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Author Topic: Future of the Fortress  (Read 2850955 times)

Shonai_Dweller

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #1800 on: March 31, 2019, 12:18:28 am »

I says make the graphics represent literally what's there, even if that means that you can't tell apart professions visually. If dorf is carrying a pick, probably a miner. If dorf is carrying an axe, probably a woodcutter. And so on.

This is the wrong place to state my opinion if I want anyone who can act on it to see it but fuck it I love screaming into the void.
And if a dwarf is wielding a mug, a scroll, a plump helmet or an artifact cabinet (search Reddit...) in battle? Weapon sized sprites for every object in the game?

At some point graphics will have to settle for being representations and not literal depictions.
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Egan_BW

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #1801 on: March 31, 2019, 12:23:57 am »

Showing what a person is holding in their hands on the sprite seems like basic functionality to me. It will take a lot of work to do that because DF is a big game.
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Down at the bottom of the ocean. Beneath tons of brine which would crush you down. Not into broken and splintered flesh, but into thin soup. Into just more of the sea water. Where things live that aren't so different from you, but you will never live to touch them and they will never live to touch you.

feelotraveller

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #1802 on: March 31, 2019, 04:51:50 am »

snip... the sLIver barb dye color [see wiki page]). ...snip

It bites!

My dwarfs defend their use of silver dye.   ;D

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sic#%22Ironic_use%22
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Criperum

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #1803 on: March 31, 2019, 02:32:02 pm »

As you said that you are goingto fix some military issues between vilians and the Big Wait. Is problem with armor and uniforms one of those planned fixes?
« Last Edit: March 31, 2019, 05:26:55 pm by Criperum »
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Shonai_Dweller

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #1804 on: March 31, 2019, 04:40:52 pm »

As you said that you are goingto fix some military issues. Is problem with armor and uniforms one of those planned fixes?
When? All bugs will be fixed one day.
Are you talking about something promised for the Steam release?
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Criperum

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #1805 on: March 31, 2019, 05:27:24 pm »

As you said that you are goingto fix some military issues. Is problem with armor and uniforms one of those planned fixes?
When? All bugs will be fixed one day.
Are you talking about something promised for the Steam release?

Edited my question. You are right it was too uncertain.
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Shonai_Dweller

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #1806 on: March 31, 2019, 05:36:22 pm »

As you said that you are goingto fix some military issues. Is problem with armor and uniforms one of those planned fixes?
When? All bugs will be fixed one day.
Are you talking about something promised for the Steam release?

Edited my question. You are right it was too uncertain.
Ok. That's clear. :)
The focus is on improved siege mechanics and off-site army raising, but yeah, as it's military related hopefully some of the exisitng bugs get looked at too.
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Shonai_Dweller

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #1807 on: March 31, 2019, 10:43:17 pm »

A long while yet, but when you come to the society/politics development stage, do you see (presumably generated) cultural/political/military systems that follow very different paths to the "medieval Europe" vibe we get at the moment? I know Mythgen will make weird and wonderful non-Tolkieny worlds possible, but specifically for culture & politics. Do you see yourself focussing mainly on elements of "earth" cultures for inspiration or will there be chances of really out-there pure fantasy political systems (either based on literature, your own imagination, or whatever)?
« Last Edit: March 31, 2019, 11:14:55 pm by Shonai_Dweller »
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Toady One

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #1808 on: April 01, 2019, 01:39:20 am »

Quote from: Dragonslayerelf
1) When will you be able to butcher sentient creatures after an ethics change and then use the gleaned bones/meat to make food/bone goods?
2) Can features that aren't planned to work for Dwarves specifically still be encoded, especially for modders and fiddlers?
3) Are there any plans for making cobaltite useful?
4) Are there plans for a thievery/stealth skill for stealth squads which you can use against your enemies to steal artifacts (like Kobolds & Goblins) as well as babystealing missions should you choose to go evil or modify your ethics to allow that?
5) Are there plans to fix the glitches related to fortress mode necromancers where the things they revive are still hostile to them?

Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7937921#msg7937921
Dragonslayerelf (op): http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7938163#msg7938163

1/2/4/5) handled by Shonai_Dweller.

3) Ha ha, yeah, it has kind of an unfortunate name for something we don't use specifically for that element.  I'm not sure if cobaltite specifically was an ore used in dyes/glass coloration (cobalt has other ores), but that would be the sort of thing we'd do when we get to adding more diversity to those systems.

Quote from: Tomsod
A question about your general vision (not the short-time stuff):
Many stories and games (both video and PnP) implicitly involve some level of "dramatic convenience", e.g. a mayor's daughter gets kidnapped just as your party is visiting the town, or you stay at a tavern and just happen to overhear a villainous plan, or the protagonist randomly finds a magic McGuffin ring in a river.  What is your opinion on such things?  Would you include an option for the game to behave that way (to nudge/induce interesting events) if you could?  Is it even doable?  The kidnapped daughter example above, for instance, would involve rewriting the near past, as the game can't predict which town will you visit next, and the kidnapping has to happen in advance.
I'm asking because in real life epic adventures are rare, and I fear a realistic medieval simulation may be a tad boring.
I remember you mentioning an option to stop worldgen just as something big is about to occur, but it's not quite the same thing as it fits the player to the world, not the other way around.

Another question, on the myth generator:
As there are going to be various race-creation myths, is a good old Darwinesque natural selection on the table?  Either as a divine myth ("the mountain apes were our holy ancestors and diligent work made them into what we are now"), or as something scholars could discover (even contrary to preexisting myths)?  Or is it not medieval enough?

therahedwig: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7937965#msg7937965
Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7937970#msg7937970

Yeah, I'm generally not in favor of, say, a 'director' feature for this project.  The most I think I'll do/have done is add some delays generally when people go off to do things.  So if a group of people is getting together to go off and rescue somebody, they might wait an extra day, even if that's a very bad idea, just to give you a chance to see more organization and get in on things.  But that would also happen on the other side of the world from your character, just since it's easier to maintain that way.  I think a counter-balance to life being boring, if you don't want it to be boring, is that the character's life is much more expendable than your own life (or the life of a real person in medieval times), so you should be more easily able to make things happen around you or take risky opportunities as we go, though we aren't far along there yet.  In the end, we're trading a tightly scripted story for reactivity and emergence.  And we have some other general measures at our disposal -- if the world does really end up boring, and the player desires, the overall temperature of the boiling pot can be increased somewhat.  But it is a different sort of critter.

