Flight Camp Folio

[lordbrony]

alright I'm finally here!!!!!!!

(eh where did everypony go?)

[Lux]

They're redoing the thread, so hopefully it'll be up soon.

[Stainless Steel Fox]

I'm waiting for some sort of notification too.

[RarityDash]

I see.

I was starting to get curious as well.

[Hippo]

sorry guys

i admit it was on my backburner. I more than willing to help build this RP, but I require others to head it, because I already head so many other RPs. Me and Cherry started a PM conversation talking about it. If you would like to be apart of the restarting process, let me know, and ill see if i can add you to the PM.

[RarityDash]

Hmm. Considering I currently only have a single involved character, and a mere camper at that, I'm probably not in the right place to head anything.

I'd be happy to help if there's something I can do, however. I'm just not entirely sure what that would be

[CherryRie]

Suggestions mainly, Phil. To be honest though, I haven't heard a thing on this except 'when are we starting'.

Okay, I admit it; presently I’m regretting having tried to expand on the original concept in the first place. What can I say though, I am nerd girl with an over active imagination and a pet peeve against wasted potential.

However. I am also a student rep in the middle of her final assignments and protest action against the axing of creative arts technicians. While I am more than willing to help with concepts, corralling players and drive plot wherever I can; between RL and the fanfic I'm writing (which for the sake of my own sanity takes priority over RP) I just don't have time to run this kind of large scale game from scratch.

Don’t get me wrong, I really want to play this. It’d be a great setting with TONES of opportunity for character interaction and story lines. By the sound of things a lot of the other players here share that feeling.

But seriously? It’s starting to feel like everyone’s sat there waiting for me to write everything for them. Any idea's I've pitched have been met with single sentence affirmations or silence. I know that everyone wants to play in this thing, so why don't people chip in? Please don’t take this the wrong way, but at the end of the day you don’t expect the writers of DnD to turn up at your house to GM your games.

Okay, that’s out of my system, I’m going back downstairs to be sociably drunk.

PS; Better idea Riverhippo, I’m just going to copy paste what we talked about into this thread. It’ll so much easier. I don’t know whether anyone just wants to absorb this as cannon again, so I’ll spoiler tag it anyway just in case.

RiverHippo:

Hey Cherry. I want to help with Flight Camp. How soon will you have a stable internet connection?

CherryRie:

Morning river

Good news is that with a little bit of hocus-pocus from a friend yesterday, we've managed to get a different router working for our sky connection

Smooth as greased lightning now and it'll keep us going till the new router arrives! So, my first job is to finish this chapter for AKH (I'm only like 800 words off now) then I can turn my attention to flight camp and any other RP's that need some tlc

I do agree that we need to start afresh or at the very least start a new thread. Too much changed when the background stuff was written. It didn't help that I ended up quite disinterested when we started getting one line replies and everyone looking to me for guidance. That’s the part that urks me most to be honest, I wrote the info page as a setting for others to use. It’s like expecting the writers of Dungeons and Dragons to turn up at your house and run all your games

Anywho, what would you like to do? We could open up a training session or something? I did plan to run 'glide and slide', were the campers had to glide as far as they could before dropping onto a water-slide. I thought it could start off individually, but then set them into teams and set different rules, like they have to drop when their weakest member does, teaching them special awareness around their teammates. But after I thought about it there's probably not much room for individual interaction there.

Do you have any ideas for games? I'd love to help out if you've got something in mind

RiverHippo:

Evaluation is a pain in the flank. I'm not too excited about putting in games where characters are evaluated for their performance. It's two headaches and a hangover. However, activities that give the ponies something to do would give the players something to interact with.

We also need some sort of overall story arc. Is the ultimate goal just to teach the ponies to fly? If so, that's great. But what other stories can we make the backdrop for this scenario. Also, where is this located? In the sky, or on the ground?

I love love love love love what you've done in trying to organize the flight camp makeup. But for the purpose of the new thread, which group are we doing? It seems a possibility that all the characters are different levels maybe. Maybe we could put them all in one group, and maybe a more experienced flyer has a problem being put with the robins, but it was just a mistake in the lists and they;d have to deal with it. This kinds of stuff is what allows players to really come alive with their player.

