Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion

[NoodleNugget]

Rampage(lol she always dies, but she also doesnt, But maybe this time, probably not.), Cerberus, Carrion, Shears.

I was just about to post asking if anyone was looking forward to Dawnguard.

[OneMoreDaySK]

So what happens if a foal gets hit by the blue vine? Please don't say dead baby comedy

[Sindri]

I was just about to post asking if anyone was looking forward to Dawnguard.

[buy some apples!] yes.

[NoodleNugget]

I was just about to post asking if anyone was looking forward to Dawnguard.

[buy some apples!] yes.

awww yeah. Now heres the moment of truth.
dawnguard or vampire lord?

[Meleagridis]

The Joke would probably corral the zombies for later or return their sapience. Not much else to do with them but maybe keep them for someone with some better material.
The foal would most likely die. I'd assume there would be a parent there? Or maybe the parent would die trying to save the child- yes that sounds more... joke.

@Mel: (Cerb) Does "he" even have defined a gender identity for himself, and if so, can he even "love"? xP

(Psygius)

He can hate. He can love. Especially if it would be funny. But I'll admit a little bias here.

Let me explain myself more clearly: I'm saying that if Psycho and Stygius don't work out, it is probably because her trauma caused her to snap and kill Stygius. If this happens, she has gone psychotic and deserves the name Psychoshy more than Whisper.

And I think you explained Kattlarv before... sorry.

[Sindri]

dawnguard or vampire lord?

Dunno yet. I don't pick a side until I've met both. Unless one of the sides declares themselves to be my enemy before we get a chance to talk, like the Legion did in NV. Then I slaughter them and pick from the remainder.

[Quotidian]

Posts! Holy shit, more posts! Stupid job, making me miss interesting threads...

For one thing, I can tell you that I'm definitely not worse off than you, so you don't need to feel bad for mentioning it to me by any measure. Also... this is a bit (read: a lot) hypocritical of me to say, but if you're hurting, you're hurting. Doesn't matter if some are worse off; if you need a friend, or at least a friendly ear, then there are people here who're happy to give one.

I know, I know. I just get... tired, sometimes. I've been dealing with this stuff for the last couple of years, really. I used to think that therapy and getting better would be a straight shot to 'fixed'. It's more like a sine curve that periodically ticks upwards. I'm better now than I have been in years, but every once and a while, I just slip back in to feeling like shit.

Relationships! I am in a very similar boat to yours. In my experience, an open relationship generally is not the same thing as polyamory, meaning that each partner is (generally) free to pursue sex with other individuals, but not to have another long-term partner...

Yeah, I'm not really worried about it at the moment. I've resolved to forgo 'intimacy' until I get my own shit sorted out. No sense tying my mess of baggage to someone else's right now. Still get lonely sometimes, but hey, I've got friends, at least. That helps.

Lastly, regarding "it's what's on the inside that counts"...

(And in regards to everyone else who replied about this.)

I'm under no illusions here. I know I'm an outlier. Most people eliminate, at the very least, fifty percent of the population from their list of potential partners, and usually way more than that. Everyone has filters. It's just that mine don't take things like gender or race or physical appearance (beyond very broad measures) into account. Of course, that leads to its own difficulties...

'Gone with the Blastwave'
has come back from the dead...

Oh sweet! Thanks for posting that. I haven't seen BWtBw for... years, it seems like.

@Swicked: Babies! So many babies! 400 babies! No, but seriously, congratulations, man. You've successfully spawned. Darwin is pleased.

@Xanthe/SS: This is strangely adorable. I almost want to write this now. I'd say hi to everyone else in the gutter, but I was here first.

[NoodleNugget]

dawnguard or vampire lord?

Dunno yet. I don't pick a side until I've met both. Unless one of the sides declares themselves to be my enemy before we get a chance to talk, like the Legion did in NV. Then I slaughter them and pick from the remainder.

I'm going to take a guess that you chose stormcloaks?

Spoiler:

[Sindri]

I'm going to take a guess that you chose stormcloaks?

On one side, we have the guys who sentenced me to death despite not even having records of my existence, let alone any crime. But everyone responsible for that was killed, either by the dragon or by me. In later meetings they were quite reasonable as a general rule... except when they were acting directly as the Thalmor's bitches. Which was most of the time.


