Messages

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Off-Topic Archive / Re: Who's the Boss? vs. Charles in Charge

2015 Apr 20, 14:44:36

I will agree that Who's The Boss? definitely had an advantage over Charles In Charge in terms of marketing, and that helped the show a lot in terms of awards and recognition. But a lot of the underlying reason behind that is simply that Charles In Charge season 1 started him off with the Pembrokes in the first place. I don't know what they were thinking with that setup, but personally, I think when CBS tried to can it, they had the right idea at the time, and he'd have never started working for the Powells we all know and love if it hadn't been for that, so naturally it was off to kind of a rocky start, and a lot of viewers are hesitant to jump in during the second season after a show has already established itself as an average or possibly even sub-par series. Of course, it came back and made up for it later, but I don't think it would necessarily be out-of-line to say that it took a good amount of influence from Who's The Boss? when they finally sat down to give the series the kick in the pants it needed.

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Off-Topic Archive / Who's the Boss? vs. Charles in Charge

2015 Apr 17, 19:07:04

This thread is for very serious people to very seriously compare two 1984 fish-out-of-water housekeeper sitcoms. General deconstruction of either show, or the genre as a whole, is perfectly welcome, but please attempt to frame it within the context of comparison when applicable. I know we all have strong feelings on this issue, but please try to keep discussion as civil as possible.

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Pony Off-Topic Archive / Re: What makes a poor OC? Post your thoughts here!

2014 Apr 29, 20:55:45

Oh, you know what? That might be completely valid, actually. I keep forgetting I stopped watching after the third season. Well, anyway, the main point I'm trying to get across is just that characters aren't capable of being any good when you're looking at a page describing the character rather than using them in a story or roleplay or something.

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Pony Off-Topic Archive / Re: What makes a poor OC? Post your thoughts here!

2014 Apr 29, 17:21:18

I would like to go on record saying that I believe all OC's are bad.

In terms of appearance, you can have a cool idea, but only if nobody else has done it. Heterochromia is a really cool trait the first time you see it, and then you realize how overdone it is. Any one trait is probably either overused already or trying too hard to make the character a unique snowflake. Or surprisingly often, both.

In terms of backstory, the only acceptable route is to create a character that is basically inconsequential to the universe. They can't interact with canon characters in any meaningful way, and they can't be anyone we should have already heard of.

So by that logic, an example of a good OC would be a donkey named Horatio who lives in Manehattan and lost mobility in his front left leg in an accident while he was working at a ball bearings factory. And in just about any other universe, that kind of character would be perfectly acceptable, but because we're all fans of a happy horse world where anything more than slightly depressing is out-of-place, that's not a particularly good OC either. To make him fit with the universe, we would have to give Horatio back the mobility in his leg. If we do that, he loses the one unique character trait we've given him, and he's just a donkey. Probably a sad donkey because he works in a ball bearings factory. (He could have collected on disability and used the extra time to learn how to sing, but the accident never happened because it's too dark, so he can't sing very well, and he still has to work.)

So, without giving him any supernatural abilities that a donkey wouldn't have, giving him any significance to anything that appears in canon, adding anything too dark or depressing to appear in the show, or making a really boring character, how would we get Horatio to the point where we can call him a "good OC?" Personally, I'd say the only thing to do would be to scrap his entire backstory and make him a brave and daring sea captain with many tales of his heroic exploits aboard his faithful ship, the H.M.S. Ballbearingsfactory. There's just no easy way to make a character without some kind of spectacular role seem interesting.

Now, of course, if we were going to use Horatio for a roleplay of some kind, we could start with an ostensibly bland backstory and add development as the story progressed, but in doing so, we're not creating a good OC so much as working with a banal one until it becomes one. Horatio can't be created as a good character all at once, because character development isn't something you can fit into a personality description. It has to happen within a universe, and it has to involve dynamics between multiple characters, or between a character and their environment. You can write good characters by yourself, of course, but you can't write good characters in a vacuum just by slapping together a few concepts that you might like, because that's not how it works in real life. People are shaped by their surroundings, and characters need to be the same way.

