During gift exchange season, you can find a link to the exchange in the left-hand navigation under the “Seasonal” bin. This link will only appear when the exchange is open or accepting feedback. During the “off-season”, you can go to your member home page, and find a permanent link to the exchange under “Account and Stable Management » Community » Gift Exchange”.
Level 1 of our exchange was set up with brand-new members in mind. You may have seen extravagant gifts happening on the forum but I promise those are just older accounts being extra. Our friendly community loves to help out first-timers, and many will give you free stuff to gift for the exchange. The level 1 GE is absolutely obtainable for accounts of any age.
We also have lots of older accounts that are chomping at the bit to send you things via Random Acts of Gifting and they complain each exchange that they don’t have enough newbies to pamper. Trust me, you are welcome and wanted at level 1.
To enter the gift exchange you need to meet some very basic qualifications, but I promise they are simple to meet.
Why do we require this? The sad truth is people who don’t post on the forum tend not to be very savvy at the game or invested in it. They tend to flake out and never send any gifts. People who won’t put in the minimal effort to make a few posts, usually can’t be bothered participating either.
Level 2: As long as you don’t totally whiff it at level 1 (don’t worry you will have lots of help) you will qualify for level 2. Level 2 is the main body of the exchange and where most members participate. To qualify for level 2 you need to have: 1) Successfully participated at level 1, 2) Make 5000 hbs a day from your daily showing bonus, 3) Meet the minimum forum activity level. Don’t worry, by participating in level one in the prior exchange you already have #1 and #3 on that list covered.
5,000 a day may seem like a big ask when you are first starting out, but just keep collecting show horses and working towards your Achievement Tasks, and you will find you rapidly reach this amount. The game gives you all the points you need to reach this via your starter creates.
Random Acts of Gifting: Signing up for the gift exchange at any level makes your wishlist visible for Random Acts of Gifting. That means any member of the game can send you gifts during the exchange, not just the member assigned to you. You can opt out of RAoG if you would like your list to be private.
To be a gifter with RAoG you will need to have qualified for level 2 of the exchange. We just like to make sure people understand the basics of the game before they can start sending things to other players.
Level 3: Some of our members love to go to extravagant lengths when gifting and we have a category just for them. This is our 2.5 million budget level but realistically many members give way more than that. To qualify for level 3 you must participate in level 2 and give a very extravagant amount like a level 3 gifter would. If you have shown you are one of those lux givers you will get an invitation to level 3. Most of our members are not level 3 gifters and that is completely fine. There is never any pressure to participate in level 3, even if you are qualified.
You should only ever enter the gifting category you are comfortable with. You are never penalized for not moving up to a higher gifting level, and if you want to always send millions in gifts to a level 1 recipient that’s great. If you want to keep things low-pressure and just hang out at a lower level and do the expected amount that is great too. It’s important that you enjoy the experience so you should pick the best fit for you.
In order to sign up for the gift exchange you will need to create your wishlist. The form gives you some ideas of what to put. You do not need to copy and paste this. It is just there to spark some ideas. If you have specific rules for your barn like never using yellow horses, or only collecting horses with the E gene you need to put those on your list. Remember everything you put here will be visible to your gifter and everyone participating in RAoG if you don’t opt out. Be polite, and thankful on your list. Kindness counts for a lot. It can be very helpful to add formatting to your wishlist. Break things up into multiple lines to make it easier to read. Having a range of things to shop for is also nice. They may not be able to get everything on your list. It’s also a good idea to include a bit about the projects you are working on. Most of all make sure your wish list is clear and easy to understand.
Your first-ever wishlist can be intimidating but both this guide and the community are here to help you out.
The kindest thing you can do for the person sending you gifts is to be specific with your wishlist. I know not everyone is comfortable asking for things but think about how much easier it is to shop for a stranger if they give you somewhere to start. Vague wishlists put extra work on someone trying to do you a kindness.
Even if you are the sort of person who likes anything come up with some specific ideas for your gifter. You don’t have to be over the moon crazy about appaloosas to tell put high pt appaloosa show horses on your wishlist. Just give your gifter something to work with. They will thank you for it.
Hi and thank you for being my gifter,
I am in love with black horses. Silver, pearl, smoky blacks are coat color I'm looking for to start a line. Prefer foundation horses.
It might be a little fancy to have appaloosa or white markings of some kind.
A couple herd helpers I really like are Black Sea and Orca.
I'm in need of show horses any age, prefer over 45 hbs daily but any are very appreciated!
I want to stay away from grey, licensed, and fantasy genes.
Thank you. -Wishlist provided by MergeThis
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Happy Holidays!
- My bootstrap herd could use straws from three star stallions. Any era is fine. I avoid fantasy genes. I also like recent-era foundations.
- I generally lean toward darker colors.
-My favorite herd helper is Olive Branch and herd helpers that are similar.
-I am always interested in show horses of any level with points, and/or show horses with a PT of 12 or more at any age. I always need more show horses.
-I love getting my hands on bloodlines I would not normally have in my barns. I love fancy tack editor designs, cute names, etc.
I appreciate you so much and hope you have a nice time in the exchange
-Wishlist provided by Abhean
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Thanks for participating in the exchange to be my gifter!
I'm always running out of HBs, so HB donations or show ponies with a lot of lifetime points would really help me out.
If gifting straws or horses the types of horses I like are: Medium boned, horse sized horses. Foundation horses need to be perfect or exceptionally perfect. I like Dun, Silver, Rabicano, Sabino, and White 3. I prefer deep/dark coat colors over light/pale coat colors.
I would prefer mares if gifting horses, unless a stallion is really special with some rare genes like S+, Sabino 2, White 3, KP, gp, etc.
I do not like appaloosa, splash, white 1 or white 2.
-Wishlist provided by RamshornSportHorses
This list is simply a jumping-off point to give you an idea of the kinds of things you can ask for. Feel free to be creative and branch out. You can ask for things worth up to 25,000 hbs.
At level two you can ask for things worth up to 250,000. You can include the things that you can’t ask for in level 1, but give a wide number of options in case your gifter can’t fulfill parts of your. Keep in mind that licensed genes and anything to do with gmt work or real money are very unlikely and you should never expect to get those things are level 2.
This is the sky’s the limit category. Members signed up for this level are planning to go over the top so feel free to be over the top with your lists.
Once you have created your wish list you will have the option to opt out of Random Acts of Gifting. Some members may wish to do this to keep their wishlist private, or because they really don’t want to receive gifts, but I ask you to leave it checked if at all possible. Our members love sending gifts, and many only participate in the exchange by sending RAoG gifts. We never have enough people to send gifts to. Please help us out by allowing them to send you gifts.
You are allowed to enter the exchange on multiple accounts and/or multiple levels but there are a few rules you must follow to do so. First, all accounts you own on a game server are supposed to use the same email. Accounts using the same email will never be assigned to one another. Take this moment to make sure your accounts are using the same email to prevent being assigned yourself.
Next, if you are doing multiple entries you need to be very careful not to ask for the same specific thing over and over again. For example, there are only so many 14+ PT Bay Rabiano drafts on a server, and if you ask for that multiple times, you force gifters to compete for those limited few which isn’t fair to them. You can of course ask for general things like “show horses” many times, but be mindful of your repeated requests.
Finally, if you are entering multiple levels we ask you to not just copy and paste your higher-level wish list into lower levels. Every wish list you submit should be appropriate for the level it’s submitted for.
You can go back and edit or even delete your gift exchange entry until the end of May/November. Please don’t start shopping for your recipient until the 1st when you are given your gifting assignment.