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[wierd]

Forgetting the past, and painting an inaccurate picture over the top, to pander to modern notions of propriety is an attrocity in and of itself.  it carries a rather foul moniker, even-- revisionist history.

Much like how it is unconsionable to censor the works of Samuel Clemens (mark twain), over his historically correct use of the N word, because it is something we in the modern world find to be shameful and offensive, we shouldn't allow ourselves to censor the muck, grime, vice, fleas, lice, and perversions of the medieval period.

We have to have a clear, and unspoiled picture of where we came from, if we are ver to have a clear and unspoiled view of where we want to go as a society, or as a species on the whole.

I want DF to accurately reflect what a medival and or dark age fortress REALLY was.

[Scelly9]

Why? Do you want humans only, along with no cave creatures, dragons, plump helmets, no goblins, no large amounts of digging? I would be bored with that, personally.

[wierd]

Que the pedant......


Don't be ridiculous. The game is a fantasy game, set in a fantasy world, set in a dark age like environment.

It is this latter part that dictates my desire. Not the cessation or negation of the former.

Unless you want a magical latrine fairy to make the poo go away, the setting of the game practically demands that everything be covered frm head to foot in dung.

Sorry, but that's the stick of it.

The game can have all the dragons, wizards, elves, kobolds, forgotten beasts, and massive underground caverns it wants. But making it squeeky clean is every bit as out of place as a nuclear warhead would be.

[NW_Kohaku]

Why? Do you want humans only, along with no cave creatures, dragons, plump helmets, no goblins, no large amounts of digging? I would be bored with that, personally.

Actually, that's pretty much describing Mount and Blade right there... and it's pretty entertaining to put together a band of mercenary/outlaws that eventually claws its way up to claiming its own fiefdoms and then kingdoms in what is as historically accurate a game as they could make.

But I was specifically referring to today's, modern people. We wouldn't condone that. Lol I can't even imagine my little girl ever drinking in her life, even though I do once in a while.

Well, keep in mind that small concentrations of alcohol are not going to be harmful.  I took communion wine as a kid, and certainly never took in enough alcohol to even get a buzz even as a tiny kid. 

Plus, drinking to excess is actually more common now than it was in the past.  When you learn to drink with your parents watching, you learn your limits in a safe environment.  When you learn to drink off at college or something, where peer pressure is always there to drink more than you can stand, it's what leads to habits forming and binge drinking. 

Many people now would think that letting a 16-year-old drink a beer in their home as poor parenting, but it's actually the healthiest way to let one's children be exposed.

(... But then, personally, I'm a tea-totaler, so I'm just going off of what I've read.)

3) eating a more balanced diet. (Most peasants literally were mere days away from starvation, because of absurd conditions enacted by regional lords, and because of an overall lack of conservation or proper crop care knowledge. People "poached" to survive, because they couldn't afford meat, and because all hunting was poaching. The primary food staple of the peasantry was pottage. Essentially porridge.)

That wasn't exactly by choice, however...

Farms were split up so that each son could inherit part of the farm, up until the farm was so small or using such marginal land that they couldn't be split any further without forcing the inheritors into starvation.  It's basically because of this dividing farms into inefficiently small plots or use of such marginal land that they were constantly on the brink of starvation - population was constantly brushing up against the absolute capacity of their agricultural carrying capacity.

Yes, they could have lived a better life if they killed off excess population (and that's actually how pre-civilization hunter/gatherer tribes survived - they basically just abandoned infants that they couldn't feed, and Hansel and Gretel being sent off into the woods by parents that couldn't feed them is totally historically accurate) but it's obviously something that they balked at even with their generally harsher whatever-it-takes-to-survive moral outlook back then...

[wierd]

I didn't say it was on PURPOSE, only that it would have been a profound change.


In many cases though, the filthy conditions *were* purposeful. The church often spoke out against the dangers of too frequent bathing, and other acts of silliness.

Throw in a general misunderstanding of disease as a divine punishment, and of malodor being the cause of disease (rather than a companion to the unclean conditions, which are what actually cause it-- see for instance, the masks worn by plague doctors, and the unhygenic and unsanitary surgeries and wards they kept) and you basically have the living conditions of the dark ages.

[10ebbor10]

Don't be ridiculous. The game is a fantasy game, set in a fantasy world, set in a dark age like environment.

Sure about that. Dwarf fortress seems to be set in a generic fantasy universe, which generally don't take place in the darkest parts of the medieval ages. (The dark ages specifically is a term to indicate the time just after the fall of the Roman Empire. It's sometimes extended to encompass the entire medieval times, but actually it's only the time from 476-1000). Also, the entire idea of the medieval ages being a period of regression is a bit outdated and silly. (Not saying that the hygienic conditions were excellent, but they weren't that bad).

