I posted this over a month ago. See if things make more sense now.

Later,

Jent




Heyo,

Today Horses were released in Plat. I want to go over a few things and put to rest some rumors that have been floating around. So let's get started. Below is some background info and answers to questions you might have.

1.The Horse system was created by GM Jeremael and was one of the best kept secrets DR has ever had. On the night that I was announced to the staff as the new Ranger Guru I received a message from Jeremael that he needed to talk to me. The next day I was introduced to horses.

2.I was heavily involved with the discussion on the use of Animal Lore and horse training. After much debate, the SGM's, GM Jeremael, the Paladin Guru, and I came to an agreement on how it would work. The basic guideline is that the Rangers will train the horse and other Guilds will train the riders. In some cases, guilds will teach the ranger the aspect of a technique for horses and then the Ranger will apply that knowledge to train the horse itself.

The intent was to incorporate as many guilds into the fold and to promote some guild-to-guild cooperation. The initial release will see mostly Rangers and Paladins working on horses however close behind are a plethora of additions to the system from other guilds.

3.So what does this all mean to you the Ranger? Well, I suspect that many of you will be in high demand with the initial release of the system and continued demand as the system grows. I gave you all a heads up the first week I was introduced to the guild. I hope you listened because your Animal Lore will now be worth something to not only you but to the players that are interested in owning a horse.

4. So we only get to teach the horses do we get anything else? Yes you do, but you can have fun figuring it out.

5.How much Animal Lore is needed? You know that I will not tell you a number and anyway in a week or so after the release you guys will have figured out most of the numbers anyway. I'm just not going to ruin the surprise. I'll tell you this, I put the title "Wrangler" in at 70th cause I thought that is where most of you would be with respect to Animal Lore ranks and circles. I was wrong, many of you are ahead of my initial projections. I guess you listened and started training Animal Lore. :-)

6.How is Animal Lore used? You do not need Animal Lore to work with a horse. However, you do need animal lore if you want to teach a horse to do some advance stuff. So most of the basic things a Ranger can train a horse to do, you do not need Animal Lore. The basic understanding of animals comes from within and being apart of our guild. The same reasoning why only Rangers can learn Animal Lore. However, with that in mind, you will need to be advanced enough in the guild to start practicing some of these things.

The training of horses follows closely to real life scenarios (I'm sure some of you who work with horses in RL might disagree on some points, but for DR we think we have come very close within the bounds of a computer game.) but here in DR we have magic to deal with and some other mystical things that if you believe you have in RL you get locked up for a long, long time. (Or given some really good medication.) So the aspects of magic and other fantasy traits we have here enter into what I consider advance horse training and the need to apply Animal Lore to do it correctly.

7.Will Rangers learn Animal Lore from working with Horses? Yes, just about everything you do when training a horse will give you Animal Lore experience.

8.How long does it take to train a horse? It varies, the more difficult the task you are teaching a horse the longer it will take. Let me put it this way, the time needed to train a horse a skill or a trick is not as long as tanning but no whereas quick as making a bow. You'll figure it out.

9.Once again Jent is out to get us, what the heck was he thinking? Well, I'm sure some of you will believe what you want to believe. (A few names come to mind. ::snicker::) Here is the deal. When applying for the Guru position one of my goals I listed was to expand the use of animal lore and the interaction of Rangers with the natural critters of Elanthia. I was taken aback when GM Jeremael told me how far along he was with the system. So I had to do a few things in a short time and work with the other GM's so the system was fair to Rangers. We came up with some perimeters;

A. Since Animal Lore was never a requirement and some Rangers never trained a rank in it we needed a way to allow Rangers to work with horse and still incorporate Animal Lore. Then following my basic goal of "Reward the Hard Work" we needed a way to make Animal Lore ranks count for something.

B. Rangers needed a heads up about the expanded use of Animal Lore without mentioning horses. (I did that in my second post)

C. We (the GM's) needed to make sure that horses where not going to be abused and to add some level based restrictions to the use of them.

D. We needed to allow the system to be able to grow with the game and stay fresh. For Rangers this meant implementing a way for a character to grow into the system yet still have a system that upon initial release was NOT useless for 90% of the Players.

So we have come up with a system that takes into consideration your Circle, your Animal Lore ranks, provides a new way to learn Animal Lore (so that even if you never own a companion you can still gain Animal Lore ranks, a companion will teach you more but still there is the possibility of becoming a great Horse trainer and never have to own a companion), and allows for Rangers to still work with Horses and takes into consideration the previous stated policy of Animal Lore for Companions only.

10. Can you tell us more? Not really, I can try to explain some of this stuff better if you don't understand fully what I was getting at. Like I said this system is not mine and while I have peeked at a lot of the coding (...hides from GM Jeremael) it is not my information to tell. I probably said too much as it is.

That's all I have for now. I think most of you will enjoy the Horse System, and if you do make sure you show your appreciation to GM Jeremael, he deserves all thanks and praise that we can give.

Later,

Jent