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Messages - Grendus

Pages: 1 ... 155 156 [157] 158 159 ... 174
2341
DF Suggestions / Re: Wooden cudgels/staff?
« on: July 26, 2009, 08:27:44 am »
Quote from: Dvergar on July 26, 2009, 12:16:56 am
Couldn't I just mod a hammer out of wood?  Or increase a crossbow's damage?

Unfortunately, hammers can already be made out of wood. The reason you don't see them is in the Elves civilization file they are given spears, bows, and swords but not hammers, so they can't make them. In order for a race to make wooden weapons they need the [WOOD_PREF] tag, but it has a nasty side effect: removes a races ability to use metal weapons.

2342
DF Suggestions / Re: dwarf fort mmo?
« on: July 26, 2009, 08:23:07 am »
Quote from: waldo on July 26, 2009, 06:02:50 am
i'm sorry but your extremely negative, first of all if those people want to bitch about toady not updating for a long time then go right ahead. and for the most part it should be up to the player's to stop the trolls, idiots and bastards who want to lower the quality of game play, i mean technically it falls under protecting their own fortress, if that means raiding some punk with a cheap fort then dammit let's go burn that monkey to the ground.

and also the code, customer support, and maintenance doesn't have to be taken up directly by toady. that's what armok created slaves and underlings for (employees)

and really you wouldn't have to worry about invasions from npcs because the user generated gameplay would more than make up for what would be lacking when about 40 goblins come knocking at your door.

basically the point is this project is awesome and in theory it would make a kickass mmo, i don't think it ever will, but it seems like a waste if there's no player to player interaction outside of a forum and videos.
I'm extremely negative because it's a poorly thought out idea. MMO's are not easy to make, not easy to maintain, and certainly not easy to control.

The point about content is that currently we control the content. That frees up a massive amount of Toady's time and gives us a ton of versatility. You want to trade all of that for online play. It's not a good trade, either the content would stagnate or the development would. This isn't just about player's bitching, players would be complaining because they'd be unhappy with the current content. Right now they can do something about it, in an MMO they wouldn't.

Sure it's up to the players, but we don't have much power beyond ignoring them. There's a reason you have GM's in game to deal with this crap, they get inundated with complaints. This could be alleviated by recruiting players to become pro-bono GM's, but they're harder to control. It would be another massive drain on Toady's time to deal with this, even if the players took the brunt of the workload. There's that much work involved.

Also, Toady won't let the players patch his code. We've asked, he said no.

Profit pretty much covered the issue with players dealing with the assholes, so I don't need to go into detail here. Basically, a well designed fort would be impenetrable, and if the guy decides to pick on all the other fortresses, there's nothing the people could do about it. If you were forced to deal with an alliance to protect yourself, you'd spend your days kowtowing to whoever could protect you. It just doesn't sound fun.

If DF was going to be an MMO, it would have to have been built as one from the ground up and probably would have needed more funding and more programmers. I think you vastly underestimate how difficult these things are to run.

2343
DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Re: Everyone's favorite game: The Running Goblin!
« on: July 26, 2009, 08:07:59 am »
I wanted to build Armok's Gauntlet (not the ship, an actual gauntlet of traps and such) which would have dozens of rooms with different traps ranging from magma floods to releasing swarms of Rhesus Macaques. I just don't really have the focus to play one fortress for that long.

The hardest part would be setting up a kobold based RNG to set off the traps, otherwise it's too predictable.

2344
DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Re: The Dwarven AK-47 (and no, I don't mean the crossbow)
« on: July 26, 2009, 08:05:29 am »
Quote from: Skorpion on July 25, 2009, 01:01:00 pm
Actually, killing things gives experience. Out of my two newbie wrestlers, one got an entire goblin thief to himself and made champion ahead of the other guy.

That's because before he broke the goblin's neck, he put him in about a dozen choke holds, arm bars, leg locks, and other grappling moves. I'm still not convinced killing gives exp, killing gives the chance for more attacks that grant exp.