On the other side, we have the native underdogs. Decent ideology, mostly legitimate claims, and best of all they aren't working for the bloody Thalmor... but every last one of them is a racist bastard. And the vast majority don't care about those lofty ideals, the good of their land or their people, or really anything aside from beating up anyone that isn't a "true nord."

So I did what any good Khajiit would: play both sides against each other, cripple them when targets of opportunity present themselves, and take over most of the nation for myself!



...Turns out I don't follow instructions very well. :mybad:

[NoodleNugget]

I'm going to take a guess that you chose stormcloaks?

On one side, we have the guys who sentenced me to death despite not even having records of my existence, let alone any crime. But everyone responsible for that was killed, either by the dragon or by me. In later meetings they were quite reasonable as a general rule... except when they were acting directly as the Thalmor's bitches. Which was most of the time.


On the other side, we have the native underdogs. Decent ideology, mostly legitimate claims, and best of all they aren't working for the bloody Thalmor... but every last one of them is a racist bastard. And the vast majority don't care about those lofty ideals, the good of their land or their people, or really anything aside from beating up anyone that isn't a "true nord."

So I did what any good Khajiit would: play both sides against each other, cripple them when targets of opportunity present themselves, and take over most of the nation for myself!

Sindri for high king.

[RandomBlank]

And if wondering how much it hurts:

Spoiler:

Good to know. I just dont want to know why you know that.

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

From what i heard,

Spoiler:

/

[Rickyking]

I'm just gonna leave this here: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/34164/Warmth-%28FoE-PH-22.5%29

[Guest]

...Turns out I don't follow instructions very well. :mybad:

Who has time to fight a war when there are things lying around on the ground to eat?! Find a thing, put it in your mouth! IT IS THE ARGONIAN WAY. Also, crouchstabbing giants to death after grinding Sneak to 100.

Skyrim is a really fun game, and I'm looking forward to Dawnguard, but I don't think Bethesda is capable of not making Sneak overpowered in their games. And I'm okay with this.

[Sindri]

...Turns out I don't follow instructions very well. :mybad:

Who has time to fight a war when there are things lying around on the ground to eat?! Find a thing, put it in your mouth! IT IS THE ARGONIAN WAY. Also, crouchstabbing giants to death after grinding Sneak to 100.

Skyrim is a really fun game, and I'm looking forward to Dawnguard, but I don't think Bethesda is capable of not making Sneak overpowered in their games. And I'm okay with this.

Not to mention people to save, artifacts to uncover, houses to decorate, Jarls and cities to befriend/bend to your will, guilds to join, build up, or destroy, Daedric Princes to befriend... why would I put one of two groups I don't like in power when I could just take it for myself? Why would I fight somebody else's war when there's so much going on that interests and benefits me? Why would I serve some petty human king when I could work for the Mistress of Darkness?


Sneak was pretty much realistic in Morrowind. Meaning practically impossible to use in combat, and only reliable with plenty of distance, cover, and shadows in any case. Their more recent games tend towards rule of cool instead. Though at least in Skyrim, it's implied that if you develop your sneak score enough you're being hidden from sight by Nocturnal herself.

[Somber]

I'm just gonna leave this here: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/34164/Warmth-%28FoE-PH-22.5%29

[Takei] Oh my! [/Takei]

[Guest]

...Turns out I don't follow instructions very well. :mybad:

Who has time to fight a war when there are things lying around on the ground to eat?! Find a thing, put it in your mouth! IT IS THE ARGONIAN WAY. Also, crouchstabbing giants to death after grinding Sneak to 100.

Skyrim is a really fun game, and I'm looking forward to Dawnguard, but I don't think Bethesda is capable of not making Sneak overpowered in their games. And I'm okay with this.

Not to mention people to save, artifacts to uncover, houses to decorate, Jarls and cities to befriend/bend to your will, guilds to join, build up, or destroy, Daedric Princes to befriend... why would I put one of two groups I don't like in power when I could just take it for myself? Why would I fight somebody else's war when there's so much going on that interests and benefits me? Why would I serve some petty human king when I could work for the Mistress of Darkness?


Sneak was pretty much realistic in Morrowind. Meaning practically impossible to use in combat, and only reliable with plenty of distance, cover, and shadows in any case. Their more recent games tend towards rule of cool instead. Though at least in Skyrim, it's implied that if you develop your sneak score enough you're being hidden from sight by Nocturnal herself.

