PonyIsland

I have been on Ponyisland on and off for years. Each time I come back Is better than the last. Personally I love the growth aspect that PI has taken as well as the different amount of items during the events. It makes it more enjoyable. DVS are even able to be obtained if you enter the raffles or win them during events, or even buy one from another user. As for those who say the rules are too strict, yes I do agree to a point. However, Ponyisland is a Pg-13 site and when reading the rules when you first signed up you could see that

Also, if your family enjoys playing the game you do have to pay for full acess to the site. Or if you want to try the trial account (which is called trial for a reason). But you can have multiple people on one IP address play. There is a forum where you just state that you share the same IP but are not the same person. You can also state this in your user presenation as well to avoid any issues.

Lastly to adress the issue with the mods. I have never had a personal issue where any of them were rude to me. I believe a lot of the complaints are people not getting their way, or not knowing how to take how people speak (or type in this case). A few mods are blunt, but that is just how they are. Simple and to the point.
All in all if you want a site to enjoy for many years to come I 100% recommend Ponyisland. You wont regret it!

The moderators of Pony Island are not a fair group. There are many examples of their overboard actions to players without a fair hearing about the situation under review. Just their personal opinions or tangents. It is sad that the administration seems to have left the God Squad as the only option for final review. It puts an otherwise awesome game into a catagory of 'beware buyer'. The god squad itself should be reviewed.

I will give an example of their unbrideled actions. A friend did an art project for one of their events. They used a photograph (not a copywright piece of work such as a photograph of another person or a piece of art or something of that nature). They used a simple picture of an item (an everyday item with everyday items in it). An example that I shall give is a bowl of fruit. Now you would think that if someone took a picture of a bowl of fruit and drew their rendition of that bowl of fruit and specifically made that bowl of fruit into something else such as a car that looked like a bowl of fruit they would 'referencing' and not 'copying'. When the item drawn becomes something else by using or referencing an item it isn't a copy. These moderators don't seem to understand this concept. They put an art ban on my friend.

When my friend contested the ban, brought all of this up with the mod squad they were basiclly told to bad this is our decision. My friend asked when the ban would no longer show on their account and basiclly they were told that it would remain on their account FOREVER. Like say what? This was the very first thing that had ever gone wrong for them and they get a forever mark on their account.

I personally think it is wrong to keep bad marks on accounts that people pay good money for. If there has been no other situation in over a year there should be a review board that can clear those off of accounts that had honest mistakes, have done their best to not get black marks against their account(s).

Not according to the god squad though. They don't care they just love the power trip they are on.

Maybe the administration should consider a term for these god squad moderators. It is a sad statement on an otherwise very nice game with so much going for it.

Hello Everypony! Today after looking over the extremely biased reviews of this game. I am going to give you all an honest look at Ponyisland.net. A webgame that I am still active on, and do still enjoy, and if it's worth your time and money.

So sit back, relax, and I will tell you more about this game than you ever wanted to know.

I: My personal History with PonyIsland...

So, I think the best way to start this off is to give a short rundown on how I became a member of this website. It's a funny story actually. I had made the first account for a friend, since she did not have internet access, and could only really play at my place. Initially I was one of those guys who thought that ponies were not cool, and was just doing it because I knew she enjoyed them.

The way the game is set up however, made it so that you had to take care of your ponies or they'd die. Of course it had to be me since I was the one who technically owned the account, and with both of us working together to maintain our ponies, while also coming up with characters for them, it didn't take long for my friend to get me hooked to where I made my own account.

To this day, I have not one single regret, but is this game worth the price of admission? Short answer yes. Long answer? Read on and see.

II: Gameplay

Ponyisland at the time of writing this has twenty breeds of ponies, and countless sgenes which are split into four different catagories. Body, Hair, Leg, Face. Some genes are more realistic, and some, the breed specific in particular are downright fantastical, and the breed selection in very inventive with some breeds such as Unicorns and Pegasi being iconic, however there are also some very unique breeds as well. Phoenix Ponies and Merdragons coming to mind, alongside Kitsune Ponies, and Dino Ponies.

The Breed Specific Genes also add a great layer of diversity as well, although not every breed has theirs yet.

What is there though offers quite a few options for those who want to breed some interesting combinations.

The genetics are a fickle thing to work with however, so please bear with me as I try to break them down in simple terms.

During Breeding, the genes and colors are chosen from the parents in a way that will attempt to give the offspring a combination of both parents colors and genes. If the parents are identical, then the offspring with look identical to them. However there is a bit more to this system.

