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Messages - perceptre

1
LoE day celebration has been moved to 11pm GMT (3 hours later).
2
I would like to thank the LoE team for responding to the letter, and recognize their hard work for keeping LoE running. However, there are real issues here, and I hope we can come to a solution that is good for both the moderators and the players. In particular, there are ways to make things significantly better without making unreasonable demands on the LoE team.

For me, and most of the other signers, the key issue is the warning/ban/appeal procedures, and an important part of this is clear communication. What's past is past, but moving forwards, I have the following suggestions:

  • I propose marking out warnings more clearly. It doesn't have to be elaborate; for example, simply preceding a warning with "WARNING 1" or "WARNING 2" doesn't require much more effort, and makes things clearer for everyone.
  • Be more responsive to appeals. I don't think we should blame anypony in particular. I acknowledge that sorting through these would take a long time. However, there are ways to alleviate it if it is a big burden: for example, the moderators can divide up the work so that no one is overly burdened, and so players can receive a more timely reply.

Clearer communication is good for everyone. As mentioned in the letter, if the warnings and bans are clearer, then appeals would also be easier to deal with: a moderator could effectively respond that warnings were clearly given and ignored, instead of the current back-and-forth arguing about whether the warnings were clear. The less transparent the process is (and it is not necessary to have a completely public log, to meet a reasonable demand of transparency and due process), the more that players expect moderators to be responsible for listening to appeals.

Related to this, I think it is important that the moderators be respectful when dealing with warnings/bans/appeals, and other concerns that players raise. Respect comes both from following a due process and from professional language. Sarcasm and general rudeness have no place in these communications. I am grateful to all the times that moderators are respectful even when players don't respond in kind. When moderators are respectful, it gives players faith that they do in fact have the players' best interests in mind. However, from the issues raised in this thread, I think there is room for improvement.

I also think there's a fundamental disagreement on what's serious enough to get (perma)banned for, and we've skirted around this topic. I think we agree that posting links to adult content is serious, but to use an example that has been brought up, is a one-time 9/11 joke similarly serious enough to get a permaban? For a game based on a world where amnesty is the norm, my personal opinion is that the bans are too harsh. Certainly, inappropriate behavior must be regulated, but I ask you to think about what level is appropriate. What makes a game like LoE so wonderful is the community of players, and we must keep in mind that players are embedded in this community and that drastic punishments have repercussions in this community of friends.

3
Next roleplay:

Date: Friday April 27th, 2018
Time: 5:00 PM EST / 21:00 GMT
Server: Amareicas
Location: Ponydale, by the Evershade entrance
Host: Toot Sweet

All ponies, old and new, are welcome!
4
Next roleplay:

Date: April 20th, 2018
Time: Friday @ 5:00 PM EST / 21:00 GMT
Server: Amareicas
Location: Crystal Kingdom
Host: Toot Sweet

All ponies, old and new, are welcome!
5
Next roleplay (same place as last time):

Date: April 13th, 2018
Time: Friday @ 5:00 PM EST / 21:00 GMT
Server: Amareicas
Location: Crystal Kingdom
Host: Toot Sweet

All ponies, old and new, are welcome!
6
Next roleplay:

Date: April 6th, 2018
Time: Friday @ 5:00 PM EST / 21:00 GMT
Server: Amareicas
Location: Crystal Kingdom
Host: Toot Sweet

All ponies, old and new, are welcome!
7
Next roleplay:

Date: March 30th, 2018
Time: Friday @ 5:00 PM EST / 21:00 GMT
Server: Amareicas
Location: Ponydale Library
Host: Toot Sweet

All ponies, old and new, are welcome!
8
Next roleplay:

Date: March 23th, 2018
Time: Friday @ 5:00 PM EST / 21:00 GMT
Server: Amareicas
Location: Evershade Forest
Host: Toot Sweet

All ponies, old and new, are welcome!
9
Sweet and Elite Roleplay will continue under the leadership of Toot Sweet!

Date: March 16th, 2018
Time: Friday @ 5:00 PM EST / 21:00 GMT (*)
Server: Amareicas
Location: Crystal Kingdom
Host: Toot Sweet

All ponies, old and new, are welcome!

(*) Can somepony verify this? The US but not Europe is under daylight savings next week so the times are out of sync. Please check your local time zone.
10
Quote from: DeceptiveCadance on 2017 Sep 22, 19:01:29Sweet and Elite Hide and Seek

Date: January 16th, 2018
Time: Friday @ 5:00 PM EST / 22:00 GMT

I think this is supposed to be Jan. 26th...
11
I can't make it this Friday. (Tale Spinner can be stunned/out of action for the rest of the time in the Royal Hive - play with that as you'd like.) See you ponies next week!
12
Original Characters / OC: Tale Spinner
2017 Dec 18, 21:12:58
Name: Tale Spinner
Type: Pegasus
Gender: Female
Age: 14
Cutie Mark: ???

