Murdoc

I could potentially start on Thursday(supposed to be raining) and since Ive been getting a lot of experience lately I am pretty sure I can manage a season or two(or are we doing a year or two?) without killing anyone. PROPOSITION I also I had a hilariously terrible idea. What if the expedition team of dwarves consisted of us? We'll each decide what profession to be (with out much dialog of what we would actually need) and then custom make the dwarves to be that profession with the persons name? That way we could have hilarious results of having too many of X and be able to see how our in game dwarves manage to survive! I doubt anyone is going to choose to be a pump operator or something obscure for an expedition (Also FYI: pretty sure Fishing is bugged, so don't pick fishing) so we should be alright. Anyway, just an idea...

Year 2: Late Spring: Monkeys! Monkeys! Monkeys! We're being overrun by Monkeys! They quickly learned not to run into a Dwarf's dining room, especially now that we have a taste for meat They managed to kill one of our still living pets. The good news is we have more meat, now offering monkey! Still no crops Migrants have arrived! What? Amok damn them... 21 migrants, we are in no shape of handling this right now. Oh great, children, unproductive mouths to feed... you guys realize we almost resorted to cannibalism a couple of months ago? Summer: Elven Traders! Praise Amok, maybe we can get some seeds that'll actually produce crops. While we don't have much in terms of production to trade, we have an excess of clothing since so many of perished, so their deaths are not completely in vain! Apparently they didn't want our stuff so the broker seized essential items and probably started a war... super. We should have just taken everything in that case. More migrants, ten of them, this is absurd we haven't even had our first crops produce anything(it's coming along) on our one outdoor farm. With luck two metal-smiths and a weapons-smith; we need to get an army and defenses up asap before the Elves come back! Autumn: Our Butcher/Miner is dead, he was sent down to dig living quarters and apparently forgot an exit plan, so was left to starve to death. Our first underground farm is up after irragation of murkey pool was succesful! More Migrants(8)! Great just before winter... Hope they brought some pets for food... And HOT SCOOPZ! A Master metalcrafter! No idea how our crap fortress attracted the likes of him. We also received a talent armorsmith\weaponsmith and a High Master Furnace Operator! Winter: Our irrigation method in one large farm has proven a success, the very first crops are now being harvested for the winter, several other irrigation pools are being constructed! Despite many sleeping on floors and having nowhere to eat they are kept happy with the superior booze our high master brewer has been creating. Huzzah! We are in no shape to defend ourselves from elves in the spring, should they even attack. With crops underground we plan to seal our selves off in hopes they will get bored and wander away if they arrive with intent to war in the spring. Currently a focus on wood gathering is being made as it is the one supply we cannot supply underground and is necessary to fuel the furnace for metalcrafting. If worse comes to worse, we will slowly build, isolated, from the outside world an army with superior weapons and armor, then dig our way up and slaughter any who intend us harm. Let us hope it does not come to that. ***** Yeah this is going to be my last post, I was writing Year 3, then Year 4 just happened, the whole "story" of this place is starting to get to large. There is just a million things going on now, some interesting, others not, but it's a bit hard to communicate them in a condensed post and have it interesting, Let me just say, thats the first two years, stuff happens, and just keeps happening. It's like a civilizations game where your so focused on a few units in the beginning and then before you know it your zoomed so far out that the little things don't seem to matter... only in DF they do or stuff goes really wrong, lol. I've seen others write about DF, but it seems a challenge to do so and keep it interesting, I think you guys are right by saying a podcast would be a lot more interesting\appealing. Maybe someone some day will do it.

Was watching the gameplay video and it does look(graphics) really nice, but something is really off about it. I know civ is more akin to a chess game so scale and all that was never an issue, but we've gone from icons to actual representations of the units and in Civ 4 I think it was sort of borderline on the "realism"\board game kind of look. But now we come to civ 5 where there are clouds in the sky and such and the detail is quite a bit higher, and the hex grid has just seemed to create a more natural looking world... the scale is starting to really bother me in this and it never has before. I think they may have crossed the line in trying to make a game and natural world so my brain is starting to have some issues with it. If they keep going in that direction it'd be interesting if or how they deal with scale in the future.

