, etc. There are various craft booklets around the isles where you can find and learn different Plans. This allows you to use what you've found to make useful items.
However, some items are far more difficult to make than others, and you will need to have the necessary skill level in order to be able to craft these things. There are five Constructing Skill Levels:
1 NAILBENDER
2 CRAFTSMAN
3 JOURNEYMAN
4 ARTISAN
5 MASTER ARTISAN
4.D.4 Cooking:
There are many recipes to learn in Horse Isle. You will find various recipe books scattered throughout the isles where you can learn different recipes. Upon learning a recipe, you can combine the ingredients if you have them and a Cook Set. As with crafting, there are five levels of cooking skill:
1 DISHWASHER
2 COOK
3 HEAD COOK
4 SOUS CHEF
5 MASTER CHEF
4.D.5 Sewing:
You will find various plans around the world for things that need to be sewn, such as horse blankets, saddle pads, splint boots and the like. A Sewing Kit is required to make sewn items, and can be purchased from a tool store. There are five levels for the Sewing Skill:
1 FINGERPOKER
2 IRREGULAR STITCHER
3 SEAMSTER
4 QUILTER
5 MASTER STITCHER
4.D.6 Failure:
When you are just starting out with any crafting profession you are bound to fail sometimes. When you fail a crafting attempt the raw materials are not lost or damaged, rather just the effort put towards the project is lost.
The Odds of failure is determined by this formula:
FAILURE ODDS = 30% + (PlanLevel x 10%) - (YourSkillLevel x 15%)
So someone with level 1 skill doing a level 1 plan will fail 25% of the time.
but someone at level 3 skill doing a level 2 plan will only fail 5% of the time.
4.D.7 Jewelling:
Using the various craft plans you can find around, you can learn to make various articles of jewelry. The levels are:
1. BEAD STRINGER
2. CLASP CRIMPER
3. GEM CUTTER
4. JEWELER
5. MASTER JEWELER
E) Inventory
4.E.1 Types of Items:
You will see that your inventory list can show you items by type, as well as all the items at once. You can look specifically at quest items, foodstuffs, gems, ores, tools and several other categories. If you choose to look at All Items, you will see everything you are carrying, arranged by type of item.
4.E.2 How Much Can I Carry?:
How much you can carry depends on a couple of different factors. In Horse Isle: Legend of the Esrohs, each item has a weight and also takes up a certain amount of space. The space you have on you in which to carry things only holds a certain amount, so you should be careful and select only the things you need when you pack for a day's riding. If you own your own property, you will be able to have more stuff, as you will then have a place to keep it. Horses also serve to carry your inventory, so the more horses you have,the more you can carry. In any case, at a maximum, you can only carry 250 of any particular item with you at any time.
4.E.3 Carrying More Inventory:
Players cannot carry more than 250 of any item type. Beyond that, your inventory has a few vital statistics- slots, weight, and bulk.
"Slots" are the number of different types of objects you can carry. Subscribers can get more slots by adding on to their ranch houses. Each ranch house level adds 15 slots.
The next two stats refer to specifics about the type of inventory you're carrying. The weight (heaviness) and bulk (total size) of an inventory item is shown by clicking its icon in the inventory list. The more horses you have, the heavier weight and greater bulk of inventory you can carry.
In addition, the Pack Rat club bonus increases weight and bulk capacity by 50%.
4.E.4 Garbage Cans and Recycle Bins:
Garbage Cans (Dust Bins for those of you on the East side of the Pond) are only for disposing of any trash you might find lying around a town. Depositing litter in a garbage can/bin is good for the town, and good for you in several ways (which you'll find out about when you help the towns' clean-up efforts).
Inventory items cannot be put in garbage cans/bins. These must be deposited in Recycle Bins. These will accept any items except Quest Items and garbage. You can only give quest items to the NPCs for whom they are intended.
Don't worry, you cannot accidentally throw away a quest item.
4.E.5 Help! I'm overloaded!:
If you have more inventory than you are able to carry based on your slot, bulk, and weight limits, or if you have more horses than you can house, you will be overloaded. When overloaded, players cannot ride horses or pick items.
If you are overloaded on inventory, check your Inventory tab to see whether the problem is with your slots, bulk, or weight limits.
If you are overloaded on slots you will need to remove some item types from your inventory by selling items or tacking up horses. If you are a subscriber, you can increase the number of slots by upgrading your ranch house.
If you are overloaded on bulk you will need to remove some large items from your inventory. Often the culprit in this case is tack, and tacking up horses will reduce your bulk. You can increase the amount of bulk you can carry by having more horses.
If you are overloaded on weight you will need to remove some heavy items from your inventory. Tack is also a common culprit and weight can often be reduced by tacking up your horses. Having more horses will also increase the amount of weight you can carry.
If you are overloaded on horses you will need to sell or surrender some horses, or purchase additional barn space.
4.E.6 Limits:
Regardless of whether or not you own a ranch and have storage facilities or not, at no time will you be able to have more than 250 of any one item.
NOTE: If you are given or collect additional items beyond the 250 quantity limit these will simply disappear into the netherlands of Horse Isle.
F) Mail System
4.F.1 Mail System Overview:
In each city hall, you will find a mailbox. Using this mailbox you can send messages to other players.
Subscribers can also send money and items (though not quest items) to other players via the mail system. There is a very small charge for this service. If you own a ranch isle, you may add a mailbox which allows you to receive your mail at home.
Click on a mailbox to see if there are any messages waiting for you.
4.F.2 Sending Mail:
In order to send mail to another player, go to any City Hall. Each of them will have a blue mailbox somewhere inside.
To send mail, click on the mailbox itself, and then click SEND. You will then be asked for the exact name of the player to whom you wish to send mail. You can only send mail to a player whose name is spelled correctly, so make sure you know to whom you want to send it.
When you have typed in the correct name, if you are are playing for free, you type in your message and your letter will be sent. If you are a subscriber, you will be given three options:
Send Letter. This costs $100, and allows you to send a simple text letter with a title.
Send Item. Subscribers can ship any item, along with a letter, for $250. When you click this option, you will be asked to choose an item from your inventory. You may only send one item per package.
Send money with letter. Subscribers for $250 can send money to another player, from $1 up to the amount you have on hand. The game will not allow you to send more money than you are carrying, so be sure you are carrying at least as much as you wish to send before going to City Hall.
Sending messages to multiple people. Players can "carbon-copy" a letter to multiple people for 3 times the cost of a single letter. (1 letter to 1 person costs $100. If I send that 1 letter to 2 people, $100 * 2 people * 3 = $600 total charge.) Subscribers can send items and money to multiple players also, provided that they have enough of the item or enough money to go to each player.
4.F.3 Receiving Mail:
To see if you have mail, go to any City Hall and click on the mailbox there. Then click CHECK. When you do this, your mail status will appear in the right-side chat box, either telling you that you have no mail, or how many parcels/letters are waiting for you.
To read your mail/open your packages, go to the Button Bar and click on MYSELF, then go down to the View Your Mail Messages line and click VIEW. You will be shown a list of what mail you have, who sent it, and when. To see the contents of each piece of mail, click VIEW. When opening mail with enclosures, any money is immediately added to your cash on hand, and enclosures added to your Inventory.
4.F.4 If You Own An Island:
If you are a subscriber and own an island, you will be able to install a mailbox on one of your building plots. You may then receive all your mail and packages at home and send mail as well.
G) Misc
4.G.1 Is there breeding?:
There is no breeding. We have opted for an everlasting horse. This means that the horse will never die and you can spend a lot of time and money on your horse without the worry of losing that horse. Also, this means there are no 'unwanted' horses because too many were bred or because the mare or stallion is no longer 'needed' for breeding.
4.G.2 Personal Information:
As part of the rules of the game, and just as a general Internet Safety practice, you may neither give out yourself, nor ask for from other players, personal information of any kind. You may not say anything which could identify you personally, even obliquely. You are allowed to say what country you come from, and what state, province, territory or department you live in. You may not name a city (even if there are more people in that city than there are in most small countries). Also, never mention your school, any teams you support from that school, your grade or your age. You may say the month and day of your birthday, but you must not give the year. Giving out personal information will earn you a severe punishment, which may include being banned from the game. Asking for personal information from another player can get you banned from the game on the spot.
If, at any time, another player asks you for your phone number, your address, your age, your school or your personal e-mail address, please immediately ignore that player, and then report that player to the moderators. Sometimes this is just a case of a younger player who has not bothered to read the rules, but it is best never to take chances.
4.G.3 The Dungeon:
The Dungeon is essentially for crowd control. The different parts of Horse Isle: Legend of the Esrohs (that is, islands and interiors) are all treated by the server as separate "zones." The server has a great deal of trouble keeping up when a zone is overcrowded (generally when there are more than 60 people in one zone). When this happens, all players in the zone will be given a warning that unless the zone becomes less crowded in two minutes time, everyone in the zone will be sent to prison at the end of that time. Keep this in mind, and use the minimap to look over a very popular isle (any isle with a town on it), before deciding to stay there.
Once in the Dungeon, you must follow the instructions of the Dungeon Guard in order to be released.
4.G.4 Random Events:
Random events are little things that happen to you from time to time, which either give you something or take something away. You might, for example, drop some money down a well and lose it, or you might suddenly find a gemstone somewhere. In the end, Random Events are usually a net positive, so if you play for a while, you will usually gain more than you lose. Just a little something to keep the game interesting.
4.G.5 World Events:
World events occur every 15 to 30 hours. These may temporarily change the way a part of the game works, give/take a bonus to horses, or give/take a minor amount of money from everyone. These events will pop up when they occur and you are online. Otherwise, recent events may be viewed from the PLAYERS menu. Note that these events affect everyone online or offline. Even though there are a few negative events, in the long run, there are more and better positive ones. So the end result should just be some minor twists to game play to add a little extra variation.
H) Ranches
4.H.1 Obtaining a Ranch:
If you are a subscriber, you are able to buy a ranch island of your own. Ranch islands do not show up on the maps.
To buy a ranch, go to any City Hall. On the walls there, you will find a Community Board. Clicking on this will bring up the Ranch window.
Here you are given a choice of sizes and terrains, varying from Tiny to Huge. "Grassy" isles grow Fruit and Nut trees. "Plains" isles grow flowers and plants. Which trees/shrubs/plants appear on a particular ranch island is randomly set when you buy your ranch. Nota bene: these trees, etc. are not pickable. Instead, their produce goes into the ranch owner's inventory once a day, beginning 24 hours after the ranch has been purchased.
Clicking on any of these options will buy you your island. To get to the island, go to the nearest dock. At the bottom of the Routes list, you will see, "Transport to your own ranch for $100." You can use this option to get to your own island from any port on the Isles. It is also possible to buy a Lifetime Pass which, once you own it, allows travel to and from your ranch for free. This pass costs $20,000 and is available from some of the harbormasters.
Note: You can only buy a ranch from City Hall, and you can only sell it to City Hall. Players cannot sell ranches to one another. Also, only one player may own any ranch; players cannot "share" an island.
The first thing you'll see on your island is a Welcome sign. Clicking on this sign tells you what your ranch has produced since your last visit (if anything) and also gives you the option of sailing back to the port from which you came.
4.H.2 Benefits of Owning an Island:
The benefits of owning an island of your own depend upon what you build on it. Options available to you include:
Horse sheds and barns, which allow you to keep additional horses.
Feed Silos, which automatically feed your horses.
Water towers, which automatically water both you and your horses.
Farm Plots, which feed you and generate extra produce which you can sell; the produce these farm plots provide is not found "in the wild" on the isles, and some of it is necessary for various quests.
Maple Trees, Milk Cows, Hen Houses, Sheep providing more items not found "in the wild" which you can then sell to other players.
Mines, which generate various metals and gems, five chunks/nuggets and three gems per day per mine.
Windmills, which generate money.
Training Centers which allow you to train your own horses at home.
Stores, where you can sell your own crafted items and produce, as well as horses and pets.
Adventure Kayaks, which allow you to travel to Foreign Isles where you can gather extra supplies for cooking, crafting, sewing and jewelry making (these isles do not have quests, treasures or wild horses).
For Each ranch house level that you upgrade to, you are allowed 15 additional inventory slots for more room.
