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[NW_Kohaku]

... Armok has ... functioned as a joke about the player, served as an explanation for each save game, etc.,

Here in Knight Otu's quote you see that Armok functions as all of the above. Yes, he will be a god in the game eventually, but he has also been recognized as the player.

There's a difference between saying that Armok has functioned as a joke about the player and saying that Armok is the player. 

The problem is that this joke has been passed along so many times that it has become urban legend, and many new players are simply being taught "you are Armok" and don't understand they're supposed to be the fortress nobles. 

It makes it severely annoying when I have to continuously repeat myself on this topic because people don't get the difference between what's a joke, and what the actual in-game explanations for things are.  (Enjoying kitten-mashing, for example, is not just nothing but a player joke, but one that Toady doesn't even seem to appreciate much.)

All Toady was saying there was that when stock deities were put in, Armok would be a prime candidate for a stock deity. Not as a metaphysical explanation for the player, but just as a reference and a nod to all the jokes about Armok over the years.

[Knight Otu]

Have you done anything with Kobold sites?

Not yet. Toady mentioned back in December that, map-wise, he still had some fort work and kobold sites to do, and he hasn't worked on maps since then. Presumably we'll see in the devlogs when he gets back to maps.

[WillowLuman]

Personally, I prefer generated deities to stock ones, gives the world more flavor. Also, it would be cool if the ambiguity of the gods' existence could be randomly generated, having some worlds where they go around having bastards and throwing lightning, others where they simply pass out curses to people who pee on their lawn, and some where they don't do anything and might only exist as cultural forces.

[EmeraldWind]

... Armok has ... functioned as a joke about the player, served as an explanation for each save game, etc.,

Here in Knight Otu's quote you see that Armok functions as all of the above. Yes, he will be a god in the game eventually, but he has also been recognized as the player.

There's a difference between saying that Armok has functioned as a joke about the player and saying that Armok is the player. 

The problem is that this joke has been passed along so many times that it has become urban legend, and many new players are simply being taught "you are Armok" and don't understand they're supposed to be the fortress nobles. 

It makes it severely annoying when I have to continuously repeat myself on this topic because people don't get the difference between what's a joke, and what the actual in-game explanations for things are.  (Enjoying kitten-mashing, for example, is not just nothing but a player joke, but one that Toady doesn't even seem to appreciate much.)

All Toady was saying there was that when stock deities were put in, Armok would be a prime candidate for a stock deity. Not as a metaphysical explanation for the player, but just as a reference and a nod to all the jokes about Armok over the years.

I think you might be playing this a bit too seriously there. Firstly, Armok being a joke about the player and the player being Armok are not different things, they are the same. The joke IS "the player is Armok". That aside, if players want to pretend they're Armok instead of the fortress nobles then why not let them? Even if Armok is eventually represented in the game, role players will role play and there will be players that want to be Armok. There's no reason to get annoyed with people if they play the game with a different mindset to you. It is like getting annoyed at kids playing in the sandbox for making sand mounds when you think they should be making sand castles.

And talking about in-game explanations... where are these in-game explanations? I never saw them and likely a lot of other people missed them as well. I've seen a lot that Toady has said, but nothing like that in the game itself... and I didn't even realize I was meant to be playing as the fortress nobles... since my nobles and me obviously don't see eye-to-eye. I pretty much figured that everything was up to the individual's interpretation and I generally go with whatever the person telling the story seems to be going with when I read another player's story. I may not be playing the game right, but hey I can have my fun the way I like it. That's the reason I love DF.

[NW_Kohaku]

I think you might be playing this a bit too seriously there. Firstly, Armok being a joke about the player and the player being Armok are not different things, they are the same. The joke IS "the player is Armok". That aside, if players want to pretend they're Armok instead of the fortress nobles then why not let them? Even if Armok is eventually represented in the game, role players will role play and there will be players that want to be Armok. There's no reason to get annoyed with people if they play the game with a different mindset to you. It is like getting annoyed at kids playing in the sandbox for making sand mounds when you think they should be making sand castles.

And talking about in-game explanations... where are these in-game explanations? I never saw them and likely a lot of other people missed them as well. I've seen a lot that Toady has said, but nothing like that in the game itself... and I didn't even realize I was meant to be playing as the fortress nobles... since my nobles and me obviously don't see eye-to-eye. I pretty much figured that everything was up to the individual's interpretation and I generally go with whatever the person telling the story seems to be going with when I read another player's story. I may not be playing the game right, but hey I can have my fun the way I like it. That's the reason I love DF.

If you're going to keep dredging this topic up, at least take it seriously enough to read what you're commenting on.

