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Geek Culture / 2008 Text Adventure Compo Planning [NOT the contest thread!]

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tha_rami
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Posted: 31st May 2008 22:40
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Maybe I'll get my first prize around my birthday, then


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Dazzag
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Posted: 1st Jun 2008 01:14
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Don't worry about me. My move back to the UK should only stop me for a couple of days really. My bird has interwebs all sorted out at her place and I have me laptop

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Current fave quote : "She was like a candle in the wind.... unreliable...."
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Dazzag
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Posted: 1st Jun 2008 01:16
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Quote: "yahoo, MSN, LCS, or Lotus Sametime let me know"
I use MSN and Skype all the time, so I'll add you when my fingers stop hurting (been setting up my Dad's new laptop *all* day...).

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Current fave quote : "She was like a candle in the wind.... unreliable...."
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flashing snall
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Posted: 1st Jun 2008 06:01
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Ive seen this contest go by for 2 years now, thinking that i would drown in an attempt at a text adventure. But all the sudden, the ideas just started flowing. And, with the long dev time, it can almost run as a side project.


hmm..... i think im going to go open up ANOTHER instance of DBP... ( i have 6 running right now )


This is my WIP, not even ready for a WIP thread yet though.http://smallgroupproductions.com/
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Diggsey
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Posted: 1st Jun 2008 14:15
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I have an awesome idea for a parser

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tha_rami
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Posted: 1st Jun 2008 16:04 Edited at: 1st Jun 2008 16:04
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I'm quite rapidly working on it now. My system is starting to work. Nicely!


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Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 2nd Jun 2008 14:46
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My system is hardly imaginative, it's fairly basic - so don't expect anything impressive on that front - admittedly I'm not a very good programmer.

As for the dates, they're perfect - I think that will really work for us grimey students, and anybody who likes taking work breaks during the Summer Holidays - also, got to love this English weather! It's a programmer's dream, no sunshine or beautiful skies, means that most of us Brits will be stuck indoors. A complete contrast to the weather conditions in my game.

"Experience never provides its judgments with true or strict universality; but only (through induction) with assumed and comparative universality." - Immanuel Kant
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Darth Kiwi
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Posted: 2nd Jun 2008 22:36
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Dates are good for me - I was grateful of last year's dates because it only occurred to me to enter at around... mid october But this time I'll be working on it (sporadically) in the summer, so should be great.

On another note - I had my FINAL EXAM OF THE (school) YEAR TODAY! No more revision! (Which, in my head, broadly translats to "house arrest with headaches".) Which is good news for my entry, naturally. Which is why this is relevant, ahem.

I'm not actually a Kiwi, I just randomly thought it up one day.
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Tom J
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Posted: 2nd Jun 2008 22:51
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I still have 10 days until my final exam Oh well, I can work on my entry in between exams. Sorry Matt, not going to request to judge this time, cos I fancy entering

Quote: "It's a programmer's dream, no sunshine or beautiful skies, means that most of us Brits will be stuck indoors."


Good old bad English weather Just clouds and rain every day.
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Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 3rd Jun 2008 01:48
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Hehe, I'd rub it in your face that I finished a few weeks a go, but the last person I did that to hit me, so I won't.

Quote: "Quote: "It's a programmer's dream, no sunshine or beautiful skies, means that most of us Brits will be stuck indoors."

Good old bad English weather Just clouds and rain every day. "


Yet somehow the weather man still gets it wrong...but I've found the best way to get good weather is buy an umbrella and to take it with you, because if you do that, it won't rain, except the day you don't bring your umbrella - people told me it's a general truth and recently I found it to be true.

Went down town, into the bank, came out, really bad rain, magically there was an umbrella stall by the bank, bought one, few steps, it stopped raining, ever since I haven't been caught by the rain.

"Experience never provides its judgments with true or strict universality; but only (through induction) with assumed and comparative universality." - Immanuel Kant
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Diggsey
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Posted: 3rd Jun 2008 18:51 Edited at: 3rd Jun 2008 18:51
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@Seppuku
Or it could be just because it's 'summer' that it doesn't rain as much as at other times

So much for global warming

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Matt Rock
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Posted: 3rd Jun 2008 20:22
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Quote: "Sorry Matt, not going to request to judge this time, cos I fancy entering"

No worries, between myself, Jeku, and Dazzag we should have it covered . If we get swamped with entries I could just get a softy to do it, hehe.

I'm having an issue with a nasty virus on my PC, but expect the proper competition thread to be posted in Game Design Theory in the next few days. I'll come to this thread and link to it when it's made .

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Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 3rd Jun 2008 20:57
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Quote: "Or it could be just because it's 'summer' that it doesn't rain as much as at other times"


My examples were taken from March, when in England it's suppose to rain a lot, except now it rains a lot and I'm stuck indoors not needing to go out, but I was going out for a good 4 weeks with that umbrella and it didn't rain on me...now that I don't have to go shopping or to uni everyday, it likes to rain. Bloody English weather,


Quote: "So much for global warming"


Bloody Al Gore, can't do anything right...except for eliminate Man-bear-pig.

