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Topics - Uristsonsonson

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DF General Discussion / Why don't dwarves use spears?

« on: August 13, 2014, 04:07:33 am »

I've always kind of wondered this. Surely a phalanx of spears and shields would be better for guarding tight underground tunnels than axes and hammers?

DF General Discussion / Spoiler weapons

« on: July 11, 2014, 05:51:57 am »

I've seen reference to randomly generated weapons in a couple of the vault threads. Does anyone know if they're only spawned in the vaults? When I first read about them, I was kind of hoping that they could be used by normal races too. It might be interesting to see if they could be modded to be culture specific.

DF Modding / Success!

« on: July 11, 2014, 02:15:14 am »

It took about thirteen hours of constant work and some moderate neck pain, but I finally finished alphabetizing the language_words file by hand. I'm planning to use it in a language overhaul mod, but i can upload it to DFFD if anyone wants it for any reason. I haven't changed anything but the order. I'll be doing the racial language files next if anyone's interested (or wants to help in any way).

http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=8862 is the link.

DF General Discussion / Is there an easier way to do this?

« on: July 10, 2014, 06:20:57 pm »

I'm about halfway done alphabetizing language_words by hand, but it really, really sucks to do. Especially knowing I still have all of the racial language raws to do. I tried to use RAW alphabetizer, but it... didn't work out too well. I'd like to get this done before the bug fix cycle ends. Does anyone know of anything that would make this project less of a PITA, or (even better) have already fixed ones?

DF General Discussion / The next version

« on: July 08, 2014, 02:14:27 pm »

What do you think Rana Magna will work on next? When will it come out?

*Insert hype here*

DF Modding / A language mod

« on: March 21, 2014, 05:04:44 pm »

I started screwing with the language RAWs about December or so I think. A lot of stuff got in the way, then my laptop keeled over, but now I think I'm in a good place to restart and finish it. Basically the idea is to give words real parts of speech, better define which forms they can take, and possibly add a pale imitation of grammar. For instance, Armoredpicks the Ancientaxe would be something like Tosadtekkudi ha-Zustashlibash, with tosad being the participle of tosid, tekkudi being the plural of tekkud, ha-Zushtash being the definite singular of ancient, and libash being axe. I know i couldn't do much with it right now, and the difference would be purely cosmetic, but it still seems like something worth doing before the new version comes out. Would anyone really be interested in something like that though? Right now I'm just setting the raws up for the initial second attempt. (The original files were on the pc that suddenly died.)

Also, I'm kind of thinking of adding Kalderashitska as an alternate language. It's the... most international I guess is how you'd describe it form of the "Gypsy" (Vlax Romani) language. That would probably take the most work, just from trying to fit an inflected language with somewhat uncommon features into DF's hardcoded, half-finished grammar system. Especially as a non-native speaker. I'm up to the challenge if it'd be worth the effort to enough peeps though.

DF Suggestions / Spies and dorfint

« on: February 20, 2014, 02:14:37 pm »

A fairly simple suggestion. Maybe we could have spies from bouring/enemy civs seek to infiltrate our forts? They could come for recon missions similar to how kobold thieves and goblin pedophiles work, or immigrate with a cover story like vampires and try to gain your trust while sabotaging your fort and scouting it out from the inside for their hippie paymasters. Rooting them out would be fairly difficult without a competent and amoral justice system in place, and maybe it would give more of an excuse to play a McCarthy-ist tyrant, but all in all isn't ensuring fortress security against the elven KGB more important than a few wrongly accused miners?

DF Suggestions / What's a dwarf without a clan?

« on: February 16, 2014, 05:24:32 pm »

It's always been pretty jarring to me at any rate that there isn't any kind of extended family structure or clan type organization. I know fortress subgroups like religions and guilds will be coming in when development gets to that point, and that as it stands the immediate family isn't modeled well either, but I don't recall ever hearing any plans for this. It would probably be useful for all of this newfangled succession and starting scenario stuff we'll be seeing soon. Just imagine it. Your king, the last of his dynasty, inexplicably commits suicide by draining himself of all his blood, then another dynasty is created from the next most powerful clan until their own unfortunate accidents.

DF General Discussion / Trolling women?

« on: January 22, 2014, 03:18:44 pm »

What are the current plans for adventurers that get kidnapped and night troll'd? Will we eventually get to play out our lives as one, digging a lair and trolling a wife and fending off questing peasants? What will the mechanics for trolling people be? Is it an instant conversion or something that occurs over time, and what causes it?

I'd have rephrased it and put it in the suggestions forum, but having been here longer than a few days I'm already aware that the answer is "planned, but no timeline" and it's been suggested at least eight or nine times already. I'd just prefer to get the current facts on it you know?

General Discussion / Game Industry Reform through Pre-Order Bonuses

« on: January 18, 2014, 10:52:58 am »

Like ten years ago when you bought a game, it was after reading the reviews a couple weeks beforehand and deciding it was worth it. Right now, when you pre-order a game, you're buying it when it's still probably in alpha and downloading it around the same time the reviewers are. I think I see a two step way to further monetize this trend.