In addition you yourself are provided for at your ranch house as follows:
Level 1 main building: Fully Rested upon visiting
Level 2 main building: Fully Hydrated upon visiting
Level 3 main building: Fully Fed upon visiting
4.H.3 Setting Up Your Ranch:
What you can add to your site depends upon the house you put on the center of it. There are 8 levels of several different architectural styles:
Victorian
Plains Native American
Medieval
Classical Greek
Log Cabin
Hill Home
Tree House
The first thing to do on your ranch is to put down your own home. When you build a Level 1 house (regardless of style), you will be able to put some basic buildings on your ranch. You may build a shed on a ranch at any time; this will allow the keeping of one additional horse. At level four, you may build a barn, which allows three. Gold Barns, available much later, allow five additional horses per barn.
4.H.4 Decorating Your Ranch:
In addition to functional buildings such as barns and silos, each ranch will have several spots where you can put decorative items such as statuary, topiary, hedges and decorative trees. These are a great way to make your ranch unique.
4.H.5 Feeding / Watering:
Having a feed silo on your ranch will automatically give your horses their daily hay/pasture ration, raising their HUNGER stat to 4/5 (800). You can increase this by going to a livery stable, or feeding by hand via the HORSES menu. Horses will also be fed upon visiting your ranch.
The same happens if you install a water silo on your ranch. Horses will be watered to 4/5 automatically.
4.H.6 Levels of Building:
What kinds of buildings you can put on your ranch sometimes depend on the level of ranch house you own. There are eight different levels. At the lowest levels, you can put up horse sheds which allow you to own one additional horse (over the five you are allowed at the start of the game). It is not until you have erected a level 4 Ranch House that you may place a Horse Barn, which allows you to own three additional horses per barn. (Gold Barns are also available, but at level 7, which allow more horses per barn.)
You may place as many barns, as well as many other types of structures, as you want, but some structures are limited to one per island. When you click on a paddle to add or demolish a structure, you will be given a list of what can be put on that spot.
I) Reporting Abuse
4.I.1 About the Game Rules:
Horse Isle: Legend of the Esrohs is meant to be a game which everyone can enjoy. To further this goal, we have numerous rules in place (which you can find by scrolling to the bottom of the login page and clicking Rules) meant to keep people from cheating and from deliberately being offensive to others. There is absolutely no valid reason for anyone to "need" to violate these rules in order to play and enjoy the game; virtually the only way a violation can occur is if a player purposely goes out of their way to make a nuisance of themselves. Because of this, violation of any of our rules is taken very seriously.
This being said, in a few extremely rare cases, something that looks like a rule violation may happen accidentally. Every rule violation reported to us is checked by admins whose job it is to make sure that what actually happened is what was reported to us. All chat on all channels, and all trades between players, are logged so that the admins have immediate access to exactly what was done. The admins are then at their discretion to choose an appropriate response.
4.I.2 About the Chat Filter:
Most of the abuse reported in the game has to do with violations such as name-calling. Persons trying to introduce inappropriate topics in order to call attention to themselves are also a problem. To reduce the annoyance this causes as much as possible, we have installed a chat filter.
The chat filter passes everything you try to say in chat through itself to limit inappropriate subjects (adult topics, religion, racism, personal information, etc) and language as far as possible. Many people have said that this severely limits their opportunities to express themselves. But this does not need to be the case. The chat dictionary is over 600,000 words and added to regularly. Surely there are enough in there to make any point related to game play. If you would like to discuss topics other than those related to the game, there are many other venues on the web for this purpose.
Since the filter is composed of only properly spelled words it prevents avoiding the filter by doing things such as spacing out the letters.
Some chatspeak and border-line expressions are automatically replaced with more accessible versions. Typing BRB will replace with "be right back" etc.
J) Tools
4.J.1 Overview:
Game tools can be purchased from Tool Shops in all main towns except for LeafTon. Not all tools are available in all stores. Many of these tools are necessary to complete quests in game. A full description of all tools is listed in the BBB (Big Book of Breeds) in the libraries... although there is also a Portable BBB tool that will let you access this information on the go!
Once purchased, tools cannot be resold to tool shops or to other players.
The Rake will be given to you during your first quest on Welcome Isle. The Shovel, Magnifying Glass, and Binoculars tools are commonly used in quests and are recommended purchases for all players.
4.J.2 Keyboard Shortcuts:
The following keyboard shortcuts are available for quicker use of the game Tools that you own. These may not be supported by all browsers.
The TAB key repeats the use of the last tool you used.
Ctrl+F1: Shovel
Ctrl+F2: Magnifying glass
Ctrl+F3: Binoculars
Ctrl+F4: Rake
Ctrl+F6: Ruby Slippers
5) Horses
A) Auctions
5.A.1 Who can participate:
Access to horse auctions is a subscriber benefit. Only subscribed players can purchase horses from auctions or sell horses to auctions.
If you're not a subscriber and no longer want one of your horses, you can surrender it to the Livery Barns in towns.
5.A.2 Submitting a horse for auction:
In order to auction a horse, a player sells it to an auction house. The horse is immediately removed from the player's HORSES list and is no longer the property of that that player. Upon selling a horse to an auction house, the seller will be asked to set certain parameters:
The minimum price for which they would like the horse to be sold.
The duration of the auction. This may be anywhere from 10 minutes to 24 hours. The amount of the Listing Fee (in Horse Isle dollars) will be higher for longer times.
Whether or not to allow Foreign Bidders (which are explained separately). If you allow Foreign Bidders, you will not only have more bidders for your horse, but you are guaranteed to sell the horse at a minimum price based on its stats, if no one else bids. Foreign bidders always bid immediately on any horse they may bid on. They do not raise their bids, so they cannot outbid you.
Whether or not to Short-Sell the horse. This option immediately sells the horse to the foreign bidder for half of the normal foreign bidder's price. It is useful for those players who wish to auction many horses quickly, or have horses who, for whatever reason, they would like to sell but do not care to sell to another player.
Note: When a horse is offered to any auction house, it will appear in all auction houses on the Isles. Carrier Pigeons keep the auction houses in touch with one another.
5.A.3 Bidding:
To bid on a horse, go to an auctioneer and click AUCTION to get a list of horses available for bidding.
Once you bid on a horse, you have committed yourself to buy the horse at the price you've bid, in the event you win the auction. Bids cannot be retracted, so bid carefully.
The minimum by which you may raise a horse is 1% of the current bid. For example, if a horse is currently selling for $10,000, you must raise by at least $100.
5.A.4 Foreign Bidders:
Horse Isle horses are much in demand by folks in neighboring Island groups. These folks often come to visit Horse Isle looking for good horses for sport and pleasure riding. They appear as "Foreign Bidder" in auction lists.
The presence of a Foreign Bidder (in reality, the server) ensures that a horse cannot be sold for less than it is worth, depending on its various statistics. When a foreign bidder buys a horse, that horse is permanently removed from the game.
B) Care
5.B.1 General Notes:
While in Horse Isle you do not need to feed your horses every real-life day, you do need to take care of them as they require for the amount of time you spend in the game. When you VIEW a horse, you will see a graph, and various other statistics, on the horse's condition. It's your responsibility to maintain these as close to all-green or 1000/1000 as possible. The bond a horse has with you goes up by 1 point every real hour. A horse's mood, affection for you and bond with you all figure into its performance stats.
5.B.2 Overall Health of Your Horses:
Many factors contribute to the overall health of your horse. Horses are at their healthiest when they are regularly fed and watered, of course, but it is also vitally important that they receive proper rest. Overall health matters in competitions of all kinds, and sellers of horses should keep in mind that many players will not buy a horse who is not in perfect health.
Please be aware that proper care is vitally important in this game. A horse's overall health will suffer the hungrier, thirstier and more tired it becomes. A brief rest and a quick meal will not completely cure a run-down horse. Regular, adequate rest, food and drink are required to keep a horse in prime condition. Veterinary care is not needed for such a horse; it will recover in time with good care.
Very rarely, your horse may suffer an actual injury or illness. These should be seen by a veterinarian immediately, as the longer these remain, the more overall health your horse will lose. When a horse becomes injured or ill, you will be dismounted immediately if you are riding it, and will not be able to remount it until the horse has been cared for.
When a horse is starving, it will lose 4 points of health per hour. If the horse has an injury, it will lose 2 points of health every hour it has that injury. In order for your horse's health to go up, you can either feed it a supplement that can be purchased from a feed store, or make sure it is uninjured, and its hunger and thirst stay above 300. Then it will gain 10 points of health every hour.
5.B.3 Livery Stables:
Each large town will have a livery stable where you can board your horses for a fee. Fees vary from town to town. All livery stables provide food, water and rest, and their services are the same everywhere. Boarding a horse at a livery stable will raise a horse's hunger, thirst and tiredness to 1000 (all-green on the graph). The base cost is $0.25 per thirst point, $1.00 per hunger point, times whatever percent markup that particular livery stable charges.
5.B.4 Farriers:
Each large town is home to a blacksmith/farrier. Services available from farriers, as well as prices for these services, vary from town to town. There are several different types of shoes one can have one's horses shod with, and these all have different properties. Not all farriers can put on all types of shoes, so get to know what each individual farrier carries and how much they pay for it.
5.B.5 Veterinarians:
Veterinarians treat horse injuries. Just as in real life, horses on Horse Isle can be (although very rarely are) injured from time to time, to various degrees. Overall health will decline steadily the longer an injured horse remains without veterinary care. This decline continues to increase even when you are offline, so it is very important to take an injured horse in for veterinary care immediately after an injury.
Veterinarians in different towns charge differing rates for their services, but all of them can heal your horse.
Nota bene: There are some things that veterinary care cannot heal. The effects of starvation and thirst cannot be instantly reversed by a trip to a vet. Proper care is required at all times.
5.B.6 Groomers:
Groomers can be found in all the large towns. Most of them have outdoor shops, although the GlacierTon groomer works out of the livery barn. Grooming not only makes your horse more beautiful, but it improves their mood! With the groom stat, 1000 means fully, perfectly groomed.
5.B.7 Tack Stores:
Tack stores vary in the prices they charge, and they also vary very widely in the selections of tack they carry. All tack stores will carry items which are not available from other stores, so make sure to visit all of them and make notes on what items each of them carries. Tack stores will also buy tack which you no longer need or want.
5.B.8 Neglect:
So be sure to keep your horses fed and watered and quickly make vet appointments if an injury is had. Horses with poor health may not be ridden or competed.
5.B.9 Mood and Affection:
Your horses mood may vary. Petting your horse will improve it's mood, certain treats will also improve it's mood. 500 means the horse is in normal mood. 1000 is super duper happy, and 0 not happy at all. Every 2 minutes whether online or off all of your horses move a point closer to 500. This adds realism of the horse returning to a normal mood.
Affection is based upon mood but changes much more slowly. Once per hour, affection moves the following based upon mood:
5 points up if mood is 1000
3 points up if mood is 800
No change if mood is 500
1 point down if mood is 400
5 points down if mood is 0.
etc.
Both Mood and Affection offer a stat boost in competition. Grumpy horses don't perform as well as happy horses, and the more affectionate a horse is towards you, the better it will do for you.
5.B.10 Trainers:
Each large town has a Horse Trainer in residence. In Horse Isle: Legend of the Esrohs, horses can be trained in all six competition categories: speed, strength, agility, endurance, conformation, and intelligence. Trainers offer various levels of training:
Basic: The trainer attempts to train the horse 1 point in the area you specify.
Extended: The trainer attempts to train the horse 2 points in the area you specify.
Maximum: The trainer attempts to train the horse 4 points in the area you specify.
Prices go up accordingly at each level, and trainers in different towns charge different rates in any case.
Training Schedule. A horse may accrue one training point every two hours; but rather than having you log in every two hours to train, we've arranged it so that you can train up to two full day's worth of points (up to 25 points) at once. Because of this, you don't need to log in every few hours in order to train a horse.
Training Problems. Most horses accept training readily, but a number of factors can cause a horse to gain nothing by a trainer's efforts at a particular time. A horse with particularly low intelligence, particularly high stubbornness or skittishness, or who is in a particularly bad mood, might fail a particular round of training despite the trainer's best efforts. The horse will gain nothing from that training (that is, the training point for that category will not accrue); nevertheless, the trainer is still paid for their efforts.
Trainers will refuse to try to train horses who are overly tired, hungry, thirsty or unhealthy.
Ranch Training and Maxing: Ranch owners may purchase buildings that provide either stat or experience training for their horses.
Stat training at a ranch also adds 2 experience points to the horse per training. A horse which is "stat maxed" or "maxed" is one whose stats have been trained to their highest level. "Maxed" horses cannot be stat trained further, but still earn the benefits of +2 experience points per stat training at a ranch.
Ranch experience training is added automatically once per day to every horse within the player's possession.
