Some major changes were made to the Festival Mount exchange system, to reflect both changes to the festival and changes to how mounts are being handled now.
Formerly, horses and ponies could be bought at Hengstacer Farm and elsewhere in Middle-earth for around 4 gold, usable after the quest to gain the riding skill was completed (level 35 or above). All mounts purchased afterwards cost full price, unless you opted to trade them in. This could be done through a quest that provided a receipt for a mount, which could then be traded for another mount. Using this system, only one mount could be in your inventory at a time, but there was no additional cost. Another aspect of this was that all seasons’ festival mounts were available at all times.
The changes are as follows:
• A specific festival vendor, Will Peartree, has been moved to Hengstacer Farm to keep mount purchasing more localized.
• Each season’s festival mount is only available for the duration of the corresponding festival. This is for consistency reasons with other seasonal rewards in our game (other festival items, anniversary items, etc.) and also to keep vendor lists simple as more mount rewards start to come out. We want your new options to stand out!
• The cost of a mount:
- 1 Festival Run token (from winning the horse race)
- 12 festival barter tokens (These are given out as rewards for playing the festival content. This number may change someday as more content comes out, and tokens are easier to collect)
- 1 “Document of Mount Ownership” – this is like a proof-of-purchase for owning a horse/pony, giving the discount to those who are eligible for it. This can be purchased from Will Peartree, the same vendor that sells the festival mounts.
• All festival mounts can now be collected at a discount by using the above system. If the festival mount is your first steed, it will cost the full price. If you already own a horse or pony, however, you will receive the discount, and the mount will only be 1.6 gold.
• When you convert your first festival mount to a skill, you should automatically acquire the Mount Discount passive skill, and thus will get discounts on future horses.
• There's more content for each festival with every book release, and theoretically you'll be able to get your tokens much faster now. All of the old content is still there, but there's more to do now
• Assuming that you already have the mount discount, it will cost you the festival tokens, and 1.6 gold to buy the Document of Mount Ownership.
• Tokens will be coming only from the race, but the race has been totally revamped
• Once SoM launches, you'll only be able to acquire the Fall Festival horse during the Fall Festival.
• If you have the discount prices, the discount effects festival horse prices and the "regular" horse/pony prices as well
• In order to get the discount you have to purchase at least one horse (or Document of Mount Ownership) for its full 4g price.
• The discounts do not apply to reputation mounts.
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