Monday, February 24, 2014

[GAMING/MINECRAFT] An Intorduction to VampireZ


Play VampireZ on Hypixel's server: mc.hypixel.net

A few days ago, I posted about Mega Walls on the Hypixel Server. Today I want to tell you about another original mini-game hosted by them. This one is unique and I haven't seen anything like it in Minecraft before. VampireZ is a horror / survival mini-game that pits the humans against hordes of zombies and vampires (players).

Players are divided into two teams when the game starts. You can either be a survivor, or a vampire. At the beginning, there will only be one or two vampires, but every time a survivor dies, they become a vampire. This makes the game increasingly difficult as time goes on.

As a survivor, you have infinite blindness and resistance, and you spawn with a wooden sword. For each vampire or zombie you kill, and for each round you're still alive, you get some gold. You use gold to buy items. You can buy better swords, armor, food or potions. (some items are VIP locked)

While a survivor, you want to be VERY careful before getting armor, but you still want to fight every battle you can win to get as much gold as you can. Remember that while zombies are slow and stupid, they do a lot more damage than the vampires, especially in the last few rounds when they start spawning with swords and armor.

Your best bet as a survivor is to stay together, and stay hidden. You should hide in a building with no windows because vampires can break glass. (1 high windows are acceptable if you stay away from them, but 2 high windows are just asking for trouble) When not in combat, always, and I mean ALWAYS hold shift. The vampires have a special means that I'll discuss later to determine your general location, but if you hold shift, they might not be able to find you right away and you can get a hit or two on them before they see you. vampires don't have very good gear, so three to five solid hits will fell one for sure.

In order to win as a survivor you most stay alive for 21 rounds (approx: 15 minutes). If the final round ends and you're still alive, you win.

As a vampire, your goal is to kill the survivors. You win when there as no survivors left alive. Vampires spawn with a leather tunic and a wither skull and a sharpness 1 ghast tear, as well as infinite invisibility, speed, and night vision. Also, zombies will never hurt vampires and instead ignore them.

Just like how survivors earn gold, vampires earn blood, though it's slightly different. Vampires earn blood at the end of rounds, but they also earn it whenever a survivor dies, regardless of who killed them. Vampires can not purchase items, and instead purchase buffs (potion effects). among the best to buy are absorption, regeneration, and strength. There are two more things that vampires can buy that aren't potion effects. One of which turns you into a bat allowing you to fly, however this is VIP locked. The other is the flaming arrow. It spawns fire particles on the ground pointing to the nearest survivor to help you locate them.

Another good tactic for finding survivors is to watch the zombies. if a big group of zombies is heading in one direction or crowded around the same door, you can bet a survivor's not far.

Your biggest weakness as a vampire is your horrible gear. Ghast tears have no inherit attack damage increase, so all you have is sharpness 1 (1.25) plus your base attack damage (1) which give you 2.25 damage per hit. However, this is reduced by 20% thanks to the resistance effect on survivors, leaving 1.8 damage. That's less than a single heart and, assuming the survivor doesn't regen, it will still take at least 6 hits to kill them without any armor on. Even with a wooden sword, survivors can still kill you in less than 4 hits. The situation becomes even bleaker once a survivor gets iron armor (60% protection). Each hit will only do 0.72 damage, meaning it will take over 30 hits to kill them after taking regening into account. This is where teamwork, zombies, and strength effect comes in handy. Using these to your advantage will give you a MUCH better chance of killing survivors. For example, when using strength (lvl 3, 390%), your damage output is increased to 8.775, meaning a 3 hit kill without armor and even with iron armor you can still do 2.808 damage per hit for an 8 hit kill, rather than 30+.

Furthermore, you have nothing but a leather tunic to protect you which only provides a measly 12% protection level. Against a survivor with a wooden sword (1+4 attack damage) they will kill you in 5 hits. If they have an iron sword (1+6 attack damage), if will be a 4 hit kill, and if they have the sharpness 1 iron sword (1+6+1.25 attack damage), it will only take 3 hits. The best ways around this are to use the absorption (doubled health making you last twice as long) and regeneration.