(UGH FFFFFFF- My internet router is in dire need of a stern talking-to. Since it hasn't got ears, nor a consciousness outside of the one I assign to it when I'm angry with it, I'm going to settle for fuming. Anyway, lost a post.)

As I recall, Morrowind sneaking was overpowered in its own way, too - though you didn't need much skill with it to abuse it. Stealing daedric equipment at level one was always a good time. True, if you could find your way to Solstheim, there was some pretty fantastic gear you could grab for free without even crouching; and true, this is more a product of the (very fun) game design rather than the sneaking mechanic being overpowered, but still... Point is: arrive in Morrowind; make a beeline for the Dren Plantation!

@Rickyking
Hmm, that's a thing. Well, the characterizations weren't bad (seemed a bit off sometimes), the style was quite reminiscent of PH's, and it was even a bit sweet (though one or two exchanges were somewhat saccharine). Those are all good things! Um... does anyone know the policy on linking to this sort of thing, though? 'Cos I sure don't. If Somber Takeis it, then it's 'kay by me. =P

[Sindri]

As I recall, Morrowind sneaking was overpowered in its own way, too - though you didn't need much skill with it to abuse it. Stealing daedric equipment at level one was always a good time. True, if you could find your way to Solstheim, there was some pretty fantastic gear you could grab for free without even crouching; and true, this is more a product of the (very fun) game design rather than the sneaking mechanic being overpowered, but still... Point is: arrive in Morrowind; make a beeline for the Dren Plantation!

See, I preferred that the world didn't entirely revolve around you. The gear worn by enemies, or sitting unattended in chests, or rewarded from quests shouldn't change based purely on how much experience one guy has. And if you managed to steal legendary gear from under the noses of people massively more powerful than you, that's a reward for a job well done and a lot of luck, not something unbalancing. It annoys me whenever game designers feel the need to make everything perfectly balanced in a single-player game.


As for sneaking specifically, it was almost impossible to use pure skill to move through guarded areas or avoid monsters; you just weren't allowed to hide in plain sight without magic like you do in later games.
With magic... let's just say that if you managed to get a 100% Chameleon effect, it was more broken than the chinese stealth suit in F3. And if you could do repeated short-term invisibility spells and could afford to pay the thieves' guild to get rid of your bounties, you could grab things and just sprint for the exit right between the angry guards, refreshing your cloak every time you had to touch something.

And if you had levitation and an open sky, or a Mark in your cornerclub of choice and enough magika for a Recall... I can see why they took teleportation and flight out of the later games, but they took a lot of the options for ridiculous fun with.

[Wigglejigglesquiggle]

Um... yes. Hello. I seem to have written a PH clopfic. Ricky beat me to linking it, it seems.


I was going to let people know earlier, but Fimfic's approval process lasted right into the night - it would have been very embarassing to say 'hey, look at this thing I've written' only to find it had been rejected in the morning.

I know this isn't everyone's kind of thing, but the idea just wouldn't leave my head, so I hope to have at least come somewhere kinda-sorta-close-ish to doing Somber's characters justice (they deserve to be happy, dammit! Happy!).

[Guest]

[
With magic... let's just say that if you managed to get a 100% Chameleon effect, it was more broken than the chinese stealth suit in F3. And if you could do repeated short-term invisibility spells and could afford to pay the thieves' guild to get rid of your bounties, you could grab things and just sprint for the exit right between the angry guards, refreshing your cloak every time you had to touch something.

Ooh, that reminds me of my favorite thing about stealing all the things: making a tower of items by dropping your entire inventory every time it seemed like a guard was about to catch you! This only got worse if you abused the soul trap glitch with feather spells... which I did not do every time, just the times when I felt like flying around Vivec and blowing everyone up with AoE lightning bolts. Which... was most times, let's be honest.

Seriously, though, I'm in total agreement with you on the living world thing. It wasn't a criticism of the game - it was one of my favorite things about it. Grabbing Ebony Arrows of Slaying and a daedric dai-katana are several highlights of my early Morrowind playthroughs. (The second highlight, of course, is stealing Fargoth's stuff; the first is stealing the limeware platter in the choose-a-sign-and-class room)

It's only Morrowind that makes me roleplay as a total kleptomaniac every time. Probably because it's got the best loot.

