New Breed: Shires & Wild Variations
Hello there spooky, scary, and downright slimy Halloween costumed folks! Horse Fabool Bash is in full swing and ends tomorrow at 11:59PM ET. However, many items and our map are around until November 2. But today we have something maybe even more exciting than Halloween festivities. We welcome a new breed!
🐴 New Breed: Shires!
Shires have galloped into HoFa! With today's release Shires are available via Breed, Magic, or Spectral Tokens. Our full release schedule is:
- Thursday November 5 at 6pm ET/game time - Shires are released in the foundation store for those with Gold or Platinum upgrades
- Saturday November 7 at 12pm ET/game time - Shires are released to all players in the foundation store.
Shires come in black, bay, grey, and chestnut. Their white marking gene that causes high stockings and white faces is unknown. However, just like other breeds with an unknown white gene, Shires have the W20 gene as a placeholder until a new gene is named for their specific white marking.
Additionally, the Cr gene is extremely extremely rare in the Shire breed, special mention to the beautiful Freedom’s Jolie Prize. This means it will be a limited gene only available through breeding to a game-owned mare, Ms. Jolene’s Gift. To breed to the game owned mare the stallion must be 4*+, level 70 or higher, 1,000 PS or more, and a TB of 10+. The cost to breed is 500 ingots and Ms. Jolene's Gift will be level 70 at breeding.
🦄 Rare Breeds Changes
Rare breeds have previously been available for purchase on a set day in the foundation store with an unlimited number to be bought. To make rare breeds slightly more rare, now each is capped at 100 purchased per player on the foundation store day. Speaking of rare breeds, our Mariwari sketch is open for feedback in the premium forum!
As a reminder our rare breed days are:
- 5th of each month: Marwari
- 7th of each month: Shires
- 17th of each month: Akhal-Teke
🌎 Wild Variation Changes
The wild variations allow for variants 1 - 10 on wild horses to occur with variants 7-10 being extremely rare and in wilds only. Wild variations have been significantly upped in chance to find on all breeds who have a gene with a variant. This means more wild horses should be sporting variants 7-10! With variants 1-10 having been possible for several years, why not add say…5 more variants sometime…
✨ QoL Changes
Explore Injuries
Previously, if a horse was injured in explore you had to mount the next horse using the drop down at the top of the explore box. Now, you can easily one-click mount your next horse using a button at the bottom of the screen
Previewer View Update
The previewer layout has been updated to look like the equipper. This layout now makes the page less long and slightly more organized.
Incoming Trades
Somehow in our market update we hadn’t added incoming trades! WHOOPS! Now you have a “Incoming Trades” tab to view all of your sent trades.
Transport Optimization
We have also optimized the transport tab to load a bit quicker for everyone. This should reduce load times with several horses in the transport page down from several seconds+ for some folks.
Upcoming: Variant Fixes
There are some fixes to be completed in the coming weeks for several breeds marking variants, white markings, and some bases. This is to better reflect foal art to adult art across the body types. You may see some slight changes to some horses. If images are broken, allow up to 72 hours for them to correct themselves.
🐎 BOTM & DOTM
November BOTM and DOTM competitions have opened in the forum! Check them out and get ready to compete!
💻 PHP Fix
We’ve had some folks ask about our PHP fix due to the world-wide PHP security flaw that was discovered last week. We have fixed everything on our end per PHPs patches during our short downtime on 10/21. Everything went smoothly and we are all good! With AI affecting cyber security being an ever-growing threat we work to keep all of our code and security up-to-date when any patches or updates are possible. I want to take time to make a quick note to everyone to please be patient with all websites during this time. Some are still working to patch their PHP and may be experiencing slow websites or down time.
🦟 Bug Fixes
- Updated Friesdales to be correct generic draft art - allow up to 48 hours for this to show
- Fixed issue with disappearing Lucky Rock duplicating.
- Fixed problem with entering show and taking energy when using multi-tab showing
- Fixed paint items showing in small images
- Fixed reverse dapple light generic
- Fixed skew roan on pony foals
- Adjusted design lab and removed shadows squishing images
- Fixed problems with using 2 of the same item only using 1 in the Witch’s Cauldron.
- Fixed sage english pad for Cobblestans
Have a wonderful weekend and a spooky, fun, and exciting Halloween!
Cheers,
The HoFa Team
AHHHHHHHHH SHIRES!!! Omg!! Gimme!
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The Shires are looking absolutely fabulous
So excited for the big big chonks!
I seen the Shire drop via Facebook and I never ran to log on faster!!!! OMGee I'm so excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yayyy thank you all so much!!!
So, which Halloween items won't be available after November 2 anymore? Will the treat buckets disappear too?
Rather disappointed Shires are classified as a rare breed as I was hoping to breed a good stock but now to only be told I can only have 5 live foals on the ground, kind of killed half of my excitement for the new breed and especially needing to remember that instead of being available in wild all the time its now only set to a specific day. Nonetheless, I'm happy to see them, just at half the excitement now than I was prior hand.
Editing to add in: How come there is no roans when the gene can be considered acceptable, at both US and UK registry? Undesireable to an Nth degree, sure but it can be found in the breed but it should still be included.
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I totally agree that roan should be included! Makes them more interesting. I'm not bothered that it's a rare breed, but it doesn't make a huge amount of sense since they're not really that rare irl. Either way, the art is gorgeous and I'm really happy they're here.
I also wouldn't mind if Roan were included, because it is a possibility in Shires and technically just as “undesirable” in the real world as Chestnut and white markings (and those are available). I also don't mind that they're a rare breed, because they are classified as one IRL, and it gives me time to work on other breeds in my stable when they're not available. I am sad to hear we are only allowed 5 live foals at a time, though. Those are just my two cents, but overall, I'm very pleased with the new breed!
I also want to mention, since I keep questioning. Are we going to have enough time to breed up to a 4* lvl 70 PS 1,000+ WITH a TB of 10+? As I'm noticing, even with the spectral coin, we can get a sire mostly there, but they only have 3TB. So we would have to lvl up sires and dams, then breed--hope for a 10+TB and everything else--then lvl them up. Plus, we'd have to own both a sire and a brood with a colt coin just to hope we don't have to wait longer. All that on top of only being able to have 5 foals and waiting for specific days to increase our herd….How long will the limited-time brood be available, and when does she start to become available? If I'm thinking too hard about this, someone please let me know--I'm stress'n LOL!
@ToxicGem, in technical hindsight then, Clydesdales should be considered a rare breed as they are in more danger as they almost had become extinct in the '70s give or take, whereas Shires? Are not that bad off. At risk yes, but I look at Clydesdales to be more at risk since they almost went extinct.
Seeing Chincoteagues and Akhal Tekes being Rare makes sense to me, not so much Shires. At all. While Teagues are a rare breed, they CAN be found in the wild at any given time. Shires? I LOATHE the idea of being locked to once a month to find them in the wild.
I stocked up on a decent amount of treats when I saw new breed was being introduced, unsure of what it could be. Now I can only use them once a month and seeing how often I forget Marwaris and Akhal Tekes are available in the wild? I'm absolutely going to forget about Shires. I love Shires irl and instead of being to add new blood whenever I desire, now it's limited to once a month and that's just where my issue mainly derives from.
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