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[thegoatgod_pan]

I don't think "useless" is appropriate here, what use do wood furnaces have given magma?  Or porcelain? What bloody use is porcelain?

The point of this game is not to give to a standard cookie-cutter fantasy universe where everything is a priori subordinated to fantasy cliches--e.g. griffons and unicorns only exist so that elves can ride them. Instead Toady asks what would happen if unicorns had geographic terrain they had to share with, say, various subspecies of lemur. Elves might still ride them, but only because they caught and trained unicorns at some point in their history, and not, for instance, giant ticks.

If some of you are troubled as non-english speakers, I would like to assure you that as an English speaker I google half the things that run through my territory (giant thrips I am looking at you)

I, for one, really like the unnecessary detail and realism since it is exactly what pushes DF into Art territory (and as Oscar Wilde put it it the picture of Dorian Gray: all art is quite useless)

[AWdeV]

Yes, part of what makes DF great (and DF) is the immense variety.

[Girlinhat]

I support variety, until it gets to the point of being bloated.

[kaenneth]

The different varieties of the same type (lemurs, gibbons, etc) should just be distinguished in their detailed description like humanoid hair/eye colors or as castes; not treated as separate species.

[nenjin]

My only complaint is that it seems like Toady threw his new animals and animal men in there without accounting for what it would to population distribution. So, just like most things DF, it's something he needs more time and attention to smooth out.

But when people start saying "useless" I get annoyed. Physical descriptions? Traits? Perfs? 7,000 different kinds of crafts made from 30,000 different kinds of materials? Half of the stuff we have in DF is "useless" from a gameplay perspective. But that's not why it's there in the first place. It's there for our imaginations and to support our stories, so instead of calling Crows Ravens, we have actual Ravens to tell stories about.

So I think anyone that starts calling things in DF useless has missed the point of at least half the game.

[Naryar]

Useless for a gameplay perspective. For storytelling, diversity is all good.

[yggiz]

Eventually, I'd like to see some procedural selection or something similar, where one gane world might not even have a walrus, whereas a different world may contain 26 different gibbons instead of the usual 13 or something.

As is, I don't normally dive into creature raws, so don't mind the massive variety. I prefer to cut down on some of those gemstone varieties. But even then, I have plenty of "trash gems" to train on and export.

[dwarfhoplite]

Useless I consider creatures that I don't want to see in the game. I don't wish DF to become a simulation of real world but a fantasy game where I can see reasonable creatures like deer, cows, horses, bears and mammoths. Basically I want to see creatures that I know what they are and what they should look like. Simulating over sized insects and ten colours of monkeys doesnt fit my mindset of a fantasy world.

[melomel]

Eventually, I'd like to see some procedural selection or something similar, where one gane world might not even have a walrus, whereas a different world may contain 26 different gibbons instead of the usual 13 or something.

That's basically what I want--implementation of more specific biomes so you don't have penguins and polar bears, or kangaroos and camels, rubbing elbows on the same map.

Some of the new stuff is just plain silly, but I can't get too worked up about it either way--modding critters in and/or out of the game is dead simple.

[ullrich]

Having all these animal species I think is a good thing, just like being realisitc with different stone/ore types + makes you learn a thing or two like age of empires did.

The problem as others have said, is population distrubitons and imo far to generic description tags which for the most part don't tell you anything but the colour of the fur.

[nenjin]

Simulating over sized insects and ten colours of monkeys doesnt fit my mindset of a fantasy world.

Then you're doing what you should be doing. Changing it. But it's his world, not our's. So count your blessings that it's as (relatively) easy as it is to make the changes you need to enjoy yourself.

Make as much noise as you want about the population distribution, but getting bitter because Toady's vision doesn't match yours isn't really fair. There are 1,000,000 opinions on what DF should be, and no two are identical.

[quarague]

I think the variety is nice if it has some influence on the game. There are some 50 varieties of stone but they mostly differ in color, if they would also differ in value (by more than two categories) and maybe by hardness it would actually make sense to have that many. Now there are a few stone types that have different names but otherwise are completly identical.
It seems the animals are much worse in that respect, there are 1000 different animal names but from the numbers that describe them there are only 50 or so and they differ essentially by size. Having 10 kinds of monkeys that only differ by color is pointless, only if say the red ones have especially valuable fur and green ones are not edible and the yellow ones are really tasty then it makes sense to distinguish them all.

[AWdeV]

Useless I consider creatures that I don't want to see in the game. I don't wish DF to become a simulation of real world but a fantasy game where I can see reasonable creatures like deer, cows, horses, bears and mammoths. Basically I want to see creatures that I know what they are and what they should look like. Simulating over sized insects and ten colours of monkeys doesnt fit my mindset of a fantasy world.

Your mindset of a fantasy world is essentially your backyard with what you picked up in primary school history class. Bo-ring.

[FrisianDude]

I think Toady should leave only generic animals which serve a purpose and are somewhat familiar to non native players

No thanks.


I like the useless varieties of what is essentially the same creature over and over again. I learn from it. I'd never heard of a hoary marmot or a pileated gibbon (or even of 'pileated') ever before Dwarf Fortress.

[Vattic]

Toady talks about having northern forests have different animals from western forests in this article. Thought I should link it as people have been talking about this.