Bay 12 Games Forum

Your loved one is trying to commit suicide or is being stupidly harmful to themself? 
Who you gonna call?  Definitely not the cops.  Get good friends/neighbors instead.

Yeah. I had an old friend of my wife send the cops to our house because she couldnt get in touch with my wife...
Needless to say, I was rather upset with said 'old friend' and told her, among other things, that she was 'misguided' if she thought sending the police to help someone that she cared about was a good idea.
Anyone who has had to go through any bit of the "justice system" in the U.S. can tell you that... heck, even traffic violation court system is bad.

In all seriousness, your police have a problem. WHY nothing is being done about it is a mystery to me, given how widespread and how it seems an awful lot of people know about it. You'd think the politicians would realise it's generally a good idea to stop some policemen/women being lunatics.

Probably because those same politicians are making the laws that the police are the enforcers of? And let's not forget that government is just a puppet for the real powerblock; the ultra-rich via corps.

Aside from the [previously covered in this thread] other obvious things everyone dislikes, such as;
stuff that does't make sense (bugs, enemies that level with you, cut-scenes, bad hitboxes, invisible walls etc), bad controls,
games made just good enough you won't know it is not till you've spent the money and put hours into it... etc,
TLDR: here's my 2 cents rant on immersion breaking names.

Enemies that can only be defeated through cheese or optimized strategies... in an RPG.[/b]  Okay devs, when I play an RPG it is to be immersed in the role I am playing, not to ram my head against enemies built in such a way that you have to abuse game mechanics or use one singular "best" strategy to beat... snip...  What I should not be doing is searching online to find out how to actually bring an enemy down, and find an entire community of players who have the same issue I do with a given enemy.  This is bad design, the meta should never overtake the gameplay.

Yes.
Immersion breaking; it is all over the place.
In multiplayer games, people naming themselves without regard for immersion is rampant,
and is the pet peeve which is a bigger deal to me than you might think.
I wish more devs would make a name filter of some kind, and/or some other way(s) to avoid this form of immersion-rape.

Example of a naming policy in the spirit of anti-immersion-breaking... for the most part, is in spoiler below.
Minor changes made by me for emphasis on the immersion-related bits; see original text at the quote link.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The following types of names are considered unacceptable:
-Vile, profane, rude, or racist names including common swear words, anatomical references, racial slurs, and homonyms of these words.
-Combinations of words that produce an offensive result (e.g. Hugeazz, Tug Mcgroin).
-Names of religious, occult, or significant historic origin (e.g. Jesus, Allah, Satan, Stalin).
-Copyrighted or trademarked names of products, characters, services, or concepts (e.g. Bigmac, Marlboro, Sony).
-Names from popular media. These names can be either fictional (e.g. Rambo, Darthvader) or non-fictional (e.g. Garth Brooks, Pierce Brosnan, George Washington, Michael Jordan).
-Fantasy-oriented names which are easily recognized from popular existing media (e.g. Merlin, Gandalf, Drizzt).
-Common >>>words and phrases that would not be found in the time, place and setting<<< of EverQuest (e.g. Switchblade, Phaser, Toaster, Cannabis).
-Proper names from EverQuest (e.g. Rathe, Karana). This also includes the first or last name of any significant EverQuest NPC (e.g. Dorn, Trumpy, Karn).
-The names of senior Customer Support Representatives or developers of Project 1999 (e.g. Nilbog, Rogean, Uthgaard). game officials.
-Names chosen with the intent or possessed with the effect of harming the reputation of a player or Customer Service Representative game official(s).
-Forenames containing titles within them, such as, but not limited to: The, Lord, Lady, Master, King, Knight, Sir, Father (e.g. Sirtallon, Lordeagle, Mothermaggy, Darksister).
-Names that contain sentences (Ikillorcs), phrases (Ontop), or two or more words that do not form descriptive compound words (Petcarbob, Diediedie and Tablechair).

-Names where the combination of the first and last name forms a phrase or violate a previous rule (e.g. Crymea River, Bran Muffin, Story Thyme).
-For all of the above, misspellings and alternative spellings (such as spelling it backwards) of the word or words are also unacceptable.
-For all of the above, any foreign non-English variations are also unacceptable. If a player petitions a name he or she feels is offensive in a foreign language, all rules set forth shall be applied.

+Descriptive compound words are allowed in first names and are encouraged in surnames (e.g. Treehugger, Giantslayer).
Descriptive compound words (each separate part of the word and the entire word) must otherwise adhere to all other naming rules.
-Above all else, you may not choose character or guild name which, in the sole and absolute discretion of the Project 1999 Customer Service Staff, deems to be offensive or improper.

I searched the forums, but didn't see mention of this great,
free, server/community incarnation of the best time period in Everquest's history.