We need enthusiastic players and a story that has grooves for people to fall in and bumps in the storyline to jump off of. We need BOTH! We can't just have on or the other. For this reason, one liners are simply not going to be acceptable. As the new thread starts, we should super-clarify in the OOC thread that one liners are not to be presented and if minimum posts lengths are not made then we will have to get Helpstaff involved. Sounds scary, but its something we gotta do.

I'd like to inform you, if you don't already know, that my character I was trying to involve is actually a unicorn. Her backstory desires a story like this that gives her a 'chance' even if failure is on its way for her. I hope that this is 'ok'.

As for Madden, I feel confident that he can bring order to the instructor side of things. A teacher who was 'new to the business' was getting a little old. Madden is a celebrity, and so flight camp is kind of a stoop down for him, but he does it for PR purposes. He'll be a fun cocky addition to the thread, even if he's just a teacher.

I don't normally like to play two characters, but this time I feel comfortable doing it, if you'll allow me.

SO this is pretty much all of my thoughts down on paper. What kinds of things would you like to do. What kinds of things are you expecting? As far as story arcing, I completely am aware that stories don't always go as planned, so whatever we end up doing needs to be fluid and flexible.

Cherry Rie:

I'm really glad you're committed to this River, it fills me with hope that the progress we've made so far may not go to waste ^^,

As mentioned in the original thread, all the present foals are in the Robins for the time being. The other teams are there if people want to run head to head campaigns at a later date.

After the incident when Fluttershy nearly plummeted to her untimely demise the flight camp was relocated to the side of a large hill overlooking the nimbus lakes. Some of the permanent buildings are real and based on solid ground, others are set up on a cloud bank that extends outward from the hill top. It is more than plausible that a none flying pony could get to the ground based areas including the robin hut and adventure playgrounds.

Not to be cynical but I'm fairly certain that Dino set this up originally to spotlight his own character. As such I’d dearly like to see it extended to more than just a test based ‘look at me!’ fest, and by the sound of things this is your aim too.

So on to Ideas! As I mentioned, the easiest thing to look at for individual activities would probably be team building exercises, learning to fly together rather then competing. There is however a really easy over arching plot we could run in the background; Flight camp is under threat of closure.

The focus of the camp (from the point of view of its staff at least) has always been to not only help foals hone their flying skills, but also have a fun place to go during the summer when they could make friends and learn essential life skills. But on the educational side, it is funded as an additional ‘summer school’ to give struggling students a boost and promote young talent.

Because of this conflict of interest, somepony on cloudsdale council began to look into the testing scores for those coming out of the camp. Though every pony seemed to be passing the flight camp, few showed any dramatic improvement. This is because the certificates that were supposed to be awarded upon a successful test, were being given out to everypony for simply completing the year, having no bearing on the actual skill of the students.

With the foals showing nowhere near the required level of improvement, it is no longer economically valid to continue funding the camp with public money. Unless they can show viable results this year, the whole camp could be looking down the gang way to the glue factory.

P.s. I’ve thought of a way around Arrow plain’s little problem; Cloud shoes! Some young foals, especially those with mixed species parents, aren’t born with the ability to walk on clouds, a condition known as ‘Soft Hoof’. For just such an eventuality, the robin hut keeps a few sets of enchanted horse shoes, permanently imbued with the cloud walking spell Twilight used. ^_^ How’s that sound?

CherryRie:

Any thoughts or plans so far River?

RiverHippo:

Yeah, sorry, I had to put this one on a backburner. To be honest, I want to help the RP with ideas, but I don't want to be OP or thread runner, because I don't want to hijack anyone's ideas, and I already have enough planning on my plate in other RP threads. So it would help me a lot if you took the lead on this one. How is your internet situation going?

[Stainless Steel Fox]

I've been mooting Horeseshoes of the zephyr, which are pretty much 'horse shoes enchanted with a permanent cloud hoof spell.' elsewhere. But I've been refused by the mods in the 'What needs to stop' thread. They don't want non-pegasi in the air. I'm going to keep pushing though.

