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Tabletop, DnD, board games, and minecraft. Also Animal Crossing.

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1
 
 

It's Fortress Friday! Today we wait for @Oreb@hexbear.net to finish their turn and for control of the game to pass on to @Infamousblt@hexbear.net (please confirm), with the following players waiting for a chance to leave their mark on Dwarven history.

  1. (Beginning Jan. 23) [Second turns begin] @PorkrollPosadist@hexbear.net

  2. (Beginning Jan. 30) [First slot for new players] @Moonworm@hexbear.net

  3. (Beginning Feb. 6) @Doubledee@hexbear.net

  4. (Beginning Feb. 13) @gay_king_prince_charles@hexbear.net

  5. (Beginning Feb. 20) @booty@hexbear.net

  6. (Beginning Feb. 27) @Oreb@hexbear.net

New players are encouraged to apply in this thread. All players and spectators are welcome to load up the save and see what's going on first hand.

Lore

How to play

Importing the save

Dwarf Fortress saves are not stored in a single file. They are stored as named directories containing over a thousand individual data files. In order to load the game, you need to download a zipped archive of the save and place it in your Dwarf Fortress save directory. This directory can be located in a number of places depending on which OS you are using and what settings you have enabled.

If Portable mode is enabled (not default), the save directory will be located in the same directory as dwarfort / dwarfort.exe. If you are using Steam with the default locations, these are:

On Linux: ~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Dwarf Fortress/save

On Windows: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Dwarf Fortress\save

This directory might exist, even if Portable mode is turned off (default), but in that case it will be ignored by the game. Instead, save files are stored somewhere in your user directory.

On Linux: ~/.local/share/Bay 12 Games/Dwarf Fortress/save

On Windows: %AppData%\Roaming\Bay 12 Games\Dwarf Fortress\save

Extract the FFSeason1 directory from the archive and place it inside of the appropriate save directory, then you should see it after starting the game.

Stopping the clock

By using a combination of the "Autosave Frequency" (any setting as long as it is not "Off") and "Pause after every autosave" options, you can cause the game to pause at the exact moment the calendar ticks over to 1st Granite (the first day of the year).

After the game pauses, you still have the opportunity to do a couple minor things, like designating blueprint tiles to label hazards, noteworthy sources of material, or leaving graffiti. You can also rename stockpiles and rooms, etc. before writing the final save. You should avoid doing anything that will substantially change the behavior of the fort or generate labor tasks (like creating / removing stockpiles, changing which items are allowed to be stored in stockpiles, enabling / disabling standing orders, creating new work orders, or designating new rooms / meeting areas). Military schedules often change at the start of a season (e.g. the "staggered training" preset). This is fine.

Any blueprints left are merely suggestions. The next player is free to ignore them. If you wanted something built there, you should have microed your miners better :P

Exporting the save

When Dwarf Fortress creates auto-saves, or if you use the "save and continue playing" feature, Dwarf Fortress will write these saves to an alternate directory (e.g. autosave1 or pull the lever). When you finish your turn, you need to use the "Save and return to title menu" option and choose "Save to this timeline." You need to do this even though the game just created an auto-save. This will write the save back to the FFSeason1 directory, which you can then place in a zip archive and submit.

Making your submission.

Save files can be e-mailed to fortress-friday@matapacos.dog ahead of time. Some e-mail services (like Gmail) prohibit sending large enough attachments, but if it works on your end, it should work on mine. Otherwise, the file may need to be hosted using a third-party service. Dwarf Fortress File Depot is the canonical service for this (they have a category specifically for community games), but any service which doesn't require me to create an account or jump through flaming hoops is acceptable. Currently (as of Episode 3), the compressed save is about 58MB. It won't get any smaller with time.

Alternately, submissions can be made as a reply to the following week's Fortress Friday post, which will be posted in anticipation of a submission. This thread will be posted and used to coordinate the game and get the proper files into the hands of the next player regardless of if the anticipated turn was completed.

Whether or not the file was transferred in advance, The player who just completed their turn should make a top-level comment in this thread describing noteworthy events of their turn. You are encouraged (but not required) to roleplay and continue to spin a fantasy narrative out of it, but you don't need to write us a Tolkien novel - especially if you are pressed for time and have other shit to worry about. This shouldn't feel like a homework assignment.

