yayo's blog ( ^^)ù

Yay! \o/
We were waiting since January!

Toady has finally released the new version of "Slaves to Armok: God of Blood, chapter II: Dwarf Fortress", commonly known as Dwarf Fortress (DF for friends. :P) [3].
When the link got posted on the IRC channel for the 1st time, people went mad: pratically a mass histery (still up, but it'll require time to get back to normality, but at least the author can no longer say that people don't talk of DF on the channel: that's the only one topic now! hehe.. :P).

The released version is the 0.27.169.32a which adds many new features to the game.
The world creation seems to be faster (with the previous version it strangely tooks around 2 hours to me to get one done. Ages! Now I got it done in around 10-15 minutes...).
The game area selection is almost totally different: it's possible to browse over many useful info about the map (cliffs, height level, nearest civilizations.. ) and it's also possible to decide the size of the game area. The preparation phase isn't so different instead, but still with news (some new interestings jobs added to the list).
The game area is way different now: it's in 3D! You still play with a 2D map, but you can move up and down over around 30 levels (depends on the area): 15 upside + 15 downside. well, if it was a mess before, try guess now! xD
Obviously ramps and stairs are now available, along with pumps to move water on the higher levels. It's also possible to build grates and a lot of other new things. And most of all it's now possible to rebuild walls and floors (only if you have the required stones, of course)!
Also the map structure is now more realistic: it is no longer the fixed sequence left-to-right (outside, underground river, chasm, magma river..) and also searching for stones while digging down requires to go over a couple of levels before to find something.
The noble system is totally new, and also the farming system is new and more easy.

But I'm not going to risk to say something wrong making a full review of the game. Many things still needs to get discovered by the players, and also the wiki site [2] needs to be updated (the old wiki is archived yet, and a new one is ready and growing up quickly). Moreover being this a major release which adds many improvements, it'll probably have also some bugs that will needs to be fixed with some minor releases on the next days/months. (And there is also the adventure mode that I don't know enough...) So I stop here, leaving people to discovers the news by themselves!

However, this is still one of the most interesting games you can find on the net (and surely the most complete alpha of a game I ever seen!) It's the perfect proof that it's possible to enjoy a game even without the latest 7trillionofpoligons graphic card. : P
Suggested to everyone.

The game is freely downloadable from the bay12games website [1], and with a donation you can support the author!! :)

Have fun!

y.

Tonight (which means VERY deep night, for me) I was wondering if there's something meaningful to write to the blog . It's been a week now since the last post. Well, it's not strictly required to update it: I prefere not to update it everyday to avoid to write trash randomly, but..
While I was thinking to this I joined IRC, like every night. I was curious to check if my friends didn't forget to do me their best wishes. Yup. they forgot it. :P
hehe.. Nevermind.
Then I browsed the daily news on PuntoInformatico (italian IT news), wondering what was the daily case of attack against the freedom of the netizens and related offences to the human's mind (see previous posts for examples).
There are some today too, of course. yes. You can be sure that there is almost a new one every day. :/
Here it is: censorship (technically useless, but still censorship) of Italians monolopy against games websites is growing up; some English mechanic garages are in copyright violation because their mechanics and tyre specialists are listening music during their job at a too high volume, causing the music to be earable also by customers; that nice person of Steve Ballmer that would like to get money from RedHat users for his micro$oft, because they are using patented technologies without permissions (around 200 patents, about which THIS is the only known detail: the amount!)
Luckily there is also a good new, that is the choice of Nine Inch Nails to copy the example of the Radiohead and interrupt relations with major, becoming distributors of their own songs.
Anyway, I didn't find anything really interesting to post here...
So I went reading last emails, wondering if someone was sending me his wishes.. But I instantly realized that the day is in fact just started and still supposing I'll get 1 or 2 emails, I'll have to wait 'till tomorrow.
But there are actually some. 2. Sadly those are just wishes automatically sent by websites who are trying to call me back to be able to cover me with their flood of advertisement and special offerts. (They can thread them all into their...) Also all mixed with a healty (?!) and daily dose of spam, like someone who want to show me his dick as a proof of effectiveness of some kind of devilry that then I'd be supposed to buy. (yeeees. suuure!)
Luckily here there is an exception too. My friend from London sent me his wishes! <3 I'll send him a reply tomorrow. :D
And then suddenly I see the light! What better news for MY blog than having reached the target of 32 wasted years of MY life? And also getting anything useful done! A record! :D
Yes I become 32 today! :)
... :&amp;#124;
:/
mah... better to get back to work on my pyg.. perhaps one day I'll be able to earn something from it...

y.