I approve. I just worry it's... Too nice?

well yeah , its a nice place , and the calm surroundings should limit the amount of insane wildlife that immediately tries to kill us .. (although there was a few giant rats there when i embarked for that screenshot) , but other than that its fairly far away from goblins so possibly no early ambushes etc.. of course i awlays use the elves for science so they are a potential enemy as well , but apart from what may lie underground theres less "fun" to be had initially.

that being said , even for some veterans the way the new reports and combat works (dwarves mysteriously disappearing) the game should prove pretty challenging , plus people clearly have intentions to cause mayhem of their own , so if anything , the difficulty quotient is unknown .. at least threes no readily available magma vents etc anymore , so sankis cant burn/flood the world (as easily.. will probably regret saying that) .

ive found a few other sites of awesomeness with a bit more challenge , but i encourage others to have a look , perhaps try and brute force the best possible starting site in the hills of owning , i dunno ?

Eh, I feel like this site is fine. We'll have enough trouble emerging naturally.

Rivers are always nice.

Posting 5 Hours into an attempt at the worlds longest Air Hockey Game! This site seems fine guys, I think were going to go with it

I can't appologize enough for my lack of, well, being here. But it's been crazy busy getting everything ready for the event. Sidenote: Live stream of the attempt here: http://www.jessefontaine.ca/

Hey guys, you can add me to the list of reserves. Though I'd put my house on the fact that it won't last long enough to get up there. When can we expect this to start?

Also, my vote is for The Sensual Dunes, though I don't think its a bad idea to start with someplace easy like mentioned above.

Second Also: What if there was a game for newbies what started in that "nice" place mentioned above, and a game that was much more....ahem..."fun" for vets? This way new guys could learn the ropes in a minimally hostile environment, while the vets could suffer have lots of fun for the enjoyment of the community in their crazy volcanic/glacial/demonic/fun game? Just an idea.

That seems like a good idea, but I'm really wary of having two games at once. I think due to the nature of succession games, we'd better throw all our resources (that is to say, reserve players) at one game, just to make sure that we have enough backup if people start dropping their turns in droves.

Understandable. I'm hoping Dave's videos come out with more regularity and spurrs massive interest in DF.

So lets start it then!!!

if all goes to hell we can always reclaim ehe

@Shofixti said:

Posting 5 Hours into an attempt at the worlds longest Air Hockey Game! This site seems fine guys, I think were going to go with it

I can't appologize enough for my lack of, well, being here. But it's been crazy busy getting everything ready for the event. Sidenote: Live stream of the attempt here: http://www.jessefontaine.ca/

You crazy bastards!!! ITS JUST NOT POSSIBLE!

Maybe that hockey game will last longer than our DF game? Even in the calm zone.

i actually watched that air hockey game , they stopped at 28 hours ... good show

diont fret guys .. im sure theres enough of us still dedicated enuff to at least have some fun , id start it off but i feel that would be too much taking control of shit on my behalf .. plus im much more interested in picking up the pieces of someones mess than starting off well and having it crumble eheh ..

i assumed Shofixti was going to start it off , and i am happy to wait for him to be ready to do so , but if he doesn't mind , maybe we can randomly select someone to kick things off , or maybe someone can just volunteer ? heh .. regardless .. be patient , and use the downtime to brush up on your df skills perhaps.

I assume he'll come back and start. Personally, I'd give him a week, same as anyone else.

im home now, give me roughly 2.8 million hours to sleepand then we can get underway

@Shofixti said:

im home now, give me roughly 2.8 million hours to sleepand then we can get underway

I donno....a 28hours Table tennis match is probably the most decent excuse to waylay a DF game.

Reading Boatmurdered. I can't wait to see what shit you guys get up to. I hope y'all are good writers!

@Sjupp said:

Reading Boatmurdered. I can't wait to see what shit you guys get up to. I hope y'all are good writers!

And to add on to this statement. Print Screen is your friend. Capture the glory.

snag.gy is an excellent image host, should you need one. Copy-paste image data directly from PrintScreen (and crop it and so on if you like), no captchas or registration or anything.

One long week which saw me getting less than 10 hours of sleep in a 4 day window and a Guinness World Record later, I'm back and ready to get things rolling!

To begin with, I used a random list generator to find the turn order... Here it is:

1. BoG
2. Daveyo520
3. Seaborgium
4. Sankis
5. Fallen189
6. Zombie Shakespeare
7. SamStrife
8. Envane
9. Akyho
10. Shofixti
11. Onarum

(Yes, I'm grumbling about it too, but that's how the lots were drawn)

I've given the reserve player pool some thought, and here's how it's going to work:

If a player is unable to complete his turn in a week's time, then it passes to the next player on the list. If he is unresponsive within the first 2 days of being messaged, then it goes to a random player in the reserve pool.

