Tank the tortoise

A quote from one of the threads linked on the site for its "founding arguments." So yes it is indeed a joke. It started apparently in /mlp/. So that should tell you of its inherent farcical nature. And I do agree that taking the joke to that extreme is quite offensive.

The game is an MMO but currently due to it being in alpha its just a framework. The world has been created and there is some rudimentary fighting but until the game gets further into development you cannot play how it was meant to be played. The reason why the video and the screenshots depict little to no fighting is because that part of the game hasn't been implemented beyond basic attacks. Once it reaches beta it will likely have far more to do than to just explore as most have already explored all there is right now .

The open server weekend has concluded and you can no longer play. As for when the game will have its next open weekend, beta, or release I cannot say. As stated before I am not affiliated with them in any way, however, you can keep up to date on the status of the game and potential playtimes here http://legendsofequestria.com/. Also it appears they are recruiting so if you have some of the skills they need that is another avenue. Hope that answers your questions to the best of my ability!

So this weekend was the open alpha for Legends of Equestria. You may be wondering one of two things: 1) What is an alpha? 2) What is Legends of Equestria? To answer the first, an alpha is a barebones test during software (in this case game) development. This is generally used to work out bugs in the baseline software before adding more complicated layers such as main gameplay and progression. While this alpha did have some skills available and did have a couple of quests and items it was still threadbare. This is to be expected of an alpha. To answer the second, Legends of Equestria is an open source pony MMO in the works. The team has done a decent job replicating the feel of the areas that are currently available. But if you are this far you likely already had a bit of interest in the topic. So without further adieu I shall now descend into my pictures that I took. They currently are not organized as I have another batch still uploading to imgur. I will update this post once they are complete. As for my opinion, while there was little to actually do in the game besides exploring it was extremely well done. There was a rudimentary combat and skill system as well as a couple of quests, but they clearly were there to give the alpha more to do rather than just fly around (which admittedly was fun). Ponies were more or less fully animated and flowed smoothly. One thing that I felt was an interesting touch is that inside sugarcube corner played various brony music. Another note is that while there was a profanity filter there was not a character name filter so you saw some Woona's, Twilight Sparkle's and Pinkie Pies (all of various spelling). Another thing that you may be wondering about was the complete lack of known ponies and all the names of the areas being wrong. Apparently this was done as a safety measure against copyright infringement. It is worth noting that while there wasn't much to actually do due to the state of the game, the shear size of the area's are mind blowing. To give an example Ponydale is the smallest town (if you ignore Sweet Apple Orchards), but even flying at full speed it takes about a minute or so to get from one side to the other. I tried to vary my shots to give differing perspectives so that you can get a stronger feel for the game. Just in case anypony asks no I am not affiliated with the creators of the game. I just felt that a nice comprehensive album of images would be nice for those who didn't get in due to the login troubles.

Okay I'm going to say my feelings on this ep. Prolly gonna be ripped a new one but oh well. I thought the episode itself was bad. That being said there were a great deal of things in it that elevated it to "Meh" for me. First off was the characterization of Dash. This coupled with the portrayal of the Wonderbolts were the absolute worst part of the episode for me. Dash has been shown to be TREMENDOUSLY loyal to the point of giving up her lifelong dream without even a second thought at the mere potential of a Wonderbolt hurting their friends. That was not the case in this episode. If they tried to pull a Discord loyalty test I think that would have been SO much better. The fact of the matter is hometowns mean a great deal to people, and their friends mean just as much if not more. This would have been an excellent quandry to put our favorite flyer to the test. But it was not played as a test of loyalty. It was should I be shallow or should I be friends with my CLOSEST FRIENDS WHO WON"T MAKE IT WITHOUT ME? Second annoying thing was the portrayal of the Wonderbolts. Frankly I was disgusted by their behaviour. Spitfire especially. Now before anyone starts going "she's had like 15 minutes of characterization" on me I realize this. I don't care about the fanon idea of her. What I care about is the fact that Spitfire had a reason to come off harsh in Wonderbolt Academy. However, here she wasn't harsh, she was PETTY. She knew they were going to win regardless, but manipulated her OWN TEAMMATE into getting injured simply so she could have a better time. That is not good leadership, and thus is my problem with this characterization. Fleetfoot's manipulative gotta win behaviour I would have been fine with if Spitfire acted as a bit more neutral rather than devil on shoulder +1. Now... I have stated why this was a VERY BAD EPISODE. Now that that is out of the way let me get to the good things that redeem it into an alright episode that while definitely the worst of the season is still a decent episode overall. First, Twilight, while she wasn't participating in the flying things for some reason (my argument is judges have no way of knowing she is a terrible flyer only that she is an alicorn each of which is a borderline deity), she still manages to show what she has learned in a new way. She didn't give Rainbow the answer despite how obvious and simple it was. She made her choose and when she refused to choose she criticized her for it. The fact that she felt that she didn't need to spell everything out for Rainbow was a sign of her OWN growth as a character. She didn't rush to fix it herself. Rainbow wouldn't get anything out of that. So she planted the seed for Dash to figure it out on her own. Second, fanservice, while many cite fanservice as a negative point I believe it is a positive point when done tastefully. The inclusion of Derpy/Ditzy was great. There wasn't any editting of the character and she still had her eye problem. Giving a background pony such as Bulk/Snowflake the limelight in this episode might also be considered fanservice but by the same token it shows the writers willing to take further risks. Bulk was without a doubt the highlight of the episode. I appreciated the fact that despite this being an episode focused on Rainbow with the Wonderbolts acting as the antagonists that the writers chose a non mane 6'er to be the fan's anchor to the ponyville team. Fluttershy had many d'aww moments which are extremely common when she is on screen but she was a supporting role. The fact that Bulk had more lines than the rest of the mane 6 excluding Rainbow showed that the writers are getting more comfortable using the tools available to them. I feel it is important to note that this is not a bad episode overall. Development standpoint I would like to see fewer character missteps and backpedalling, but I know that not every episode is going to be perfect. The standards I have been holding this season up to remain, while this episode might have been fine in season 2 its a bad episode given the placement in season 4. I continue to look forward to episodes in this season and repeat myself when I say one bad apple doesn't always spoil the bunch as this is still the best season thus far. /endrant