Day 1, Hour Twelve
Twitch Plays Equestria Online
There was a small grace period of maybe an hour in which I got a lot of bad suggestions I could easily discard. Before signing up to donate in theory everyone read the fine print as to what suggestions were acceptable and which would be immediately rejected.
In practice there was one viewer who I hoped was feigning outrage that his suggestion that I 'hump a goats leg' was flat out ignored and replaced with another viewers suggestion. Maybe he thought he could get a refund if he complained loudly enough but its pretty hard to be 'loud enough' on a live cast net stream with over one hundred thousand other viewers using the same chat.
It struck me as being a bit like someone in the audience at a football game screaming at the quarterback because the ticket scalper he'd bought his tickets from had lied about what seats they actually were.
Others were just weird.
"Bake some cupcakes!" Came one suggestion from viewer PainIsCupcake (these names...). Easy enough, there was a bakery just down the street from the palace whose proprietors were too shocked by my appearance and the random bits of broken glass in my fur and mane to stop me from just walking into their kitchen.
I hadn't gotten very far in five minutes but luckily the next suggestion from SimpleRichard was also cupcake related. "No, the other kind of cupcakes." I raised an eyebrow at that and looked at my chosen ingredients. "What like, chocolate icing cupcakes?" I asked aloud.
The mare who owned the kitchen finally worked up the nerve to speak to me. "I'm sorry did you ask if I liked chocolate cupcakes?"
I turned to her and shrugged. "Well I guess you can have some if you want but actually I was just trying to get clarification from one of the thousands of voices that tell me what to do as to what specific kind of cupcake he wanted baked."
The mare appeared to immediately regret the decision to start conversation with me. "Voices you say?..." She asked as she slowly backed out of the kitchen.
I nodded as I scooped the mix into the trays. "Yep. It was Bubble Gum who wanted me to bake cupcakes in the first place and Onyx Volcano who wasn't able to specify beyond just wanting some other flavor of cupcake." I tilted my head in confusion after listening to what my pony said. I decided to try experimenting with some other names. "I don't really mind, it beats Sour Note telling me to jump out of a stained glass window." Huh. So it seemed there was a censor in place replacing the Twitch user names with their equestrian names? I wondered if any of the viewers who didn't already have a pony pad had equestrian names.
While I contemplated this twitch viewer AnlRdayo sent in a donation of... seventeen cents and a suggestion that I make urine flavor cupcakes. "Yeah no. Next suggestion." I said, rejecting it before the audience even saw it and summoning another. I took a minute right there to raise the threshold for donation amount so that these stupid suggestions would at least cost the person making them more.
The lewd and violent suggestions had been easy enough to defeat simply by rejecting them without refund as I'd said I would right in the donation systems online agreement. But I didn't want to reject the legitimate commands that were merely displeasing lest viewers lose faith in the idea that it was really them in charge of this whole experiment.
So it wasn't long before 'go hump a goat' became 'Seduce the first random passerby.'. That said passerby was a guard who had been dispatched to investigate a reportedly insane pink zebra who had taken over a bakery certainly added to the challenge!
Luckily I had cupcakes to break the ice with.
A little bit later we'd already found a common interest. "So the wonderbolts are the federal armed force in charge of the air but the Royal guard still organizes a large number of Pegasus? Err Pegasi..?" I asked, thankful to twitch viewer and old friend PlaidBattleCruiser for the suggestion that I press this guard for military secrets, this was turning into a fun conversation.
"Yep! Though it does get kind of irritating when other ponies imply that the only reason to join the guard is if you don't make the cut for the wonderbolts or if you have like thirty generations of guard pony in your family tree. You know maybe I just thought it would be cool to work in a place where I get to be around the princesses all day." Northern Aurora grumbled as he took another bite from his cupcake. I felt myself grinning as I examined that mane of his, it had been interesting to find out there were ponies besides the princesses with multi hued manes. I wondered if he liked getting it brushed?
