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Garian

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Posts posted by Garian

  1. Although you could take it to mean the same thing ;)

    This looks interesting but I already have a difficult time playing the Pokemon games, adding in that much more of a grind factor would probably just put me off indefinitely. Best of luck to those who do try it :)

  2. So according to Darangen, correlation is causation %^(

    I mean I see what you're trying to say here (that the apparent reasons for female disinterest in games is not related to any sort of gender biases), but really? The culture in which we live in in the USA is pretty hostile to women in general, and the gaming subculture even more so. Magically changing games to suddenly not objectify women as much won't change anyone's way of thinking immediately and of course is not going to be any reason for the vast majority of nongamers to suddenly say "hey, video games are great!" But fostering a less hostile environment would definitely encourage a more open dialogue between male and female gamers as well as game developers. You keep driving in the point that "it isn't sexism driving them away, they're just not interested" without speculating on why they're not interested, and that is more what I believe Tensei wants to address rather than bickering back and forth with anecdotes about what girls say.

  3. Moomba, it'd be ridiculous for them not to expand on the game universe given its popularity, which is why the trilogy focuses on the character of Shepard and the Reapers. Obviously once the Reaper threat is over they still have this massive playground that they can capitalize upon. There are still merc/outlaw/slaver groups, the Geth are still a major threat to civilization, and there are many stories to explore in the history as well, such as the Rachni Wars and Krogan Rebellion. I would be disappointed if there weren't more Mass Effect games but then again I really enjoy the universe they created.

  4. I'm sorry but if you enjoyed ME1 and 2 then why wouldn't you want to at least see the conclusion of the Shepard saga????? The game is going to be an unabashedly combat heavy because the fucking Reapers have invaded (ZOMG SPOILERS :roll:) and from what I've seen of the SP demo it takes some of the best elements of the first two games and is a lot more fluid in general. I have a few gripes about the action menu but I'm guessing that those are more due to it being a demo... it looked identical to that of 2 but using combat abilities felt really unresponsive and sluggish. The writing is looking to be on par with the other games which is more or less still love it or hate it, but at least they don't treat the player like a moron. The SP demo does feel quite disjointed, but even if the full game starts out the same way I'll be happy with it.

    I tried to play the MP demo but it said I didn't have access-- is it only available to pre-orders?

  5. Xerol's been in constant communication with me, I won't spoil what happened but I've given him the all clear because he's probably our most experienced player. I'm definitely looking forward to reading his write-up for sure!

    Also the update is really awesome (although adjusting to ascii sucks!). Can't wait for Dwarf Therapist but there are some usability changes in the game that make not having it more bearable. So far I haven't encountered any game breaking bugs but I'm sure that won't last :lol:

  6. here's the release we've been working on for nearly eleven months. I've tried to collect the major changes below, but it won't be a complete list. I hope you enjoy the game!

    New stuff

    cities in adventure mode that have various buildings, dungeons, items, livestock, etc.

    Protect your community from secret vampire dwarves or hunt them as an adventurer

    defend your fort during the full moon or risk a werewolf infestion -- hunt/be hunted as an adventurer

    face armies of the dead in dwarf mode or visit their necromancers' towers and learn their secrets as an adventurer

    evil regions where the dead and pieces of the dead can come alive, with evil mists and rain

    tombs built in world gen which can be visited in adv mode, either beneath towns or out in the wilds -- beware the dead!

    Revamped justice/witness/death notification system in dwarf mode

    immigrants to your fortress will now be historical figures whenever possible, which means more family relationships and history for each one

    dropped items/bodies tracked between plays in the wilderness anywhere in the world

    more battlefield information tracked/war dead raisable in world gen

    all sponsorship animals and their giant/man versions are in the game now

    various new abilities for creatures (see file_changes.txt for list and syntax)

    adventurers can use creature abilities/learned powers and they can be tested from the arena

    new site travel map to make navigating towns easier

    reading/swimming/observer (for traps) relevant in adv mode now

    established historical figures can lead bandits

    rivers block movement in adv mode travel

    eating/drinking required in adv mode

    ingested syndromes are now possible

    ability to make campfire (from 'g') and warm items at campfire/fire/magma (from 'i') in adv mode

    traps work in adv mode, once spotted they can be ignored

    gems now have different cuts

    necromancers can write books about various topics (all books are in their towers as it stands)