Does anyone watch these live every year like I do? I shouldn't get exited over this crap. I like seeing the new key announcements for each console and publisher and the weird circus act that seems to get more bizarre every year. So watching the microsoft one and I have taken away these bits of information 1. My 360, with natal, will be able to tell if a black man is in the room 2. I can now watch porno on my 360 and not have to worry about wasting a hand on a stupid remote. 3. They are really relying on Halo and Gears of War, both look pretty much the same as the last time I saw them. 4. Metal Gear cutting thingy seems neat, it also as Lightning Bolt Action. 5.Fable 3: Yep, ok I liked the fable series, but I think this one just got away from me. Also the character models are shit. 6. Hey social features on the 360! This is where the shows usually take that bizarre turn into pure awful comedy. 7. Apparently natal/kinect can only be demonstrated by asians. 8. With Kinect I can transform my living room from a petting zoo, to a gym, to a dance floor... with my xbox I used to transform my living room into epic battlefields spanning time and space... so really this sounds like a step up. 9. New xbox... its just as fat, now it's shorter... alright. Hey same price and wifi, neat. Ships today?! Sega Saturn? What? fun stuff. Anyway, that's out of the way, really looking more forward to seeing if anything real of Zelda will be shown or more Last Guardian. Oh and I'll check out ubisofts just for Joel Mchale, he was pretty fun last year.

Yes, so create a new account for this one game I guess?

Well all the good ones died, so we were left with juniors, lol.

We have no farmers, one herbalist and the migrants that keep coming are never farmers or herbalists but fisherdwarves... and theres no fish. Our farms weren't producing outside, we needed to irrigate inside, but that took way too long. Winter came so nothing to gather outside, so there ya go.

