Ok you sons of goblins, it is time to start preparing for next months SparkGear.
It looks like it's turning into a twisted little mockery of a tradition already.
Disclaimer
This fortress has now reached legendary status.
It's also the creepiest fortress I've seen,
with longer and bloodier history than any other.
Currently we have approximately one hundred and eighty
dead dwarves to around fifty living.
The fortress is full of grand, beautifully engraved halls,
barely used, now filling with cobwebs and dust.
Corridors form a twisty and confusing maze,
and there are levers everywhere. Marked? Hell no.
There's barely a place left where there hasn't been a murder,
suicide, starving to death or cut to pieces by orcs
(and don't even get me started on the zombie wyverns).
Our noble housing is located inside an engraved obsidian tower,
that was created when our defenses malfunctioned
(it was still a beta, after all)
and magma flowed down the corridors into a pool,
previously full of zombies.
Now the pool is a park, and the noble housing stands empty,
since we don't have any fucking nobles.
Surrounded on all sides by fields of blood,
abandoned equipment scattered about,
the fortress looms over a lake of magma,
like a shapeless monster, waiting.
And yet, the migrants come.
So, I ask you, are you ready for
SparkGear 3
[size=8]-With A Vengeance-[/size]
(not for children, elves or the faint of heart)
For the uninitiated, SparkGear (or SG, or that fucking disaster as it's lovingly called) is a type of succession game where each turn is measured in real time, not game time. Since we're all extremely dorfy and well-endowed we play for one 24h period. The turn is switched at 22 GMT (definitely not chosen for my convenience. It just coincidentally hits midnight in my timezone). Being late means the next player can either choose to wait or just discard you turn and play from the previous save. Experience has shown that groveling works.
In previous incarnations there haven't been really any rules to speak of. This time around, I propose an addendum: In the interest of keeping the FPS low, DO NOT LEAVE STONE LYING AROUND. You dig it, you dispose of it. Violation of this rule may induce verbal abuse and visceral mockery by other players. This is more of a guideline than a strict rule, some stone is bound to be left around, but PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF ARMOK don't bury us in stone. Try to use all the stone you dig out. Like what I did with that fuckhuge statue.
Player signups (dates in July, naturally. The exception being me, I'm going to prep the site in June):
Turn Player Achievements
initial: Nahkh HUEG statue,awesome mural, death by construction accident.
1. Barbarossa the tl;dr Charged an orc siege and got everyone killed. [FAIL]
2. ArkDelgato the Defiler Fixed the tantrum spiral [AWESOME]
3. Demonic Spoon the Impaler Gave up [FAIL], passed the turn to ArkDelgato for awesome
4. abculatter_2 Zombie wyverns and zombie giant eagles. [HILARIOUS]
handed the rest of his turn to nil for awesome
5. Skid Killed off our military to goblins, including Ark.
Stopped a tantrum spiral, had starvation [MIXED]
6. cerapa Fixed food issue, some food-related deaths [SO-SO]
7. nil Further stabilization, a couple of deaths by orcs [GROOVY]
8. crashNAHKH Kicked ass like the unholy love-child of Chuck Norris and River Tam.
Got magma, made forges, replenished food and booze.[MANLY]
9. Aldaris RETOOK THE OVERFORTRESS! [GREAT JUSTICE]
(actually, he kinda sucked at keeping dwarves fed and drunk)
10. Kamrusepas No reply. abculatter_2 played a bit but gave up. FORTRESS REORG COMING UP
11. Nahkh FIXING THE FORTRESS. Imma patchin holes here.
Permanently fixed the booze issue, beefed up the defenses,
DEFEATED AN ORC SIEGE. [PARAGON]
12. Wimdit Began construction of an orbital magma cannon,
KILLED BUTTERCUP's BABY. Dakost the Mighty is dead too. [NYOR~ON]
13. Barbarossa Located Adamantine, got nobody killed, excavated huge areas.
Gave half a turn to Iluogo. [IMPROVED FROM LAST TIME]
13.5 Iluogo Constructed OCDS, GOT EVERYONE KILLED, AGAIN. [FAIL]
14. Samus127 Ryan the God-King of dwarfkind was killed. That seems to be a
recurring theme here. Also began construction of FUCKAWESOME
magma defense system (different from the orbital thingy). [DASTARDLY]
