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[Afghani84]

Hey everyone,

I know that there is no official deadline for the release and I am happy about that since I want a good product and don't mind to wait for it. I'm just curious whether there is any source regarding outstanding changes/tasks that are scheduled before the release. Having such a list would make it a bit easier to estimate when comparing to the (currently rather infrequent) news posts from Toady.

Thanks in advance!

[Mr Crabman]

Referring to this thread and the interview:

* https://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/mw514h/note_about_steam_release_progress/
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niKwnEJ5RD4&t=1238s

And also tidbits from elsewhere, what's left is apparently:

* Screens/UI for the manager (integrated with the autolabor stuff he has already)
* Unit job list
* Workshop profiles
* Civilizations screen (tileset for the world map is already created)
* Military & squads
* Mine-cart hauling routes
* Burrows
* [q,t,k,v] updated/combined into a single clicking/looking command (some progress made already on this https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/34693670/28ab9b9889580a0dc5e343fd4b53bfaedea7e6ae.png)
* Embark screen (tileset for the world map is already created)
* Retooling worldgen so that you aren't dumped back into the title screen (tileset for the world map is already created)
* Adventure mode (much of the interface won't carry over, but the graphics all will)
* Legends mode (should be very quick apparently)
* Implementing the already created sprite-work into their respective places in the game (already lots of this in place obviously, but not sure how much; this happens alongside other tasks and doesn't take long)
* Graphics for procgen creatures
* Steam workshop support
* Misc technical Steam support stuff

Tarn said at the time of that interview (Feb 12th, about 14 weeks ago) that "this year is still fair" as a release date estimate, and since then he has done at least this (can't know what else he's doing in the background):

* The 25 non-workshop building UI's (beds, chains, cages, statues, etc) and the the rework of those buildings (ie them using zones)
* Levers
* Trading screens/trade depos
* Basic automatic labor assignment implemented (but it still needs refinement)

[Afghani84]

* Military & squads

Wow...didn't expect such a detailed answer. Many thanks for it! One more questions regarding the point above: did Toady say whether he will tackle the military equipment issues (woodcutter, miner etc.) for the steam release as well?

[Mr Crabman]

* Military & squads

Wow...didn't expect such a detailed answer. Many thanks for it! One more questions regarding the point above: did Toady say whether he will tackle the military equipment issues (woodcutter, miner etc.) for the steam release as well?

I don't know if he's said it somewhere; you could try asking in FotF or searching for it.

[voliol]

* Military & squads

Wow...didn't expect such a detailed answer. Many thanks for it! One more questions regarding the point above: did Toady say whether he will tackle the military equipment issues (woodcutter, miner etc.) for the steam release as well?

I don't know if he's said it somewhere; you could try asking in FotF or searching for it.

Or searching for it in FotF! If you click the "PRINT" button that's on the top right of every thread on this forum you get a pure text version of the thread you can "ctrl-f" through. It's considerably swifter than this forum's searching function.

[Lidku]

Will this Steam release have any support at all for ASCII graphics whatsoever? If not, it's one of the primary reasons why I haven't really cared or have had any hype surrounding it. I never really played DF with graphics, baring some mods that have graphics integrated into it already. I like ASCII because I use my own imagination to paint the picture of what's going on and what things look like.

[Garfunkel]

Nothing stops you from playing regular DF instead of Steam version. As I understand it, all non-graphics related features and bug fixes will be included with it too.

[DwarfStar]

Will this Steam release have any support at all for ASCII graphics whatsoever? If not, it's one of the primary reasons why I haven't really cared or have had any hype surrounding it. I never really played DF with graphics, baring some mods that have graphics integrated into it already. I like ASCII because I use my own imagination to paint the picture of what's going on and what things look like.

I have the same question.

I've never been much into DF tilesets, and I think it's because it doesn't seem worth spending the time to relearn how to recognize everything. But I think that's a problem more with the fractured landscape of tilesets. I have room in my brain for one more, but not a dozen. Since each time I've tried graphics in DF, it's probably always been a different tile set, it's always been a learning curve. But my brain has enough room for one more metaphor now that there is an official one.

