Riceeman
Replies: 28

Black Temple Gaurdian
Replies: 23

Novoni
Replies: 3

Sloth
Replies: 31

Trainer X
Replies: 44

So, these mod applications certainly were interesting. We received a number of good applications this time around, resulting in lengthy deliberations and a roll of duct tape being applied to the knife drawer for the safety of everyone. I think the best way to sum the whole experience up is something that was said by myself during the deliberations:

Quote:

 

Blob/Trainer X says: (10:07:07 PM)
it's like a circle
Blob/Trainer X says: (10:07:10 PM)
it's a full side of suck

This isn't to say that we didn't succeed in picking the newest moderators to join the team, though. Read onwards as I discuss things that nobody will read!

6. With the US presidential elections having come to a close last week, voting is on all of our minds. But what if pies ran for president? Which one would get your vote?
We got a number of fun answers for this one. Some said apple, some said sweet potato, and some said blackberry. But ultimately, based on who won the election, I feel confident in saying that the delicious apple-pumpkin-blueberry-etc. pie won the election. Congratulations sir-ma'am!

7. Last month, the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) was fired underneath Switzerland. Although the many skeptics who predicted us all being sucked into miniature black holes were proven wrong, they could be proven right next June, which is when the particles will actually collide. What do you think will happen?
While we didn't expect a whole lot out of this one given people's general lack of knowledge on the LHC, we were pleasantly surprised by the answers. Apparently all the black holes are going to cancel each other out and form one super-duper garbage disposal system.

8. If a tree falls and nobody's around to hear it, do the other trees laugh? Apparently trees lack the self-esteem and sense of humor needed to make use of this situation, as all they can do is laugh. Poor fellas. But I have to be back to work now. I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK, I sleep all night and I work all day...

9. If A=B, and B=C, what color are Julie's eyes?
I never found out the answer to this one, because half of the applicants were too busy making ridiculously long formulas to solve this equations to give me actual answers, and the other half were focused more on another part of Julie (hey, don't hit me, hit them!).

10. Ouch!
Apparently I sneezed and got slapped by Julie simultaneously. She's got quite an arm, you know. And if I know you, you probably know that quite well by now.

Writing Proses
This part was in some ways a let down, and some ways a big boost. Some of you had terrific proses, with intense battles and losses of craniums and superiority complexes galore. Others of you... not so much. In this specific round of applications, the writing proses were sometimes the deciding factor.

But without further adieu, in no specific order, here are the newest OITRPG moderators (if you made it this far without skipping, you get a cookie)!

TheMusicMan
TwilightEagle
Wanderer Shawn
Alternate: Error

We'd also like to announce the promotion of one of our longtime RPG moderators to the position of global moderator! Please welcome thedude27 to the global moderating team! Congratulations!

And as a bonus treat, considering Novoni was extremely disappointed that nobody had done the prose about Draether and the water creature, she went out and wrote her own prose (this was, of course, followed by the remainder of the applications using this prose)!:


And that's about it. Congratulations to our newest moderators!

-Trainer X
-Still At the Knife Drawer

It's been open for two days, but I figured it needed a formal announcement to explain everything.

As TMM declared late Friday night, the RPG is now reopen for business! Go restart your adventures and get back on the road! Or if you're a new member who's been waiting to start playing, now's your chance!

To celebrate, we've opened up a special promo for you guys to enjoy. These Pokémon won't be popping up in the wild for quite some time (in fact, at least two of them are exclusive to Zeralis and their native regions), so now's your chance to cash in!

Additionally, any battles in progress inside the Temporary Stadium are being allowed to conclude. We are currently discussing what the future of that facility will be, and we'll have an update on that once it's available.

I'm also pleased to announce that Novoni has recreated (and saved!) nearly all of the lost information on Zeralis! That was by far the most time-consuming part of R2R we had done, so with that out of the way, we can now focus on restoring the rest of the lost information (unfortunately for TMM, that means he has to play through Crystal again).

As for the Power of Three event, it will most likely be restarted at some point during this week or the next. We want to give players a chance to set themselves back up and whatnot in the RPG before we force the new event on them.

That's about it for now. Thanks for sticking with us, and enjoy the re-opened RPG!

-Trainer X
-Wondering Why He's Still Signing His Posts

So Close You Can Taste It

The RPG will open by 12:00 midnight on Saturday morning. That is our set ETA, and unless I get in a bus crash on the way home from my football game tomorrow, we shall be holding true to it.