If theses numbers are making your head spin, don't worry. I'm done with numbers.

More or less, You already know everything there is to know about VampireZ and how to play, so what are you waiting for? Head over to Hypixel's server and join in on the fun. IP: mc.hypixel.net

If you just want a normal survival server, join my server at 198.24.181.2:25658
We also have creative and pvp, and will be adding factions very soon.

Sunday, February 23, 2014

[GAMING] Katawa Shoujo


Download Katawa Shoujo here: http://www.katawa-shoujo.com/download.php

Katawa Shoujo is one of those choice driven storybook games that most people will either love or hate, but this one comes with a twist...

If there's anything that probably stood out to you in the above picture, it's likely Rin's lack of arms or Hanako's scars. Katawa Shoujo takes place at a school for the disabled where you have been sent after discovery of your weak heart. Soon, you will find your place and fall in love with one of these five girls. On paper, it couldn't sound anymore stereotypical and boring, but I assure you it's anything but.

Obviously each of these girls has their own disability. From the obvious like Rin's lack of arms to the not so obvious like Hanako's emotional trauma. I suggest you try to ignore that for the game, and really just think of them like normal people, and really it's not that hard once you get into it.

With five possible good endings and one secret ending, each play though taking around 3-5 hours depending on your reading speed, this will not be a game you can brush through in a day... I recommend you take your time and really soak it all in. On your first play through, you should make whatever choices you feel are best and just see where that leads you. On subsequent play throughs, I recommend a guide on what choices to make. (Especially when trying to get on certain paths, they're not balanced. There's about a 60% chance to end up with Emi but only about a 2% chance each for Hanako and Lilly)

As you get farther along in the story there ARE sex scenes... You can turn them off if you want though. Wether or not you play with them on is your choice...

 
The best thing about this game is the deep and engaging story. The writers did an excellent job and pulling you into the story of each of these five girls, and the top notch music and art just make it that much better.

If you're looking for a good heart grabbing story, or just a way to kill hours on end, Katawa Shoujo just might be what you're looking for. Incase you missed the link at the top of the post, here it is again: http://www.katawa-shoujo.com/download.php

Interestingly enough, you can download it as a torrent if you prefer. I really like this option and hope more companies adopt it in the future.

Saturday, February 22, 2014

[MLP/REVIEW/S4E15] Twilight Time



Notice anything special about this picture? If not, keep reading and I'll tell you soon.

Before I go on, let me say that this WILL contain spoilers, so if you haven't seen this episode yet, do it now!

So I have to say that, overall, I liked this episode. It's more or less a sweetiebelle episode, and I don't think we've had one of those since sister hooves social. I also liked seeing her learn magic, I think it was a long time comming.

Being a CMC centric episode, I had figured that Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon would be out antagonists from the moment they stepped on screen, but this time it was more of an inner conflict than anything else. This is the type of conflict I like the best, so that and my favorite filly
learning magic means a personal 1-up from me.

As we move into the meat of the episode, we see a sudden shift in Diamond and Silver's attitude towards the CMC. Although this might throw some for a loop, I found it perfectly in character for them. They'll do whatever it takes to be on top. They don't care who you are on the inside, if it means they're popular by association, they'll hang out with anyone.

Sound fammiliar? Did you say this episode's moral? Well you're absolutely right. It's subtle, but it's there, and I found it a really nice way to get more of a glimpse into their character. I honestly hope we get to see more of Diamond and Silver as the series goes on, maybe even a redemption episode for them.

Now about that screenshot above, have you figured it out yet? Look in the background. There's a chart with a sketch of the box from episode 67 with some writing and keys taped on. I really love that the animators put this there. I can totally see Twilight spending any free time she has making charts and formulas about the box in an attempt to solve its mystery, obviously unaware that they already posses half of the keys. Good job animators, keep it up.