It wouldn't technically work with our 1400 year cutoff or whatever, but having more natural origin stories is in line with the low/no magic slider for myth generation.  I assume at the lowest setting with a human-only no-magic invented-myths-only, we're stuck with a pretty scientific tale, though I haven't thought through what that means exactly; perhaps people just being as confused on the matter as they were in 1400.  I have no idea if we could actually support, say, myths that tried to tie creatures together on evolutionary trees or anything like that, especially in a way that works in any meaningful way.  We've toyed around with it in side projects, and it's quite doable in that context, but it's harder if we have to support all of the features of raw creature defs.  Somewhat like the centaur/half-elf/etc. etc. problems.

Quote from: George_Chickens
Are there any features you once considered implementing, but now view as impossible to add due to time constraints?

Will there be a possibility for the player, as an adventurer, to join in on already existing plots?

I'm sure there are such features...  but we still have a lot of time left, and stuff like the map rewrite are still major refactors, so I'm not sure I'm thinking in these terms yet.  There are large families of things I just have let drop off, like animal sounds (capybara only?  that is odd), which become harder to get back to.

Adv joining plots is still an open question (compared to adv being a main villain or hunting villains, which will go in.)  There's more infrastructure etc. in terms of conversation/interface required to put you in the middle of things, especially as it relates to you actually interfacing with plot elements (like embezzlement, which we want to keep as abstract as possible for now.)

Quote from: Button
So if I recall correctly, this villain update was originally intended to be the last update before a Long Wait. Given how much it's ballooned, are you still planning to start the Long Wait as soon as it's finished? Or are you considering this its own Long Wait that you'll be doing rapid-fire bugfixes after?

Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7938322#msg7938322

So there's the whole Steam thing to fit in here now, ha ha.  But the plan is still the same here, and Shonai_Dweller has it right.  We'll be fixing bugs for a time after the villain release, until it's stable, and this usually involves other bug fixes.  Then we'll work on the Steam release for however long that takes.  Obviously the Steam launch is an unknown in terms of how much maintenance will need to happen and then be ongoing there, especially with the very first release.  Once the dust settles, we'll need to decide on how many of the pre-myth features on the dev page we want to do; there's enough intervening excitement now that I really have no idea what we'll think at that time.  Then the Big Wait begins, with some ability to patch up bugs as they come up, so we don't get in another weapon trap crash situation.

Quote from: Untrustedlife
Will you ever make the myth generator you showed off at GDC in 2016 downloadable? I would quite enjoy playing with it and modding it and stuff. I am a game dev myself so it would be cool to just read through a few of the creation myths (without having to read only screenshots) just have a little text blurb that says, "THIS DOES NOT REPRESENT THE FINAL MYTH GENERATOR AT ALL!" In bold next to the link to stave off any untoured expectations or some such.

If you dont want to i get it, maybe just share a couple more screenshots then?
Maybe explain a bit of how it works,
I understand its agent based and turn based correct?
Will the final one work the same?
If its agent based and turn based, Would the player ever be allowed to pop into one of the gods during creation to take their "turns" for them, as that is a "role" people would want to play, that would be a fun mini game. Probably a messy interface though.

Witty: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7938343#msg7938343

I think agent-based and turn-based makes it seem more 'fair' than it currently is.  There are a few timers and priorities and importance metrics that are also used, so the actors aren't in any kind of fair competition for time/actions or whatever -- there's not enough matter there for it to play as a 'game', not the same way we can do it in world-gen.  Sometimes the cosmic egg just feels like it has been sitting around to long, and an event is forced.  It's preferable to do this as little as possible, since any metric or forcing makes the stories feel more samey, and I suspect the first real pass will have enough matter to be more satisfying here.

I don't have any fundamental objections to a myth-play mode, though it's not the focus for the first time through.  I'm not sure it'll be at a point where it's truly interesting to play initially, though I suppose even clicking on the set of verbs and objects etc. might be kind of neat, or choosing which concepts to emphasize during a creation, etc.  It would be kind of funny to play in a world over a sequence of forts/etc. and always know that you were personally responsible for one of the threads of creation, especially if it comes up somehow.

Quote from: Untrustedlife
Do you plan to ever give dungeons/sewers/catacombs proper animal populations/incursions? It would be cool to fight the giant rats in the sewer/basement  (prolific fantasy trope)
Priest:  “yeah so the giant rats built a nest in the catacombs, could you clear it out for us”
All thats really in dungeons/catacombs right now is some criminals, sometimes,and ultra rarely some kobolds and even more ultra rarely other random historical monsters that have moved in, rarely some animal men,  who half the time don't even initiate the combat. And the occasional tomb with a mummy.

Knight Otu: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7938542#msg7938542
Untrustedlife (op): http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7938548#msg7938548

We were having difficulties keeping people separated from natural populations, if I recollect.  Animals need to be a little more chill, outcasts need to be a little more careful, spaces need to be better defined, etc.  It's silly when a giant brawl breaks out whenever you happen to load the map.  At some point we can hopefully manage this in a way that doesn't involve a massive violent depopulation when you visit.

Quote from: Eric Blank
Do you recall what inspired some of the cavern critters in the next_underground file? Like where did you get the idea for green devourers, voracious cave crawlers, or molemarians? What even is a draltha?