Like I said before, there will be lots of festivities when we reopen, so keep your eyes peeled! Speaking of which, the Player Profiles forum is back up and open, so while you wait, you can spend some time there!

Ads? Gross!

For those of you who see them, ads can be quite bothersome. They flash and overall add a negative experience to the board. For those of you who use FireFox or another ad-blocking program, you guys are jerks, because when you block the ads, Zathyus Networks looses profits, without which they can't pay for the servers this board is on (100% of the revenue from the ads goes back into the boards). Aside from that, ad-block users are also left with an ugly blue block at the top and sometimes the bottom of the board.

For longer than we've been using it, ZetaBoards has offered a feature called Ad Removal. Unfortunately, it costs $5 per 22,000 or so page views, which might seem like a lot, but for a board our size, it's not.

But just the other day, they opened up a new way to pay for Ad Removal, a feature called TrialPay. Basically, you follow the link through ZetaBoards to the TrialPay site and complete just one offer, and you earn us 25,000 page views worth of ad removal credits! And you can do as many offers as you'd like! Best of all, unlike those scam sites you see around the net, these are offers from real companies like RealPlayer, Gap, Disney, Blockbuster, Gamefly, and more!

If you would like to contribute, just follow this link and follow the instructions. Once you finish, PM me the activation code it gives you:

http://www.trialpay.com/productpage/?c=1ecfcb3&tid==6rG-x1-&sid=960331

Wait, What?

The weekly update is over already? Sorry, but there's not much to talk about this week! So I guess this is so long until tomorrow night!

-Trainer X
-Wondering Why People Keep Finding Ghosts Stalking Him In His Updates

To celebrate the re-opening of the OITRPG, we've decided that it's that time of year again, the time when we all gather around the fire and throw in the failures until we've picked some new RPG moderators! Now pull on your thinking pants, and let's get started!

Quote:

 

• Do not apply for RPG Mods just for the staff position. If you are inadequate with your job, you will be removed, and your chances of making the position again will be severely damaged.
  
  
• Do not apply for RPG Mods if you will not be able to hold the job for long. We are looking for people who are devoted, and who will be able to do their job for a long time.
  
  
• Do not abuse your power in any way. This includes using your power to get more updates, updating a few people exclusively, cheating to get more money or items, and anything similar.
  
  
• You are allowed to take somebody on as an official updatee, but this does not excuse you from updating other people.
  
  
• Do not apply if you are not willing or able to update everybody fairly and equally.
  
  
• Do not apply if you cannot devote at least one hour per day to the RPG, or if you can not devote five hours per week.
  
  
• Do not apply if you cannot complete an absolute minimum of thirty updates per week (not including holidays, trips, and other viable excuses).
  

And now, for the actual application! Remember, it's how you answer, not what you answer, that counts!:

Quote:

 

The Basic Junk:
1) Time Zone:
2) Time on Per Day (X:XX-X:XX):
3) Previous RPG Moderating Experience:
4) How much time can you devote to the RPG per day?:
5) At what times during the day can you update?:

The Advanced and Strange Stuff:
1) Why do you want to be an RPG moderator?
2) If there was one thing you could change or add to the RPG, what would it be and why?
3) If there was one thing you could remove from the RPG, what would it be and why?
4) If there was one person you could make RPG mod, who would it be and why?
5) If there was one person you could remove from the RPG mod team, who would it be and why?
6) With the US presidential elections having come to a close last week, voting is on all of our minds. But what if pies ran for president? Which one would get your vote?
7) Last month, the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) was fired underneath Switzerland. Although the many skeptics who predicted us all being sucked into miniature black holes were proven wrong, they could be proven right next June, which is when the particles will actually collide. What do you think will happen?
8) If a tree falls and nobody's around to hear it, do the other trees laugh?
9) If A=B, and B=C, what color are Julie's eyes?
10) Ouch!

Writing Proses:
For this section of the application, you must choose one of the following proses, and update a mock battle for no less than two turns, and no more than three. Do not include damage, though you can give the Pokémon statuses (BRN, FRZ, etc.). If you do more than one prose, the first one in your application will be used. Your chances of making it will be no greater or lesser based on how many turns you update. Remember, tl;dr is good here, and remember to make it so I don't get bored halfway through.

• A battle between A&I and SR. A&I is using his Totower, and SR is using his Talonite.
  
