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Messages - Zombie

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16
General Discussion / Re: Things that made you sad today thread.
« on: May 28, 2010, 01:22:59 am »
Quote from: Vector on May 27, 2010, 10:25:19 pm
Oh, and they may decide to move up to Berkeley to save funds :D  So I'd be living with them for the next two and a half years.  By the way, before anyone says "Oh man, you should go to (some other thing), like moving in with your friends"--well, it turns out that that's not an option.  Rosewood's being an emotionless bastard and Thyme's mother dislikes me... and there's no one else.

Wait! Come back!

Move to Chicago and pay rent with my GF and I. We're getting poor cuz my job is a bastard and we need a roomie for this big empty room we'll have when our roomie moves out June 30th. As long as you don't mind lesbians and realize that food we buy isn't for anyone to eat and clean up after yourself and take less than a month to do your dishes and your room doesn't smell of musty manstink and you actually contribute funds to household needs like drain cleaner and toilet paper, then we're all good!

Maybe I should rant about my roomie.

17
General Discussion / Re: Being "Reported"
« on: May 27, 2010, 03:17:39 pm »
Quote from: sonerohi on May 23, 2010, 09:08:00 am
No longer shall ye Britains keep we Irish folk down! Ahoy me laddies, Irish revolution! Grab yer shillelagh  and beat the oppressors!

That might result in some indecent exposure charges.

18
DF Suggestions / Re: Improved Farming
« on: May 19, 2010, 11:30:37 pm »
Quote from: Silverionmox on May 19, 2010, 03:18:38 pm
Burrows: permanent orders coupled to (larger) spaces (eg. executing jobs there, having access to resources there, "keep this area safe", "keep this area clean",... etc.)
Rooms: functional spaces (eg. private rooms, dormitories, hospitals, workshops, dining rooms, prisons, stockpiles,...)
Designations: issue single, one-time orders to items, possibly more at a time or in a larger space
(and Notes for point-based commands, for the sake of completeness)

You seem to ignore that the very purpose of a burrow is to control where your dwarves go, not what they do. It's tedious to have to make several different farm burrows and then set your legendary farmers to one or a few and set the rest to the rest. Much easier to make two burrows. One for legendaries and one for the rest and define them around the work areas (designations).

I do agree with the three categories, though, even if I completely disagree with the definitions for burrows and designations. The point of burrows, as I keep saying, is to let the player define where they want dwarves to go. If you want to keep the rabble out of the treasury, you make it out of their burrow. This has nothing to do with orders whatsoever. Changing the function of burrows will put this main, highly useful function in jeopardy and I don't see the merit when we can just leave a "burrow" as meaning what it means. Follow me down this post and let's see where we get to, though, as I don't think I've given enough exposition on my stance.

Quote from: Atanamis on May 19, 2010, 03:50:19 pm
I'd actually like to see all three pulled into one interface, so that you select an area and define it as a room, a burrow, or another designated space. Figuring out all the different ways to select a space at present is just silly. Of course, a room should be able to be designated from any single point to fill the enclosed area, and warn about any missing requirements to function as designated.

YES. YES YES YES. Thank you for bringing this up. When I read this, I searched my posts to see if I already said this as I thought I did! I didn't! I'm obviously a very silly person when I drink a lot of coffee.

This, I think, is (or should be) the ultimate goal with these three systems. We should have an interface like the burrow interface that we can use to set, resize, or move all of these things. Then, depending on what we set (Burrow, work order (AKA designation), room, or zone) we can go in and modify the settings. Rooms should have a building-view (q, I believe) display that lets you see what furniture they use and how much of it is in that area. They should also allow you to assign dwarves for that area to "belong" to and tell you the furniture requests/requirements based on population. Zones and work orders usually would have no settings, except for a Farm work order, or something similar, (or room, if you think it belongs there) which would allow you to q it to set crops, rotations, how often it should be tilled and fertilized, etc, etc. Burrows would still function as they normally do.

Keep in mind I support the spirit of that original idea. Re-sizable farms that the dwarves then till, muddy, plant, water, etc automatically based on labors would be wonderful. I just don't think sticking it in "burrows" would be doing either feature a good turn. Burrows are fine. They perform their task admirably and many other features can benefit from the interface they use. The solution is to make a common interface for these things, then. Not merge things all crazy-style into one gigantoblob where you press a button and suddenly you're deciding if you want to make a farm, a burrow, or a sandwich, all of which are different enough things to add to confusion. A common interface is good, but farms don't need to be an option in the burrow settings. They need to be their own separate entity away from burrows and, I think, rooms.