Here's the reserve pool as it stands (Registrations always open:)

• SpaceBoat
• Renahzor
• HotSauceMagik

I'm giving you all till midnight tonight (eastern) to raise complaints or ask for last minute changes... Then I'm sending a message out to BoG and his turn will be on the clock!

@BoG: You have been forewarned!

Oh, whoa. Well, this is bad news for all of you. This just made this game a lot more interesting. I'll get started tomorrow! Just be prepared, I'm not very good at this!

Even in the reserve pool, I am unreasonably exited for this. Here to hoping it ends in fantastic failure!

Did we decide on a site to embark on?

@HotSauceMagik said:

Even in the reserve pool, I am unreasonably exited for this. Here to hoping it ends in fantastic failure!

Did we decide on a site to embark on?

Yeah, the "Nice" site seems to have popular vote.

no complaints , though im sure if you want to start it off nobody will complain , might ensure it kicks off how you want it to.

also if you need an excuse to randomize the list again , id consider adding videogameking to the normal list and rerolling .. theres just no reliable way to determine "last" turn , and besides wouldnt it be ideal to loop over and have 2nd turns etc if the fort survives that long ?

and perhaps put @ infront of the list names so it alerts people to get ready ehehe

glhb

I think we will be fine as long as we are clear that its 0.34.11 and @BoG departs in the agreed upon nice place, with a conventional (defaultish) set of starting supplies. Oh and add me to the reserve just for fun.

And I'm sure if the depart is worrysome, envane wouldn't mind sharing his departure file day 0 in the nice place just to avoid any kinks.

The message was sent out to BoG and he is now on the clock!

@jesterroyal: you mean the embark ? naw i deleted the region after checking out the initial site , evn that was a bit too much of a spoiler eheh , even the exposed obsidian and gold veins gave away a huge amount of what to expect .. lets hope its more than just gold tho

all i can say is @BoG , we will be swimming in precious metal and top quality stone , theres going to be more ore than we can possibly smelt with the trees available and im not sure how deep we have to go to get at the magma , so perhaps bring a decent amount of bituminous coal or lignite to make extra fuel out of, or prepare to burn alot of logs ehehe . also since there seems to be a sheer abundance , you could enable the raw metals as usable stone for masons and such to contsruct with .. either way , if you make it to the first caravan you should be able to buy the whole wagon with random crafts and such ..

I fear we will have such extravagant created wealth before we even get close to preparing a military , better hope theres not a bunch of theiving kobolds ontop of us from day1 eheh

well good luck , looking forward to the whole thing regardless of how things turn out , if anyone has any questions about the game or needs quick advice , feel free to pm me.

personally i would like to know what the template for a basic update should/could be , ive played alot of df but never took part in a succession game before or been bothered posting an aar before either , i think given the nature that this is fairly new to most people we should have fairly low expectations set but some guidelines at least so people dont feel lost in trying to express the sheer amount of random info and events that happen ..

:) may there be !fun!

You guys should post some screen shots of the progress or something. I would love to see how the civilization slowly evolves or devolves through time.

Man...re-reading Boatmurdered every few years really gets me fired up for some 'fun'....

@Shofixti Maybe some suggestions for screen capturing and where to dump the saves on the first post would be helpful since this is the first succession game for a lot of us.

As far as format, I would say however the current dictator wishes to record the events is fine. The only issue I'm trying to work out in my head is where to post the updates so they don't get flooded by comments and drowned out. Maybe start a new thread and have the first few posts reserved. Then we can edit to put the new logs in the first posts and also comment on them further below.

@envane: Hah, yup. Embark. Every so often i get word overloaded and just start grabbing similar words that work.

I think this thread will be okay for fort updates. Real fort updates should totally start with a large sized font or something though to set them apart. Because almost regardless of everything else you cant ensure that the game wont go on for 50 people and then comments will still potentially drown them out.

I think at the very minimum there should be a report a season even if that report is "nothing happened!" Winter is upon us. Fall was uneventful. We built a hall. I killed a few cats. Don't have a lot of rock right now. *Picture of fort*

But you can always make mundane things interesting... We carved a community dormitory/meeting hall out of the silt cliff side and began feasting on the last of our rations from home. Some dwarves are embarrassed to sleep where they eat. others to eat where they sleep. Soon i hope my people will stop regretting the choice to abandon their homes in the hope of striking it rich. We should dig down deeper. This dirt is unbecoming of a dwarf. It is soft and far too malleable. I will be glad when we strike the rock and leave the dirt and sunlight behind only for our farmers. The cats gave birth, we have resorted to butchering them early. Better to be to have 2 vermin killers than 40 all with masters. Especially with the thieves and snatchers. Kittens.. Always the first to die. One is currently limping around the entryway after standing in the way of the last kobol to come through.I don't know what I would do if i lost my cat he adopted me unexpectedly last summer and I fear his loss would unravel my already stressed mind..