To get the most out of breeding in this game, you have to create a good pony within as few generations as possible. The first generation as in ponies you've generated should have the blueprints you need to create a DVSO from them. (Double Visible Starter Offspring.) Which is generally what most breeders do in this game. There is lots of terminology to learn, but to put it simple, a Starter is a pony that is fresh from the generator, and will like have the genes you want but will not show them, once the offspring is bred they should have the genes present.

Confused yet? Probably, but I'm likely making it sound a lot more complicated than it is. I'll admit that I don't make a habit of breeding very often, especially since it can be hard to know what genes a pony has unless there is a note with them listed. It can be fun to breed random ponies and see what you get from then.

Breeding isn't all this website has going for it although that is probably the number one reason aside from just being a fan of ponies.

There are other things you can do though.

For one, you are going to need to feed and vet your ponies which costs PG (Ponygold)

This is not optional as if a pony dies, you will have to obtain a resurrection scroll, which cost BP, or Bonus Points. You earn PG and BP by contesting and Questing your ponies, which also allows you to level up their stats so that they can do better in the next contest, which can lead to some huge payoff in the end. Just remember to vet your ponies after each contest, as they will get hurt.

In addition to this, you can also customise your interface, as well as how your home island looks which is a pretty cool feature that a lot of websites like this lack. Here you can actually have a visual representation of your stables which makes it easier to get attached to your collection, or herd, or what ever you want to call your ponies.

There are also countless artists, adoptables, and even forums and groups that are filled with additional and often times exclusive content, and most people on the forums are quite friendly. Which leads me to.

III: The Community.

Okay, so this is where I'm going to be stepping on some toes. Please keep in mind that I do not intend to be hurtful with what I'm going to say, as this is just what I've experienced personally.

So to start with the most obvious controversy, I do agree that some of the rules on Ponyisland are a bit stingy. The thing that I've noticed however is that many complaints are coming from a place of fairly biased anger. Why is that? I'll explain. The whole idea behind the paid subscription service is to disincentivise trolls and other toxic influence from taking root in the community, while still leaving the site open to the general public.

This was not always the case however. When Ponyisland was first created, it was meant to be little more than a club, for the admin and her friends to hang out and share there passion. Of course with the Internet being the Internet, what started out as a fun little venture by a few close friends, ended up becoming an actual web business. While it paid off initially, some of the new obligations plus the ever increasing demand for innovation, caused a rift to form in the community.

Now the webside is divided into four camps. Those who still hold loyalty to their friends, and are now bitter at how some things turned out. Those who were part of the old guard but now hate their guts.

The average consumer (Me) who is just enjoying the site for what it is, and the consumer who wants their dollar to mean something.

It's a vicious cycle, and it makes it really hard for the mods, many of which were part of that initial golden era to hold an unbiased attitude. Does that excuse some of the things that have happened. No. Absolutely not. Especially when there are as many bad mods as there are good. In my experience though, especially as sort of a random nobody, I can say that the mods I have interacted with were very fair, and willing to help accomadate my requests. I have also noticed that they are actually far more lenient that the rules would make you think.

As to the location of rules, (In their respective forum) I don't really see an issue with that, in fact that seems to be the most common since way to do it, since you don't need to read the rules on making a post about the new project you made, if you're actually going to be writing fanfiction.

It is really not a big deal, especially since combining all of the rules into a single page would not only be overwhelming, but counter productive since it would mean more forum hopping, in order to check the rules, in a forum, and then have to travel back to said forum in order to post.

IV: In Conclusion

Ponyisland is 23$ per account, per year, however if you make a point to hoard PG, it is possible to never have to pay for a subscription again, as you can sell PG and BP for actual money, and that is just if you don't take commisions.

Really though the game is solid, with some very interesting ponies and countless projects for you to breed, or just lots of pretty ponies to collect.

The community is at odds with itself on where and how the future of the site should be handled, but as long as you're not being a D*** about how you express your opinion, then it really isn't nearly as bad as people are making it out to be.

The mods do have some bias, but that comes from the fact that they are a close circle of friends, and may even feel that this club that Ponyisland used to be for them is being taken over, by people who don't have the same connection that they do, but at the same time have shown a great deal of professionalism.

I actually was a part of the movement that was trying to ressurect the sites RP storyline, and was a bit of a pest for the mods during that time, and yet was never attacked or banned for my thoughts or requests.

The only post that was deleted was a religious conspericy on how Wishing Ponies and Valkyrie Ponies were the PonyIsland versions of Angels and Demons. I don't think I need to elaborate further on why this post was deleted lol.

Overall I probably left out more than I included, but that is because, even though this game has it's shortcomings, I still think that if you are a fan of Ponies in any way, that this site is still more than worth it, to at least try.