Hello to all meetup-goers! The meetup's in three weeks, and we have a few things to work out, so this post will be long.
The Dwarf Fortress 2009 Meetup will be at 6:00 PM, May 9.
Location and ParkingThe meetup is going to be at the Pike Place Brewery, a fine and reputable eating establishment open to all ages. It is located at the intersection of 1st avenue and Union street in downtown Seattle. Seattle's downtown isn't very large, so parking can be tough; expect to have to walk a few blocks to the restaurant.
Here's the thread for coordinating parking and carpools.Food and OrderingThe food here is delicious, but there will need to be a single check, and the size of our party means that we need to take some special measures! Here's how it'll go down. After everybody orders their food, I will go around the table and act as a cashier, collecting the price of your meal in order to pay the bill later. Since we have so many people coming, the Pike Place Brewery is charging an 18% gratuity on the menu price; the sales tax comes out to 10% on the menu price, so the actual price of your food is going to be 28% higher than the menu price. I'll factor that in, and then I will round down to the nearest dollar amount.
For example, if your meal cost $9.95, after tax and tip that comes out to $12.74 - so I'll collect 12 dollars from you. I'm doing this to streamline the process as much as possible. I've got offers from a couple people to help pay for the difference, so we should come out on top.
This is really important information, so just so people don't miss it I'm going to say it again!
- Bring enough cash for your meal.
- Round the price after tax and tip down to the nearest dollar amount.
If you want to order anything else after dinner, that's fine - just come to me and pay me after you do.
Here's the menu for the restaurant:
ActivitiesAfter dinner, we'll spread out a bit and set up a couple tables for games. I'm bringing Settlers of Catan, Munchkin, Risk, Monopoly, and perhaps more. Someone offered to bring Apples to Apples in the last thread. If anybody has any other ideas, post em! Even if you don't own the game, somebody else might be able to bring it.
Laptops (and live feed?)It's traditional at Dwarf Fortress meetups to set up a community fortress that can be passed around the table after dinner on a laptop. For this to happen, we need to have a laptop present! Since this meetup is larger than the last, it might even make sense to have multiple forts running.
Also it would be really great to get a live streaming web feed for the meetup, either video or even just an audio feed from Toady's table so people can listen in on the conversation. I've got no idea how to do this, though, so somebody with the proper skills needs to take charge here.
Here's the thread for figuring out these and other technology issues.Daytime activity - Woodland Park Zoo!At least six people have chimed in saying that they'd like to do some kind of activity before the meetup begins. I think it would be awesome to go to Seattle's zoo with a few Dwarf Fortress fans. This will probably be a noon-5 thing on the day of the meetup. If you'd like to come along, come and visit the thread!
Here's the thread for the zoo trip.Finally, Sir Finkus has set up a live webcast on mogulus, here: http://www.mogulus.com/dwarffortressmeetup There's a chat room there too. When we set up Finkus's eee, everybody who wasn't able to come will be able to watch the festivities remotely!