I posted this just in the last page.  It was only a single response back in this same conversation before you interjected.

Our eventual goal is to have the player's role be the embodiment of positions of power within the fortress, performing actions in their official capacity, to the point that in an ideal world each command you give would be linked to some noble, official or commander.

Your entire line of argument is completely invalid for bringing into this discussion.  We weren't talking about what was fun. We were talking about what Toady stated Armok's role was.  This "everything is subjective" refrain is no excuse because we were talking about something with a simple yes or no answer, and the answer is "No."  It isn't some badge of honor to talk about how not knowing things that you never bothered looking up makes you feel great. 

This is the exact reason why these sorts of topics just keep cycling all over the forums.  It was not a funny meme the first time, and only gets more annoying every time.  (Don't bother trying to tell me how this nonsense is supposed to be funny.) Let this topic die.

[BinaryBeast1010011010]

*put back the flame thrower in the "friendly online interactions" drawer*
Darn it, too late... Yarr, maybe next time...

IMO we shoud not let FotF die, if we do where shall we ask our questions?

Can anyone tell me where I can find threetoes stories? I read in the "hard fact about Sapients" topic that they are not kept secret but I dont have the faintest clue about their actual location.

[Whatsifsowhatsit]

Can anyone tell me where I can find threetoes stories? I read in the "hard fact about Sapients" topic that they are not kept secret but I dont have the faintest clue about their actual location.

There's a link to them on the home page of the Dwarf Fortress site (not the forum). Alternatively, here you go.

As for the Armok discussion, I agree with NW_Kohaku, but that said, I don't mind if people take some liberties with that when it comes to storytelling or fanfictions or some such. When talking about how it's going to be handled for the actual game, however, I think it's good to know the facts.

[hops]

*put back the flame thrower in the "friendly online interactions" drawer*
Darn it, too late... Yarr, maybe next time...

IMO we shoud not let FotF die, if we do where shall we ask our questions?

Can anyone tell me where I can find threetoes stories? I read in the "hard fact about Sapients" topic that they are not kept secret but I dont have the faintest clue about their actual location.

I think he meant 'topic' as in 'topic of discussion'

[BinaryBeast1010011010]

I know, I was just playing dumb

[LordBaal]

On a closure on that point. You can't possibly be a god as you are neither omnipresent or at leas omniscient. There's actually a lot of work to do if you want to know things like how many stews you have, and even then the information feed to you by your inventory keeper might not be accurate.

On the other hand if you want to pretend you are Amork, why not? You are the one playing. Just that the gameplay have some limitations that some people might consider are not limitations a god might face for example. But as always, each is free to believe what each wants.

[BinaryBeast1010011010]

The omniscient god archetype is not the most used irl, for each monotheistic religion that believe in such gods I can easily name three others with multiple gods that plot and fight each other. Wich could not take place if they were omniscient : there would be no incentive.

[Thundercraft]

You've mentioned that once this release and the bugfix releases following it are out, you've got several directions to choose from...

Inns and taverns (both modes), dwarf mode start scenarios and hill/deep dwarves (these'll be necessary before we do any dwarf mode army stuff), criminal justice system stuff...  but I'm really not sure...

I'm really looking forward to seeing dwarf mode start scenarios.

Will dwarf mode start scenarios include the ability to embark from your old fort, bringing a selection of animals and dwarves and retiring the old fort instead of being forced to abandoning it to start a new one? Or will that come later?

(I'm referring to something like the Reuse dwarves from abandoned fortresses thread. It has come up numerous times and I think it was addressed at one point.)

There isn't yet the ability to time-skip, but it's a planned feature. Right now the best you can do is start/abandon a fortress a bunch of times- each new start will cycle the year forward to the next spring. Though actually, with worldgen activities continuing into play, that might change, or be a more involved process. Do world activities advance after an abandon? Will the game simulate world activities before the next fortress is founded?

Dealing with the abandonment/post-adventure time-skip is one of the clean-up things on the menu.  It'll have to advance the events, but as you can imagine, that's a reasonably messy process.

Does "post-adventure time-skip" refer to an automatic skip forward in time? Or is it an option to manually advance time in years (like a manually-activated world-gen continuation of history)? Because the latter sounds interesting, especially if it also allows time-skipping after abandoning (or retiring) a fortress.

[EmeraldWind]

Personally, I prefer generated deities to stock ones, gives the world more flavor. Also, it would be cool if the ambiguity of the gods' existence could be randomly generated, having some worlds where they go around having bastards and throwing lightning, others where they simply pass out curses to people who pee on their lawn, and some where they don't do anything and might only exist as cultural forces.