But seriously, just train your laborers. You don't need to draft all 40 at once, send them in groups of six or so to wrestle for a season, then switch. After they're done practicing wrestling, arm them and spend another season practicing the axe or the hammer. You'll never be low on labor, and as a bonus if one of your haulers randomly runs into a kobold thief while hauling something inside you can draft him and he should kill it with no trouble at all unarmed.

2345
DF Suggestions / Re: Stop the clothesplotions?
« on: July 25, 2009, 08:21:51 pm »
Quote from: Derakon on July 25, 2009, 07:26:17 pm
You basically have two options when it comes to GCS: tame them, at which point they won't attack your dwarves, making web collection safer but web generation harder, or leave them wild, making web generation easier (since they'll shoot at any random animal or peasant you drop on them) but web collection much more dangerous. Generally the problem with the first approach is finding a way to get them to shoot at a hostile target without losing the hostile target and with being able to recapture it so it doesn't frighten dwarves away from the web collection area, and the problem with the second is finding a way to get them to not kill the friendly units and then get them away from the collection area so it doesn't kill your weavers.
Chain the GCS in sight of a goblin behind a window. Set up a floodgate to drop in front of the window to hide it from view after it slings it's webs. Problem solved.

Alternatively, an unarmed goblin/kobold won't even hurt a GCS. Drop them into the pit, let the GCS web and kill them, then collect the webs and lewts. Easy and fun.

2346
DF Gameplay Questions / Re: I said no aquifer
« on: July 25, 2009, 06:57:23 pm »
Quote from: Psychoceramics on July 25, 2009, 06:53:02 pm
if it can't find a site that matches every parameter, it'll start dropping them until it finds something.

In which case, it returns a 'partial match'. This returned a 'suitable site', meaning the algorithm believed it had satisfied all the parameters.

2347
DF Gameplay Questions / I said no aquifer
« on: July 25, 2009, 06:22:28 pm »
So I used the find new site tool to find a zone. I'm not too picky, the zones just need magma, flux, and no aquifer. The only problem is it keeps finding zones with aquifers. I checked, I marked no aquifer. The find screen did not return a 'partial candidate', and there is no biome in the embark zone that does not have an aquifer. Is this intentional or a bug?

2348
DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Re: Vault Challenge
« on: July 25, 2009, 04:36:03 pm »
Quote from: thepuska on July 21, 2009, 09:24:13 am
The safest vault a dwarf can build:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

But there's no fun in a vault like that.

Send a dwarf up to the second highest level as a soldier, then undraft him. Orchestrate a cave in to kill the goblins, or else build a drawbridge, drop the artifact on it, then deconstruct it to drop the item to the ground. Of course this assumes that the level with the artifact has walls to deconstruct for building materials and no goblin to scare the dwarf.

Alternatively, if the tower was not built up to the sky, a cave in could be arranged above the tower to drop the floor through the goblins.

Properly constructed though I can see this being impossible to crack.

2349
DF Gameplay Questions / Re: Bag values
« on: July 25, 2009, 03:59:47 pm »
Quote from: Jimmy on July 25, 2009, 01:12:20 am
This is a bug to do with caravans bringing bags for trade.

You'll note that the description states "This is a Dimple Cup Spawn Bag (pig tail)."

A regular bag will state "This is a Dimple Cup Spawn Bag (pig tail). It is made from pig tail cloth."

The bag is lacking the value multiplier of the cloth it's made from.

Makes sense, I guess. It doesn't explain why GCS silk seed bags are more expensive than just regular silk seed bags.

2350
DF Gameplay Questions / Re: Sparring injuries.
« on: July 25, 2009, 03:54:46 pm »
It takes four steel bars to cover your dwarves head and chest, which are the only organs where lethal damage can occur. Four more will deck them out in leggings, gloves, boots, and shield. If you can't afford steel, even copper plate is decent protection (though I'd strongly suggest using copper or wooden/silver weapons for training without ferrous armor).

Don't be afraid to arm and armor your dwarves with less than steel if you don't have it. Iron armor of anything higher than base quality is better than almost anything the trade caravans bring. Bronze only needs to be superior or higher to equal or trump base quality steel. If you don't embark with a decently skilled armorsmith, you may want to reevaluate your starting build.

