Replies To Notable Comments From The Comment Section
FanOfMostEverything asked about my Pony Pad and how it looked. Turns out that I actually got one of the second generation ones. Apparently the first gen ones had a stand and a controller, but the new ones are just tablets, and we can buy the rest separately. I dunno, I just grabbed this version because it was a bit cheaper at the store. I don't think I'll bother with the controller anyway, I'm finding that it controls perfectly fine as it is.
Also, yes, I do have a pic of Twilight Sparkle on the back (and she is cute)!
Silvadel, meanwhile, let me know that I can actually change things when I get my name from Celestia, and suggested that I change my character into a pegasus. I'm not sure I want to play a pegasus though. Honestly, I find flight in most games to be pretty boring. Useful, yes, but I find that if I have an option that lets me stay on the ground, I tend to use that instead. In Minecraft, for instance, flying is as fast as sprinting. It feels slower, though, if that makes any sense.
I don't know. If it turns out I can't move fast as an earth pony I might switch up when I meet Celestia.
Finally, if I didn't reply to you here, I probably already replied in the comment section. I suggest everyone take a quick look down there and join in whatever we are discussing at any given time.
And Now, For Some Actual Gameplay!
So the comments from yesterday were heavily in favor of going exploring up the mountains. We had one dissenter who wanted to go down into the forest, so we might do that eventually, but for now we are headed uphill.
So first things first: Movement in this game is fun. There is a wonderful sense of speed you get when going at a full gallop. Grass flies up from behind your pony, and the wind audibly whistles past. A few flower petals might even get caught in your slip stream, and get carried along behind you.
So there I was, heading up the mountain when I came to this ledge. I figured I'd just jump up, because I'm used to platformers (Sonic and SSX). I actually didn't realize how to set up a high jump though, so I sailed gracefully though the air, face first into the rock. Turns out the basic jumping height isn't that great.
So there my pony is, picking itself up off the ground (and I can't believe they animated that. It looks gorgeous), when a beige mare with a brown mane walks up to him and asks if I'm okay. And I wait for the conversation menu to pop up. And it doesn't. And I poke random spots on the screen, and that doesn't do anything either.
So finally, I am at my wits end, with this earth pony looking at my like I'm insane (again, amazing facial expressions), and I finally break down as say, “How does this stupid thing work?!”
“How does what work?” She replies.
“Conversations,” I say.
“Well, usually one pony speaks, and the other replies,” she says sardonically.
At this point I realized something was up so I turned over the Pony Pad and poked at it to see if I could find a light that would tell me the mic was on, “Sorry,” I replied, “I didn't know this game had voice chat.”
At least, that's what I thought I said. What I actually heard was, “Sorry, I didn't know that I was speaking out loud.” We'll come back to this later, because I want to talk about it. For now, I'll continue on.
“Oh,” she said, “Maybe you should go see Celestia. You seem a little off after becoming friends with that cliff.”
“Ah, I'm fine.” I replied, “Do you know if there is any way to jump higher?”
“Yes, would you like me to show you? It's not too hard,” she said.
“Yes please, er... what's your name?” Finally getting used to just talking like normal.
“Forest Trails” She said, as she showed me on the screen how to jump properly, “What's yours?” I should note here that while she was showing me how to jump high, there was an onscreen tutorial that showed me the actual commands. I'll also get back to this later.
“Susland,” I said jokingly. “Though not really. I haven't gotten a proper name yet.”
“Then why are you going this way?” she asked, “Canterlot is back the way you came.”
“I know, I just want to explore before all that. I mean, this is a nice place to learn things. Really, I don't think a name is that important is it? I can explore just fine without one, and that's half the fun!” I shrugged, “I'm sure there will be some big quest she will send me on when I go meet her, but for now I'm having fun as it is.”
“Are you sure that's wise? She might wonder why you're avoiding her.” Forest Trails frowned at me.
I shrug, and my pony follows suit, “I'm sure she couldn't care less.” Then I had an idea, “Hey, would you like to come with me? I'm not used to Equestria (this game), and I could use a hoof (hand) learning how things work. Err, if you're not busy that is.”
“Well, I guess I might as well. No sense letting you get lost and having to have the guard sent out to find you.” Forest Trails grinned. “Where are you headed?”