"I like flying and writing, though when I try to do both at the same time I end up in a tailspin." ~Tale Spinner


Tale Spinner loves adventure and epic stories. When she's not out flying or telling stories to anypony who'll listen, she'll be reading or writing on her favorite patch of cloud. In her room she has the entire collection of Daring Do books as well as whole shelves of other adventure books and comics. She hopes to have a long series of her own adventures someday. Tale goes everywhere with her trusty pencil, ready to write down anything exciting that happens. She has a good sense of humor - especially for puns - and doesn't mind (or rather, enjoys) getting her hooves muddy. However, she has a short attention span and gets riled up easily; she voices her opinions loudly and is not good at being polite or proper. She has a bunny called Softie, so named to trick enemies (he has quite a vicious chomp).

Her mom and dad are Cloth Spinner and Cloud Spinner, and her older brother and sister are named Sky Spinner and Shadow Spinner. She was actually born as Snow Spinner but because of her initial poor flying abilities, was nicknamed "Tail Spinner" instead. However, as her flying skills improved, she became known instead for telling wild stories about herself to her classmates at recess time, and took up the name "Tale Spinner." She swears that all her stories are true, though they seem to change with every telling.

Tale Spinner's Tales

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Writing / Tale Spinner's Tales
2017 Dec 18, 21:06:38
Hi, I'm Tale Spinner! You want to know about me? Well then, come sit close and listen to my tale. Or rather, tales. I'm a pony of many tales - stories that is, I only have one tail, haha. I suppose I should start at the beginning...


Tale the first: "How I haven't gotten my cutie mark yet"

I didn't always go by the name Tale Spinner. I was born as Snow Spinner. That's cuz my parents thought it was cool to have all our names be similar. My siblings and I, that is. My big brother, Sky Spinner, my big sister, Shadow Spinner, and me, Snow Spinner. Well, also I was born during a blizzard. That might have something to do with it.

Anyways, I grew up in the shadow of Sky and Shadow. Sky took after my dad, Cloud Spinner, who worked at the weather factory. Sky was super-interested in the weather from a young age. He'd taste the air and say, "I think it's going to rain tomorrow." Dad would consult the weather-machine calendar and say, "Why, you're right son, we are due for rain! I need to go check the water vapor collection..."

Sky was always tinkering in the backyard with the weather-making kit dad bought for his second birthday. By the time I was born, he had a whole lab in the backyard, with many parts scrounged from worn-down machines from the weather factory. You see, Sky didn't just want to be a factory worker. He was more ambitious than that. He wanted to be a meteorological researcher. He wanted to make more efficient rain, more beautiful snowflakes, and maybe even new kinds of clouds and new types of weather!

And then there was my sister Shadow, who took after my mom, Cloth Spinner. Shadow was a costume designer. She was always busy drawing and sewing in her room. But that's a story for another time.

With Dad occupied with teaching Sky, and Mom occupied with teaching Shadow, they didn't pay much attention to me. Sky tried to teach me the basics of cloud-making, but he gave up after I broke his tenth beaker. And Shadow tried to teach me to sew, but she gave up after I poked her too many times with the needle.

But I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to fly, like the Wonderbolts! I begged my parents to bring me to see their shows. I had pictures of them on my walls. And last year, I decided I was going to compete in the Best Young Flyer Competition. The Wonderbolts would be there, looking for potential talent. So I trained every day...

There was just one problem. I always veered left when I was flying. The doctor said that it was because my right wing was slightly larger than my left. So if there was a gust of wind, and I lost my focus, I would end up flying in circles... That's why everyone called started calling me "Tail Spinner." Even my family. I didn't like it, but at least it wasn't Snow, which is a silly name. I mean, some of my classmates would pour hot water on me to see if I would melt, and I'm not even white!

Anyway, I thought, the other foals wouldn't laugh at me anymore if I won the Best Young Flyer competition. And you know how the Wonderbolts have these nicknames making fun of each other? I'd become a Wonderbolt, and they'd call me Tail Spinner. That would show my classmates!

