Bay 12 Games Forum

Will there be non-player demigod characters? Like, will they show up in legends as just the children of whatever god and influence the world?

Yeah, this was the hope, once it's complete.  It's a good way for us to introduce new people for fort mode, new companions and adversaries and others in adv mode as well.  Should be good fun, but won't be in immediately in April.

How much are the other controls changing and are any of the current ones are merging?

We've kept most of the current keys.  I don't remember any counterexamples off the top of my head.  Since we're not using WASD, the keys weren't exploded like they were in fort mode, so most everything could remain intact.

Hey Toady! I assume by the time you read this the bug tracker will be fixed; but in future, who should we contact/how should we let somebody know when the bug tracker is broken?

clinodev: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8528641#msg8528641

Hello! I watched Blind's recent video on "What to expect from Adventure mode and Magic healing!" and got very interested in the latter part. While at first I was very unsure of implementing a sort of magical healing that could revert otherwise permanent injuries, I started to think about what would be an interesting implementation that could fall in line with the feel of DF, so this got me thinking:

- Is this new way of healing conceptualized like a mage casting a healing spell on an injuried person or more like an alchemist or a traditional healer rubbing a combination of weeds and other materials on the injury?
- Will the new healing method serve as a single multipurpose heal-it-all solution or will there be specific (hopefully randomized for each world!) requirements and quirks for each sort of injury? For example, if you're trying to heal torn ligaments the material/other requirements are somewhat different from if you're trying to heal nerve damage. In this case, will there be different recipes for these different kinds of healing? Will scholars in fortress mode be able to discover these recipes by doing research and discussing with other smartpants who come visit your fort?
- How viable are you planning to make having an adventurer be dedicated to medicine? Would be very cool to have yet another different niche to specialize in the coming adventure mode.

Eric Blank: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8528843#msg8528843

Yeah, it's certainly going to be randomized on a per-world basis, and the particulars are just going to come in over time.  There'll probably be some powerful effects in the beginning and then it'll become diversified with some weaker stuff as we spend some time with it.  Relating it to scholarship in fort mode is a myth/magic goal but that won't happen at first, and hospitals won't see anything for a bit, but eventually they'll notice the new possibilities ha ha.  Integrating fort mode generally with magic is exciting and challenging and right in front of us.

For dedicated medical adventurers, who aren't just party members helping out, I see the basic issue there just being that there aren't a lot of randomly wounded/sick people out in the world.  Naturally, we'd like to make life miserable for everybody, randomly, but that'll take some doing.

Hello, Toady, have you come up with any new monsters or creatures randomly as you've been working on the adventure mode stuff?

PlumpHelmetMan: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8529607#msg8529607
Pillbo: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8531922#msg8531922

Nothing new yet!  It has mainly been interface and graphics and audio, and we aren't even caught up with all the existing features.  But there will be something to play!  (as seen in the combat video)  And new monsters should start coming as we go through our demigod/dungeon/temple roadmap - this won't be complete in April's beta either, but will be coming in as the update comes out of beta.

When the biomes become sphere-aligned primarily, instead of being Good/Evil/Wild, what are your thoughts on the "surroundings" descriptor? I.e the one that says "calm", "haunted", "joyous wilds", etc. on the embark screen. Some sphere-alignments, like a land of thunder, don't map clearly to any of the existing descriptions. But at the same time, having descriptions for all spheres, or combinations of spheres, seems like it could be a lot. Both to develop, but also for the player embarking. E.g. if a biome is "rumbling" or "chaotic", how difficult is that?

Those adjectives are particularly linked to the three existing properties, so I imagine they'll get exploded.  Musical timbre is an example of us kind of going expansive with a collection of adjectives along a bunch of related axes, and something similar could happen.  I'm not sure adjectives will be sufficient though.  Hopefully places will be interesting enough eventually to describe with a sentence or two ha ha.

Will alive demigods influence the name of the age? vampires and necromancers already influence it, along with werebeasts and other creatures.

I'm not sure if we'll get to tweaks to age names here before they undergo more serious changes.

Hello!  Im very excited for the map rewrite and was wondering what sort of plans there are to expand the surface level in fort mode.  I understand when you embark you can change the grid size but currently you have to load all Z levels below the surface.  Has there been any thoughts to having 2 embark selections?  One for surface and one for the underground?  I can envision having a 25x25 surface fortress sprawling with hamlets, houses and temples while having a 3x3 underground area to mine out and explore.