Alright, I'm addicted. It has such a difficult time for entry but as soon as you do and get the basic tools down it's pretty amazing. I've talked at length about this here and other places, but I really need to revive this to get more people playing, it's pretty amazing. I was a huge fan of Sim City, Civilizations, Dungeon Keeper and Populous when they all came out; this basically takes all those together, combines it and goes beyond. If this eventually turns into spam, I'll be sure to stop, but I'm going to catalog my newbie entry into a fortress. Civilization: The Avalanche of Punches (I know! right?!) Fortress: Outpost Sazrizustash * Bridgeancient* ( I don't know if the first word is dwarf and the other is the translation?) Year: 21st of Granite Early Spring 1052, Age of Myth- 1 Year from expedition settling Region: Field of Battles Current Noteworthy Dwarves Expedition Leader: Astesh Skinnycraft, profession: Fish Cleaner\Miner Chief Medical Dwarf: Murdoc SyrupEcho, profession:Doctor\Woodcutter Year 1 Spring We arrived in The Field of Battles, a peaceful forest bordering a large range of mountains. Our expedition leader, Uvash Spikearrow, a miner by trade will be doing most of the digging as our expedition party is suboptimal for construction, to say the least. Eight dwarves have set on on this mission, one, our leader, a miner, a fisherdwarf, fishcleaner, butcher, clothier, herbalist, doctor, and 2 carpenters. Immediately we knew we couldn't begin construction on a grand dwarf fortress with this ramble. The Fishcleaner was upgraded to peasant and will be mainly hauling and cleaning things. One of the carpenters is trading an axe for a pick to do some mining. While the area offers ample rivers and waterworks, there are no fish to be had. The Fisherdwarf is now gathering plants with the herbalist and put on farm duty... whenever those get built. The Butcher and Clothier don't seem to be doing much of anything. The Doctor is on wood cutting duty until he is needed. Tragedy! It's been a month and our outdoor farm seems to be producing grass, so we are still resorted to gathering plants. During a channeling excavation one of the experienced miners was crushed to death due to a cave in and the second miner was injured. The doctor could do very little when supplies were not ready to put the second miner into traction. The Carpenter was able to make her a crutch and she seems able to get around a mine with that... but the doctor doesn't seem confident that the now gimped hand will heal properly. We have only two function rooms at the moment just outside the entrance where we started. One being a general dormitory. The second turned out to be a small burial chamber to commemorate the fallen(crushed) miner. With out a mason or any type of stoneworker his corpse was stored in a wooden coffin... sad really. Autumn: Still no crops, no dining room, and a general dorm. The expedition leader is finding the multi leveled cliff side residence a challenge to work in and fortify with only himself and a gimped assistant. Irrigation efforts have been fruitless(or vegetables as well) Our Carpenter seems very adept at making Beds and Coffins now. We upgraded the fishcleaner turned peasant hauler into a miner in hopes to speed the digging. That lasted a day when the injured assistant miner succumb to the infection in his broken hand and died. A second burial room was made. We are able to now store our goods inside a couple levels down from where we first struck stone and just in time for winter. And new migrants have arrived; an additional miner, a mason, a brewer, a craftsdwarf, and a couple others. Our colony is now at 13! That's got to be some luck for us; right? Our outpost liaison has arrived from The Avalanche of Punches to trade! But we have no depot and our store room is barely stocked at the moment; so their caravan is impatiently waiting around outside. A week has passed and no one was witness but our outpost liaison, our only contact to back home and trading partner has passed away. We cannot afford to make any more tombs so we threw his body out in a pit by our unproductive farm. Despite this spirits remain high. Late Winter: Food and water are running low, with no crops or plants to gather our people are starving. We are attempting to create a brewing still but the mason is too busy killing vermin for food. Tragedy AGAIN! Our Expedition Leader, Uvash has starved to death or of dehydration, the doctor cannot determine. We have to take drastic measures and with our newly arrived butcher we order all the pets to be slaughtered for meat. A week has passed and our people have been getting fed pet meat, we have a dining hall to sit in as well! With the Mason no longer having to hunt vermin for food he is able to build the brewery and a stone casket for our lost leader. The still is now operation and our Brewer must be a master or our people haven't drank anything in weeks because the people are over joyed and the decadence of his booze! Spring It turns out we went a little over kill with the pets, but we have been fed throughout the winter with ample supply! With some readjustments in jobs we out main level dug, storerooms storing, brewer going, woodworking and stonemasons pumping out essentials. We are just starting on an irrigation project to have some indoor farms that should finally yield crops so we can be self sustainable! No one recalls when it happened, but that fishcleaner, turned peasant, turned miner apparently has taken over as expedition leader! The crew had indifferent thoughts on this, but since we are being fed and things are being made we have taken it as a sign from Amok! The small colony of Bridgeancient is going to be OK and we have nowhere but up(or down in dwarf terms) to go! Notes I'm probably getting more jazzed up about this game because at the same time during my summer vacation I'm reading a book about starting civilizations, particular in polynesia as it's a small test study(whatever the proper term is) for all human civilizations. What's really fun is the stuff I'm reading is sort of happening in dwarf fortress, there's a couple key systems I'd love the game to try to mimic later on(or maybe already does and I haven't gotten to that point) but right now it's really fascinating. Through the first year of the fortress we had 8-13 dwarves; this is barely a colony, and I think the average household size around the world probably contains more then 8 people. However, Bridgeancient really started off on the wrong foot with the members specializations which has directly effected production but also kind of mimics an entire civilizations technological base. In Dwarf Fortress your not inventing technologies, but there's only so much you can make depending on specializations and production centers. As we see in Bridgeancient's first year though we needed shelter and food. I did the horrible mistake of any city builder(or even civ game) is start with grandiose ideas for the future rather then covering the essentials. However, again, we had like 4-5 nonproducers\ luxury good producers who had to be reassigned to making essentials, like chopping wood, gathering food. But since they weren't made for this, they were pathetically slow and it makes me wonder if some of those cave ins that killed the miners was due to their inexperience. With out proper equipment our doctor couldn't properly help anyone and was too busy chopping wood anyway... this sort of reminded me of Oregon Trail, hehe. So anyway, I make the comparison to the beginning of human civilization, or at least specifically what I'm reading about polyneisia, is we're a group of people that have traveled from somewhere else to settle. The environment we are in wasn't optimal for our current set of skills (we had two fish specialists and no fish) so we had to attempt at farming... almost discovering it really, but have been complete unsuccessful in outputting anything. With out a surplus of food we couldn't support our nonproducers to do what they do best(make luxury goods and cure the injured) Granted our mining/shelter situation was caused by poor leadership and I don't believe any early human civilization ever did something as dumb as this; but then I'm reminded of the Simpsons episode that was a spoof of lord of the flies, which this very thing occurred, but it's been a good 15 years since I read LoF so I can't recall that specific incident in the novel. It does make me wonder though if that was a reference to something that actually happened in early human history, I know it has much alter in development of empires, but that's not quite the same thing. Interesting stuff none the less, I wonder what the impact of this game would be if Dwarves weren't used as the presentation, because as I interpret the game, Dwarf Fortress is not about Dwarves, they and several quirks are used as window dressing. I will also try to keep my updates much, much shorter to be digestible.

