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[YashaAstora]

I know Myth and Magic are far, faaaaaaaar away, but Toady's already talked about what he wants to do with it quite a bit, and I find it pretty interesting that he wants to make a huge change to the game tone-wise this far into development. I'm not saying I don't want the update to happen--it sounds incredible, but I wonder how exactly people will take to the shift in tone.

For basically its entire existence--nearly 20 years--DF has been a very very gritty and low fantasy game. Magic was all but nonexistent for years, and what magic does exist is just whatever Elves use to magically form wood and necromancy. The game is obsessed with realism to a level even the lowest of fantasy often doesn't tread, with its realistic(-ish) geology, tons of real-life creatures, and insistence on not simplifying the complexities of certain industries. Paper-making is a multi-step process; making steel requires three separate smelting operations two of which require flux stone along with fuel; many workshops exist that do one or two things, etc. Making soap requires first getting tallow or oil from a butcher's shop or screw press, then burning wood in a furnace to make ash, processing that into lye at an Ashery (a workshop that does exactly three extremely minor things), and then making the soap in a soap maker's workshop. Dwarf Fortress is legitimately educational in a way. I certainly know more about geology or metallurgy than I did before playing it.

But, the Myth and Magic update is going to change that pretty dramatically. The way Toady describes it, it will allow for DF worlds that are the most intensely mythic and epic high fantasy with abundant magic (though I think he also wants the current low fantasy style to be a thing too). Which makes me wonder how exactly us DF fans will take to it. We are so used to DF being incredibly gritty and low fantasy for so long I feel this will be kind of a shock to our systems. The DF we know and have known since the days of Boatmurdered is a mere accident--the game was never planned to be this low fantasy, it's just been in development for decades. DF 1.0, judging from his to-do list, will be almost unrecognizable to the DF of Boatmurdered and Roomcarnage. I am definitely looking forward to our thoughts and reactions to Myth and Magic, when it finally comes.

[Salmeuk]

well, no need to rush things, at this rate you're gonna have like 10 years to think about it.

all jokes aside, DF has gone through many permutations and will continue to change. new players are the lifeblood of the game and such an update would only attract more people to see the curious, mystical RNG at work.

DF is directly or indirectly responsible for a spate of recent (last decade or so) indie games going down the 'realistic depiction of basic processes' imo. early influence I'm talking about - from minecraft to rimworld. most of these realistic processes are pastiche in that sense. so that chapter is sort of already complete. impact was felt and seen by many game players. I think now, the average indie game player wants something more. realism is ultimately boring, see zizek lol

[Thisfox]

I remember trying to work out how on earth I could control multiple z-levels all at the same time....

Then there were aquifers, which caused so many of my forts to flood and everyone to drown. Then there were light aquifers, ruining all the solutions I had for "normal" aquifers (and causing many of my forts to die due to lack of water). Now I've embraced both forms of magical water production.

I think I'll adapt to magic just fine. I mean, strange moods are magical.

[Miuramir]

... For basically its entire existence--nearly 20 years--DF has been a very very gritty and low fantasy game. ...

Warning: mild spoilers for endgame stuff

I would disagree with this.  A significant part of DF from very early on (well before it was 3D) has been the magical "geology", the immortal elves and goblins, and in particular the demons.  The whole world is literally infused with magic; the dwarves' ability to tunnel through granite with copper picks at ludicrous speeds, carry objects such as stone floodgates around, turn three gems into an entire window-wall, have underground roads connecting cities across entire continents, routinely work with exotic fantasy materials such as adamantine, and of course construct all sorts of nigh-impossible things while in a strange mood. 

Plus the fact that if you dig only a few hundred feet down, pretty much anywhere in the entire world, you encounter a massive, continent-spanning network of elaborate caves, full of fantastic creatures, exotic fungal trees, animal people civilizations, and deadly horrors from before the dawn of time.  That doesn't even begin to get into the "new fun stuff", with the "geodes" surrounded by impossible collections of jewels, that can contain magma mysteriously kept hot without any exterior connection or reason, demons, and actual angels fully decked out with exotic materials with no match in mundane reality.  Then there's the fact that the entire inner structure of the world is based on what appears to be unlimited, universal hell lurking barely below the surface; mystical people sometimes talk about the "thin veneer of mundane reality", but in DF, that's an all to literal description. 

Is it *possible*, with modding and some care, to play a low-magic, low-fantasy "Human Town" that gets by on the surface and doesn't interact with the intensely magical world?  Yes, but that's not the default or core DF experience. 

The best fantasy and science fiction take a fairly small set of assumptions about what makes that world different, and then logically expand out from there.  DF is not "low fantasy", but it makes a credible attempt at "hard fantasy", a rarely-encountered term or genre. 

All that said, however... it's been discussed several times that when Myth & Magic comes along there will be at least one, and possibly a whole slew, of world-gen controls to set how fantastic the world is; from nearly mundane to the extent that the DF simulation can support it, to much crazier than the current DF.  It is highly likely that one (set) of the settings will be intended to more or less replicate the current level of DF, possibly with some hard-coded presets that can be turned on or off. 

[Fieari]

I think a big part of the perception of DF as non-magical is that the moment by moment gameplay is obsessed with the physical, not the mystical.  The grit of combat, the distinction between so many kinds of stone, the simulation of eyelids, etc.   Then, when you do encounter magic, it interacts with all the physicality in a very real, consequentialistic manner, which makes it feel terrifying in the way D&D magic doesn't.

I don't think the myth and magic arc is going to change this in the slightest.  To the contrary, I think all the simulation interactions will make the realism feel even stronger.  This absolutely won't be a case where selecting "fight" does 21 HP damage, and selecting "fireball" does 35 HP damage while subtracting 5 MP, which makes magic feel boring.  That's just not how DF works.