Caldfir: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8531106#msg8531106
PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8531130#msg8531130

I think the replies covered this one!  It's definitely one of the things we want to accomplish.

1. The portraits look like they're set up to automatically apply the hundred-or-so raw colors for worn items and eyes, but I haven't seen them applied to any previews. Will there be palette support for layered graphics? Any new uses for palettes planned, like doing unit-colored clothing as a palleted graphic?

2. Adventure crafting is minimal without modded reactions, and thus end up running into unexpected limitations. Is it likely we will see any bugfixes for typical reaction pitfalls, like unwearable gloves or stacked/dimensioned reagents (bone, bars, globs, etc) in the April update?

1. Yeah, that's in now, generally.  You can define multiple custom palettes to use for it, and also use the default one.

2. No, not for the April update.  But April isn't the full update.  I'm not sure how things are going to go as we head for the full release.  There's going to be a lot coming at me.

Will human, elven, and goblin civilizations be given hairstyling options now that we're getting procedural portraits? Also, why don't elf sprites show their facial hair, and goblin sprites don't show their hair or facial hair? I did notice though that the goblin portrait examples showed hair, but not beards. Elves and goblins do have beards, so the sprites should probably show that.

I've added hairstyles for humans and elves.  Goblins are in an odd position since we have hair but they don't follow the existing styles, so everybody is still bald.  No idea about elf beards.  We have one drawn, but no style images for it, though I think elves will style them now in text.

Any plans to make water a continuous requirement for farming (and other crafts)?
Several DF crafts depend - in their real-life counterparts - on having water: farming, brewing, cooking, dyeing, smithing, breeding, and I'm sure I'm missing some.
While df-irrigation is used to create farmable soil, farmers don't water their plants.

Eric Blank: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8531554#msg8531554
PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8531820#msg8531820

The replies handled this - we certainly want water to be used in some more places.  Using it absolutely everywhere might be too much, just in terms of the amount of moving about or little cisterns or whatever that would need to be kept to keep the fort running, but adding a water requirement to several jobs would be fun I think.  We might need some more water gathering methods before we jump too far into that though, to keep more biomes viable.

Do you plan attempting an in fort market economy again in the foreseeable future?

Ha ha, sure, but I have no idea when.

I was looking into why buoyancy isn't a thing in the game and I haven't been able to find a post from you on the subject since August 2007:

Quote

The new fluids invalidated most of the old code.  Have water stop you when you jump into it so you don't go all the way down into the bottom is linked to density sink/float stuff, which I haven't done yet.  I'm not sure what I'll get to.  It'll either be done or get Req'd.

Other than that I saw lots of people make various comments about buoyancy being too hard, or implying you didn't want to implement it for some reason, but it's kinda hard to tell what is assumption, speculation, or accurate. 

So what is the deal with buoyancy and why hasn't it been included yet? If it is a technical issue what are the major problems?  Is it going to wait for boats?

Caldfir: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8532238#msg8532238

Yeah, it just hasn't come up strongly yet, as Caldfir says.  Although I'm sure there'd be a few funny side effects currently, as with water pressure.  I'm definitely pro buoyancy, and I imagine it'll come up with boats, yeah, though things are so stark we'll have to be careful.  It seems unavoidable that it'll be the situation that adding a single coin to a boat at some tipping point will cause it to sink one tile deeper, suddenly flooding the entire ship and sinking it.  It'll have to warn you about that.  But if a dragon gets on board and the boat is all on fire and also sinks that would be amusing.

