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[Knight Otu]

So I thought I'd do some random analyzing of the upcoming development goals... Warning - I'm commiting the cardinal sin of estimating completion time. I've never managed to estimate correctly, so take them as die rolls at best.

Job Priorities
General: This can and should be a single release - there are no real reasons to break the four bullet points up. Maybe the mining options could get a seperate release if the other portions drag on too much or Toady comes up with a lot of them, but I kind of doubt that. I'd estimate that on the whole, Job Priorities will be finished on a weeks/months scale. As an upper limit, three months, likely less.
Tangents: Low change of tangents. Whatever mining options come out of the fourth bullet points could result in some tangenty stuff, but I doubt it.
Raw Changes: Practically zero chance of raw changes. Unless some really, really unexpected tangent happens, there shouldn't be any raw changes. I would expect some init changes, though.

Inns and Taverns
General: Presumably, there'll be several releases for this. The releases I see currently are Zoning/Jobs/Guests, Guest Interactions, Item Usage/Music/Dancing, Recipes, and Games, with most of them being flexible when they are done. Obviously Guest Interactions would need to be after Zoning - what I mean here is the extra interactions, like hiring mercenary guests, not the standard interactions like serving food and gaming with them.
Updating the Adventure mode taverns might be a separate release. Games might be folded into Item Usage, or that one might be split in other ways. Inns and Taverns would also be the point where Toady handles the multiracial fortress issue as per comments he made earlier. It's going to be a long road. If everything goes smoothly, this may take a year, but it's quite possible for it to go 18 months.
Tangents: There's a decent chance for small to largish tangents here, I wager. The smallest tangents would be tea and coffe, I think. Toy use could lead to some conflict work with mock fights with toy weapons. The new zone work could lead to some experimenting with replacing the kitchen workshop with kitchen zones, perhaps more. Roadside inns could lead to other roadside mini-sites (or however these inns are implemented) like shrines. Taste types might be this or an integral part of recipes
Raw Changes: It's basically impossible that there won't be raw changes here. There'll likely be new skills, which need to be linked up with instruments and such, instrument and toy raw could use some updating as a whole, games and recipes are likely to get raw files (the latter of which might hopefully get REACTION_CLASS renamed to MATERIAL_CLASS)... Toys could get some kind of toy use hint (single play, mock fight). There's a lot that could happen here.

Non-Player Artifacts
General: This'll be single release most likely, and quite a bit of the framework needed is already in place. This could go by quickly, depending on tangents and type and origin of artifacts. There's many avenues to generate artifacts - god-given gifts, demonic equipment, megabeast-hoarded/guarded/created item, regalia, a hero's or even god's signature item...
Tangents: Again, there's a decent chance that there'll be tangents. It's the perfect time to update kobold settlements. Thief lairs, non-historical creature lairs for beasts that steal artifacts. Historical Lairs that stay around if something interesting is in them. Toady mentioned the potential of magical artifact powers. Raw-defined artifacts that can get placed in the world in addition to the created ones.
Raw Changes: There's little chance for raw changes to happen, but there is a chance. There might be a creature token or three if megabeasts get to hoard, guard, or create artifacts (though curious beast megabeasts might just start with something in their hoard). There might be a few more possible changes, but unless there are raw-defined artifacts (unlikely), there won't be many major changes.

Fortress Starting Scenarios
General: "This is big. Really, really big. No, bigger than that. Even bigger. Keep going. More. No, more. Look, we're talking adamantine and slade spires for jewelry. This is big."
The framework that Toady outlines is a pretty big thing. Laws, customs, rights, status... This is a lot. This alone might see two or more releases. Hill and Deep dwarves probably want to come in after that with their fortress relations and all that. The scenarios themselves may take another two releases depending on the work involved with each kind of scenario, and reclaims might well be an extra release on that as well.
Tangents: It's likely that there'll be multiple tangents coming in through the framework itself, so naturally that they hardly even count as tangents. Randomized ethics and values. God personalities and relations and descriptions may come through. Guilds may be a necessity or a tangent. There are a lot of possible laws, customs, rights, and statuses, and they'll hardly be color. This may mean work on fortress justice, though likely not adventurer justice. The hill/deep dwarf work might see a decoupling of their sites from the CAVE_DETAILED token. The entity work may also result in some additions for adventurer start scenarios. Giving sites "start scenario" relations may mean some more site types, like mines and logging camps springing up.
Raw Changes: The work done for Fortress Starting Scenarios is in a weird place in that it could result in a lot of changes and additions, or on little to none. Status and rights could easily find their ways into the entity raws. We might be able to specify certain core laws and customs. Or it could all be generated based on ethics and values. Start scenarios, even as templates, are unlikely to come out to the raws.