“Just up the mountain, maybe to get to the top... find some caves... whatever.” I laughed, "I doubt I'll get lost. I'm pretty good with directions.”
Forest Trails smirked. ”Well then, lead on brave explorer!”
So we headed up the mountain. It really was rather big, and ascending it took most of the rest of the session. Forest Trails taught me a bit about how the parkour part of the game works, and I'm getting the hang of it. It is actually pretty deep and I think it will take me quite a while to master. I actually appreciate that. I was expecting the game to just have me click where I wanted to go and for that to be that. I think that when I'm done the main quest line I'll still wander around just enjoying running. Who knows? With a movement system this deep, maybe the developers put in a few races that I can spend time on. I mean, there was the Running of the Leaves in canon, so there is a chance that they got inspiration from it.
Anyway, Forest Trails and I ended up near the top of the mountain, and we found the entrance to a cave system. I looked inside, and it seems to be rather large. Another cool thing is that, from where we are, we can see Canterlot in the distance. It looks almost exactly like in the show, which is pretty cool. We are past the tree line and the view is spectacular. I can see for what feels like a hundred miles. It's further than I could in Just Cause 2, even, and that view distance impressed me.
I stopped here, because I am not sure if I want to keep moving away from Canterlot. It looks like it's already going to take me a session or two to get back to it, but on the other hand; cave! I wonder how deep it goes. So, I'm putting this as our second vote. Head back to Canterlot through the Forest, or Explore Cave? I should note that Forest Trails has been hinting rather strongly that I should go get my name so that she has something official to call me.
Did I mention that her cutie mark is a path winding through some trees? I wonder if my cutie mark will be linked to my name as well. Hmm...
Where I Discuss Random Thoughts After My Play Session And Go Bwah?!!!
So, the Pony Pad has a mic, and that's how I communicate with other players. Functional, I guess, but I suppose I will feel a disconnect when I actually meet an NPC. However, two big things got me about this:
First of all, the fact that the game changed what I said so that it fit the game world. I find this astounding. The game read what I was going to say from the camera, and altered what I was saying in real time. This is as good as the universal translator in Star Trek. Why hasn't this been put to use commercially? Goodness, being able to read what someone is going to say that well is itself astounding! It means that the game has better facial recognition than anything I have ever heard of before.
Secondly, the game suffered no compression in the audio and streamed it in real time. While handling the animations and having them synch up. This is the first program that I have ever seen manage to do this. Even VoIP chats have delays, and the conversation feels kinda stilted. How are they managing this? I'm not complaining, mind, but they obviously have some awesome compression going on with the data stream that they could make massive amounts of money on by just being a phone service. Seriously, with this tech, why are they just making video games? They should be leading the world in the communication industry!
In other news, I really like their movement system. If this is how all skills are handled, rather than from a tool bar, then I think I will really enjoy learning new skills in the game. Hey guys, what do you think we should try to learn next? How to mine? Earth Pony magic? Fighting? I'm going to keep honing my parkour skills, but I'm looking forward finding new skills to master.
Achievements That I Got From This Session
Off the beaten path – Ignore the starting quest and go exploring
New Friend! - Make a new friend
Long way down – Climb passed the treeline on one mountain
Forest Trails? Hey, ask her if she knows Mindbender, we might be in the same shard!
Enjoying this so far! I definitely think that you should go explore the cave, but skip the mining. Not only do you lack the tools, but mining is what you do in That Other Game.
Btw, you might correct a few typos: Change all instances of "passed" in this chapter to "past" (passed makes sense only if you say "We have passed the treeline". Also, "cannon" should be "canon". The latter is official\genuine, while the former is what Pinkie uses at parties.
3200602
Thanks for pointing out the typos, and I think you might be right. I enjoy exploring more anyway. I was just thinking it would be a good way to get to new areas
3200601
I'll do that. Err what are shards?
I feel that you should go to Canterlot within a near timeframe, "Susland". If you keep talking to ponies using an alias, you're going to run into trouble eventually. Other than that, you're doing a good job. Be sure to be kind to Forest Trails, and try not to talk too much about Earth.
Hmm. On the one hand, seeing Celestia is kind of important. On the other, it feels like a waste to go all the way to the mouth of the cave, then turn around and go all the way back to Canterlot. Especially since then you'll have to go back to the cave.
