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« on: July 08, 2014, 08:08:08 pm »
I don't really know what to say but it has been obvious to me since I got into DF that it is supposed to be more about the canvas. I have been lead to believe that is what he has always been trying to do. Now I may not have been around since 2006 but it really doesn't seem likely that the information available suddenly changed just before I got into it. Less so because no one commented on it at the time.
Quite frankly I would rather have longer development cycles. First of any community games life is going to be tied to it's version and while save compatibility may be a thing it isn't always going to be especially since any time Toady would spend trying to make it a thing would basically be wasted and doing it every release would add up very quickly. Needing to scrap all your saves isn't a big deal when there are larger changes and longer development cycles but if he did smaller cycles I could easily see saves becoming outdated very, very quickly. Second any third party applications, or sources like the wiki are going to have trouble keeping up if releases occur too quickly which would likely end up resulting in something polarizing the community further than it already is.
In short I think longer development cycles are better for the game and the community. Maybe not quite two years but I certainly don't want a new version every two weeks or month. For example had Toady released each time he finished one of the following: Multi-tile trees, New personality/dream stuff, revised movement, revised combat, Climbing, Jumping, sites for other races, progress after world gen, revised conversation system. I probably would have only updated 3 of potentially 9 times because of the value I place on things, some people would also probably stop and stick with version X if they didn't like the implementation of version Y until feature A that they really wanted got put in version Z.
On the stone and soil types I support adding them before hand and making them mechanically different at a later date. It is easy enough or at least theoretically possible to flag a predefined stone/soil type to follow a certain mechanic later but it is impossible to add it to the world post-generation.
On mods I am largely against their addition. There are a few reactions I think that Toady should put in like adventuring tanning and leather crafting, sure the reactions are small and anyone who wants to can but given how outsider adventurers are implemented they should be there by default or at least waterskins and backpacks should be more common. Also a way to create an anvil without already having one I modded in the making of a clay anvil cast and set up a smelter reaction to take that and 4 bars of iron/steel to get a new anvil without having on to start with.