Just an example. When in doubt. Be dramatic!

THERES GOLD IN THEM THAR HILLS !!! STRIKE THE EARTH!! dramatic enough ?

You pass

Don't forget to painstakingly capture a screenshot and make up a backstory for every useless item the Dwarves create. IE: This kitten-leather codpiece menaces with spikes of bone.

Alright, so I've been rather spoiled by having my own webspace for so long that I forgot about image hosting and file storage needs... I'm sure you can all figure out how to print screen and post it here. (I looked into snag.gy and it seems really nice for that, BTW)

As for file storage... What about a communal dropbox folder? Anybody have any complaints with that?

And finally, as for writing style and update guidelines:

I hesitate to set down any real rules persay. I for one plan on Roleplaying my Dwarf leader, but you really honestly don't need to go that far if you feel dumb doing it. Besides that, being inspired by Boatmurderd is a great start so long as you don't end up being too derivative of it. I'd try to keep a report of at the VERY LEAST every season, but hopefully a little more than that. Also: swearing lots helps.

I actually do have a complaint about the community dropbox folder. I've used on e for projects with friends and groups. Its too easy for dropbox to get very badly confused and overwrite new files with old files. While that hopefully wouldn't be a problem I would hate to lose progress in that way. I lean towards Mediafire/Dwarf Fortress File Depot or.. many others that is just a one way upload. Dropbox its just too smart/dumb for its own good sometimes.

I have embarked! Just to be safe, I went with mostly the default item set, but used the extra points for some beer. I took two miners, one of whom is a mason, a woodcutter, a farmer, a brewer, a fisher, and a mechanic. I'll write something RP-ish later.

Thus begins the tale of Onamuzol, or, "Shimmeroiled."

I am number 9...I suppose in the world of dwarf fortress not position is a "good" position. I am also glad I have nothing to do with the first week or two. I got food poisoning yesterday. 12 hours of constant pain sickness and every other horrible thing to happen to you..but all at once.

So good luck to all you intrepid first people. I will mop up your mess.

@Shofixti said:

Alright, so I've been rather spoiled by having my own webspace for so long that I forgot about image hosting and file storage needs... I'm sure you can all figure out how to print screen and post it here. (I looked into snag.gy and it seems really nice for that, BTW)

You mean this game doesn't have a screenshot takin' button?

@jesterroyal: I can see how Dropbox could be a problem. Right, well, I'll leave it to you all individually to find file storage solutions. If you really need help, let me know and I'll help you out.

@Video_Game_King: Print Screen is the only screen taking button you'll ever need!

@Akyho: I hear you man. Had this fish not to long ago that made my life misery for eons.

Well, it's been fun. I did my year as fast as I possibly could. I'm going to a wedding this week in California, so fearing I would let everyone down, I just did this as fast as possible. Luckily, the first year is always the easiest Let's just hope I didn't set us up for failure.

------

So, following an arduous journey, we arrived at Shimmeroiled, and immediately began digging out our mountain halls. And what a location! I've never lived in such luxury in all my life. The first time I set my pick to the stone, I struck gold! We sent a dwarf out to chop wood, and all he could find was mahogany! We're building a home fit for the king of the realm! I found a nice little nook to begin digging. I like grand entrances, so I immediately created plans to create a grand entrance to our keep. Over time, I envision a grand gate of gold greeting foreigners to our noble fortress. I also planned a great dining room and meeting hall near the entrance. Oh, and bedrooms. We'll need to sleep.

I ordered another dwarf to start a farm near the entrance. Once he had prepared the soil, we realized that we had failed to bring anything to farm above the ground. Oops. Perhaps a caravan will bring us seed. To make matters worse, the floors of our fortress were solid stone. I began digging towards the sand walls and eastern marshes, hoping to find land that could be farmed. I must say that I wasn't particularly worried about food. We had a talented fisherdwarf with our group, who had set up a workshop in the cave. We were entirely capable of subsisting on a diet of fish. What worried me was our alcohol supply. Without something to drink, we could all go crazy.

One level below where we began digging our habitations, I discovered a sand floor! And this was no ordinary sand, either, it was loamy sand! Some other dwarves and I dug out a small cavern in order to begin a Dimple Cup farm. I just love loamy sand.