    moon phase indicator in fort

    alphanumeric world gen seeds and some more world gen params (see file_changes.txt)

    the legends xml has a lot of new info for historical figures

    major bug fixes

    buffer overload from aborted world gen fixed

    fixed cave-in-on-embark issue with hidden underground structure, and a few others

    other bug fixes/tweaks

    designations over z levels all at once now possible

    unit screen divided into four sections

    rivers/pools have ramps now

    able to trade portions of stacks in both modes

    messed with adv mode currency trading and made items teleport to you

    tweaked how fire damage works

    made vision work through flesr grates and bars properly

    fixed some road/bridge problems

    crystal glass items possible again

    tweaked adventure mode swimming and alt-movement readout (use alt-movement to get into a river you want to cross)

    skeletons/zombies replaced by animation effect

    demons masquerading as gods will try a little harder

    restricted mandates so they'll be more reasonable

    stopped blank map from being exported when you back out of detailed map export

    eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

  7. Get some platform goodness going on, Classic Super Mario Bros 2 is a good starter because it's got a more kid-friendly approach (cartoony character designs, less threatening endboss, and plenty of secrets to learn without resorting to walkthroughs). It's also got a gradually increasing difficulty so it's a great game to learn to improve one's 2D platforming. After mastering SM2, I'd suggest SM1 and "Lost Levels" in the Super Mario All-Stars pack, then migrate to more difficult platformers. Rygar, Super Metroid, and Metroid 2: Return of Samus all come to mind... I was stomping the shit out of SM when I first got it in 1995, my brother and I would do speedrun races of it and back then my fastest time was about 1:40 with a decent item collection rate lol. I would DEFINITELY encourage you to not let him use the internet to figure out how to play Super Metroid because it's a brutal game that is designed to work one's mind. It's not oppressively difficult like the original is either, so while there are a few cheap tricks it's pretty straightforward. Bonus points in SM for save points for leaving the game if it feels too difficult, also!

    Mario Kart is another great suggestion I've seen, it's just a very fun game with a decent learning curve-- I'm surprised no one mentioned Tetris Attack/Panel de Pon yet, that was another favourite of my brother and I back in the day. It's a great cerebral experience in any case, even if it starts out feeling overwhelming. And that also leads me to Tetris, which definitely tests the wits of any level player.

    I've seen plenty of great 3d platformers, but I'm surprised no one mentioned Super Mario 64 (n64 emulation is pretty groovy these days and it's also been remade for the DS). It's a pretty good standard for judging 3d platformers (camera issues aside), and it's a Mario game, again with the cartoonish character design and overall typical Nintendo kid-friendliness.

    Back in the realm of 2d, How about any of the later Bomberman games? They're great fun for playing multiplayer, the concept is fairly simple but the execution requires some learning and patience. CT and SoM are both great choices as well, I would probably push SoM first because it has a little less depth in the story and is more action oriented, so it doesn't require the same amount of forethought that CT does (I just finished the battle with Magus and found myself rewinding my emu a lot because I wasn't paying attention I am a dirty cheater). Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link would be another suggestion from me but I cut my teeth on some really tough games on the NES (thanks Grandma!), so if he finds it too difficult it might be one to store for later... it has a very steep difficulty curve just before the midpoint. Ocarina of Time and Link to the Past are probably much better introductions to the Zelda franchise, and they both provide their own unique challenges.

    I also second the Ys series, my cousin rented Ys 3 a long time ago and I really enjoyed watching it then, and later as an adult I revisited it and fell in love with the music though the gameplay was a bit lacking. The 3D remake on the PS2, the Oath in Felghana (also available on the PC with a fan-translation) really made up for it, though, and what's great about the Ys series is that the first 3 or 4 games were on literally every system at the time, and have been remade a million times over as well. The music is also excellent which is another great reason to suggest the series. The original Ys 3 is a sidescrolling action/adventure game with some RPG elements, it's fairly challenging so might not be a first choice unless he's feeling like taking it on.