PlumpHelmetMan: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7939190#msg7939190

Zach and I had a paper notepad and just took turns drawing a bunch of pictures.  Everything in next_underground came from that one session.  We selected our favorites (or really, most of them) and discussed what names we'd use and what properties they might have afterward.  But the initial images were all just brain mush - so I suspect PlumpHelmetMan is correct, though you have to allow for other childhood image-builders like Fantastic Planet, Gandahar, Wizards, etc.  A hungry head could pop up in any of those; creeping eyes and maneras and rutherers and dralthas and moghoppers and all that are just part of the same stew, with various mental cutting and pasting and amalgamation.  Could certainly accept otyughs and carrion crawlers as antecedents for green devourers and carrion crawlers.  We even had a largish rubbery neo-otyugh toy as children (ha ha, this site says the LJN AD&D Bendies subseries from 1984, that looks right.  We had the carrion crawler too!  And the roper.  But not the grell or the chimera or the hydra, I think.)

Molemarians, on the other hand, are just an amplification of the naked mole dog, which is more of an animal-people style obsession with the various critters of earth.  Like, what if a naked mole rat were also a centaur, but still more mole rat than human?  The important questions.  Armok 1 even had mole dogs I think.  We visit them at the zoo, or did.  I don't remember if they are still there.

Quote from: Dragonslayerelf
Are there any plans for us to be able to play races other than dwarves in fort mode, such as a fully fleshed out structure for goblins, humans, etc?
Are there any plans to allow us to optionally manually control raids/pillages/invasions and be transported to the battlefield instead of only seeing a report after-the-fact?
Are there any plans to make roads actually traversed? I was thinking of making a fort on the roads and halting anyone passing by, but no one ever came unless they were specifically coming to my fort.

Untrustedlife: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7939331#msg7939331
PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7939417#msg7939417
Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7939478#msg7939478
therahedwig: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7939485#msg7939485

Quote from: therahedwig
Will there still be a sort of 'Wizard tower' mode for wizards(as per old dev notes), or will our interaction with wizards be primarily adventure mode shenanigans with occasionally a wizard histfig messing things up in fortmode? Or is everything just gonna melt together and we'll see prison-colony-on-a-magical-mountain-run-by-wizards-that-are-an-offshoot-of-a-dwarven-civ-and-they-are-also-a-mercenary-band-mode?

Untrustedlife: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7939498#msg7939498
Untrustedlife: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7941793#msg7941793

With the villain stuff, yeah, doing a wizard mode in a sense just got a lot more likely than we were originally planning (where the focus for adv mode was being a wizard's agent instead.)  There is a sort of tension between fort-mode-wizard-mode and adv-mode-wizard-mode; they are both equally valid ways of thinking about it, depending on what you want to do and the time scale you want to deal with.  I don't have specific plans in the first pass to try any true mode hybridization, but it feels like we're starting to orbit that kind of thing.

Quote
Quote from: EternalCaveDragon
With the expansion to relationships between historical figures that's been discussed for this pass, are there any plans to do the same (in the background of course) for player adventurers? I remember reading somewhere that currently adventurers don't have any romantic/sexual orientation which results in them not doing things like taking lovers or getting married and having children. The fact they will stay with their previous traveling companions where they retired is pretty nice. But for a player like myself, where being able to get an adventurer to retirement is something of a rarity, it'd be kind of nice to know my former adventurer became more of a part of the world aside from whatever accomplishments they achieved after I take my focus away from them.
Quote from: Shonai_Dweller
Is there anything you've hard-coded into retired adventurers to prevent them from certain activities (besides relationships which I think you've mentioned before). So things like joining merc bands, becoming a goblin poet master's apprentice, etc?

Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7939502#msg7939502
EternalCaveDragon (op): http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7939507#msg7939507
therahedwig: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7939648#msg7939648
Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7939657#msg7939657
Egan_BW: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7939727#msg7939727

I haven't changed the way the romance stuff works yet - as stated in the replies, we want to add some more support first.

Otherwise, I don't recall any additional flags or restrictions, and it's certainly not the intent.  It wouldn't surprise me if the way they are incorporated into their chosen retirement community stops them from doing something or another, but that would just be an entity-membership-type bug, similar to the ones we had with their constructed sites/entities.  As far as I know, they can do stuff; what I don't recall is if they are retired with a 'heroic' profession or if it just considers them, say, peasants.  That would influence their post-play choices; it should probably be a decision made by the player when they choose to retire.

Quote from: Dwarf_guy
1: Will magic users be able to effect the geography of the world?
2: Will magic users be able to play with physics in any way? As in gravity say?
3: If so, (after boats are implemented I would assume) would fortresses in the middle of the ocean be possible? If able, a magician could part the ocean for long enough to build the framework, for example.
4: Also if so, would floating fortresses be possible in any form?
5: In adventure mode, will flying ships be implemented in anyway, or even be possible? I just really want to descend on an unsuspecting town from the sky to raid and pillage.

PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7940370#msg7940370
Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7940395#msg7940395

I'm satisfied with this pair of responses.  We're planning to get to some of this, even on the first pass, though clearly we've been talking about stuff like even mundane boats as a later feature, not a magic release feature, and we'd like to do it all by around the time boats are done.

Quote from: Shonai_Dweller
So...snatching is now officially a villaneous behaviour. And player adventurers can indulge villaneous behaviour themselves...does this mean our long-held dreams of playing a proper band of goblin snatchers is now possible?

I haven't gotten to adventure mode yet, but, yeah, I'd have to explicitly not support it at this point.  The only way that would come up is if I have trouble with, say, the delivery of the prisoner to your location, or something.