C) Companions
5.C.1 Companions/Pets:
Horses are very gregarious creatures and always love a bit of company. Getting a horse a companion or two (or three!) can give a big boost to his performance. In Horse Isle: Legend of the Esrohs, a number of different companions of various species are available for purchase from the various Pet Stores in the large towns. You can also acquire them from pet stores on Ranch Isles or from player trades.
As one might expect, a large pet will give a larger bonus than a small one. Larger pets are, however, more expensive than small ones. Be aware, though, that even a small pet can make a noticeable difference in how a horse performs, so they are always worthwhile investments.
Pets take 30 days to fully "bond" with a horse. The stat bonus provided is a percentage based on this time frame. (after 15 days, you will get 50% of the offered pet bonus.) Removing a pet and applying again will reset the bond.
5.C.2 I don't want this companion anymore. What can I do with it?:
You can either give or sell it to another player, or you can surrender a companion to the Horse Isle Humane Society for a $500 fee. Each livery stable(barn) owner operates a Humane Society. The best course of action is not to acquire a companion unless you really want it.
Companions can be included with a horse at auction.
Companions may be sold at an expensive Ranch Pet Store if you have one.
5.C.3 Premium Pets:
In addition to the regular pets sold at pet stores everywhere, a certain hard-to-find pet shop offers Premium Pets. These pets look exactly the same as regular pets, but offer a maximum percentage stat boost. Because they are a bigger advantage in competition, Premium Pets are more expensive.
D) Individuality
5.D.1 A Horse's Past:
Each horse has an associated history, which is automatically filled in by the game (it is not editable by the player). The horse's history will tell you:
Whether the horse was ordered by token, or captured in the wild.
On what date it was caught or ordered.
Who caught it and when, and how long they have owned the horse.
All changes that have been made to the horse's name.
Any trades the horse has been involved in, and who traded it.
5.D.2 Breeds:
There are many breeds of horses and ponies found all over the isles. We have tried to be as accurate as possible in depiction of these breeds, their coloration, markings, conformation and physical attributes. This being Horse Isle after all, we have taken the liberty of including some of the more rare colors, and in some cases colors which would otherwise disqualify a horse from registration with a particular breed Society. Nevertheless, these colors, do in fact occur, and are often quite beautiful. We are sure you will be able to find many outstanding examples of your favorite breeds here.
5.D.3 Colorings:
In coming up with color categories for breeds of horses on Horse Isle: Legend of the Esrohs, we consulted not only breed registries, but works by experts in equine color genetics, to come up with the widest range of colors possible for each breed. In some cases, you will be able to find horses in colors which are not acceptable for breed registration in real life (for example, chestnut Andalusians and fox (chestnut) Friesians), but which do actually occur from time to time and are very beautiful. Unlike Horse Isle 1, however, where all colors in a breed occurred with equal frequency, you will find that colors of forces in this game occur with roughly the average frequency that they do in real life; that is a color which is very rare in real life will be very rare here as well.
5.D.4 Genetic Traits:
Genetic statistics are set, on a range of 100-500, for several specific traits:
STR (Strength): Horse's Strength. Strength relates to the pulling power of the horse, sometimes also called Acceleration Speed. Strength is useful in pulling/drafting competitions and in competitions which involve jumping.
SPD (Speed): Horse's Speed. In this case, this is the maximum speed a horse can attain without a boost from special tack, shoes or other circumstances. This is of obvious importance in speed events (but it is not considered in normal riding/travelling around the islands; when travelling from place to place, all breeds in the game go at the same speed).
AGI (Agility): A horse's agility commonly determines how quickly horse can turn, or how well it "handles." Agility is very useful in events which involve quick changes of direction or rapid increases or decreases in speed.
END (Endurance): A horse's endurance, for purposes of this game, determines how long horse can maintain its top speed, or pull with its top strength. This is of paramount importance in cross-country events, but of great importance in almost all other competitions.
INT (Intelligence): A horse's intelligence usually positively affects the entire performance of a horse (usually a final score bonus). In Horse Isle: Legend of the Esrohs, you can improve a horse's intelligence by training.
CON (Conformation): A horse's conformation or build determines how well the horse is built. (This is in terms of overall clean build, not to actual breed type.) In this game, it also has something to do with how well it conforms to your desires--or how readily it responds to the rider's aids.
In this game, each breed has a set "average" score in each trait. However, individual horses of each breed can vary by +- 25 points (Grade horses vary by +/- 100.) These randomizers are added/substracted when the horse is originally generated. They can be raised, however, by the use of special tack and training, which are explained later.
5.D.5 Markings:
In Horse Isle 1, every color came with its own set of markings, which did not change from horse to horse. Not so in Horse Isle: Legend of the Esrohs!
Except for a few breeds on which markings are either extremely slight or do not occur at all, the horses on this game can have markings ranging from none at all to bald faces and high white stockings, to various kinds of pinto, appaloosa and roan patterns. Bend-Or spots and Bird-Catcher spots also occur on rare occasions.
In addition, markings on the face and on each leg are assigned randomly to the horse when it is first generated. Because of this, there are generally well over 100 different combinations of markings, independent of pinto and appaloosa patterns, that can appear on any horse. Individual horses in this game are truly individuals.
5.D.6 Personality:
In Horse Isle 2, we've instituted an interesting system for gauging a horse's personality. when it is generated, each horse is assigned a value from 0-10 on five different scales as follows:
Social/AntiSocial
Easygoing/Stubborn
Brave/Skittish
Leader/Follower
Energetic/Lazy
All of these traits will affect horses' behavior and performance, and trainability, in various ways. A stubborn horse can be a definite problem, though he may have really excellent traits otherwise. A horse who is a born leader may be difficult for other people to train. Sometimes you will come upon a horse that is a shining example of a serenity and cooperativeness, and (fortunately, rarely) you will come upon a horse who wants absolutely nothing to do with anybody at any time -- just as one sometimes does in real life.
Just keep in mind that, as in real life, there is no such thing as an unsalvageable horse. While you cannot change a horse's basic personality, there are ways you can minimize problems and enhance good traits. While a recently captured or ordered horse may be too skittish to be ridden in a cave or too lazy to be ridden in deep snow, these restrictions vanish once a horse has gained 1,000 experience points.
5.D.7 Rump Painting:
Some towns have "Horse Painters" who will paint various designs on your horse's rump for a small fee. These are purely decorative and have no effect on a horse's personality or performance.
In order to have your horse painted, go to a Horse Painter and click on the store owner. Click PATTERNS. A window will appear with a list of the paintings that the artist is able to put on your horse.
Clicking VIEW will show you the painting in a much magnified view.
Clicking BUY will cause that painting to be put onto your horse. Any paintings that are already on the horse will be removed (you cannot have more than one painting on a horse at a time).
E) Leasing
5.E.1 About Leasing Horses:
Subscribers may lease horses from other subscribers by using the trade system. Horses cannot be leased from the livery stables.
Free players may also Lease horses from Subscribers, but without the option of trading anything in return. So the only case where this may be to the subscribers advantage is if you were going to train the horse for the subscriber, or otherwise better it in exchange for its use.
Leases are available in various time limits:
15 minutes
30 minutes
1 hour
2 hours
4 hours
6 hours
12 hours
24 hours (1 day)
48 hours (2 days)
1 week (7 days)
2 weeks (14 days)
4 weeks (28 days)
6 weeks (42 days)
A lessee can only improve a horse, not degrade in any important way. A lessee may heal a horse who becomes injured, have it shod, train it, feed it, ride it and compete with it.
A lessee may not sell the horse, trade it, surrender it to the humane society, or modify its tack or companions in any way.
Upon lease term expiring, the horse is automatically returned to its owner by the game. The lessee does not need to find the lessor in order to return the horse.
5.E.2 Others Training Your Horses:
If you wish to have others train your horse for you, either by adding Exp to it or by maxing its stats, this is possible for experience training. Subscribers can lease their horses to be trained, and accept contracts from other players, while non-subs can only accept contracts from other players.
When it comes to Exp training, the horse owner specifies how much Exp they want, the maximal duration of the training, and how much they are willing to pay for this in total. If the trainer agrees (make sure you think the payment is fair, and that you can complete the training in that time frame!), the payment is held in escrow until the trainer completes training, or otherwise cancels/loses the lease. Payment is made up front, but held from both parties until the lease ends. The trainer receives full payment if the system determines that the full amount of Exp was added. If the full contract was not completed, either because the trainer ran out of time (failed to add the agreed Exp amount on the horse in the specified time-frame) or because the trainer canceled the lease before completing it, the system determines the percentage that was completed, reduces it by 10% and then pays the trainer, refunding the remainder back to the owner.
For example: Contract is $100,000 for 100 exp. Trainer runs out of time after only 70 exp trained, which is 70%. 10% penalty applied earns Trainer $60,000 and Owner gets $40,000 back.
When it comes to Stats training, the horse owner specifies that their horse needs to be maxed (fully trained in its Stats). In this case, the points the trainer will need to add are Stat points, not Exp points. The trainer's task is to train the horse using the services of an NPC-trainer, or using ranch-trainers, until the horse is fully maxed. Either case is fine, if the trainer finishes the contract on time. Note that maxing a horse might take over a month (depends on the breed), so make sure the lease is not shorter than that. The payment method is the same as with the Exp training the system.
Another parameter to consider is the "Trainer's Rate". This number appears on the profile of each player who ever took on a training contract. It specifies the number of contracts that trainer has taken, and how many of them they completed successfully. You can use this parameter when deciding how reliable a trainer is. Remember that as long as you use the training system, even if the trainer fails to complete the contract, you won't lose money.
For example: If a trainer has the following on their profile: 40/50 (80%); it means that so far the trainer has started 50 contracts, and completed 40 of them, resulting in a trainer's rate of 80%.
When you have others train your horse(s) be sure to use this system. Offering to pay additional payment for higher amount of experience, without it being officially included in the agreement, is a trade on a promise and might be a scam.
F) Ownership
5.F.1 How can I get a horse?:
There are several ways of getting a horse.
Wild Horses. You may encounter a horse running wild on the isles. Breeds of horse found will vary depending on terrain type; some breeds are only found in the desert, some only in the mountains, etc. You can see the breed and color of a wild horse by clicking on it and selecting LOOK. Realize that you will never find a wild horse on an island that has a large town, or arena, on it. There is no "best place" to find a wild horse- any island which can have horses on it has the same chance as any other island to have a horse on it right now. In other words, you have the same chance of finding a horse on Prairie as you do on Bend.
Buying Horses From Other Players. Players new to the game will probably get their first horse or horses by buying a horse from another player. When you LOOK at another player, you will see a list of their horses. When you VIEW an individual horse, you will see, under Tags, the "for sale" status of each horse. Please be aware that it is extremely rude to ask a player if they will sell a horse that is marked "NEVER!" for sale, so don't do this!
Ranch Stores. Some players may sell horses at their ranch. This is available to all players, though a non-subscriber can only spend up to $50,000 per day (or up to $150,000 if they save up for 3 days.) What horses are available for sale can be found at a City Hall on the community board.
Horse Auctions. Subscribers can buy and sell horses at auction. This is covered under its own heading.
Adopting from the Humane Society. The Horse Isle Humane Society, of which all livery barns are members, accepts surrendered horses from players and will allow you to adopt one for a flat fee of $20,000.
Horse Leasing. Players can lease a horse for a specified period of time from another player. This is discussed under its own heading.
Tokens. The Horse Token system replaces the "Pawneer" from Horse Isle 1. These are discussed under their own heading.
5.F.2 Can I breed my horses?:
There is no breeding. We have opted for an everlasting horse. This means that the horse will never die and you can spend a lot of time and money on your horse without the worry of losing that horse. Also, this means there are no 'unwanted' horses because too many were bred or because the mare or stallion is no longer 'needed' for breeding.
If you would like to play a game that features breeding, you may enjoy Horse Isle 2: LifeCycle version.
5.F.3 Horse Leasing:
Subscribers may lease a horse to another player using the trade system. Instead of giving them the horse, you lease, which is a temporary rental of the horse. Once the lease expires the horse automatically reverts to the original owner's control. Leased horses can be improved in a variety of ways, but cannot have their tack or companions removed.
5.F.4 Horse Tokens:
The two types of Horse Token allow you to buy a horse of the breed, color, and gender you want. You may also select one personality trait to guarantee (or a personality range if you use a Super Horse Token) and the horse's range of genetic statistics. The differences between the two types of tokens are described below.
Purchasing Horse Tokens: Horse Tokens, like subscription tokens, are bought with real money via the Shop page. Regular Horse Tokens cost US$8.00 each, or US$30.00 for a pack of five. Super Horse Tokens cost US$15.00 each, or US$60.00 for a pack of five.