If you take any character from any piece of fiction out of that framework and try to envision them just by themselves, without the rest of the story, they're going to appear to be "too ______," for this reason. Pinkie Pie, by herself, is too manic and hyperactive. Romeo is too naive to exist. Francis Begbie is too homicidal to go through life without being put in jail forever. Atticus Finch is too perfect. Tyler Durden has so many things wrong with him, I don't even. The reason those are good characters has very little to do with the initial concepts that make them up, and at some point, just after those concepts were created, there was no more to them than any OC you might have come up with, and they were, therefore, bad characters. The only way to make a good character is to make a character and then put them somewhere. The best way to make a good character is to make two.

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Music Archive / Re: Weird/Unusual Music Videos

2014 Apr 26, 14:23:31

Pretty neat stuff. Here are my contributions.

I've posted this video in at least one other thread, but it just seems to come up a lot.

And a few classics for you guys. I figure someone else would post these if I didn't.

There are plenty more that I'd like to post here, but I'm not sure how the mods would feel about them. Like... I think Rubber Jonny is technically worksafe, but I'm not sure Perry wants me posting it here. Know what I mean?

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News Archive / Re: Writing Auditions Round Two Begin Next Week!

2013 Jul 14, 15:29:09

Hmm, out of every category of development i lack the most knowledge in the writing section, however I believe a major part of the writing team is creating quests, NPC dialogs and other creative assets along those lines.  Perhaps Brick can correct or confirm that?

This is correct. The creative process behind the quests and NPCs makes up the vast majority of our work.

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News Archive / Re: Writing Auditions Round Two Begin Next Week!

2013 Jul 13, 13:38:29

how many people can be accepted into the writing team?

Technically, we can have as many writers as we want. I personally like to keep the number of writers on the team at any given time at or around twelve, because it's enough to get work done quickly enough to keep up with the other departments and still have a bit of leeway for when certain people are unable to get anything done for any valid reason, but it's also a small enough number to allow me to manage everyone without any problems.

Probably not the best place to ask this, but I'mma do it anyway:

I know you guys hold writing auditions, but, is it possible, maybe sometime in the future, to hold Concept Art auditions too? Like for people who want to design things in the way of 2D.

Silly question I know u_u

We're also accepting concept artists at the time. Please see the post about it here:
http://forum.legendsofequestria.com/index.php?topic=7619

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News Archive / Re: Writing Auditions Round Two Begin Next Week!

2013 Jul 12, 15:07:15

To answer your questions, I have not yet sent the prompt out, as I have not yet reviewed every application I've received, and so far, I have received exactly 78 applications to the writing team. The prompt will be sent to relevant parties on the day I close the first round of auditions.

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Artist Showcases / Re: June Artist Showcase

2013 Jun 18, 00:31:02

Yay! can't wait for next month!

I never said that! This is libel! Libel, I say!

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Artist Showcases / Re: June Artist Showcase

2013 Jun 17, 00:40:58

Thank you, Ellowee.
And very nice work on the showcase. I'm glad to know it's in good hands.

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The Retirement Home / Re: Regarding this tension in the air...

2013 May 30, 16:54:41

I have a copy of her first post in HTML in case this was ever brought up. It contained no cursing all it contained was one vulgar word which a mod had already edited out. I woke up around 7AM that day and backed it up, edited and unedited. If you're going to try and explain it you should tell what was actually in the post. It was calm compared to what the Internet is normally like. Ever since this started I've been backing up information so nothing gets twisted. Very few rules that are listed on the forum were broken in that post not enough requiring censorship. (Just wanted to clear this part up.)

I also have an Opera web archive of the page that day in case this was ever brought up as well.

