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[Salmeuk]

I should start with the link: http://mkv25.net/dfma/

The Dwarf Fortress Map Archive has been around forever, and is run by this guy named Markavian. This site makes your DF experience that much better, for lots of reasons! You can draw inspiration from any number of creative concepts. You can receive feedback and praise for your own attempts at awesomeness. You can tell a story of the rise and fall of your favorite embark through points of interest. As the years add up, you can quickly browse to your first few fortresses and laugh at your noobish designs. There's movies, too.

The map archive has, in it's lengthy existence, recorded some pretty amazing fortresses. I am still astounded by the patience and attention to detail exhibited in these embarks. This list is just some of my favorites and is not meant to be exhaustive.

Old, 2-D megafortresses:
http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-309-copperblazes
http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-1280-vabokmeborbinchesfinal
http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-824-inkflew
http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-6836-boatmurdered

Fantastical surface constructions:
http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-7878-silverwaters
http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-5642-roofdwelling
http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-6018-filledtattoo
http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-8328-bladeshoots
http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-9086-frozenhalls

Ridiculous megaprojects:
http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-6201-armok
http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-4599-metalgate

Organic designs:
http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-4896-walledwar
http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-8232-undergrotto

Ships of all kinds:
http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-2913-goldparch
http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-8377-bloodfist

Absurd mechanical devices:
http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-8269-razorlength

Huge, sprawling fortresses with hundreds of little details:
http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-3459-reinhammers
http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-7268-flarechannel
http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-7749-mafolzasitchamberknife
http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-6016-fenceskull

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"I already know all this," you exclaim, "so why are you telling me again?"

I've noticed over the past few years a decline in the number of posters and comments. I have no statistics to back up this claim, so datahounds and/or Markavian feel free to prove me wrong. The website has never been all that popular, but even for a DF-centric resource (meaning the smallest of the small communities) it seems kinda stagnant. When people play succession forts and finish their turn, you would think the first thing would be to upload to the archive, but it's surprisingly hit-and-miss.

So part of this thread is a selfish attempt at seeing what you guys are making, and part of it is trying to grow the number of regular commenters and uploaders, and a third part is to introduce the site to all these new players.

If you happen to dislike posting to DFMA, perhaps we can get some discussion going about that.

If nothing else, chime in with your own profile and your favorite maps/movies.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I know I can't force you to do anything you don't want to do, but I want you to want to do it. Ideally, you would also begin to want others to want to visit the DFMA, and in turn see them want to want others to want others to visit. . . When we accumulate enough wants between us, we can invest in the Want Market and make even more wants. With that many wants, I can embezzle from the company without anyone noticing and finally buy that house in Fiji we can make those positive changes in the world that we're always talking about. Like legislating for the required installation of DF in every public library, or offering grants for the research into and creation of bio-engineered plump helmets, or hiring the entire province of Rajasthan to build a real-life magma cannon. I'm just trying to make the world a better place.

[jecowa]

Looks interesting. I enjoy looking at others' base designs. I wish it had screen shots of them somewhere – maybe in no script tags.

It'd be cool to be able to sort maps by embark size so I don't unknowingly try to open a large 10x10 map or something.

You can receive feedback and praise for your own attempts at awesomeness. You can tell a story of the rise and fall of your favorite embark through points of interest. As the years add up, you can quickly browse to your first few fortresses and laugh at your noobish designs.

Are there many noob bases up there? Do they have their own category? It would be really informative to look at examples of nooby bases with comments explaining their flaws.

So part of this thread is a selfish attempt at seeing what you guys are making, and part of it is trying to grow the number of regular commenters and uploaders, and a third part is to introduce the site to all these new players.

Thanks for sharing it.

[burned]

I loved going there. Even though my oldest DFMA fortress makes me cringe, I wish I had known about it when I first discovered DF. It would be awesome to have my very first fortresses archived somewhere. Oh, well.

It looks like I didn't even bother with POIs in the last map I uploaded. Doh.

I stopped visiting the site a few years ago simply because I no longer have flashed installed.

[Untelligent]

I'll throw the link to my own giant-ass fort from years back in here


http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-8323-tunnelwound


I was messing around with the world generator and I figured out how to generate 100-level-tall mountains, so of course I had to carve a tower out of one. There weren't any major updates in 2009 except for the SDL updates so the fort was around 40 years old when I archived the final map (which was maybe a day or two before DF2010 was released).

[Vattic]

I only rarely uploaded things, but I do like to browse it. I'd browse more if it weren't for needing Flash. I think there was a non-Flash version of the viewer in the works years back.

[Max™]

It requires flash, I'm not putting that crap back on my system after banishing it at last, nothing against the site itself, I liked it the few times I used it before killing flash off.

[Fleeting Frames]

Finished my first time at succession fort; bit too tired and annoyed at crashes to make much POIs.

But this topic did convince me to upload The map of Deathgame.

[AranC23]

I guess I never thought of it as a way to archive my forts.  I think I have some old installs with an old fort or two.  I will upload my current and hopefully old forts too for posterity.  No matter how disciplined I intend to be at the outset they always end up a hot mess of poorly thought through well intention-ed half baked ideas.

[mirrizin]

So, if not DFMA (and I'm also a regular user, one of the few it seems) what else do you use to share your work?

I feel like it fills a useful niche, and it's always seemed underused. Is it really just that flash is so terrible?

[Fleeting Frames]

Other options are sharing via pictures or videos, possibly parsed by stonesense or armok vision first: Ex: Roofgriffon

Not sure what other options there are beyond being a regular user. Toady is just the One, and never seen ThreeToe post.

[mirrizin]

Other options are sharing via pictures or videos, possibly parsed by stonesense or armok vision first: Ex: Roofgriffon

Not sure what other options there are beyond being a regular user. Toady is just the One, and never seen ThreeToe post.

Maybe I should start a show and tell thread. I just don't know if anything I ever make is impressive to be given a thread.

And I've been following the latest game versions, so I'm still waiting for stonesense to catch up. Or do they work on the latest version?

[Fleeting Frames]

Not to my knowledge, but I've never used it :v

[mirrizin]

Priorities...

[Christes]

Oh, wow.  My first ever fort is still on there. 

It still looks very familiar to me.

[Johuotar]

My first fort that really got going.
I sort of forgot about this site existing, wish I had uploaded few of my other favorite forts when I still had the saves.