Now that the imperial racial bonuses are out, the last factor I need to consider in which edition I preorder is how easy it is to get a horse with or without the imperial edition. Did anyone manage to get one in the beta? Do you think $30 is worth the amount of time spent to get one?

A horse costs 17,000 gold so you'll probably be around level 25-30 before you can easily afford one. I haven't met a single person who managed to buy the horse (at full cost) during the beta. It'll save you a lot of time in Cyrodiil's PvP, but definitely not worth $30 on its own (in my opinion).

I bought my ICE mainly for the horse. It's up to you, but they are 17,000g in game, and that is a huge amount. Just the advantage you get from being able to buff it with food right from the start is worth it.

It was 17k in game, the imperial horse in beta was 100 gold but that might change.

The way you can look at it is if you'd pay $30 to play the game for the amount of time needed to get that 17k. It could take you a week maybe to reach lvl 30, if you're not playing for hours at end every day, and would you pay $120 a month to play the game?

Btw can one of you guys that menaged to test out using horse in beta explain a bit about what do you mean by buff the horse with food and how does that work, thx

What you feed the horse has a bearing on it. Some things you feed it will increase its speed, other stuff the amount of things it can carry, etc.

the first tier horse is 17.5k at the stables and the next is 43k at....level 40?

Its worth waiting for the Tier 2 horse. I would suggest you keep your gold and skip the first since its not that fast and the tier 2 is better to upgrade.

I bought the ICE version specifically for the mount. I doubt I'll even play an imperial.

My avatar in the Beta was out running everything including all the horses. I was the flash.

You buff the horse with oats for capacity, apples for speed and wheat for stamina. You can do this once every 24 hours and the buff is one level. You can level up your horse to level 50.

I "hit" the level nine, in the mean time bought only additional space in bag, completed all quests, spent some time on gathering and did sell some stuff and was playing approximately 10 hours (I could not do more). I had 2k gold at the end.

So to collect 17k gold is quite a bit work and time.

A non buffed horse is just about the same speed as a running human after it runs out of stamina. At full run it is definitely faster.

Thx for the answer so basicly i can chose to buff my horse 50 times before it reaches max lvl and is customized to my liiking if i get you corectly. Also few more questions if you dont mind, whats horses basic carrying capacity and how much does each buff increase it for also when you say once each 24 hours does that mean real time or ingame time. Also since i saw there are diferent quality of horses in the actual game, where wud the imperial horse from the preorder be(same as the cheaper or horses or more expesnive ones?). Thx again for the help.

I was out running horses that were sprinting with full stamina. I had more stamina and speed than the horses.

The imperial horse is the basic horse but is white. It's just a skin.

I don't know the answer to most of your questions. The Imperial horse I got, I suppose because I own the ICE, was 100g and I believe a basic horse. The other horses in the stable are all over 17000g and again, I believe, have various levels of capacity, speed and stamina.

I'm pretty sure the advantage from being able to own and feed a horse right from the start make the extra $20 I paid for the ICE well worth the money.

You must have had some buffs of your own. The basic horse is about the only one you probably saw so ... I dunno.

I got horses on my chars last beta. However, that isn't why I picked up the IE, and personally, I would not spend a penny of real money just for that. The starter horses are not fast enough, and you have to dismount to collect stuff I can't ride by a flower without getting off to pick it up.

Atropos mentioned in his Q+A yesterday that it's really not worth getting the basic horse, and he thinks you should save your money for the next horse up. That's because the stats on the basic horse are capped at a lower level than the good horse. It's true that the Imperial horse is something to ride in the meantime, but the advantages are not that compelling.

Thanks for the advice all. It looks like I'll just get the standard edition then.

I have no reason to believe Atropos knows anything more about the game than other people. I will not be sure till next time but I doubt the horses are much different. You pay for the buffed horse but I have no reason to believe, yet, that the Imperial horse cannot be buffed to as high a level as any other horse.

Just don't feed it Coda flowers, Racer plumes, Sweetpulp and Trama root at the same time or it'll end up like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awm6lNOpGq8