Quote from: ArtemiusTheHuman
I have some questions/suggestions for Fortress Mode:
1) More suggestion, than question. Wild animal people and some creatures like trolls, gorlaks and troglodits [CAN_LEARN]. How about possibility to train them, when they encaged, making them a citisens of your fortress? They are almost useless now, but can be very useful for creating of multinational fortresses.
2) About religions. Will there be a possibility for dwarfs (or others) in your fortress to found a new religion? Maybe as a very rare happening? Or this only world-creational option?
3) Can religions spread with books? How about optional holy bibles for some of them?))
4) About mecenaries. Can they recruit citizens of your fortress for their band? Maybe, unhappy citisens will be willing to leave fortress and join such bands, and they will file a petition, denying which will cause even more bad thoughts?

Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7942071#msg7942071
PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7942097#msg7942097
Dragonslayerelf: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7945395#msg7945395

Ha ha, yeah, suggestions are best in the suggestions forum.  I read stuff there.

Quote from: squamous
Will the addition of a steam-supported graphics pack negatively affect future feature additions? Regarding them, an example you used was worm people living in the intestines of a world-monster for whom being dragged into lakes of bile by ghosts was a constant mortal threat. It seems unlikely that this kind of procedural possibility could be accounted for even with a whole professional team of graphics artists. I worry that features like this that don't seem to be able to reasonably be integrated into the official steam version are more likely to hit the cutting room floor than to be available in the free version only or some other compromise, but I would like to hear the official stance on it. How exactly will the graphics pack work with the level of procedural generation DF will eventually support without compromising the original vision, if it is even possible? It seems like a pretty big challenge.

If we just have to color a stone floor pinkish and call it good for a time, that's fine with me.  Stuff like recolored spatter is already supported to some extent, and doing color-based liquids is reasonable simple (supporting random flowing liquids in the first place is the hard part!)  But if we get really out there, I think people will be cool with the weirder edge-case stuff having a rough look for a time.  At the same time, I've found that our artists are quite self-sufficient and would just need a bit of guidance in terms of what I'm working on to do something like give us a few fleshy floor pictures, and of course, stuff like animal people are already a big part of the game.  We're working on some strategies for e.g. forgotten beasts, and procedural humanoids are roughly the same problem.  So I wouldn't worry about this just yet.  When we're in the thick of it, further down the line, doing all sorts of random magic stuff during the Big Wait, I'll see if I start feeling any of these pressures, but I feel good about it now.  In terms of integrating graphics with mods/packs/txt files etc., we're still working that out, but the thorniest issues are going to need to be worked out for the first Steam release - subsequent stuff shouldn't be so hard, at least once we solve the forgotten beast problem (which is a core procedural system and will influence a lot of how magical graphics get coded/supported, I suspect, depending on how much FBs themselves get gutted.)

Quote from: Eric Blank
1) Just what will enhanced graphics mean? Graphics tiles for things like items, landscape components, shrubs/grasses, and map icons?From the patreon page thats exactly what it looks like, so theres my answer Will things, modded things, that dont have graphics support show up as normal ascii tiles?
2) Will the steam version get steam workshop support for mods?
3) Will the steam version technically be downloadable on the bay12games/dwarves page? Steam only lets you run the newest version of a game and will immediately overwrite your current game files, which id have to backup before updating, and if i want to play older versions of the steam game it would be absolutely necessary to have access to it there.
4) How different will the "classic" version end up being?

To be fair ive been playing for 12 years now, since i was 14, and this is new and scary and im not sure if i like it, but if you think its necessary for you, you know whats best.

Meph: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7942969#msg7942969

1) If the modder doesn't indicate graphics, then that would be the default, yeah, though adding in a line for the creature to point to some default included graphical tile might start to become a practice.  We might also do this ourselves, to prevent ascii from being used if the Steam graphics are on.  I'm not sure what other projects do for mods that simply don't provide graphics - I suppose it depends a lot on the game.
2) Yeah, as Meph said, this is the plan.
3) I am not 100% to what extent other games support old versions etc. - I know we are going to have the ascii version available as a branch, and I'm not sure if they'd also let us put up old stable versions?  I don't have the savvy to set up my own website that would gate the old steam versions properly.  We are entering an era now where one would be purchased and one wouldn't be, so I can't set up free downloads of the graphical ones.
4) As Meph said, the classic version will be mechanically identical, and just not include the assets and specific steam stuff like achievements.  It'll have all the same modding capabilities; I don't think Workshop interferes with that at all, is my understanding.

Quote from: Shonai_Dweller
Are whatever enhancements that are going into the graphics system to support these new tiles going to be folded back into "classic" or are classic users to make do with DFhack/TWBT (and crashing Adventurer...)?

I'm sure modders will find ways to make DF even better, but the classic and steam versions are both going to get a number of goodies, including a lot of what TWBT currently does.  You'll be able to do all of the graphical stuff in classic in your mods, presuming you are ready to draw or otherwise grab your own assets; the current plan is to just continue using txt files as we are currently, though there might be some new syntax there to keep save file size down etc. etc.  We'll be careful to structure this in a way that doesn't impact mod portability, etc., as best we can.  For instance, a default Steam save should not copy all of the default assets to its own folder (as it does currently), to stop it from becoming giant - this also means supporting pointing at default assets, and giving modders a way to have their own graphics installed in a save-independent way, perhaps?  Classic could just display in ascii and also yell at you if you don't have your save's mods' graphics installed (while still working); maybe smaller graphics mods could continue to piggyback along inside of saves, just to save some compat trouble.  There are a number of things to consider, and we want it to work both in classic and in Workshop.  There might be some sticky points.  We'll see once we get out of villains!

Quote from: Immortal-D
If you don't mind me asking; the circumstances of the Steam launch are troubling.  Do you ever go jogging, bike riding, etc.?

Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7943638#msg7943638
Untrustedlife: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7943645#msg7943645
Pillbo: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7948040#msg7948040

I'm not an athlete, but here's a small offering: https://twitter.com/theothertuklus/status/1112167287920877568

I should probably emphasize generally that bipolar has nothing to do with exercise, and exercising outside is probably worse for skin cancer, though I have no idea how all the bodily systems work together there, so maybe it's a wash.  I'm eating better than I used to (though some of those early reports were also exaggerated.)