Now, back to the point. Generic fantasy universe. Often these involve a kinda brushed up version of the medieval ages, or sometimes they fall in with the later Roman empire. There aren't actually many that take place during the muck and the grime of the early medieval ages. Also, the plague didn't take place during the dark ages at all. All major plague epidemies took place in the 14^the century. Oh, and it spread from China along the silk road. The medical/hygienical practices in Europe hadn't much to do with it's origins. (Though they certainly increased it's spread)

[wierd]

Again, i would place that at the feet of modern selective telling, rather than as being part of the trope.

"High fantasy" in that genre is built upon classic fairytales, like in sleeping beauty, with the sorceress queen obsessed with her own image while the countryside suffers and who controls the woodsman to kill her stepdaughter using money. (original version.) Or Handsel and Gretel, where there is an outright famine in full sway, stumbling upon a magical house made of delicious food, created to lure children into the forest to be eaten; an embellished cautionary tale to children of the time against going into stranger's houses, because cannibalism of children, especially orphans, was actually alarmingly rampant.

Many people like to say that fantasy as a trope exists as a dodge from reality, and as a "better, brighter, prettier world filled with marvelous things to distract you from the drab, boring, and mundane"-- but those people have clearly never researched the original tales that the Grimm brothers adapted for their books.  Russian ones especially are VERY VERY VERY dark. Try looking up Baba-Yaga sometime, with her chicken legged house. Stories of her range from jovial and benign, to outright terrifying. Other stories wax very deeply about the less than delightful conditions of the times they were created in as well.

A better explanation is that MODERN fantasy tries to paint this picture, and tries to hide behind the likes of mother goose for support when challenged.  Later period fairytales, like the Hans Christian Anderson ones, are really little more than religious PR wrapped in candyfloss for children, when you get down to it.  Their existence is a testament to the systemic destruction of the "heathen" cultures and traditions that the church systematically either christianized or stamped out, often violently, and their "good always wins!" message is directly in line with my previous statements about historical revisionism. Basically, the church spun myths and legends that were favorable to itself and its saints very prolifically.  For instance, before "Santa claus", there was a much scarier character, the "Krampus."

These days you dont hear much about krampus outside of his original homelands, because he isn't very photogenic, and doesnt align with the saccharine sweetness of modern fantasy, especially those associated with that holiday. The catholic church tried to erase him, and stamp out celebrations about him, before finally conceding and pairing him up along side St. Nick for a time.  (they were not satisfied with that however, and attempted to legalize him out of existence, by official decrees that he had been sealed in purgatory, but that didnt work very well.)

DF doesnt subscribe to the saccharine variety of folklore and fantasy however, and has elves eating and murdering people, dwarves destroying the world with magma almost daily, and has almost everything magical being hostile. This is much more in line with traditional folklores, which have fairies putting people to sleep for a hundred years, turning people into stone, drowning them, and stealing their babies right out of their cradles, leaving lumps of stone, or sickly magical changelings behind.

What I am getting at here, is that the "Sparkly! CLEAN! WHOO!!" kind of fantasy is a modern invention, masquerading as a culturally derived mainstay.  The reality is that it's antecedents were anything BUT clean, sparkly, and fun. In the original Beauty and the beast, for instance, Belle is terrified and in fear for her life for 90% of the story, the transformed prince is a total dickhead in a monster's body acting out his rages, and the enchantress who transformed him has no sympathy for him whatsoever, and neither do the countryfolk.  The magic used on him is decidedly malicious, and intended to torment him, specifically his magic mirror. (he can see the world outside, and see normal people being happy, but NOT him.) Disney's version is saccharine filled to the point of causing cancer. (much like everything Disney.) The original story has the beast's castle in a blatant state of disrepair, cold, and an unpleasant place to be.

Other "Familiar" stories that you think you know, but really don't, include stories like the three little pigs, who lure the wolf down the chimney and into a fat rending cauldron of hot boiling water--- then eat him-, or Rapunzel, where princess rapunzel gets knocked up by the prince, kicked out in a fury by the witch, and made to wander the countryside as a beggar for several years before the prince finally finds her again. (here's a hint-- life would NOT have been very nice for her. It doesnt go into gritty details, because it is left as an exercise for the reader to understand what that meant.)

Seriously, fairytales are VERY dark when you get to the original tellings.  They VERY MUCH have been slapped with makeup and color to make them more appealing over the ages. Many of them would be considered "Traumatizing" by parents in today's world, and reflect quite aptly the dangers and grittiness of the world that gave rise to them.

