Key Gear

Yep… Something that brings me great joy :3 We are working on a pretty hefty overhaul of the entire section. I'm still not quite sure of what the extents are, but the finished product will be very interesting.

Started the day off at 5 am in the morning arguing with family members. Proceeded to go to work and get in a sequence of heated confrontations with folks that were lacking in brain cells - that lasted until 5 pm. Had the tip of one of the pointy ends of one of these beauties stuck pretty deeply in my finger all day until I got back home in the evening (when I was finally able to dig it out): I was a bit upset. I'm cool now though.

@,@,@@Arcanel,@, Sorry for the randomness peeps. Had a questionable day, so I just decided to vent. :3

So anyways… I was walking around the Bermuda triangle last week and I stopped at this really run down looking McDonald's. I got off my tricycle, and there it was. The biggest that I had ever seen. Well, I had only one thing to say to that. So I hung up the phone.

I'm down for something like this. Sign me up! As far as an idea goes… I really do favor a sort of vague adventure type thing. To me, that seems like the type of thing that is most likely to be a success with a mountain of random players. I could be wrong though… What do you mean by that? Surely, we would never do such a thing!

Yes, there is a very good chance of that! Actually, I'm looking into how a very easy to use editor can be created. It looks like it's actually going to be an insane amount of work to pull off, so this will probably take some time. The end result will definitely be worth it though!

Don't worry about it! I think that you are pursuing the optimum posting strategy. If your character actually ventured outside of his room and started exploring right now, then he would be pulled into all of the current predeparture chaos. That would probably make things take just a tiny bit longer. If your character is not currently involved in the chaos, then the Lock Heart Strategy for Strategic Train Boarding is definitely the best approach at this moment. There are just a few loose ends to tie up before departure. (Locked doors, broken doors, etc.) After those loose ends are tied, then things will settle down for a bit. (And I can bring Trixie into the scene! I'm really looking forward to that.) Once things settle… Things will really start moving.