As soon as PayPal lets us know that you have paid (this usually takes less than five minutes but is sometimes delayed for various reasons), you will find the tokens you have bought in your inventory. Click INVENTORY on the button bar, and then VIEW TOKENS (at the bottom of the list that shows up).
Using Horse Tokens: In order to use a Horse Token, click INVENTORY on the button bar, then VIEW on View Tokens. This will bring up a window which shows you how many tokens of each kind you currently have. Click USE next to Horse Tokens.
You will now see a window showing the breeds available to you at the time. Scroll until you find the breed you want, and then click SELECT to select a horse of that breed.
The window will change to one offering you several options for your horse. These options differ based on whether you have purchased a Horse Token or Super Horse Token.
Color. Horses in Horse Isle: Legend of the Esrohs come in an extremely wide range of colors. We have tried to include as many of the colors genetically possible in a breed as possible. Choose the color you want from the drop-down list.
Gender. Next, choose whether you would like a mare or a stallion. Mares have their manes on the right side, generally visible, and stallions have their manes on the left side to show their crests. This is the only difference between the genders on this game.
Genetic Stats. This allows you to choose the range of variation in these stats. It's important to remember that these are ranges and do not guarantee that any particular stat area will be particularly high or particularly low. The regular Horse Token and Super Horse Token have different stat ranges:
Horse Token: The standard Horse Token has three stat range options.
1. "Well Rounded: 0 - +10" This option guarantees that your horse will have no negative stats. The horse will be close to average in all areas. If you are ordering a Grade Pony, Grade Saddle Horse, or Grade Draft, the stats will be between 0 and 40 rather than 0 and 10.
2. "Wide Range: -10 - +20" This option allows for the possibility of higher genetic stats than the Well Rounded range, but also introduces the possibility that some stats will be negative. If you are ordering a Grade Pony, Grade Saddle Horse, or Grade Draft, the stats will be between -40 and 80.
3. "Normal Wild Horse: -25 - +25" With this option, the horse has the potential for higher genetic stats than the other two options, but also the potential for much lower stats. If you are ordering a Grade Pony, Grade Saddle Horse, or Grade Draft, the stats will be between -100 and +100.
Super Horse Token: The Super Horse Token on the Eternal server has two stat ranges. Neither option will ever give you a horse with negative genes. However, it is important to remember that neither option guarantees high positives. It is possible to get a horse with +5 in all genes with the Super Rounded option and a horse with 0 in all genes with the Super Range option. Make sure that you remember that you are ordering within a range, rather than guaranteeing specific numbers in any particular stats.
1. "Super Rounded: +5 to +15" This range guarantees that your horse's stats will all be above average. If you are ordering a Grade Pony, Grade Saddle Horse, or Grade Draft, the stats will be between +20 and +45.
2. "Super Range: 0 to +25" This range guarantees that your horse's genes will all be average or above. It allows for the highest gene variation possible with a Super Token but does not guarantee high genes. If you are ordering a Grade Pony, Grade Saddle Horse, or Grade Draft, the stats will be between 0 and 100.
Personality: Both the regular Horse Token and Super Horse Token allow you to select an Assured Personality Trait, which guarantees that the horse will strongly demonstrate one of the 10 personality traits available. A horse with assured trait "Social" is guaranteed to rank as 8 or above on the Antisocial-Social dimension, whereas a horse with assured trait "Antisocial" is guaranteed to rank as 2 or below on that dimension. All other traits will be assigned at random.
Super Horse Token: If you have purchased a Super Token, you may choose to guarantee that all personality traits will fall between a certain range, rather than guaranteeing just one trait. The Narrow Average guarantees that all traits will be between 4 and 6, and the Wide Average guarantees that all traits will be between 3 and 8.
Height: It is not possible to select a specific height for your horse- for example, you cannot directly determine that it will be 16.2hh. However, you can select that your horse will be Short (average height for its breed or below) or Tall (average height for its breed or above) if its height is important to you. You can also select a Random height if height doesn't matter.
Markings: With both types of token, you can select your horse's odds of exhibiting many markings. Odds of More Markings increases your chances of several marking types at a time (for instance, four socks, a star, and a snip) whereas Odds of Fewer Markings increases your chance of few or no markings (for instance, one small sock and a snip.) You can also select Random if markings aren't important to you. Markings only applies to the socks and face markings, NOT the pinto pattern, possible spots on the breed or other random variations for a breed or color.
Horse Token: With this type of token, you cannot select to have any particular marking, so the appearance of the horse will be a surprise.
Super Token: This token allows you to preview your horse's markings before purchase. It is useful if you are looking to get a horse with a specific appearance.
VERY, VERY IMPORTANT: Carefully review all your selections before hitting "Order Horse." Once a horse is ordered, its stats cannot be changed, and you may not request a different horse.
When you click ORDER HORSE, the horse will appear in your HORSES list. If you've used a Horse Token it will be named "Ordered Horse," and if you've used a Super Token it will be named "Super Horse."
5.F.5 How Many Horses Can I Own?:
Non-subscribers can own up to five horses.
Subscribers who own islands can add barns to their islands; the number of horses they may own depends upon the room they have for horses in these barns. Sheds allow you to own one more horse; barns allow you to own three. Once you have a house on your island, you can add a shed, but barns require at least a Level 4 house. How many sheds and barns you place is up to you and limited only by the number of building plots on your island.
5.F.6 How to Capture a Wild Horse:
Every so often, while exploring the isles, you may come upon a rare wild horse. Clicking on the horse will give you two options:
LOOK, which will tell you the breed and color of the horse, and
CAPTURE, which will send you to the Horse Capture minigame.
A note about the latter: You cannot try to capture a horse at the same time another person is trying for that particular horse. You will need to wait until that person has finished the minigame themselves, and if they are unsuccessful, then you may take a turn.
When the capture minigame starts, you will find yourself in a small patch of the terrain on which you were walking. Walk around this area until you find hoofprints. Follow these to the horse. You will notice a darker border around the area. Neither you nor the horse can cross this.
Use the mouse to guide your character (it will follow the cursor).
When you think you are in a good position to capture the horse, click on the horse. When you release the mouse button, a lasso will be thrown. You may or may not capture the horse. You may throw the lasso as many times as you like in the time allowed (the counter is on the top). If you do not capture the horse, you exit the game.
If you did not catch the horse and there is someone else nearby trying to catch the same horse, they may try as soon as you exit the minigame. If they too don't catch it, you may try again as soon as they are done. If nobody else is there, you must wait five minutes before trying to capture that horse again.
If your capture is successful, you will see the success screen and the horse will be added to your Horses list.
Catching wild horses is difficult and takes practice.
Nota bene: If your computer is running the game very, very slowly, it may appear you have caught a horse when actually you have not. The servers activate the horse-capture minigame on your computer when you try to capture a horse. If they do not hear back of a successful capture after a certain amount of time has passed, they assume the horse was not captured, in which case another player gets a turn at it. This happens only very rarely and at the slowest frame rates, so you may never actually experience this. But, if you do, now you know why.
5.F.7 I don't want this horse anymore. What do I do?:
If you have a horse you no longer want, and that nobody will buy from you, you might consider giving it as a gift to a new player.
If you do not want to do this, you can surrender the horse to the Horse Isle Humane Society. Any livery stable owner will receive surrendered horses. You cannot release horses into the wild. Nota Bene: Once you surrender a horse, it is no longer yours. If the Humane Society manages to find a new home for it, they keep the money.
Subscribers may do either of these things, or they may opt to auction the horse. Auctions are described elsewhere.
5.F.8 My current number of horses:
The current number of horses you have or may have is what is calculated to determine if you are at your max yet.
This number is:
Number of normal horses on hand
+ leased horses from others
+ horses out on lease
+ horses up at auction
+ horses you have a winning bid on.
So, the number of horses you "Have" is a little inflated, but is there to prevent over-max situations.
5.F.9 Riding:
You can mount a horse that has a saddle pad, saddle and bridle. Travel is twice as quick as foot travel. All horses travel the same speed while roaming the islands. Any difference between two players will be a product of computer speed rather than horse speed.
If the horse has under ~300 experience it may "Buck" and throw you off once in a while. The closer to 300exp the far less often this will occur.
Bareback riding is possible, but only with a player having over 5000exp and horse over 1000exp
Horses slowly become hungry, thirsty and tired while riding around the lands.
(-3 thirst, -2 hunger, -1 tired approximately every 300ft)
While riding in desert thirst is -6 (twice as fast). You can buy water buckets (these can be filled at wells) and horse feed which you can offer to your horse at any time, but rest must come at a barn or your ranch.
Pressing F7 allows you to dismount/remount the last horse ridden.
G) Stats
5.G.1 Breed Stats:
Every breed has a set of statistics which mark the highest level of achievement that breed can physically achieve (for purposes of this game) in one of six areas. The numbers you will see are not actual values, but values in comparison to all breeds as a whole.
Speed. The top speed that horses of this breed, with proper training, can physically achieve. This is a measurement of pure top speed, not sustained speed.
Endurance.This stat is a measure of how long a horse can maintain its top speed and/or top pulling or jumping strength.
Strength. A relative measure of the maximum strength of the breed.
Agility. In this game, the Agility stat determines how quickly a horse can turn when moving at speed.
Conformation. For purposes of the game, Conformation refers not only to how a horse is put together (note: this is just physical conformation, and not breed type), but also how ready the horse is to "conform" to what you wish of it; in other words, how cooperative it is.
Intelligence. Individual horses vary very widely in their overall intelligence, but some breeds are more likely, either by design or by environmental influences, to produce more individuals with great problem-solving or cognitive skills.
5.G.2 Genetic Stats:
As mentioned above, these are the stats that a horse is "born" with. This is represented on a scale from 100 to 500. Averages are set for each breed (relative to other breeds).
Individuals of a breed may differ in any category from the breed average by + or - 25 points (Grade horses differ from +/- 100.) Some individual Thoroughbreds, for example, will be smarter or faster than others, sometimes by a good deal. So, in this game, the old adage that "A good horse is never a bad color" strongly applies!
5.G.3 Trained Stats:
Horses can be trained (improved) in any one of the above stats. The amount of training you have put into a horse is represented by the yellow bar which will appear on top of the violet bar on the horse's Stat Graph. A horse can be trained up to the Base Genetic Stat.
When a horse has earned all the stat benefits from training that he possibly can, his graph will show only yellow on top of the violet bar, and he is said to be "stat maxed" or "maxed."
5.G.4 Competition Stats:
Competition Stats are the stats that arenas use. They are a combination of genetic stats, trained stats, various boosts, the horse's health and mood, and so on. You may enter the arena with a horse trained to the maximum in every respect, but if the horse is tired, injured, hungry or in a really bad mood, its competition stats will be very low and the horse will not perform well. Maintaining a horse's affection for you, and forming a strong bond with it, are all extremely important in this game.
5.G.5 Arena Bonuses:
Most of the arenas have a bonus available that certain breeds are set with. This gives those particular breeds a boost at those arenas.
Barrel Racing: +100 Agility (AGI) Comp Stat
Jockey: +100 Speed (SPD) Comp Stat
Desert Racing: +50 Endurance (END) Comp Stat and +50 Speed (SPD) Comp Stat
Cross Country: +50 Endurance (END) Comp Stat and +50 Strength (STR) Comp Stat
Cutting: +100 Speed (SPD) Comp Stat
Draft: +100 Strength (STR) Comp Stat
Jumping: +50 Speed (SPD) Comp Stat and +50 Strength (STR) Comp Stat
Reining: +100 Intelligence (INT) Comp Stat
5.G.6 Esroh Boosts:
Should you ever manage to actually find an Esroh, there will be good things in store for you and your horses. We'll leave it to you to find out what they are!
5.G.7 Pets Boost:
Most horses love pets in real life, and all Horse Isle horses love them too. In Horse Isle: Legend of the Esrohs, a horse can have up to three companions. There are quite a wide range from which to choose.
Each companion type offers a maximum percent bonus to the horse's competitive stats. When the companion and horse first meet, that bonus starts at 0%, and gradually increases over a period of 30 days. Full bonus will be achieved at this time.
5.G.8 Tack Boost:
Different kinds of tack will boost your horses' abilities in a variety of ways. However, tack that makes a great difference in abilities is extremely expensive. It might be best to decide what you want beforehand and save up for it, rather than buying whatever you can get in the hopes of selling it again later.