@Wigglejigglesquiggle
Hihi, welcome to the forums! :)

[Sindri]

It's only Morrowind that makes me roleplay as a total kleptomaniac every time. Probably because it's got the best loot.

I like Oblivion, and I love Skyrim; they're both objectively great games... but Morrowind had that air of "screw you I do what I want" that modern games always seem to lack. I once skipped over the entire main quest, punched Lord Vivec in his multicolored balls, stole the macguffin, jury-rigged it together, took a back door into the prime villain's lair, and saved the world anyway. You just can't do that in games these days. And even when you were following the rough plot, you could go through each individual challenge however you wanted; fly over the guards' heads and pick the lock, turn invisible, pick their pockets and slip past, nuke them from a mile away and loot the key at your leisure, or just find another route. These days it's all "impassable mountains" this and "unpickable locks" that trying to keep you on a specific course.

[O. Hinds]

Spoiler:

Well, considering that she also loved Sanguine as a father, and we don't actually know that she doesn't appreciate the aesthetics of ghouls…
Oh, here's another idea: Yes, she did have a deep attraction to him… and then she found out the he considered her pretty much an entirely expendable tool who just had to be kept happy until she'd served her purpose. After something like that, maybe a simple "You're hot, you want to have sex with me, and, like most of the ponies Blackjack hangs out with, you're, ugh, nice," is just what she feels she wants.
…You know, when having a fetish for evil zombie mad scientist parental incest is the better option for your mental health, things are pretty bad.

@Swicked: (Snips&Snails) Yeah it was from what I recall. But I just don't see why they'd keep their childish fanboy manors after years of war, and after being adult.

Well, they were working the latest in a series of unsatisfying dead-end jobs and were probably wondering how long it would take them to get fired from this one… and then in walks the stunningly beautiful (and well aware of how to use that) head of one of the most powerful organizations in the world, having remembered them, singled them out, tracked them down, and come to personally offer them very important jobs in her service. I think that it's not so much them keeping the attitude as very quickly getting it back.

Still reading, but just to point mistakes spotted so far:
Sheers

He glanced at the infiltration suit

Shears' name only appears later in the paragraph.

Ah, thanks.

[Rickyking]

Um... yes. Hello. I seem to have written a PH clopfic. Ricky beat me to linking it, it seems.


I was going to let people know earlier, but Fimfic's approval process lasted right into the night - it would have been very embarassing to say 'hey, look at this thing I've written' only to find it had been rejected in the morning.

I know this isn't everyone's kind of thing, but the idea just wouldn't leave my head, so I hope to have at least come somewhere kinda-sorta-close-ish to doing Somber's characters justice (they deserve to be happy, dammit! Happy!).

Heh indeed I did. I saw it when I was on Fimfiction right when it was posted. I wasn't sure if you were going to link it here so I did.

[Cptadder]

It's only Morrowind that makes me roleplay as a total kleptomaniac every time. Probably because it's got the best loot.

I like Oblivion, and I love Skyrim; they're both objectively great games... but Morrowind had that air of "screw you I do what I want" that modern games always seem to lack. I once skipped over the entire main quest, punched Lord Vivec in his multicolored balls, stole the macguffin, jury-rigged it together, took a back door into the prime villain's lair, and saved the world anyway. You just can't do that in games these days. And even when you were following the rough plot, you could go through each individual challenge however you wanted; fly over the guards' heads and pick the lock, turn invisible, pick their pockets and slip past, nuke them from a mile away and loot the key at your leisure, or just find another route. These days it's all "impassable mountains" this and "unpickable locks" that trying to keep you on a specific course.

Yeah... but fuuuuck Cliff Racers
I loved Morrowwind, I loved Oblivion, I loved Skyrim but I loved the mods and expansions for these games even more. My question is why they did not take a lesson from Morrowind:Bloodmoon which was about mining towns, werewolf and ancient curses and remember the by far most popular part of that game was building your own town and Mayoring for it. Same thing in Oblivion where everyone expected those first weeks to be able to rebuild Kvatch but you never could likewise the town that got melted at the start of Skyrim. Luckily their are mods to address that lack in both games for the PC version, building up your own settlement and base of operations just connects deeply with people in the way that getting the +5 Sword of Slaying does not when they already have the +4 Sword version.

