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[runlvlzero]

It may be prudent to begin growing our clone of Toady soon. I suspect it will be fully grown and ready to take over at roughly the halfway point between alpha and beta development. 

The secondary unit should be online soon. It's currently undergoing preparations and should be operational within six months. If necessary, the primary will be terminated.

ROFL, D.F. Denton or D.F. Toady? =)

Nano-enhancement should speed things up, especially when he activates the Aquinas hub....

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

These sorts of threads always miss the point:

"Version 1.0" is an utterly meaningless metric.

Toady has said this is his life's work - when he finishes "1.0", he will just keep working on it, adding more things.

This game has been a playable and enjoyable game back when it was 2d, and since then nearly everything has been rewritten about the game.

Toady could declare the very next version that comes out "1.0" if he wanted to, he could also keep working on version "0.132.01" at his death bed, since the entire version number mechanic is arbitrary, and the only thing that matters is that the number keeps going up - he's even rewritten the criteria he uses to measure version numbers before, he could just as easily do it again. 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

If, instead of asking about "1.0", you are asking when DF will be "finished" or "perfect", and Toady will never again touch the code, then the answer is probably "not even after his death", as Toady intends to keep working on it, and after he dies, let it go open source, so future generations may be able to pick up and improve on DF. 

Life is arbitrary, and so is versioning, this has been well established since there ever existed a version number...

The question wasn't about completion either, it was about when he would release his V1.0, while that is up to Toady, it is still something that is fun to try to predict.

[Nexii Malthus]

Software has to be alive and evolve, without a developer it is dead, so 1.0 doesn't make sense in the context of being "finished".
The metric would also make more sense if we had a very clear roadmap which it relates to, but we don't quite have that anymore.

I'd say 1.0 is there when we have all the game and simulation mechanics, that Toady had in mind, to create the functional fantasy world simulator that is described as: "The long-term goal is to create a fantasy world simulator in which it is possible to take part in a rich history, occupying a variety of roles through the course of several games."
When that goal is possible in whole, then surely that counts as a 'Major' version One. With that, Toady could just keep mandating new long-term goals to push the simulator further along as he wants to.


To put it another way, 1.0 (and other major versions) in general make sense where applied when their creator's/developer's long-term major goals have been reached. A new major goal follows from then on.

[oven_baked]

Well "1.0" isn't really a measure.
Not only is numbering arbitrary but also the progression means nothing. If 1.0 isn't set to release when  Toady dies then there will be a 1.1 and so on.

I imagine the "Final" version might exist, the point where Toady is happy with it and wants only to optimize it (maybe, I mean by tomorrows standards the current version is really lightweight on system requirements!) , improve the UI, and generally polish it up. Before working on something else?

[Azri]

"Still it would be nice to play DF on a big tv... as long as we had a usable interface for it."

I play it on a 42 inch- all you need is a TV with an applicable visual input from a computer. Took me a while to find the right cord, though.

[Jeoshua]

Dwarf Fortress will NEVER reach a 1.0

Not because it won't ever be done, but because that's not how Toady numbers his versions.  Consider the current version "V 24.07"

[MarcAFK]

"Still it would be nice to play DF on a big tv... as long as we had a usable interface for it."

I play it on a 42 inch- all you need is a TV with an applicable visual input from a computer. Took me a while to find the right cord, though.

Heh, i tested my 42 inch when it was new like this, though i reallly just wanted to see what it looked like for movies (had no external blue ray player at the time)

[runlvlzero]

Still on the T.V. topic, because we know 1.0 will never be released.... I find you actually have a way better viewing angle by virtue of the display device being bigger. At 42' T.V. distances you can be virtually anywhere in a 10'' cone in front of it and see it well. For a standard 21' monitor not so much. I haven't tried DF on our 42' 1080p T.V. yet though, I'm absolutely sure the I would get dumped in a lava shaft if I did...

Also I really miss 21' of square-sh viewing room, this 16:9 ratio is great for big movies, but piss poor for games and software. My quake skills are even in decline on this set-up...

[Murgy]

Bonus points if one uses the default ASCII tileset when hooking the game up to their television.
It's kind of like putting a spoiler on a horse drawn carriage.

[Cruxador]

DF is pretty likely to see a 1.0. It may seem far in the future, but Toady's been on this for ten years, so it's not super likely that something will change the plan now.

These sorts of threads always miss the point:

"Version 1.0" is an utterly meaningless metric.

Version 1.0 means "all the core goals are complete". The new design plan doesn't have 100 core goals that we the players know about, and it's presumably subject to change. But it does exist, and the basic stuff that it contains is more or less the same as the old system.

Toady has said this is his life's work - when he finishes "1.0", he will just keep working on it, adding more things.