Springer blinked. The reason for Vim's anger was apparent to him. This red unicorn thought that he was the conductor. As much as the idea flattered him, Springer knew that the it would be in his best interest to set the record straight. “Actually, I'm not the conductor. I'm only the assistant conductor, and I haven't even been an assistant conductor for very long. But, thank you. It's nice to know that I gave off that impression.” Springer thought for a few moments before answering the questions that the red unicorn asked. “You know, I have no idea why your door is actually locked. To be honest, we've been having a number of minor problems like this ever since Trixie boarded the train last night. Only rooms 4 and 16 are locked, but we had some missing supplies and some issues with the train engine earlier today.” Springer smiled reassuringly as he continued talking. “Of course, we have everything completely under control now, and I don't think that we will have too many more problems once things get moving. Hey, maybe we could get Trixie to put on a small show for us in the parlor? Anyway, I don't think you're talking too much. But then, Vim would say that I'm a bad judge of whether or not someone is talking too much.” Springer laughed softly. His laugh was rather like someone laughing awkwardly at their own joke while standing alone in the middle of the desert. Finally, they had reached room 16. Springer tried the handle. Of course, it was still locked. He turned to the red unicorn. “Well buddy, looks like it's up to you. But, before you break the door down. What exactly is your name? I forgot. Oh yeah, and please don't break the door down. If you do that, then Vim may kill me. It'd probably be the first murder to ever happen on a train in Equestria, but the fame wouldn't be worth it. I'll never become a full conductor if that happened.” Springer laughed again. (OOC, Alright, Magicon, feel free to unlock the doors with your awesome powers. Or, to fail to do so. Whichever way you write things is good for me.) Vim continued grinning for a few moments after Electrobolt had made his way onto the train. He was completely oblivious to the fact that Electro had been somewhat embarrassed by all the attention. The only thing that Vim could think about was that Electrobolt had the makings of a fantastic conductor. Unfortunately, his pleasant thoughts were soon interrupted. He was an old pony that had seen much of life, and he was a tough pony that was very rarely affected by anything. Yet, this sobbing pony running onto his train put a lump into his throat. Vim's smile wavered. He examined the ticket on the ground. It was a real ticket to the Los Pegasus Express, but it was worn. The ticket had been written on and he wasn't able to make heads or tails of what the writing said. A sequence of worried thoughts went through his mind. I wonder what happened to cause her to break down like that. I can't have weeping ponies on this train ride. We haven't even started moving yet! @, @, “Hey, welcome aboard! Hello there, welcome aboard!” A rather distracted Vim greeted the light blue pegasus and the bluish gray earth pony with just a bit less gusto than he had been able to muster for the earlier guests. He was still distracted by the sobbing unicorn. I can't go check on the passenger without Springer here to stand in for me. Vim's ears shot up. Was that… Somepony… Wailing… On my train?! He looked around the station. He saw a few ponies still lingering and there was a young earth pony filly and a rather lanky unicorn making their way to the boarding platform. I could just have them wait while I step inside and figure out what's going on. After all, it's right around the corner by the sound of the noise… Suddenly, the ticket that Vim had seen lying on the platform was right in front of his face, and there was the unicorn again. In the brief moment before she ran inside for the second time, Vim took a good look at her. Normally, she most likely appeared to be quite the beauty, but here and now, she looked like a disaster. Her mane was a mess. It was obvious that she had been crying. Vim made up his mind. @, @@Dave247, Vim wave the hoof at the two ponies that he had noticed earlier. Speaking as cordially as he could given the circumstances, Vim said “Excuse me for one moment, I need to go check on an… Urgent situation. If you don't mind, could you wait here at the platform for a moment. I'll be right back.” Vim hurriedly trotted back into the train. @, As illegible as the unicorn's ticket had been, Vim had been able to make out the room number. Room 2 was located just across from the baggage car, which, strangely, was where the entrance was on this train. Vim was happy that he didn't have very long to go. Whatever the problem was, he was the conductor and he would fix it. He confidently knocked on the door to room 2. While he waited for an answer, he surveyed the train car. Room 3… That's the bluish gray earth pony. Room 1… That's the intellectual pony. Room 4… Room 4? Room 4!? Vim's gaze froze on the neighboring room's door. It didn't look right… As he came closer and closer to the door, Vim's face assumed a more and more puzzled look. The door definitely didn't look right. The wood around the hinges appeared to be damaged. Maybe it's a trick of the light… Vim squinted. The door seemed to be ever so slightly askew. Gently, he lifted a hoof and applied a small amount of force on the door. He heard the sound of wood scraping against wood as the door started to open. Wait… That's not how a door is supposed to sound when it opens?! Not a door on my train! His eyes darted to the hinges. The piece of wood that they had been attached to was no longer connected to the rest of the door. Vim's eyes widened until they were the size of plates. His mouth dropped wide open. Again, he pushed on the door. This time, with more force. The door fell inward and hit the ground with a dull thud. Vim stood stone still and stared at the fallen door. The only thing that moved was his face. It contorted through a symphony of expressions as he seemingly went through all five stages of grief at the same time. Finally, his face settled with a look of absolute serenity. He stepped into the room and spoke to the lavender pony within. “Sorry about this door, I have absolutely no idea how this happened. Don't worry, it will be fixed before we leave.” He stepped back out and his serene facial expression deteriorated into one of pure, indignant rage. His eyes seemed to glow and his head swiveled around as though it were a searchlight. “Who in Hades? WHO IN HADES? WHO? WHO!?” His voice boomed. Vim caught a glimpse of a shadow shrinking back towards the train engine. “SPRINGY!DUSKER!WAHTEVERYOURNAMEIS!” Dusky cautiously approached Vim. "Yes sir?” Vim recovered some degree of self-control. “Do you have any idea what happened here?” Dusky tilted his head to the side and stood in silence; his dark eyes seemed to sparkle. “Vim, why don't we ask the passenger?” Vim blinked, but before he could respond to Dusky, the lanky, dark gray unicorn had stepped into the room and was addressing the passenger. “Hello. Do you have any idea what happened here?” Dusky's characteristic soft, sleepy voice was friendly, it betrayed no emotion and no thoughts. @@Dave247, Key Gear put her ticket back into her saddlebag. She talked to herself in frustration. “Well, that figures. I had to wait for a sleepy detective, and now, I need to wait for a conductor that doesn't feel like conducting.” A butterfly decided to land on her nose. Key sneezed and attempted to swat it a few times before finally giving up. “Bugs.” She turned her attention to the detective. She looked over and was, once again, a little startled by his height. Despite the various sounds of commotion coming from inside of the train, her thoughts began to wander. Wait… I never told Daylight anything about my appearance. How did he know who I was? I wonder what exactly you have to eat in order to get that tall without being big. Maybe he's so skinny because of some type of weird combat training. How can anyone be a detective and sleep in… Maybe he wasn't sleeping at all. I wonder if detectives ever go on adventures… Maybe I should just ask… Key took a deep breath. “Hey, Daylight.” Key began cautiously before diving into a rapidfire sequence of questions. “What do you know about fighting? Have you ever been in any fights? Do you know any martial arts? What kind of magic can you do? What do you eat? Have you ever been on any adventures? How did you know who I was out of all these ponies? Did you really sleep in or were you scoping out Trixie and coming up with a plan?”