    Not sure how you feel about the Mega Man franchises, but if you're looking for a challenge a good introduction would be Mega Man 3 or X, Not really sure which would be more appropriate because both are fairly iconic and going from the SNES game to the NES series might be jarring, but the NES games were more difficult on the whole. The Rock Paper Scissors boss items adds a slight layer of depth to the games, but it's more about the execution of the platforminakthat makes the older games more difficult-- Mega Man can't wall climb like X does, and having to learn the games without it after having it might cause some frustration. Mega Man 1 is extremely oppressive in this regard (seriously, fuck Guts Man's stage) and Mega Man 2 has some issues with this as well (Mostly Wily stage 1's dragonbot chase, as well as the lava pit in Heat Man's stage). Still, the series is a great challenge and is also fun to revisit later on.

    Okay so maybe I just have some nostalgia goggles on, and some people keep telling me that I'm kinda way ahead of average in terms of video gaming, but I always considered myself below average since I compare myself to people who are actually really good (like Bahamut and Taucer at Tetris Attack). I hope these suggestions aren't really too oppressively difficult, like I said I cut my teeth on stuff like Mario 1 and 2, Zelda 1 and 2, Mega Man 1 when I was like 4 or 5 years old, so hopefully those suggestions aren't too far out of bounds! Best of luck Steve :)

  8. I'm not a posted remixer but I play around with music software sometimes! I'm in Lawrence going to KU (as is DrumUltimA but he's hella busy and we never hang out :() so if you'd want to kick it sometime you're more than welcome. My roommate has repurposed our living room into his own personal studio so there is that if nothing else.

  9. Forgive the double post, but !! has given me the lowdown on the embark site, I'll just post the full log of our Steam conversation :)

    5:53 PM - !!: ok so

    5:53 PM - !!: autosave on?

    5:53 PM - Garian: Hi, yes

    5:53 PM - Garian: and pause on autosave

    5:53 PM - Garian: autosave seasonal

    5:53 PM - !!: seasonal

    5:53 PM - Garian: yes

    5:53 PM - !!: anything else?

    5:53 PM - Garian: I think that's the big one

    5:55 PM - !!: ok check it

    5:55 PM - !!: temp = warm

    5:55 PM - !!: biome 1 = heavily forested + thick veg surrounding = wilderness

    5:56 PM - Garian: Nice nice

    5:56 PM - !!: biome 2 = mountains

    5:56 PM - Garian: Excellent

    5:56 PM - !!: brook

    5:56 PM - !!: no aquifiers

    5:56 PM - !!: shallow and deep metals

    5:56 PM - !!: little soil though

    5:56 PM - Garian: Hmm

    5:56 PM - !!: not a big deal since we only need the soil for growing

    5:56 PM - Garian: Right

    5:57 PM - !!: should i enlarge the size?

    5:57 PM - Garian: Nah, 4x4 should be fine

    5:57 PM - Garian: don't want to weird anyone out

    5:57 PM - Garian: Mind if I post our conversation to the thread?

    5:57 PM - !!: go for it

    5:57 PM - !!: you might wanna wait till i finish setting up though

    5:57 PM - Garian: Yup

    5:57 PM - !!: cause imma do the name and stuff right away

    5:57 PM - Garian: Just asking preemptory

    5:58 PM - !!: uhhhh

    5:58 PM - !!: do you want me to do the preparations myself or take one of the packs or just go play now

    5:59 PM - Garian: If you're competent (and I trust you are) set up yourself unless you're impatient

    5:59 PM - Garian: I usually do the 2 miners 1 woodcutter 1 mason 1 carpenter 1 brewer/farmer

    5:59 PM - Garian: 1 hunter

    5:59 PM - Garian: but if you do that assign someone butchery and someone else tanning and get those buildings up asap

    6:00 PM - !!: ok ill do what i usually do

    6:00 PM - Garian: or else your hunter will extinct the local wildlife lol

    6:00 PM - Garian: Sure thing

    6:00 PM - !!: i dont take hunter off the bat

    6:00 PM - !!: i find that they ususally come in droves with immigrants

    6:00 PM - !!: or if i dont get one in the first wave i can always make one

    6:01 PM - Garian: heh

    6:01 PM - Garian: ofc

    6:02 PM - !!: ok so you said you wanted me to keep a log

    6:02 PM - !!: so what do i record

    6:02 PM - !!: and how much do you want me to tell you now?

    6:03 PM - Garian: record things like moods (and items demanded), animal attacks, legendary craftworks, immigrant waves/sizes, babies being born

    6:03 PM - Garian: anything that pauses your game for sure (except for autosave)

    6:04 PM - Garian: but yeah also animal attacks, or if you establish some sort of megaproject you might want to mention that

    6:04 PM - Garian: if you strike the caves

    6:04 PM - Garian: if someone dies

    !! is now Away.