And by the way, this has nothing to do with anything, but I just loved this scene...

Dawww scootaloo! I think sweetiebelle might have some competition for favorite filly now!

Anyway, overall I'd give this episode a 9/10. I especially liked this episode and was kept guessing to the end. See you back here next week for another review!

Friday, February 21, 2014

[GAMING/MINECRAFT/BRIDGES] A true team player.

Recently I had been playing The Bridges on Mineplex (IP: Mineplex.com) and played what was quite possibly the most fun game of my life. Here's what happened:

Bridges is a 4-team game, each team has 10 minutes to prepare, and then the bridges are built and each team fights to the death. Simple yet exciting. Mineplex also sports starter kits ranging from apple (infinite foods) to brawler (ultimate melee). For this round I was a miner (infinite haste II, Stone Pickaxe, easy to find ores) and in the time before the bridges came up, i had a diamond sword, chestplate, leggings, and pickaxe, and iron boots and helmet. obviously, i was stacked. the one thing i didn't have, though, was food...

I went out and killed a few easy targets, but then got into a brawl with a full iron dude and was left with 2 hearts, and 3 hunger. i retreated to my team's area, asking for food in chat, but not really expecting to get anything... to my surprise, a friendly girl from my team handed over three cooked chicken! after some eating and time to regen, i set out and got two more kills off, but then one of my team mates died, and it was just me and one other player on red team. meanwhile, the others had 6, 6, and 4 members...

I was sure we were doomed, but then I met up with my sole surviving team mate, the friendly girl who gave me food from before! I know the only way we had a chance was to stick together, so i followed her wherever she went. we hunted down the 4-player team, killed them and got some diamonds. I gave all the ones i got to the girl since upgrading my boots and helmet would be of minimal benifit as compared to her getting diamond chestplate and leggings.

by the time we were geared up, the game's end had drawn near. the two 6-player teams had gone at it, and were left with 3 and 2 members. we went after the three member team, and killed one of them, the other two got away but we're killed by the other team.

now it was just us two and them two. we invaded their area and manged to catch them off guard as they we're trying to get better gear. we teamed on one of them, but at the last minute got split up as we made our way to the last guy. my team mate got killed, and i was just a block or two away from him on the other side of a stone wall, i had caught a glimpse of him and knew he had no diamond gear, so my best best was to strike now before he could get my partner's gear and regen any damage he took from their battle. I ran in, sword swinging and killed him, simultaneously getting revenge from my fallen team mate, without whom I never could have won the game, winning for my team, and becoming the sole survivor of them map.

not many games are as spectacular as this one, in fact, this was such an awesome game that I just had to share it.

Want to join me on my server? use the IP: 198.24.181.2:25658
we have Survival, Creative, and PvP.

[MLP/CCG] Card Games are Magic


Recently I've taken in interest in the MLP card game. For the longest time, card games were my "thing", I was heavily invested in Yu-Gi-Oh and dabbled in Magic the Gathering, Pokemon, and Card Fight Vanguard. Needles to say, I was intrigued at the thought of a pony card game since all of the above, and basically every card trading game in existence, is about beating your opponent to a pulp in one way or another. This goes against everything MLP stands for, so I wondered how they could design a competitive card game without it boiling down to crushing your opponent in battle. Well, here's how.

