Thanks for the answers as always Toady. And thanks for the update. Those faces look incredible, even if they're still just prototypes. I also love the icon that is the singing turtle person. Hopefully that makes it to release.
1) Since getting a look at someone based on their clothing and description is coming up before the villains release, is there any chance of wanted posters with the last known description of famous villains rendered on them in a similar style?
2) Will someone with face obscuring garb still have their eyes/nose/scars/blue skin/full suite of intellectual values/etc visible at a glance in their description in adventure mode once villains are finished? Or fort mode for that matter?
3) Have you ever played Shadows of Doubt, the proc gen detective game?
Turbans and different kinds of head clothes are some of the clothing I'm most excited to see rendered in DF. Dwarves also seem to love wearing them, nearly as much as underwear.
4) Will dwarven civilizations ever have a chance to be generated with different styles of clothes like human cultures are?
mikekchar:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8504934#msg85049341) We wanted to incorporate appearance into the visual character info people store in their heads, but have not done so since we need to pare it down to a usable size. Cloaks, masks and tattoos and etc. have been discussed in the context of the villains stuff. I'm not sure where it'll go beyond witness reports and identification generally.
2) We're hoping for masks and cloaks etc. to matter at some point, in the contexts where they would be most important. I'm not sure about general UI stuff - you can already read dwarf minds so a certain about of extra information is always going to be available, but we also try to avoid giving away things like vampires too easily, so it's reasonable to hide stuff depending on the context.
3) Zach did for a bit. I think he had fun with it. Seems cool.
4) They probably should. We reduced down the list in the raws to keep things simple, but they don't need to be simple probably.
Does the latest devlog mean we're getting palettized forgotten beasts, and other procgen creatures, next update?
It doesn't, not immediately. We want to think a little more about that, but we're very likely heading that way. Our main case which I just need to do the raws for is the equipment, clothing, hair, bodies of the main civilized creatures. I've already got it working for the portraits so it's just a matter of a lot of raw text, and of course whenever you look at that giant layer creature txt file for the dwarves etc. it really does become time to probably make it shorter somehow, rather than adding palette cases all over. We'll see where that goes.
Why don't you make a toolkit for translators?
Shonai_Dweller:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8505866#msg8505866PatrikLundell:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8505938#msg8505938Putnam:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8506031#msg8506031mikekchar:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8506323#msg8506323Putnam:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8506574#msg8506574Yeah, agreeing with the general vibe of the responses. It's just a hard problem, but we're also interested in figuring it out. It's not simple to set up a format for something like legends mode, appearance paragraphs, etc etc, and to get translated elements to fit on the screen, as people mention. But it's also not an impossible problem. But a lot of work.
So, we know that spheres will influence world gen significantly more by that point, but how will spheres like 'Revenge' or 'Rumors' or 'Lust' or 'Fame' work in that regard? They don't seem all that geography-y to me, at least without another sphere to ground it.
and, for that matter -
What of the combinations? Let us say I have a God of Fame, Rumors, Trees, and The Rain. Two of these (trees and the rain) seem to be the core of our theoretical godly biome, but how would the others effect it?
Similarly, currently, we get things like necromancers and demons corrupting the land using their spheres as the baseline, and I understand that with future worldgen (and magic), we will likely have various wizards and gods being able to do that with any sphere, but -
What if we had a area that was already tainted or blessed by someone else? How would a blessing and a curse placed upon a land interact? (or two blessings... or two curses?)
PatrikLundell:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8505700#msg8505700Yeah, agree with the response here that mainly we haven't thought through specific examples for every sphere. I don't think it needs to be limited to worshipper behavior, or even influencing intelligent creatures, but those are the most straightforward cases to work with. We're certainly not going to have comprehensive coverage on our first pass, since some of the effects would likely take a bit of time to implement and we'll need to push through it and not do some.
All the same, the most simple way to do multiple spheres/combos is to just add multiple traits. It's better when they can relate to each other in some more interesting way, but the sim does a form of that on its own at least. Certain locations can also emphasize one sphere over others, depending on how the myth worked - the handy thing about mythgen will be giving us some extra context to use here. A deity might have a sphere for a reason unrelated to its relationship to the land or creation.
In the most simple cases, conflicts are additive or last-in/first-in wins, but depending on what's causing the change, it could be more interesting than that, with whatever cosmic friction going on that could lead to something else entirely, but it's just gonna be a matter of what we get to. The first concern is just getting something basic in, and then having the most simple change mechanic we can, since we wanted things to be changeable.
Within the overhaul of the Adventurer character creator, will we be seeing embark profiles like in fortress mode?
Likewise, would it be possible to make custom labor details something similar that could be moved between forts/worlds/installs, etc?
It'd make sense to have those since it's a time consuming process to pull together a character, though you run into the same trouble of not having the same items available every time, and it might be worse here depending on how the clothing is stored/handled.
Definitely appreciate the desire to be able to import labor details (and work orders etc.), there's a lot of redundant work when you've played several forts. We're generally going to keep the fort updates coming (better archers still #1 if I recall), and we'll be addressing stuff/feedback as we go.
How were the statistics for the weapons determined? I can figure out how weights would be calculated, but I don't know what sort of formulas or educated guesses were used for the attack types.
There weren't any formal calculations or anything. I think the community has produced better numbers as of a long while ago. As with the economy, combat basics are something we haven't looped back around to yet despite it being a long while. I'm not sure which direction we'll be coming from.
How do you feel with the end of UI work finally on the horizon? Do you plan on taking a well-deserved vacation after it's done?