Quote from: Antares
Do you anticipate that non-Classic will have equivalents to the options found in init.txt and d_init.txt?
If so, would this extend to custom tilesets/graphics?

clinodev (generally, to all Steam questions): http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7943735#msg7943735

Yeah, we're likely going to move quite a bit of those in-game (or at least support changing them in-game), as people won't be expecting to mess with txt files when they launch a game from Steam.  (no reason that won't happen in classic too)

As for custom graphics, that depends on Workshop, I think.  I don't know enough about how it works yet to be specific here.

Quote from: PatrikLundell
How will The Announcement affect DF development?
- In the near term: The writing of a new graphics engine will obviously take time, so
1a: Do you have a ballpark guess of how long it will take, i.e. days/weeks/months/seasons...?
1b: When do you plan to write the engine? My guess would be that you'd finish the villain release and a few essential bug fix releases and then do the engine, followed by bug fix releases of things found while the engine was produced. The dev page hasn't been updated to cover this yet (as of this writing).
1c: Are you adamant in doing it yourself rather than contracting competent community members for the task (especially if the 1a estimate is beyond "a few weeks", as I would expect it to be)?
- In the long term:
2. Do you intend to change the way you work as a result of this? I'm primarily aiming the question at how you deal with bugs during the rather long (semi) major development cycles, as a Long Wait with a growing pile of reported bugs and no bug fixes is likely to result in DF being labeled as abandonware by many. I expect a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth concerning bugs whatever you do due to the nature of DF and its development, but some outcomes are worse than others.

Edit: 1b and 2 have been answered below by quotes from other fora, and so have been de-Toadified color wise.

Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7943751#msg7943751
Knight Otu: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7943778#msg7943778
PatrikLundell (op): http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7943790#msg7943790

1a) Ha ha ha, my guesses have always suuuuuucked.  Finishing villains?  Well, we're already in negative months on that, but let's say with all that's going on, it took three more months, being flippant because who knows.  Then we stabilize for a month.  Then the true Steam work begins, and takes...  X months?  It'd be good to spend time on it, because every bit of accessibility work helps with our first impression here, but we also have to get it released.  Aside from some issues with software rendering I've discussed with mifki and Tanya etc. and we are going to work out one way or another, I'm pretty confident on the basic rewrite (the trailer graphics are all in-engine and those rewrites all took ~a week).  The artists are working now, can work while I finish villains, and then continue to work as I start in on the Steam stuff, so I don't expect any delays there.  So the X months comes down a bit to whatever else we are going to do with menus and tutorials and that sort of thing.  Even the beginning, how world gen makes a world and then spits you back to the main menu -- it needs to be more friendly from the first moments.  And we're going to work on that for a time.  Bugs of course are also in play here, especially bugs that relate to this purpose.

1c) We'll see!  I can do everything but the core important bit of using more modern graphics stuff way down in the guts (the code that is already released with the linux version and will remain public.)  The interfacing with all of the DF code, etc., is all a straightforward slog and doesn't seem to depend on the underlying architecture (between software rendering, vertex buffers, shaders, whatever.)  mifki (and others?) have worked out a Windows DLL solution to one of our issues etc., though I'm not going to be able to be more specific here until I'm out of villains and in the weeds properly.  As you say in your reply, there just isn't a good time to start on this (especially if health has a say!), so I have to take this approach where I finish the stuff I'm working on, and then get into the Steam stuff.  So I'll have to be frustratingly vague for a bit, because I just don't have certain answers yet.
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Toady One

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #1809 on: April 01, 2019, 01:39:40 am »

Quote from: Shonai_Dweller
Great news on the Steam thing. I hope this brings in lots of new players (and their money) for you!

As I read through Meph's threads explaining the tons of sprites that will make the graphical version of DF so interesting, it becomes obvious (as I think it did to you back with Armok I) that graphics can never show everything you want them too. That leaves them as highly detailed, colourful representations, which I guess people accept more so in 2D than 3D but to me is not much more useful than an ASCII character (but that's just me - whatever attracts new players is cool I guess).

So, and I suppose it might be too early to tell, but with all this new income, official graphical version, back up of tremendously cool people...do you feel any pressure to reconsider any features from the point of view of "will this work in the graphical version"?

Examples might be, say, the Half-Elf issue. If you attempt it, it's going to be a lot of work just for the coding. But for tilesets? Sprites for half, quarter, a little bit elves? Green half-goblins? Pale half-goblins with red eyes (two variations from three-toe's own stories). The scope of procgen critters post myth-gen? It's all going to be a headache for the graphics guys but it all seems so essential to making dwarf fortress what it is. (And I guess the reason I'll play the Steam version in ascii, statues of famous bards represented by statues of armoured dwarves just annoys me).

To clarify, I don't mean contractual pressure, but just on the level of consideration for Meph and Mayday's sanity.

Egan_BW: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7944210#msg7944210
Death Dragon: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7944239#msg7944239

As I stated for another question in the first post, I don't think it'll be an issue.  I mean, ASCII was already hopelessly overloaded and confusing with some symbols, and that wasn't stopping me, ha ha ha.  But once I get a little practice coordinating with artists, coming up with an ascii representation and coming up with a 2D representation aren't too different total time-wise, working in parallel.  If (as your second paragraph suggests), it's more just about what looks good...  well, that's a taste thing; I think a 2D artist will always be able to draw things that work for people that like that style, anyway.  I'm in between worlds, since I grew up on both text and 2D games, so I'm really fine either way.  And with classic, I'm going to continue to provide an ASCII answer to every graphical question.  Though, really, at some point I should at least add one extra sheet (this is something we've all been talking about here for years on and off, of course, in various contexts.)  It strikes me that this will be much easier now, in classic, with the new support.  Though I suppose if that console mode is still in we'll always need a terrible overloaded solution too.