My initial submission will be excessive because I am also covering the results of world-generation, the historical circumstances of the civilization we chose, and the embark. Subsequent posts will mostly be focused on chronicling events in Fortress Mode. You are absolutely not expected to export the world history and spend hours dicking around in Legends Viewer spinning up backstories for every minor goblin who gets turned into dog food.

What if a turn is not completed / running late?

If you anticipate not being able to complete your turn, just let us know (the sooner, the better) so we can make adjustments. Shit pops up. There are more important things in life than a stupid game. We won't be mad at you.

In case Fortress Friday rolls around and there is no submission, Tentatively, I think we give the player 24 hours to actually make their post before we start openly contemplating passing to the next player, followed by another 24 hours to find out which of the next players is actually available. So if there is no update by mid-Saturday, we find another candidate, and if there is no word by mid-Sunday, they are given the green light to play.

What if a turn is completed early?

You can tease us (it's reassuring to know progress is being made), but hold on to your spoilers until Fortress Friday. I think keeping this thing on a regular schedule will do a lot to keep everybody looking forward to updates and keeping things organized. If anticipation is eating away at you, try to fill in some lore and backstory.

Rules

There are not many hard rules, but generally

  • You play for one year in-game time. Turns should begin and end on 1st Granite.

  • Avoid using blatant exploits (the game is built of cheese, so this is sort of like the pornography rule, "you know it when you see it.") Things like perpetual motion machines or material duplication schemes should be shunned. Some things classified as exploits, like "atom smashers" should be fine as long as their applications aren't egregious.

  • Try not to save-scum (Do save though. Crashes happen, and named "save and continue" saves won't clutter the main save).

  • You are free to use DFHack, but do not use any of it's "Armok" (god-mode) features. Also, try to keep it modest. The fort shouldn't fail catastrophically if the next player doesn't have DFHack installed.

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Hello everyone. Hope you all had a good weekend. I am posting this thread about 90 minutes after I intended to because I was just finishing up Mass Effect 3, finishing my first replay of the trilogy. Anyway, ME3 is a pretty good game and its actually kind of funny they allow you to reach satisfying endings to many of the long running arcs in the series (RIP my good friend Mordin and my beautiful son Legion) but horribly botched the final ending. I hear there's a new Mass Effect game in development, and since you cant really up the stakes beyond Cthulu robots killing us all I'd wager on it being a soft reboot. Interested to see how they would handle the incompatible endings in that case, and they'd probably have to introduce a new protagonist which is risky because no one liked Andromeda

Hope everybody has a good week and happy gaming

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Ugh, breadtube. Still, this essay does such a good job at breaking down why New Vegas is good.

Also good at explaining why Bethesda sucks without blaming the scary wokes.

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I made an oil painting of Qui Gon Jin’s death in Lego Star Wars

By cayde

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It's Fortress Friday! Today we wait for Me to finish my turn and for control of the game to pass on to @Moonworm@hexbear.net (please confirm), with the following players waiting for a chance to leave their mark on Dwarven history.

  1. (Beginning Feb. 6) @Doubledee@hexbear.net

  2. (Beginning Feb. 13) @gay_king_prince_charles@hexbear.net

  3. (Beginning Feb. 20) @booty@hexbear.net

  4. (Beginning Feb. 27) @Oreb@hexbear.net

New players are encouraged to apply in this thread. All players and spectators are welcome to load up the save and see what's going on first hand.

Lore

How to play

Importing the save

Dwarf Fortress saves are not stored in a single file. They are stored as named directories containing over a thousand individual data files. In order to load the game, you need to download a zipped archive of the save and place it in your Dwarf Fortress save directory. This directory can be located in a number of places depending on which OS you are using and what settings you have enabled.

If Portable mode is enabled (not default), the save directory will be located in the same directory as dwarfort / dwarfort.exe. If you are using Steam with the default locations, these are:

On Linux: ~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Dwarf Fortress/save

On Windows: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Dwarf Fortress\save

This directory might exist, even if Portable mode is turned off (default), but in that case it will be ignored by the game. Instead, save files are stored somewhere in your user directory.

On Linux: ~/.local/share/Bay 12 Games/Dwarf Fortress/save

On Windows: %AppData%\Roaming\Bay 12 Games\Dwarf Fortress\save

Extract the FFSeason1 directory from the archive and place it inside of the appropriate save directory, then you should see it after starting the game.

