Bay 12 Games Forum

This was probably answered before so if anyone has a previous answer by Toady I'd be more than happy to hear it.
Can dwarves change/adopt religion? Do sermons make dwarves more inclined to a different religion? Can dwarves lose faith in a god?

Toady probably answered this before but here goes nothing:
Can demons start plots? Will they? If yes, in what conditions? would they have some special advantage to tempt people and make agents?

Well that would be one thing, but I can see there's plenty of problems with trying to capture someone in the middle of the battle. There's plenty of enemies that end up getting disabled before they are killed and if you can provide some assistance so they live a bit longer, then you can capture a few after the dust settled. You could also equip soldiers with hammers, as it would decrease mortality.


1)Will the new aquifer changes means it could be viable not to use constructed walls but instead construct a drainage system of grates and underground tunnels that naturally drain the aquifer somewhere else? Or will the water flow be too much for dwarfs to go through?
2)Will water someday seep through constructed walls, albeit at a slower rate the more walls there are between the aquifer/water source and the walls, making drainage systems for mines an actual necessity?
3)Will different kinds of rocks have different rates of permeability, affecting the speed that water seeps through the aquifer, or it will always be a fixed rate?

With the upcoming "interrogations" to deal with villainous plots, will the player and the AI:

1) Be able to interrogate or "test" (such as a cut to see if it bleeds or even touch to see if its warm) prisoners they suspect of being vampires/undead? In the past you mention the intelligent undead could be captured and if freed, they'd carry on living as normal but they would eventually flee when people start noticing they don't age.
2) If 1 turns out to be true, will civs finally get a way of getting rid of the undead/vampires, such as burning them at the stake? AFAIK the only thing that happens now is that people get suspicious and they flee, but that's it.
3) Since assassinations can happen in player-led forts and since capture and interrogation of agents will be a thing, will we be possible to capture unconscious enemies? Think of an assassination that goes bad: the assassin turns into an invader, the alarm is sound, a military squad would rush and get to the assassin. Right now they would chop them to pieces, but I imagine what we are aiming at is at having him disabled and captured.
4) If 3 is true, will we be able to capture disabled soldiers of invading forces (such as goblins)? Any plans for that (interrogations, etc) if that's the case?
5) Finally, still related to 3, will there be an "alarm" system now? What I mean is, if the assassin succeeds in killing his target but doesn't sneak fast enough, someone discovers the body. The player will be alerted, like when dwarfs are found drained out of blood, but will the dwarfs try and find some authority to tell it, which can then try and find the culprit, or it will all be left for the player?

Before assuming/claiming we're getting less answers you might want to actually LOOK at and compare FotF's from the past to the current ones (just did a quick run-through of random ones going back to 2010), which would've shown you that there hasn't been that big a change at all over the years.

But I'm not assuming or claiming we are getting less (total) answers in no way, shape or form. The question is about who answers those questions - not that the total amount of answers went down.
The "you" part of the question is even in bold to denote that.
Damn it's expected for the amount of answers to go up as DF just got more popular through the years and the amount of questions also went up. The amount of questions he doesn't answer directly also went way up and that's the point of the question.

but having people who've been around and remember what's been answered already help answer repeat questions is hardly a bad thing considering

Sure, that's the good part. If someone asks "when is X coming" and someone reply "Toady said in Y arc" then you have an objective answer about something. Problem is the nature of human engagement isn't that simple and a lot of questions have some leeway for interpretation - and the interpretation we get is not from Toady.

Take my previous question. I expect Toady to quote Shonai_Dweller answer or answer the same thing. Why? Because, as we can see, there was a lot of misunderstanding on what the question was about. There's three possible scenarios here, where Toady reads the question and:
A)Understands what I meant and answers it.
B)Thinks he understood but skimming through the discussion around it is left in doubt over what I asked, as people are interpreting it some other way. Which can lead to either scenario A or C.
C)Understand it the way so many people misunderstood it, quote one of the answers that doesn't really answer the question and carries on.

He might even avoid the question thinking the issue got too controversial. While I get a lot of people are trying to help (and I appreciate that), if no one ever answered it thinking that was answered in the Reddit AMA then the only possible scenarios would be he answering it (or not answering at all, which would also be fine). Whether his interpretation of my question was right or wrong, I'd have an answer from the person I'm asking - not from someone else.

Let's say I go to a Q&A with an author. Several people are there, so your question might be picked or not. That's part of it.
But if for your question that was picked someone else in the audience answered and the author just pointed towards the person who answered it, well, that could be frustrating couldn't it? I mean the purpose of the Q&A was to engage with the author and know what he thinks, in his words. Not what someone else in the audience thinks.

And it's no surprise some people get a bit agitated when you come in with all manner of hyperbole, veiled insults and personal attacks. Might want to consider how you express yourself, just saying.