19
DF Suggestions / Re: Improved Farming
« on: May 19, 2010, 01:15:18 pm »
It is pointless, to me, to argue that a burrow is better because it can be resized. You are still adding needless functions to complicate something that does not need complicating. Burrows are meant to organize your workforce, not assign tasks. Toady could implement designations that you can (r)esize. All a designation is is an order. A farm designation would be a standing order, meaning "do this and do it again and again until I say otherwise or the fortress floods with magma because I hate you all." It would be a logical thing to add resizing and moving commands to it.

If designations can be expanded to handle rooms (like hospital zones being redefined as a designation) then I don't see the problem with revamping the entire designation menu somewhat. I already think the good ol' d menu could use categories and a (r)oom category could easily expand into a burrow-esque menu with various choices for room functions. A (d)ig category could easily hold the ramping, channeling (such as it is now), and mining functions.

The point here is that while similar functions are a big, huge bonus and standing orders (like designated "cut trees here" areas that you could move or resize on the fly) are similarly awesome, we do not need to complicate an existing function that is, mainly, intended to make your dwarves keep their hands out of that proverbial cookie jar. Instead, we could revamp an existing function to implement the really damn good ideas already presented in the burrow system, mainly having very flexible areas that we want something to happen in.

Again:
Burrows = Districts. Where dwarves do stuff.
Designations = Work Areas. What dwarves do there.
Zones = Materials Access. What dwarves should use.

I think with this very basic idea in place, the functions can each retain some sense of "This does this very well" without having to be cluttered with various other options that makes it that much more confusing for newbies. This isn't just something for us; it is also for new players. The interface needs to be more accessible and less confusing.

20
DF Suggestions / Re: Improved Farming
« on: May 18, 2010, 10:29:09 pm »
Quote from: Draco18s on May 18, 2010, 06:39:41 pm
Quote from: Zombie on May 18, 2010, 04:35:41 pm
The only difference is that instead of (b)uilding a farm, you designate it as a burrow and then all of your farmers can never leave that area because that's how burrows work.

This statement is flawed because you don't need to (or should not need to) assign your farmers to the "Farm" burrow.

That statement is flawed because that undermines the point and purpose of a burrow. Toady has stated that he thought burrows to be ill-named, but the name will do for now. The idea behind burrows was to allow you to constrain you dwarves to a select area so they could not path outside of it. If you do not assign dwarves to a burrow, it is useless. If you are talking about an area you don't need to assign dwarves to, but they work... That would be a (d)esignation.

We do not need to make burrows more confusing than they already might be. They have a specific function, so leave them be to perform that very specific function. The designation system is designed to assign work that needs to be done, so (d)esignating farms will work exceedingly well and can function just like the proposed "burrow" farms, while being less obfuscated for new players to understand. You would (d)esignate a (f)arm plot of however large you wanted it to be, then just tell your dwarves what to plant there and they take care of the rest. Dwarves with the appropriate labour would be assigned jobs to till soil (or muddy the ground and then till the mud) and then plant the requisite plants based on the individual needs of said plant.

While I applaud the thought and spirit behind the "burrow" farm idea, I disagree wholeheartedly with the choice of game mechanic theorized upon. We don't need burrows to do more things. They already have trouble doing what Toady intended as it is. We need a specialized designation to say, "This is a farm. I will tell you what to plant and you will do your damn job if you want alcohol."

21
DF Suggestions / Re: Improved Farming
« on: May 18, 2010, 04:35:41 pm »
The burrow approach would not make it any less confusing. In fact, it raises even more questions. Right now farms function in a way that designates a plot to be tilled and upkept. How is that any different than the proposed burrow idea? The only difference is that instead of (b)uilding a farm, you designate it as a burrow and then all of your farmers can never leave that area because that's how burrows work.