Stopping the clock

By using a combination of the "Autosave Frequency" (any setting as long as it is not "Off") and "Pause after every autosave" options, you can cause the game to pause at the exact moment the calendar ticks over to 1st Granite (the first day of the year).

After the game pauses, you still have the opportunity to do a couple minor things, like designating blueprint tiles to label hazards, noteworthy sources of material, or leaving graffiti. You can also rename stockpiles and rooms, etc. before writing the final save. You should avoid doing anything that will substantially change the behavior of the fort or generate labor tasks (like creating / removing stockpiles, changing which items are allowed to be stored in stockpiles, enabling / disabling standing orders, creating new work orders, or designating new rooms / meeting areas). Military schedules often change at the start of a season (e.g. the "staggered training" preset). This is fine.

Any blueprints left are merely suggestions. The next player is free to ignore them. If you wanted something built there, you should have microed your miners better :P

Exporting the save

When Dwarf Fortress creates auto-saves, or if you use the "save and continue playing" feature, Dwarf Fortress will write these saves to an alternate directory (e.g. autosave1 or pull the lever). When you finish your turn, you need to use the "Save and return to title menu" option and choose "Save to this timeline." You need to do this even though the game just created an auto-save. This will write the save back to the FFSeason1 directory, which you can then place in a zip archive and submit.

Making your submission.

Save files can be e-mailed to fortress-friday@matapacos.dog ahead of time. Some e-mail services (like Gmail) prohibit sending large enough attachments, but if it works on your end, it should work on mine. Otherwise, the file may need to be hosted using a third-party service. Dwarf Fortress File Depot is the canonical service for this (they have a category specifically for community games), but any service which doesn't require me to create an account or jump through flaming hoops is acceptable. Currently (as of Episode 3), the compressed save is about 58MB. It won't get any smaller with time.

Alternately, submissions can be made as a reply to the following week's Fortress Friday post, which will be posted in anticipation of a submission. This thread will be posted and used to coordinate the game and get the proper files into the hands of the next player regardless of if the anticipated turn was completed.

Whether or not the file was transferred in advance, The player who just completed their turn should make a top-level comment in this thread describing noteworthy events of their turn. You are encouraged (but not required) to roleplay and continue to spin a fantasy narrative out of it, but you don't need to write us a Tolkien novel - especially if you are pressed for time and have other shit to worry about. This shouldn't feel like a homework assignment.

My initial submission will be excessive because I am also covering the results of world-generation, the historical circumstances of the civilization we chose, and the embark. Subsequent posts will mostly be focused on chronicling events in Fortress Mode. You are absolutely not expected to export the world history and spend hours dicking around in Legends Viewer spinning up backstories for every minor goblin who gets turned into dog food.

What if a turn is not completed / running late?

If you anticipate not being able to complete your turn, just let us know (the sooner, the better) so we can make adjustments. Shit pops up. There are more important things in life than a stupid game. We won't be mad at you.

In case Fortress Friday rolls around and there is no submission, Tentatively, I think we give the player 24 hours to actually make their post before we start openly contemplating passing to the next player, followed by another 24 hours to find out which of the next players is actually available. So if there is no update by mid-Saturday, we find another candidate, and if there is no word by mid-Sunday, they are given the green light to play.

What if a turn is completed early?

You can tease us (it's reassuring to know progress is being made), but hold on to your spoilers until Fortress Friday. I think keeping this thing on a regular schedule will do a lot to keep everybody looking forward to updates and keeping things organized. If anticipation is eating away at you, try to fill in some lore and backstory.

Rules

There are not many hard rules, but generally

  • You play for one year in-game time. Turns should begin and end on 1st Granite.

  • Avoid using blatant exploits (the game is built of cheese, so this is sort of like the pornography rule, "you know it when you see it.") Things like perpetual motion machines or material duplication schemes should be shunned. Some things classified as exploits, like "atom smashers" should be fine as long as their applications aren't egregious.

  • Try not to save-scum (Do save though. Crashes happen, and named "save and continue" saves won't clutter the main save).

  • You are free to use DFHack, but do not use any of it's "Armok" (god-mode) features. Also, try to keep it modest. The fort shouldn't fail catastrophically if the next player doesn't have DFHack installed.

