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[Rexfelum]

I continue to be amazed at how people on this forum answer the same questions, even "stupid" questions, over and over again.  Your tolerance for clueless people (myself included, of course) is remarkable.  And, sure, sarcasm and unhelpful jokes (and total derailment) crop up as well, but the questions get answered.

So I figured I'd start a thread just to see how many times people have answered the same questions over and over.  And because forum-goers like stupid gimmicks, what say we give out experience points?!?  (Imagine a complete tabletop RPG nerd has taken over the post.)  You can even level-up your forum powers if you get enough!!  It'll be fun!!!

Alright, then: have you successfully handled (and how many times, if you know) these questions/concerns?

"How do I dig?"  50 Exp (no, not XP: I played D&D before it was AD&D before it was D&D)
"What's wrong with my staircases?"  100 Exp
"Why won't they use the workshops?"  150 Exp
"Why won't they haul anything?"  100 Exp
"Why won't they eat/drink?"  150 Exp
"Why do they keep telling me 'item inaccessible'?"  150 Exp
"How come they keep cancelling buildings because of 'item blocking site'?"  50 Exp
"What's wrong with my pumpstack?"  100 Exp
"How do I see what something's worth?"  50 Exp
"Why can't I make high boots?"  50 Exp
"Why is there an adamantine sword in my stocks list?"  100 Exp
"How do I equip soldiers?"  150 Exp
"How do I get my soldiers to kill anything?"  100 Exp
"Why do my soldiers say 'cannot follow orders'?"  50 Exp
"How do I get rid of prisoners?"  150 Exp
"How do I pit creatures?"  150 Exp
"Why do I get the message 'cancels clean self: area inaccessible'?"  50 Exp
"How do I build on the second floor?"  100 Exp
"What do I do about miasma?"  100 Exp
"Why does my soldier keep canceling things because of enemies that aren't there?"  100 Exp
"Why won't my doctors do anything?"  150 Exp
"What are 'rock bars'?"  150 Exp
"What do I do with all these socks lying around my fortress?"  100 Exp
"Ack!  Why did everyone die!?"  200 Exp

I've vaguely assigned points based on how much time it takes to address them.  Vaguely.  Feel free to tell me this is a stupid post.  Or just add your own questions and make it more ridiculous!  Whee!

--Rexfelum

[Internet Kraken]

I think the reason people here are so tolerant about even the most basic questions is because we all remember how hard it was to learn the game at first. It can be very overwhelming.

Off the top of my head, the most common question I've answered has to do with modding actually. A fairly common problem I see is people saying that their creature always shows up as "Nothing" and they can't figure out why. Of course it's just because they never defied a caste name, so it's a very easy problem to solve.

[Urist Imiknorris]

I think the reason people here are so tolerant about even the most basic questions is because we all remember how hard it was to learn the game at first. It can be very overwhelming.

This. We remember all too well how hard it was to learn this game, so when another new player comes along with the same questions, we take delight in being able to answer them. For me, it's a sign that I've come a long way since that first fort...

EDIT: My usual answers:

"What do I do about miasma?"  100 Exp

Doors.

"Why does my soldier keep canceling things because of enemies that aren't there?"  100 Exp

Bug, sometimes referred to as Dwarven PTSD.

"Why won't my doctors do anything?"  150 Exp

Doctors are lazy.

"What are 'rock bars'?"  150 Exp

Metal bars.

"What do I do with all these socks lying around my fortress?"  100 Exp

Sell them.

"Ack!  Why did everyone die!?"  200 Exp

You didn't apply enough magma.

[Encased in burning magma]

I think people patiently answer for a good reason.

Impatient people fire up DF, look at the graphics, and delete the game. Then they go back to questioning the sexuality of strangers on Xbox Live.
Normal people fire up DF, shrug at the graphics, look at the interface, and delete the game.
Insanely patient people keep playing the game. Hence, forumers are insanely patient.

[plarf]

as a new player all I can say is Dwarf fortress has a learning cliff that you fall off of as apposed to climb up, on the way down you tend to smack into things you needed to know and the forums are a great pillow to soften the blow.

[Urist Imiknorris]

You need a springboard to scale the learning cliff. The forums are a jetpack.

[mnjiman]

all of them and too many to count. Seriously.

[celem]

I probably asked 50% of those.....and have probably since answered about 50% too....am i back at 0 Exp?

[Drakeero]

Well, thank you very much guys for putting up with my nooby questions.  I'd try to answer some except I still don't feel like I've reached 'that point'.

As for the doors and miasma and stuff, how do you door off a 3+ tile wide hallway without putting a wall in the middle of the way and choking traffic?

[forumist]

People have to answer again and again the same old question because their previous answers are lost somewhere in the forum and cannot be easily unearthed. Answers should be more systematically added to the wiki. At least for the question "How do I get rid of prisonners", the answer was quite hard to find for me. I did not find a solution experimenting on my own. Then, I searched on the wiki, and the explanations were not satisfying. Then I searched on this forum, and the answers that were detailed enough were lost among lots of partial answers.
If you understand that assigning a creature to a cage or a pit makes the dwarves release the creature from their initial cage, you are still far from having a satisfying solution: the creatures escape, hurt your dwarves, make your military run and so on.
That is where I was after experimenting by myself, and I made no progress after having read the wiki, and still no progress after having read 4 posts on the question I found on this forum: you tend to find answers like "Drop them in a pit and shoot them with your marksdwarves" or "I use my prisonners to train my military in an arena".

But you have to explore the forum more in depth to find things about building the cage, and using a lever to release the creature, and this does not explain yet how to chose the right cage. It took me ages before noticing the e'x'pand option (It was not on the wiki page about cages until I found this option and added a word about it). And for dropping the creatures in a pit without them escaping, I finally found a post saying that the solution is to build the animal stockpile just next to the pit so that the creature doesn't have time to escape.

[Urist Imiknorris]

As for the doors and miasma and stuff, how do you door off a 3+ tile wide hallway without putting a wall in the middle of the way and choking traffic?

Build a wall next to the middle door's spot, build the door, remove the wall, build the other doors. Somehow, it works.

[expwnent]

As for the doors and miasma and stuff, how do you door off a 3+ tile wide hallway without putting a wall in the middle of the way and choking traffic?

Build a wall next to the middle door's spot, build the door, remove the wall, build the other doors. Somehow, it works.

But be aware that if you dig next to a door that shouldn't be allowed because it doesn't have adjacent walls, the door will deconstruct. This does not apply to removing constructions.

[Victuz]

I'm not here long enough to even take part in this (only around since .12 and never played DF before) but the most common question I've seen so far is

"Why don't my underground farms don't work".

heh... I was probably one of the people who asked that damn question .

[Ubiq]

I don't mind answering the same questions numerous times simply because so many things in Dwarf Fortress are counterintuitive. For instance, say you designate a whole bunch of walls or floors at once. People are naturally going to assume that the dwarves will use the stone lying in the spot where the wall or floor is designated to construct said building and not, say, that stone ten spaces away. So people are going to get Item Blocking Site notifications and only see a stone in that spot. Of course they're going to be confused since they think the stone is blocking itself.

Beyond that, there are quite a few times that I've looked at a commonly asked question and actually found something helpful to me in some of the other answers.

[ninja137]

"Why can't I make high boots?"  50 Exp

--Rexfelum

About that..........could someone tell me why I am unable to make High Boots? Please?