"Experience never provides its judgments with true or strict universality; but only (through induction) with assumed and comparative universality." - Immanuel Kant
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Jeku
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Posted: 3rd Jun 2008 22:11
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@Matt - If you need a webhost for these games let me know. I have virtually unlimited space and bandwidth, and I can make a public FTP where entrees can upload but not download.


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Matt Rock
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Posted: 4th Jun 2008 03:50
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That might be great, thanks! We don't really need it, usually people just email them in or post them to the thread, but having all of the entries in a centralized location would be rad . And it'd make life a lot easier for me, you, and Daz as well . I could gather them all and FTP them, or however you'd like to do it.

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Agent Dink
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Posted: 4th Jun 2008 04:18
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Well, with the webspace thing in mind Matt, why not just keep them hosted after the competition and we can link to em on MINet Of course I don't expect Jeku to front all the webspace for that unless he really wants to but we could put / keep all the games on the MISoft site as a community games spot or something. Maybe even try to keep something like that going and let people submit games to it? Dunno, just a thought

MISoft Studios - Silver-Dawn

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Matt Rock
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Posted: 4th Jun 2008 09:40 Edited at: 4th Jun 2008 09:41
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I've actually been thinking about doing something like that. Aplus is a great hosting service... but Yahoo! has this new deal for $11.95/ month where you get a free domain (Aplus offers two though), 1k emails (pretty hot with unlimited email storage, the new spam protection, all of that), and best of all... unlimited bandwidth and storage space!

It seems too good to be true really, lol. But there are a few issues. First, we'd have to move all of MINet over to a new host, and I don't even want to dream about how complicated that'd be. Plus, we'd lose our current email network, a major inconvenience for all of the softies who use it (myself included). And there are other issues as well... I don't know if it's truly unlimited or not. I don't know how many MySQL databases we'd need or get (we're already using three, if you count the customer services thing we're going to add, right?). I'm sure there's a ton of other issues I'm not even considering. But there are some benefits (besides the ones listed)... distributing our bigger games, like Sewer Rat and other FPS games (plus Alex's dev tool, not sure how big that's going to get). The ability to make a sort of community download center as you just suggested. I dunno, it's something to talk about at any rate .

Edit: Just realized we have our own forum for all of this stuff, lol my bad. But I'm leaving it posted because it's a good deal from Yahoo!, I figure others might want to know about it. . We can talk about it on Messenger tomorrow.

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Agent Dink
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Posted: 4th Jun 2008 10:03
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Actually Matt... All those things you listed are attached to the domain name, not the webspace. Aside from the actualy site itself. Eveerything should be able to transfer just about efortlessly

MISoft Studios - Silver-Dawn

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Jeku
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Posted: 4th Jun 2008 10:05 Edited at: 4th Jun 2008 10:06
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Yahoo is not even close to being the best deal. If you're looking for a great webhost I recommend Dreamhost. I paid $200 for 2 years, which is great when you divide it up month-to-month. I can host unlimited domain names, unlimited email addresses (POP, SMTP, IMAP, Webmail), unlimited FTP accounts, unlimited MySQL databases, 325GB space (increases by a few gigs every week), and 6552GB bandwidth (increases by a few gigs every week). When WordTrix 2.0 was in its prime I was clearing only about 7GB a month in bandwidth.

It also has a really cool control panel that has a bunch of one-click-install stuff like PHPBB, Drupal, Joomla, and about 10 other things.

Also, a big thing to note, is they've been in business for about 15 years, which is huge for a webhost. The free domain name from Yahoo is nothing special, considering it would cost you about $10 to buy one yourself from somewhere like GoDaddy Domain names are cheap.

EDIT:

Oh yah, and I forgot to mention if you use my referral ID you can get a huge discount. Just sayin'


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Matt Rock
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Posted: 4th Jun 2008 10:13
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Dang it, now we have two services to choose from that are better than Aplus, lol. You just made this more complicated for us Jeku . We'll talk about it, it'd be *really* cool to distro our own games (the big ones I mean).

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Jeku
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Posted: 4th Jun 2008 22:53
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Hmm I didn't realize you don't distribute your own games. If Misoft is supposed to be professional I'd suggest finding a host that can handle the downloads.


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Matt Rock
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Posted: 4th Jun 2008 23:20
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We do most of our own games, just not the big FPS games. Games like EE are small and we don't have a problem dishing those out, but the asset-heavy FPS games (and a few of the non-FPS games we'll be doing) are way too large to distribute from MINet. That is, unless we move MINet to Dreamhost or Yahoo! . What do you get for us signing up with Dreamhost? Is it good for you, or just *eh*?

Aplus kind of sucks now... the customer support isn't what it used to be, we're extremely limited in how many MySQL databases, etc. And I'd love to have a proper customer login feature, purchase tracking (so customers can access their registration keys and downloads), etc., plus a community upload center so TGC'ers (or whoever else) can use MINet as a host for their own games and stuff. It'd be awesome... featured software/ content in our newsletter, more contests/ prize giveaways, etc. Time to get on YIM and talk this over, hehe.

