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Former child of the world as an adventurer?

Adventurer poofing out of thin air?

[Blaze200038]

After reading the most recent update in the devlog, I was struck by an idea.  Today brought up the fact, in his last sentence, that adventurers are always created out of thin air, with unknown parentage, etc., and I feel as if this somewhat damages the continuity of a world.

And then I thought, how interesting it would be if one could select a child during the adventurer creation, and then progress the world until they come of age, and begin their adventure as that child becomes an adult.
I could of course easily imagine problems; the child might die while while progressing to adulthood, in which case the selection would have to be done over.  Another interesting effect that would have to be dealt with would be whether or not children abducted by goblins could be selected- which I think could make for some very fun gameplay.

There also would be the problem of organizing the selection screen, as I imagine there would be a few hundred/thousand children in a world of any significant size.  It could be handled much the same way it is now; separated by race, and then civilization (once again, it'd be interesting to pick Dwarf for race and then see a goblin civ pop up in the next tab), and maybe only then give you a list of children.  I imagine a search feature (to narrow down gender, name, etc.) would also be useful (especially if you wanted your adventurer to be a royal heir that you looked up in legends mode).

Anyway, that's my idea.  Also, incidentally, my first forum post.  Glad to finally join the community in a less passive way

[10ebbor10]

The main problem would be restarting world gen. After all, most entities only exists as numbers during world gen, and are made up on the spot when the game needs them.

[nanomage]

That would go for historical figures.
You could select a figure if it is marked available for adventure (for instance, if some happenings in worldgen earlier had set it's personality to desire change and thrill in life or something like that)
Maybe you could mark children to become adventurers later, that might be interesting if you were given some degree of control over that child's actions during the simulation of it's life. Kind of like your common roguelike character creation questions, except they'd be for real.

As far as I know,  general populace members don't actually have any identity and there's no way to create your custom-tailored adventurer except from thin air.

[Blaze200038]

...most entities only exists as numbers during world gen, and are made up on the spot when the game needs them.

What about the information available in legends?  I realize that during worldgen, it doesn't create their body, soul, and personality traits, but doesn't it create their familial relationships, basic life story, etc?  Or is there a separate stage somewhere between worldgen and legends where it does that?  If not, I don't think one would really need any more information to choose from than what is available in legends.

That would go for historical figures.
You could select a figure if it is marked available for adventure (for instance, if some happenings in worldgen earlier had set it's personality to desire change and thrill in life or something like that)
Maybe you could mark children to become adventurers later, that might be interesting if you were given some degree of control over that child's actions during the simulation of it's life. Kind of like your common roguelike character creation questions, except they'd be for real.

As far as I know,  general populace members don't actually have any identity and there's no way to create your custom-tailored adventurer except from thin air.

Good points; not every child wants to grow up and be an adventurer.  And I realize it'd be impossible to get everything the way one wanted it this way; but that wasn't the idea

[10ebbor10]

AFAIK, only historical figures get real families, and the rest are just made up on the spot when it finishes the world gen process.

[nanomage]

...most entities only exists as numbers during world gen, and are made up on the spot when the game needs them.

What about the information available in legends?  I realize that during worldgen, it doesn't create their body, soul, and personality traits, but doesn't it create their familial relationships, basic life story, etc?  Or is there a separate stage somewhere between worldgen and legends where it does that?  If not, I don't think one would really need any more information to choose from than what is available in legends.

The problem is that the game doesn't create anything about them except their number. I Agree it would be great to browse through the list of available population when choosing your adventurer, looking at their skills and attributes and and families and stuff like that, but it just doesn't exist, even their names don't. When you start talking to a person in adv mode, it's identity made up from thin air in pretty much the same manner it's body was created when it's area got loaded into memory.


EDIT: I wholeheartedly support this suggestion though as far as it's about historical figures.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Welcome!
Congrats on suggesting a "Have adventurers exist before the game starts" suggestion I don't think has been suggested before.

Since worldgen can be continued in the next version, this is finally plausible to code in now.
I'd also like to be able to search by age (not just gender/name), and to be able to sorta control my adventurer-to-be's life before he begins adventuring.

[drilltooth]

well, as long as I can build my army of theives and whores to go beat up on wildlife. (although, I admit I';ve not tried adventure mode recently. we still ahve the random people standing around who admit to being bored if you talk to them?
)

[10ebbor10]

Welcome!
Congrats on suggesting a "Have adventurers exist before the game starts" suggestion I don't think has been suggested before.

Since worldgen can be continued in the next version, this is finally plausible to code in now.

Can I get a quote on that. As far as I've heard, we'll just be able to have our fortress to continue to exist, but not worldgen progressing yet.

[King Mir]

Worldgen will not restart. What will happen is that people can be born and die in offloaded maps and armies will move. But skipping forward 20 years is not in.

[Putnam]

The main problem would be restarting world gen. After all, most entities only exists as numbers during world gen, and are made up on the spot when the game needs them.

You mean creatures. Entities are spawned at worldgen. Entities are only civilizations, groups, etc.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Welcome!
Congrats on suggesting a "Have adventurers exist before the game starts" suggestion I don't think has been suggested before.

Since worldgen can be continued in the next version, this is finally plausible to code in now.

Can I get a quote on that. As far as I've heard, we'll just be able to have our fortress to continue to exist, but not worldgen progressing yet.

"It's time to activate the world now." Devlog, 6/6/12.

[Putnam]

how have people not heard that when toady has been doing it for six months?

[EnigmaticHat]

Nanomage, are you sure the game doesn't track skills for historical figures?  I know there was that one dwarven queen who slaughtered thousands of elves singlehandedly, and I think that was do to a quirk of worldgen were historical combat is a series of duels so a skilled fighter can slaughter an entire army.  I'm also fairly certain that bandits jumped up in skills during the update that added cities, and Toady didn't add that intentionally, so something that Toady changed caused bandits to gain more skills during worldgen.

[Putnam]

The game most certainly does keep track of skills for hist figures. How would they have skills when they come into your fort in the first place?