2351
DF Suggestions / Re: dwarf fort mmo?
« on: July 25, 2009, 03:31:30 pm »
I'm sorry, but this is a bad idea for several reasons.

1. MMO's require massive amounts of code and maintenance, as well as large amounts of customer support. Little kids with nothing better to do will try to hack the game, so the exploits must be patched. Currently, little assholes can only harass other players online, where they can be ignored. When players interact online in any capacity (even something so small as embarking next to a newbie and building fast to send sieges his way) you will have assholes pop up. VERY. FAST. You can't ignore another player when they actually have the power to effect your gameplay. This will require constant attention, which will require either player run intervention or Toady to spend money on full time support.

As a veteran of dozens of small MMO's and a recent escapee of WoW (it was a great game, but it's on the decline), I can tell you that immaturity+anonymity = bad things that make tentacle demons look like just "touchy-feely" guys. Some people only enjoy a game inasmuch as they can ruin other people game experience. While a single player game can support dozens if not hundreds of them before the community of the game breaksdown, MMO's can usually only support one or two per thousand players before the game just isn't fun anymore.

2. Because the game is no longer heavily moddable (unless you want to leave it as moddable when it goes online, in which case, you'll be invaded with 500 dwaves named Urist McPenis carrying AK-47's), new content must be constantly developed. Currently, when you get bored with the goblins, you can download orcs. When you get sick of burning elves, you can delete them and download High Elves. In an MMO based DF, you can't do that. Players would be bitching on the forums endlessly for Toady to "stop being lazy and develop new content". Currently, Toady is in charge of new mechanics, the players are mostly in charge of new content, and judging by some of Toady's design goals to move more into the raws he designed it with that very purpose in mind. You'd be removing one of the strengths of DF to introduce a possibly-fun-but-problematic feature.

It'd be fun, but it wouldn't work and definitely shouldn't be the direction of Toady's energy when there are more important things to do.

2352
DF Suggestions / Re: Suggestions by a new player
« on: July 25, 2009, 02:39:32 pm »
Quote from: Pilsu on July 25, 2009, 01:23:29 pm
Schools as you know them for teaching various crafts makes no sense in historical context. Theory lessons aren't that useful anyway

I suppose you could teach the tykes to read and write if that ever becomes relevant. Playing, player assigned apprenticeship and some light work would fill the rest of the day. Not theory lessons

Apprenticeships would be more accurate for the time period this game is set in. Would make child dwarves actually useful (I'm thinking of something like the apprentice helping the master with gathering materials and maybe speeds up their work slightly, making them worth having and worth protecting against snatchers).

2353
DF Suggestions / Re: Stop the clothesplotions?
« on: July 25, 2009, 02:24:58 pm »
If it bothers you so much, mod the goblins to fight naked. The only thing that bothers me about goblins is they somehow can mass produce GCS silk. Dwarves need a lucky trap and the DM to do that.

2354
DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Re: Strike the Adamantine?
« on: July 25, 2009, 01:12:06 pm »
Quote from: Ignem on July 25, 2009, 06:14:15 am
Before autumn hit, I got 15 orcs vs 6 unarmed dwarves + 1 armed. It was a brutal slaughter, the lands of adamantine glory was not meant to be! R.I.P adamantine dorfs.



Edit: 1 dwarf had just been given a finely-crafted adamantine mace, but that ofcourse wouldn't make much of a difference. :)

Sieges and strength are calculated on fortress value. Adamantine is beyond valuable, moving into the obscene. Shoulda walled yourself in.

2355
DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Re: Do you still avoid digging out 7x7 areas?
« on: July 25, 2009, 01:07:55 pm »
I think it would greatly slow down FPS while mining, in theory the game could calculate stress every time something changes, in practice since things change VERY fast when mining the game would be making constant, heavy calculations. I expect Toady will come up with something elegant to deal with this, but I doubt it's high on the priority queue.

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