This is mostly correct, yes. A moderator did remove some language from the post beforehand. Had that been the only violation, we'd have left a censored version up, as we do with most posts containing one or a few pieces of isolated language. However, the post broke eight separate forum rules, and there was no way to remove every violation without completely destroying what was originally stated. The post needed to be moved at an absolute minimum, and failure to take any sort of disciplinary action would have been, in my opinion, giving her more privelage than we would normally afford a regular user. The first mods to act probably thought it was okay because she was on the team at one point, but some of us are more strict about the rules than others. For instance, I'm not going to yell at you for violating rule #3 just now.

If the LoE staff expects me to believe anything they say, they need to prove 2 things to me.

1. I want to see proof that the team is actually happy with their leaders. What was it, 9 members left reportedly because of abuse? All (or at least most of what I've seen) the other members who are not team leaders that have posted on this thead have said the same thing: "My team leader is nice"

2. I want to see proof that the game is actually being worked on. I don't recall seeing any bit of info being released since the stress test last year. That "Road to Alpha" image sure hasn't changed that much since then.

Most of the team members who left did so for unrelated reasons, but were dragged into the controversy simply for having left at the wrong time. It's unfortunate, but we're certainly not going to make them stay. If every team member in the thread telling you explicitly that their team leader is nice isn't proof enough that they're happy with their team leaders, I don't know how else to prove it to you.

You'll see proof that the game is being worked on as soon as we release information. The conventions start in one month, and it would be unfair to the conventions to deny premiering any new material simply because a few forum members demanded it. As the old saying goes, it's impossible to please everybody.

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The Retirement Home / Re: Regarding this tension in the air...

2013 May 30, 16:08:12

There are a few things that I would like to clear up, since it is fairly evident that I've been summoned forth to give my input on this issue. I will present the facts on those issues as I see them. There are certain details, that for the sake of privacy of both past and current team members, I am neither willing nor able to disclose.

In the first place, Dandy's post was "silenced" because it broke many different rules all at once. It included personal attacks on multiple team members, cursing, controversial topics, and a link to content which violated forum rules, among other things. We moved it to an area wherein only team members could see it, because it did still contain suggestions, and we did value those suggestions. Being an ex-member of the development team, she was well aware of the rules she was violating, and posted it regardless. So yes, this detail did contribute greatly to her ban.

In the second place, Ellowee was conceptualized before SweBow ever left. She was never intended to replace anyone. Many development teams adopt mascots, and there is absolutely no reason to assume any malicious intent behind a mascot appearing. Many different team members were involved in her conception, and a few team members are responsible for her posts. The fact that most or all of you have no way of knowing which members I'm speaking of means that she is fulfilling her purpose, and will not be expressly associated with any individual members. Please leave her out of this.

In the third place, the awards are equally unrelated. Tekner is correct in saying that the majority of the team has moved on. While we're not ignoring the controversy, we are absolutely still working on the game. We've made some great progress, and when the conventions come, I hope you all get to see some of the amazing work that's been done. I, for one, am extremely excited about this prospect. Progress has not stopped, and the content that was leaked did very little to showcase our progress since the last public appearance we've made. I would have liked to show you a bit more along the way, were it up to me, but I'm not responsible for that department, and although I may not have agreed with SweBow's decision to keep our progress a secret during that time, I was certainly willing to comply with it. In the meantime, a few of us did try a few things to keep the public interested in our own little ways, with whatever small ideas we could think up to let the forum members know we still cared about them. We started holding artist showcases to give team members credit for their works and let the fans know of some of the processes involved in game creation. We tried having "notable pony awards" at one point, and issued out titles to a few other members as well, such as "Propane Salesman," and "America's Sweetheart," among other things. The recent awards are no different. While this may have been construed as attention-seeking behavior by some, that was never the intention, and those of us who took part in these do not, in my opinion, deserve to be attacked for doing so. I'm not telling you this to say that I'm firmly against receiving attention. That would be a lie. I like receiving attention about as much as I like re-watching Trainspotting. If it's right in front of me, I'm not going to turn it down, but it's certainly not a driving force in my life either. If there's honestly a need for me to explain this, I even asked if I should be the one to upload the artist showcases before I put them on the internet, and SweBow personally approved of each one before I did.