• A battle between Draether and the unidentified water creature (dex slot #132).
  
• A battle between thedude and Ace. thedude is using his Dragonite, and Ace is using his Garchomp.

All applications must be sent to Trainer X by Sunday, November 16th at 9:00 PM EST (2:00 AM GMT). Late applications will not be considered. Good luck to all, and to all a good... well.... something. I mean yay!

---

In other news, the RPG will be reopened by the end of this week. That is not a prediction, that is an ETA, and if we fail to meet it, you can yell at me all you want. There'll be a number of festivities to celebrate, so stay tuned!

State of the Union

Despite the apparently downward trend in activity since the board came back up (seriously, who didn't see that coming?), the staff has been hard at work on restoring the board to its former glory. Profile restorations are well underway, and we're conducting them in systematic phases. We hope to have these completed as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, I am disappointed to announce the removal of one of my fellow administrators, especially at a time like this. However, at least for the time being, Wanderer Shawn has been removed from the administrative staff. I'm not going to go into detail now, but we hope that Shawn will follow through on the determination he showed after being removed, and that his name will be orange again sometime soon.

Meanwhile, the rest of the administrative staff is hard at work on restoring things inside the board. TMM has been hard at work for the past week, and is nearly done uploading the emoticons. Sorry guys, no Platinum sprites yet, but we're still looking at the possibility for the future. Novoni and I have also begun work on revitalizing R2R, and we'll have more information on that next week. I'd also like to thank shadow_rukario, who graciously recreated and sent me quite a few of the lost OI-Dex entries.

But while you wait, don't just sit around and sleep! At at time like this, we need all the activity we can get. There are plenty of general discussions to use. Start a new forum game (didn't we have a mafia going?), post a thread about a new band you like, anything!

Apologies and Such

But on the flip side, I feel that I owe you guys an apology. While the rest of the staff has been working hard to get things up and running again, I haven't been contributing much. Maybe I've been riding on the possibility of the information being restored for too long. Maybe I'm a bit depressed about what happened. Or maybe I'm just overloaded with schoolwork and stuff.

But regardless, that's no excuse. From here on out, I hope to do as much as I can to help restore OI to what it once was. Most likely this effort will be focused on R2R, something that has been worked on by very few people so far. Stay tuned!

A Ray of Sunshine...

On the bright side, we have a lot planned for the near future. As soon as the RPG is open and underway again, we hope to restart the Power of Three event that was cut short. We also have a promo planned (it was going to be a Halloween promo, but of course, that wasn't meant to be).

For those of you that noticed, we have a special theme up in celebration of Halloween. We hope to be able to do this with many holidays and occasions in the future, with Thanksgiving being the next one. The Halloween theme goes down tomorrow, so enjoy it while it lasts!

We also have a few other secrets that I won't go into detail about here. You'll just have to keep your eyes peeled!

-Trainer X
-Signing His Announcements Again

Whether or not more information will be recoverable, we're going to begin data restoration in preparation for the worst. Along these lines, we'd like players to post everything they can remember from their profiles here. You might remember it clearly now, but you could forget tomorrow, and we'd like to make sure that we're able to restore your profile as accurately as possible.

Due to an error when replacing hardware on Zathyus Network's server 6, which this board is hosted on, the hard drives on the server were completely wiped, and the boards were restored from the most recent backup, which, in our case, was when we converted in May.

The guys down at the data center are still working to see if it is possible to restore the board to a more recent date despite the hard drive being wiped, but it could be up to two weeks before we have a definite answer. Until then, we have put up a Temporary OI Stadium for you guys to use. It functions almost identically to Pummelo Stadium, and even offers more freedom due to the fact that current teams are not accurate.

Thank you for sticking with us during this crisis, and we hope to be able to restore the rest of the lost data at some point in the next two weeks. If not, we'll start rebuilding as soon as we get the word that more data cannot be recovered.

It's official: We're in spring. And as most of you know, with the warm weather come the exams, the tests, the projects, the finals, and everything else, right on top of your head. Sounds quite lovely, doesn't it?

As most RPG Moderators know, RPG Moderators do have lives outside of updating. This includes their exams and other end-of-the-school-year assignments. Because of this, there will most likely be a decrease in the amount of updates during the spring, otherwise known as the spring drought.