I have a love hate relationship with it. At the time I was beaten and broken to hell and it I was playing the hell out of it. When finished it felt truly epic, when I left Ozammar and felt agoraphobic from the open sky, I really felt that I experienced something awesome in a game. So it just felt weird to me, Miffy, that you shrugged it off as no big deal, as it was a big deal for my party... video games!

Waiting on... 9) n0wak

Good points Noyb, I'll think about it a bit. Exactly what I was getting at; that specific point seems pointless to debate, "entering the world" or in this case clicking on the link might be considered interaction, but really the most passively basic interaction you can get, I can't say its a strong argument to support the interaction of a game by pressing the play button, so to speak. Interacting with some, either passive or active doesn't make it a game or not, it's an interface, it's media, its several other thousand things that general action could be lumped into. Example: Pressing a key on a keyboard to see a response, the response being right now letters are being displayed, is not a game. In the same sense I am now backspacing this sentence, stopping, and then retyping to go forward... hey it's a personal narrative I derived from this interaction, is this sentence a game, I dunno. Oh shit a period, it looked like it ended, was it death or completion? Anyway, that might be hard to follow as my train of thought was going as I typed it and maybe the effictivness is lost without typing it yourself. Again, i just created a narrative for the interactions I was pressing, I don't consider it a game even if it had a deliberate statement, a narrative, and interaction. Was it intended on the part of the creator? You bet, only I was the creator making it in real time... we're deep in the bullshit theory now, so lets get out of this quickly. I didn't think this is lumped into a entirely new medium, in fact I classified it in an already established and that not that old classification. Perhaps I am wrongly classifying it as such, but it was the first thing that came to mind. There may be a more appropriate term for what category this falls under, but I am unaware of it or unable to think of it at the moment. I honestly don't see how the term film or motion picture is out dated, they have a pretty clear definition and films, movies, motions pictures still fall under the definition today(even if that definition has slightly take on attributes to conform to modern content) Your comparisons of Stalker and Iron Man 2 are facetious, because of narrative content or style, they clearly fall into the same distinction of what the product is. The argument I have with Freedoms bridge is not presentation, statement, or context. I want to be absolutely clear about that. The same argument was made in the cel-shading debate and there is no resolve to this as it relies on personal opinion. I am from the North American school of the English language where if we need a new word for something, we'll make it up. I full support this type of language structure as it is understandable, accurate, and digestible to civilization. Granted as our language evolves into something more complex we are at the same time removing any flourishes or unnecessary rule structures, which I am sure drives those with talent in the current structure completely mad. Anyway back on the rails... I think Nyob made some very good points in the case, more so then (no offense) getting into semantics about language and categories. I'll really give it a good think for a few days, because as it stands I don't want to believe Freedoms Bridge is a game, however, at the moment I honestly can't argue with Nyobs comments so I might actually think it is a game. That won't change the fact I still didn't like it I think that goes without saying about everyone in these mini exploratory debates, hehe.

