What's the 'haps?

[Icewalker220]

Yo wassup doods? I was looking at this for a bit, and I finally got it. So what's the game about? Is it a simulation? Anyway, Happy New Year!   

[Noodle Script]

Happy New Year, Icewalker220 and welcome to the forums and the game.

Legends of Equestria is a roleplaying game, but I feel that its social component is much bigger than in other online roleplaying games.

There are NPCs who give you quests and you can easily get to about level 7 by doing these quests. After that, I find, you must explicitly run around talking to every NPC to get quests.

Every new update brings new quests, for example the December update introduced the NPC Stocking Stuffer (or something like that) in the center of the market place in Ponydale (where Sugarcane Corner is) who gives you a free pair of socks if you do a little favor for her and Stun Law in the Ponydale Mines who gives you a quest that is a little bit... strange.

Sometimes it may seem that there are no other players around, but that is not true. There are many big maps and every map has two rooms. There seem to be more players on the weekend. There are generally more players on the Amareican server than on the Europonian server and the players on these servers are active at different times (get accustomed to time zones). If you want to know more, read "How do I find other players?" by Dr_Nomz in the Legends of Equestria Discussion board.

If you want to make sure that you meet a lot of players in the same spot, parties and events are occasions on which that happens. Look into "P. O. N. I. Headquarters" in the Legends of Equestria Discussion board for that. There, they will announce parties and game events.

Another occasion on which a lot of players gather in one place is roleplaying. One roleplaying group is the Sweet and Elite: Meet and Greet. They are going to have a roleplaying event in Ponyday School House tomorrow, Friday, Jan 4. Sometimes the school house will spawn you in a location where you are stuck. Type /stuck to get unstuck. The game will then respawn you in a fixed location.

Generally the Sweet and Elite roleplaying group has two modes: Slice of Life and Adventure. In Slice of Life mode, players are expected to come up with their own plots. I feel that some players have a whimsical sense of humor so that the plots are sometimes a little silly, but in a funny way. When nopony comes up with a plot, it's mostly talking. In the other mode, Adventure, Game Master Toot Sweet comes up with a plot and it is much like a narrative RPG. In case you are unfamiliar with this: It's like table top, but without the dice and numbers. Look into the respective forum thread in the Legends of Equestria Discussion board and join their Discord server to keep up to date if you are interested. They have posted an invitation link to their Discord server in their forum thread.

There are also other RPG groups, but I have never seen them. Also, there are roleplays on this forum, but I haven't taken part in them either. If you want to play in the forum RPG, first introduce your character in the Original Characters board and then take part in one of the roleplays in the Roleplaying board. However, some roleplays are restricted and won't accept new players until they have finished. In any case it is probably a good idea to ask if you can participate in a certain roleplay or jump into a roleplay that has just started.

If you are new to the game and are unfamiliar with usual game controls, I suggest you start as an Earth Pony. Your teacher, Fizzy Stradlin, will teach you how to walk and jump.

There are some abilities that are available to all pony kinds, but some are restricted to a specific pony kind.

Earth ponies are stronger (which means you will have more HP) and have more stamina. They will be able to run faster and for a longer time. One ability exclusive to earth ponies is talking to animals, which will give you more options what you can tell your pet (Yes, there will be pets). This means that your pet will be able to support you in combat. Ponies without this ability can only tell their pets "Sit" and "Follow me". Sometimes it may seem that your pet isn't following you. Don't worry though, they will run back to you when you stand still. The other ability exclusive to them is agriculture.

Unicorns can obviously use magic and this is the ability exclusive to them. Also, they can teleport, though not in infinite ranges. But they are weaker physically.

Pegasi can fly, obviously and there is the Flying talent, but I haven't played one, so I can't tell you more about it.

You will use the journal a lot. It shows your friends, your party and your quests. Also, it shows the skill trees. Your experience is measured in talent points that you can invest in these skills. Some of the skills available to everypony are Cooking, Partying and Artisanship. In every skill tree, there are skills that are relatively cheap (20 TP) and some that are prohibitively expensive (500 TP), for example, everypony can have Regenerative Aura from the Healing skill tree after doing some quests, but all the other skills in that skill tree are prohibitively expensive.

During the main questline, you will be asked by your teacher what you think your talent is. After completing the associated talent quest, you will be given the basic level of all skills in the associated skill tree for free (even the ones who are prohibitively expensive). Be careful, though. After completing this quest, your character will be an adult pony. Don't complete the quest if you want to stay a foal. There are different quests for foals and adult ponies.

On the bottom of the screen, there is a quickslot bar. You can drag and drop your abilities into that quickslot bar to have quick access to them. All you have to do is to click on them or press the associated button to perform them. You have ten quickslot bars. You can use the slider [<>] to go through them. However, I would suggest that you put the things that you use most often into quickslot bar 1, since the user interface will not keep the current quickslot bar when you change between rooms or places and it will be reset to quickslot bar 1.

Fighting monsters like hornets, manticores, diamond dogs and lantern monsters gives you loot. I don't fight much with my unicorn character Scatty Clockwork, because I'm bad at fighting and he is weak (even with armor).

Speaking of armor: You can buy items and clothes from merchant ponies and sell it to them, too. Sometimes you can get them for completing quests, too. Most clothes are just cosmetic, but armor, as expected, slightly increases your HP. Healing potions and food restore HP. Some items are needed for crafting or cooking. Clothing mostly does nothing, but it is a good way to express the style and personality of your pony, for example my unicorn character Scatty Clockwork wears a scroll bag and a lab coat and my earth pony character Rosie Sunshine wears a nurse cap and a dandelion bracelet. There are reasonable types of clothing like armor, lab coats and saddlebags and rather silly items like you can wear a book or a frying pan as a hat or fake wings. Also, the LoE staff seem to have a sock fetish. There are more kinds of socks than any other items and they make a lot of noise about socks. Oh, and you can have accessories like the Alchemic Torch, an normal Torch or a Lantern, that provide atmospheric light when it's dark. For the Alchemic Torch and the Lantern, you can also choose the color of the light. It costs a small amount of bits, but, seriously, if you complete some quests, you will have more money than you need, unless you buy lots of stuff, but what are you going to do with lots of clothes that you can't even wear all the time (Rarity, please don't hit me)? Maybe doing lots of crafting might cost a lot of money if you regularly buy resources for it, but I can't tell, because I haven't had a crafting pony so far.