Putnam:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8509408#msg8509408Ha ha, it really doesn't feel that way with so much adventure mode left to do. And I'm not sure there'll be a special vacation. I think it will be nice to arrive at the first graphical adventure mode release though. That will be nice.
Do you have a good idea of what and how to implement the map rewrite, or are you going to make it up as you go when you get to it? By this, I mean the mathematical systems for generating geographical features, procedurally modifying them, storing data and recalling information. Have you got the math ready to implement, or are you expecting a protracted period of creative experimentation?
A lot of people don't realise that stuff doesn't always 'exist' in procedurally generated worlds until the user looks at it, to create the illusion of permanancy. But, how much is 'permanent' in DF (at least geographically) and how much is generated on demand? If you know what I mean. Will this change with the rewrite? It's my understanding that world Gen will receive more procedural layers (tectonics, layer folding, falling god corpses etc.) and also allow for more dynamic features (icebergs, floating island etc.)
Will it not be difficult to stitch existing systems that interact with geography into the new map system? For example, plopping cities onto terrain? Or have you thought of that?
PatrikLundell:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8508692#msg8508692We're at an in-between state, as usual. I have a long list of things that I need the maps to do, and I've thought about each of them, down to data structures in some cases and not in others. The open question we're trying to tackle now is just how much we can avoid a big wait entirely or can we maintain save compatibility, since it seems vaguely possible. The only part that I think is unavoidably long now is the multi-camera setup, and maybe there's still some way to get that work to go a little faster. Most other parts of the myth/magic rewrite can be done in pieces without one big push, though of course there are reasons to think about things that way sometimes.
But yeah, we've always relied on a multitiered system of permanence, which has worked very well for us. The basic structure of this is "the world" (permanent) -> "midlevel maps" -> "play area", and lots of helper structures at those levels ("site" -> "site realization" -> "site tiles" etc.). I've thought about which new top/mid/low level structures will help us accomplish our goals. Ultimately if we can get away from the block columns (replacing them with stuff with tops and bottoms, as PatrikLundell mentioned), I don't think the lower level play area needs to change a lot for the map rewrite, which is good news because that's where most of the time would go. Then we can start connecting up all sorts of weird higher level structures on a judicious basis, and bring in some extra low level data to handle stuff like illusory walls etc (which present a lot of weird problems, but in their own domain, rather than in the "map rewrite" domain.) Getting away from block columns is doable but we need to handle the problem of stuff that falls off the bottom of the map, mainly, whether that's projectiles or water or a living creature or a corpse, and this is not simple (unless we just delete stuff, which isn't satisfying.)
Once you have multiple worlds, worlds don't even need to be permanent, but you lose a lot when you delete one, since you can't just run out a whole world gen every time you need it (unless it is low pop/small/everchanging, in which case you might be able to!)
Right now cities rely a bit on knowledge of elevation and rivers and the world road network etc. when they are laying themselves out, and we'd like to generalize the way this data is stored. But they don't know their precise elevations until pretty late in the process, which should help us out a lot. And ultimately, if the topography gets bendy enough that elevation doesn't mean anything, then we will need to revisit the existing city generator more ha ha. This should be fine, because we can visit that step when we choose. (It isn't even a save compat problem if we're careful about which sites have been visited and where they are in relation to regions that might suddenly become more interesting. Player forts pinning down existing rectangles is a similar problem.)
In terms of the game's atmosphere, I remember reading somewhere that the effect of waves on the oceans are still in the works for the new graphics. From that, I'm curious: Are there plans to display bloodstains on walls as well? It's a really cool detail in the ASCII mode that I hope eventually makes it to the new graphics, among any other graphical features that may still be missing.
Yeah, we'd like to get it all in there. There aren't a ton of pixels to work with on our walls but I'm sure something can be done.
1. Will portraits in the steam version adventure mode get updated to show wounds/scars if the player or a NPC gets a head injury and survives?
2. Will the advanced attack menu still be in the steam version of adventure mode? If the players figure out how to use it, they gain a much tighter control over how their character fights in past versions of adventure mode.
1. Yeah, we already have several drawn, though I don't have a raw format set up yet.
2. Yeah, we aren't taking any of those options away. It's a weird game where you can do two or more simultaneous attacks that you specify with multiple variables, and that's how it will remain. Gotta respect critters with all those arms and all those daggers. And the simple attack options which already exist will also be there.
Has that issue with invisible critters being un-findable and un-targetable been tackled? If it is solved, how do you intend to implement the hide interaction in the future? Invisibility until close range, dependent on observation, or a few ticks in ambush/sneak mode with positive rolls?
It has not, as far as I know! It feels like it depends on the existing combat/observation relationship of the multiple critters involved to get it right. It'll just need to track that, and probably allow wild or studied attacks into (the not actually) open space that can still connect. And there'd be a metagame there of the player trying to guess too, or using info we don't know about, but hopefully something better than a walk command failing or something, though a more verbose form of that is also proper.
Question: Do you think DF will see a law-making feature? I imagine it would make for an interesting gameplay element to stray from your original civilization culture (for better or worse) and deal with the consequences. Maybe the lawmaking branch (Baron etc.) could get ousted for making unpopular laws like rationing or banning science.
Yeah, we've been planning to do this for a long while, with the civ rewrite/embark scenario stuff. That's still the idea. The ability to stray from your civilization (beyond rejecting the barony and murdering any nobles that happen to come by) may come sooner, since the way it works now feels like more and more of a blocker with army/siege stuff on the horizon.
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Topic: Future of the Fortress (Read 2935682 times)