[SilentCarto]

The Joke would probably corral the zombies for later or return their sapience. Not much else to do with them but maybe keep them for someone with some better material.

It can't return a soul that's moved on. Most likely, it would do whatever it does to regular animals.

I don't think Bethesda is capable of not making Sneak overpowered in their games. And I'm okay with this.

Well, when you get right down to it, stealth is a method for controlling information, and information is God in combat. It allows you to dictate the terms of engagement and act only when it's in your own interest. (See also: Assassin's Creed)

[Meleagridis]

The Joke would probably corral the zombies for later or return their sapience. Not much else to do with them but maybe keep them for someone with some better material.

It can't return a soul that's moved on. Most likely, it would do whatever it does to regular animals.

Killing Joke's capabilities, sentience, and even tragedy are all left deliberately vague. For all we know, it might have the power to temporarily resurrect the dead. It's all theoretical. Since it was only a threat briefly in FoE, any hard data on Killing Joke is as canonical as any sidefic.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to make something about a ghoul given 3 days of sane, living life about a 4 day hike from his life-long dream.
That's what I think Joke would do to a feral.

[SilentCarto]

Killing Joke's capabilities, sentience, and even tragedy are all left deliberately vague. For all we know, it might have the power to temporarily resurrect the dead. It's all theoretical. Since it was only a threat briefly in FoE, any hard data on Killing Joke is as canonical as any sidefic.

I'm sorry, but even merely holding a soul against death is the blackest of black magic. There's no way a mere plant could reach out to whatever metaphysical plane Blackjack visited while she was dead, drag back an unwilling soul, and stuff it back into its old body.

The presence of cockatrices near Fluttertree suggests that animals are unaffected by KJ, and I don't see any reason that an animate corpse would be treated any differently.

[Rafafidi]

I don't think Bethesda is capable of not making Sneak overpowered in their games. And I'm okay with this.

Well, when you get right down to it, stealth is a method for controlling information, and information is God in combat. It allows you to dictate the terms of engagement and act only when it's in your own interest. (See also: Assassin's Creed)

I don't think stealth is OP in Fallout 3; if you don't kill the enemy in your first shot, he will pin-point your position and alert every other enemy in the area, even if it's impossible to him to see you in first place. But yeah, you can crouch in the midle of the street, at daylight and wearing power armor, they still cant see you until you shoot.

[MrMagma]

Killer Joke is superpowered by an overdose of taint, though, right? Would something like that, or even granting a kind of mock sentience for its own amusement, be beyond Discord's abilities?

Definitely not. Remember that one robot in Chapter 39 that gained brief sentience from Flux or whatever it was in Sanguine's labs?

[RandomBlank]

My highlight of Morrowind:
You can eat any raw ingredient. Including raw glass, scrap, ebony, etc.
They are usually mildly unhealthy.

* * *

In other news, my fic is as ready as it's ever gonna be, with only one last chapter missing - but this one will be written after last existing chapter is published, and there's a readers vote on what the last chapter/epilogue should be. I'll still have to split it into chapters, it's currently one huge 168-page document with only * * * breaks. Definitely looking for prereaders.
Adventure, humor, romance, drama, clop.

(1st person, Celestia is the protagonist.)

[Icy Shake]

Killer Joke is superpowered by an overdose of taint, though, right? Would something like that, or even granting a kind of mock sentience for its own amusement, be beyond Discord's abilities?

Definitely not. Remember that one robot in Chapter 39 that gained brief sentience from Flux or whatever it was in Sanguine's labs?

Obviously there's not much to work with, but I would expect that as the degrees of separation from Discord increase, the capabilities will fall. Moreover, going on the basis of the Crusader Maneframes, even sentient computers probably do not (normally) have souls in FOE. Unless an ensouled being can be turned into a soul jar. This suggests that the case of the robot needn't have involved soul magic at all. So I could perhaps see feral ghouls being given some form of awareness, but not in the sense of snatching back their soul; I would expect that the zombie would not in any meaningful sense become the pony it was before it went feral.

Also, I'm sorry for being so late on this, but congratulations, Swicked! Happiness and health to you and yours.

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