I'm new, could use help

[Faolan, The venomous She wolf]

so, I'm currently into the middle of summer, first playthrough, and I've still only unlocked beginner competitions. Is there some trick to unlock the next levels?

Same with the auctions, how do you unlock the other levels of horses after wild?

[SinisterScarecrow]

You just need to keep finishing the quests.
The longer you keep missing to finish them, the longer it'll take for you to get the next asigned quest. Since quests don't 'stack' from NPCs, you'll need to finish them to get the next one and progress in the storyline.

In my new playthrough I am only at day 27 of my first Spring, I still need to win the Rocky Beginners race there, so progressing takes a bit of time and is definitely tied to if or is not you have finished each quest per the day you recieved it.

What was the last race quest you were given? Do you have any current quests from Madeleine that need to be finished?

[Faolan, The venomous She wolf]

only quest I remember having is to get the retirement pasture from Liam. but I do all those quests and the auction house will have common and better tier horses, and the races will have intermediate+ tier races?

[SinisterScarecrow]

Originally posted by Venomous Lupine 420:

only quest I remember having is to get the retirement pasture from Liam. but I do all those quests and the auction house will have common and better tier horses, and the races will have intermediate+ tier races?

I'm having a real hard time finding a simple list of all quests, or else this would all be much easier. XD

It takes a while for the story to give you progress quests. I'm not sure which order the quests have, but yes: If you keep doing the quests, eventually you should unlock both higher race tiers AND additional level horses from the Auction House.
I got the first tier of horses yesterday, after winning the Rocky Beginner race, so now I have unlocked Tobiano and Dun horses from the Auction House.

Do you have a quest currently displayed when you are on a map and press Q? Some ongoing quests might block the progress.
Sometimes there are a day or so inbetween new quests as well, so that is something to keep in mind.

I checked a random Let's Play from someone on YouTube. The girl got a quest from River to prepare you for soon higher tier races. It's called: Higher Jumps. (This LP is from 9 months ago, but I suspect the quest name isn't different or you can at least remember getting intermediate training jumps from River, right?)
Have you finished that quest already?

I'm not sure if you get the Retirement Pasture before or after that.
I'll see if I can play some more and help figure things out. It could always be a bug tho, so we need to keep that as an option.

[Faolan, The venomous She wolf]

Originally posted by SinisterScarecrow:

Originally posted by Venomous Lupine 420:

only quest I remember having is to get the retirement pasture from Liam. but I do all those quests and the auction house will have common and better tier horses, and the races will have intermediate+ tier races?

I'm having a real hard time finding a simple list of all quests, or else this would all be much easier. XD

It takes a while for the story to give you progress quests. I'm not sure which order the quests have, but yes: If you keep doing the quests, eventually you should unlock both higher race tiers AND additional level horses from the Auction House.
I got the first tier of horses yesterday, after winning the Rocky Beginner race, so now I have unlocked Tobiano and Dun horses from the Auction House.

Do you have a quest currently displayed when you are on a map and press Q? Some ongoing quests might block the progress.
Sometimes there are a day or so inbetween new quests as well, so that is something to keep in mind.

I checked a random Let's Play from someone on YouTube. The girl got a quest from River to prepare you for soon higher tier races. It's called: Higher Jumps. (This LP is from 9 months ago, but I suspect the quest name isn't different or you can at least remember getting intermediate training jumps from River, right?)
Have you finished that quest already?

I'm not sure if you get the Retirement Pasture before or after that.
I'll see if I can play some more and help figure things out. It could always be a bug tho, so we need to keep that as an option.

I ended up restarting my game last night because I thought I did something wrong... XD Now that I know it's an advancement thing I'll have to just stick with it this time around. XD

[SinisterScarecrow]

Originally posted by Venomous Lupine 420:

I ended up restarting my game last night because I thought I did something wrong... XD Now that I know it's an advancement thing I'll have to just stick with it this time around. XD

Good luck then! I hope you don't run into any more problems with this re-run.

[XfriddlesX]

I just kept completing quests with Madeleine and then she unlocked all these things for me, intermediate competitions and horses, seen a couple comments about needing to buy specific things, i'm not sure that's the case, i've unlocked all of the intermediate stuff and i've not bought the retirement pasture or extended farm or anything.

I think it may be based on how many competitions you have done also, because once i had gotten all the horses to glow in each place is when she started to tell me to do intermediate competitions.

[Murder of Crows]

I've discovered you don't receive the next rank in auction horses and races until you complete all the races from the prior section, for example: all beginner races on the board. Then you receive a quest from the lady announcing higher level of races. I want to say common horses unlocked once I got to that point.