Only the saddle, bridle and saddle-pad/numnah actually give a bonus. You can put various other kinds of tack on your horse (skid boots, hats, bell boots, etc) but these are just "for pretty" and do not affect your horse in any way.
Feel free to mix and match different types of both regular and special tack.
H) Tack
5.H.1 Tack Overview:
Not only is tack required to ride your horse and participate in Arena events, but it can also improve your horses abilities.
EXAMPLE: An example of how tack affects horse stats:
Your Horse, Bubba, has 300 genetic Speed Stat Points. You have also trained Bubba 100 points in Speed. So Bubba's Base Speed Stat is 400 (genetic + trained). This number gets modified by the Tack bonus percentage. If you put a saddle on with a 10% Speed Bonus, Bubba's speed stat for competition arenas will be 440 with nothing else factored in.
All tack bonuses run off the Base Stat separately, they do not compound. So if you also had a saddle blanket that provided a 10% speed bonus, your competition stat would be 480 in speed.
5.H.2 Decoration Tack:
In addition to the saddle/saddle pad/bridle tack. There are other types of tack available that do not influence gameplay, but rather just allow you to customize your horse. These Include:
Mane Decor: attaching flowers, etc to the horses mane.
Hats: horse can wear a hat of various types.
Boots: boots and wraps can be worn.
Blankets: when no saddle or pad is tacked, a blanket may be put on instead.
5.H.3 1-Star Tack:
All of the other tack (typical English, Western, Australian) in Horse Isle: Legend of the Esrohs falls into this category. It may range in price up to $200k.
This "Plain" tack may give bonuses up to (+10% saddle / +6% bridle / +4% pad)
This is the only tack which may be used in Listed Competitions.
5.H.4 2-Star Tack:
7 sets of valuable tack fall into this category:
Racing Tack (Speed)
Power Tack (Strength)
Clever Tack (Intelligence)
Marathon Tack (Endurance)
Fancy Tack (Conformation)
Nimble Tack (Agility)
All of these provide the following base tack bonuses:
(+10% saddle / +6% bridle / +4% pad to all stats)
In addition to the above percentages:
(+10% saddle / +6% bridle / +4% pad to main stat)
Touring Tack (all purpose)
(+15% saddle / +9% bridle / +6% pad to all stats)
Estimated full tack set value: $500,000
This tack may be used in all competitions except Listed.
5.H.5 3-Star Tack:
The following 7 sets of powerful tack fall into this category:
Peregrine Falcon Tack (Speed)
Gorilla Tack (Strength)
Dolphin Tack (Intelligence)
Camel Tack (Endurance)
Peacock Tack (Conformation)
Jackrabbit Tack (Agility)
All provide the following base stat bonuses:
( +20% saddle / +12% bridle / +8% pad bonus for all stats)
In addition to the above percentages:
(+10% saddle / +6% bridle / +4% pad to main stat)
Adventurer Tack (All Purpose)
(+25% saddle / +15% bridle / +10% pad bonus for all stats)
Estimated full tack set value: $2,000,000
This tack may not be used in Listed competitions.
5.H.6 4-Star Tack:
The following 7 sets of magical tack fall into this category:
Lightning Tack(Speed)
Hercules Tack (Strength)
Wizard Tack (Intelligence)
Odyssey Tack (Endurance)
Glorious Tack (Conformation)
Ninja Tack (Agility)
These all provide for:
(+30% saddle / +18% bridle / +12% pad bonus for all stats)
In addition to the above percentages:
(+10% saddle / +6% bridle / +4% pad to main stat)
Expedition Tack (All-Purpose)
(+35% saddle / +21% bridle / +14% pad bonus for all stats)
Estimated Full Set Value: $10,000,000
This tack is restricted to use in Groups I and II for competition purposes.
5.H.7 5-Star Tack:
The fabled Esroh tack is the only set which falls into this category.
Very few players will ever manage to collect a set of this tack.
Where to find it and how to obtain it is ... for you to find out!
Esroh Saddle provides 50% base stat bonus for all stats.
Esroh Bridle provides 30% base stat bonus for all stats.
Esroh Saddle Pad provides 20% base stat bonus for all stats.
Estimated Full Set Value: $250,000,000
This tack is restricted, for competition purposes, to Groups I and II.
5.H.8 Bareback Riding:
It is possible to ride a horse without tack provided the following conditions are met:
Horse has over 1000 experience.
Player has over 5000 experience.
6) Players
A) Buddies
6.A.1 Adding and Removing Buddies:
There are a couple different ways in which you may add a player to your list of buddies. One way is by clicking on the player's avatar if they are standing close enough to you and by selecting Add Buddy from the list of options. To complete this, they must click on your avatar and add you as a buddy as well. You also have an option to add a new buddy from afar (meaning you don't have to be in the same place) by typing !ADD [their username] in your chat bar. In order to complete this action, the player you are attempting to add must be made aware that you are trying to add them and they must type !ADD [your username] as well. Once a player has been successfully added to your buddy list, you will receive a message in your right chat window that states "You and [username] are now buds!"
Sometimes players may wish to remove a buddy from their list due to their own personal reasons. If you choose to remove a buddy, simply click Players and then Manage Your Buddy List. You will be provided with a list of your current buddies that states the last time they logged in and will each have a Remove button next to their usernames. Simply find the player that you wish to no longer be buddies with and click Remove. By doing this, you will no longer be able to read what each other says in Buddy Chat and will not be able to use buddy-specific socials on one another. If you later wish to be buddies with them again, the option to add them is always readily available if they agree to wanting to be buddies again.
6.A.2 Advantages of having a buddy (or several):
Getting a small group of buddies, and staying on friendly terms with them, is very important in this game. Buddies can help with quests, be ready when you all feel like competing, and more importantly, can divvy up amongst themselves things which are needed for cooking, crafting and sewing, but can only be gotten through ranch ownership.
6.A.3 How the Buddy System Works:
The Buddy System allows you to talk to a group of friends at once, no matter where on the Isles they are. You do this by selecting Buddy Chat from the drop down menu on the left of the chat bar. Once you do this, only your buddies' chat will appear in the Left Chat Window.
Having some buddies is a very valuable thing in this game. Remember that many items needed for quests can only be farmed on ranch isles, and you and your buddies may wish to decide amongst yourselves what to grow so that between all of you, the widest range of items is generated. Since there are many more of these than can be added to most sized ranches, having buddies who grow what you can't can be very helpful indeed.
Buddies are also valuable when competing, as you can easily contact your buddies to arrange for a race at a particular time, rather than having to wait around for other people to join a particular competition or level of competition.
Remember that your online buddies are just that--online buddies only! You may never, under any circumstances, share personal information.
B) Clubs
6.B.1 Horse Isle Clubs: definition:
This section covers clubs sanctioned by Horse Isle. These clubs are run by Horse Isle members, and being a member of a club gives members certain benefits, chosen by the club owner, as described below. Because of this, players may be members of only one club at a time.
Starting a club requires the club owner to pay a one-time fee of US$80 (real money). This will put a Club Token into the payer's inventory. Using that token will allow the club to be set up.
Yes, it is indeed expensive to start a club! The reason for this is that clubs should be rare, and maintained by people willing to put time and effort into them.
You can see your club information by clicking MYSELF on the button bar, and choosing View Your Club Details.
6.B.2 Club officials:
The "Owner" of a club is the person who paid for its creation. The rules of the club, and, initially, the privilege of inviting other players to be members of the club, are their decisions (so long as no Horse Isle rules are violated).
Owners may designate other players as "Leaders" of the club. Leaders also may invite other players to become club members. To do so, the owner or a leader must click "LOOK" on a player, then click "INVITE" if it states the other player is not in a club. That player is not notified of the invite. It is up to the player inviting them to inform them. In order for the invited player to accept, they must click "LOOK" on the player that sent the invitation, then click "ACCEPT".
Owners and Leaders may also dismiss members from clubs at their discretion (again, so long as no Horse Isle rules are violated in doing so).
In addition, Owners and Leaders may award members with from one to five stars, depending upon their activity within the club or other requirements that the Owner feels worthwhile.
6.B.3 Club Member Benefits:
When a club is created, the Owner will be asked to choose three benefits that will accrue to players who join from the options below:
Investors: When members visit a bank, the bank will give them an additional 25% bonus on the interest they have earned since their last visit.
Health Insurance: Any vet bills paid to normal vets are half price.
Pet Collector: Members get a 25% discount at pet stores. Maximum savings is $5,000 per pet
Training Dedication: A trainer will less often fail at training a member's horse; that is, the failure rate drops in half for those horses with a reason to fail.
Travelers' Discount: Boat and wagon fees are reduced for members.
In Style: Members pay half price on all clothing and hairdo changes.
Wall Street: Stock buy- and sell-fees are half price.
Horse Collector: Members may own one additional horse for every five horses their capacity allows (six for non-subscribers/subscribers without ranches, one per every five barn slots for ranch owners).
Pack Rat: 50% bonus added to amount of weight/bulk members can carry in their inventories.
Artists: Members are allowed to save, manage and sell twice as many (20) works of art as non-members.
Shopowners: Members can carry double the normal number of item types in their various Ranch Shops. (Applies to Item Stores, Pet Stores, and Horse Stores.)
Secondary, Tertiary and Quaternary Bonuses:
After a certain number of points have been donated to the club, the additional bonuses kick in. At 250,000 points donated, clubs gain access to a second bonus, at 5 million points donated, clubs can have three active bonuses and at 50 million points donated, clubs can have four active bonuses! These point thresholds can be achieved through long-term member saving and teamwork. Note that clubs cannot have two of the same bonus- for instance, they may not select "Horse Collectors" twice to increase their horse capacities by 40%.
A club's member benefits cannot be changed once the club is formed.
Additional Benefits:
Club members can speak amongst themselves by using the Club Chat option.
Club Owners and Leaders can post Club News in the Club Description (this can be read by anyone, club members only, or Owner and Leaders only).
Stats will be displayed for all clubs, ranking them in Club Points.
6.B.4 Club Points and Membership Limits:
How many members a club may have is determined by the number of Club Points that club has. Club Points can be donated by club members by paying a fee of HI$1000 (Horse Isle dollars) per point. The number of points a club has determines how many members may join a club. A new club with no points can have a maximum of ten members. The number of points required for each new member slot increases at each level. The formula that determines the number of members per points is:
MaxMembers = 10+RoundDown(SquareRoot()/10)
Which is:
10: 0 points
11: 100 points
12: 400 points
13: 900 points
14: 1600 points
15: 2500 points
16: 3600 points
17: 4900 points
18: 6400 points
etc.
6.B.5 Changing Club Ownership and Details:
Club ownership can be transferred to another player, however, this is only done once per year. This is because an admin must do so by hand. How the new owner is chosen is up to the current owner. Contacting Support by opening a Support Issue under the Help button is the only way for ownership to be transferred.
If the owner of the club would like the name and/or description changed, this can also be done, but, again, only once per year.
Club bonuses cannot be changed once set. If you are purchasing a club from another player, be sure it has the bonuses you want. When you are choosing bonuses, be certain you are picking the ones you want.
6.B.6 Club Policies:
The policies of a club are wholly determined by the club owner.
They are free to set any requirements for membership that they deem,
as long as it does not discriminate among players.
The following examples of Acceptable policies:
- just adding friends
- only adding people with Mustangs
- certain club point donation requirement per day
The following are examples of unacceptable requirements:
- Certain age / gender / ethnicity / religion
A club is completely managed by the owner. If you do not like their policies or rules, simply leave and avoid dealing with the club. Clubs who manage their politics in a good and fair manner will end up with more members and more successful in the end.
Some clubs are very serious and competitive. The owners are certainly able to remove members who do not meet their requirements for the benefit of the club. Doing so should be a last resort however since they will lose 1/2 of the members investment.
6.B.7 Leaving Club:
Upon making the big decision of leaving a club, or of an owner removing a member, 1/2 of the points that the member donated will be removed from the club and refunded to player. So both the club and player will be out 1/2 of the investment they had together.
6.B.8 Top Club Bonus:
At the end of every day, all members of the top 8 clubs (point-wise) receive a bonus.
+16 exp for members in the club with most points
+14 for second highest club
down to
+2 exp for eighth highest club
C) Medallions
6.C.1 Overview:
Players can purchase Medallions at any bank for $1 million apiece. The top 50 players who own the most Medallions are called "Golden Players" and receive special perks, detailed below. In addition, the top players who own the most Medallions also get a special golden glow around their avatars. For each two Medallions owned, players get an extra horse slot.