He's said he'll probably do that, but he's also said he may work on other games. I don't think he has a super defined plan that far out, but I'd imagine he'll do both of those things.

Toady could declare the very next version that comes out "1.0" if he wanted to, he could also keep working on version "0.132.01" at his death bed, since the entire version number mechanic is arbitrary, and the only thing that matters is that the number keeps going up - he's even rewritten the criteria he uses to measure version numbers before, he could just as easily do it again. 

If, instead of asking about "1.0", you are asking when DF will be "finished" or "perfect", and Toady will never again touch the code, then the answer is probably "not even after his death", as Toady intends to keep working on it, and after he dies, let it go open source, so future generations may be able to pick up and improve on DF.

That was a book keeping change. He still intends to complete more or less the same things before 1.0, although I'm sure there are some changes, and there's a change in the system in that some goals have different weight with regards to version numbering. But he still, now as then, intends for 1.0 to be one core increment up from 0.99, which is also when all of the main goals are complete. That hasn't changed, and although I expect he'll probably rejigger the specifics of the core goals in the future, I wouldn't expect the sort of huge change you think is possible.

Dwarf Fortress will NEVER reach a 1.0

Not because it won't ever be done, but because that's not how Toady numbers his versions.  Consider the current version "V 24.07"

No, it's 0.34.07 actually. Look: http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/ it's in big yellow letters on the head of the index page and everything.

[Adannor]

"Still it would be nice to play DF on a big tv... as long as we had a usable interface for it."
I play it on a 42 inch- all you need is a TV with an applicable visual input from a computer. Took me a while to find the right cord, though.

Heh, i tested my 42 inch when it was new like this, though i reallly just wanted to see what it looked like for movies (had no external blue ray player at the time)

There is something incredibly dwarfy about displaying ASCII graphics on a hugeasshalfawall screen 

[RabblerouserGT]

If you ask me, it's already a complete game, just with extra stuff constantly being added and forcing it back to being somewhat unstable.

Though there's still issues like adventure mode being barren and stagnant water. 
It's got a lot of bug-squashing to deal with.

[Malarauko]

Kind of cool to think dwarf fortress will never be finished. No other game ever has been like this. Some games have been supported for a long time but never to the extent Toady intends.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Well, if we go by how long it's taken him to do what he's done so far.. I remember it took about a year to go from 2d to 2d+ [.23 to .27], and then it took 2d+ another year of development and optimizing to be ready for the nearly 2-year gap between versions .28 and .31, leading us to Z-axis [3d] DF. It's been a couple years since that point, and Toady has added huge amounts, so now the version is .34 and bound to keep going up in the near future as he adds main features (which are recognized with the first xx.00's of the version, if I remember correct).

So if we go by this rate, it'll be approximately 50 or so years. Maybe 35 if he hits quick bits of development near the end, but otherwise don't keep your hopes up. And as stated, it's an evolving project and the version numbers are mostly for Toady to keep track of his own devlog so one person's 1.0 could be another person's .1.

I mean, it's almost been 7 years now and I've only seen a good 5-10% of the game be completed.

[NW_Kohaku]

Well, if we go by how long it's taken him to do what he's done so far.. I remember it took about a year to go from 2d to 2d+ [.23 to .27], and then it took 2d+ another year of development and optimizing to be ready for the nearly 2-year gap between versions .28 and .31, leading us to Z-axis [3d] DF. It's been a couple years since that point, and Toady has added huge amounts, so now the version is .34 and bound to keep going up in the near future as he adds main features (which are recognized with the first xx.00's of the version, if I remember correct).

So if we go by this rate, it'll be approximately 50 or so years. Maybe 35 if he hits quick bits of development near the end, but otherwise don't keep your hopes up. And as stated, it's an evolving project and the version numbers are mostly for Toady to keep track of his own devlog so one person's 1.0 could be another person's .1.

I mean, it's almost been 7 years now and I've only seen a good 5-10% of the game be completed.

It depends a lot on how much of the game Toady rips out and completely rewrites.

I mean, 3d was basically a huge hiccup of rewriting how the whole game map worked, and while he was at it, completely rewriting game balance to involve that real-life geology stuff.

The delay after 40d was Toady completely rewriting materials and raws and how creatures were made plus some stuff about hospitals and military, but mostly throwing out the whole raw structure and starting again.

Year of delay between 0.31 and 0.34?  Oh, it turns out he had to throw out and rewrite the appearances stuff for vampires, so that added several more months to the release schedule. 

If Toady can just improve on what he has, he tends to work fast (Oh, look, he rewrote hauling in a single day), but then he gets that bug in his craw to go and scrap everything he's done in the past six years and write it all from scratch again every time he wants to try something new.

[Leatra]

Imagine how much time it would take to rewrite for multithreading. I doubt it will ever happen though.