Anyone else play on p99 blue? Yes there's also a red (PvP) server, though the population is usually more like 200 average versus the 900 of the blue server.

Give it a Google and come join the thousand or so people who are playing it all day every day.

Totally free, Everquest up to mid-Velious release now I guess... (no hybrid class exp penalty now!).
It's better than you remember since the community is generally more mature/homogeneous,
and the internets has lots of good info that's easily accessible (http://wiki.project1999.com/Main_Page for one) for those who like to do their reading, or have maps.
The server population is generally super nice and helpful, willing to answer all questions and give lot of free starter gear or good deals for new people.

On a personal note; I beg you to read the naming policy before naming things... I think a good 10-30% of players don't even know there is a naming policy 
http://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17488
the policy is designed to avoid immersion breaking, and it's, sadly, not really enforced due to time/manpower issues I guess,
 but it's still important to those of us who are trying to play the "R" part of the 'MMORPG'.

This is all just player preference and/or personal play style but....

Another thread you might want to check out http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=155856.0

As people said, cage traps are good. Yeah, leave a 3x1 path through your traps/walls for caravan to get to depo.
I put my depo inside but in the entryway/airlock.

As far as things to bring to jumpstart your fort... I wrote a bunch about that and linked a bunch on page 2 of the thread above.
TLDR: the page below is useful
http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Starting_build

Someone should do this testing in .42.x

QFT
Very interesting about picks being the native lightsaber though... I wonder if they are still?

It doesn't really make sense if so, since i doubt, in reality, a tapering-pointed pick tool would really be that great,
(over an actual stabby or choppy weapon designed as a weapon; axe, spear hello i'm thinking about you and your weight/balance).
I've done my fair share of construction digging (6 + years, part time as a carpenter's assistant); using a pick-axe, various shovels, and picks,
I could surely do some damage with these things,
 but I can't help thinking something designed as a weapon would be better for combat against an opponent that might hit me back.

Here's my response to a similar question on dealing with werebeasts back in 40.19:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=147848.msg5981674#msg5981674

Other posts related to starting info:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=146662.msg5887031#msg5887031
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=146662.msg5887181#msg5887181

So, now for the huge infodump to the face bit of general advice (things I like to do in my games) from one new person to another,
which I hope is all still relevant and accurate 
+You're starting in heavily wooded/forest area is also what I usually do.

+Starting setup can be used to get yourself a bit of a head start, time-wise or material-wise, depending on which you aim for.
Some examples include:
++ http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Starting_build#Industry
Bring bituminous coal, or lignite, and maybe 1 unit of coke.
Bring some amount of metal ore, based on what types of metal/objects your "starting seven" prefer.

++Consider giving at least one starting dwarf (level 1-3) in a set of military skills.
http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Combat_skill
In rough order of importance greatest first:
One weapon skill, dodge,, fighter, shield user, armor user, misc. object user (used for fighting with non-weapon objects; this includes shields)
Maybe pick the one that likes teaching/social stuff and/or happens to like a specific weapon type in his personality.
Ability to handle some stress is a plus but not totally needed if he/she is going to be mostly be early emergency defense and a trainer.

++I personally like to look for a dwarf or 3 in my starting 7 who have preferences/attributes that lend themselves towards filling jobs related to metal use.

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Starting_build This whole page is good but as related to metal;
if you search that whole webpage (in Windows on Chrome CTRL+F) for the word "metal"
then as you read the whole page, the highlighted instances of "metal" are helpful I find in sifting through all the info.
http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Starting_build#Breadth_vs._Depth
http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Starting_build#Training_considerations
http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Starting_build#Which_dwarf_should_have_which_skill.3F
http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Starting_build#Industry
Aside from the links above, there's these bits as well:
Keeping in mind what it says about making your own stuff in this section:
http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Starting_build#Finished_product_or_do_it_yourself
Time is key.

+Building things using [stone] blocks is usually best/fastest.
Some people prefer to go for a mechanic[shop] for mechanism/traps, some for military fighters/training/equipping,
but Good mason & good Carpenter are super useful early on no matter what.

I'd rather have ONE version of the game I can play rather than many I can contemplate.

I personally agree; I have been sort of waiting for the 'just right' version since about 40.19
but I understand, and accept the way things are being done the way they are now.

Minimal immersion breaking issue(s) is what I ask for in most of my games[, though I know it's a tall order really].

That said, I think I'm going to start my first fort [since 40.19] in this version or the next

How big of a deal is the rumored "dwarfs get stuck in trees" problem,
and the "[INSERT_CREATURE] is distracted without any reasonable way to fix said issue" problem
?

I basically want to know if I should try playing this version, or wait a bit so as to minimize frustration