6.C.2 Golden Player Benefits:
In addition to the extra horse space earned by Medallion owners, the top 50 Medallion owners, called Golden Players, receive extra benefits. Golden Players are very visible- their name text appears in gold, with its normal white, blue, or green glow surrounding. In addition, Golden Players earn the use of the special Ruby Slippers tool (accessed from the Tool menu or Shift-F6 on supporting browsers) which allows them to warp from anywhere in the world back to their ranches! (They then exit the ranch onto a random main town.)
6.C.3 Medallion Time-Out:
Every month, all players who own medallions have their medallions reduced by 10% (rounded up.) This enables newer players to compete for a spot on the top 50 list.
D) Moderators
6.D.1 Admins:
Admins are the people who actually programmed the game and keep it running. Please do not seek out admins to settle disputes; these things should be referred to moderators.
Unlike moderators, who all do the same thing, different Administrators have different jobs. Some are programmers, some are artists, some are writers, others are in charge of moderators and rule violations. Please do not PM Admins when you see one on the game. They are usually there to test or fix something and generally do not have time to chat.
6.D.2 Moderators:
Moderators (mods) are players who have been carefully screened and selected by us, and whose function is to see that all game rules are followed. Moderators have the power to enforce the rules by muting players for various lengths of time, depending upon the infraction, isolating the player for some length of time, or banning them altogether from the game. Directives from a moderator are to be heeded without question and immediately. Please be aware that our moderators are adults, and many of them are senior citizens, parents, grandparents and/or teachers. Please respect them accordingly.
Moderating is extremely hard and often very vexing work. Our moderators are all volunteers, and except for doing clearly delineated jobs like approving artwork for sale within the game, they are not compensated in any way.
Note: Players cannot ask to become moderators. The admins seek out good prospects on their own.
There is no such thing as a "mini-mod" or "mod in training." Many players like to say they hold these positions, but no such positions exist on Horse Isle. One is either a Horse Isle approved moderator, or one is not; it's that simple.
E) Muting
6.E.1 Muting Other Players:
Not everybody can get along with everybody else, so we've added several different ways for you to mute people you'd rather not deal with.
You can mute specific people only by clicking PLAYERS on the button bar, then the MANAGE Muted Players, and then typing in the name of the player (exact spelling required--please check carefully, as many usernames are similar) in the space provided. Then choose a length of time for which you wish to mute them. You can unmute anyone at any time, regardless of the length of time you've picked.
If you would like to mute an entire group of players, go to SETTINGS (far right of the button bar) and click the group you would like to mute. That group will stay muted until you undo the mute.
F) Profiles
6.F.1 Allowable Contents:
You are free to describe your game avatar in your profile, but you are not allowed to describe yourself in any personally-identifiable way. Things which may NOT be included in your profile include any references to your age such as a number range, specific age, or words stating an age group of a minor such as "teenager" or "preteen", race or religion, any references to the school you go to, or the grade you're in, any references to where you live below the state/province/territory level.
In addition, it is strictly against the rules for you to use your profile to disparage other players in any way.
If your profile contains anything which violates the above specifications, a moderator will ask you to remove it. You can and will receive violations for not following the moderator's instructions.
6.F.2 Looking at player profiles:
You can see the profiles of players upon whom you can stand near and click on or those who are in the same zone, such as an isle or building in which you are standing, by clicking the Players button and View Players in Current Area. There are, however, some times where you would like another person to see your profile from afar. You do this by typing !SHOW [username], which will allow the person you've named to look at your profile for five minutes. You can also type !SHOWALL, which will make your profile available to all players on the game for half an hour.
To look at a profile after the player has told you that theirs is "open", type !LOOK [username] in order to see it.
6.F.3 Profile formatting codes:
The following codes may be used in player and horse profiles if you want.
Be sure to end each code you begin.
[b] bolded [/b]
[i] italics [/i]
[u] underline [/u]
[li] list entry [/li]
[center] centered [/center]
[right] rightset [/right]
[justify] justified [/justify]
[aqua] aqua color [/color]
[aqua][black][blue][brown][fuchsia][grey][green][lime][maroon][navy][olive][orange][purple][red][pink][silver][teal][yellow]
[gold][chocolate][blush][jade][crimson][lilac][chestnut][palomino][ocean][amethyst][violet][emerald][sky][ruby][steel][forest][pumpkin][apricot]
[rainbow]rainbow colored[/color]
G) Socials
6.G.1 What are socials?:
Socials are things you can do to/at other players, apart from speaking to them. You can use socials to wave, laugh, hug, dance, etc.
You can access socials by clicking on a player, and choosing SOCIALS from the button menu which pops up. The result of that click then shows up in the right-side chat box.
6.G.2 Buddy based socials:
More socials are available when the target is a buddy of yours. These include less formal ones.
6.G.3 Horse based socials:
When you are on a horse, more socials are available. They include actions that your horse may do towards the target of the social, such as snorting, whinnying or the like. You can also click on your own horse to do kindly socials directed at your own horse.
H) Stats
6.H.1 Experience:
You can earn horse experience several ways.
By riding a inexperienced horse that bucks you, etc. You both get exp.
By entering arena events, both you and your horse get experience based on your performance.
By attempting to capture a horse, you get experience.
By throwing away garbage you may sometimes gain experience.
By earning awards, many give out experience bonuses.
Player Experience gives a competition stat bonus along with some other benefits.
6.H.2 Hunger / Thirst:
You can eat edible items or buy meals at an Inn to replenish your hunger/thirst.
Hunger goes down by 3 points, and thirst by 2 points, once every two minutes while you are online. If you find yourself without food and water and somewhere where you cannot get more, and are too hungry or thirsty to go on, you can wait offline for points to regenerate, or ask a buddy to bring you some food or water.
6.H.3 Tired:
Visting your ranch or resting at an Inn are ways to rest yourself after getting tired. You will also "re-energise" while you are offline.
You lose 1 point of energy/wakefulness per every two minutes you are online.
I) Trading
6.I.1 Who Can Take Part:
Trading is limited to subscribers only, with ONE exception:
Non-subscribers may trade ONLY for subscription tokens. They may not trade for anything else until they are themselves subscribers.
6.I.2 Horse Leasing:
Subscribers may use the Trading system to lease a horse to another player. This is done via the trade system. In order to lease a horse, choose LEASE from the choices you will be offered when you initiate a trade. You will then be asked to choose a horse and to choose the length of time you will be leasing the horse for (from 15 minutes to one week). Lessors do not need to worry about a lessee not returning a horse on time or removing tack or companions. These latter cannot be changed or removed, and leased horses are automatically returned to their owners at the end of the lease term.
6.I.3 How The Trade System Works:
In order to make a trade with another player, click on that player's avatar/player-character, and you will see a number of options, including TRADE, appear. Click Trade. When you do this, a notice will be sent to the other player requesting a trade. No trade can be made until the other player responds to this by opening up a trade window with you.
NOTE: If another player does not want to trade, and/or does not open a trade window within a minute (usually considerably less), do not nag, beg or otherwise try to force them into making a trade. This kind of behavior is considered harassment and can earn you violation points.
When the player with whom you wish to trade agrees to trade with you, a Trade Window will appear. You will see what the other player is adding to the trade as they add it, and you will have the opportunity to add things yourself: MONEY, HORSE, LEASE, PET, ITEM. Clicking on any one of these will allow you to specify which and/or how much of each of these you wish to trade. You may offer as few or as many (or as much) as you like.
When you have finished adding the items/money you wish to trade, click DONE.
Once both trading partners have clicked DONE, the screen will change. The options to add more items will have been removed, and you will see instead a complete list of everything that each player is offering. Review this list very carefully. Once you click ACCEPT TRADE, the trade is done and cannot be reversed. If you are not happy with what you're getting, reject the trade at this point.
When both players have accepted the trade, the items in question will be transferred to the inventories of the players. Both parties will also receive a status message (in the Right Chat Window) showing what was traded by each.
6.I.4 Undoing a completed trade:
You can't. Once a trade is agreed upon and accepted by both players, it is permanent. The player you traded with is under no obligation to trade back anything. They may decide to, but it is completely up to them. Harassing players to trade back something they have gotten from you is against Horse Isle rules and will earn you violation points.
So be sure to review the trade terms clearly. If you are unhappy with them at all, Reject the trade. You can always discuss it and try again.
7) Quests
A) Bonuses
7.A.1 What is a bonus?:
Bonuses are hidden things in the game, tracked separately for each player when they discover one. They are just rare "Extras" that one may encounter. It is unlikely that any player will discover all of them.
Many bonuses are hinted at by NPCs in the course of a regular conversation. Many players like to skip conversations on various topics and get straight to a quest. You can do with this with most NPCs but in this game you would be well advised to listen to what ever an NPC has to say. They often drop hints about bonuses that they have something to do with. Pay careful attention to what they say. You never know what they will let slip!
B) Esrohs
7.B.1 Main Game Quest:
The main story quest of the game is to discover and learn from the 12 various Esroh in the world. This will take a very long time and a lot of work. Not everyone will succeed, But the skills gained in completing these quests will make it worth it for those who persevere.
7.B.2 Who are the Esrohs?:
The Esrohs are a fabled clan of ancient, intelligent horses who live somewhere on these islands. They are no longer found as a herd, but each one lives alone, in hiding, separate from the others. You won't be able to miss one, or mistake it for a normal horse, for Esrohs have iridescent black coats with manes ranging from scarlet to purple. They are the true masters of horsemanship, and can teach you an enormous amount if only you can find them... if they really exist!
7.B.3 How Do I Find an Esroh?:
You will not, ever, simply happen upon an Esroh. They keep themselves well hidden, and are never found on the main islands.
Each Esroh has a guardian whom it has appointed to keep the curious out of their lairs. These guardians are extremely demanding. You will have to play for some time before you will be able to satisfy even the least demanding of these. The Esrohs themselves are even more so. But the knowledge they have to share will make all your efforts worthwhile.
C) Minigames
7.C.1 Difficulty levels:
There are many different minigames in Horse Isle, and some are easier than others. Within each minigame, there are easy, intermediate and hard levels. In additions, some minigames have special Extra Hard levels. There is usually an ABOUT button which will let you see the Difficulty level and whether you have completed it previously.
7.C.2 What are Quest Minigames?:
Quest Minigames are usually puzzles, or games that have a unique challenge for the player. Upon completing the challenge successfully, the Minigame is marked as having been permanently completed. You can replay the game, but will not earn the completion award again.
7.C.3 Where are they?:
Quest minigames can be found all over, in forests, in homes, on beaches, etc. An example is Sand Castles, when you see one on a beach. Walk up to it and click on it, and an option will be PLAY. This will allow you to attempt to complete the Sand Castle Moat Quest Minigame for that particular Quest. Other sandcastles will be other quests, etc. There are painting easels and pianos in houses, too. There is a much wider array of minigames here than in Horse Isle 1, and many more two player games that you can enjoy with your buddies.
Many of these minigames have multiple levels. Some allow you to reset a level and others do not.
D) NPCs
7.D.1 What is an NPC?:
NPC stands for "Non-Player Character." These are the people who normally inhabit Horse Isle, and there are quite a few species of them! As the game progresses, almost all of them will have at least one thing you can do for them.
NPCs differ quite a bit in their personalities. Some love to talk and others almost refuse. It is your job to get diffident or surly NPCs to talk to you, and this might take a bit of diplomacy. Still other NPCs require a little work on your part to keep them on track as their minds tend to wander. Never rush through a conversation with an NPC. They often drop very valuable hints about all kinds of things on Horse Isle.
7.D.2 Finding NPCs:
Most of the NPCs in this world are listed in their own special directory. To find the location of most NPCs, go to the City Hall in any major town and click on the Community Board. Then click "Search for a Horse Isle resident" and type in the NPC's name. If the NPC is successfully found, his or her location will display in your right chat, as well as being indicated by a red arrow on the map.
Not all NPCs are listed in the directory. Chances are, if one NPC says that another one is missing and part of your quest is to track that NPC down, that person will not be listed in the directory (that would spoil the quest!) Also, some species of non-human NPC are not typically listed there either.
Tip: Sometimes if you're looking for an NPC of a particular profession, you can find that person by typing the profession into the directory. Try searching "carpenter"!
7.D.3 Do NPCs react differently to different players?:
Yes, they do, to a certain extent. Many NPCs will refuse to talk to someone who is rude. Others are grouchy to everyone at first, but might be carefully talked into cooperation. A lot depends on you. Like horses, NPCs generally act as they are treated.