    !! is now Online.

    6:21 PM - !!: hup

    6:21 PM - Garian: Hup!!

    6:21 PM - !!: fortress name = Prisonshanks

    6:22 PM - Garian: Prisonshanks is LIVE

    6:22 PM - !!: group name = The Bane of Society

    6:22 PM - Garian: lol

    6:22 PM - !!: I FEEL I HAVE A METAPHOR FOR SOMETHING HERE

    6:22 PM - Garian: ;p;

    6:22 PM - Garian: lol

    6:23 PM - !!: basically if anyone wants to RP a prison collony we have it

    6:23 PM - Garian: haha

    6:23 PM - Garian: Tell me about your starting gear/skills, too

    6:24 PM - Garian: anything outrageous, or is it more or less a standard embarkment?

    6:24 PM - !!: uhhh

    6:24 PM - Garian: (in before we're embarking iwth all social skills and 12 grandfather clocks)

    6:24 PM - !!: well sort of

    6:24 PM - !!: its MY standard embark

    6:24 PM - Garian: Give me the quick version

    6:24 PM - !!: trader

    6:24 PM - Garian: Interesting

    6:24 PM - !!: miner / mason

    6:24 PM - Garian: aha

    6:25 PM - !!: miner / mechanic / stonecrafter / building architect (last 2 at +1 skill)

    6:25 PM - Garian: Hm

    6:25 PM - !!: furnace operator / armor smith / weapon smith / wood burner (furnace and wood at + 1 skill)

    6:26 PM - !!: carpenter / woodcutter

    6:26 PM - Garian: Seems pretty solid

    6:26 PM - !!: grower / brewer

    6:26 PM - !!: and finally hammer dwarf / armor user / fighter / shield user

    6:26 PM - Garian: haha

    6:27 PM - Garian: Interesting choice considering we won't need a military so early in a wilderness area :P

    6:27 PM - Garian: but it's also a safe one

    6:27 PM - Garian: just in case

    6:27 PM - !!: embark was basically sell all splints + crutches + 2 cloth + 2 thread + 1 battle axe to buy a copper war hammer + some extra booze + some extra seeds

    6:27 PM - !!: i like to try get my military training early as possible

    6:27 PM - Garian: Makes senes

    6:27 PM - Garian: sense

    6:28 PM - Garian: And in case we're assaulted by macaques it's nice

    6:28 PM - Garian: what about animals?

    6:28 PM - Garian: 1m1f dogs, 1m1f cats?

    6:28 PM - !!: none

    6:28 PM - !!: i figure that will all come with immigrant waves

    6:28 PM - Garian: dangerous

    6:29 PM - !!: im probably not trying anything too fancy

    6:29 PM - Garian: cats are essential

    6:29 PM - Garian: or else we'll have vermin in the food stores

    6:29 PM - Garian: and you picked a warm climate

    6:29 PM - Garian: so vermin year round

    6:29 PM - Garian: What's done is done, we'll survive :)

    6:29 PM - !!: yeah but i think i can get food production up enough to negate any eating

    6:29 PM - Garian: :P

    6:29 PM - !!: ok so embar

    6:29 PM - !!: er embark site

    6:30 PM - Garian: STRIKE THE EARTH!

    6:30 PM - !!: brook runs left to right (mostly)

    6:30 PM - !!: the map is about half mountain half forest

    6:30 PM - !!: LOTS of pools around

    6:31 PM - !!: some patches of sand but i dunno if its enough to do a glass industry

    6:31 PM - !!: im sure we can find out

    6:31 PM - Garian: Would be nice to at least collect some and try

    TL/DR: !! founded Prisonshanks with The Bane of Society, has a fairly standard lineup of dwarves/gear but has no animals and is banking on immigration waves bringing cats/dogs. The site is heavily wooded with mountains and a brook, with normal wilderness savagery. I look forward to seeing how our first year goes!

  10. Alright guys! Tentative player order go!

    !!

    Moomba

    Sensai

    JadeAuto

    Xerol

    HalcyonSpirit

    Ectogemia

    Super Duper Sombrero

    Garian

    If there are no objections, I think this spreads out our experience levels so that in case of calamity, there should be a way for one of our more experienced players to pull us from the brink of collapse.

