When I first wrote about Star Stable Online, some folks expressed surprise at the fact this is a MMO game with levels, quests and stats. It is, in fact!

Yesterday, I finished leveling my first horse to 15, which is the max level a horse can have. I knew that horses got better and more responsive as they leveled, but it wasn’t until back in level 13 that I really started paying attention and looking at the stats.

Horses gain stats as they level up. Some of these stats are effected by things like their breed – they may start out with higher stats in some areas than others. Other stats are effected by the player’s level or their equipment. And then, of course, stats are effected by the horse’s level, too.

Here’s what my horse, Exlipsevirtue, looked like at level 13 vs. level 15.

You level your horses by doing daily training on tracks or courses. I also found out if you want to spend your star coins (the pay-for currency), you can pay to boost your horse to the next level once per day. But I’m not going to spend my coins on that.

I also learned that if you have unlocked all the areas and daily courses in the world, and you are dedicated to hitting all of them up each day, you could level a horse in about 5 days. But I’ve been causal and lazy and haven’t really pushed my questing hard (or at all). So I’m still just level 6 and I’ve not unlocked most of the areas yet.

It also took me a lot longer because of two things:

• I didn’t train every day for a good chunk of time. It was only since Halloween that I’ve been buckling down to do my dailies.
• I got sidetrack and leveled a Halloween horse to about level 8 before switching back to Eclipsevirtue to finish up his training first.

So in all honesty, I could have had this done a long time ago.

The Christmas Event is going on in Star Stable right now, and it’s pretty cute! They have events and a little winter village to visit with new free gifts every day. Of course, they also released a new holiday horse – this one has a base Arabian breed which interests me because I don’t have any horse of that kind yet.

I did pick up a holiday horse from the previous year – the Fawncy. I love the idea of a deer-patterned horse!

This took more star coins up than I expected, so I’ll have to wait until next Saturday to be able to afford the new Arabian type holiday horse. But that’s fine. I’ve been training this new horse – Winterrambler – now that I’ve finished with my first.