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DerpRavener

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Everything posted by DerpRavener

  1. With all this talk of alternate timelines, I thought a change in avatar was in order.

  2. Possible, but not necessarily true. I agree that magic in the show at least often seems to have that fable theme of 'functioning however is needed for the story/author's purposes', so many times at least from a Doylist standpoint magic is simply inconsistent, but that isn't the only possible explanation here. This argument only works if power is the only barrier to casting a spell. I would argue that spells generally have at least two elements, power and technique. It isn't enough to just have enough magic to fuel a spell, the spell still needs to be cast and that requires an understanding of how the spell works (even if it's just the bare minimum of 'do thing A, to cause event B'). Now, in the case where Twilight borrowed the other princess' power, note that at no point did she also borrow their knowledge. So, it's entirely reasonable that she wasn't able to suddenly cast their spells, since that would be a key component. The other thing that comes to mind is this: if we're looking at just the abilities inherent to their domains, we did see Twilight control the sun, and there didn't really seem to be any reason to use 'love magic'. No one was in a state of making or breaking relationships, generally everyone was either fighting or incapacitated. This might also explain why Twilight didn't use any other of her own spells (only using the most effective in combat spells she was familiar with, avoiding the distraction of trying something she didn't know as well). And further, if you consider that this theory of Cadence's magic relies on destiny, add to that that ponies' destiny and cutie mark seems to be connected, and also add that when Tirek ate their magic ponies temporarily lost their cutie marks, the 'love magic' may have had no valid targets at that time.
  3. Objection! If the relationship between the planets and their stars is the same, then Equus (which is how I'm referring to Equestria's planet because fewer letters) is orders of magnitude smaller than its sun. Combine this with the fact that Earth days are determined by the rotation of the Earth, independent of their changes in position relative to each other, then if Sol and Equus' star were similar, Celestia being the intelligent mare that she is would probably rotate the planet rather than waste time trying to move the sun. However, as evidence suggests that it is the sun that moves (Twilight still appeared to be controlling the sun when she had all the alicorn powers, and she made no comment about things being different to what she'd been told), then the answer appears to be that Equus is larger than its sun. This could be because Equus is truly gargantuan, but again if we look at the energy required it would take a lot to keep such a huge mass from collapsing into a black hole or something, so the more reasonable possibility is the other one, that Equus' sun is actually really, really tiny as stars go. It just also happens to be much closer to the planet than most stars would be. If I had to estimate, I'd guess it's about the size of the moon. Which makes even more sense if you consider that Luna controls the moon. Luna and Celestia seem to be pretty close to each other in ability, so it makes sense that if they require similar effort to control their respective celestial bodies, those things should themselves be similar in mass. We also can't assume that moving the sun via magic and moving it via physical force are comparable. Rather than pushing the sun, one could theoretically move it by causing it to emit less particles in the direction you wanted it to go, and emit more particles in the direction you wanted it to move away from. Or one could change its physical laws so that it behaves as though it had very little mass when pushed. And I don't think we could say how much energy is required in each case. Finally, I'll add my two cents on Cadance's abilities: If we assume it's actual love rather than mind control, and we assume she isn't just warping reality to make it so the affected individuals have always been in love, then I believe she has access to some magical interpretation of fate. She can sense when ponies have the potential to be in love with each other, and she can make that actual by making them realize it. Or something like that.
  4. It was kind of surreal watching the board be updated from in the midst of it.

  5. I used to play a Dawn of War 2 gamemode where three players each controlled a single hero unit, and had to survive against increasingly dangerous waves of enemies. I kitted out my hero to summon a single Ravener unit, and then buff the heck out of it. Only problem was that you couldn't directly control summons in this mode. The end result was that the Ravener was the most dangerous member of the team, except that he sometimes liked to just stare at rocks while the rest of us were getting mauled.
  6. This song has been in my brain lately:

  7. So many things I could be working on, and here I am going back to Terraria

  8. As of tomorrow, I will be out of town for about a week. I should have semi-regular internet access, but there might still be an extra delay between posts.

  9. Apologies in advance if this was all rhetorical, and people weren't supposed to respond to it. I think there's no shame in sticking with FFA. There's a lot there that can't be done elsewhere, and it's no less valid a part of the site than any other. After reading through this though, I am wondering: is there no way you could adapt any of the characters you're invested in, to fit with CC or WoE? I get the idea of not wanting you use characters you aren't attached to, it's why I basically only used one character for a while, so with that in mind is it possible to make alternate versions of some of the characters, which preserve the really important bits? This might be a bad example, as I don't want to make you change anything you don't want to change, but why is Avery an alicorn? How does he use that, and what about his character requires that to function? Him being Celestia's offspring would probably be hard to manage, but if the goal is to have a connection to nobility and having him go missing, that could probably be accomplished by having him as a long lost son of a noble family.
  10. Why do I keep coming up with concepts for arena fighters?

    1. PyroBlaze

      PyroBlaze

      I know what you mean. Most of my newer ideas for characters would be ones that would only fit in CC, since they're more combat oriented or such.

    2. DerpRavener

      DerpRavener

      Same. Which in some ways I'm fine with, since I take more easily to CC anyways.

      I have something of a habit of thinking up the fighting mechanics first, then building a character around them.

