Extensive User Guide

[SeinaMacabre]

• • So have you just started on HWO and are a little confused? Or maybe you are a more recent member that needs to brush up on some things? An old member reviewing the site?
    
    This is a user-made guide so in advance - I am sorry if some of the stuff I write may become out-dated. I will try my best to keep it up-to-date though. If you have requests or questions, please comment.

Forum FAQ | FAQ & Getting Started | Training Your First Horse | Discipline Summary | Horse Colours | All The Things Already Suggested or Planned

[SeinaMacabre]

• • Money & PT Balance is shown first. As of now you can't see history of your purchases, gains, etc.
    
    Time indicates how you are advancing through day. Every day starts at 6 a.m. and you can make your last action up to 10 p.m.
    
    As you may already know, to advance in time and have more space to do certain activities like breeding, training. entering local shows, etc. you have to click on the moon zZz in the top right corner of the page.
    
    Basic Account will store up to 6 days and will regenerate 1 day per 20 minutes. Premium account has 12 banked days and regenerates 1 day per 10 minutes. There is also option to upgrade your account even more with buying Player Bonuses (these are permanent).
    
    Your horses won't age and won't give birth if you won't advance in days. In horse age each advanced day/turn is 2 weeks.

• • When buying your first horse you have to think about several things:
    
    - Breeding Goal - Your first horse should be the first step towards your long-term breeding goal. Do you want to breed certain breed? Do you want to breed a great show horses for certain discipline? You should check out Breed Wiki to see what breeds are required for your wanted breed. Each breed has different build and that means it excels in different kind of competition.
    
    - Horse Stats - Horses from Adoption Centre will always have 4 Star evaluation for their breed, but you won't know what their breeding report is. Horses from Market have visible breeding reports when you click on them, but they don't have to have 4 Star evaluation. You can check the evaluation of horses from Market by buying a breed book from Book Store later on.
    
    - Horse Age - Horses from Adoption Centre are always 4 years old. Horses at market can be any age. Mature age for Stallions is 3 years and for Mares 4 years. Most horses die between 20-23 years.
    
    - Pedigree - Horses from Adoption centre have no Breeding history therefore they are not related to any of the horses on site. Horses from market can have breeding history and can be inbred. Pedigree can also help you determine colour genes of horse.
    
    - Price - Last but not least, you should consider price of the horse. Do you plan to start from scratch with Ancient breed? Even though they are availaible at Adoption Centre you should try going through Market. There might be older mare or young 2nd gen foal. It might be better for you to save up 25 PT for later and buying horse for money. If you plan to go for a breed that needs a lot of different breed generations in order to be created it might not be best decision to spend a lot of money buying a breed that is closer towards your goal. You could end up with very low money-balance and have issues to recover.

• • Your starting balance is/was 10,000$ and 100 PT. You will soon learn that this amount will (maybe) let you buy your first horse and do few starting courses, but in long-term you need a stable income of money.
    
    Normal money can be used for buying a horse from Market, paying for stud fees, paying for entering Local Shows and Competitions, buying Books, buying some Decorations & Farm Buildings & paying for Player Courses.
    
    Pony Tokens can be used to adopt horse from Adoption Centre, buy some Decorations & Farm Buildings & Upgrade your account to Premium. Now my personal tip - If you plan to be a F2P (Free to play), but active user - save up the first 500 PT as soon as possible and upgrade your account. Its really worth it and with the upgrade it will be a lot easier for you to save up another PT for next month if you will enter Local Shows.
    
    There are several options for you to earn money:
    
    - Local Shows - As soon as you will get your first horse, even if you won't train him/her - you should enter local shows daily. Local shows have entry fee, but they are automatically judged, so you don't need to wait. You can enter Local Shows by clicking on your horse's profile and clicking on "Local Shows" tab. There you will have option to set-up level of show and discipline. You can try which discipline is your horse good at, by changing the level higher after every try. Most starting horses will be able to win first place in max. lvl 3. It is not worth to enter your horse into higher levels if he isn't winning them. By default Local Show take 3 hours of Day. Local shows also have a chance to give you and extra PT (Pony Token) or Day. Local Shows are best way to get money if you just started! You should just spam them as much as possible until you get some significant sum of money!
    
    - Competitions - Entering player-made Competitions can give you a nice amount of money if you have a great show horse. As well as Local Shows these competitions have Entry fees. They are not auto-judged and don't have a chance to give you PT or extra Day, but they don't take up time of your day. You can also become a Top Owner or have a ranked Top Horse depending on how many points you earn.
    Creating a competitions will give you also a bit of money from fees - you are getting 50% of the entry fees.
    
    - Stud Fees - Owning a wanted cross or purebred stallion with good stats and colouring and putting it up for Stud can earn you a nice amount of money.
    
    - Breeding - Selling & sharing your own bred horses at Market and especially horses that aren't yet availaible in Adoption Centre.
    
    - Leveling up - You get a sum of money and PT for every level up.
    
    - Mowing Pastures - Selling hay, takes 3 hours and gives 272 money for large pasture at up to 80% (?).
    