Changing the farms to a burrow designation does absolutely nothing and changes absolutely nothing. Farms still need to be designated, still need to be tilled, and still need to be upkept. It would be far more simple to move farms into the (d)esignate menu and leave the options the way they are for the (b)uilding. Then require re-tilling every season. Bingo, farming is now more set-it-and-forget-it without having to fiddle around with burrows and assigning dwarves to them. Also, a further reason to not see any merit in the burrow idea is that this would invalidate setting farming labors. Setting the labors on your dwarves makes them do farm work. Why would I want to not only need them set to do farm work, but then also assign them to a burrow?

With a farm (d)esignation, you can assign a lever to be the "irrigation switch" so your dwarves can irrigate en-masse or you can simply leave them to muddy the fields by hand with buckets and water from wherever you have them getting water from. Furthermore, a designation would convey all of the fun balancing we want. We could implement growing areas for certain plants as well as water requirements (as dwarves would moisten the plants if required) and mud requirements. In farming designated areas, mud would never be cleaned up and any tile within that area would be considered fair game for planting.

Burrows are designed to give your dwarves areas they are and aren't allowed to go in in an attempt to streamline your workforce and eliminate them going to a meeting place a zillion tiles away. They are not designed to replace (d)esignations. Personally, I think most rooms (bedrooms, offices, barracks, dining, hospital) should be set via the (d)esignation menu. You then can look at them and see what furniture they require, how many pieces of that furniture are in the area, and which dwarf or dwarves the area is assigned to. Ideally this would let you make one big bedroom (bunkhouse) for your military dwarves. You could assign all of them (lets say 6. I like 6.) to the room and, if you hadn't furnished it yet, the display would let you know you have 0 of 6 required beds for the dwarves assigned and, if they request furnishings, 0 of 6 chests and 0 of 6 cabinets for the dwarves assigned.

The way I look at the system is that Burrows make sense like Dwarven Districts. You've got mining, industrial, commercial, agricultural, residential... Yadda yadda. Ideally we should be able to restrict dwarves from accessing certain districts while allowing them into others. Like if you separate your noble housing from your commoner housing, for instance.

Designations (or areas) means that "Stuff to do <x> goes here" where <x> is the designation. You're saying that this space is designated for this sort of verb. Eating, sleeping, farming, suturing wounds, drowning nobles. Whatever. Bedrooms, farms, and even workshops could fall into here. You could (d)esignate a "Forge" area and then place a smelter, wood burner, and metalsmith in it. Ideally you could, then, select the designated area and say, "Make me a pretty golden hat" and your wood burner would make charcoal for your smelter to smelt some gold ore and for your metalsmith to make you that pretty golden hat. If you wanted it encrusted, you could add a jeweler to the area and say, "Make me a pretty golden hat with lots of sparklies in it" and it would do that.

Zones mean that "This stuff is here. Use this stuff instead of stuff that isn't in this place." Like a pool/pond/cistern is a "drinking zone" or, as I call it, a "water zone". This means that water is here and tells your dwarves that you prefer them to get water from there over, say, the lake infested with skeletal fishmen. This can be used for sand, water, or even things you might do regularly like chopping wood or gathering plants.

Ideally, farming would be a designated area that would mean whatever you want it to. Lets say you designate an aboveground area for farming and it has boulders, trees, and shrubs in it. It should automatically designate those boulders for smoothing, the shrubs for gathering, and the trees for shopping. Then it should tell the dwarves to till the entire area if it's soil or muddy it if it isn't. I think, later on, it could be a good idea to allow dwarves to make gravel out of stone (so they are gravel floors) and then grind it with a millstone to make fine gravel, then mix it with mud to make soil that they can then use to cover stone tiles.

I think farming may require a different type of ground cover, anyway. Possibly differentiate between mud and soil. I think fungus (like plump helmets) should require one log to be muddied for them to grow on, as well. But one log would go a loooong way as many fungi can grow per log.

I'm going to drink more coffee now. I had two cups already. Workin on a third! Whoo!

22
DF Bug Reports / Re: [0.31.01] Military forces are just to weak
« on: May 17, 2010, 02:56:58 pm »
We could have brass knuckles and the like for "unarmed" d0rfs.

Punch that breaks the jaws of 10,000 carp!

23
General Discussion / Re: Being "Reported"
« on: May 15, 2010, 10:05:20 pm »
Quote from: zchris13 on May 15, 2010, 07:35:05 pm
EVE sounds like it needs bigger, better ships for mining.

There are. Some of the bigger ships, though, can't use gates so they can only operate in low or null sec and require at least one other ship to go anywhere. They are also giant sitting ducks when you aren't online.