In terms of exact representation, I think there's some room in 2D to still not be representative, to not worry about the exact coloration or whatever of procedural critters, though it's not precisely the same latitude as a 'g' or whatever.  Especially when certain 2D tiles become known to have whatever the procedural style ends up being, like the forgotten beasts, people will get in the habit of giving them a closer look to get more information, I expect, especially after they get gassed or flamed out the first time.

Quote from: Death Dragon
As far as I know, one thing you really appreciated about DF was that you didn't have any responsibility towards anyone and you could work on anything you want at any pace you want. Do you feel any sort of mental "consequences" due to putting the game up for sale? Do you feel differently now that you're going to have "customers"?

On Discord you said that most new graphics effects like the transparency feature etc have already been implemented into the game. For how long have you been working on these things exactly? Did you do them secretly at the side during the villain update?

Working with artists, working with a friend as a publisher, all of these things add to a feeling of responsibility, sure.  I'm not sure I've wrapped my head around any difference with customers and how that'll work; the entire culture of Steam is a bit different, and that's just be something that'll take some or a lot of adaptation.  But the exigent circumstances have spared me from feeling too odd about it.  We gotta do what we gotta do.  At the same time, the notion I've heard that, say, every single bug on the tracker needs to be fixed doesn't strike me as consonant with my experience with...  basically any game I've purchased, ha ha ha.  Still, we'll do what we can.  Time to be a little less flip about UX.

The artists have been working for a long while, and it shows!  For me, though, it was that one week in late February that I mentioned on the dev log at the time (http://bay12games.com/dwarves/index.html#2019-02-28), and a bit after as the trailer took shape.  At the end of the day, updating a simple 2D render with some extra context-sensitive layers etc. isn't super time-consuming - except for the technical part where it needs to be properly lightweight, which'll possibly see us move away from software rendering, as stated in post 1.  There'll also be a somewhat lengthy slog where I have to, for instance, tie every item id and map tile id, etc. into the print routine and the graphical assets, etc., but that's just busywork with the occasional harder problem.  Of course, I'm sure other stuff'll come up!  But I have the support of a lot of people and we're going to make it work.

Quote from: Death Dragon
Just to confirm: With "in world gen" you just mean the initial world generation, right? Not the time passing after the world has been finalised?

Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7944259#msg7944259

Yeah, that's right, not in post-world-gen play.  It's correct that it's not too too hard to turn it on, but there are enough differences between the two modes of play that it isn't a matter of using the exact same function, so any inertia which was in play at the time of that release (just trying to get it out in a reasonable time, etc.) comes into the decision-making.  I'm trying to be better about keeping everything synced, but I'm sure we'll see points here with villains where world-gen also has some extras.  It's just hard to move every bit forward.

Quote from: Hapchazzard
First off, sorry if I offended with the "like a 1930s apartment block" remark, I was just trying to be witty :)

Second, wow, a graphical DF release, honestly didn't expect this in the near future and am (very pleasantly) surprised! The new graphics look really good!

Since audio is also in the works, thought I'd ask a question about it: are there any potential plans for the Steam release (or later) to have 'ambient sounds', e.g. water dripping/echos in caverns, generic forest sounds when in a woodland, crowd sounds when in a congregated area (such as a tavern), etc.?

Second, more related to the graphical features, I've noticed in the graphical previews that sentient critters in battle actually have differing equipment, armor and appearances - some dwarfs have swords, some maces, some crossbows, some spears, etc. This is another very exciting thing for me. If this will actually be a feature, how far will it go in differentiating sentient creatures by equipment/state? Will it
change their sprites based on:
1. Equipped equipment, and it's state?
2. Clothing, and it's state?
3. Physical appearance, such as bald dwarfs actually being bald, etc.?
4. Wounds, from generic bloodiness when wounded, to possibly even more specific wounds (e.g. decapitation being shown, though I am fully aware that this might be a bit too graphical/gory). Possibly bandages when wounds are healing, also.

Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7944388#msg7944388
Hapchazzard (op): http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7944412#msg7944412

Ha ha, no problem on the apartment block thing, just wanted to stick up for my crappy sometimes-hexagonal roads a bit.

We haven't done any ambient sounds at this point, aside from some that come with the musical tracks that aren't specific to the location.  We have ten 'stingers' currently for major announcements, and might expand on that and other new systems in the future, but we don't have specific plans yet.

Yeah, on the graphical features, it's an ongoing discussion as Shonai_Dweller says.  We'll get to some of it now, and some perhaps later depending on how it all shakes out.

Quote from: Shonai_Dweller
Now that there are people other than you looking at graphics, another at music and presumably someone thinking about achievements and stuff, how do you want the Suggestions to work from now on? Continue to throw everything into the Bay12 Suggestions forum and you'll pass on anything you think you want in your game? Or some other way to pass on Suggestions directly?

PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7944874#msg7944874

Ha ha, there are already threads here I think where Mayday and Meph are taking suggestions and showing new artwork in progress etc.  So I don't yet think we need any specific new pipeline which I organize.  Once we're a bit further into the Steam work, it might be that something specifically arises regarding e.g. achievement structure, but for now, yeah, just throw them in suggestions and I'll fold that into whatever happens.

Quote from: Criperum
Will the steam version of the game have 3rd party utilities most people used to have like dfhack and dwarf therapist? I mean managing dwarfes and searching in most game windows provided by them is hard to overestimate. Or maybe the steam version will have the same functionality introduced?

therahedwig: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7944880#msg7944880
Criperum (op): http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7944882#msg7944882
therahedwig: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7944906#msg7944906
Egan_BW: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7944912#msg7944912
PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7944938#msg7944938
Criperum (op): http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7945336#msg7945336

The utility writers tell me that generally this will be possible, that utilities can still work, but I'm not sure at all about how, say, Workshop would interact with that.