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Release notes for 50.12 (March 6, 2024):

New stuff
   (*) Ability to sort the lists from the creature/task menus
   (*) Kitchen interface sorting and searching
   (*) Work detail sorting and searching
   (*) Can edit and restore default work details
   (*) Saves can be sorted by world and folder on the title screen
   (*) Keyboard support for many unit lists
   (*) Ability to designate burrows over multiple Z levels

Major bug fixes
   (*) Fixed a few crashes relating to pregnancy
   (*) Fixed save corruption related to bad job ids
   (*) Fixed crash related to language mods
   (*) Goblins should have trolls again, and some additional friends (new worlds only)
   (*) Vampires in forts should hide properly

Graphics additions/changes
   (*) Additional statue graphics
   (*) Fixed some classic building interface lights

Other bug fixes/tweaks
   (*) Squad assignment now lists already-assigned units last
   (*) Fixed error in calculation of bridge support
   (*) Fixed issue in how environment-appropriate work animals are selected for visiting fortress
   (*) Fixed missing autopause tooltip
   (*) Additional miscellaneous optimizations
   (*) Fixed minor issue with forest variant display
   (*) Fixed clipping issue on unit sheets
   (*) Fixed minor issue with cage contents display
   (*) Fixed pet list display on unit sheet rarely skipping a pet
   (*) Llamas are pack animals now

Does this mean that the portraits shown will change variations every time they're displayed (at least until they're linked to fashion-item terms)?

Telgin: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8522215#msg8522215

Yeah, Telgin's got this one.  It's possible to randomize in a consistent way on a per item basis.  This one's slightly complicated since the item can theoretically float between different creature types if it isn't stopped by size (from a human to a 70000 size experiment, for example), so it has to be able to survive that, but that's just a matter of making the text consistent in the different raw layer entries, and having any necessary art available.  (whether size 70000 experiments have portraits with full clothing variations by the first release is a different question ha ha, the art work can really go on forever, in a good way, like the rest of the game)

Quote from: me

Annie made us cool hoodies in the style of those pig hoodies I wear, with the pigs in a grid, but with the dwarf face in place of pigs.

Pics?

https://bay12games.com/imgs/krumkake.jpg

- Why is the number of custom labor groups limited and with numbers instead of icons?
- Are there plans to allow editing the default labor groups?
- Have you ever considered adding a world painter for precision embarks? (trying to spawn good & evil tiles adjacent is incredibly difficult)
- Do you know if Adventure Mode will be backwards compatible with existing worlds?

Quote from: me

Yeah, the Adv mode stuff isn't directly related (despite me working to have keyboard enabled there), but Putnam's already got some keyboard stuff working in Fort mode on some additional menus.  It's already in progress.

- Does this mean we can fully remap the sub-menus? Like right now adding a hotkey for building a door requires a custom graphic corresponding to said keys.

PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8522780#msg8522780
Ziusudra: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8522859#msg8522859

- Just didn't have time to do the art before the December 2022 release with the rest that was going on, and I didn't use the custom icons we had at the time since there were only a few the last I worked on it.  The player custom icons between burrows, squads, work details, etc., could be more unified and useful.  I'm not sure when we'll get to it, but it could certainly use improvement.
- This can be done in 50.12 on beta, although the normal restrictions on held-object labors apply.
- The replies covered some of this - if we get back into the map painting in vanilla, it'll be as part of the Myth/Magic editors, where we want to also include things like site maps.  It's an open-ended topic like most of the rest of development - could spend all the rest of dev time on map editors ha ha, but we'll likely do some stuff that goes beyond the current arena and map field files.
- Yeah, Adventure Mode is compatible with existing worlds.  I think certain things like portraits for necromancer experiments, if we get to those at all for the initial release, will be too time-consuming to get in to old saves, and some of the myth/magic stuff will probably require new generated objects, which would need a new world as well.
- We haven't touched the building menu yet so far as I remember.  We're just adding stuff that people want, pretty much, with an eye on getting a full keyboard enabled experience back.  It's not going to happen quickly.

Is saving in adventurer mode gonna gain the same options as in fort mode? Such as to save and continue playing or save to a new timeline.

Do you think there's any current features that might not make the initial adventurer mode release? Like the camp building mentioned on Blind's steam.

Are the controls also going to be designed around WASD?

I'm using the same save options, yeah.

I mentioned the camp building a long while ago and also in the latest adv mode update post (which probably was after your question) since it is the largest interface that isn't as core as stuff like inventory.  It'll be in the second feature (i.e. not fix/tweak) update if it's not in the first.

There's diagonal movement so I'm not attempting WASD alone.  I'm not sure what the keyboard option is for people without numberpads - eating up the QWEASDZCX cluster (or equivalent) is really expensive in terms of lost keys that we want for non-movement options.  People can rebind of course, but I'd like a decent default option and am open to suggestions.  I'm currently just using numberpad and/or mouse.