Obviously, hiring more RPG Moderators would not solve the problem, as they all have exams as well, so we'd just have more staff sitting around. But spring time has enough pressure in it without people constantly asking for updates. Therefore, the following changes are being made until further notice, or until the end of the school year:

• 
  
• You will not be able to post in the 'RPG Update Required' thread until 72 hours (three days) since your last update. No exceptions.
  
• PMs to moderators asking for updates are forbidden unless they specifically state, whether in their signature or in a post, that they are accepting PMs for updates.
  
• No topics commenting on the lack of updates will be allowed, as it's quite obvious that we are already aware of it.
  

The Drought usually last until the end of May or the beginning of June, and that's not all that far away. RPG Moderators, this does not excuse you from updating. You will still be expected to update when and if you are able.

Thank you for your support, and we hope you'll hang with us through the dead of spring!

As you hold it, the shell begins to flake off. Suddenly, the entire egg begins to glow and transform! What is it?.....

*shake*

*shake*

[insert morphing here]

It's...

... a....

:gri:

But wait, it looks pretty strong for a newly-hatched Pokémon! And what's that in its hand? Some sort of stone...? Either way, you have a new acquisition for your team, and that's what counts.

---------------------------------------

The egg has hatched into the Pokémon Gri! But it's not any ordinary Gri, it comes at level 20, regardless of your current location. In order to get your egg hatched, you must post in this thread informing the mods of your possession of an egg (note that you are allowed to comment on the hatching as well). The moveset for a Gri at level 20 is as follows:

--Pound
--Tail Whip
7 Doubleslap
10 Sing
13 Headbutt
16 Charm
20 Flame Wheel/Water Pulse/Aerial Ace/Mud Shot (pick one and include your choice in your post (your choice cannot be changed))

Each Gri also comes packed with a basic evolutionary stone (Fire, Water, Leaf, or Thunder) of your choice! Include that in your post here as well.

P.S: Oh, and hatching my own egg, and choosing Aerial Ace and the Fire Stone, thanks.

Yup, we're pretty prompt about getting out those RPG mod results, aren't we? And no, it has nothing to do with three of you breathing down my neck, and one of you who's been stalking me for the past ten minutes past an intense twitch. That would be absurd.

Anyway, I suppose you want to know what the answers to the questions were, right? Well, if not, then I'm going to ignore you and continue on with my original plan.

What is your opinion on the world pasta crisis?
Technically, this doesn't have a real answer, considering it's an opinion question. I did like some of the answers though (apparently we have a flying meatball monster on the lose). However, it is my opinion that every pizzaria in the world should be required to employ at least three native Italian chefs in order to pass the monthly Tasty-Inspection.

If you were able to write a superhero comic book, and you were required to make the most original (and possibly bizarre) superhero ever created, what would he be? Be specific.
Again, an opinion answer. Many good ones, including one who would literally drive me insane from talking and another that could win the NASCAR championship simply by popping the other player's tires. But what about my superhero, you ask? Well, why should I create a superhero when I already am one?

How does one literally pop a quiz?
Quite the creative answers for this one. One person suggested that I somehow create a particle riff in the air, while another suggested I attach a quiz to a balloon. Nobody, however, suggested that I inflate the paper itself with helium and, for a little added fun, liquid francium (alkaline metals go boom, by the way)!

Are humans most closely related to bears or to kangaroos? Explain.
This one was rather easy, and I was mainly looking for the reasons behind your answers. I don't think anybody favored the kangaroos though, which was depressing. Not more depressing than that girl who got beat up, though.

Oh?
Oh yes? Oh no? Maybe so? Who knows!

Unfortunately, the writing proses were a little bit... lacking.... this time around. I think everyone who applied chose either the two anonymous trainers or the battle between me and Novoni (that Dragonfire vs Dragonfire prose will have to make a reappearance, I suppose). There were, however, a few standouts, and we've (the other admins and I) picked up on it.

As usual, you've most likely already skipped to this section of the application. Oh well, I don't blame you. This whole post is rather suspenseful, isn't it? Anyway, give a warm welcome to our newest moderators (in no particular order)!:

thedude27
Nocturne
Angels & Insects

And unfortunately, I must also announce the second removal of a staff member so far, due to extreme inactiveness, even after warning:

Darklight

[Insect Applause, Cheers, and "WHY DID YOU NOT PICK ME AND MY CHURRO BASED SIDEKICK!??!?!?!?" screams here]

That's all for this time around. Hopefully we'll see even more great applications (there weren't many this time) next time around!

-TX
-The only person left to sign his posts since Malphis left