Three things. 1. 2. How did a puppet get to interview the head of MS europe? 3. How is Molyneux scared of puppets yet he loves\created Milo.

Yeah I'll do it first thing, though theres only been 4 submissions, may want a few more before the drawing begins. Waiting on name submissions from... 2) Orvidos 4) ens 5) Patters 6) toblix 8) Sombre 9) n0wak 10) Chris 12) illeria

Really? I mean I don't think at their best they were as good as the shows best episodes, but if anything I think futurama has always been really consistent on pretty humorous and interesting. Mot feature length episodes from tv shows are pretty meandering and Futurama's was no different, but I thought it remained pretty funny/good. I remember(that I cant recall) one being borderline awesome. I can quibble about a lot of little things in those and the show, but really it still remains funny(maybe not always historical), smart, and creative... or maybe I just love the idea of any future and space so much I don't see the crappy parts. Still, good news, though I'm not sure why they changed the beginning to introduce the characters, seems like a step back... or at least so focus tested of where the outcome was they needed a starting to introduce the human element, the hook of the show... but then did it in such a bandaid sort of way it kind of just ruined the original intro.... and I'm starting to nit pick, hehehe. Futurama, wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Seriously though I'm with people on this, don't get it, don't care for it. Can we rename this thread Scott Pilgrim vs. The Haters or Scott Pilgrim vs. The Idle Thumbs? Anyway, I love Edgar Wright and don't mind Michael Cera, so the movie should be a win for me? I may give it a chance simply because of the director, but I doubt it.

Wait, what? Are you playing some super condensed version of Dragon Age? Been playing the shit for the past week and your done 4 race cities? Really?! I mean I played the shit out of it too and it took over a month, the Deeproads themselves was over two weeks I think. Unless your full timing this thing miffy, I'm pretty amazed. *** Anyway, Yeah I agree about the things with the elves, actually that whole ending there marks the first time Bioware presented me with something I thought I was doing right and they told me it was the wrong/evil thing to do. I don't even think that was deliberate on their part, I think it was a flaw in their logic with the high fantasy they presented and their typical black and white choices. Yeah, Dragon Age is... excuse the example I'm brain dead at the moment... a thorny rose. The surface fantasy is the most contrived Lotr presentation and BS I want to vomit on the writer/design for hours. But then all the little nooks and crannies and back story that someone took the time on is just so awesome as it switches preconceived notions up and takes jabs at the those notions along the way. Now if their art direction can have the same lofty goals for the sequal(something they mentioned) we'll all win.

hm wonder if awakening will be part of the sale, havent gotten that yet. I loved dragon age but Im not really big on dlc or expansions; probably will wait for the sequel.

Sounds like he's on his way though, so makes sense, take out orange, then if red becomes a problem convince purple to help you eat him; yellow at that point will probably want to move that way assuming he wins cyan.

OK started on the pheobus build. Tile set is much cleaner, there are some minor improvements that are pretty good, but a few things like hitting escape to enter instead of the standard space bar for everything is a bit annoying. Also now it uses + and - to scroll through lists< i preferred alt-arrow keys, seems I am moving my hands to the far end of the keyboard now, so going to look into changing that if possible. I also like how you can customize your expedition when you start out, but kind of hoped they could randomize some of the things, like stats for each character and the items, just give me a starting point then I'll swap some stuff around afterwards rather then picking every individual thing. I am currently in the Everlasting Dimension of the civilization Avalanche of Punches, in the region of Field of Battles starting the new fortress, Bridgeancient. I love the random info/name generator in this edit: 3 minutes into the actual game and a miner has already been crushed to death; this is off to a great start.

