Here's a few suggestions based on the progress of the bond.


1. You sense that your horse/pony begins to trust you more.

2. Your horse/pony begins to come closer to you seeking your affection.

3. You horse/pony nudges you affectionatly and whinies at you as though he/she is trying to make conversation.

4. You sense that your horse will now give its life to protect you.

5. You sense that the noble spirit of your horse/pony has merged with your own as you are now one fighting entity.

Ells

I want a fully bonded horse to polish my armor, or at least carry crap for me.

I want a fully bonded horse to be able to come to me when I whistle or call it (from a few rooms away).

I want a fully bonded horse to be able to drag me when stunned, or to at least try to step between me and the critter casing the stunn.

I want a fully bonded horse to keep me warm at night and make me an omlette in the morning ;P

Late for a meeting, will post more suggestions later...


--Just a "clueless" Squire

Now I lay me down to sleep;
I pray Solomon my soul to keep.
If I should walk before I wake;
I pray that Simutronics a restore will make.

<<
Any interest in mini quests that involve your mount?
>>

Not until other outstanding issues with horses are fixed first. At least in my opinion there are a ton of things about horses that need alot more attention then making quests with em, unless of course it's a quest to find out how to lead a group with a horse....Check out the past 2 years worth of messages in the horse folder in abilities, skills, magic, ect. folder for examples of what needs to be fixed with them.

Personally I don't use a horse because there are such a lack of places for them to hunt with you in the middle to upper hunting ranges. Would be nice if I can take it into celps with me, heh. Which reminds me, we need a stable over on Kresh so I can try and take it into celps with me, lol. Heck even if its a simple copy of a stable that doesn't sell horses I'd be happy. I just need tack and a place to store em. I havn't tried, but I don't see an issue with it going over the barricade at all (though u may have to check on that).

Would be good to have a way were you can check to see your horses EXP would help alot help training them and at certain skill you gain for say Animal lore = Animal bond? and like at 50-100 you get your first bond with your horse or maybe a Horse Combat skill that covers all their offense and defense in 1 skill so ya see when they need to move up the scale to fight harder stuff. And maybe later on we can have like Pokemon matches with animals in Dr =P. Im just kidding on the pokemon fights but I do think it be a real Kewl idea and fun for alot of people.


Rekon

<<Exploding horses!
You can send it into the fray and detonate it... kills your horse.. but think of the fun>>

Only if I can block the flying dog food with a goblin-door shield =P


--Just a "clueless" Squire

Now I lay me down to sleep;
I pray Solomon my soul to keep.
If I should walk before I wake;
I pray that Simutronics a restore will make.

I definitely like the whistling and dragging ideas Lennon has. After bonding I'd like to see my horse:

~seek affection from me
~follow me from room to room, without using lead verb
~either use body language to tell me what it needs(food, attention, grooming, healing etc), or I could already sense its' needs without having to study or look at the horse
~let me know it senses something coming(hears very soft footsteps coming into the room, a creature with hostile intent, someone stalking or stealing from me)

As far as mini-quests go, I think a Paladin should have the opportunity to enhance the training/bonding they have with their horse. I think there should be a quest set from one of the Stablemasters(after say the first stage of bonding) indicating that we could have one on one training time with our horse. Not simply where we learn a lesson, or we have the horse taught, but rather something along the lines of round pen training, or horse whispering. We would have to travel to say Horse Clan, to find out about this type of training, and we can try it out at their round pens. We learn, through trial and error, how the horse responds to our body language and cues. After we successfully get the horse to understand and obey our commands, the quest is complete, and as a reward maybe get the ability to whistle to a horse for it to come, have the horse follow us without using the lead verb, have it seek our affection/attention...along those lines. That way we could knock out of a lot of ideas at once.

Have another tier in charge, at the moment only the horse charges whether you are mounted or not, how about if you are mounted the horse and YOU charge together, using the horses speed and your weapon to hit together.

As for charge it is way out of whack, but thats another issue.

Thought maybe been able to load deaders onto the back of the horse (along the lines of glyph of ease helping dead ones), but maybe thats better for all guilds to be able to do.

A tip for all you wishing to bond with you horse, you have to ride your horse bareback,yeah something I didnt do for the first 3 months as I thought a paladin horse should be all dress up and looking the part. Looks like the want you to get close to your horse as possible, so get rid of the saddle and mount em bareback.

Also you have to show your horse how to advance, do this by advancing your horse while in combat, this gets the horse to show up in combat assess. You need to repeat this everytime you get horse back from stables. that whole thing feels buggy to me. <grins>

You cant get the charge bond untill you have your horse showing up in combat assess.

Once I knew to do these 2 things, Bareback and advance horse it took only a few weeks to get the bonds.

I wont repeat the other good suggestions as there has been plently made on horses already, fingers crossed someone get interested in working on horses again.

thanks
Wodie.

How bout just the head of the goblin.. lashed to the face of the shield?

come on....


____________________________________________
It wont heal if you dont stop picking at it.

Maece I would love to see messaging indicating the level of the bond. Ells provided some very good ones.

I would also like to see if you loose some of your bond. If the system does this. I am not entirely sure that it does.

I advocated over on the horses general boards, that Horse bonds be available for all guilds. And that a non-paladin rider must have a bond established before their horse will fight for them as ours does. And additionally, that a non-paladin rider and horse must be taught by a paladin, to be able to form this bond.

There should also be some fluff messaging that a horse does for anyone if it is fully bonded. Nuzzling you for a treat, leaning against you, maybe nipping at you playfully.

Perhaps even a highly trained warhorse might be a bit mean. Step on people, kick and just miss, or try to bite a person. Doing no damage, just giving them a bit more life.

However all of these should only be with a bonded horse.

I would like to see more bond moves also. With bond moves available for all guilds, but on a limited basis for non-paladins.

Bond moves that would be great are the Whistle Call and the Drag if stunned and knocked off the horse.

Other bond moves I'd like to see would involve combat related functions such as the Charge Ells suggested. A Trample attack where the horse just runs over someone.

A rearing attack where the horse rears and kicks out. A spin attack where it spins around and kicks with it's rear hooves. These would require the horse to know Rear and Spin moves. Or perhaps advanced versions of these that a Ranger can train.

Also a Jump attack that has the horse jump up and stomp on a foe. This would also involve training up the horses jump skill at the stable training areas.

Allowing another to ride the horse without you on it, would be another neat bond move. However double ride - when the rider mounts first and another mounts behind them - should be able to be done by anyone, no bond needed. It's a nice feature and I do not think it should be restricted.

And damnme, but the idea of a mini-quest, to perhaps infuse your horse with more size, power, perhaps the ability to hit undead, making it a true holy warhorse - Well that would be truly awesome.

Sorry for the delayed response.

~ Salute ~

Candidus

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Any chance of getting bonded mount spells? Spells specifically designed for our mounts?