7.D.4 Which NPCs have met the Esrohs?:
Which ones, if any, have ever done that, is up to you to find out! And it won't be easy! The only hint we can give is this: don't be in too much of a hurry to sit down and finish a quest. Sitting down and having a nice chat can be just as rewarding, and many of our NPCs do love to talk!
E) Types
7.E.1 Clue Sleuthing:
Think of this type of quest as an interactive mystery novel. Someone or something has gone missing; you must interview NPCs, search for clues, and often do a good deal of travelling, in order to recover whatever was taken or has run away. These quests are usually Advanced or Master Level, and can be extremely challenging.
7.E.2 Delivery:
Most beginner quests are of this type. Delivery quests involve being given something by one NPC and bringing it to another. They don't pay much, but they generally involve nothing more than being able to follow instructions and are generally quickly completed.
7.E.3 Quiz:
There are many quizzes of this type in the game. Generally they take the form of an NPC challenging you to answer a certain number of questions correctly. Some are very easy, others more difficult. Remember, you can always look up answers you don't know. But please refrain from asking the questions in chat; most people like to discover quiz questions and answers on their own.
7.E.4 Time Constrained:
A very few quests need to be completed in a certain amount of time. Other quests have other time constraints, such as asking an NPC to make something for you, and the NPC telling you to come back tomorrow, next week, on a Tuesday, or after a certain time, to get it. In Horse Isle: Legend of the Esrohs, when an NPC says, "Come back on Tuesday," or "Come back in an hour," they mean it! If you come back too quickly, NPCs can become very annoyed, and some will even take longer, or charge you more money, to do what you want the more you ask them about it.
7.E.5 Timed Quests:
Timed quests require you to do something within a certain amount of time or only after some length of time has passed. There are two types:
Real Time quests which require a certain amount of time to pass whether or not you are online, and
Game Time quests which require a certain amount of time to pass while you are online.
Check the Status line in the Right Chat Window. Most timed quests are real-time quests, but those which are Game-Time quests will say so.
7.E.6 Tool use:
Some quests, very often beginner ones, require the use of tools: a shovel to dig something up, binoculars or a telescope to spot something far off, etc. Only on very rare occasions, when the tool is something quite uncommon, will an NPC lend you tools. You will have to use your own. They can be purchased at various shops on Horse Isle.
8) Support
A) Tech Problems
8.A.1 Stops at partially loaded, or says older version:
This is commonly fixed by clearing your web browsers' cache.
Search google "Clear Cache" for steps to accomplish.
Firefox: http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/How+to+clear+the+cache
8.A.2 Game is Laggy; runs fine for a while, then slows or stops.:
The game has players spread around the world playing on it. No matter how fast the internet connections between us and all of you, there will be some lag associated with online play. This is simply beyond our control. However, if you personally are experiencing a lag that other players are not reporting (for example, if you click a button, and the game takes over a second to respond, though it seems to be responding right away for everyone else), you may be having some internet connection issues your end.
If you are using Dial-up, the game will certainly lag. Dial-up is simply too slow for the enormous amount of content this game uses.
Make sure you aren't downloading or uploading something large, or listening to internet radio or music, or chatting outside the game, while trying to play. All of these processes take up a lot of CPU time and resources on your computer.
If you are not doing anything on your computer apart from playing Horse Isle, perhaps someone else using the same internet connection could be downloading or uploading something large, or otherwise using the bandwidth. Check with other family members. If you are playing at a public internet area such as a library, or you share your internet connection with others in an apartment block or hotel, internet games will lag until you have the connection (at least mostly) to yourself.
8.A.3 Game Runs Slowly Overall:
If the game runs very slow for you, especially when in areas with many objects, your computer is likely to be simply overloaded. Since the game runs in a web browser, and then inside Flash, it takes a lot of 'power'. Older computers especially may not have the CPU power or the memory required to properly run the game.
Try the following:
Check the LOW DETAIL options in the SETTINGS Panel within the game.
Make sure other programs aren't running on your computer that may be using some 'power.' Internet radio, for example, is an enormous user of computer processing time. If you are having problems with slow gameplay on Linux and have the Beagle file-indexing system running, turning Beagle off will help your speed.
Try a different Browser. Sometimes Flash can run differently in a different web browsers, and in fact it may run differently on the same browser running under a different operating system. You might have to do a little experimenting to find the combination that works best for your particular situation. Other players may be able to help you here.
8.A.4 Game screen flashes or blinks.:
If you are running Firefox with older versions of AdBlock, Adblock may try to ask you if you want to block Flash animations. This will cause the screen to flash as Adblock tries to add a "BLOCK" tag and scroll bars to the game window or tab. To stop it doing this, either update to the newest version of AdBlock, or disable AdBlock entirely while you are playing. Do this by clicking Tools -> Adblock Plus Preferences -> Options.
8.A.5 Game Says, "Cannot connect to game server.":
Sometimes you will get a notice saying that your computer cannot connect to the game server. This can happen for many reasons:
You may have a firewall blocking access to certain Internet abilities. This game needs port 443 or 44344 open. If you are having problems with this, visit the Adobe.com site and you will be able to find instructions on how to open that port on your operating system.
Some physical devices such as cable routers, school routers and so on, can cause lag in your game. In this case, you should consult your computer's System Administrator for help.
A number of schools blanket-ban internet games. We cannot do anything about these problems from our end.
8.A.6 Known Linux Problems:
Problems with Adobe Flash Player: Flash support for Linux seems to be somewhat spotty, and problems have arisen in the past with Flash attempting to access hardware accelerators which may or may not be present in your system, or may not yet be supported by Linux. If you find, for example, that your browser crashes when loading the main game screen, there are few things you can do that will help:
Do not use HW Accel (hardware acceleration) mode. Even if you have hardware accelerator cards in your machine, Linux Flash will not handle them. Default mode works fine.
There has been a problem with the "Custom Reply" feature, wherein some quests ask you to actually type in a response to an NPC's question. This seems to have been a problem with Flash, as it was corrected in version 10.0.45.2. It is highly recommended that if you are running Linux, you update your version of the Flash Player to at least the aforesaid version.
Note: on Linux, it is definitely best to use Firefox as your game browser. Konqueror does not run the game at present. Opera seems to work fine but we have not tested the game extensively with this browser as yet.
Problems with Kerry Beagle: The Beagle file indexer takes an enormous amount of CPU time and can make running Horse Isle quite a challenge. If the game is particularly laggy, especially if it runs well only in fits and stars, make sure Beagle is disabled.
Testing of Horse Isle: Legend of the Esrohs was done on SuSE Linux with the Firefox, Chrome and Opera browsers, all of which work well. It is possible, though unlikely, that you may encounter distribution-specific problems with other distros. Please let us know (via the Support System below) of any problems you encounter.
8.A.7 Known Mac Problems:
Please play the default version only on the Mac. Flash's Hardware Acceleration mode is not supported on the Mac.
It is always important to make sure that you are running the latest version of the game. Clear your Cache (see Tools -> Clear Recent History) and log in again. This will make sure you have the most up-to-date version of everything.
Curiously enough, there have been some problems iMacs overheating, which cause the entire system to seize up. One of our admins has found that pointing an external fan at the machine cures this problem. If chocolate will melt immediately when placed on top of an iMac screen, the machine is overheating.
In any case, be sure you have the latest version of the Flash player, which at the time of this writing is 10.0.32.18.
8.A.8 I click on a minigame and the wrong game, or no game, comes up.:
This happens because your browser cache has become corrupted for one or more of any number of reasons. When it happens, clear your browser cache by whatever method is appropriate to your browser, log out, and log in again. The problem should be fixed when you re-enter the game.
8.A.9 I've tried everything I know about, but I'm still having problems with gameplay that seem to be technical glitches.:
If you're still having a problem with your computer, you should use the Support System (below if on the website, not in game) to notify us of the problem. In order to solve it, please tell us:
1. The operating system you're using (Linux, Mac, Windows, BeOS, Unix, Solaris, whatever it may be).
2. The internet browser you're using (Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, Opera, etc)
3. How old your computer is and/or what CPU you're using, if you know.
4. What kind of internet connection you are using (cable, wi-fi, shared, etc)
5. A detailed example of what happens that is troubling you.
We will try to answer as soon as we can figure out what might be going on.
8.A.10 Keyboard arrows are slow to respond, player keeps moving after releasing keys.:
Flash can have problems processing Keyboard commands when they come in faster than the "Frame Rate". This can be alleviated by going into your computers control panel, and increasing the "Keyboard Repeat Delay". This causes there to be fewer Arrow-key commands sent while holding down the arrow keys.
B) Computer Requirements
8.B.1 Adobe Flash:
Flash is free software, you should have the latest flash installed (at least version 10+).
Here is a link to their free download page: Flash Player
8.B.2 Internet Access:
Broadband is required. This game is run entirely over the internet. As such, it requires a lot of bandwidth and even more important, speed. Dial-up really cannot provide for the demands, and will result in a slow and laggy experience.
If you have broadband, but it is shared by several households (as sometimes is the case in apartment buildings), you may find that the game runs well sometimes and is laggy at other times, depending upon how many people are sharing the connection and how many people are using the connection at the time. There is nothing we can do about this.
8.B.3 Operating Systems:
Windows, Mac OS 10, Linux and Solaris have all been tested and work. Any system that can run Flash Player 10 should be able to run Horse Isle. We have noticed a couple minor bugs on Linux and Mac, but there is nothing we can do to address these since these are an issue with the Flash Player on those systems and beyond our control.
8.B.4 Playing on smartphones or tablets:
Any smartphone or tablet computer that can run Adobe Flash will probably be able to run HI2. Since the game wasn't developed for devices like these, though, you may experience some difficulties loading or navigating the game (particularly if using a phone network rather than internet service.)
Apple devices, such as the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad, do not natively support Adobe Flash and thus cannot run HI2 on their own. Certain app browsers for these platforms may be able to run Flash.
8.B.5 System Requirements:
The game uses a lot of memory and graphic power drawing and moving all of the art around on screen. So a newer computer (2007+) will likely be required to fully enjoy the game.
8.B.6 Web Browser:
Any major browser with support for the Flash Plugin will work.
Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome, Opera and Safari have all been tested and have worked well. Konqueror, the KDE browser (Linux) does not work as Konqueror does not seem to be able to access the Flash Player without more grief than is strictly necessary. Please stick with Firefox in this case.
C) Getting Started
8.C.1 Welcome Isle Walkthrough:
1) Close the welcome window by clicking X at upper right of it.
2) Move closer to the Welcome Sign above you using your arrow keys on keyboard.
3) Click on the sign, then click view.
4) Read through the beginner guide pressing the > arrows to continue.
5) Once done, click X at top right of beginner guide.
6) Travel South (Down) until you see a cabin. Walk around and into the white circular enter point. If you get right in center you will automatically enter the cabin; otherwise click it and then click ENTER.
7) Once inside the cabin, move closer to MrWelcomer. Click on him, then click TALK.
8) Carry on a conversation with him by clicking on your desired response from the list of options below what MrWelcomer says to you.
9) He will ask you to get him 3 coconuts. Leave the cabin and look around the beaches for palm trees with visible coconuts at the top. When you find one, click on the tree, and then click SHAKE. A coconut will fall, and will then automatically be in your inventory.
10) Repeat 2 more times, then return to MrWelcomer and continue conversation.
11) He will then ask you to Find WanderLass. Travel north-west into middle of pine tree forest and you will find her standing by a campfire. Talk to her, and let her know she needs to come home.
12) Leave her, head back to tell MrWelcomer that you told her she's is needed at home.
13) MrWelcomer will then ask you to find a lost key. Leave the cabin, heading north-east, until you see 3 dark brown, dead, standing trees. Move to the center of them, click TOOLS on the main button bar, then RAKE.
14) If successful, a message at the bottom right should appear telling you you found the key. Bring it back to MrWelcomer.
15) MrWelcomer should thank you and pay you for your hard work at this point. Afterward, head into the dockhouse directly west of the Cabin.
16) Click on man inside the dockhouse. Click TALK, and he will give you a bit of information about each large town; they are all different in character even though they all contain the same ammenities. Then click ROUTES. Select any destination from the list, all have mostly equivalent services and players. This will end your tour of welcome isle!
17) A few seconds after leaving Welcome Isle, BeginnerBird will appear out of no where. This friendly bird will help take you for a tour of your chosen town.
18) At any time to speak with BeginnerBird, Click HELP on the main button Bar.
Have fun and good luck!
8.C.2 Welcome Isle HI1 Differences:
Just like Horse Isle 1, when you enter Horse Isle: Legend of the Esrohs, you will land on Welcome Isle. Be sure to take a look around -- this Welcome Isle is a lot different from the one in Horse Isle 1!