First off, there is no direct combat. rather it's more of a friendly competition, though for all practical purposes, face offs can be considered the combat of this game. there are also trouble maker cards which must be defeated on your way to victory, so that adds more of a combat element to the game as well. it's all kept very clean though and you never feel like you're in a war.

the majority of your time is spent playing cards to strategic locations to prepare for the all important face offs. what's more is this game uses a mana system that, while simple, is quite intuitive. basically, you get action tokens that you spend to do different things. the closer the lead player is to winning, the more tokens you get each turn. they also do not expire, so smart players will not over invest and will make sure they always have a few spare tokens for an emergency or for a big play to push for game.

there are also problem cards. these cards represent the conflict at hand and show what is needed to solve them. you ear points by solving conflicts, and once both players have solved them, a face off happens, the winner getting a nice bonus.

finally there are mane friend cards. these are just like friends (friends being ordinary units) except you start with them for free, and they're double sided. when you meet the requirements, you can flip it over to its "boosted" side and it become that much more powerful.

so the question then is, do these elements make for a good game? I think they do. it's a unique game for sure, and that's a plus in of itself. it still retains a competitive feel without straying from the spirit of MLP. unfortunately it might be hard to find someone to play with, unless you rope a few of your friends into it. I will say this though: for such a simple game, the rule book makes very little sense. I highly recommend keeping it handy for your first few games since you'll need to go over it a few times and get some real experience before it really makes any sense.

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

[MLP/DISCUSSION/EQG-RR] What!? Equestria Girls 2!?

For the longest time, I kinda expected something like this, but I was still surprised when it actually happened... Equestria Girls is getting a sequel. In true reviewer fashion I would like to refrain from any personal opinions I have on this movie until I actually watch it... In the mean time, enjoy the above trailer which basically reveals absolutely nothing about the movie beyond a few fun costumes.

Now I know a lot of people were really divided on EQG1, and I have to say that as much as I loved that movie, it was not without more than its fair share of flaws... It was pretty decent for a kids movie, but I've come to expect far better from the writing staff. Maybe hasbro hasn't learned its lesson and wants to cash in on more dolls, or maybe they have and want to show us they can do much better than the first movie. I'm desperately hopping it's the latter, though I'm pretty sure it's the former....

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

[MLP/DISCUSSION/18+] Clop: what it is and why it is.


Image by dylandylan72 [source]
WARNING! THIS POST CONTAINS ADULT CONTENT. YOU SHOULD NOT CONTINUE READING UNLESS YOU 18 OR OLDER!





Are you still here? In that case I must be talking to responsible adults. (or curious kids, last chance to turn back fillies!)

I'll start by a simple definition of the word and some history. "Clop" is onomatopoeia for the sound a horse's hooves make on the ground. It was picked up on by the brony community as used as slang for masturbation to MLP images. As of current, this slang only extends as far as the brony community and is more or less unheard of outside it (thank Celestia for that much...).

Clop seems to be the biggest, and most important dividing issue in the brony community, and for good reason: it's a big deal. Take the fact that it's about ponies out of the equation for a minute and what is it? porn. Clop is MLP porn. That's why it's such a big deal.

You might be wondering, why ponies? what's so sexy about ponies? well, nothing, and everything. In order for me to explain this, we have to back up for a moment and have a little adult conversation here: why do people look at porn? There's the obvious part of course: eye candy, but there's another, more deep reason for it. most people who look at porn, whether they realize it or not, are longing for an intimate relationship. They may deny it, but that's almost always the main underlying cause to porn. It's a powerful desire, and though not wrong in anyway, can manifest itself in unsavory ways.

It's no different with ponies, and unless you're a furry (I don't mean any offense to furies!) or else are viewing humanized clop, there's very little in the way of eye-candy... thus with clop, it's all about desire for intimacy. not just on a sexual level, but an emotional level as well. Call them what you will, but most cloppers just want to be able to love their favorite ponies in the most intimate way they know how: sex, and thanks to the writers portraying these little ponies in such accurately human ways, they become very attractive on an emotional level.

This desire for intimacy which resides in all of us, coupled with the large amount of teen guys in the fandom means that clop spread like wildfire, and became the huge issue it is today. I'm not defending cloppers here, nor am I attacking them. Let's be frank, we all know porn is wrong, ponies or no. But, can we really say it's wrong to desire intimacy, and to simply dream for it to one day become a reality, even though you know in your heart than it can never be? I'll leave you to answer that one for yourself.