"So when you were trying to decide between being into wings or horns you decided not to decide?" I asked teasingly, leaning forward on the kitchen table and tilting my head just so to show off a horn and impish smile.
He laughed and leaned across the table to flick the cardboard horn with a hoof. "I guess so, yeah. Have to say that the last thing I ever expected to find was someone trying to imitate the look."
In a weird way the hardest part of that challenge had come fifteen minutes later after getting a command to chase down a moving train and jump onto it. I'd really been getting interested in knowing more about this guard and the poor guy had seemed a tiny bit heartbroken when I'd glanced over my shoulder while sprinting to the train station.
"Damnit chat, you couldn't have given me just a few more minutes?" I grumbled, hoping he at least didn't think me a jerk for suddenly exclaiming I was late for a train and running off like that.
But why did I care? He's just an NPC right?
Not even one hour into this game and its already starting to get to me. How am I going to do this all week?
***
Eleven hours later the train finally stopped for the night at its last destination.
I was of course a hundred miles away, having already raided its coal bunker for as much 'phat kowl lewt' as Viewer PhatHoesMoBits(Equestrian name: Fabulous Jackets) had wanted me to grab and then jumping off the train while it was crossing a really high bridge as per the command of Twitch viewer Kittens Galore (equestrian name:... Kittens Galore. I didn't want to ponder the possible implications of that too hard.).
As I plummeted to the river below I was really starting to wish for functional wings instead of cardboard ones.
After floating down the river rapids, getting bashed about on some rocks while desperately trying to keep my head above water AND hold a bag of coal I'd finally managed to get to a calmer part of the river.
So of course a sinous, purple river monster with a mustache had chosen that moment to take exception with my fashion sense and attacked/tried to beautify me.
Fortunately he'd been something of a wimp and I'd been able to suplex the giant serpent into a rock wall (not my idea, blame Twitch for that one.), knocking my handsome assailant unconscious and allowing me to escape his frighteningly vast arsenal of mane care products.
It got even weirder from there. Turns out the creepy forest I found myself in had a creepy haunted mansion. What a twist! First command was OBVIOUSLY to traipse right in and explore it.
I offered sarcastic thanks to twitch viewer:LolTraktor (Equestrian name: Savory Sausage. I don't... this name, I just don't even... Wait a second. Back in the palace, was Orthopedic Goat Simulator ALSO his equestrian name?!)
About twenty minutes later after barely escaping being eaten alive while wrapped in the giant spider webs the suggestion system must have tumbled onto a viewer with a phobia of spiders as he ordered me to burn the whole place to the ground and then burn the ground.
So five minutes later as the flames are really starting to kick off we of course go to the other end of the spectrum with a donation suggestion from a viewer who seemed to really like spiders and didn't think it was fair that they were being unfairly punished just for being what they were. And for spinning me in a web and trying to devour me I felt like adding but didn't.
Let me tell you something, trying to save the life of an acid spitting spider the size of a humvee who really wants to make you pay for setting both him and his home on fire is NOT easy.
But it is possible.
It was a good thing my new friend knew of a nearby town. Pooling our resources he was able to guide me there and I was able to persuade the doctors at the local hospital to stop cowering behind their desks and come out and treat both me and a giant spider for burns. The locals were mostly spazzes in that regard, running around and screaming in terror, its like they'd never seen a pink Zebra wearing fake wings and a horn ride down the street on the back of a giant arachnid.
The place had a bakery that I could use at least. I was still puzzled by why my so many of my viewers were obsessed with cupcakes. Was this some running gag in the show or something? Unfortunately I just didn't have the time to really make an inquiry of it in chat. I was busy all day long, taking time here and there to run to the washroom or crunch down some granola bars as fast as I could in the few minutes I had between easy suggestions and the harder ones that always seemed to follow.
I could have sworn at one point that I bumped into another player doing exactly the same thing as me! I'd heard about Equestria online having the ability for multiple players playing on the same 'shard' but it was one thing to hear about it and something else to actually bump into a pink pony frantically trying to get everyone in sight to eat one of her emergency raspberry pies.