There are no veiled insults or personal attacks in my questions to Toady. If you consider anything I wrote an hyperbole (and the only thing that could be construed that way was my second question, even though it clearly states an IMO which you might be interested to know means "in my opinion") then that's on you but hey, the question isn't directed to you. What compels you to make this strawman over a question that you (or anyone) are not obliged to answer is baffling. If you think I'm being rude when people drop in and interfere in a question I'm asking someone else, well, you are not obliged to interact with me either. Just ignore me.

maybe pay attention to the rest of the thread? Every question is replied to in this way by people who feel confident in answering it.

Maybe if you aren't 100% sure don't try and answer something you barely understood? Honestly the FotF became worse through the years because of this gate-keeping and you are the worst offender of it. Which makes me want to ask another question

Through the years in the FotF we have more and more people help you with answers, in the sense that you started to quote them for answers (in the past you rarely did that). It saves you time but we get less and less answers from you and we are left dealing with people that think they understand our questions as well as answers were they think they know the answer. It wasn't a huge thing before but it's getting worse through time IMO, though obviously not everyone is guilt of it and some are just trying to be helpful. Do you think that this "priest answering the devotees about the will and the thoughts of the Great Toady" is enabling this and can be harmful to the state of the FotF as well as inhibit direct engagement?

Your question was inherently speculative.

You can construe it that way, but it wasn't aimed at your speculation was it? Because I couldn't care less about you speculating on anything.

is pure speculation, you drew that scenario, formulating it as a question doesn't change that fact, and you used specific examples in your own question, the exact same way the reply did, so telling other people that they aren't allowed to is either 1. bad faith argumentation or 2. you simply forgot what your original question was.

Seems like you don't know the meaning of the word "speculation" to me. Let me help you:
spec·u·la·tion: the forming of a theory or conjecture without firm evidence.
Now if my question was speculation it would be necessary I wouldn't have any evidence (or barely any) a split could occur. It would also need to be a theory, not a question, but I'm not in the mood to explain the difference to you. Not really here to educate you, Putnam. But the scenario I "constructed" was based on things that happened, therefore, there's firm evidence that adopting a walled garden can do the things you think are speculation. The adoption of a walled garden is adding the possibility it will happen - how likely you think it is is irrelevant since, let's face it, I'm not interested in your opinion (and I highly doubt anyone here is).

EDIT: And of course the question was already answered: the creator has no responsibility here. The creator should not have responsibility here, and never should when it comes to modding games.

Of course you haven't read anything isn't, typical Putnam response: half answer that doesn't serve anything at all but waste everyone's time.

And again I find your argument fallacious.

But I'm not making an argument am I? I'm making a question. You are making an argument because you don't agree with my question (or you seem to be reading more into it) - which in itself is absurd.

I was specifically stating what barriers there are from the Steam side, of which there are none, because I've seen said lack of barriers for myself.

Except for, you know, the whole walled garden barrier, there's none, sure.

You're assuming that every single mod creator on the Workshop will only post to the Workshop.

No, I'm not. I'm asking Toady for his opinion on his decision to use the Workshop and the potential for a split in the mod community and the subsequent creation of second-class consumers. That might not happen at all - but it's a risk he is taking in favor of potential consumers in Steam over other platforms. Read my question again:

Are you worried/have you given any thought about the the Steam Workshop creating a walled garden and splitting the modding community?

creating here is in the future. The question itself doesn't state it will happen, it asks if he's worried it will happen or if he thought about it at all when he made his decision.

And above all, it all lies with the modders themselves how available they make their mods. I highly doubt it is intentional to create any barriers to access to mods, and to lay responsibility for that at the feet of the developer is a bit of a reach if you ask me since they have no control over the modding community's choices.

Again, I'm not asking about the modding community choices. I am asking about his choices. The whole purpose of the Workshop was to create a walled garden that made more attractive for people to use Steam over other platforms. It's not the modding community choice to put Workshop in a game - it's the developer's choice. A combination of factors might end up creating a walled garden, or that might not happen at all, but the one who enables it all is the one who decides that the walled garden can exist in the first place.

And to say anyone who doesn't download the Steam version will become a "second-class consumer" is just as fallacious because it's based on the assumptions above. Plus it comes off as trying to start a fight before the Steam release has even happened.

I'm not saying it will happen, I'm saying it can happen and asked him for his thoughts on it and asked if he thought about it at all. Am I speaking English here because I'm often repeating this to seemingly no avail.

And just like crusader kings 2 was never on GoG, that's not what I asked either.

The Reddit question is asking if he thinks that modders in steam will provide non-walled version of their mods.
I'm asking if he has given any thought and his opinions on the community splitting potential of his decision of doing Workshop and the possibility of that turn other consumers in second class consumers
 
One is about modders and their own choices.The other is about Toady and his choice and responsibilities. How on earth does one answer the other and in what language are they the same?