For one thing, when you go to speak to most of the NPC's, you will actually go into their homes. All these houses are different; they are differently furnished, some have different layouts to their rooms, some even have an upstairs. In addition to this, in most cases you will be able to examine the portraits on the wall, open doors and drawers and look inside them, and find other NPC's in different areas of the house. MrWelcomer and his family do not have a very large house, but there is plenty to explore within it.
Where is also a quest on Welcome Isle, just to get you started with the new quest system. Talk to MrWelcomer, he will be happy to tell you about it.
While you're here, take a walk around to familiarize yourself with the new terrain. In Horse Isle 1, you were able to find things like coconuts lying on the ground just waiting to be picked up. That doesn't happen in this game. If you want a coconut, you shake a coconut tree with visible coconuts in in and a coconut falls down.
Now comes the main difference in this part of the game. Once you get to the harbor, you will find that you can go to any number of places; there isn't a single place to start (no "Main Town"). The boat from the harbor here goes to nine different towns. None of these towns are "better" than any other; with the exception of LeafTon, they all have the same types of shops and other facilities. Some items and services are more expensive in some towns than in others, but on the whole the cost of living in any town is about the same. Which one you choose is entirely up to you. You might find the ambiance of one town much more to your liking than that of another. Talk to MrSchooner, who works in the dock house. He will be happy to give you a short synopsis of each town to help you decide on which one you should go. The cost to go to any town is the same.
Upon leaving Welcome Isle, you will meet BB, the BeginnerBird. BeginnerBird can answer questions for you when you're on the main islands, and will have a quest for you that will help you get around and find the main buildings you'll visit a lot.
8.C.3 Customizing your Player-Character:
When you first appear in the game, you might not like the way you look. No worries, it is very easy to change how you look, and with a good degree of flexibility. This is discussed in detail under the "button bar" subcategory, under PROFILE.
You have four basic choices to make first. You can be a
Girl
Boy
Woman
Man
You can then choose your skin color, hair color and eye color. Each will have many options to choose from, giving you many unique possibilities!
additionally, each of the character types has specific clothing and hairstyles that can be purchased at barber and clothing shops throughout the isles.
You can change how you look at any time. Your player name will always appear above your player character, so even if you change, folks will still know it's you.
NOTE: If you change your player type Woman/Girl ,etc you may lose all of your customizations and have to re buy things.
8.C.4 Chatting With Other Players:
There are several different chat modes available to you:
NOTE: In all chat, proper capitalization and spelling is required. Trying to say a players name Redviolin will fail, because proper caps was: RedViolin. This is important to understand before getting frustrated.
Area Chat allows you to chat with all the players who are on the same island or in the same building as you.
Buddy Chat allows you to chat with all your buddies, no matter where they are.
Club Chat allows you to chat with all the members of whatever club you are in.
Private Chat allows you to speak to a single player only.
Arena Chat allows you to chat with the other players in your arena event. It only works while the event is going on.
Help Chat is only visible to moderators and administrators. It allows you to find help if you simply cannot find the answer on your own.
In order to use these different kinds of chats, you can either choose them from the menu on the far left, or use the following shortcuts:
/a for Area Chat
/b for Buddy Chat
/c for Club Chat
/Playername for private chat.
8.C.5 Earning Money:
There are many ways to get money on Horse Isle:
Job Minigames: Job minigames can be gotten at through the Job Board signs scattered around most boat docks, or City halls.
Quest Minigames: Minigames can be found all over. Click on mops in buildings, ant hills outside, jigsaw puzzles on tables, etc. Click ABOUT to check the difficulty level. Then give it a shot. Click the ? button to read instructions. Upon completing the 1 to 3 levels of the Quest minigame, you will earn a reward based upon the difficulty.
Quests: Click QUESTS then look for available quests in your town area that are marked as novice. You can look up the location of a Resident at City Hall, by clicking on the community board. Then find the Resident an try to help them in whatever their plight.
Resource Collection: Travel along beaches searching flotsam, or in forests searching twig piles, or on grassy isles picking fruit, etc. Once you have collected some bounty, you may sell at the General Store or other places.
Miscellaneous: Chat-based Quiz Questions earn money when answered correctly. Riddle Posts scattered around payout well. Keep an eye out for buried treasure and the like.
8.C.6 My First Horse:
There are several ways to get your first horse:
Adopt a Horse Liveries, the big barns in the horse areas of town, have adoption centers. Once inside the livery, click on whoever is in charge, then ADOPT. This will allow you to purchase an available horse for $20,000 so be sure to save up first.
Catch a wild Horse This is more difficult. Any island without a large town may have visible horses walking around on it. If you find one, walk up to it and click, then click CAPTURE. This will begin the difficult capture minigame, where you must throw the lasso around the horse's neck.
Ranch Stores Some players may sell horses at their ranch. This is available to all players, though a non-subscriber can only spend up to $50,000.
Trading/Auctions are only available to subscribers, but you should be able to find a suitable horse to start with.
8.C.7 Towns:
There are two types of communities in Horse Isle: Legend of the Esrohs. One of these is the Town. These are found on larger isles, and almost all of them have the same amenities: a City Hall, a livery stable, a feed store, an inn, a general store, a barber/hairstylist, a clothing store, a bank, a pet shop, a library/school, a blacksmith, a tack shop and several houses. You will find that in different towns, certain services will cost more than they do in other towns. Which town you decide to go to first, or to frequent most, is purely a matter of taste.
Villages appear on some of the smaller islands. None of these have shops or boarding facilities, but nevertheless there is plenty to do even in these small towns. Explore them all carefully.
8.C.8 Travel Between Islands:
Travel between the various islands is generally by sailboat. Almost all the islands, except for the very small ones and a couple of larger ones that are very infrequently visited, will have a harbor. Boats leaving from the harbors associated with large towns will go to all other large towns, as well as to other isles of the "Island Group" associated with that town. You can tell which Island Group an isle belongs to by consulting the main Map.
Some islands are only reachable by rowboat, and rowboats, with one or two exceptions, only go from one particular isle to another. Plan your route accordingly.
Islands which do not have either a sailboat harbor or rowboat service can be gotten to by... well, that's for you to find out.
D) Helpers System
8.D.1 Asking Help Questions:
Anyone who has a question, whether it be something simple, but hard to find, or something difficult but not listed elsewhere, may use the Help Request. Simply click HELP and type a question in the help request box. This will be shown to all player-helpers online. The first to select your question will reply to it as best they can.
Keep in mind that helpers are not required to just give you the information; they may just tell you where you can find it for yourself. This will help you find more information you'll need in future. (And if you're here in the help files, you've probably come to the right place to answer most questions for yourself!)
8.D.2 Answering Help Questions:
Anyone subscribed (this limits abuse, because a subscriber will not often endanger their account) may become a Helper. You may type !HELP in the main chat to display the Helper Panel. From here you can elect to receive Help Requests in your chat window. Any time there are open help requests, you can type !HELP and see them listed. By selecting one, you are blocking all others from answering it, so be sure you can answer it properly. Enter a helpful and accurate answer then send it. The player who sent it does not know who you are unless you include your player name in the reply.
Answering questions helpfully and correctly will earn you Helper points. Everyone begins with 0 points. Answering incorrectly--or worse, rudely--or in any inappropriate way will cost you some, or many, Helper points. When you have negative Helper Points, you will no longer be able to answer questions. Negative Helper Points will return to 0, at a rate of one per day. So, if you were not helpful to someone, getting -10 Helper Points on your first attempt, it would be 10 days before you could be a helper again. The rules for players acting as Helpers are held to an even higher standard than normal.
A Helper may only answer an amount of questions equal to double their helper points +1. So a new helper, may only make a single attempt at answering a single question. This limits their involvement until their answers are reviewed.
In order to allow other helpers a chance to answer, after answering 10 questions in a day, that helper must wait 15 seconds before answering additional questions.
Players with 100 or more helper points are able to review Classified Ads and Artwork.
8.D.3 Can I Lose Helper Points?:
There are a few ways helper points will be removed.
-2 points: Answering a question in a not at all helpful manner.
-7 points: Answering a question incorrectly or rudely.
-25 points: Abusing the help chat or answering very rudely or inappropriately.
As a helper with at least 100 points, you can review classified ads and art. Reviewing incorrectly, whether accepting an ad or art that breaks the rules, or rejecting either incorrectly will also lose you points.
-25% of helper points: Accepting or rejecting art or an ad incorrectly.
-50% of helper points: Accepting art or an ad that very clearly breaks the rules. Rejecting art or an ad when you clearly know it should be accepted.
One final way to lose helper points would be if a player is found to be cheating to get helper points. In this case we often remove all points.
These are the only ways players lose helper points. Not answering questions for a while, or not being online has nothing to do with the loss of helper points.
E) Misc
8.E.1 18 hour safety time limit:
There is a server enforced 18 hours online per 36 hour period max.
This is to encourage health and limit everyone equally so that no one is tempted to
"overplay". This affects subscribers and non-subscribers alike.
It requires staying online over 12 hours per day, or going over 18 hours online at a single time.
While not popular with some, this should be rarely encountered. We feel it is a responsible safety limit against the serious and real dangers of overplay. Both kids and adults, non-subs and subs alike are all equally protected. The topic has been dealt with and mulled over extensively.
We are proud to put the health and safety of our players before the possible subscriber fees lost and other negativity towards this. As this will continue to become a danger in the increasingly online world, we will not risk being responsible for any serious health issues.
8.E.2 Game Speed HI1 vs HI2:
On HI1, the server code design was really inefficient. Hence the ~100 player limit.
Around there the server can not keep up with all the incoming requests, and sometimes falls behind briefly, this is "Server LAG".
HI2 has ZERO server lag. As it stands, with 400 players online the current 4 transparent player servers are at ~25% load. With that, and the ability to add an additional player server or 2 there should be plenty of server power for 800-1500 players online at once. (Equal to and surpassing all HI1 servers combined.)
Now, what most players call Lag on HI2 is actually your computer having trouble drawing all of the graphics every time the screen updates. This takes a powerful computer because browser based games are easy to access, but quite inefficient. We have tried everything we can do to offer lower-detail settings and improve efficiency to help older systems. But, there are older machines, and new, under-powered devices that just simply will not be able to handle it. This is just slow graphics or, more technically, slow FPS (Frames Per Second, which is how many times per second the game is able to redraw everything on the screen.)
Twenty is the target. You can see your current FPS at the far right of all the buttons on the button bar in game. If your average FPS is 8-20 it is fine and good for normal enjoyment of the game. 4-8 can get annoying, below 4 is really hard to enjoy. At this point, you should try selecting some low-quality options in the SETTINGS button. They can help sometimes almost doubling the FPS.
Also, the longer you play, sometimes the game slows down because of how much it is storing for quicker re-load. If this is the case, an occasional reconnect may help if you play for several hours at a time.
(There is also network/internet lag, but this should not be a factor unless you are on dialup, or there are dozens of players in the same area all doing "stuff".)
8.E.3 Horse already Captured :
The horse capture system, while it attempts to prevent multiple players at the same time, still cannot prevent it in all cases.
There are cases that another player's computer running very slowly can timeout, allowing you to start. Or the opposite case, if your game is running very slowly, it may timeout and allow someone else to attempt.
There are also some rarer cases of horse timing out of world, (after 24 hours) and such.
On the whole though, it will be much more unlikely that someone else will have caught a horse "before" you on HI2 than it was on HI1.
And you can rest assured that the first player who actually successfully completes the capture game will get the horse (so it's fair).
8.E.4 How do I contact Support?:
If you are viewing this on the website, simply scroll down a little to fill out a new support issue. If you are viewing this in the game, go to the website then click on the Help button in the top menu. That will open the Help Topics and below will be the Support System where a new support issue can be opened.
8.E.5 Profile formatting codes:
The following codes may be used in player and horse profiles if you want.
Be sure to end each code you begin.
[b] bolded [/b]
[i] italics [/i]
[u] underline [/u]
[li] list entry [/li]
[center] centered [/center]
[right] rightset [/right]
[justify] justified [/justify]
[aqua] aqua color [/color]
[aqua][black][blue][brown][fuchsia][grey][green][lime][maroon][navy][olive][orange][purple][red][pink][silver][teal][yellow]
[gold][chocolate][blush][jade][crimson][lilac][chestnut][palomino][ocean][amethyst][violet][emerald][sky][ruby][steel][forest][pumpkin][apricot]
[rainbow]rainbow colored[/color]
Copyright © Horse Isle 2024