Any chance we will have key shortcuts such as "q", "+" and "-" back to fortress mode in the premium version?

We're slowly getting stuff back.  50.12 (up on beta now) has new keyboard controls for the unit lists.

How hard would it be to make the motion graphics of DF more smooth, interpolating the movement of creature sprites between squares instead of jumping discreetly from one position to the next? Rimworld style, basically.

Putnam: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8524213#msg8524213
voliol: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8524343#msg8524343
uristmctinkerer: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8524351#msg8524351

Yeah, I've assumed that even at the default FPS this would look torn and broken.  Our creatures move very fast in comparison to other games.

Before the premium version, we could change which font to use for the ASCII graphics by changing the font name in the FONT tag in init.txt. In addition to changing the images used for the ASCII graphics, this would also cause map cells to be rendered with the aspect ratio of the font.

In the premium version, changing the font in the FONT tag still changes the images used for ASCII graphics, but the aspect ratio for map cells remains the same as that of the default font.

Will this feature - the font aspect ratio driving the display aspect ratio - be making a comeback?

Ziusudra: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8524678#msg8524678
mikekchar: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8524707#msg8524707
Putnam: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8525596#msg8525596

Don't have anything to add except that on top of the fix Putnam mentioned, there's a lot of marked spots in the code where there are assumptions about 8x12 and 32x32 playing together (like unit textures in unit lists) that would also need to be addressed specifically, and non-ugly solutions for some combinations are not obvious.  But it would be nice.

Regarding the recent Steam announcement:  will demigod players be able to select which deity is their divine parent, during character creation?  Also, assuming that “demigod” here is used to refer to the child of a deity and a non-deity, will they also be assigned a non-deity parent?

Also, what about elves?  Will they no longer be able to be demigods (or will it be possible for a “force” to be a demigod parent)?

Deity selection, yeah, that's the plan.  I'm not as concerned about the non-deity parents currently - regular adventurers don't get those either.  Deity selection could depend a lot on which options are most viable for an effective tutorial, if you're going for the tutorial aspect of it.  If that ends up being tight, the tutorial side of it might force a selection, but that's not the general idea.

I think whatever myth creation ends up being here and later will have a lot to say about elven etc. demigods.  In the most straightforward, fastest implementation, you'd always be a human or dwarf, yeah, but that situation is slowly going to get stranger and stranger.  We'll also have to tutorialize completely non-magical worlds as well, eventually, or warn the player that full tutorials aren't available on those settings.

Getting a chunk of myth stuff is super exciting, however finalized it turns out it, it really is a sign we're entering a new era of feature development, beyond the different kind of goodieness that graphics and reworked UI has and will continue to be.

Tutorialization through deity sounds really fun, though I wonder:
1. In worlds without deities, or civilizations without, how will the demigod tutorial work? Will some other being take that tutor position? Or will it be impossible to play an atheist demigod?
2. Will demigods from goblins/dark fortress civs get guidance from the deified civ leader? Will megabeast-followers get it from their patron roc or dragon? What if this physical deity dies?

1. I mean, if there are no gods, there are no demigods, in a technical sense.  And yeah, we'll have to deal with it, but default worlds have them so it won't be a problem unless the player opts for it, at which point not having a full tutorial is not so bad.  But yeah, ultimately if we have to go with a standard abstract tutorial that plays the same role that's fine.  It just won't be as neat and will be missing some cool integration with other features (or be implemented in a flatter way.)  We'll see how this feels when I'm farther along this track.  Elves in forests being strictly left out of the tutorial zone is slightly weird.  The force could work, though the whole point of forces was not to give them personal identities, not at all, and even an abstract "you feel this, you feel that" still does that to some extent.

2. Ha ha, the rocs and dragons don't become deities in vanilla, they are just worshipped by frightened/awed people.  But of course the official introduction of myth/magic changes the possibilities up.  Gonna have to make decisions as I go - I wouldn't expect anything here until I get the basics up.

1. Will the graphics layering system be expanded or made more powerful? For instance, will more conditions for quality like in portraits, or will conditions for other layers existing/not existing be added to the regular, small-scale sprites?

