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[whatever1works]

Long time lurker..
I've been playing Dwarf Fortress for probs 2 years, checking the forumns for useful guides and such. However,
Today it had just occured to me what 'Bay Watcher' means on the little descriptor thing on the side of the profile side.
...
Bay Watcher, as in a watcher of Bay12...      

Took me long enough.

What I'd always thought it meant:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I'd also thought that it meant something about the TV show Bay Watch... you know the one with pamela anderson... as if to kinda imply that all the people on the forumn are hot life savers?

Or that the 'escaped lunatic' tag had some deeper story/meaning behind it, like pehaps the 'lunatic' is an escapee of a metaphorical Alkatraz who is swimming towards the the shoreline (the forumns?) in the hope that they may be spotted (or reported) by a Bay Watcher, a coastguard. Perhaps, in this way I had imagined that this is supposed to ennact some kind of obligation on the DF regulars to help noobs

In either case, i had kinda assumed that pehaps there was a deeper metaphor, when it was just sooo simple   
What is life?

Anyway, a related question, why are is Bay12 called Bay12? Truely, what is the significance of this name? Why 12? Why Bay?

[Putnam]

Bay 12 is an alien reference IIRC. Starcraft 2 had the same reference, though there was also a stout, bearded mechanical genius in the room, so I guess that's a double reference.

Also, pretty sure Bay Watcher is a pun on Bay Watch anyway.

[whatever1works]

I didn't know that... it seems an awfully obscure thing to reference, i mean DF and Starcraft are like chalk and cheese. Aside from the mechanic you mentioned, i kinda feel that there could be SO many different things to reference dwarves to, like Snow White and 7 Dwarves, and really any stuff related to beer, gold, gems, alcohol, magma, LoTR, industry, metalworking, etc. Like what does Bay Watch have to do with DF?

Dwarves can't even swim if you dont train them...

[smakemupagus]

>> Bay 12 is an alien reference IIRC.

Yeah, it's the name of the loading bay where Ripley drives the SCV forklift thing.

[Donuts]

Yeah, it's the name of the loading bay where Ripley drives the SCV forklift thing.

I really, REALLY want an SCV forklift thing now.

[Putnam]

I didn't know that... it seems an awfully obscure thing to reference, i mean DF and Starcraft are like chalk and cheese. Aside from the mechanic you mentioned, i kinda feel that there could be SO many different things to reference dwarves to, like Snow White and 7 Dwarves, and really any stuff related to beer, gold, gems, alcohol, magma, LoTR, industry, metalworking, etc. Like what does Bay Watch have to do with DF?

Dwarves can't even swim if you dont train them...

They've been Bay 12 Games since before Dwarf Fortress.

[Orange Wizard]

They've been Bay 12 Games since before the original Armok, as far as I know.

[Putnam]

When I was growing up in California we had this artificial pond we put in our backyard and the toads found it and colonised it, that's how I got my name ... Zach and I used to make little BASIC programs and we would call them 'Toady One the Great Productions' because that's what we named the pond ... We wrote it in the concrete with our fingers, 'A Toady One the Great Production', in this pond where we were expecting some toads to show up, but not in the hundreds - they did show up in the hundreds though, the pond was always filled with tadpoles - but we always called the early BASIC games, this was before we called them Bay12 games, we just called them 'Toady One the Great Productions'. When I started up the webpage in 2000 Zach and I were like 'Well, you might as well call yourself Toady One' and he had a guinea pig so he called himself Three Toe, and we were happy with that, so ... But toads, always toads, yeah.

[miauw62]

I didn't know that... it seems an awfully obscure thing to reference, i mean DF and Starcraft are like chalk and cheese. Aside from the mechanic you mentioned, i kinda feel that there could be SO many different things to reference dwarves to, like Snow White and 7 Dwarves, and really any stuff related to beer, gold, gems, alcohol, magma, LoTR, industry, metalworking, etc. Like what does Bay Watch have to do with DF?

Dwarves can't even swim if you dont train them...

Dwarves aren't really a reference, much like beds aren't a reference.

[Sizik]

WoW also has a few DF references, so it's not like Blizzard hasn't heard of the game.

[Proudnerd]

Yeah, it's the name of the loading bay where Ripley drives the SCV forklift thing.

I really, REALLY want an SCV forklift thing now.

I heard SCV good to go sir in my head as soon as i read that post.


orders received

[smakemupagus]

Ah, found a clip of the reference in Aliens.

"Where d'ya want it?"
"Bay 12. Please."

https://vimeo.com/101745089  @ about 1:00

[Donuts]

Yeah, it's the name of the loading bay where Ripley drives the SCV forklift thing.

I really, REALLY want an SCV forklift thing now.

I heard SCV good to go sir in my head as soon as i read that post.


orders received

Run out of marines, didya?