The 2009 Yule Festival has begun in Lord of the Rings Online. This year, there’s a new area in the pub of Thorin’s Hall, new events to take part of and, most of all, a new way of earning the festival mount.

I’ve been waiting to earn the Yule Horse for my Champion TsuYa ever since I saw it last year. Ben and my namesake Minstral, Aywren, have both earned their festival mounts during this year’s Summer and Fall festivals.

Since the original horse races bugged out earlier this year, Turbine shut them down, and earning a horse was as tedious and simple as gathering the right amount of festival tokens to trade. With the introduction of the new mount system in the Mirkwood release (I love, love, love what they’ve done with mounts — soooo much better!), comes a new sort of horse race (tips follow below) to earn the festival horse. And a new festival horse, too.

You have your choice between last year’s Yule Horse and this year’s new Yule Snow Horse. There is a difference in the looks — the Snow horse has a beautiful, intricate pattern on the blanket which I love, a very full black mane and a brown-splotched white coloration. It’s a well designed horse and I’ve heard a lot of folks really liking it. As for me, I love the new blanket, but I just couldn’t get into the white splotches on the brown. So after much back and forth, I chose to earn last year’s Yule Horse instead.

Yes. You CAN get them both, if you’re wondering. But you have to win the race twice… and you have to fork over some cash for the Document of Mount Ownership. This document will cost you 4 gold if you have never owned a mount before and a discounted 1.6 gold if you currently own a mount.

I have a little grouchiness about this — in previous festivals, you would simply trade your current mount for the festival mount and never have to pay a single silver. But now that mounts are skills and not items, that isn’t possible anymore. I guess I understand why they make you pay for a new mount since you don’t actually give up your old one and only add to your mount collection. It’s nice of them to discount it, but honestly, I would have gladly handed in my old yellow horse for the Yule Mount and saved what little gold I have on hand. I’m not a rich player, so buying both horses is seriously out of the question.

Anyhow… back to the new races. I have to say that it’s very very tricky! It took me much practice, luck and frustration to win the Yule Race Token. Here’s some tips and ideas on how it works:

Tips on Winning the Festival Horse Race

The new horse race is a timed solo quest that pits your riding skill against an obstacle course on the festival track. You no longer race against other players to win (though other players will be riding on the track at the same time you are).

There are two tracks and two questgivers:

• Sally Threshing (24.9S, 52.0W Breeland Festival Grounds)
• Carl Proudfoot (35.3S, 73.1W Shire Track, right outside of Michel Delving)

Tip #1 - If you lose the race, you have to wait an hour to try again. However, each track is on a different timer, so you can actually attempt the race twice, once at each track, every hour!

Tip #2- Practice the track before you make the run. Practice racing around the track will allow the objects and land to load fully and help reduce lag when you go to do the real thing.

Tip #3- Keep in mind that the horse you race on during the quest is FASTER than your own normal mount. So as much as you may practice, the real thing is going to be at a higher speed, which can be harder to control.

Tip #4- You MUST make it through all of the gates to win the race. I’ve made it across the finish line before time expired a few times to still lose the race, much to my frustration. The reason for this was that I didn’t make it through all the gates along the way.

For areas where you have to choose to try to ride over the water on narrow planks… or run through the water and get mired down… take note that there are two gates to ride through. One is above the planks. One is over the mire. These are the gates I’m guessing people are missing.

When you successfully ride under the gate while racing on the planks, you will see an on-screen announcement that tells you that you have a speed boost. I found that you MUST be ON THE PLANKS when riding under the gate for this to count. So if you fall off the planks and try to ride through the plank gate, it won’t work.

If you’re in the water, your ONLY choice is to ride through the mire gate, which gives you an on screen announcement that your horse is now slowed in speed. If you try to “cheat” by running through the gate under the planks, the race will not update and even if you cross the finish line before the time is up, you will lose.

On the time I finally won, I managed to make it through one of the gates on the planks for the speed boost, but had to run through the mire the second time. I suppose this balanced out somehow because I crossed the finish line JUST in time to win. Whew!

So if people are having issues with the race, those are some things to keep in mind!

Moving Day Lotto Winner!

LoTRO held a Moving Day Lotto in honor of their database and hardware move. I haven’t been a big follower of these lottos, which take place as part of My LoTRO. But while I was waiting between horse race quest timers to renew, I saw the post about it, hopped over and signed my characters up.

I’m not the kind of person that wins much. So I didn’t expect a thing…. especially since I’m fairly sure only a limited number of players actually per server actually win (something like 20?).

So imagine my surprise when, in running back to Dolven View to log off my main for the night, I get an in game mail. Curious, I open my mailbox to find it stuffed to the brim with some seriously amazing loot (for my level and compared to what I own!). A second age Legendary, some teal relics, a teal sword… I was bug-eyed at the sight! I kept thinking, there has to be a mistake. How did I win all this stuff!? I guess I should have actually read the description of the loot you win for entering the lotto. *laugh*

Major moment of wow!

I got my Yule horse. I won the Champion’s Legendary lotto. Was a good night in Middle Earth.

Thanks, Turbine!