Our work was mostly uninterrupted. We dug out places to sleep, places to work, and places to store food. Eventually, a dwarven caravan arrived. They didn't have anything we could use to start an outdoor farm. We just traded some exquisitely made chairs for foreign cheeses and grizzly bear meat.

Our peace ended quickly, with the arrival of a monster.

Look at that hideous creature. I was informed of the creature's arrival when some of the dwarves left their work and rushed indoors, consumed by fear. That... thing ran around our supply piles, and scared everyone off. I had never seen so hideous a beast in all my life. I asked the other, and one knew what it was: a Coati.

Typically, he explained, Coati are small animals. Our nemesis was gigantic and muscular, with handsome chestnut hair, and menacing black eyes. I assessed the situation. We had no weapons, and no one capable of killing the beast. Someone suggested that I build up and army, but I'm a pacifist. I'll let my successor take care of that. He had done nothing more than scare us up to this point, so I just decided to let him be. After a while, he left, and we got back to work.

Eventually, some migrants showed up. With them came a talented engraver. He and I took upon ourselves the task of decorating Shimmeroiled's stone walls. By the time I'm finished here, this fortress will be a magnificent site to behold. Apparently, our Coati friend head that there were new dwarves to scare, so he came back. He frightened us all. One of the new dwarves brought a crossbow, which the coati stole. Fiend!

I quickly tired of my responsibilities as leader. Before passing leadership to another, however, I made sure to commission a monument near the entrance of the fort in my honor. It shall be my resting place after I have lived a long, fruitful life.

------

I'm not a very good writer, so sorry about that. Nothing too exciting happened, so sorry if it's a bit dry. I'm not a very good DF player, either. I hope that none of you hate me. Oh, and please make sure to adorn my tomb with golden statues. I deserve it.

Good luck, @Daveyo520

@BoG: HOLY CRAP. Nice job speed demon. You kept those miners busy and those bedrooms will be super useful early on in keeping the fortress happy and non homicidal. And score on the talented engraver. These are going to be some happy dwarves when they stare at engravings of... Beastly Coati? Oh and dont forget to upload your save file somewhere.

Someone is going to need to create a depot but i think dave can handle that. I hope 3 someones default so that I can get in on this action. SO should have jumped on when i first saw it but I was afraid I would be the guy who didn't get done in a week.

@jesterroyal: Yeah, as I said, I was worried that I couldn't get it done... so I did it fast. I actually looked through all of the engravings, and none of them are of coati =(. Lots of moons and forgotten beasts, though.

@jesterroyal: Like I mentioned, the Reserve Pool is randomized every time we need somebody... So who knows!

Also, BoG should be emailing me the world file shortly, which I'll upload for all you

I've got the World File from BoG. I'll upload it tomorrow when I get to my PC.

great work BoG , you turned a mostly uneventful year into soemthign entertaining , mainly thanks to the coati ..the surroundings are calm so i was worried we wouldnt get any interesting visitors for a long time , i cant wait to see what happens by the time my turn rolls around

and yeah ,look at them gold veins! i reccomend people enable it as a crafting stone in the z / stone menu , at least for a while .. I'm pretty sure we can literally pave roads with gold and still have plenty left over.

was that a lone coati ? , in my latest df games im all obsessed with capturing breeding pairs and training a bunch of each animal.

oh yeah sandy loam hell yeah .. i was worried the soil layers would be crappy , there should be some clay somewhere too , though with all the gold a pottery industry would just be a waste of effort.

:D hyped

At least I am not later. I don't want to deal with too many late game things lol.

@jesterroyal: Looks like he has a trade depot already.

@Daveyo520: Oh yeah. Open air Depot. I was looking for it in a hallway. Man I still totally need a tile set to be able to see read these things well. I'm getting better at the ascii but then i ask myself... Why?

@envane: Yeah, it was a lone Coati. Perhaps the second one that came around was different, as I didn't really observe him. I imagine it was the same one, though. It was a big surprise for me, because in all of my embarks, I've never seen the species.

@Daveyo520: One note for you: Finish the bedrooms. About half of those are designated as bedrooms. And yeah, I built the depot early. As I said, I hoped that the traders would bring strawberries or something, which they didn't. They didn't even have exotic alcohol. Douchebags. Oh, and beware, I've really only made anything out of wood at this point because my mason doubled as a miner. He was always occupied with mining. You may want to craft some stone stuff for whenever the elves show up. on the bright side, our carpenter is already very talented. I would check him, though, I think I set him t repeatedly create doors or something. Hopefully we're wealthy enough that the next migrant group should give us lots of laborers. Good luck!

A message has been sent to Daveyo! his turn officially begins at Midnight tonight. (So yeah, he has some extra time. thank BoG for that!)

I would also like to point out that my avatar looks like he could be a sentient Coati

So much gold.