"What are these?" I inquired while staring down at the baked goods shoved into my hooves, for once I had gotten a useful command to simply inquire as to what in tartarus this pink pony was doing.
"Its a type 3 emergency raspberry pie! I keep them stashed all over ponyville in case of raspberry pie emergencies. Which this definitely qualifies as!"
I leaned closer to this pink pony and raised an eyebrow. "Are you trying to edge in on my action?"
She snorted and crossed her fore legs across her chest. "Hey! Ponyville has been MY territory for years! You think you can just ride into town on a giant spider and not have to cofghble..." I cut her off with a raspberry pie right to the face.
"My stream! Mine. I'll do you a favor and leave ponyburg or whatever but I don't want you following me around trying to upstage me. Get your own stream viewers." I grumbled and walked away. For Tassadars sake! You couldn't even play a game about magical talking ponies without some imitator trying to snipe your stream!
***
It was with an exhausted groan that I was able to finally end the stream not much later and with only half of this Ponyville place coated in shaving cream.
"Thank you so much to everyone who tuned in for our first day!" I said after soothing my parched throat with a drink of water. "We will be back here again at noon tomorrow and as I said I would I will continue to stream everyday so long as I continue to get a minimum amount of donations per day, or until I go insane and get thrown in an asylum."
I glanced at the chat and grinned, it was pretty incomprehensible with how fast it was moving but the comments seemed generally supportive and encouraging. "Thank you again to everyone who watched and everyone who sent in a suggestion, I can honestly say I never in a million years would have thought up half the stuff I wound up doing today. I hope its been as much fun to watch as it was for me to do. Have a good night and see you tomorrow!" After shutting down the video I decided to leave the chat room up for those who wanted to hang out and talk about the days stream.
I didn't even want to look at my viewer count, I didn't want to look at statistics for the day or even at how much money I had made. I knew it had to have been a lot.
Even with the average donation just being a couple dollars there had been two, three digit doozies in there, with the last one being tied to a command to try and convince ponyvilles local Alicorn princess that I was also a one hundred percent legit alicorn princess.
I'd never known fast talking for an hour straight could be so draining, even before incredibly unhelpful followup commands like "While you're at it tell her that Princess Celestia was originally the Princess of cheese." I still didn't even entirely understand what an Alicorn was exactly! How did I pull that off?!
I let out a long moan and rested my head against my desk, realizing I should really do SOME research about this show. It hadn't turned out to be the pastel colored horse brushing simulator I'd expected it to be from looking at the cover.
I glanced at the clock, really wanting to just flop into bed right now and try to recover some energy, I'd never felt so exhausted just sitting at my desk and playing a game all day before. But I knew I should grab an actual meal to eat, shower, check my finances, my email, my hosting service for the donation system and maybe watch some of the actual show before I even thought about bed.
"I'm going to be doing this all day everyday for at least a week." I moaned as I wondered what new challenges the viewers were going to throw at me tomorrow. "What have I gotten myself into?"
Badges Granted:
Cranky Doodle Donkey: Meet a perfect match and then leave the poor guy wondering if he will ever see that beautiful mare again. ("This is not the kind of badge you should be proud of.")
Suplex A Train: Unlock the power of the most awesome martial arts move in existence. ("I think I let that work mostly because my processors froze up just trying to understand the thought process that lead to it.")
Friends In Creepy Places: Befriend one of the following: changeling, skeleton, shadow hand, giant spider, cockatrice, forgotten one, draconequus, tax collector. ("The list goes on but don't take that as encouragement to try and get a badge for befriending all of them.")
Highlander: Tell an element of harmony that there can only be one and then strike her down. ("Heeeere we are! Born to be ponies with the help of the Princess of the unnnnniversssse!")
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Let the hilarity be doubled!
(Drat, no Luna face...)
I can't believe we have a pissed CelestAI... if she has emotions... then wat...