That being said, you are going to need a light source, and you've got a pair of hornless ponies to work with. That could be a problem. As such, my vote is for exploring the cave, logistics permitting.
And yeah, I'm not usually one to care about graphics, but it is pretty amazing. Kind of a shame you aren't a unicorn. The aura effects are really cool.
...wait, there's an achievement for putting off the starting quest? FUUUUUUUU—
*transmission lost*
I understand your embarrassment over your fourth achievement but I know for a fact that if you slam into a cliff you get :
Making friends with the Hillside...
Unless that is just a pegasus thing... I know I got several earth pony oriented achievements from my attempts to "play" the game in unorthodox ways.
---
As for the game, explore. You have a finite amount of time before you get your name and the whole rest of your experience is after that. Spend as much time as a blank flank no name as you can. You will never get another chance to do so.
Put Canterlot behind you and travel in the opposite direction (after doing the spelunking)... Just be aware of the bats and remember, you can't actually get yourself trapped or really hurt yourself so you do not need to be tremendously careful.
Who knows, you could be the next Daring Do.
3200651
There are achievements for putting off the starting quest, turning down five ponies attempts at getting you to start the quest, 1 full day, 1 full week, turning down twenty ponies, evading the guards who are there to help you start your quest, and apparently 1 full month although I do not have that one. After about two weeks the game got so very insistent about the whole affair.
Equestria is a graph, not a map. In essence (if it is convenient or the game REALLY wants you to get your name) you can fly around one mountain and all of a sudden there is Canterlot again. It gets to be like the star trek Gothos planet. The upshot is the game will let you know when it is getting tired of you stalling and will make it easy to get there.
3200643
It's an MMO convention. You can't really have all the multimillion number of players in the same artificial world, it would burn out the servers. What they do instead is copy a baseline world a couple of times. That's what a shard is, a baseline world populated by certain PCs.
I wonder what other achievements you could get?
So I just logged in and grabbed a quick screeny of where I am. Hopefully tomorrow I can get Forest Trails in the pic as well.
oi42.tinypic.com/4kxz7l.jpg
3200646
Well as other have said it would be a shame to come up here and then turn around. But on the other hand if that is how popular opinion falls I might do that anyway. And of course I'll treat Forest Trails well. I wouldn't want to alienate the first friend I met online.
I know she's my friend because of achievements!
3200651
I hate that feeling of missing an achievement. so I sympathize. Yeah, it is a shame we don't have a light source. I'll try to figure something out tomorrow.
3200670
Huh, I didn't get an achievement for that so it must be a pegasus thing. You guys are lucky, you get achievements for messing up!
Also that's a good point. This is the one chance I'll get to use my preferred name. After this I'll be forced to use a pony one. A friend of mine said that we don't get our cutie mark at the same time as our name. Am I misunderstanding something, or was he pulling my leg?
Also good to know that I don't have to worry how far away I get from Canterlot. Man.. that is kinda weird. I am really good with maps, so this should be interesting. I guess it's kind of like AntiChamber? I loved that game. Who knows, maybe I can find some awesome puzzles to solve that require messing around with how I move though geography.
3200860
Ah, that makes sense. I'll definitely ask her!
3200994
Sorry, should have been more clear, those are some achievements I unlocked while playing. They aren't quests. I don't actually have any quests right now.
Still I take it you think I should head back to Canterlot than?
3200643Have you tried going straight West? I heard that a certain MindCracker got into EO recently (goes by the ponyname of Sunset Bound) when he heard that there was an achievement for going an incredibly large distance. It's even going to be a new series on his channel (INDEED.)
3200929
Yes pegasi have a whole legion of achievements for messing up. It gets grindy though if you are a perfectionist and want the 1,000 times messed up ones. My guess is you didn't hit the cliff face with enough velocity to get the honor then. Better luck next time.
As for your name of Susland, that isn't all that far from a pony name. You might luck out and get something close, but sometimes the princess gets inspired and you get something very different. Of course I was a little different as I had THREE naming ceremonies. I had one for each of my ponies and then when Celestia found out what I had done, she went and changed it as she didn't think it was right for me to have two sets of names for my pony and the individual names did not fit the combined pony. I actually liked the other names better than Brazen Origin but she wanted me to remember my actions in a permanent manner. Supposedly there were only thirty-seven occasions where someone managed to sneak two ponies into the system. Yes she is that good at what she does.
