MOST IMPORTANT INFORMATION: THE DATE
Winter Wrap-Up will be the second weekend in the month of the official first day of spring in the northern hemisphere--the spring equinox on March 20th---thus placing the event on Saturday, March 10th. Why saturday? Because it's a weekend and almost everybody has at least part of the day off, of course. Why the second weekend of March instead of just before the equinox on the 17th? Because Natimus derped and forgot he already had an event to go to that weekend, and he's not missing Winter Wrap-Up.
THE TIME
Natimus works the night shift and needs sleep, so the actual cleanup event will start at 3pm EST. Eastern Standard Time is the GMT-5 timezone, for those who don't live in the US.
Here is a time converter to find the time in your timezone
WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN?
The current plan, approved by most of the admins, is to copy the entirety of Ponyville to a new multiverse world, and clean up the snow and ice by hand. When the event is over, the results will be pasted back into Equestria exactly as they are. If there's been signicifant damage to the landscape I'll just use the //thaw command in Equestria and clean up the little bits left over, but that's unlikely as long as everypony pays attention to what they're doing.
We're planning to raise the maxplayers cap so everypony can get in, but how high it'll go is still under discussion amongst the admins.
WHAT ELSE WILL BE GOING ON? (NEW STUFF!)
Along with the snow cleanup, we're planning to have a mass snowball fight through Ponyville. Players will need to /ungod and /PVP on to participate, so the snowballs will actually have an effect.
We're also planning a quick snow-sculpture contest. Details of that event will be announced when it starts, but the idea is to give each participant a small number of snow blocks and about 15 minutes to come up with the coolest sculpture they can.
Since Spring will be coming, there's also going to be a 'best crop art' contest. Each participant will get a 16x16 plot of plowed farmland, seeds, and bonemeal, and have to create the coolest looking crop circle they can. Due to size constraints, this event will be limited to the first 30 applicants at the time of the event's announcement on Saturday.
WHY ARE WE DOING IT THIS WAY?
There was discussion about just using WorldEdit to remove the snow, but that's not fun at all! We want to let CMCs, Freebuilders, and Builders all participate in this event. Since it involves breaking blocks, everpony has to have permission to place or remove blocks in the world where the event takes place. Permissions of that type are essentially global, so they have to be the same for the entire world. And we don't want clever parasprites taking advantage of the event and griefing our showcase world, so moving Ponyville is the best way to allow everypony (except the graymanes, but we'll get to that later) to participate.
Players will be allowed to use shovels to work faster, but I request that you only use unenchanted wooden shovels to avoid going too fast and accidentally digging up the ground. Trusted Builders, no superpicks! Also, carry some extra grass and gravel to replace any mistakes you make. What you do here will be pasted back into Equestria, so it's important that you do it right!
WHY CAN'T GUESTS (GRAYNAMES) HELP TOO?
There's a few reasons for this. The biggest one is that, with the player limit raised, griefers and trolls will be able to get in easier. Allowing them to build anything at all is asking for trouble, Ponyville's still a pretty big area to cover for the entire time the event will run.
Secondly, players who are completely new to the server likely won't have read the rules yet, and might start mining or punching trees and not realize we aren't a survival server. Aside from cleaning up the damage they do, we might end up banning players who have made an innocent mistake. It's one of the biggest reasons we use the registration process we do, since in theory you can't get a CMC rank without reading at least some of the rules.
Lastly, it's pretty darned easy to get a CMC rank, and there's most of a month to go before the event. If you've got friends who'd like to participate, tell them to sign up for the server ahead of time.
WILL ANYTHING ELSE BE GOING ON?
Why yes! I intend to run a music bot, and set it up to play every Winter Wrap-Up remix/cover I can find via the server's Mumble channel (connetion info will be provided the day of the event). I've got 58 of them already, clocking in at 3.5 hours of music! If you've got a remix you want to hear, post a link to youtube, soundcloud, bandcamp, or whatever, and if it's not already on the list, I'll add it! Please note: thanks to the Pony Music Archive project, I have probably every version of winter wrap-up created before November 2011, so links to songs newer than that are appreciated.
As for other in-game events, I don't have anything else in mind except cleaning up the snow. We'll see if there's any other good ideas closer to time, and I'll update this post with any new info as it comes.
And remember:
Edited by Natimus_Primehoof, 05 March 2012 - 11:08 PM.