    I sent !! the region zip, and have given him four days starting tomorrow (since I kinda sprung it up suddenly on him) to play out his year. As stated in the OP, years are 1 Granite through 1 Granite. You'll want to have seasonal autosave as well as autosave pausing turned on (there are checkboxes in LNP for those options). If you want to get a little more precise you can do these things suggested by Xerol to help out as well:

    [13:23] <Xerol> [AUTOSAVE:SEASONAL]

    [13:23] <Xerol> [AUTOBACKUP:YES]

    [13:23] <Xerol> [AUTOSAVE_PAUSE:YES]

    09[13:23] <Garian> AHA yes I do need to set those

    [13:23] <Xerol> those are good settings to use too, so the game automatically saves and pauses at the end of a term

    [13:24] <Xerol> [VARIED_GROUND_TILES:NO]

    [13:24] <Xerol> [ENGRAVINGS_START_OBSCURED:YES]

    [13:24] <Xerol> make for cleaner screenshots

    [13:24] <Xerol> and speeds up the game a little

    [13:24] <Xerol> and [sHOW_FLOW_AMOUNTS:YES]

    [13:26] <Xerol> in init.txt, fps: yes, fps_cap: 200, g_fps_cap: 20

  11. I was planning on starting on the current stable release, while I am greatly anticipating the next version I do not plan on it being stable enough upon release to be reliable. Toady seems to do a great job addressing the issues that he and Three Toe find but they're a very small team so it's understandable that the actual deployment brings out the rest of the glaring bugs.

    I'm definitely going to upload the entire folder-- I'm using the IronHand 0.57 graphics set included in the Lazy Newb Pack, but I can revert the save folders to the ascii with a push of a button so there are no discrepancies.

    As for a time limit, since I totally forgot that the game can actually go by pretty quickly, I would agree with about 3 or 4 days although a bit of flexibility is always a good thing. It is early in the spring semester so I think it's understandable that some folks may be a bit busier than they anticipated going forward, but we do want to give everyone a shot at playing as well.

    I also think that the alternating between experience levels is probably the best bet. I'm not sure of where everyone's skill levels are quite yet, !! seems to be around where I am based on what he's told me and from what I've seen SDS is probably our most experienced player. I'm gonna throw a few more feelers out for guys I know who play who used to rock the OCR TF2 and see if they'd be interested in giving it a shot and we'll see if we can get a couple more guys who are good at it to join in.

  12. The more the merrier!

    I updated the OP the other day, cleaning it up a bit and including a list of people interested in playing and donating their names.

    I'm figuring 6 or 7 people should be sufficient to get a fort going, but I'm curious about our method of designating our player order. I was also slightly confused about Boatmurdered, I'm guessing that the write-ups were written before the save file was passed on? Seems like it would make the most sense to do it that way although I'm not too familiar yet :)

    SDS do you have any insight to how your previous succession game was managed?

  13. I think I'm going to put my money (lol I spent too much on this fucking game get it) where my mouth is and stop playing again! It's obvious that Riot cares more about their shitty payscale businessmodel than their game. I've been alienated by them for a long time (when was the last time we saw a 4800 champ even?), and lately I find myself questioning why I'm even playing when I solo queue. It's addictive, but I don't necessarily find it fun when I have to change my playstyle to fit with 4 other assholes in order spend 50 minutes to just not lose... I'd rather go back to seeing Anivia/Mundo/Sion/Soraka/Corki vs Ezreal/Janna/Sivir/Soraka/Udyr than Xin/Xinclone/Xinclone/Malzahar/Sona vs Xin/Xinclone/Xinclone/Malzahar/Soraka but we all know that you can't sell old champs at the 10 dollar price point so fuck Riot.

    A line has to be established somewhere, and as gamers we should reclaim some semblance of dignity and say "enough" when that line is crossed.

    And most importantly remember: GL/HF :)

    edit: pre-emptive "I ain't even mad"

  14. Excellent! Glad to see there's at least moderate interest, and using community names is of course going to happen. I'll edit the OP when I'm not playing so much LoL to include a list of interested players and name donors.

    Nase, the Lazy Newb Pack includes graphical packs that make the game much more bearable (I'm not hardcore enough for ascii myself).

    ThndrShk2k suggested coming up with some celebration goals, such as population 70 surviving dwarves living sustainably... Anyone with more experience want to chime in?

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