So I found a fix. I clipped a small weight to the right side of my jacket, so that I was able to fly straight. I had a routine where I made this insane dive and then pulled out at the last minute... Not quite a sonic rainboom, but still pretty amazing. But the day of the competition was really windy. I was doing well until the last act, so that even my classmates were cheering for me. And then for my last act, when I pulled out of my dive there was a big gust of wind and the weight came loose... and then instead of going up I lost control and went into a tailspin... The ground was coming closer and closer, and I thought I would crash - but then, strong hooves grabbed me and my rescuer flew me back to safety. You know who it was?

It was my hero, Rainbow Dash! I was so honored to meet her that I forgot the embarrassment of not even getting runner-up. She told me that I had promise, so I'm sure I'll make it one of these years!

Tale the second: "How I saved Ponyville"

This tale is about  the time I saved Ponyville from a tornado. I swear it's true, even though no one believes it. Luckily for Ponyville, the rogue tornado happened the day after Take-Your-Filly-to-Work-Day. Dad brought me to the weather factory and showed me around. Security was very tight there. We had to go through metal detectors and liquid detectors - they said it was to make sure we didn't have anything to conduct the lightning or pollute the rainwater.

But I knew the reason. There had been an unscheduled blizzard in the Crystal Empire, a thunderstorm in Las Pegasus, and a heat wave in Manehattan, all in the past week. The head meteorologist said that it was due to "last-minute weather changes," but they were just trying to cover up the truth. There were rumors going around (and rumors are *always* more true than what official ponies say) that there was a masked pegasus who was sneaking into the weather factory and creating freak weather events. We were all talking about it at school and speculating about who it might be. When I asked Dad about it, though, he said the rumors were just a lot of hot air, and they had it all under control.

Dad gave me a tour of the factory - the snowflake maker, the water vapor gatherer, the rainbow pools - and then he wanted me to help out in the cloud-sculpting assembly line. But everything I made was too lumpy, or too wispy, not at all to specifications. I was just getting in the way. He gave up trying to teach me. He gave Sky his passcard and told Sky to take me around.

That was perfect for me - the work was really boring. I told my plan to Sky: together we would hunt down this mysterious masked pegasus and then we'd be heroes!

But Sky just snorted, "Don't tell me you believe those tales too!"

Sky instead took the time to run an experiment in one of the empty cloud-chambers, and seeing as I was bored, told me to go fly around outside. Instead, I prowled around the weather factory, looking for the masked pegasus, without success.

But I did find one thing - a roll of paper stashed in a clump of cloud outside. It was some kind of diagram for wind patterns, and I didn't understand the math, but I could see that the arrows for wind were going round and round, and the numbers seemed quite large. It also had a date on it - tomorrow. I stashed it in my bag and hurried to find Sky.

Sky just laughed. "That's just some student's homework! Put it back where you found it, Tail - or someone's going to be in trouble tomorrow!"

Of course, I took it home with me. I pored over it in the evening. I didn't understand the meteorology, but the diagram could only mean one thing - a tornado. Very suspicious, as it wasn't time for leaf collection, and no tornado warnings had been issued. If no one would believe me, then I would have to stop the masked pegasus on my own. I deciphered that the pegasus intended to unleash the winds at 6am the next morning. So I set my alarm and went to sleep.

I slept past my alarm the next morning; when I awoke it was already 5:45. Not only that, but the piece of paper with the evidence had vanished! I had no time to waste. I didn't even have time to grab my dad's ID card so I could sneak in - I went straight out the door and flew towards the weather factory. It was a blustery day and I lost a few minutes flying in circles. When I got there, the clock was already chiming six. The air in front of the wind-machine was spinning in circles, faster and faster. There was a masked face looking out the window. I was too late.

And then the tornado broke free of the clouds around it - and it was headed straight for Ponyville!

Without a thought to my safety, I flew after the tornado. And did what you're supposed to do - spin around it in the opposite direction. But the winds were too strong. I shouted for help, just before I got sucked in. I felt a horrifying snap and a sharp pain and the rest was a blur of pain and noise, but soon there were lots of pegasi all flying around the tornado - led by the Wonderbolts - and I was sure I saw the masked pegasus among them, too.

I woke up in the hospital. I had to stay there for the next few days because I had broken a wing-bone. It was terrible - I couldn't fly for two months afterwards. The nurse showed me the newspaper headline, which read, "WONDERBOLTS SAVE FILLY FROM ROGUE TORNADO." I read the article, and was sorely disappointed: They didn't even talk about the masked pegasus, or give me any credit for alerting everyone!

I got more respect after that, though. Especially from Sky. He stayed with me in the hospital every day I was there, even though that meant he couldn't run his weather experiments. And as mysteriously as it started, the rogue weather events ended, and no one ever saw the masked pegasus again. I think that he stopped because he didn't want to hurt anypony. But I guess I'll never know.