@@Magicon, Yep, I have to say that it is much nicer than I originally thought it would be. The best thing though is that it will probably save me hours of time each week. Frankly, it really was horrifying how much work it took me to figure out who was who and exactly what each character looked like. I would have to keep like a dozen tabs open on the different character sheets. Now, I merely need to look at the name and avatar to figure out who someone is. To know which room they are in, I merely need to look underneath the name. To pull up a map of the train, there is a link at the bottom of each post. To view a character's detailed description, I merely need to click “Character Info” at the bottom of each post… It's like I'm in RP heaven. Anyways, the major development for this weekend has come to a close, so I'm going to go ahead and type up an RP post putting my OC on the train (finally) and answering some questions from a certain red unicorn that will reside in room 16.

Dude! You actually already added everything in?! You know, I think that you are the first person besides me and Aureity to actually do that. Aur doesn't count because he runs the place (RP World). I don't count because I did the programming. So, that means that you are the legit first one to implement the new changes. YAY! I am so **HAPPY** to see this out in the wild!! :D For the curious, here is the RP game that I actually implemented some code in. If you scroll down to the bottom and click into the spoiler, then you can see how I did it. As Lightning said, it really isn't that hard to do it all and it adds a lot to your RP experience.

@, I saw that brohoof, I know you're here! :3 Remember that discussion that we had about RP games on the site a while back? And you mentioned how this site didn't have the tools for more advanced RP games? Unfortunately, I'm not able to find that post at the moment. So… If it isn't too much trouble… What were those missing parts again? :3 I'm only asking because I think that I might actually be able to build them into the site. I made some progress today on creating a sort of descriptive language that you can use to customize RP games. Right now, it's only good for swapping avatars, member titles, and member names. However, in theory, it could also be extended with much more interesting additions… You can see the current syntax in the spoiler at the bottom of the OP in this thread.

That's a good point. So Star Weaver is probably asleep. Darn…

@, Dude… Where in the world are you?

No worries, we aren't dead yet! I'm going to post something later today. I would've already posted something for the weekend, but I was distracted by a little project that I was working on with Aureity. Look really hard at the RP page… You should notice something a little different.

I like ponies. I like them a lot. I actually have a rather large assortment of toys that I've collected from the show. I display them openly. I have a tendency to play as female characters in videogames. (I've played primarily as Princess peach in every Smash Bros game - I usually win.) I'm not really sure that I consider that a feminine thing though. After all, no one bats an eye when a girl plays as a guy character. I'm really not into sports at all, but I'm not really sure that's a feminine thing either. My favorite Pokémon is Jigglypuff. Other than these things… I can't think of anything else.

The pony above me does not have an adorable avatar.

Oh my gosh... OH MY GOSH... OH... MY... GOSH... I… I… I'm speechless…

You know, that was unnaturally philosophical. I'm totally using this quote at some point in the future.

It's Tichception!!!

Just a note of clarification. This thread is *not* directed at any one individual. This thread is merely a public service announcement for all members. The idea is to communicate the importance of making reports of things rather than highlighting them through an alternative fashion. If you go back and you read through Zoop's post, then you will see that he took great care to not single anyone out. No one is named, and no links or other information are provided about the incident that occurred earlier. The absolute minimum of information was provided in order to add context for the announcement. The OP boils down to the following bullets: A recent incident brought this to our attention. Report things regardless of age. Don't create a thread to draw attention to something rather than reporting it. Do not withhold information about rule breaking content from the staff. Here's some information about hotlinking and how it goes wrong. This is not an attack on any individual. If we wanted to name and shame, then we could have provided every single drop of information about the incident - who, what, where, when. We didn't. And the reason that we didn't was because we are not in the business of shaming our members. This is a community of friends. We have no intentions to “call someone out”, and that was not what was done in this post. However, when something comes up like the recent event, we would be negligent in our duties as staff members if we did not clarify our guidelines on the issue in question. This thread is merely a public service announcement. Nothing more. Nothing less. At the end of the day, we are definitely not your enemy. You should not assume malevolent intentions without clear evidence that this is the case. You should see randomness.

This thread seems to have temporarily died. Better put it on life support! Anyways, so this remarkably skillful individual put together a Scootaloo commission for me (y'all should totally go over there and give this dude some brohoofs and/or more commissions - he took my vague mumblings in a private message and turned them into something awesome). So, what do y'all think: Personally… I adore it! (Well, it's now my avatar, so I think I might be a bit biased. )

I just did… Wow! Wow! Looks pretty intense... Intensely fun!