24
General Discussion / Re: No joke, this is the worst thing I have ever seen.
« on: May 15, 2010, 10:02:53 pm »
Quote from: Bandages on May 15, 2010, 01:57:14 am
Semantics, indeed. I'm far too tired to reply in any sort of argumenative way, mainly because I think your points are valid and I would have to try to hard to play devil's advocate.

Good show, Zombie.

For the record, I agree with all your points, but enjoy arguing against convention for the sake of learning more about my own psychology through other people explaining theirs.

I think that is one of the few ways you can reliably learn about yourself. Always question why you have a problem with something.

As far as paedophilia goes, it's simply an attraction (sexual) to "children". Obviously, a grandma can perceive a 20 year old as a child and, thus, be a paedophile... This doesn't necessarily imply that the person goes out and has sex with this children, though. Paedophilia is both used to describe an attraction to children as well as molesting or engaging in sexual intercourse with children. I, personally, think this is a problem as some people are sexually turned on by cuteness. If you think a child is cute, then you may find yourself attracted to them for that reason. The problem with older individuals engaging in sexual intercourse with children (assuming that these "children" in question are sexually mature enough to not induce any biological problems with this) is that there is a skew of the power dynamic. It becomes very hard to tell if there is proper consent or forced consent. This can result in the development of psychological disorders as, if the age gap is significant enough, the younger party may come to see the older party as a parental figure. Intercourse with a parental figure is, generally speaking, not psychologically healthy nor biologically healthy as impregnation may result in dangerous mutations if they actually are your biological parent.

Socially speaking, the power dynamic and religion are the main reasons that there is an age limit to sex. Yes, it is arbitrary, but you will realize that it is often tied to the average minimum time people spend in schools. The general idea is that once you are out of high school, you should be equipped to have sex responsibly. Responsibly, in this case, pertains to what religious groups that permeate our culture want it to pertain to. It's a very sticky subject as most people look at it with a highly biased moral eye instead of a critical, logical eye. It really doesn't harm the developmental process to learn about anatomy as early as possible and to learn about sex as soon as you become interested in it. In fact, not being educated makes it more of a mysterious taboo that kids just want to explore as soon as possible.

In an odd, ironic way all of this control over sex is backfiring to make a more sexual society than ever. Maybe we'll go back to the times of the ancient Greeks... We'll all have orgies where we eat ourselves fat, drink ourselves stupid, and screw till we can't stand anymore. Wait a minute... People already do those anyway! Just not all at once! ;P Sometimes I worry about societies that prize morals over what actually works. Morals over truth... Always a sticky topic.

25
General Discussion / Re: No joke, this is the worst thing I have ever seen.
« on: May 15, 2010, 01:49:56 am »
Quote from: Bandages on May 15, 2010, 01:32:07 am
Quote from: Zombie on May 15, 2010, 12:31:43 am
Quote from: Bandages on May 14, 2010, 11:51:32 pm
If understanding sex isn't wrong, though. Then why is children understanding sex (I'm still not convinced that dancing like that teaches them sex) is wrong

I have already explained why in two separate posts. I'm sorry, but I don't want to keep repeating the same thing over and over. Go and read them.

Well, reading your most recent one, I conceded on point 1, yes the dance is overtly sexual, although I'm not sure the girls are aware of that, but hey that's not the argument (yet). Point 2 just kinda said "children learn about sex and then they aren't ready for it". I guess I just don't understand what exactly consitutes being ready. I remember knowing what sex was in 4th grade, yet I and everyone else I talked to about it knew they weren't ready until high school (middle school for some). I don't think knowing leads to doing. And I don't think doing is a problem in general, just in specific cases. I also find paedophelia incredibly wrong and disgusting, just so my words aren't misinterpreted.

The idea here is that knowing does not necessarily equal understanding. You can know what something is does, but not understand why it does it. You know your remote changes the channel on your television. Do you understand that, however? This means you have a basic working knowledge of how things go instead of just a "Yeah, that's for this" kind of knowledge. I have no problem with anatomy classes being taught to kids as soon as they can name the major parts of their body. I think we can battle paedophilia and other weirdness with simple teaching what things are for and why it might be bad that Mister Candyman wants to touch your ding-dong. My problem is that children having an "understanding" of sex means that they have something more than a cursory knowledge of "penis + vagina = sperm in uterus = possible baby". It seems to me that it implies that they have had some experience with sex to understand what it's about. This is just me, however, disputing semantics.