Step one is simple enough. Instead of having this weird dual system where you can pre-order like most people or wait and buy it later, we could scrap the second and have pre-order be the only way to buy it. This would only serve to streamline the process and get the last few "I'll pay for it up front" gamers on board.

Step two might be a little harder to see the wisdom of at first but just bear with me for a sec. Rather than have the traditional/current pre-order system, we change up how it works a little bit. You still buy it a year before release. You still choose which bonus pack you want. You just don't actually get a game. See, I know I already lost some of you, but hold up. It's really a win-win proposal here. You still get your fancy metal boxes and little polyurethane figurines. You don't have to download or grind through any cliché story with gameplay that's been done the exact same way at least a hundred titles before. The developers still get paid in advance, and all they have to develop are said boxes and figurines. EA would really only have to employ contractors and concept artists for the art book and would still make a guaranteed income on every title. You could even still meet your friends in real life and brag about how all your bonus stuff is better than theirs. Everyone's happy, everyone gets what they really want, and nobody loses.

DF General Discussion / Civilizations, government, and conflict

« on: January 10, 2014, 04:08:27 pm »

I was catching up on the newest devlogs (it's been a while) and still don't really understand exactly how the civs or conflicts between and within them work. As far as I was aware, in the current release every civ had a monarch and capital, and only civs of different races could fight each other. Besides same civ inter-village conflicts, will this be a change in the new release, or did I just completely misunderstand it the whole time? Also, on the subject of racial civs, exactly how will each of them work? So far I've worked it out as:

Humans live in feudal, decentralized societies, apparently without any kind of overall leader unless a demon or vampire takes over. Their sites are forts, villages, towns, and cities. They can also build roads. They're a mixed bag personality-wise. They almost remind me of Roman-era Celtic tribes in that each human civ is more like a general culture shared by otherwise entirely independent and endemic warfare plagued petty fiefs.
Dwarves live in centralized, apparently Communist societies where everyone works for the good of the community and barely eats, drinks, or socializes. They tend to be somewhat mentally imbalanced and value typically dwarfy qualities like law, family, craftsmanship, and loyalty. Strangely, they don't seem to place a high premium on tradition or have any real concept of family beyond spouse, sibling, or child. Their sites are hillbilly hillocks, urban fortresses, and hillbilly deep sites. They mine tunnels as underground roads.
Elves live in centralized, druidic based societies within magical treehouses provided by the forest's local nature spirit (there seems to be one for each civ). I don't really know much about them besides that. Their sites include forest retreats and possibly orchards.
Goblins live in cliques in somewhat independent towers that tend to be officially ruled by escaped demons. I'm not entirely sure if a goblin civ can have multiple towers or just one each. I can see the case for either. Their towers seem to be their only type of site.

Is that an accurate picture of each, or am I missing something?

DF General Discussion / Will we ever see proper dwarven clans?

« on: December 27, 2013, 03:27:24 pm »

Watching the new Hobbit movie yesterday made me realize that DF dwarves still lack one of the most essential aspects of dorfitude: the institution of the clan. Sure, they can have families they barely care about, but will that ever be expanded? I'd love to see factional infighting and jealousy over the throne leading a minor traitor house to secretly conspire with the goblins right under my nose.

DF General Discussion / "Across the water?"

« on: December 13, 2013, 03:14:29 pm »

Is... Is our illustrious leader trapped in.... in... Chicom territory? Behind enemy lines and stuff? O.o

DF Suggestions / The Themes of the World Gen Narrative

« on: December 11, 2013, 01:05:45 pm »

Playing with PerfectWorld might have spoiled me, but lately I've been thinking about how little control players have over the formation of their questy world. Not that there's anything wrong with that! The adventure is... well... part of the adventure. Probably even the biggest part. But it'd be interesting to have the option to exert an indirect influence on the overall world gen process by selecting the major themes of the stories it produces, though - especially now that we're about to have all of these invasions and inter-group conflicts. By themes, I mean more or less spheres, but for the world itself. Overall themes which would influence historical figure actions and events, like war. Betrayal. Fear of death. Love. Patriotism. A quest to gather the lost artifacts of Forgedgear and kill every living being... I'm sure socks and beer could be worked in too somehow...

It might be a little too complex for the game. It might not be complex enough. It might be completely counter to Toady's vision for his game or have been already planned before I heard of the internet. Who knows? ... Well, you know, Forum, which is why I'm suggesting it to you.

DF General Discussion / On the nature and origins of the animal men

« on: December 09, 2013, 12:08:07 am »

What exactly are they? Is a cave fish man a human with the head and features of a cave fish? A cave fish that happens to be humanoid? Is it magical or mundane? We know that they form tribes (schools?). Are they intelligent? Can they be civilized? Exactly what is their relation to the rest of the world?

Where do they come from? I know Threetoe's stories mention that at least the surface dwelling animal men were created by their local forest spirit as guardians. I think I remember Toady saying something about the subterranean ones being more hostile due to the underworld being closer to the HFS. But where do they originally come from? Are antmen naturally evolved ants, or are they just superants mutated by the latent corruption down there?

And, kind of off topic, but that does make me wonder how the deep dwarves can remain unchanged down there...