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[AWdeV]

I enjoy some of the unusual creatures.  Hoary Marmots are interesting.  Crows, Ravens, and Sparrows are not.

Hoary Marmots are not interesting at all. Nor unusual in DF context. I once had a fortress where I modded them and although there is minor amusement in War Hoary Marmots results were rather underwhelming. A war crow might at least peck at goblin eyes but a hoary marmot can only nibble on his toes but not even through his troll fur sandals.

Now, war rhinoceroses, yes.

[Girlinhat]

The animal variety also lends support for graphic packs.  ASCII works fine when you have a wolf, but it gets awkward when you have wolves, walruses, white gibbons, weasels, and wrens.  Older ASCII versions were fine, but there's simply too much variety now to boil it down to a set of characters.

NINJA: I didn't say effective, I said interesting.

[dwarfhoplite]

I think current situation is just silly. I don't know what half of the creatures even are without a dictionary. Also they don't serve a purpose therefore they're a bad game design decision. To make matters worse they are even very annoying. I didn't see ONE normal land animal in my last fort which lasted about 16 years.

It took me quite a while to remove unwanted animals but I haven't generated a world yet to see if my modifications are balanced at all.

[monk12]

Hoary Marmot just sounds cool. And for many of my early, unequipped and under-prepared fortresses, they also proved quite delicious and easy to kill with the fort's only axe, provided the militia commander was fast enough.

[Yaotzin]

Next thing you know people will want hematite, limonite, and magnetite all renamed "iron ore".

[AWdeV]

I actually kinda like the huuuuuuuge animal variety though. I never would've known what a bilou or a thingy was. As it happens, I actually forgot what a thingy is but whatever. It's still pretty cool.

[slowpokez]

I've gotten alot less variety in the new version, almost only insects and birds...
I never thought I'd say this but I miss the badgers

[Naryar]

yeah, all the differently colored gibbons are useless.

I think each animal should have a role and be included for a reason.

Giant louses and giant ticks doesn't make even any sense. They're parasites, and no beast is large enough for a beast the size of a giant louse to be a realistic parasite.

Giant thrips ? Why not, they should be CURIOUSBEAST_EATER's since the thrips is a known pest.
Giant grasshoppers ? An insect equivalent of cattle could bring more diversity. Also for their ability to jump, which Toady will doubtlessly include in a latter version.
Giant spiders, scorpions, and giant mantises ? HELL YES. Moar terrors to fight or tame and release on gobbos.

Next thing you know people will want hematite, limonite, and magnetite all renamed "iron ore".

The diversity of stones is nothing like the GIGANTIC diversity of animals.

[Yaotzin]

My one and only complaint is that every single new creature has a value multiplier of 1. The giants, at least, should get some more.

[Girlinhat]

Ores are fine, for the most part.  You have several iconic stones like hematite, microcline, and whatnot, but then there's a few that no one really cares about, like shale, gabbro, shist.  Sure, it's accurate to include, but would we really miss these identically-colored stones very much?  Still, it's not a bad amount of variety, it fits.

Animals, however, are trickier.  Tangential learning is nice and all (ie, you looked up what a Bilou is and learned something) but there's a limit where it just becomes frustrating.  When you're not sure what half the animals are and need to pause and google, just to understand "should I send my militia out or is the bilou actually a 20 ton behemoth?" then you're spending more time trying to figure out what's going on than playing the game and enjoying it.

On top of that, it seems every critter has a giant and person counterpart!  You don't see deer anymore in the woods, you see giant deer and whatever.  DF has quickly moved away from "you're 7 midgets in the woods" to "welcome to fantasy land where everything walks upright!"

[Yaotzin]

Oh, true, there are too many sentients. That's not realistic.

I don't mind giant stuff, who cares? More meat!

[AWdeV]

I dunno, I love the variety of stones. I'm not sure how realistic it is to be so varied in so small a space, but it's fine to me. 'sides, the in-game description tend to warn you about the general level of danger represented by an animal. Giant animals could be less, but a giant louse or giant thrips is actually pretty badass. Would be really neat if you could use their carapace/exoskeleton for something else. Like making into armor, axe blades or even as snazzy wall tiling.

Ofcourse, with all this variation comes that you have lots of animals each turning into a pile of meat and bones and whatnot so your stockpiles get swamped. Animals tend to produce more food than is manageable.

[melomel]

I basically agree.  Way too many animal people, way too often, in way too large groups.  The incoming wildlife really needs some balancing.  (Herds of deer and mountain goats should be common; giant moose men shouldn't be.  Also, pretty sure badgers don't actually travel in huge rage-prone conga lines.)

As for the new, weird animals, kiwi birds and all that, I don't really mind them being added, but I hate that the animals haven't been matched to biomes/ecosystems.  It seems like we still have generic "temperate woodland/grassland/whatever" biomes, so I'm getting eagles and echidnas on the same map, and that's just not right.  It would be nice to have them split up into ecosystems like pseudo-Australian deserts, pseudo-African deserts, etc...  It's not possible to refine biomes with modding yet, is it?  =\

I'm also pretty iffy about kiwis/echidnas/eagles/ravens being non-vermin.  There's not much meat on those critters.

[acetech09]

I thought that animal variety was pointless until I realize that the biome variation in them made the animal variety at any one site a bit more diverse, which I think is a great thing when it comes to fortresses.

Things like different colors of lemurs, though, is a bit pointless, but I don't mind.

The animal variety also lends support for graphic packs.  ASCII works fine when you have a wolf, but it gets awkward when you have wolves, walruses, white gibbons, weasels, and wrens.  Older ASCII versions were fine, but there's simply too much variety now to boil it down to a set of characters.

NINJA: I didn't say effective, I said interesting.

I've never noticed that, mainly because wolves, walruses, white gibbons, weasels, and wrens never really show up together.

I'm also pretty iffy about kiwis/echidnas/eagles/ravens being non-vermin.  There's not much meat on those critters.

Yeah. I've wondered how lungfish are vermin yet we have sparrows or something as a normal creature.

[monk12]

Pond turtle- vermin
Echidna- non-vermin

I know this came up with the rabbits being non-vermin too, so it's an issue Toady is aware of but hasn't found time to rewrite yet.