I'd love to help drive plot, but my character is just a student. We need to have someone who is willing to be GM, and it should really be one of the instructors. I hoped Cloudius could drive things, I was doing my best in the old thread to connect with other team members, but all I did was stand around waiting for the instructors to tell me to do something.

[RarityDash]

Yeah. I'm in much the same place as Stainless Steel Fox with this. I have the time and passion to want to help drive this forward, but I just don't think I'm in the best position to do so with my one little filly.

I have a number of other flying characters, but I'm not creative enough to bring them into the Flight Camp fold (largely because none of my OC fliers have any ties to Cloudsdale...). I mean, the closest, most viable thing I have to a potential Flight Camp instructor is probably Gilda (though maybe once I get Cloudchaser approved, she can be an assistant instructor or something, I dunno), and I'm still not entirely sure how well she'd work in the role...

I really love some of the ideas I'm seeing here, so it would be a shame to let this fall apart. I hope we find somepony willing and able to lead it.

[Danae]

I'm sorry I've been away, I was busy.

I'll try to get a character able to lead approved.

[lordbrony]

Yeah. I'm in much the same place as Stainless Steel Fox with this. I have the time and passion to want to help drive this forward, but I just don't think I'm in the best position to do so with my one little filly.

I have a number of other flying characters, but I'm not creative enough to bring them into the Flight Camp fold (largely because none of my OC fliers have any ties to Cloudsdale...). I mean, the closest, most viable thing I have to a potential Flight Camp instructor is probably Gilda (though maybe once I get Cloudchaser approved, she can be an assistant instructor or something, I dunno), and I'm still not entirely sure how well she'd work in the role...

I really love some of the ideas I'm seeing here, so it would be a shame to let this fall apart. I hope we find somepony willing and able to lead it.

Gilda = Cameron Diaz in Bad Teacher

I don't think i can lead either, given my track record and that LightWind pretty much does what he's told

[RarityDash]

Gilda = Cameron Diaz in Bad Teacher

Never seen that film, but I have a strong feeling it's be a fitting parallel.

Gilda would be terrible as a teacher, antagonistic toward the students, flippant and lazy as possible and pretty much just there to collect a paycheck.

Come to think of that, that might provide some funny RP situations. I kinda doubt Gilda would be the right instructor to lead with though...

[Hippo]

I want to affirm that the way Cherry feels about it is much the way I feel about it. Maybe even more so. I just wanted to tag along for the ride, and it ended up looking everyone wanted to give either me and/or cherry the reins. We simply just cant do it right now (especially with all this WWU craze). I am confident that you guys' RP abilities can shape something together. You just need to have a set of characters, an idea for what flight camp will look like, and perhaps create a light story arc that all of the characters can share.

Everything beyond that is making your characters come to life with one another, and jumping dialog ideas through the storyline. I'm sorry if you guys were wanting to follow along. But right now, we just can't lead. I lead and head several RPs already. I still want to join the RP, it's just starting this one seems to be quite a task, that I am unwilling to take right now. So who will take it?

As far as the non pegasi thing. I don't want to stir up any controversy. But, the helpstaff has told me that Arrow's situation is special. Not so much special because of her character, but because they trust that I, as her player, wont take things too far. Helpstaff want to lay down rules that everyone needs to abide by. But these rules serve as guidelines when an RPer gains enough experience that he knows when to let his character fail. In this situation, I intend Arrow to fail. Helpstaff has told me that temporary cloud-walking spells are fine. The horseshoe thing was just an idea, since Arrow might be at camp for a while. There was also discussion that maybe the beginners class would just being on the ground. I am, however, considering not even playing her in this RP at all anyway. But, I may not have to decide, since no one wants to take the head.

From experience, trust me, the first post is the hardest part. Once you're done setting everything up and perfecting the acr and characters, everything else falls into place, provided people posts replies. And listen, if one of you does choose to get confident and try your best with an OP and RP head, your efforts WILL be rewarded.