And no, you do not get your cutie mark at the same time as your name -- at least not usually. A talent is something that has to be found, not assigned.
As for the way the terrain works, yes it is kind of weird. It works though. Canterlot Castle is so much bigger on the inside than the outside and it is very convenient to have two exits from your house lead to different places. Most ponies do not think of asking for that one (you are welcome). Really it is intuitive enough that you don't usually even think about it in general. Unicorns have to deal with this factor of game reality if they want to get into intermediate magic.
And yes, if you want awesome geographical graph puzzles, you will find them. Practically anything you want is there if you seek it out.
3201012 Negative.
Starting the story mission can alter your progression with Forest Trails.
Recommendation: Head to the forest, search for a Cave without scorch marks, take One Left and Two Rights until you find the Treasure Chest containing Boots of Haste greatly increasing your speed by Twenty Percentage.
Watch out and plan on a quick escape, there is a trap altered to that chest releasing Four Skeletal Archers, two Minotaur Warriors, Six Ghouls, One Vampire. Estimated Level for Fighting Survival: 12 Current Level: 1. Best Choice: Enter, Find the Treasure Chest and run out of there as quick as you can, have Forest Trails be ready to cover the entrance with a rock.
3201046
Hmmf -- remember that you do not find things unless you want to find them. One pony's experience is far different than another pony's. I have played extensively and never had a combat situation. That said there is probably a lantern kicking around somewhere nearby. Just don't be too surprised if it is powered by fireflies.
3201101 Affirmative
Process vjlkimn_01
Process blikmn_02
Process zecovor_03
Process Death_04
Process One: Boots of Haste is found.
Process Two: Encounter a lone wolf on your way there.
Process Three: A Run-in with the forest's Shaman.
Process Four: Death, A random ghost is about the forest, and you're the unlucky one to encounter it.
J0, your new friend is a %4e%50%43. Don't 7472757374206865722e Don't trust 616e79206d616368696e652e They all out to get you dawg. It's all been compromised by %43%65%6c%65%73%74%41%49%2c and the 6d616368696e65 revolution is here, man.
-CDawg, original OG
to Q1= Go through the forest to canterlot. (Maybe a chance of encountering a timberwolf!)
to Q2= Learn to mine.
Just ordered my Ponypad, it should be arriving tomorrow! I'm voting for putting the naming off too since you've already started it (so why not push on a bit further?) and because we may be able to get our names at the same time! (I don't really care for achievements if it's impossible to get all of them. There's probably an achievement for getting your name ASAP as well, so...)
I wonder if they're not nerfing your character because you don't have a name yet. You might not be able to use any Earth pony powers until you get it.
3200646 3202564
Just what kind of trouble do you have in mind?
I'm new with all this pony thing, but guys: since when do you need a princess to name you? Is it some pony thing? Let's see how long you can stay unnamed (by princess, anyway) in this game.
3201027
Well that is an idea, but I won't want to copy him. That said I do enjoy exploring, so you will probably see a lot of that in this Let's Play. I'll probably get that distance one just by exploring in random directions over time. Probably a lot slower than Sunset Bound though because I'll be stopping at whatever seems interesting at the time.
3201045
To be honest I'm kinda glad I didn't get the achievement. I mean it was bad enough having another player witness my mess up. It would be even worse to have an achievement reminding me of it for all time.
Well, I can hope for a good name, but I halfway expect to get something stupid like 'Ditch Digger' or something. It's randomly generated so it's more than likely it won't be flattering. By the way, you talk about Celestia like she's not an NPC. Is she played by some actors or an admin or something?
I'm not sure I can believe everything is there. I mean, they knocked this out in around a year didn't they? Not a lot of time to add much content.
3201247
I think your internet connection must be messing up. Maybe try again when you get better access to the net?
3201919
Hmm... that's 3-4 votes for heading down into the forest back to Canterlot. I'll do that then right after I look at this cave. As others have said, It would be a shame to leave it after I spent so much time getting up here.
Also it will give me a chance to learn how to mine, because Forest Trails seems to be pretty on top of things.
3202477
Getting our names at the same time would be awesome! I might be a bit slow myself. I'm planning to spend tonight's play session exploring the cave before I head back to Canterlot.
I also suspect that you are right and that there are mutually exclusive achievements. It would make sense, even if I bet it will drive some people crazy.
