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Author Topic: Trading a fortress through dropbox  (Read 2079 times)

sharpie

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Trading a fortress through dropbox
« on: June 20, 2011, 11:52:14 am »

Hello all,

Long time lurker, new to posting.  I'm seeking someone or some two people who are interested in playing a vanilla dwarf fortress from a Dropbox share.  No rules except the following:

1. No tile or graphics sets.
2. No mods.  Pure vanilla.
3. No losing on purpose.
4. ???????
5. Profit.

I'm a pretty well seasoned player, seeking others without specificity.  Post with interest and why!
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AutomataKittay

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Re: Trading a fortress through dropbox
« Reply #1 on: June 20, 2011, 12:10:52 pm »

Might have better luck over in community/story forum, successions are when players takes turns playing the game.
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Lectorog

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Re: Trading a fortress through dropbox
« Reply #2 on: June 20, 2011, 01:45:58 pm »

Yeah, go ahead and move this over here.

This sounds nice and basic. I might be interested. Sounds like you're not going for a succession fort so much as 2-3 people taking (short?) turns playing.

Also, just looked up Dropbox. I can see where you're going with that. DFFD is usually used for succession, but Dropbox would work better for this.
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ignatzami

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Re: Trading a fortress through dropbox
« Reply #3 on: June 20, 2011, 02:19:36 pm »

Yeah, go ahead and move this over here.

This sounds nice and basic. I might be interested. Sounds like you're not going for a succession fort so much as 2-3 people taking (short?) turns playing.

Also, just looked up Dropbox. I can see where you're going with that. DFFD is usually used for succession, but Dropbox would work better for this.

The issue with Dropbox is that you MUST zip up the save before uploading it. I tried doing this, and was uploading the save folder without zipping it. I lost all my unit definition files, corrupted the save.

Step 1) Zip
Step 2) Upload
Step 3) Profit!
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Shook

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Re: Trading a fortress through dropbox
« Reply #4 on: June 20, 2011, 02:58:01 pm »

Actually, i've had great success playing DF directly from Dropbox. It allowed me to play on the same fort between two computers, with no apparent problems (other than the uploading after you save).
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sharpie

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Re: Trading a fortress through dropbox
« Reply #5 on: June 20, 2011, 03:15:49 pm »

You don't need to compress it with my idea.  I'm simply looking to share a directory on my Dropbox, that other users of Dropbox would sync from.  Then we could communicate when who was playing it through some form of collaborative method.
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nanomagnetic

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Re: Trading a fortress through dropbox
« Reply #6 on: June 20, 2011, 04:31:50 pm »

You don't need to compress it with my idea.  I'm simply looking to share a directory on my Dropbox, that other users of Dropbox would sync from.  Then we could communicate when who was playing it through some form of collaborative method.

You could have a lot of F/fun with that. Like certain players can only play on certain days, then they upload and post a quick update. For example, if you only had two players, one player would get the fort on odd days and the other player on even days.

With more players the rules would get more complicated, and you might need to enforce a day off to make sure people can do their write-ups...and people can catch up and read them :P
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Lectorog

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Re: Trading a fortress through dropbox
« Reply #7 on: June 20, 2011, 05:03:08 pm »

This could be an entirely new form of "succession" fort. I like this idea. It could fit time schedules a lot easier.

And by "collaborative method" I assume you mean a thread here. That would be easiest.

I'm officially putting my name down for this. Sounds great.

This should still be over in the Community/Succession area once it starts, though.
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loser

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Re: Trading a fortress through dropbox
« Reply #8 on: June 20, 2011, 05:09:58 pm »

I've used Dropbox to get a fort around, so let me tell you how this is going to go wrong.

One person will finish DF and shut their machine down when Dropbox has only updates some of the files.  The next person will start DF and even though things aren't working quite right, will close and save.  And then the fort will be broken.

This can be prevented with a couple of steps or care taken.  Just keep in mind that Dropbox does not synch instantaneously.
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Merkuri

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Re: Trading a fortress through dropbox
« Reply #9 on: June 20, 2011, 05:56:18 pm »

I have to say that this thing works very well for just one person moving between multiple machines.  I've been using DF in Dropbox for a while now to have the same game available on multiple machines.  Works great.
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sideflare

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Re: Trading a fortress through dropbox
« Reply #10 on: March 06, 2013, 12:04:35 pm »

To revive this thread, I have been using Dropbox to play the same fort between my desktop and laptop. I simply installed the entire game / Lazy Newb Pack right into the Dropbox. I am always careful to allow Dropbox time to upload and sync after saving, but weird things have started happening lately. Yesterday I transitioned between machines and noticed that all my nobles had been randomly reassigned! So now my farmer is my bookkeeper...it doesn't make any sense I would not have done that on purpose. I suspect something weird happened in Dropbox.

Don't know what the problem is. Just hoping somebody had a solution or a better way to play between two machines. Maybe I should use Dropbox ONLY for the save files, not the entire game?
« Last Edit: March 06, 2013, 12:06:11 pm by sideflare »
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joeclark77

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Re: Trading a fortress through dropbox
« Reply #11 on: March 06, 2013, 04:13:58 pm »

I use Microsoft SkyDrive.  From what I understand, DropBox is very similar.  SkyDrive creates an ordinary folder on your computer that automatically syncs to your cloud storage when online (but the data is also written to your hard drive, so it's not a "virtual" folder).  I was already using SkyDrive to sync work files between my desktop and laptop.  From skydrive.com, it's just a couple clicks to share the file with other players, and you don't have to wait for an additional upload because it automatically uploads when you're not thinking about it.
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Darkond2100

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Re: Trading a fortress through dropbox
« Reply #12 on: March 06, 2013, 10:33:41 pm »

I've been doing this consistently for the past 14 months. Dropbox rocks, and we run a huge library of over 900 fiction books, too. Never had any problem with DF saves corrupting, or even tiny things changing. Just make sure that the file has finished upload/synching before you send the other person the OK, and then they'll start once they've finished download/synching.
Used it a lot for programming class projects as well.
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sideflare

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Re: Trading a fortress through dropbox
« Reply #13 on: March 07, 2013, 05:20:16 pm »

Huh. Maybe it was just a random bug that caused my nobles to change, rather than anything related to Dropbox. I'll press on!
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