Though, once there are stock deities there will still be generated deities too. Sort of like how you can have stock werebeasts or generated werebeasts in the game right now. Stock deities will be kind of fun to though for modding. Mods that are based on series with a mythos of  their own could have gods from their source material. (Putnam's DBZ mod could have the Kai as deities for instance.)

But I also look forward to generating worlds with completely new sets of gods. This goes double when the gods get a little more fleshed out and are able to do more. In fact, this kind of makes me curious as to how far Toady might go with the deities. The Greek gods seemed to play a big part in the mythology they were in and were usually the catalyst for what ever was going on in a given story. I'm curious if Toady will allow gods themselves to start wars or if he'll take the more realistic approach of having the followers start a war in the god's name or possibly both...

I honestly would like to see a mixture of both.

What level of interaction do you see the gods having on the world when they are done? Will it ever reach levels of interaction compared to the Greek gods or the Jewish God where their interactions can bring about huge historical changes in a world?

Does "post-adventure time-skip" refer to an automatic skip forward in time? Or is it an option to manually advance time in years (like a manually-activated world-gen continuation of history)? Because the latter sounds interesting, especially if it also allows time-skipping after abandoning (or retiring) a fortress.

He's referring to the fact that when you start a fortress it must start the next first day of Spring. Meaning if you play as an adventurer and then start a fort there's going to be up to a year gap between the adventurer's end and the fortress's beginning. Stuff needs to happen in that gap.

blah blah blah

re: blah blah blah

I never intended on starting an argument.

You mentioned you got annoyed by constantly having to correct people's assumption that the player is Armok.
I was only pointing out that there really is no point to let yourself get annoyed by it because people will do what they will do.
As long as certain people find something fun then they will continue to do what they want.

I also realized by your reply that we have different definitions for the phrase "in-game". So I apologize for that misunderstanding. To clarify mine, in-game means to me that whatever information you are talking about can be found in the game, not in supplemental material. Your idea of in-game seems to include information that is provided via "Word of God" (for lack of a better phrase). I just misunderstood what you meant as a result.

My point in the second paragraph is that playing the game currently doesn't seem to inform the player that they are playing as the nobility. So I think it can be quite easy and forgivable for the average player to simply not know or care at this point. Later on when it is more obvious, you might not even need to correct people anymore.

Once again, I didn't intend to start an argument. I just wanted to point out there's no need for you to be annoyed because you have to correct people over and over again. Because chances are that correcting them doesn't really do anything to change their minds because they are having fun believing what they do.

[King Mir]

Will dwarf mode start scenarios include the ability to embark from your old fort, bringing a selection of animals and dwarves and retiring the old fort instead of being forced to abandoning it to start a new one? Or will that come later?

(I'm referring to something like the Reuse dwarves from abandoned fortresses thread. It has come up numerous times and I think it was addressed at one point.)

Dwarf mode start scenario's aren't going in this release, so I doubt toady will be able to answer this one.

However, retiring a fort will be in, so it's reasonable to expect that he will make it work with the existing features when he does add it.

[O11O1]

Personally, I prefer generated deities to stock ones, gives the world more flavor. Also, it would be cool if the ambiguity of the gods' existence could be randomly generated, having some worlds where they go around having bastards and throwing lightning, others where they simply pass out curses to people who pee on their lawn, and some where they don't do anything and might only exist as cultural forces.

Though, once there are stock deities there will still be generated deities too. Sort of like how you can have stock werebeasts or generated werebeasts in the game right now. Stock deities will be kind of fun to though for modding. Mods that are based on series with a mythos of  their own could have gods from their source material. (Putnam's DBZ mod could have the Kai as deities for instance.)

But I also look forward to generating worlds with completely new sets of gods. This goes double when the gods get a little more fleshed out and are able to do more. In fact, this kind of makes me curious as to how far Toady might go with the deities. The Greek gods seemed to play a big part in the mythology they were in and were usually the catalyst for what ever was going on in a given story. I'm curious if Toady will allow gods themselves to start wars or if he'll take the more realistic approach of having the followers start a war in the god's name or possibly both...

I honestly would like to see a mixture of both.

What level of interaction do you see the gods having on the world when they are done? Will it ever reach levels of interaction compared to the Greek gods or the Jewish God where their interactions can bring about huge historical changes in a world?

In regards to the quoted question, Will the fleshing out of divine interaction provide us with an option set at world-gen, much the way 'Mineral Frequency' or 'Megabeast Frequency' is handled currently? This would allow us to set up worlds with different flavors in regards to the god question.