    Pony Tokens, on the other hand, are available only by buying them in the Store, leveling up or through Local Shows as mentioned before.

[SeinaMacabre]

• • Feeding helps you to keep weight and energy of your horses which will be especially helpful while showing them. Horses in barns have to be fed to not stay in poor condition. Horses in pastures are able to feed themselves and depending on pasture quality they can be less or more fat.
    You have to adjust feeding for each horse by going to their profile, clicking on "Feeding" and selecting/combining feeding options. After few turns or when you are happy with your horses weight you can click on "Set to suggested kg".
    
    Keep in mind that feeding several horses per turn can end up being quite costy and you will struggle in making profit off them.
    
    At the moment there is no reason for you to feed your horses unless you are showing them or training them in barns (energy)! It does not affect their health and they will not die!

• • Training increases your horse stats and chances to win or place in competitions. Depending on which discipline you want your horse to race in, you will need to train different stats. You can see which stats are needed for each discipline HERE.
    
    You should know that training doesn't increase chances of better progeny of your horse. It only increases stats for your horse alone and therefore there is no reason for you to train horses that are for breeding purposes only.

• • When you will first train your horse you will notice that some of the options will be in red boxes or have red outlines. This means that your horse would get injured while training and is not yet ready for it's intensity.
    
    When you hover over each option you will see that every option is increasing different stats on your horse.
    
    You will first need to do several "Lunge on the Flat" sessions with basic combination of "Arena + Walk + 5 min." to increase your horse's stamina. After several turns you should be able to adjust these options a bit depending on discipline that will your horse focus on.

• • Right now injuries are turned off, so if you accidently try to train your horse in intensive session that he can't take yet, nothing will happen. In future, there will be vet and you will propably need to pay some money to get your horse fit again.

• • Fatigue is red bar below energy bar of your horse. It indicates how hard your horse is training. High fatigue reduces effects of training! If your horse's fatigue is too high give him a few turns rest or try to lunge him for few days.

• • Local Shows can not only be a way to earn money, but it can later on become a useful tool to decide how good your horse is in each discipline. When you will advance with your breeding program you can also cull off/reduce numbers of your horses by removing the less successful ones out of your breeding program. You can do this by making an average number out of all runs in one day.

• • You can sell your horse any time by accessing it's profile and clicking on the " [ Sell Horse ] " option, Foals can be sold as soon as they are born without affecting theirs or mare's happiness. You can also sell mares that are pregnant.
    
    Breed Horse option in horse profile gives you option to breed mare (adult - 4 years) with one of your adult stallions. If you want to search for other partner for your mare you have to look through Stallions at Stud and clicking on their profile. If you have an adult stallion (3 years) you can put him up for stud through " [ Breed Horse ] " option. You can also choose to breed him with any of your mares.
    
    Your horses won't randomly breed with each other even if they are in the same pastures. You can only breed horses by directly clicking to breed them.
    
    Mares will be pregnant for for 20-26 turns, usually about 22. Pregnant mares will take up 2 spots on your farm as soon as they are bred!
    
    " [ Rehome Horse ] " option is used mostly for unwanted/failed horses that you don't have any use for. This option completely deletes horse and you won't be able to get him back! If your horse has progeny you can't rehome him at the moment, but it may be changed in future.

• • You can save photos of your horse during its life in the gallery. Last photo you take will be also shown in your farm, stud or sell ads and in the pedigree.
    
    How to put in pictures? You have to "take a photo" yourself.
    Go to your horse profile - click on "gallery" tab - click on "load image" - reposition/rescale image to your liking - click on "save photo".

[SeinaMacabre]

• • As a s start - to create a new breed - you need to know a "recipe" how to get there. Some breeds might take a several generations of other breeds while other only 1 or 2. To check out breed recipe go to Breed Wiki and trace down ancestry of your breed.
    
    It's very useful to buy breed evaluation book from Book Store, to evaluate your horse for breed you are going for next. You can do this by accessing your horse's profile and clicking on "Evaluation" tab. If you have a breed book it will be listed there and it will give you an idea of how good your horse body is for next breed. You can adjust your horse by breeding it with more suitable horses - you don't need to have purebred horse if recipe states for example only "Arabian". You can use Half Arabian or Part Arabian, but it can't be for example Half Arabian x Baladi.
    
    It is also good to know that it doesn't matter if you cross Arabian Mare with North African Barb Stallion or Arabian Stallion with NAB Mare to get Baladi or needed crosses for other breeds. Results will be the same, but - sometimes it is better to have shorter stallion and taller mare to create new breed if there is very big size difference.
    
    You can of course create completely new breed - but it won't be registered yet (this feature is coming in future) - or create your own version of breed such as mini Gypsy Vanners or Light horse type Shires.

• • To improve, adjust or just create your own style of breed you can cross your purebred, for example Shire, with other breeds. It is hard to keep all of the features of your wanted breed while first creating it - expecially things like feathers or fluffy manes. When you will have purebred Shire mare you can cross it with well-evaluated Belgian or Belgian mix with nice feathers to regain feathers for your breed. You will end up with mix like Shire x Belgian and you will need to further cross it back with Shire to get Part Shire x Belgian or Half Shire. It takes few generations to get back to purebred.

