Formation Riding Team - Third Routine Planning Thread

[Kiralynn]

Emylot has joined the formation riding team. We now have four riders again! We still need a back-up or two... in fact we could use four more riders... but this will do for now.

The team has been invited to perform for the 2013 Galloping Gala!

We need a horse, a uniform, a routine, a song, and a location. Craicwyth, would you like to get everyone started?

[Lhinnthel]

Hooray and Welcome Emylot!
Here are my suggestions for the third routine mount. While I don't have any of them, yet, most should be able to be obtained before the next performance. Kira you mentioned something about Winged Herald, if that isn't a possibility, just scratch it off the list. I'm leaning towards Prized Eglain because it's summery and would be easy to match with outfits. Rivendell and Malledhrim might be a bit harder to get in time, and not as easy to match outfits, but they are very nice looking so maybe a possibility? Anyway, just a few suggestions to get the ball rolling! I want to start working on getting whatever mount we decide on!

[Kiralynn]

Lhinnthel wrote:

Kira you mentioned something about Winged Herald, if that isn't a possibility, just scratch it off the list. I'm leaning towards Prized Eglain because it's summery and would be easy to match with outfits. Rivendell and Malledhrim might be a bit harder to get in time, and not as easy to match outfits

It'll take a little bit of effort, but I can indeed wrangle Winged Herald steeds for the team. I got mine by asking co-workers to sign up for LOTRO and give it a try. (I think one still plays now and then.) There are 350 more people I can ask, so I'm sure we can find 15 or 20 to give it a whirl. More than that many went to see "The Hobbit".

If we're lucky and a Bander goes to the PAX convention in March, we can get this year's PAX steed. I'm hoping any Banders that attend will be kind enough to pick up the free mount codes that come on a card or on the LOTRO install CD (it varies). At previous conventions, Banders were able to collect between 15 and 45 codes each. This helped keep Windy Acres prize pool well stocked.

I believe that everyone has the Eglain steed except Emylot, so a tiny bit of item grind will fix that, probably in a couple of hours. The Rivendell steed is also easy to get items for, however the steed is difficult to match with outfits.

The Malledrim horses (there are two) take 20 gold tokens each. I don't have either but I would love to do the daily quests in a group. I'm guessing it would take a week or two of work to obtain the horses. They are less common and would look more impressive on the field.

Craicwyth mentioned that we might also want to use the Perlino steed.

There is one more option. I've been told that we can take a person of ANY level and get them a war steed. Perhaps this is a good opportunity to enhance our routines to be more like real dressage, performed at a trot. Craicwyth says that we'll have to change the maneuvers a little because war steeds cannot strafe.

As for location - I recommend a return to the horsefields arena. We were able to ride more accurately and do a more complex routine at that site. Alternately, perhaps we can find a fenced area, perhaps a bit of farmland, somewhere near a stable.

[Cennwyn]

Kiralynn of Rohan wrote:

I believe that everyone has the Eglain steed except Emylot, so a tiny bit of item grind will fix that, probably in a couple of hours.

Last I checked the Eglain rep items don't drop throughout the zone and are rather difficult to obtain. The "fastest" way to grind rep is to do quests, and I actually found that getting the Eglain horse took QUITE a while.

[Kiralynn]

There are bounty quests in Ost Haer in Harloeg, repeatable three times, that give about 500 rep each.

The crafting-for-rep chain starts at Dol Vaeg, where you have to craft something and deliver it to Ost Guruth. This then opens up the chance of repeating the crafting quests, which you can do as many times as you like. You have to purchase each of these quests which cost around 21 silver (I'm happy to offer coin for this). You get 700 rep for each one, and get about 11 silver back as a quest reward.

Farming for the crafting items ought to be fairly easy.

[Byrcha]

Given the level, the Eglain horse would be the easiest of these to acquire. Low-level folks don't have to push much to get to the Lone Lands, and high-level folks may already have it. Every orc/goblin kill in the Lone Lands counts towards Eglain rep IIRC.

I love the Mirkwood Smokey Black, but to get to Mirkwood for the Malledhrim horses one must get through/past/around Moria and Lothlorien as well as everything that came before it, then do some grinding. Maybe we can do this with a larger riding team later on, where some have a black horse and others have a white one.

I'm not in-game yet, but perhaps the spring festival horses are a possibility? At least the two most-recent ones *should* be available when the festival comes around, in addition to the new one that they add.

[Lhinnthel]

Kiralynn of Rohan wrote:

Craicwyth mentioned that we might also want to use the Perlino steed.

I forgot all about Perlino, it would be a very nice steed for the season and fun to match with an outfit. Eglain was just my first thought because it was the easiest steed for me to gain on my first character and as Byrcha said, it's a bit easier for lower levels to get.