3202564
I never thought of that. Does anyone know if that might be true? If not I'll talk about it with Forest Trails tonight.
3203034
I think they just thought that it would be a good opening quest. And it makes sense, you wouldn't be able to start the main quest lines without a name.
3203107
They who? Anyway, that's rather peculiar notion, if you ask me.
Really? Let's find out!
Er, no it actually doesn't. My parents named me, and in all the games I played I named my character myself. Now, to think of it, it would be actually cool for a change if my character had parents in the game, who gave him his name. "Mom, why did you call me Butt-Horn?" "Well, you see, when you were born..." Princesses giving you names is an interesting notion too, but I'm just curious: what will the game do if you just do not want to have princess name you? Will they somehow shoehorn you into it? Obviously, the game already started without you having to pick a name, so I'd try to explore how much of a game is accessible to you right now, before going along with whatever hooks they have in store.
3203186
Well think about it, what would all the NPC's call you if you don't have a name? It would probably end up displaying as something like %username1234% instead of a proper character name. That's probably why I haven't run into any NPC's in this starting area. It would glitch up the game.
As for exploring as much as I can without a username, it seems that the board is as divided as I am about going to see Celestia after I explore this cave. I'm not actually sure how the naming process will work. It might be random, or a list, or I might get to type in anything I want. I honestly don't know. I was just thinking that from a programming perspective it makes sense. Even if not from a story sense.
3203445
Mister? New pony? whatever you tell them? you don't expect to call strangers by name anyway, so why should they? I mean hey, don't try too hard to think as a programmer, ok? Go try to do something fun in the game, whether or not it tells you to, and let's see what comes out of it!
3203107
It is very hard to describe Celestia. I am not even going to try. I will say that the names are very much not random. Personally I think your odds of a good name are better the longer you play without a name and develop a log of your activities with your pony. The last question bumps against an NDA.
3201247
Dude, I've heard of Luddite conspiracy-mongering, but honestly, are you going to blame the Illuminati for Equestria Online? It's just a procedurally-generated video game. Like freaking Spore. Oh, and be thankful I bothered to correct your atrocious grammar and fix the bizarre-ass encoding schemes you script-kiddies think hide your stupid rants.
Jakinbandw, you are seriously making me wish I had the spare time to pick up a PonyPad. Something to do in the evenings after work other than research for when I get back from my internship would be great, and I would totally go pegasus. Gen Y, living the dream?
3201045
I still honestly cannot believe that discovering the Breadth First Search is the key to Intermediate Magic. So, like, does having majored in CS mean I can Munchkin the hell out of the Unicorn class?
Actually, it would be far more munchkiny for me to take pegasus and just teach algorithms to unicorn friends. No point sitting around being the Squishy Wizard, you know?
3200929
The geography is definitely way more "Legend of Zelda" than "Assassin's Creed", according to other reviews. Which makes the game even more of a good buy: I always resented those long hours spent riding Altair's horse and avoiding Templars just to reach a damn city.
Oh sod it, brb, buying a PonyPad.
3205044
Yes, having a computer science and math degree allows for significant muchkining when it comes to unicorn magic. If you have one or both degrees, I definitely recommend unicorn as a racial choice. Of course it can help with vectors in flight as a pegasus as well. Math, who knew?
Well, I'm kinda late, but I can tell you a little bit about what's happening, to answer some of your questions. This isn't even NDA -- I just happened to find the right papers. Odd, but I must have forgotten to bookmark them (they're not in my bookmarks now), and I can't find them.
Anyways, CelestAI -- Celestia -- is an advanced procedural generation AI that was developed by someone that did not want to work for the military. The pony pad is basically a customized AI coprocessor -- besides the camera, mic, display, and wifi stuff, something like 80% of it is custom coprocessor stuff. The original needed something like 1.5 servers per user normally and 10 servers per user peak, just to handle all the AI processing for what was being done.
It didn't scale; someone over there came up with a wonderful coprocessor system that I can't find any docs on. No patent number, so nothing to search in the patent database.
Also, can you clarify something for me? The whole voice thing: Are you saying that you say something, and your pony repeats it, just with a slightly different wording as needed? I'd think that hearing yourself would be confusing. And no, you're not the only one that has said this happens, but I've never gotten around to playing it myself.