I understand where you are coming from and maybe my comments showed a desire to "win" and thus being part of my definition of what a game is, but it has nothing to do with that. Pressing the move key to arrive to a conclusion in my opinion is not a game, I can do this with the fast forward button on a movie. It was more systems involved and potentially personal narrative all games have, some to a greater extent then others. For example in this: You bleed in barbed wire, you can not die in barbed wire. Alright, that's cool; lots of games have these kind of deliberate/inconsistence functions. I also have to disagree about how a movie or other forms of media would need to put more attention into character development or character representation, this is absolutely untrue. Illustration and Animation being huge genres stemming back to early civilization have represented humans, living beings and other objects in the most primitive ways and the idea still came across. And yeah I suppose theres the personal narrative that would help support it under my definition of game by doing nothing. But let me counter this with another wank statement by saying if your choice is to interact with it or not interact with it, can a game still be a game if you never interact with it? Jesus, I need a shower. Anyway, I'm probably not giving much explanation in terms of what my definition of a game is... probably because I haven't given it that much thought myself. But I still will hold it up to my comparison of hitting fast forward on a dvd and this, if someone can destroy that argument you'll probably be helping me think a little deeper on this. The fact it "effected" you or someone doesn't make for the argument is this a game. It's a statement or opinion in interactive media, but I don't classify it as a game or a movie. Also if we can make a good case that this is a game, I will inevitably ask "Was it fun? If it was not, then that makes it a poor game, yes?" lol.

If you can convince orange and yellow to lay off you'll be good, but my suggestion is to lie to them to get them to non-agression at the least because they really no reason not to eat you. I mean geeze, look at that gap between orange and everyone else and at the same time between yellow and red. Really they have no one to be worried about at all and can focus all their attention on you. Even if you just stall them my suggestion would be(depending on the speed of the game) is to take out gather all your fleets and take out red. Hopefully he is expanding east and west, has purple to deal with and is relatively close together for you to capture a bunch of stars once you hit that cluster. I dont think that strategy will work, but basically a way for you to take someone else territory while two people eat you alive so you just keep making your way north east. Even convincing Yellow to go after teal, while you go after red, then you wrap around to take the last of Teals sources. Purple might be too busy with his neighbors to really do anything. Let us know how that goes, also interested in the outcomes compared to the starting.

Yeah Iw as just thinking this game will be hard to follow when 1. Theres no spectators in Neptune's Bounty Pride(Seriously whoever made the bounty joke you've screwed my brain because 6/10 times I type Bounty) 2. Everyone is supposed to be Anonymous so its hard to post reports on what is going on. Anyway, Patters had the right idea, just PM for names, I'll write them down and draw them out of a hat(bowl, I own no hats) just for pure random sake and then PM you back with what your name will be. Additionally, if anyone wants to send a weekly battle report of what's going on I can then rely it on the forums in order to protect your identity. Doesn't have to be weekly, can be whenever, but I may only post it weekly since my pc access during next month will be pretty random(once a week though at least) That's an idea anyway, if you guys want to do things differently that's cool, I'm just here to help anyway possible and try to hear about what happens in this one, hehe.

Oh weird I have such a poor memory as I recall starting and beating portal during lunch; then again it may have been a two and half hour lunch... lol

I nominate... myself! I'd like to participate but can't, also I need a break since I've barely paid attention to my last two games. I'll try the next one or the one after that, but still will follow it since I love this game.

Is that a game? Take that design. (honestly is it a game or is it a statement/narrative? because what I played wasnt a game by my definition, but maybe I'm too stupid to figure it out) Ex: If it is a game there could be a different outcome to my actions, if there is not then why couldn't this be written text or a motion sequence?