15. Demonic Spoon The king arrived, and fucked everyone up.
Then went mad and died.[AWESOME]
16. Crash Put finishing touches on the magma defense, now just needs testing. [NICE]
17. Demonic Spoon [fastest turn request in the west] Readjusted the magma defense system,
and then he fired it. There is magma inside the fortress. Why is there
magma inside the fortress? [WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN]
18. Tarquinius Improved efficiency, made things neater, expanded the fortress
[MODEL CITIZEN]
19. iluogo Some decorating, including a magmafall. [NOT BAD I GUESS]
[HOLY CRAP THAT MAGMAFALL IS AWESOME]
20. Skid Wound up reverting to the old save after food related incdients [FFF]
21. Akreaveter No-show [FAIL]
22. nil Converted the pool into a park, refined our magma defenses, mined
some adamantine, got migrants to the creepiest place on earth,
took some 3Dwarf pictures (on page 33)[JUST AS KEIKAKU]
23. crash2455skaltum Built some more creepy hallways and mausoleums, as well as
recording a suicide. Jumping into magma seems the most the most
popular method. Also made some graffiti art. [MEH]
24. iluogo Built an arena, held the fort together. Gave rest of turn to DS
24.5 Demonic Spoon Didn't kill too many dwarves, exterminated some zombies.
General repairs in the overfortress.[DECENT]
25. Tarquinius Got migrants, and expanded the living quarters to accommodate.
Started a largeish silk industry. [POP GROWTH FUCK YEAH]
26. Demonic Spoon Dealt with more orcs and zombie wyvern. Upgraded the cannon to
v1.2 [IL MAGNIFICO]
27. Kamrusepas Rocks fall, everyone dies. [FAIL] Reverted to old save, after which
I, Nahkh, kicked it around some. FPS is really bad. [MEH]
28. Barbarossa DS Magmacannon upgraded to 1.3 [SAMEOLD]
29. ToonyMan
30. Samus
31. Filiusenox
So. The site. It's totally awesome.
We've got magma, a bit of a river, an underground pool and HFS. Plus it's a terrifying mountain, and we're using the Dig Deeper mod. It should keep things nice and hard as aids challenging.
(Later edit: OH GODS WHAT HAVE I DONE?)
Everyone is welcome here. Even ifEspecially if you have no idea what you're doing. Remember to say which day you want in your "Me too!"-post. If none is provided I'll just sign you up for the first available date.
To play, you will need a copy of DF 40d (d11 or d12 should work too) with DD installed.
Here's a prepackaged folder for you, courtesy of crash2455 (blessed be his name).
Some general notes about the game: I hate micromanagement. Don't expect me to be there to hold your hand if you run into problems. I just keep the player list up to date. If it's your turn, you're the boss. If the previous guy is late, you decide the fate of his save. Et cetera. I'll just be providing very friendly commentary and taking the occasional 3d picture of the current fort.
So, here's a link to the archived maps of the place. Reading the thread through and examining the maps and their POIs in detail is essential to understanding the fortress layout. It's the most confusing mess I've ever seen. The corridors and other connections get redesigned all the time, so understand the historical reasons why something is like it is is pretty important. If you're strapped for time, checking the map from early summer 217 is a good way to get ahead, it's pretty recent and has most of the necessary information in POIs.
If you've missed out on the previous SparkGears, the threads are still there for you amazement.
SparkGear, the one that started it all, may be found here.
It included a gigantic skull over the entrance (unforgivably defaced later), kitchens made of pitchblende (that's uranium, folks) and royal bedrooms one square away from the pits.
The fort ended due to FPS problems and lack of challenge (after we killed the HFS).
SparkGear 2, the successor, the golden boy, the miserable hole.
It included crazy megaprojects, tantrum spirals, massive executions and a phallic tower complete with testicles. We even had an automated spike trap. It ended in fire and mass executions.
If you really must, you can see it here.
Other notes: LEARN THE MOTHERFUCKING GMT SYSTEM YOU FUCKING AMERICANS. I HATE YOUR STUPID TIMEZONE IDIOCY. If you don't know your timezone in GMT, you have no excuse. SparkGearSpawning more sigs than you can shake a stick at.