2. Will a rework of the combat system, or at least the information displayed, be done at any point soon? A lot of things are somewhat confusing, like how "squareness" affects armor penetration and damage, what the chances of penetration and dismemberment are to begin with, how much skill affects things like dodging, parrying, chance to hit, etc. I think that clarity is more important than actual changes, especially considering the newer players.

1. It's like anything else now, slowly expanding.  The conditions we've added for portraits for instance work on all other layer types (like the small full body ones.)  A portrait is just a type of layered image.

2. It was always lurking behind the siege/army update to some extent, and the return of adventure mode brings it back.  I'm not sure what we'll have time to do for the initial release though.  There are a ton of high priority items for new players.  The mode is rough!

If a (very basic and incomplete) framework of the Myth & Magic system is coming with the Adventure update, does this mean the Big Wait might not be so big after all (at least, not counting the Big Wait we've already had waiting for the Big Wait)?

We're trying to kill the Big Wait dead at this point.  Or, yeah, as you say, the pre-graphics wait was the actual Big Wait and we've already done it ha ha.  Nice surprise if true!

So with the demi-god being converted into tutorial mode is there like an option to have the old demi-god settings? So that future runs aren't just stuck to the two lesser point pool options or risk dealing with the tutorial again?

the force tutorialization stuff kinda threw a monkey wrench in my common demi-god adv runs a bit
that said I wonder what this means for multiple adv party members if one of them is a demi-god? Does that lead to the Tori the goddess of Tutor popping in to explain a feature if a player tabs over to the demi-god?

PlumpHelmetMan: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8526052#msg8526052
aSpatula66: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8526275#msg8526275
Rumrusher (op): http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8526290#msg8526290
aSpatula66 (op): http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8526297#msg8526297

Character creation is one of the big menus/screens I have left to do, and this has been on my mind a bit yeah.  Up until now, the point pools enforced some sort of difficulty but didn't have any meaning in the world.  There are different interpretations for how point pools could work for different modes in the new peasant/hero/demigod setup, with the added layers of basic difficulty and roleplaying.  You should be able to play some kind of skilled warrior without having a divine parent or a heroic destiny for sure, with a variety of backgrounds in a way that makes sense.  The good versions of this are out of scope for the initial release (proper background generation/selection, playing historical figures, etc etc), and we'll likely just expand the concept/name away from "Peasant" and support varied point pool difficulty options at first.

I think the tutorial aspect of guidance will be tied to the party, mostly likely, just for simplicity.  But yeah, it's surely going to get weird as deity relationships build up in the party - I suppose this has always been true, even with regular relationships, since NPCs could hate different party members etc., and that probably led to intra-party stuff that simmered and broke in various ways ha ha.  Happy for it to get totally messed up as long as the tutorial aspects remain intact.

Will there ever be a rework of how alcohol is brewed, which is currently really simplistic and kinda boring for a game about alcohol addicted dwarves?
Perhaps procedurally generated, culturally unique recipes?

Is an overhaul planned for other older parts as well?

We've got our fort mode list and one of the big things we're going to do after the initial adventure mode release is figure out how to balance additions going forward, without getting sucked into the language of major arcs we have never finished.  Nice solid additions to fort mode are important, and we're hoping to slowly work through our giant backlog there while we're also expanding into the myth/magic/siege/villains/etc. stuff that we had previously planned in vanish-for-a-year+ arc terms.  That's just not viable now with a team of people, which I think will be good, really.  I've still got some ridiculous larks on lil version controlled branches so I haven't changed all that much ha ha, but they don't need to hold the nice solid bits up.

1. Will peasant characters be able to join temple organizations to get bonuses when interacting with related deities? If so, what would the temple faction expect from the peasant character in return?
2. Will the spheres of a demigod character's divine parent matter in determining their special powers?
3. Since property rights are being overhauled does this mean we can no longer walk into a random warehouse and start stealing goods with no consequences?
4. Will hamlets get a new provider for food for adventurers since they don't have markets or inns? I assume the property rights update will stop us from stealing food from random people's houses with no consequences.
5. Previously characters could talk to their deity and get no response, with the myth and magic stuff coming will there now actually be some form of response to talking to a character's deity?