[GAMING/MINECRAFT] An introduction to Mega Walls


Play Mega Walls on Hypixel's server
mc.hypixel.net

If you play Minecraft haven't heard of Mega Walls, you might live under a rock. Ok, maybe it's not THAT big of a deal, but Mega Walls is one of the latest new games Hypixel server.

If you don't know what The Walls (Mega Walls precursor) is, look it up now, because I'm going to assume you already know about The Walls from here on out.

Essentially, Mega Walls is The Walls 2.0. Notable changes include:

  • the field is now a plus instead of a square, leaving a lot more battleground in the middle of the team's areas.
  • the teams are made of 25 players each, for 100 players total.
  • there are only 10 minutes to prepare instead of 15
  • there are starter kits for different classes
  • each team has a wither that they must defend


Obviously, if you've never played Mega Walls before, you're probably wondering about that wither... each teams wither will remain immobile and, for the first 15 minutes after the walls fall, will defend himself against other teams, but he will not attack his team members. Rather, you will gain regen while near your wither. Withers have 1000 HP instead of 300, will not launch their normal wither skull attacks, and will not regenerate their HP. They will still become immune to arrows at 50% HP. Finally withers will slowly take damage even when not being attacked until they have 1 HP left, at which point a player will have to attack it in order to finish if off.

If a player dies while their wither is alive, they will respawn with their starter kit, but all other items obtained will be dropped on death. Once a wither dies, things get serious. If you die, that's it. you're out of the game.

So already this probably sounds like a pretty exciting game, and indeed it is. Mega Walls is so amazing because there's just so much to do at any given time. Attack other teams, defend your wither, build/fortify physical defenses, gather iron to make armor and weapons, scout for enemy players going stealth, break down enemy defenses, or even attack a wither head on.

the problem with this is that most players will simply choose to attack other teams, and not many players will try to help out with defense or support jobs... this is due to what i like to call the jerk to team player ratio, which in my experience is usually 80% jerk, 20% team player. often times, other teams will quickly go after your wither and then, with all your team members scattered doing whatever the heck they feel like, they quickly die off and boom, your team has lost.

You might not think the team that you join matters, but it does. i HIGHLY recommend you avoid green like the plague. A while ago it was publicized that green was the best team having a nearly 50% win ratio, but since then it has become polluted with noobs and jerks, and is basically the worst team you could have now. I've also never seen yellow win a single game... red is pretty popular, and I expect subject to the same disease that has taken green, so this minecrafter recommends the blue team.

Classes are indeed important, however non-donors will have only 5 to choose from, and 2 of them are VERY expensive. You'll usually be using either Skeleton, Creeper, or Zombie, until you donate for Enderman and Herobrine or else save for months to buy Dreadlord or Shaman.

Skeletons are my personal favorite, getting a bow and arrows. If you hit a player with an arrow, it will be returned to your inventory (basically infinity if you have good aim). their skill is to launch an explosive arrow that does block and player damage. Skeletons are useful all around, and their ranged attacks make them good in distanced combat.

Zombies are a defensive / tanking / healing class. their special ability heals themselves and nearby teammates and they spawn in with a chest plate. Zombies are really good as a last line of defense near the wither.

Creepers are just what you think. their special skill is the cause in explosion. (luckily it's not a suicide mission like real creepers!) creepers have a wooden sword and leggings in their kit. Creepers are good at infiltrating enemy areas are causing massive damage to their defenses to clear the path for other players.

I do not have VIP nor have i bought either of the HERO classes, so i'll do my best to describe the rest of the classes, but there's a lot i don't know about them...

Enderman are stealth masters. Their special skill is to teleport (duh...). I don't know what enderman get in their starter kit.

Herobrine is a unique class. I know nothing about it, and very few people pick it...

Dreadlord is as powerful as it sounds. It's a melee master. it spawns in with an iron sword (upgrade-able to diamond!) and it's special skill launches wither skulls that cause massive damage! Dreadlords are a powerhouse, so watch out.