I'm all for questing to gain rep and or tokens for other more unusual steeds as well!

Spring festival horses would be nice as well, I can't wait to see what this year's will look like! Ooh, there are just so many nice mounts to choose from!

Kiralynn of Rohan wrote:

As for location - I recommend a return to the horsefields arena. We were able to ride more accurately and do a more complex routine at that site. Alternately, perhaps we can find a fenced area, perhaps a bit of farmland, somewhere near a stable.

I wonder, might there be any nice garden plots in the shire that would be the right size? That is, if we decide not to do the show at the horsefields arena. A farming plot just may be a fun alternative.

[Kiralynn]

Craicwyth, the ball's in your court, sir. What horse should we begin working on?

[Kiralynn]

I won't be able to make it to practice tonight. Hopefully y'all can pick the horse and location? Once those are decided, we can work on uniforms and routines.

[Kiralynn]

The riding team meets tonight!

Remember to bring...

* Your Mathom steed or the number of reputation points you need to buy one.
* Several outfits matching the Mathom steed to vote upon.
* Ideas for interesting maneuvers that could be part of the routine(s).
* Suggestions for 5-6 minute songs to play with the routine.

Please don't claim that the dog ate your homework, Middle Earth hounds are not that unruly! :)

[Craicwyth]

Kiralynn of Rohan wrote:

* Suggestions for 5-6 minute songs to play with the routine.

*Sobs*

So, I have been trying to work out a combination warsteed/travel mount routine...It would serve to speed up the pace of the latter, while adding additional visual interest to the former.

The problem is, even at 14 maneuvers, the entire routine clocks in at only 2:40!

Oh well, back to the drawing board.


routine-3rough
Here is a (very) rough draft of what I came up with...Sorry about the sloppy lines; I will edit everything later, but it was either this or my raw notes done in light pencil.

[Burrberry Farflight]

Could you do a pinwheel? Or a Crack? Those are pretty flashy and could pad a bit more! Figure 8? Interlocking circles in opposite directions?

Could you have some trick riding in the middle of the show? With some volunteer hobbits running out to form a jump? You could have one horse refuse to jump and rear/jump kick - For that it would help to have an announcer who'd be talking the watchers through "Oh and here Kiralynn and her horse (name) seem to be struggling, she's got good form and control though, their experience working together will be tested as he seems to really object to the hats the hobbits are wearing..." blah blah till she successfully gets over the jump.

There's got to be some creative way to create a barrel race with some players being the obsticals. Hobbits forming a slalom horses can run through!

OH you could have a couple of people make campfires and have the specially brave horses jump them!! That might be a fun one for the warhorses, demonstrating how brave and fearless they are. You could have a couple of regular horses attempt and refuse just to prove the point.

Hope you don't mind me throwing some idea's out there!

[Kiralynn]

Craicwyth, that looks like a fantastic routine for the Mathom horses. I was able to follow it without much difficulty. Three notes, however on your diagrams. First, at the Horsefields our audience is on the east (right) side. You may want to adjust a little to put us up in front of them when we move into a column. Second, make sure to draw rounded turns for when the horses walk forward, and hard angles for when you want them to strafe. Finally, it may be a little long. I think people will get fussy if the routine runs longer than five-and-a-half minutes, especially if we also want to do a war steed routine. Let's aim for a 4-minute routine, which is fairly standard in a lot of performance sports?

We could do the long version of your routine with the war steeds. If you want to make it longer, just specify that some maneuvers are done at a walk, some at a trot, and maybe one (IE: Prancing Ponies) at a canter. We can do the really difficult maneuvers at a walk. That should bring you up to 4 minutes.


Burberry, could you draw us (or better explain) what you mean by pinwheel and crack? Perhaps look at the diagrams we have already. We don't use the standard quadrille dressage names. http://windyacres.mymiddleearth.com/?page_id=1806

I like the idea of some trick riding as a segment in the middle of the show, assuming we can come up with enough tricks to make it interesting. Let's see if we can come up with half a dozen? I love the idea of jumping over campfires people have lit. The added "drama" of a kicking horse is also interesting. I think this would be perfect for the war steeds, as they have more range of movement and are less prone to saddle-bounce. For the "regular" horse failure, we could use light war steeds with totally civilian tack.


Keep the ideas coming!

[Byrcha]

I like the interlude idea with the tricks and campfires.

Craic, have you looked at having two separate short programs, one for mathom steeds and one for warsteeds (or even two short sets for the mathom steeds), rather than one big long program? Might break it up a bit, both for the audience and for music selection. But one problem is that we don't all have warsteeds. However, if we will be using warsteeds, the current sale on coats/colors ends tonight.

[Burrberry Farflight]

Hope this helps!

Here's the link for a larger view - http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w217/GreySkye_bucket/Drillteamformations.png