Silverwing235: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8526247#msg8526247

1. I expect it'll be the same as whatever we get to for everybody else, you'll just have to be proactive about retrieving relics or whatever we end up making easier for demigods (because the deity can short-circuit the being lost and confused part of it all.)  One of the reasons we're going with demigod tutorials to start is that we can't quickly fix the issues in the base game with quest flow and such - it's a larger multi-step project (along the lines of the adv mode villain stuff, which included better investigation.)  So I'd expect stuff here, but it might be hard to accomplish.
2. Depends on how much diversity we have - we have quite a bit available already, so it seems very possible.
3. This is the goal, but there's a lot to police.  We're going to take some steps.
4. Probably not at first!  There's a lot to do.
5. That's the basic idea ha ha.  We thought it would be funny if that option actually worked.

Hello Toady and thanks for this wonderful game.  I have been wondering if there was any word on a Mac release for the Steam version?

No additional word!  I'm stuck in adventure land with a deadline.  Still need a few computers.  Linux being done theoretically means the hardest part is over, hopefully.

Quote from: ryno

i have a question about the giant creatures of dorf fortress. Is it the case that they are very straight forwardly giant versions of real ones, or is it more like they are fantastical beings that are simply nicknamed after real ones due to their closest approximated similarities? Are the giant creatures considered to be genetically related to the normal ones? I understand that for their sprites they are simply scaled up versions of the base creature set, but I believe this is in order to save time above all else, and that it's possible that the canonical nature of giant creatures is not so 1:1, but can you clarify?

Quote from: voliol

I'm also curious if there's an official answer to this, what they are in the current version of the game. Otherwise it should be expanded upon when Myth & Magic drops for real. Are these giant animals monstrosities created by a force of chaos, only similar to normal animals as a mockery of their form? Are they normal animals warped by the magic surging in the lands? Or are they escapees from the platonic realm of beasts? Etc. etc... I imagine that will depend on their procedurally generated past in mythgen.

We don't have a theory for most things.  We'd rather generate canon on a per-world basis.  Of course we've had to make various decision for the default world, but here we didn't make any decisions at all except for the fact that there are "wild" regions with giant animals which are tied in some nebulous way to animal agitation and elves and forces and titans and big trees and sharp plants.  We'll have a complete set of giant creature sprites with the adventure mode release (they are almost done!), and we've been conceptually vague with their art as well (though no longer so pixelated!).  They are bigger, with the occasional emphasized feature.

Ideally, the magic release will give us all kinds of options, and they could have in-game repercussions.  Animal people are explicitly created in the prototype through whatever random incident, and giant creatures (and every other kind of creature) should also have some kind of explanation eventually, with procedural emphasis.

Sorry to hear that 50.12 is delayed, but why do the links to the report and FoTF in the 1/30 devlog point to the ones from last month?

Eric Blank: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8527138#msg8527138

Yeah, I was just super late.

The Bay 12 Games Report, January 2nd 2024


Mission Status

  What's to say about the year gone past?  That's one that I'll remember.  The year my other brother died.  There is nothing really good to say about this year...  except that we got paid.  It really does to take a lot off your mind.  It opens up a lot of opportunities, but can it really bring back someone who died so young?  There are a lot of things we are going to be able to do now.  We can travel the world on our own dime.  How much does it really matter when you lose someone who mattered so much?  I'll tell you.

You are the only ones holding us together.  Without you we would still be working thankless jobs that were far from rewarding.  We are getting older.  Friends and family passing away is something we'll have to get used to.  This was a lot though.  I have to ask if my wife will ever be happy again.  Do I think any amount of money will fix that?  With your help, I sure will try.

"Congratulations to the generous!" -- ThreeToe


Fun with Numbers

  Yeesh, what a year.  Hopefully the next one will be more relaxed and see us finish out Adventure mode and then get into new stuff for everybody.  I guess relaxed might not be possible, since we have ourselves another deadline ha ha.  But it'll be good to get through the basic Adventure mode update.

With the Winter sale, we hit 27k copies sold in December.  As expected, a pretty good chunk!

Any chance of procgen prepared meals, similar to how procgen instruments are currently implemented?

Bumber: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8510314#msg8510314

Yeah, as Bumber says, we had a whole plan for this, at the same time as procedural tavern dice/board/card type games, but those things got pushed off into the nebulous future.

How do you keep motivation, working mainly alone, for years and years, on a nearly unique project ?