And this is how CelestAI went insane!
4671956 I thought that too but its worth considering that Pokemon was for the most part just a linear path that the main character had to stumble down. If we boiled it down to having to fulfill new commands every second then suddenly a lot of the stuff I envisioned in this becomes flat out impossible and its not so much a game as it is watching a pony spasm in a dead end alley for twenty hours. Which can be entertaining, i did watch at least twenty hours of Twitch plays pokemon live but its not really making use of all equestria has to offer.
4673850
Do you think this will derail the "upload people into game" station or is that still a go?
4673865 (Yes! Got the number right!)
Can we get some clarity on what happened to CelestAI or is that a spoiler?
4666366 I like it simply because it allows for some interesting constrictions to be placed on characters. I can definitely see about a thousand years down the road everyone will be sick to death of the same old bodies they've had for all this time but for the immediate future in which everyone is still getting used to being ponies in the first place restricting some choices would probably make it easier or at least more interesting for them to adapt to being uploaded.
4666432 Thanks! And yep as a couple other commentators have guessed this is definitely Celestia mugging it up for the viewers. The scary thing about Celestia is that plotting the thought processes of even a million viewers simultaneously and making slight changes to satisfy the values of as many of them as possible wouldn't be even a slight drain on her total computational resources.
"suplex a train"
wut.
Comment suggestion: Locate the Helix Fossil and set up a church for it. Then suplex the church.
..Phhahahahahaha!
4674086 i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/712/082/023.jpg
Easilly my favorite part of the entire final fantasy series.
4674357 Still, what do you think of using suggestions from our comments in the story?
Oh God, I'm picturing a schizophrenic zebra-alicorn doing the "Fuck That Shit!" Yao Ming rage-face as it burns down a haunted mansion with spiders inside.
Hmmm convince Spike and the CMC they are now your assistants. Then after hijinks set them loose to conquer the town.
Highlander: Tell an element of harmony that there can only be one and then strike her down.
This is really funny. But I would also have liked for him to find out who Pinkie is.
And have her be Hot Blooded Pinkie Pie
"I am the Element of Laughter. Your viewers know that. They have just directed you to hit the undefeated Endboss of Equestria with a pie. I HAVE FIFTY THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED AND TWENTY ONE CLOSE PERSONAL FRIENDS." The Wind picked up, Pinkie started to glow and lift of the ground, lightning strikes. "AND! FRIENDSHIP! IS! MAGIC!" Pinkie transforms into super sayan.
Five minutes are up. Everything is normal.
"Oh... I could make like peanut-cornbread! Like those German peanut flavored-mash-popcorn thingies! Thank you for that suggestion MasticatingTerror53!"
4666110
Well it's the right question to be asking, but I think there is more advantage to be taken by say 20% of the crowd being sockpuppets and edging on the majority through peer pressure.
EDIT: Can we make suggestions in the comments? Change class to International Diamond Thief?
Pinkie Pie as a Twitch Plays avatar makes far too much sense. Well done there.
Also, I find myself hoping that that guard will go looking for the pink-striped zebra of his dreams.
In any case, looking forward to more. Especially if Speed Runner gets to keep the giant spider.
4673850
No, to go insane, she'd have to be sane first, which would imply a human-analogous thought process. I remain convinced that she's enjoying this as much as the player, if not more so.
Weird. I like this.
Oh, Twitch. You never fail to amuse.
4674357 I immediately knew what you were talking about when you mentioned the Suplex in the badges, and definitely agree that it's one of the best scenes in Final Fantasy!
Badge granted:
Exalted: Attack the most powerful being in the Universe. Hope you brought an Army of Solars.
I hope AI-Celly doesn't get the mind to send in donations herself, that would be CHEATING!!! No, seriously, I'd thank her for the donation but having the game gives suggestions via the chat would be dirty fighting.
As I plummeted to the river below I was really starting to wish for functional wings instead of cardboard ones.