7
 
 

Completely worth 3x the price. It's the best fighting game I've played. Everything from weapons to armour to body parts are accurately modeled, with physics-based combat instead of scripted animations. There's already a modding community growing around it.

8
 
 

A UK tribunal has given the go-ahead to a £656 million ($901 million) collective action lawsuit targeting Valve over alleged anti-competitive practices on PC storefront Steam.

The legal action, originally filed in 2024 by digital rights campaigner Vicki Shotbolt, has now been given the green light to proceed following a ruling by the UK's Competition Appeal Tribunal, BBC News has reported.

In short, Valve is accused of wielding its status as the dominant digital game storefront to lock game developers and publishers into release parity restrictions, and keep game owners spending on Steam when buying add-ons.

Shotbolt's lawsuit is a collective action claim, effectively a class-action suit, which she is attempting to take forward on behalf of the 14 million UK citizens who have bought games or add-on content through Steam since 2018.

The tribunal's new ruling, published this week, takes into account Shotbolt's claims and an initial response by Valve designed to halt the legal action from progressing further.

The lawsuit alleges that Steam unfairly imposes platform parity obligations which prohibit publishers from selling games on rival stores with better terms, causing a restriction of competition. The legal action has also taken aim at the need to continue buying add-ons for games bought through Steam via Valve's own marketplace, leading to a further reduction in competition. Finally, it alleges that Valve imposes unnecessarily high commission charges — essentially, the typical 30% cut it takes when you spend money on Steam — which results in higher prices for consumers.

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It seemed like wplace was huge for like, 2 weeks and then nobody ever talked about it again.

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submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by Dort_Owl@hexbear.net to c/games@hexbear.net
 
 
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image is tytykiller's recommended build list

phrecia 2 info https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3907351

leaderboard from phrecia 1 https://poe.ninja/poe1/builds/phrecia

patch notes https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3909036

patch notes says

  • most ascendancies got buffed except Ancestral Commander and Scavenger got nerfed.
  • map effect idol mod was reduced by around 25%. previously you could get 200% increased effect, now around 150%
  • Settlers idol mods have been added, this includes 'Lost Shipments' node and 'Refiners Bargain'
  • Memory-Influence idols mods have been added, including chance to find memory strands and memory influence map chance
  • Breach idol mods have been removed.

idols datamine https://poedb.tw/us/

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SO the good news. Based on vids from digital foundry this open world game seems really optimized. I heard it runs at 60fps at 4k on a pc they saw it on.

Im overall sceptical if it will all come to together in a proper fashion but the game seems super ambitious. Its like a witcher, breath of the wild , assassins creed hybrid. in a fantasy setting. Oh and ofc the game is fucking huge in terms of size.

Im gonna keep an eye on it im currently 50/50 on getting into it day 1 or not at all.

If Crimson Desert delivers it could be really cool. If not its gonna be another monument to mans hubris

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Just played the first level and it's good, just like I remember it! doggirl-thumbsup I'm seeding rn if anyone wants it.

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submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by Dort_Owl@hexbear.net to c/games@hexbear.net
 
 

Still a rat bastard though.

He called me a crumb! ralsei-pout

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https://x.com/TNOQuoProQuid/status/2015872269482946858

Kudos to the STALKER games (at least the original X-Ray engine ones, haven't played STALKER 2 yet) for actually having wild animals that behave at least somewhat like living creatures and not killbots. Dogs (the regular, not pseudodog variety) will swarm you when in packs, but if you take a few of them out they'll start giving up and running away, and lone dogs encountered in the wild are pretty cowardly. Fleshes, being just mutated pigs, are generally pretty chill unless you get right up in their face. Boars are wilder, but it's kind of the boar stereotype that they're very aggressive.

Even among the more dedicated enemy mutants, like bloodsuckers, you still see them actually take advantage of their cloaking ability to maneuver around you and try to get good angles of attack rather than just charging in, and retreat when wounded (Call of Pripyat added a really nasty attack where if they catch you from the back they'll just latch on and straight up drink you like a vampire for massive damage, potentially instakilling on higher difficulties, so fighting them becomes this really cool dance where you have to somehow make sure you're always facing frontward an opponent that can become invisible).

I also hear good things about Rain World and its NPC AI

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Tails Doll is also a creepy pasta celebrity but I really don't care much for those.

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