So I'm hopeful I will like the new graphics, but I'm not sure I'll like them better yet. But, I'm 100% sure I'll want some of the features in the Steam release like multi-z level rendering. I might find that the Steam release with ASCII graphics is the sweet spot for me.

[PatrikLundell]

Will this Steam release have any support at all for ASCII graphics whatsoever? If not, it's one of the primary reasons why I haven't really cared or have had any hype surrounding it. I never really played DF with graphics, baring some mods that have graphics integrated into it already. I like ASCII because I use my own imagination to paint the picture of what's going on and what things look like.

If taken literally, the answer is no: DF has "never" had ASCII "graphics", but character "graphics" based on Code Page 437 (if I've gotten the number right) that contains the characters included in the 7 bit ASCII set plus a number of additional characters to make it an 8 bit character set (if there is an official ASCII 8 bit set it's a different code page, filling the additional character codes with different characters on top of the 7 bit set).

HOWEVER, DF will continue to support character graphics (now actually graphics, in that it will be sprites that just happen to look like the characters) as one of the two graphics sets supported officially by the Premium version of the Premium release forwards, and the only one officially supported by the Classic version of the Premium release forwards. In both cases, support for third party graphics sets will remain to exist.

As the 8 bit restriction of using an actual code page is lifted by a switch to what is actually a tile set technically, there is room for new characters, and it seems Toady is going to add new characters sooner or later (I'd introduce the cyrillic character looking like a mirrored N and add a tilde, "~", above it, i.e. a mirrored Ñ, but with an unmirrored tilde, to designate intelligent undead as opposed to the regular ones). Another possibility resulting from a switch to sprites is that it would be possible to make use of more colors that the current display method can support, although I haven't heard any indication either way whether Toady intends to make use of that.

[DwarfStar]

Seems like Unicode would be a good choice to expand the character set. Who wouldn’t want to be invaded by a horde of poop emojis?

[voliol]

Dungoofed and thouht this was the FoTF thread. Woops.

[Lidku]

Dungoofed and thouht this was the FoTF thread. Woops.

lol

[Thisfox]

I actually feel better knowing that there are others like me out there wanting to play the game without the much hyped new tilesets. I love the graphics of Dwarf Fortress as they already are, and I would be less likely to enjoy the game with them changed to the art I've seen so far in the information about the Steam release. Don't get me wrong: It's very nice, I'm sure someone probably likes it, but it doesn't look like what my imagination has been rendering for the last... However many years. It doesn't look like Dwarf Fortress to me. It just looks.... generic. Good to know we'll still get to play it without the extra art if we wish to.

[PatrikLundell]

Seems like Unicode would be a good choice to expand the character set. Who wouldn’t want to be invaded by a horde of poop emojis?

Well, Toady went for tiles, not a character overlay creation set. This means any unicode character could be emulated (in as far as the tile resolution allows). And I would expect most of those who prefer to use a character based tile set wouldn't want poop emojis.

However, I suspect it would be fairly easy for someone with a modest artistic talent and a modest computer technical skill to copy the DF character tile set and replace select ones with poop emojis for their own use, and possibly for the use of others (since the character tile set is included in the Classic version, I assume you'd be allowed to provide an alternative set largely based on the included one for usage with DF, but I'd check that beforehand. You can't do that with the Premium exclusive tile set since it's exclusive to the Premium version, and thus isn't allowed to be provided to those using the Classic version).

[hedgerow]

I actually feel better knowing that there are others like me out there wanting to play the game without the much hyped new tilesets. I love the graphics of Dwarf Fortress as they already are, and I would be less likely to enjoy the game with them changed to the art I've seen so far in the information about the Steam release. Don't get me wrong: It's very nice, I'm sure someone probably likes it, but it doesn't look like what my imagination has been rendering for the last... However many years. It doesn't look like Dwarf Fortress to me. It just looks.... generic. Good to know we'll still get to play it without the extra art if we wish to.

I'm still hoping I get to play the original art with some sort of good bloom shader.  It's probably hard, but if I could get red 7's to glow from a catwalk, that'd be cool.

I think, since the deterrence of regular modding with DF in terms of plugins has always been somewhat stunted but intuitive enough for everyone but modpack enthusiasts, the Steam release would be equally moddable, but there are some quirks when it comes to the overlay so I'd probably be playing it outside the parent program, seemingly.