We were never planning to fold in the spreadsheet approach, since it's not the direction I want the game to take, but we've arrived at this point now before I could make the fundamental V-P-L labor changes I wanted to test out with e.g. guild etc.  So we'll have to make do with certain additions; not the full spreadsheets, but other helpful matter concerning say unhappy dwarves or idle dwarves or 'why isn't my miner mining?!'.  Still in the early stages of thinking this out.  Something like a tutorial also quite possible; at a minimum something that gets you over the 'designation exists' hump, etc.

Quote from: Criperum
I undestand it might be too early to ask but as we know steam takes 30% of money for themselves and itch.io has a variable percentage. So will those fees be the same on both platforms? I'm just curious which one to choose to be sure more money will go to Adams brothers.

PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7945364#msg7945364
Criperum (op): http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7945369#msg7945369

We don't have anything set yet, but expect the platforms to be about the same.  Feels weird not giving itch the same cut, since they seem cool (met Leif briefly at the Roguelike Celebration last year), though I'm sure they'd support us either way.

Quote from: dragonslayerelf
However, speaking of, are there any plans to release slavery & cannibalism with the villainy or maybe even the gods & myths update?

PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7945446#msg7945446
Manveru Taurënér: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7945457#msg7945457
therahedwig: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7945473#msg7945473

Yeah, agree that if we're talking about fort mode, that'd be more a proc race law/customs thing.  In some sense, it's not actually possible for me to wrap my head around exactly what proc fort races are going to do to, say, 'embark scenarios'.  We have our nice list of starts we want to support, like mining companies, religious retreats, prison colonies, etc. etc...  but proc fort races will have some strange, strange things to say about that.

Quote from: Japa
Will the first villain release have any graphics changes? Or will all of them start after that.

Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7945566#msg7945566

Yep, as Shonai_Dweller quotes, trying to do a clean split between villains and Steam, to avoid confusion and do a proper gear-switching.  It's already confusing enough that there's going to be a release before the Steam stuff comes out, but we've been working on it for a long while and don't want any potential stability issues there to impact the first Steam release.

Quote from: FrankVill
1- What is the projection of the future regarding procedural art forms? Do you plan to add more details or improve what already exists?
It is not that I find it insufficient, I am really amazed with the current result.

2- Assuming that the first question you answered that there will be improvements / new features ... in what arcs would you develop them? And what would be its relevance in the development of the game beyond creating unique cultures with their own personality (more than enough, in fact)?

3- Will it include art forms for painting or sculpture as well? I guess the important thing is what is shown, but it would also be interesting to know if the style of the painting is Renaissance or impressionist, although that is already a suggestion.

4- If I were a composer who used the rules of a procedural musical form, would I be free to create several themes respecting the rules or is it quite restrictive?

PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7946278#msg7946278

1- I had a lot of fun making them, and hope to return to similar matters at some point.  We've done almost nothing with visual arts, architecture, etc., and the existing forms could also be extended greatly.

2- We've only defined a few arcs on the time table with clarity, those being Myth/Magic and Law/Property/Customs/Embarks.  I imagine dance/music/etc. will be tied into magic, even on the first pass, however, I'm not sure that would involve any extensions to the forms themselves.  Perhaps if there are underspecified portions where I need more information to do rituals correctly.  Customs are related, but it's hard to say what will come up there.

3- Yeah, as suggested in my answer to 1, I absolutely want to get into this, though they're a weaker area of mine personally when compared to music or to a lesser extent poetry (I knew nothing about dance going in.)  And for architecture, the community and friends have already been very kind in their piling of books upon me, heh.

4- PatrikLundell's reply is good here.  I don't have problems with people writing music based on DF forms, if that was the question.  If the question is about in-game composers and their latitude, some forms are much more restrictive than others, as I recollect, so it really depends.

Quote from: neblime
when you get to embarks/scenarios and such and forts having a purpose, will that tie in with current villian/hero/historical figure motivations and schemes? i.e. could a powerful noble establish a military fort with the express purpose of increasing his power?  or a temple to increase his prestige or something?

PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7946278#msg7946278

As PatrikLundell says, it's a bit early to predict, but certainly the idea is not just to have a generic "scenario" but to tie you into the generated world in specific entity-geographic ways, and that often involves individuals.

Quote from: XXX_ANUBIS_XXX
Hey Tarn, any plans for implementing a justice/security system to go with Villains?
ATM, I can walk out with a towns entire warehouse and not be bothered by even a single concerned citizen. I'd imagine that under realistic circumstances, there would be a few guards on the warehouse, mayhaps with the ability to encourage them to turn a blind eye?

Manveru Taurënér: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7947495#msg7947495
Doorkeeper: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7948428#msg7948428

As Doorkeeper mentions, we'd like to do something here, there in the dev bullet points, just to make the investigatory part a little more interesting.  I'm not sure how wide-ranging it can be at this point, though.  The companies don't hire guards currently, for instance, and there are similar little quibbles all up and down the process which we can't tackle all at once.

Quote from: Pillbo
Tarn, I was wondering what your personal opinion is on some of the debates/ideas happening in the Steam suggestions (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=173532.0) and tileset threads (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=173474.0)?

Bumber: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7948311#msg7948311

Yeah, as Bumber says, we'll need to hit specific points.

Quote
Quote from: Beag
1. How much do you think Dwarf Fortress will cost on steam?
2. With the switch from ascii to graphics will there be any graphics for what a creature is wearing? I ask this because it breaks my immersion a little to see a creature visually wearing one thing then when I check on them with the look command I find out they are wearing something else.
3. Will steam mods for Dwarf Fortress need to have graphics?
4. Will there be any indicator on the steam workshop for if mods are incompatible with each other or will we just need to test it out by running the game and seeing if it crashes?
Quote from: therahedwig
What kind of fallback mechanisms are you considering for situations in which unique graphics won't be possible, such as mods?