In the fourth place, you are somewhat correct in assuming that we would like for this to blow over without a large number of outside parties getting involved. We have a game we're trying to develop. That is our objective. Letting all of our fans in on any and all personal drama we might experience between ourselves would be counter-intuitive to that goal. Every second I spend typing this message out is a second I could be using to reach that goal. I'm doing it now because I care about the forum members enough to at least attempt to put your minds at ease about the development of the project. (And also because every page view gets us that much closer to covering server costs.  ) What I won't do, however, is start throwing out accusations toward or about anyone who has been, up to this point, helping us reach the goal of completing the game. The reasons for SweBow's removal have been publicly stated, and they are completely genuine. If I were to go through, point by point, and analyze every single shortcoming of his that I've been exposed to in the two years I've worked with him, it might make some of you feel better about the justification behind the decision. However, I refuse to take part in that sort of mud-slinging, and if my reputation is damaged as a result of that refusal, then so be it.

Lastly, A team member of mine has already stated his opinion on the matter in this thread. If you don't want to take his word for it, ask another member, or perhaps even an ex-member, if I'm unfair in my leadership, or if anyone else would be better suited for my position. I've told each of them multiple times that if they ever wish to challenge what authority I have, they're welcome to do so at any time. Out of the members I've had on my team, I've had exactly one member who left on poor terms. That was almost two years ago, and the member in question came back later and apologized for the conduct involved with that parting. I tell you these things because I want you to realize that the people making allegations against me, taking my words out of context, misquoting me, or in some cases, just completely lying about me, are not by any means indicative of the views of the team as a whole, or as a majority. The fact that no current team members have spoken ill of the team leaders, I can assure you, has nothing to do with censorship.

I'm well aware that the things I'm telling you are probably not what you want to hear. For that, I will not apologize. I'm speaking only for myself, because my opinions are the only ones I can state confidently. I will not publicly speculate on the goals, demeanor, or mental state of any other party involved, I will not take it upon myself to pass judgement on those I have no authority over, and I will certainly not share with you what has been shared with me in confidence without the express consent of any other involved parties, regardless of whether or not the same has been done to myself or to any of my close friends and/or co-workers. I wish ill upon no one, and I will make no attempt to harm the reputation of anyone involved. If any of you are worried about the future of Legends of Equestria, your concern is somewhat understandable given the circumstances, but unfounded. Progress is being made, and will continue to be made for a very long time. If any of you are worried about who might be to blame for a conflict that is completely resolved aside from the perpetuation being brought about by people with allegedly good intentions, I'm afraid the only advice I can give is "Don't be."

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The Retirement Home / Re: Do you like sit?

2013 May 28, 04:33:47

Either way, I personally think it's quite fetching.

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Off-Topic Archive / Re: The End or The Beginning

2013 May 28, 00:33:58

What are you talking about, Kit? You've already ended the world. Weren't you paying attention?

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Off-Topic Archive / Re: The End or The Beginning

2013 May 27, 23:09:57

I regret to inform you all that the entire world in which we live has been destroyed, and there were no survivors, not even you. The situation, however, is being handled, and we ask that you all remain calm. I would like to remind you that looting and polluting is not the way, and we are working hard to ensure the safety of each resident until the fire raining from the sky ceases. Thank you for your continued patronage.

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News Archive / Re: Legends of Equestria takes a giant leap into the future of online gaming!

2013 Apr 01, 02:16:37

I, for one, welcome our new Alces overlords.

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News Archive / Canterlot Gardens needs donations!