26
General Discussion / Re: Being "Reported"
« on: May 15, 2010, 01:34:00 am »
No, no... I think it was just a posting of pedobear. In the context it was pretty unnecessary, though. It could have easily been construed as a completely pointless post potentially ending up being somehow inflammatory.

27
General Discussion / Re: No joke, this is the worst thing I have ever seen.
« on: May 15, 2010, 12:31:43 am »
Quote from: Bandages on May 14, 2010, 11:51:32 pm
If understanding sex isn't wrong, though. Then why is children understanding sex (I'm still not convinced that dancing like that teaches them sex) is wrong

I have already explained why in two separate posts. I'm sorry, but I don't want to keep repeating the same thing over and over. Go and read them.

28
General Discussion / Re: No joke, this is the worst thing I have ever seen.
« on: May 14, 2010, 11:29:28 pm »
Quote from: Bandages on May 14, 2010, 08:07:31 pm
We should try and stay on topic, even in the light of the recent warnings/bannings.

I'm still interested in knowing why people feel:
  • we are sexualizing children by having them dance
  • sexualizing children is wrong
  • that a person who understand sex is a worse person than one who doesn't

I believe I have already covered 1 and 2, while 3 is moot to the discussion in this thread. No one has said that people who understand sex are "worse" but there is a time when you should understand it versus a time when you should not. If you don't have a television, you don't buy cable. If your sex drive isn't active yet, you don't have sex. You can know that cable requires television, but you don't know all its ins and outs until you have experienced it. It's the same basic concept.

Here's a short recap if you don't feel like reading the two lengthy posts I have made already:

1) We are not sexualizing children by having them dance. This is an oversimplification. The joining of the clothes, the specific dance moves, and the subject matter of the song is what makes it sexual. Children dancing is not inherently sexual, however. Just like being naked is not inherently sexual, but if you're posing in an alluring way it is. It's a similar idea. Dancing has been used not only for entertainment and cultural purposes, but also for sexual and erotic purposes. Denying that is just silly.

2) "Children should not be sexualized by people who are out of their age range", I suppose would be the safest, most scientific way to put this. To put it in an example, it is okay for a 10 year old to look at another 10 year old and say, "I'd like to kiss her!" while it is not okay for a 20 year old to look at a 10 year old and say, "I'd like to kiss her!" Children, by nature, are sexually undeveloped. It is not that we shouldn't teach them anatomy and why things are the way they are, it's more that they simply aren't there yet. When a boy (or girl, in my case) starts thinking how he (or she) likes breasts, that is the point where a child becomes a sexual being. These girls, presumably as they are seven, are just not there yet. The problem isn't, also, that children are being made sexual, it is that children are being presented in such a way that it is immensely easy to perceive them as sexual. This leads to social ramifications, like them being called whores. When people view them in a way that is different to they way they view themselves, they might then go, "Why is it like this? Maybe it's because I am." without realizing fully what that means.

29
General Discussion / Re: Being "Reported"
« on: May 14, 2010, 11:15:03 pm »
Quote from: Pathos on May 14, 2010, 10:13:15 pm
Quote from: Zombie on May 14, 2010, 03:01:17 pm
See, this is why you don't make a thread topic with a word that has quotations around it.

Zombie wishes for all our thread titles to be nothing except punctuation marks and numbers.

Exactly! There is absolutely nothing confusing about the thread title .!42..?/\. Nothing at all.

30
General Discussion / Re: No joke, this is the worst thing I have ever seen.
« on: May 14, 2010, 07:46:03 pm »
Quote from: CJ1145 on May 14, 2010, 07:42:11 pm
He can't hear you Zombie. He's dead banned.

Does that mean he can't even see the thread? I assumed that "banned" meant your IP couldn't register, post, or anything being a member gets you. Of course, I may just be crazy. Either way, he brought up good rebuttals that my post hopes to alleviate. :) It contributes!

In response to the "thanks for being civil" stuff... I don't see the point of not being civil. :x All it does it get you muted/banned or in some sort of crazy flamewar. Flamewars are never fun, unless they're with real flamethrowers. :)

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