Bay 12 Games Forum

Never abandon.* Don't ever let a disaster or frustration drive you out, play each fortress until it dies.  Every accident, mistake, and incident of plain bad luck is an opportunity to learn and practice problem-solving -- but only if you stick around for the problem and try to solve it until you succeed, or lose.


*:except for when you install a new DF version that isn't compatible with old worlds, or a when a fortress becomes so secure that it's boring

Yes, ask Diane and Theresa's Whisper to weigh in on this matter.

Zombiehood is too good for the perpetrators, but death is too mercifully quick.  We do still have a Banshee, and this might just be a sufficiently vile crime against humanity to merit soul-stripping as a punishment.  Again, consult our companions on this, it's risky, ambiguous territory.

Time at my job lately has been soul-crushingly irritating.  I get $10.75/hour to be a line cook, customer service representative, accountant, janitor, and babysitter, essentially.  The job does offer some benefits I enjoy, and I don't mind the work, it's largely my irresponsible coworkers making me dread going in.  Last night one of them picked a fight and stormed out of the shop over the easiest side item on the menu to prepare, just to avoid having to clean up the makeline when we closed.

A competitor extended a tentative offer to start me at $12/hour, the benefits are reduced but so is the childish bullshit.  I mentioned the better paying job opportunity to my boss yesterday afternoon and he said he would match it starting next paycheck.  So that's a decent little raise there; it'll be worth more after December when I can get in on the employee payroll deduction stock purchase plan: buy company stock (I already buy it anyway, it's one of my top 3 performers, up nearly 20% since April and it pays dividends) at a 15% discount.

Yesterday evening I became so frustrated with my coworkers that the only thing that kept me from storming off also was my sense of responsibility, and knowing that nothing would get done if the only full-time insider available (and the only one that knows how to do all of the job) left early.  I don't even care about the raise anymore, I want out of this situation.  On the other hand, I don't want to burn bridges, nor seem ungrateful, particularly to a man that gave me a chance when I was unemployed, broke, and inadvertently outed as a hobo during the job interview.  I'd still be a hobo if not for this job.

I'm looking for a way to take the other job, put in my two weeks' notice with this one, and refuse all negotiation to try to retain me, without coming across insulting or as an ingrate.  I don't think my people skills are up to the task.  Bay12, I turn to you for advice.

If she's telling the truth, you cannot help her.  The help she needs can't come from someone with your relation to her.

If she's lying, she don't need help, but you do.

Either way, you need to break this off.

You both need to grow up.  You need to learn and understand that emotion has its place -- tempered by reason and truth.  She needs to learn that she can't always get what she wants.  You're not in love, you're infatuated.  She's manipulating and using you, fairly effectively it seems.  Sever this tie.  Be polite, but firm, and leave no room for misinterpretation.  She may be distraught, that's okay.  Stick to your guns.  Everyone needs to learn about coping with loss sooner or later; she will get over it.  You will too, but only if you bring this situation to a close, and acknowledge it for what it was, instead of idealizing it as something that never was and never will be.

Don't mistake my bluntness for disparagement.  I don't think any less of you for this.  In 32 years, I have done far more foolish things than this, and I'm sure I'll make plenty more boneheaded mistakes in the time I have left.  It's okay as long as you learn from the mistakes, and try to avoid making the same ones repeatedly.

Yet Another Slavery Suggestion.

Tone it down and make it optional.  What you want is the game protecting you from your own carelessness, which is terrible and should never happen.  Hand-holding that gets in the way of playing the game is always bad.

However, there is some merit to making other z-levels easier to check (real vision isn't a flat slice), and reducing the camouflage effect that sometimes happens by arbitrary colour choice.

I propose a small compass that represents the character's field of view, in one corner of the screen, with the corner it occupies being changeable, and the whole thing able to be toggled on or off.  It should have a solid black background so every colour shows up on it, and it shows distance and direction to other perceived creatures relative to your position (the center of the compass) by displaying them as dots.  Relative elevation is shown by changing dot colours.  Creatures have a chance of not appearing on the compass at all; based on relevant skills/attributes, cover blocking line of sight, size, and whether or not the creatures are trying to hide.

There should be no alerts, no interruptions, and no judgement by the game of whether a creature qualifies as an enemy.  Simply provide basic information that would be obvious to the player if they could see from the character's point of view, in a convenient, unobtrusive form, and let the player decide whether to ignore it, or what use to make of it.  Don't ever get in the player's way, and don't make running around recklessly like a blind fool any less dangerous.