I think having such a variety of things to work on helps a lot.  It'd be harder for me if I were, say, balancing and tightening (or doing UI stuff...) continuously.  The resultant lack of focus and refinement also leads to some of the problems with the project most likely, but it's not gonna be perfect.  We also used side projects for this purpose - breaks into completely different genres etc. are good.

my brain exploded recently when i discovered there were no above-ground mushrooms in the world of dwarf fortress. how did things end up this way? would the dwarves reign supreme in every version of history with access to such a resource? do you have a favorite real-world mushroom type? Thank you

I recently grew some golden oyster mushrooms from a little kit.  That was fun!  It is weird that there are no aboveground mushrooms, especially since we ended up adding so many real world crops over time.  I'm not sure if I didn't imagine them in gardens rather than purely being foraged?  That could be the reason, since I was working on little gardens and plots when the new crops came in.

I know this may sound a little strange, but I would like to know if your idea of an adventure mode will also be focused on people who prefer a more peaceful game mode? By this I mean if, for example, we can focus our objectives on making a farm and living peacefully on it, until the goblins allow us, spending our days fishing to sell the fish in the nearest city. Or, for example, be a merchant seeking his fortune to settle in a big city and have a life of luxury there? Or maybe set up a tavern in a city and work so that others can get drunk?... Will there be a possibility in the future of something like that? Would the ultimate idea of the game be to create a truly living world where we can truly do anything we want?

And another question that may have already been asked before, will it ever be possible in the vanilla game to play with other races in fortress mode?

Eric Blank: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8512440#msg8512440
mikekchar: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8512478#msg8512478

Yeah, it's really just a matter of work.  Every idea you suggested requires not peace but a robust economy, for instance, which is something we've been vaguely aiming at but have failed to attain a few times.  Other ideas of peaceful play styles require a more robust social sim.  These are things we're interested in.  Combat has always been easier, but it's not the only stuff we work on.

I think the reply addressed the other races question - gonna give it a shot with myth magic stuff.  The game is geared a bit toward dwarfiness perhaps, and dwarfiness has given us certain leeway narratively, but we're not too too far from having aboveground/etc./etc. stuff working out.  You do have a lot less play space that way.  Spreading out to a much wider shallower play area, as you'd have in the NPC human villages, is a technical problem.

1)why canI nobles with some sort of SUCCESSION not be appointed to a position that is a SQUAD-holding? Like baron and monarch that cannot be militia commander?

2) Is there any way that an unit holding a site-level position can succeed a civ-level position? It is possible in world-gen, but it seems not to be in fortress-mode.

1) Is that the specific constraint?  I don't remember if there was some annoying thing about squad assignment upon succession, maybe.  But the monarch shouldn't be manager either.

2) Hmm, I'm not sure how it picks among all the site position holders?  I don't think we have a syntax for that, or code to hold some kind of selection/election among the candidates.  Whatever is going on in world-gen is probably glitchy or arbitrary.  As usual, we don't support a lot outside of the default cases (and I'm not sure what the world-gen case is here.)  This may be particularly true with entity stuff, where various backing code/simulation for situations is necessary.

Honey bees do not possess the vermin_micro tag, and consequently do not spawn in swarms.  In spite of this, unused sprite graphics remain in the premium raws, which depict swarms of the remote_colony honey bee worker caste.
-- What kind of buzzing nightmares did you originally have in mind for our dwarves?  And are there any plans to have us to experience these horrible nightmares at some point in the future?

Ha ha there's no particular plan, but bees do swarm in real life and it seemed prudent to be prepared.

In older versions of the game in adventure mode it was a terrible slowfest near goblin towers. What are you going to do to fix this, will you reduce the maximum population in goblin fortresses?

Eric Blank: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8514572#msg8514572

We're going to look at it, but I don't want to suggest a solution - I've often been wrong about profiling issues, and Putnam has managed some pretty amazing gains in fort mode already.  Ultimately if we have to change the populations, or how they are distributed, we'll have to go there, though that has knock-on effects, like making sieges less frequent etc., so we need to be cautious.

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#msg8504934

1) 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#msg8505866
PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8505938#msg8505938
Putnam: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8506031#msg8506031
mikekchar: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8506323#msg8506323
Putnam: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8506574#msg8506574

Yeah, 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#msg8505700

Yeah, 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#msg8509408

Ha 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#msg8508692

We'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.

(banned the genocide guy)