2013 Mar 18, 17:55:52

Many of you will remember last year's stress test, during which Legends of Equestria was temporarily available for public play during the weekend of Canterlot Gardens, where we allowed the fans to play the game alongside the development team, and even a few community celebrities. Some of you even had the opportunity to attend Canterlot Gardens for yourselves in Strongsville, Ohio, to see the panels, meet the guests, buy the merchandise, hear the musical performances, and take part in all of the other activities that made Canterlot Gardens such a fun and rewarding experience.

Right now, Canterlot Gardens would like to provide all of us with another opportunity to have such an experience, but they need our help to do it. Last year's Canterlot Gardens was Legends of Equestria's most successful weekend since we first began, and we recieved thousands of new forum members during the time we spent at the convention. That is why Legends of Equestria is asking our fans to help fund a second year of Canterlot Gardens, so that we can all enjoy it together, and grow even more as a result.

For anyone interested in helping, their kickstarter can be found at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1380300948/canterlot-gardens-2013. So please give what you can, and make sure to spread the word. They're counting on us!

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Artist Showcases / Grassy Fields and Cocoa St. Lauren

2013 Feb 19, 15:09:54

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the February edition of the Legends of Equestria Artist Showcase! This month, we'll be focusing on some of the game's NPCs. For those of you not familiar with the terminology, an NPC, or Non-Playable Character, is any character in a game that isn't controlled by a player. In this case, we'll be talking specifically about two of Legends of Equestria's finished NPCs, Grassy Fields and Cocoa St. Lauren.

Now, the first step, as you could probably guess, is to write the character into a google document. Almost every finished concept in the game does, of course, start in a document of some sort, and we have a fairly large and extremely talented team of writers dedicated to creating the quests and NPCs that will go in the game. While it is possible to have a quest without any NPC involvement, most or all of the quests you'll find in Legends of Equestria will heavily involve one or more of our NPCs.



As you can see from this image, the very first step involved in creating a character is creating a physical description, as well as giving some important information about the character. In this case, Aurethius, the writer responsible for writing the character Grassy Fields, filled in the biography by listing the relationships and occupation of the character, as well as leaving a note about the character's voice. Any special information about the character needs to be placed near the top of the page so that the voice actors, concept artists, and possibly the animators, will know whatever they need to about the character's voice, mannerisms, and appearance.



A description can be as long or as short as the original author feels it should be, and in contrast to the two lines of text written for Grassy Fields, author Saddlesoap Opera decided that this particular character, Cocoa St. Lauren, would need a more in-depth background and description in order to properly convey every detail he had in mind for the character. There is no right or wrong length for a character, and the depth given to the description relies heavily on how prominently the NPC in question will be featured in the game, as well as how complicated their personality and appearance are and several other factors. When questioned about the conceptualization of this particular character, Saddlesoap had this to say:

Cocoa was written as a somewhat snooty 'Artiste' type, who sees herself as extremely cultured and important, looks down her nose at nearly everypony, and dotes on her ill-behaved little dog. She's a chocolate-maker, but she'd call herself a Chocolatier. In keeping with her high-society style, her name was based on Coco Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent.

This is Cocoa's cutie mark story and general dialogues. The cutie mark stories are something that our writing team does a bit differently from what you might find in a typical game. We feel that it is important for each character to have a distinct personality and reasoning behind their every action, rather than just existing to dispense quests to the players. In keeping with this, any character that has a cutie mark must logically have attained it at one point, and this is a very important detail in the lives of the citizens of Equestria who have undergone this rite of passage. Therefore, it's required that every cutie mark has a backstory told by the pony who has it, in their own words. By giving each character a unique story to tell and having them describe an important event in their lives in such a way, we are forced to put a large amount of thought into each character and get inside their heads a little bit while creating them. The only exceptions are characters that don't have a cutie mark, are incapable of telling the player about their cutie mark, or refuse to tell the player about their cutie mark. Since the game is set in a land of happy magical ponies, the latter two categories are typically few and far between.



