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Author Topic: If Toady gave a lecture, what would you want to hear about?  (Read 1060 times)

SalfordSal

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If Toady gave a lecture, what would you want to hear about?
« on: December 24, 2022, 06:38:25 am »

Hi everybody, you might already know me from my DF Twitch streams, from my 0.47 tutorial series on YouTube, or my !!science!! experiments into dwarfen emotions, memories and stress http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=177577.msg8216071#msg8216071 For those that don't know me, hello, I'm Sal, I'm a decade-long Dwarf Fortress player and streamer.

Kitfox have hired me to stream Dwarf Fortress regularly on their channel and to continue spreading the word of Dwarf Fortress to the uninitiated. Yes, I've sold out, lol, but Kitfox are genuinely good people to work for, and playing Dwarf Fortress for a living is an unbelievable dream come true!

I've been asking around old players and new to see what kind of things they'd like to see in these stream slots, and I've gotten some really good suggestions, but there is something that I would especially like to ask the forum community here. The people here have been around the longest and seen the most, you've seen what Tarn and Zach have talked about in other places, in particular Tarn's lectures to university audiences. I would *love* to get Tarn on stream from time to time to give us an in-depth lecture on a single subject, such as the process of world generation. Like, say an hour long lecture, rather than a Q&A type thing (which BlindIRL does really well with Tarn). If Tarn was to give a lecture, university style, but with us as an audience of DF players rather than an audience of students and researchers, what would you want to hear him talk about?

I'm not *definite* that Tarn would be up for the lecture style idea, but I think that he might be, so I want to gather some proposals to put to him

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Salmeuk

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Re: If Toady gave a lecture, what would you want to hear about?
« Reply #1 on: December 24, 2022, 12:27:38 pm »

yeah he doesn't really seem like the type to lecture . perhaps his inspiration regarding the accurate depiction of minerals and other geological formations within DF, which is outstanding, and proved inspiring to a swath of later game developers.
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eerr

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Re: If Toady gave a lecture, what would you want to hear about?
« Reply #2 on: December 24, 2022, 02:12:05 pm »

Maybe something tied to big feature releases?
-what does it take to set up all these systems, for the future
-what is some low-spoilers for the update (either before that release, or after!)
-what didn't work, and had to be removed, if it's feasible to explain.
^this might lean more into interview territory

something about design by accretion.
-how it built dwarf fortress
-like how bridges are weird
-dwarves aren't horrible dug abuse jokes anymore

Something about the og dwarf fortress
-talk about curses, how he used that library for over ten years. possibly even twenty!
-something about how the classic tileset makes dwarf fortress a little bit like a hallucinogenic rave;
 and how that's inspiring (this is one of the reasons for dwarves doing drugs, I think)
-his intentions on combat in earlier versions, like the first 3d version, and the history of 40d



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Talvieno

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Re: If Toady gave a lecture, what would you want to hear about?
« Reply #3 on: December 24, 2022, 03:06:49 pm »

Honestly, I'd just like Toady to pick a DF subject he enjoys so I can listen to him excitedly ramble about it for a while.
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Shonai_Dweller

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Re: If Toady gave a lecture, what would you want to hear about?
« Reply #4 on: December 24, 2022, 08:59:00 pm »

yeah he doesn't really seem like the type to lecture .
Highly recommend actually watching some of his lectures. Not sure it's that different to lecturing in a Youtube video is it?
« Last Edit: December 24, 2022, 09:00:33 pm by Shonai_Dweller »
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Tilla

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Re: If Toady gave a lecture, what would you want to hear about?
« Reply #5 on: December 24, 2022, 11:56:18 pm »

yeah he doesn't really seem like the type to lecture . perhaps his inspiration regarding the accurate depiction of minerals and other geological formations within DF, which is outstanding, and proved inspiring to a swath of later game developers.
He was a university Math Professor once upon a time and has done some pretty good panel talks on DF in the past!
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Shonai_Dweller

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Re: If Toady gave a lecture, what would you want to hear about?
« Reply #6 on: December 25, 2022, 08:56:44 am »

Tarn solo lecture on Emergent Narrative Building Blocks at the UCSC Generative Design class.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snbt0PxRvpk

His lectures are always great. I'd just let him choose a topic, unless he's really stuck for something. :)
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brewer bob

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Re: If Toady gave a lecture, what would you want to hear about?
« Reply #7 on: December 25, 2022, 09:17:13 am »

I'd watch pretty much anything Tarn lectures on. I'm also for letting him choose a topic if there's one he'd like to talk about.

Orange-of-Cthulhu

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Re: If Toady gave a lecture, what would you want to hear about?
« Reply #8 on: December 26, 2022, 09:19:59 am »

I'd like for him to pick a lesser subject about DF and just do an hour about that in depth.

Like what was their inspiration for necromancer experiments, their thoughts about adding the types they added and making them as they are, did they have ideas that didn't make it, how do the experiments fit in their grand vision and why did they think it worthwile for them to add it.

It's less important to me which subject they pick - it could also be how the picked which animals to have in the game and just talk an hour about animals. Or do magma-hour and talk about the role magma has played in the game through the versions versus what they expected or whatever.

Because there's so many interviews with the alcoholic cats bug and such. It becomes a lot repetition these interviews. I think if you dig deeper and more greedily in one topic it becomes more interesting.
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ixn

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Re: If Toady gave a lecture, what would you want to hear about?
« Reply #9 on: December 26, 2022, 10:09:24 am »

I'm definitely on the "let him pick his ball and run with it" side, too. He's a cogent speaker no matter what the topic is.
Quote
something about design by accretion.
is also a pretty good idea. DF has had an interesting development history.
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