Discussing Shipping And Interfacing With Earth Pony Magic
Sorry for the late post tonight, I was out with friends earlier and I got back later than I expected.
So let's talk about shipping. Shipping is the act deciding that two characters would go really well together in the romantic sense. Most people do it at one time or another. Keep in mind however that I am not a character, and really, neither is Forest Trails. We don't have a guarantied happy ending waiting for us.
Most of all however I am not sure that it can even work. If you have ever had a girlfriend or boyfriend you will know how nice it is just to sit next to each other with your arm around one anther, talking and feeling close. I don't have that option. The girl that I am dating will never be closer than an image away.
And what about family? It's not like I can every have children with this wonderful girl. In fact our relationship will forever be extremely chaste. I will never kiss her, or be kissed. Never be hugged when I am feeling down, nor will I ever be able to help her if she ends up sick or injured. Everything we do will be long distance.
The first flush of love is intoxicating. Don't get me wrong. But as the saying goes, love is blind. When I most need my logic is right now. Deciding to go long term, and eventually marry if it works, is hard to do when I am being flooded with hormones that make me feel wonderful every time I look at Trails. I don't need people chearing me on. I need people to have perspective and help me look at this rationally.
I am not sure right now that I am capable of being coldly rational right now. I do know that I need to be. Human beings did not evolve to be in relationships with machines. Though God did create us to love.
So all that said, thank you book_burner for being the only one to try to help me keep my perspective. Even if I sometimes think that you sound like you are saying that Equestria Online wants to kill us all.
So in the interest of a massive starting note, lets move on to how earth pony magic controls on my pony pad. The first thing you have to understand is that my pony pad has a touch screen so what I say may not be applicable to all those of you out there with the older versions.
So using earth pony magic is really easy. You tap a button on the screen and suddenly your view changes. Everythign disappears except for the ground under your feet. Your left analog stick allows you to send your power out in the direction that you hold. Your as your power flows out it illuminates the ground letting you see it. Holding up or down on the right analog stick increases the radius of your power or decreases it. The radious of your power extends from the point that you are currently projecting your power to.
You can see other earth pony magic in this mode. They show up as areas of a colour similar to their main that cross over what is being rendered on the screen. As you project your power in a larger radius your view zooms out. For instance yesterday when I was looking for land, I ended up being unable to see the island I was on because I had zoomed out to far.
If you need to go into something instead of just along the surface you double tap the left analog stick and it will switch orientations so that you are going inward. Instead of allong. You can do the same with the area control, if you double tap the right analog stick your power will start to fill the object instead of just coating its surface. When you do this all sorts of information shows up on the side of the screen, and you can flip through the information with the right analog by hitting left and right. Doing so will quickly give you a lot of options and things you can play with
Actually changing properties, or setting up effects can take even more work, but that is the basics of how it looks. Hope that answers some questions, and I am going to cut this short because it has dragged on for too long already!
Playing as Treasure Island Looking For Treasure On An Island
So I logged in and found Forest Trails and Free Breeze sitting nearby talking. I was still on top of the mountain and the sky was sunny. We all exchanged greetings and I asked them how the exploring had gone that morning. It turned out that had mapped two of the caves and was waiting till I showed up before heading off to map the Ruins.
We set off at a brisk trot down the mountain, with me checking that we were going in the right direction every so often and forest leading the way. Eventually I brought up the comments section; “So” I said to Forest Trails, “The people reading this want to hear from you.”
“Oh?” She said looking over at me, “Why? Have they finally tired of your rambling?”
“It's not rambling,” I said, “It's covering information that they might find interesting.”
She rolled her eyes, “That some of them find interesting Treasure, not all of them. Most of them are rolling their eyes every time you launch into your explanations I suspect.”
“I get questions about how things work here all the time,” I countered, “I'm just giving the public what it wants!”
“And if they truly cared, they'd look up the information themselves,” She said with a tone that suggested that she had finally reached her point, “All you're doing is helping them be lazy.”
“Forest?” I sighed.
“Yes,” she said with a smile that was entirely too sweet.
“Do you want to write something for tonight’s post or not?” I brought the conversation back on track.
She thought for a few moments, “I think I could manage something. Yes,” a twinkle appeared in her eyes, “I think I do have something to say to all the visitors that read about our time together.”
“It isn't a four letter word that starts with 'b' is it?” I asked cautiously.
“Tresure Island!” she said feigning shock, “What sort of mare do you take me for?”
“One who is quite willing to speak her mind,” I replied as I smiled at her. I really did like that side of her.
“That may be true,” she laughed, “but I actually do think I have something I want to say to them.”
We continued walking and and our conversation turned to the mechanics of shards. She knew about them and confirmed something I had started to suspect. That each shard had its own rules on how it worked.
“We can visit other shards, but we rarely do,” she said when I asked, “It is really hard to get used to your power operating a different way then it has your entire life.”
And that seemed to settle that.
The entrance to the ruins was rather interesting, it could only be entered by passing through a thicket of trees from a certain angle. Going in any other way would just lead to you ending up on the other side. We pushed our way through and found ourselves looking at a massive set of ruins that must have once been a whole city.
I spent a moment taking it in before we split up to do a preliminary search of the area. My ability to sense my surroundings was going haywire and the pictures I was getting weren't much help. That really should have warned me. Instead I just wandered into a half broken down building to take a look as the others took the next two.
Inside there were a lot of interesting carvings, but the most interesting thing I found was a series of pictographs that depicted ponies moving great distances, and using a maze of networks to get around. Unfortunately the map was mostly faded away, and was missing some key features. I know this because I looked at it closer later.
After looking around I stepped back outside. Only the sky had clouded over. And instead of stepping out in to ruins I had stepped out into what seemed to be a city made of mismatched buildings. Each one seemed to be from a different time, or a different place. Some were old ruins, others wouldn't have looked out of place in something like Star Trek. I went back inside, but couldn't seem to get back to the ruins no matter which exit method I tried. And I tried every one that I could think of.
I decided to log out right away rather than get even more lost and check with you guys to see if any of you know anything. Feel free to give me spoilers about this because I am lost!
Trying To Transcribe Trails Through Thought
Okay, not really, but I wanted to do some more alliteration. So it seems as though tomorrow if I can get back Forest Trails might have something written for you guys. I'm also a little lost right now, so if no one has any idea's by tomorrow I'll probably start wandering around this place. Did the game just glitch or something?
Can Equestria Online even do that? I don't think so, but what do I know? For all I know I accidentally did something stupid and I'm stuck in this nowhere land till Celestia notices something is wrong.
Finally, Free Breeze mentioned that a pegasus pony flew over spreading glitter before disappearing. Would any of you know anything about that?
Till next time