[mnjiman]

I am sure you mean well with your opinion, and your intentions is simply an observation you wish to communicate... however it does not come off like that.

You have no idea why its broken up the way it is, nor do you understand what is going to go on behind the hard coded scenes to make sure everything is done correctly. No one does. Your just taking the words being said and giving them a time line based on how important you think they are and how long you think it would take to be done. In reality, there is A LOT not being said (that he actually goes into detail more so in his emergency pod cast thingy.)

Ill give an easy example why your entire post is just off. Job priorities includes putting "CASTE" system into the game. It also involves playing with Dwarves AI. Do you have any idea how finicky that is? Also, do you have any idea how long it would take Toady to do single releases as you suggest? It would be another few years before we get anything.

Him breaking the tasks up as he did is for one very very important reason: So he doesnt do a super long release again. Don't encourage him to do that.

[Knight Otu]

I'm... neither advocating nor predicting single releases. I am making assumptions that are quite likely off, yes. But my assumptions err on the side of multiple releases for half of the four topics, at least four for each. I also very much say that you're not supposed to take my time predictions particularly serious. Also, the caste system to my understanding of the DF Talk would be a completion of the job priorities happening during the framework for the start scenarios, not during the job priorities themselves. Perhaps the two of us are interpreting the same snippets differently?

Toady One: And by the same token you wouldn't have... We noticed that a lot of people were setting up this 'peasant class' of dwarves, unskilled dwarves, that were just set up for hauling. That should be a little less necessary now.
Threetoe: Except now we're going to be working with the last of these projects will be to implement new peasant classes of dwarves.

...

Toady One: It'll be nice to finally understand laws and property and the status, you can start thinking about where these citizens fit into their civilisations and into the world.
Threetoe: Yes, and to tie it up to the beginning again, we finally have those job priorities done.

[mnjiman]

Must say thank you for not taking my post out of context, I was diffidently abrupt during my post.

It was my belief that the the caste would be a new way of directing jobs so it would be the result of working on job priorities, however cannot comment further without some research and getting an refresher on what the caste system comes with.

[Dirst]

Haven't seen the talk or its transcript, but the caste system is not new.  It's just not what most people think of when they hear the word "caste."  Workers, soldiers, drones and queens are all castes of ants (and ant men), which borders on what "caste" means in common usage.  But most creatures have a MALE caste and a FEMALE caste, so the meaning in DF is far more general.

[Toady One]

Just to clarify, once we get to the status of people in the starting scenario section, it'll open further possibilities with job prioritization, as well as the possibility of toasting VPL entirely in certain cases where the starting scenario combined with dwarven status implies less specific control.  One of the reasons we brought this up was to explain why the first dev section on job priorities doesn't contain any of the more interesting things we had mentioned previously.

This doesn't have much to do with the body castes, though caste in the other sense might come up with status stuff.

[pixl97]

> There might be a creature token or three if megabeasts get to hoard, guard, or create artifacts

That creates some interesting possibilities. Currently if a megabeast shows up it stays around till it, or everyone else is dead. Making them path to artifacts, killing everyone in their way and making off with one (that could be later found by an adventure) is an interesting possibility.

[Knight Otu]

Thanks for the clarification, Toady!

This doesn't have much to do with the body castes, though caste in the other sense might come up with status stuff.

It's an easy mistake to make, when one doesn't have the context of the recent DF Talk.

That creates some interesting possibilities. Currently if a megabeast shows up it stays around till it, or everyone else is dead. Making them path to artifacts, killing everyone in their way and making off with one (that could be later found by an adventure) is an interesting possibility.

That would be cool. I'm not sure it would happen during the Non-Player Artifacts portion though. It's more a Megabeast Antics thing, as Toady has been calling them. It's possible, though.

[mnjiman]

Ahhhhhh... ok.