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Jeku
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Posted: 5th Jun 2008 00:08
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Quote: "What do you get for us signing up with Dreamhost? Is it good for you, or just *eh*?"


Oh don't worry, I didn't recommend the host for any kickback. I get a discount if I give you a referral--- which you can use to get yourself a discount in the end. I'm totally not expecting you to use my referral, and you definitely don't have to I've recommended Dreamhost to all my friends as far and wide as I can yell, and I will continue to do so without giving out a referral.

But yah, I'd recommend Dreamhost over anyone else nowadays, but that's just me


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Matt Rock
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Posted: 5th Jun 2008 03:41
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If we go with them, we'll definitely give you the referral, it's only fair, you did "refer" us hehe.

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Matt Rock
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Posted: 15th Jun 2008 22:40
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Sorry for being so late! Just letting everyone know that yes, the competition is still happening... I've been a bit backed up the past two weeks, but I've contacted potential prize furbishers and the actual thread is written and ready to post, it just isn't posted yet . I didn't want to put it up until we got the prizes sorted.

Just as we did last year, MISoft Studios is going to dish out free copies of Eternal Equinox with each prize. Also, we should have released more games by October (unless something goes horribly, horribly awry). Should we include free copies of those games as well, even though they aren't text adventures? We should have Redemption 9mm ("Project Sewer Rat"), Real Estate Magnate, and Capital Punishment released by then, if all goes well. But they aren't related to the contest in any way, so I'm not sure if that'd be cool or not, hehe.

It's all speculative at this point anyway... we should have all three games released by September, but it's impossible to predict what issues we might face between now and then, especially with the challenges we've gone up against so far. But if they're out by then, I'd love to dish them out. It's up to you guys, if you think they're unrelated and shouldn't be involved, or if you think they look cool and you'd like the chance to win free copies of them. Your call, hehe.

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draknir_
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Posted: 15th Jun 2008 23:16
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Don't promise something you can't deliver, you know? Eternal Equinox is prize enough for me
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Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 16th Jun 2008 02:09
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If the prize is EE, I'll give it away (I've got a copy) but either way I'm taking part as part of my competitive nature and to help my skills in programming and writing...though my current 2 ideas haven't got along with me yet (I may have completely ditched my first...) and my engine needs a couple of tweaks here and there.

Luckily I'm good on the media front, making 2D backgrounds isn't a difficult task and I've found a good free music with a library of music I think will work nicely for different moods, all I need to do is get permission once I've finalised my ideas into a demo.

"Experience never provides its judgments with true or strict universality; but only (through induction) with assumed and comparative universality." - Immanuel Kant
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Darth Kiwi
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Posted: 16th Jun 2008 11:26
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I'd love to have other games given away as prizes!

They may be unrelated, but if you win a goldfish in a plastic bag at a fairground for knocking coconuts off poles with wooden balls, that's not related either!

I'm not actually a Kiwi, I just randomly thought it up one day.
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Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 16th Jun 2008 13:06
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Also, if the fish is laying on the top of the water flat, it's not dead, they just over fed it...

So many fish flushing down the loo, mistaken for dead...how sad.

"Experience never provides its judgments with true or strict universality; but only (through induction) with assumed and comparative universality." - Immanuel Kant
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dark donkey
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Posted: 16th Jun 2008 13:11
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This sounds fun.Will try to enter if not busy at the time. Certainly got some ideas.Just wanted to ask about restrictions on features. Im not sure if im aloud to creat and inventory system and stuff of the likes?. Of course it will all be controlled by text buttons asking what you wish to do. Also restriictions on media im aloud to use. Say i have a picture of you and an enemy your fighting if you select run from the text menu it shows your charecter running. So its got nothing to do with efecting the game play its still a text game?.
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Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 16th Jun 2008 13:23
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Quote: "Im not sure if im aloud to creat and inventory system and stuff of the likes?."


Inventory should be accepted, text adventures can have them, Dark Kiwi's entry last year had one and my system has one. Otherwise you can't go: Use -> Key, With-> Door to get out.

"Experience never provides its judgments with true or strict universality; but only (through induction) with assumed and comparative universality." - Immanuel Kant
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dark donkey
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Posted: 16th Jun 2008 14:11
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Thanks , this should be intresting.
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tha_rami
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Posted: 16th Jun 2008 14:41
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I understood media restrictions are practically non-existant as long as they don't actually change the gameplay. HUD's and stuff are cool, but a 3D maze controlled by text wouldn't really be good I guess. No idea, actually.


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Matt Rock
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Posted: 17th Jun 2008 00:51
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I just posted the official competition thread over in Game Design Theory . It's a massive post (isn't it always?) so I hope I didn't miss anything! I'm pleased to announce that TGC has given us thousands of Game Creator Store points to distribute with prizes this year . More prizes will be announced as they come to be. When/ if MISoft releases more games, I'll add them to the prize lineup to beef up the grand prize and kudos awards

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tha_rami
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Posted: 17th Jun 2008 01:03
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Dear god, Matt. That post could be made into a text adventure of its own.


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