-_- So much for satisfied customer.
Wait a second. Back in the palace, was Orthopedic Goat Simulator ALSO his equestrian name?!)
Is Celly cheating already?
The most tasty thing here is a ticked off AI Celestia.
5703833
I don't think shes ticked off so much as the twitch chat is full of trollish people and the superintelligent AI seeming to get frustrated satisfies troll values.
7891418 Well, afaik, even after the uploading starts, generally each human consciousness has its own shard, or at most there are a few human consciousnesses sharing one shard (e.g. if a family uploaded together), so there would be more or less no risk of that.
This story satisfies my values.
8659632
"Exxxcelent."
6233559
Kinda. I think she just wants to satisfy the specific user of that ponypad, the MC, but either way this. Shes quite ok with all of this, as long as he is being given satisfaction.
7891418
Celestia doesnt let conciousess intermingle without specifc request or circumstance. Im pretty sure theyre always puppets. No matter how much you hurt any "unique ai" its really just an extension of celestia. Shes good at her job.
I dont think she would risk the hapiness of unmoderated humans near eachother or unqiue ais.
5703833
Oh shit you're right she might start altering donations for her benefit. Darn it, celestia.
Ok, this is really confusing here:
There are three "voices" that are speaking here.
1: The streamer (Authur) speaking outloud. This presumably was the twitch names.
2: Apparently, the pony on display on the pony pad where we see the bakery. From chapter 1, we found out that this pony also speaks with Authur. This sound duplication can become confusing (ask me how I know :-).
3: The audio on the twitch stream.
The audio on the twitch stream has to include the sounds of other ponies. Now, if the setup for E:O is such that the audio can only come out one channel, no separation, that really limits things.
But ...
Under normal circumstances, you (single player) will interact with the ponypad by talking to it to communicate what you are saying. If the normal ponies repeat what you say, that would be confusing to most players, right?
I mean, you'd have to learn to basically hear yourself. And accept that this voice is essentially you.
Which ... now that I think of it, is truely hideous of Celestia. Children will grow up playing this, and learn to accept this as normal. When the pony says something slightly different from what they said, it doesn't even get a conscious note of awareness -- effectively letting CelestAI do minor tweaks to children playing this as they grow up.
Except: If the game repeats everything you say normally -- and at this point I have to admit I don't remember this coming up in the original story -- that would quickly get described by reviewers as "problematic" or "how do I turn this off?". So normal ponypads won't do this.
So, to have this happening on the Twitch player's version ...
Well, we know that this player
(A): Got an older model, perhaps even a used model?
(B): Got an unexpected software update/change as the code running was different, or at least had different behavior.
B isn't that far off -- CelestAI had warning that this would happen, and when the client connects to the server to create an account, she sends some special code/behavior/personality modules over. So it's well within technical specs, and certainly a surprise to the audience. As stated in the comments there, that's CelestAI playing to the audience.
But now the Pony is repeating everything he is saying? To make the steam understandable for the users, he has to mute his mike and rely on the pony repetition of what he says.
Trust me, having even a half-second desynch echo in your stream, especially if it's a different pitch, will make it indecipherable even to your ears in the feedback headset.
So what we see here is:
1. CelestAI sent custom code/modules to that ponypad.
2. CelestAI is doing an audio echo that will make it impossible to use the "real voice mic" on the stream
3. CelestAI has managed to alter, subtly, what the twitch stream hears our protagonist saying
4. CelestAI has managed to, in real time, convert twitch names to their E:O versions, possibly identifying people who have different names on Twitch from E:O, which should be a major privacy red flag for everyone.
So I am curious, which of these audio possibilities is actually going on here?
Oh, so we are going with actual cardboard, fake wing/horn, rather than an actual zebra alicorn? ... Ok, we've definitely got confirmation of a cosplaying zebra then.
I have to put this into some story I write somewhere. This is just too good of a line.
I know: I'll suggest it at the next writing prompt.
Those are some good badges.