    3. PyroBlaze

      PyroBlaze

      Yeah, CC is cool. I just wish I could think of more WoE acceptable characters so I can have more than three choices there. Mine tend to be in CC because of their occupations, and since they have dangerous jobs, I have to think about how they would fight. I think the only CC character I have that has nothing to do with combat is Flux, and she's only there because I couldn't put her in WoE.

  11. Blarg. I am helping a family member move, and thus am braindead. Posts may take longer than normal, apologies to people whose threads I am in.

  12. I think this approach has a lot of positive points. Knowing the subject matter as described is a great way to get the most out of a character in combat. The one thing I don't like about it, is that is has the potential to be kind of limiting. Take me for example: I've never even been in a fist fight, and my only interaction with a gun is firing rifles at a range a few times (probably at fairly pitiful ranges too). The closest I've gotten to something like combat is I've tried boffer fighting with friends. So if I'm using my own experience, I'm basically limited to non-combatants. Now, I could expand my proposed knowledge base with games I've played and movies I've watched, but if the goal is a more realistic approach to combat that presents its own problems. My approach instead tends to focus on two questions: 'does this character's action make sense in context?' and 'how is my character affecting other players?'. For the first question, I find that if you keep things vague, and then take into account things like traits of the other characters, So using sample character you came up with: if our sniper is just shooting a training dummy, even from a long way away, I don't think a lot of people will demand to know what the windspeed was or how she accounted for bullet drop. However, if you sniper is shooting at another character, this character might be very agile, and so either more time (posts) are needed to line up a shot or shots will miss. Alternately, maybe it was previously established in the thread that the area everyone was in was covered in heavy fog. Then, either from having a general idea of what fog is and/or seeing how other characters are reacting to it, we conclude that visibility is reduced, and our sniper has a harder time finding or aiming at targets accordingly. The second question comes down to this: in roleplaying, but especially forum RP, it's about telling a story. Even if two characters are fighting each other, their respective players are still working together to make the story happen. They aren't competing, or at least not the way the characters are. The goal is for everyone to have fun, and part of that is making and running characters that don't hamstring each other. This is where the god-modding issue comes in: if you make your character too capable, (either on their character sheet or through their actions in a thread) you're not giving anyone the chance to play it out. If our sniper ends up in a thread where a team of REA is trying to take down a rogue mage, and the moment the mage is seen she immediately shoots him and ends the fight, I don't think a lot of participants will leave that thread satisfied. It's fine if she tries, but there has to be something to prevent her from landing a lethal shot (it could be she aimed too quickly and missed, it could be that she suddenly saw another threat, it could be that she fired but the mage had shielded himself). I'm writing this quickly, so my specific example here might be a bit off, but the point is: when making a combat character, it's good to think about how they compare to others in combat situations, and to ask oneself whether the character will be fun for others or annoying. And in many ways I think that's more important than accuracy. It also hits me that a lot of things I've written here could be addressed in other parts of the guide, so some of this might be covered elsewhere. Largely I'm writing it to provide another option, particularly if people want to try out a character outside their general knowledge or for dealing with characters who don't really have a real world analogue (i.e. combat mages).
  13. Plots and schemes

    1. Sethore

      Sethore

      Thieves and Beggars

  14. Danger! Danger! HIGH VOLTAGE!

  15. ...Did that really just happen?

    1. SteelEagle
    2. DerpRavener

      DerpRavener

      Nothing to worry about, I was just surprised, and didn't want to leave any spoilers in case people haven't read it yet

    3. Blueblood

      Blueblood

      Yeah... plot armor seems to be breaking.

  16. Man, I should really get back to work on those secret projects of mine

  17. Finally, about two months of effort (on and off) has come to fruition.

  18. "Those monsters...driven mad by music, their twisted souls bound to the beat."

    1. Solfire

      Solfire

      That game is more fun than I thought it was going to be.

    2. DerpRavener

      DerpRavener

      I know that feeling. While I ended up watching some videos first, and so knew I would like the game, it works way, way better than that concept has any right to.

  19. I may be slowly getting back into Hat Simulator

    1. Halide

      Halide

      Run some rounds of Two Cities. You can actually make a decent profit at it if you play your trades right.

  20. Currently working on a story submission for a contest I didn't discover until it was more than halfway to finished. Posting may be a bit slower for the next few days

  21. Hmm, my threads have been slow lately...working on secret projects it is, then.

  22. Jolly cooperation!

    1. Smartbrony

      Smartbrony

      What's up my Sunbro?

    2. DerpRavener

      DerpRavener

      See previous answer, also \[T]/ (Been playing a lot of DS 2 lately, and I recently found the Heirs of the Sun covenant. I didn't finish the first game, so I'm getting excited about what is probably old news :P )

  23. Is it worth making a character log if I only have one active character?

    1. Show previous comments  1 more
    2. Bellosh

      Bellosh

      If you plan on using your OC a lot, you need a place to list all the thread they're in. ^_^

    3. RedCedar

      RedCedar

      I did. I find it's a handy link, right in the sidebar, to your character's information and any other roleplays they're involved in so people can interract with you. And, who knows, you may make another character sometime.

    4. DerpRavener

      DerpRavener

      Thank you all for your input, a few days ago I did decide to make a character log. Wasn't entirely sure what to put in there, so I just went with the essentials plus a list of threads and their statuses.

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