• • Breeding report is main way to determine how good your horse is. If the sentence is highlighted red, it means that your horse has genetically very poor stats. If the sentence is highlighted green, it means that your horse has genetically very good stats. If your Depending on how "netrual" sentences sound you can determine whether your horse has + or - in that stat.
    If your horse has red stat in doesn't mean he is not good for shows! Each show evaluates 4 stats and he can be good as far as the red stat isnt evaluated.
    
    Conformation - Poor conformation can turn a horse with the best stats into a useless mess. Learn how your horses conformation affects the genetic stats.
    This is an experimental feature available only to premium users.
    Example of Conformation report.
    
    Guide to HWO Breeding Report credit goes to Aela

• • Colours in HWO work the same way as in real life - based on genetics. There are a lot of colour variations about which you can more read HERE. Want to mess around and see what colours are there availaible? Try this Horse Demo!
    Some are not yet added to the game as well as colour patterns such as Overo, Pinto,...
    Appaloosa colours are added. You can check out the update on its announcement page.

[SeinaMacabre]

• • You can enter player-made competitions when you click on "Upcoming Events" under "Competitions". When entering horse to competition you should know that each discipline evaluates different 4 stats. Depending on how they are asorted - for example Working Ranch evaluates Intelligence, Agility, Balance, Strength - there is primary stat and secondary stats. Intelligence is mos important in Working Ranch so you should make sure that your horse has good breeding evaluation in Intelligence and is well-trained in it as well. You should think about how your horse's body looks because this is the main factor when evaluating and it is more important than trained or well-bred horse - for example, you shouldn't enter very light horses to Log Pull. Temperament is also factor, so certain types are better for more active competitions, but can propably sometimes cause bigger differences in results.

Being overly thin (BCS 3 or less) or overly fat (BCS 7 or higher) negatively affects a competition score, but also, depending on the discipline, being slightly thin or slightly fat can have a negative effect as well. Conversely some competitions are improved by a lighter or heavier condition. The most obvious example being racing events where the ideal BCS is around 4 to 5, while something like dressage would have an idea BCS of around 5 to 6. Each competitions ideal values will be published in an future update.

• • Pictures of ideal horse-builds per discipline - p1, p2.

• • You can enter only one horse in some disciplines.
    
    You should start by entering your horse into low level shows, best LVL 1. If your horse wins it will be automatically bumped into higher level and won't be able to compete in low levels again.

• • To create your own even you have to go to "My Events" and click on "Host a New Event". If you want to earn some money with entry fees it is good to create a competition in a discipline that a lot of horses enter. You can do a little research on Upcoming Events and see what disciplines have most participants. You can also adjust more stuff in "More Options" and add some money to purse for bigger prize.

• • Player-made competitions aren't auto evaluated, but will start under 5 minutes when the competitors number passes 20 horses. Recurring competitions by Premium Users are exemption and they will always run as scheduled. At the moment if competition doesn't hit at least 5 competitors it will not run until more people join (this happens for example with in-hand jumping competitions).
    
    If your horse wins, you will get money based on starting purse and % from enter fees as well as points that will go towards his & your ranking in Top Horses and Top Owners. If your horse won't place in the first 4 you won't get anything.
    
    Currently you can only see last 15 evaluated competitions in Results history.

[SeinaMacabre]

• • Almost every action in game gives you XP (experience) that you will level up with. Every level up gives you a bag of money and PT, attribute point and restores your day bank to max.

• • You can do player courses to improve various things:
    
    - Horse Ownership courses expand number of horses you can own, number of pregnant mares at once and number of advertised studs you can have.
    
    - Training courses give you bonuses while training your horse.
    
    - Competition Managment courses give you chance to host more shows at once as well as shows with higher levels.
    
    Attributes help you to do player courses quicker. Each Player course uses two different attributes - one is main and the other secondary.

[SeinaMacabre]

• • You can buy Farm Buildings & Decorations in Market. Some cost PTs and some cost $. Small pastures and barns give 4 slots for horses, medium 8 and large 12. You have to raise your maximum horses owned course first! You won't be able to own more horses even when you will have empty spots in your farm.

• • To first expand your farm and add more pastures/barns you need to click on "Edit My Farm" tab under "My Farm". Every expand costs more money.
    
    To add pasture, barn or decorations to your farm click on "Toggle Build Mode" and "Add From Inventory". You can reposition your new item by clicking on transparent white dot and draging it into desired spot.

• • Inventory stores items that you haven't yet used or Breed Books. You can easily expand your inventory by clicking on "Expand Inventory". You don't need to expand it in advance. 20 Slots should be enough for you for some time.

[SeinaMacabre]

-reserved-

[SeinaMacabre]

-reserved-

[SeinaMacabre]

-reserved-

• • ... aaaand posting open. In case you will find some mistakes or would have some suggestions please let me know C: