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[FearfulJesuit]

Hopefully he replaces those every three or four years. I'm sure he does so every month or something.

[monk12]

I heartily endorse this sticky.

One thing I would add is a link to the old dev goals under the "Is feature X planned?" heading. It's the answer to the common follow-up question "What all arcs are planned?"

Spoiler: Unrelated (click to show/hide)

AND MORE, AND WORSE: I'm still too embarrassed to share every idea we had... The Keep and Event Horizon came up. You don't want to know.

First time I noticed this, and now I am most intrigued. Almost enough to make it a DF Talk question.

[Niccolo]

I endorse the stickying of this thread too!


Maybe an FAQ thread like this should be done for a few other topics... Namely "Fulfilling moods" and "Why some suggestions will never be taken on board".

[Gatleos]

"Why some suggestions will never be taken on board".

I think the sex and/or feces suggestions come up often enough to warrant an FAQ about it.

Toady makes his stance on it pretty clear 24:20 into this audio.

[Urist_McArathos]

"Why some suggestions will never be taken on board".

I think the sex and/or feces suggestions come up often enough to warrant an FAQ about it.

Toady makes his stance on it pretty clear 24:20 into this audio.

Agreed; I'll have a listen soon and add it to the main post.

[Niccolo]

"Why some suggestions will never be taken on board".

I think the sex and/or feces suggestions come up often enough to warrant an FAQ about it.

Toady makes his stance on it pretty clear 24:20 into this audio.

This is precisely the topic I was thinking about.

[Urist_McArathos]

Footkerchief, Baughn, and the ever-debated bodily functions suggestion added to the FAQ.

Thanks to everyone for their sticky requests; I'm guessing Toady is a bit too busy wrapping up the new release to bother with an issue like this at the moment, so please be patient and continue to post questions you think should be handled here, or relevant links and statements to better clarify and explain existing answers.

[Urist_McArathos]

Bump to return to front page.

[Niccolo]

Mebbe you should message Baughn and Footkerchief, tell them that this topic is here... That way, if a question/request comes up they can simply drop this link and say "Go here and read".


Also, in relation to my earlier suggestion on FAQ questions, I was more meaning a separate topic in the sub-forum with all of the most frequently requested changes, perhaps with links to Toady's tenuous timetable (Whoo, 10 points for alliteration usage!) for a guide on when to possibly expect it...? D'you think that's a worthwhile endeavour?

[Die Nacht]

I don't think sex would give the game bad publicity. I mean, is an ASCII (or tile-graphic) on top of another one really that "controversial".

And most of the time you wouldn't even see it, they would just go off, do something, and be done. 9 months later "Urfridida McBabySpawner has given birth to a girl!"

As for multi-threading, I am no expert on it but if it will help with speed in the future, then I suggest Toady does try to implement it since, as the game grows (and it is growing, quite fast), this will become an issue.

And it saddens me to hear that the game, at the current rate, will finish in '30. I mean, really? I'll throw in 100 dollars tomorrow when I get paid.


The gaming industry NEEDS this game, nothing like this has ever been done.

[Neonivek]

I am personally not under the impression that DF lacks sex because Toady made it his goal for there not to be any... but simply the logistics of it.

[Urist_McArathos]

You're entitled to your opinion, but Toady himself states his reasons in the audio recording I linked.

[Die Nacht]

You're entitled to your opinion, but Toady himself states his reasons in the audio recording I linked.

I know, I just don't understand how is a flashing ASCII or tile-graphic going to bring bad publicity. It is fine if he doesn't want to do it, the only thing sex would add is that the two ASCII will come together and flash between the two. Right now, there is sex, it just doesn't show it (unless someone has heard of a woman giving birth without husband in the game).

However, I don't know if this is the case already, women should not be giving birth if the father (or mother if she's the one in the army) is, lets say, in the army and the army is attacking some other fort or town; unless the woman, you know, decided she just couldn't wait.

If this is already the case, then forget sex (no point in wasting time and code in bringing two ASCII together) but the pair should at least be together for it to happen.

As for feces, well it would be another challenge (you need plumbing in your fort. Unless you decide to use septic tanks) so I think it would be good to add. Again, low priority. I don't think people will think of the game as "that game where dwarfs poop". The game is so big (and getting bigger) that feces will be such a small thing that people will just see it as an extra thing.

[Sirus]

You're entitled to your opinion, but Toady himself states his reasons in the audio recording I linked.

I know, I just don't understand how is a flashing ASCII or tile-graphic going to bring bad publicity. It is fine if he doesn't want to do it, the only thing sex would add is that the two ASCII will come together and flash between the two. Right now, there is sex, it just doesn't show it (unless someone has heard of a woman giving birth without husband in the game).

However, I don't know if this is the case already, women should not be giving birth if the father (or mother if she's the one in the army) is, lets say, in the army and the army is attacking some other fort or town; unless the woman, you know, decided she just couldn't wait.

If this is already the case, then forget sex (no point in wasting time and code in bringing two ASCII together) but the pair should at least be together for it to happen.

As for feces, well it would be another challenge (you need plumbing in your fort. Unless you decide to use septic tanks) so I think it would be good to add. Again, low priority. I don't think people will think of the game as "that game where dwarfs poop". The game is so big (and getting bigger) that feces will be such a small thing that people will just see it as an extra thing.

It is commonly thought that animals in this game re-produce with spores. If you have, say, a female horse deep underground and tied up, and a wild male horse wanders onto the map, the female can get pregnant and give birth eventually without ever going near the male.

Female dwarves can give birth no matter where the father is, even if he's dead. That's because they don't give birth at random, they get pregnant and have a gestation period first. As far as I know, there's no way to tell in-game if something is pregnant until they give birth and go about their business.

I'm in no hurry to add feces to this game. I have no desire to be a sewage technician in real life, so why would I want to deal with it in a game?

[Urist_McArathos]

I've discussed before why I think sewage and waste disposal would add an excellent and challenging dynamic to the game, so believe me I think it would be a great feature to add or make optional, but as it stands Toady isn't interested.  Maybe he'll change his mind, and maybe as the game gets closer to completion he will agree that it isn't enough of an issue to worry about affecting the game.

As for breeding via spores, I don't think that's behavior as intended, but a stand in until proper reproduction can be added: despite not wanting dwarves to have sex or defecate, he did mention that he wants animals to be as realistic as possible: expect manure to be used for tanning and fertilizing in time.  I think by that time, we'll have animal breeding (though maybe not reproductive organs in the anatomy) as a by-product of the need for controlled animal husbandry.

Dwarves reproducing by spores is debatable, since dwarves only marry when they're in the fortress together, only have kids when they marry, and the current setup where eating, drinking, breaking, sleeping, etc. takes days on end is probably a simplification so you don't have dwarves sleeping for 5 frames or so every 30 seconds (probably to preserve FPS, since a dwarf recalculating his jobs and pathing so frequently every in-game day would drain processing power); working under that assumption there's plenty of time for nightly nuptials.

Regardless, I'm sure breeding via spores is not the "canon" answer, just a placeholder.