Under the cutie mark story in each of these, you'll see the character's general dialogues. The general dialogues are triggered whenever you try to talk to an NPC, but they don't have anything important to say to you at the time. Instead of having a box full of text pop up like you would if the NPC were talking to you about a particular quest or event, you'll hear them say one of these phrases. To avoid tedium, each writer is required to come up with at least ten general dialogues for each character, and they're almost always completely unique to that character.



Since Grassy Fields does give you the option to purchase pies, it's also necessary for her to have a few dialogues for this on her character sheet. Any set of dialogues like this, which aren't unique to any particular quest, but are unique to a particular NPC, are placed here.

Finally, there are the related quests. This is just an easy way for us to access the quests in which the character is featured without having to hunt them down. If any significant change is made to a character, it would be highly inefficient for us to go through every single quest in our database and search for the character's name in order to make sure the character stays consistent. It's also nice to have as a reference, in case someone is writing a character into another quest but isn't quite sure on the characterization just from reading the sheet.





After the character has been written, edited, and personally approved by everyone's favorite talking tree, it's sent to the concept artists' pile. Now, the characters as they appear in the final game are going to use the same model as the players, with their own color schemes, cutie marks, and accessories attached, so this concept art is never sent to the 3D modelers like it typically is for buildings or other objects. Instead, it's used as a visual reference to further determine certain aspects of the characterization for the voice actors, as well as the writers for any future uses of the character, as well as for implementing it in the game when it's finished. Many of our fans will be able to tell this just by looking, but the concept art for both of these characters was drawn by Sugarcup, one of Legends of Equestria's extremely talented concept artists. The above image of Grassy Fields was the first NPC concept art Sugarcup ever created for Legends of Equestria.

After the concept art has been finished and approved, the NPCs are sent to the voice acting team. Our audio lead, Hirosashii, personally reads through each character sheet and places them with whichever voice actor or actress will best match the character's personality. I've created a video for you all to watch below, which goes through each of the characters' general dialogues being read by their respective voice actress, as well as a few extras in the case of Grassy Fields. Grassy Fields is voiced by Emichwan88, and Cocoa St. Lauren is voiced by Flootershai.

After the voice acting has been approved, it's sent back to the writers where we have one of our team members build the model using the character creator, and put it in the game! The actual implementation process for NPCs consists of several different steps, and has yet to be entirely completed. But between the animations, models, and scripting beyond this point, we've got enough content to fill another artist showcase as soon as it is, so be sure to check back! We might just see these two again in a later edition!

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Original Characters / Riptide Rush

2013 Feb 15, 22:06:54

This is my OC, Riptide Rush. She lives in the ocean, and has never been to the surface. It is therefore highly unlikely that anyone will have the opportunity of interacting with Riptide Rush at any point. She was born the daughter of Whitewater Splash and Alpine Snow in 1997, and has lived happily ever since with her family, which also includes around 250 siblings.

However, hard times came upon young Riptide and her large family, as it became difficult for her parents to support so many seaponies. Therefore, Riptide was given no choice but to take a job in customer service at Little Seasers. She worked her hardest to help support her family, and succeeded. Now they are able to get by given the combination of modest salaries between several of them, and still have enough to afford three cars and a bus and host neighborhood barbecues every couple of months.

Riptide studies botany at the University of Aqualoosa. She hopes to one day own a plant nursery, and possibly start an art studio on the side, if she can get a decent start-up. Her favorite album is 2112.

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Resolved Issues / Re: HEY YOU GUYS GUYS LOOK!

2013 Feb 03, 15:25:25

Other changes include the addition of  the "media" page, which is, yes, still being constructed, the removal of the "more stuff" section under the buttons, and the much-needed update regarding the "about" section, which has now been moved to the front page of the site. So there are a few things happening right here.