Manveru Taurënér: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7950675#msg7950675
Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7950742#msg7950742
Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7951091#msg7951091

The responses cover everything, I think.  Shonai_Dweller's last reply has my thoughts on therahedwig's followup question as well.  There will surely be times where using a specific mod will make it stick out since graphics weren't included etc., but that's a common enough issue with mods in games I've played; mods that pack in similar graphics will look nice with the Steam stuff, and their txt objects should also define their ascii characters for the ascii/classic version to use, since it's just one line and most objects just have it sitting there.

Quote from: Shonai_Dweller
Lots has been said about the new graphics support you're adding, so:
Will the sound and music be completely moddable too? How will sound effects work? Are they defined for every action in the game, like a whole page of raws for editing as we like? Or as a tag we call from existing raws (which we could add to modded in reactions or combat attacks)?

Yes, all of it will just be out in the text.  Now, what that means at first will likely be limited to, say, announcement sounds, seasonal music, and "you are dying" music, he he he.  But any music/sound triggers we support will be out in some txt file that can be changed.  If sound becomes more complicated over time (like, combat sounds, however that works with a siege of 300...), the triggers will still be added to the relevant creature, etc., or out in some supplemental file (as with the current creature graphics.)

As for the sound files themselves, that's up in the air in the same way as graphical files are.  We want saves to be as lightweight as we can keep them, but we also want them to be as portable as possible.  That almost involves case-by-case decisions on what you should pack in to a save, and what needs to be downloaded for it to have every file necessary.  That might be something that's just set by the modder with some tag?  Depends on how Workshop works too, etc.

Quote from: PatrikLundell
I've read through the thread on the new tile sets, and seen that it appears clothing will be reflected on the characters. I expect that will result in a more or less immediate demand for control over clothing in Fortress Mode in the form of:
- Control over which types of clothing characters use (both in the "I refuse to play a game where guys wear dresses" vein and in the "I want different groups to wear different clothing as per my instructions" style), as well as the color of their clothing.
- A wider selection of dyes, especially with a wider color palette for the game itself.
Is this something you intend to address before the commercial version launches (e.g. in conjunction with military uniform UI overhaul), or something that would be addressed when (and if) the issue appears? It's not on my top priority list, but I suspect not dealing with it will have a negative impact on DF reception at launch.
The reason I've made this a question rather than a suggestion is that it's tied to the commercial launch, and so is time constrained.

feelotraveller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7951355#msg7951355
therahedwig: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7951361#msg7951361
Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7951369#msg7951369
feelotraveller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7951375#msg7951375
PatrikLundell (op): http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7951453#msg7951453
etc.

Ha ha, yeah, as far as I know it's still under discussion.  I'm also a few days behind due to all that's been going on.  I can see certain customization and content rising up a bit as we go, if the game starts to feel a certain way or if it feels like a really great opportunity.  Here, I agree overcoming a certain sense of sameiness at least is important, all the way back with your initial seven dwarves and then the first set of migrants; if sashes ends up handling that, cool, or if we end up having to work a bit more, we can do that.  The dwarves do tend to dress similarly and use similar colors.  Dunno how that was received/handled in, say, StoneSense.

Quote from: Criperum
As you said that you are goingto fix some military issues between vilians and the Big Wait. Is problem with armor and uniforms one of those planned fixes?

Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7951946#msg7951946

It's not specifically related, but as Shonai_Dweller says, we'll be in the area.  Additionally, we're going to fix some things before the Steam release, especially stuff likely to be irritating to large numbers of people starting out.

Quote from: Shonai_Dweller
A long while yet, but when you come to the society/politics development stage, do you see (presumably generated) cultural/political/military systems that follow very different paths to the "medieval Europe" vibe we get at the moment? I know Mythgen will make weird and wonderful non-Tolkieny worlds possible, but specifically for culture & politics. Do you see yourself focussing mainly on elements of "earth" cultures for inspiration or will there be chances of really out-there pure fantasy political systems (either based on literature, your own imagination, or whatever)?

Yeah, definitely.  I have Chinese and Indian law codes on top of western ones which I've read through in preparation for my law frameworks, and my customs material is from all over the world (though I haven't yet settled on sources there, and some of mine are old), and that'll help a lot I'm sure, when it comes time to have a broad real-world framework from which to go off into fantasy land.  For the out-there stuff, we hope for it, especially when it comes to the non-humans (since they aren't human), and to some additional extent the non-dwarves (since the dwarves have to hold on to something a bit like humanity for playability/relatability purposes).  At the same time, it's possible to overdo this, so we'll have to be subject to the simulation outcomes -- real-world stuff guides us back to playability when stuff goes off the rails, so it's kind of a base to move out from as well.  Still, presumably the law/customs/status/new-entity code will allow a great deal of X -> Y random crap to the extent we let it, and part of the point is to have a bit of fun.  Of course, getting beyond the "out-there" systems covered by human culture is harder than it seems, as you can find a custom or smaller group system that covers just about anything.  People more familiar with medieval Europe will likely think we're making some of the things up that just come straight out of the reading.
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Inarius

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #1810 on: April 01, 2019, 02:00:51 am »

Thanks Toady !
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PlumpHelmetMan

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #1811 on: April 01, 2019, 02:21:40 am »

Thanks for the answers, Toady! Here's to the start of another month. :)
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Shonai_Dweller

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #1812 on: April 01, 2019, 03:26:50 am »

Thanks for the answers Toady!
Look forward to forgetting all this Steam stuff for a while and getting back to reading about Villains updates.  :)
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Criperum

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #1813 on: April 01, 2019, 04:36:27 am »

Thanks for the answers!

I was actually waiting for something like "Ha! It was a long standing 1 April joke!" but it didn't happen.
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Shonai_Dweller

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #1814 on: April 01, 2019, 07:38:24 am »

Quote
I suppose even clicking on the set of verbs and objects etc. might be kind of neat, or choosing which concepts to emphasize during a creation, etc.  It would be kind of funny to play in a world over a sequence of forts/etc. and always know that you were personally responsible for one of the threads of creation, especially if it comes up somehow.
Sounds great fun. This please.
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