Shaman was just released a while back, and i've never seen anyone play it. I know nothing about it.


so there you have it: An introduction to Mega Walls. I hesitate to call this a minigame, as it's really more of an all out war! remember, if you wanna join in on the fun go to mc.hypixel.net

if you wanna join me on my own survival/creative/pvp server, check out our website at: friendship-is-magic.enjin.com
and join the server with IP: 198.24.181.2:25658

[MLP/REVIEW/S4E14] Filli Vanilli


So I think Big Mac just succeeded in doubling the amount of words he's said in total on screen... (And singing no less) not to mention a song before the opening theme which is, I believe, a first for fim.

I did like that this episode references other past episodes, flutterguy being the obvious, and a few other small things like cheerilee fainting at Mac's "performance." However this episode dig drag its feet (hooves?) for a few minutes towards the middle and I do think pinkie pie was quite a  it overdone and (even if unintentionally so) inconsiderate of fluttershy's feelings.

That being said, it's a fluttershy episode, which, in the past, usually aren't of as much interest to me as most other episodes. All of them except for a bird in the hoof and keep calm and flutter on are basically about fluttershy being shy and having to overcome that, but then the change doesn't really last after the show is done.

In contrast, take into account Rainbow Dash and the wonderbolts. At first she basically idolizes them to an almost demigod state in her minds, but as she gets closer to her goals, and becomes more confident in herself as well as learning that her heroes are not as perfect as she thought, she's begun to move away from that, outright turning them down not once, but twice in order not to compromise her ideals. She's changed and grown as a character throughout the series. Maybe only a little bit at a time, but it's still there.

Fluttershy on the other hand has no lasting change at the end of her episodes and is still just as shy next time around. I DO sincerely hope this time is different, but I really doubt it...

But really that's about fluttershy's character in general and not this episode in specific. Now I liked that we got the issue of Fluttershy having stage fright on the table and more or less resolved very quickly. None of the mane cast were even the tiniest bit surprised at that "revelation" and I'm sure none of the viewing audience were either. I half expected Fluttershy not to let the others know she was afraid and have to wait another fifteen minutes to find out something you already knew from the beginning, but thankfully that crises was averted.

I also quite liked all the facial expressions on pinkie and flutters, they were possibly the best part of the episode. Season 4 really seems so much more polished and dynamic animation wise and not a single episode this far has faltered from the superior visual quality that has now become a standard.

Overall, I say 8/10. There were some moments that could have been better for sure, but overall this was a fun episode to watch despite it probably meaning nothing at all come next Saturday...

[GENERAL] Introduction to this blog

Hello and welcome to The Equestria Games!

In this post I'm going to explain a little bit about this blog and myself. I expect very few meta-discourse posts after this one, so just hold with me for a bit ok? This blog will be mainly about the following topics:

  • My Little Pony - Friendship is Magic
    • Episode Reviews
    • Head Cannons and Opinions
    • Fanart
    • General Discussion
  • Video Games
    • Mostly Minecraft
    • whatever other games i feel like talking about or get asked about
  • whatever i feel like
    • i expect these posts to to be too frequent, but i'm really just covering my butt here...
Every Saturday night, or Sunday afternoon expect a post about that day's my little pony episode (obviously only new episodes). Also, I'll occasionally go back to talk about some older episodes, but don't expect in depth reviews of all 65 of season 1-3's episodes.

furthermore, I'll be posting semi-often about minecraft and other games. for you minecrafters out there, I'd LOVE for you to join my server.
IP: 198.24.181.2:25658


I am a eighteen year old highschool student. I have a part-time job and enjoy all kinds of media. I love MLP and anime and working with computers and playing most any kind of game. I very much enjoy fanart and music. I don't care in the slightest for celebrities or gossip or anything in that area. I keep to myself for the most part. I don't make friends easily, but those I do make become VERY close.