Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Urist McLaptop]

Is it possible to burn dwarf fortress onto a disc from another computer and then play it on your computer with disc.because I cant get it since my dad is afraid of getting viruses.

[Facekillz058]

You would still have to put it on the second computer from the disc, I think, but otherwise, I don't see why not.

[WaffleEggnog]

You could always use a stick, DF is like 10mb anyway, and I am 100% sure DF will work on a stick, and be much simpler then a disk.

[Argembarger]

You could always try to educate your father about viruses. How they work, how they spread, why they're written, etc., and prove to him that Dwarf Fortress is absolutely virus-free. Perhaps explain to him that infecting his donors with viruses would be slightly against Tarn Adams' best interes-

aw, whatever. Yeah, you could copy the files over from a disk.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Perhaps you could explain to your father that compact disks are just as susceptible to viruses as anything else? Or explain the concept of cookies and scripts and such, to make him too terrified to even touch a computer ever again?

[Robosaur]

Do both.

[Rtyh-C]

Sure you can put Dwarf Fortress on a CD, but can you play it from a CD? After all, DF needs to create the saves, and CDs are read only.

[hermes]

Play on a CD?  Not without fiddly redirections to a writable storage are I'd image.  Even playing from a memory stick can be awkward; you need one with a high-speed data transfer, and probably a small DF world, because it can take ages to load and save games otherwise.

Best bet is to convince your dad that DF is safe.  It runs from a single directory so it doesn't install crap all over your computer, and a virus checker can easily scan the zip file and the folder.  Playing from a folder on the HD is much safer than playing from removable media IMO since if you plug a memory stick into other computers you're much more likely to pick up a virus and bring it home.

[Buttery_Mess]

I run dwarf fortress off my phone while its connected to the pc by USB cable. You're more likely to get a virus from browsing than from downloading. Technically they're the same thing.

[goblolo]

yep, df must have 'edit' access to df folder in order to save worlds and games. It won't work otherwise.
CD is not a random access memory unit and df cannot be played from it.

If your dad feels too bad about viruses, you can check all the df dlls and executables on online file checker (it is free on kaspersky website for example). Also you can try running virtual machine on your computer and play df from there. It will protect you from almost everything.

[Leatra]

CDs will not work since CDs are read only so it won't store your save files. You can use a stick but I think you should tell your father about viruses instead.

[Argembarger]

It's important to know that you don't play any game "from the CD", ever. All you do with the CD is install what's on it on your computer, and many (read: most) programs require you to have the CD in your computer before they will run as a form of rudimentary copy-protection (so you can't just install their program and then give the CD to a friend while still using it, for example)

[Damiac]

Eh, you can run games from a CD.  I remember way back there was some games like that, with no install.  But like people have said, you can't save back to a CD.

I know how it goes with computer illiterate fathers.  My father wouldn't let me ever make or use a boot disk, because one time he reformatted his hard drive accidentally with one.

You can transfer DF with any medium, stick, cd, whatever.  You'll just need to copy it onto that computer's hard drive.  You might be able to play it right from the USB stick if you use that though.

[i2amroy]

You might be able to play it right from the USB stick if you use that though.

As was pointed out earlier the problem with running DF on a USB drive is that it takes ages to load and save worlds, as well as slowing down the overall gameplay (since DF is constantly writing and reading from it's main folder).

I'm going to agree with the others in this thread that the best bet is to show your dad that it is safe. I mean DF only touches things within it's own folder and doesn't do anything else. You literally are more likely to pick up viruses by browsing the internet then you are playing DF. (Just make sure to not download DFHack, as some of the methods that it uses are similar enough to those used by some viruses that it can register as a "false positive", and from the sounds of it your dad might freak out about that).

[Damiac]

And on the subject of viruses, then can and will run off a CD and/or usb stick anyway...  It's not like you have to give them permission to infect your computer by running a "virus install" program or something...

[Argembarger]

Step 1: Get a blank CD
Step 2: Download Dwarf Fortress into some obscure, hard-to-find folder somewhere deep in your directory
Step 3: Get a permanent marker
Step 4: Write "Dwarf Fortress" on the CD
Step 5: Make sure that this CD is in your CD-ROM Drive while you play Dwarf Fortress normally.
Step 6: Happy dads