"Generic fantasy" as you describe it, is an entirely modern invention.  Without the dirt, you don't appreciate the clean.

[NW_Kohaku]

Actually, it's not exactly like Hans Christian Anderson was telling children sweet nothings.  Disney was the one that made a happy ending for Little Mermaid, Anderson not only killed her off, but punished her and keeping her out of Heaven for hundreds of years for the sin of not being born human with the kicker that if any child cries, her sentence is extended for another year. 

So remember kids, if you ever cry because you made daddy have to beat you, all you're doing is causing more eternal suffering for the dead mermaids. 

Now shut up and go to sleep or I'll give you the back 'o me hand!

(Is it any wonder kids back then turned to drink?) 

But anyway, I'm not particularly concerned with the fantasy elements in this so much as I'm concerned with the fact that it's a logical continuation of reality and helps link the ecosystem together.  As has already been pointed out, unless you believe that magic somehow means nobody poops, and that the soil remains fertile forever, then there's a glaring hole in the ecosystem if matter is not recycled.

This is supposed to be a medieval fantasy simulator, and it makes just as little sense to skip the entire concept of eating because the notion of farming and farmers is not "heroic enough" to include in your fantasy.

[Starver]

You know, of course, of the concerted efforts made by some fans of the works to retrofit the farming industry needed to sustain Minas Tirith's population into the areas in (and beyond) Pelennor Fields.  (And if the movie's events, with the besieging and attacking of the city by the troops and allies of Mordor, did not significantly reduce the population of the city, it almost certainly managed to trample most of the immediately crops it would have been relying upon to feed them for the next year.  I sincerely hope they had some reserves in undamaged granaries...)

Of course, such petty things as the supply of eggs and flour and other comestibles (and fodders and inedible supplies like flammable materials to make torches and lamps, for a start) to the city was probably further from the mind of JRR than the nature of its native language and writings.  As, I suspect, would its sewerage system (although I think we can agree that there'd be a logical route of sewer-flow down the various levels... and presumably with sufficient capacity and invention that upper-level wastes did not erupt out of lower-level grates due to a blockage further down the system...  and it would have to have been made invulnerable to the kind of attack that (albeit within a natural culvert's granted egress through the defensive wall) did for the defences in Helm's Deep).

To quote the whole thing about the rimfalls around the Discworld (and noting that Pratchett has seriously looked at the logistics of feeding and watering the inhabitants of his city of Ankh-Morpork), and what keeps the oceans and seas resupplied with water, I suspect that something very similar is done, insofar as "Arrangements are made".  (In Strata, something that may or may not (must re-read this) have been termed a "molecular sieve" is used to bring the artefact "disc-like world'"s waters back onto the top, but then in that (non-fantasy, though quite probably historic-to-us, setting) the fight is against entropy and breakdown of ancient technologies..

So, yeah... "arrangements can be made", perhaps.

[NW_Kohaku]

Comparing Tolkien to Pratchett serves a more valuable point, though:

They're trying to accomplish very different things with their fantasies.

Tolkien was trying to create a mythos that, consciously or unconsciously, reflected his own view of the world as a very devout Christian who was looking at the world through the prism of a cosmic war between good and evil.

Martin's Song of Fire and Ice, meanwhile, I've seen described as LotR without the epic good and evil parts, because he simply doesn't share that cosmic war viewpoint, where you can divide everyone up into what camps they fall into along this one overriding axis along which the whole fantasy world revolves.

Pratchett is a comedian who is lampooning what people believe about fantasy, and backfilling in explanations to justify how a world that sits on the back of elephants on the back of a turtle doesn't just plain fall apart.  (Pratchett even had a line in one of his earlier books when comparing how his world worked to the real world was that his world was something to the effect that it was created by a God of perhaps less technical expertise, but a much greater flair for creativity.)

Fantasy isn't a single thing all the time - it doesn't have to always be rehashing Tolkien. (Yes, even when Tolkien "inspired" some distinct elements of the game.)

Toady obviously is concerned with the turnip production rates and elven orchard yields and the effect that a two-month voyage by sea from port to port has on what forms of seafood are available for trade. He's concerned about eyelash length and the exact angle at which the tavern wench's snaggle tooth is crooked.

Toady's fantasy is a fantasy where the mundane is an important part of the story. It's a fantasy where more people die to starvation than to zombies and werewolves even though zombies and werewolves exist and prey upon human villages.

So... yeah, sanitation and public works regarding to the outflow of a very certain set of potential water contaminants, as well as their potential use for the fertilization of fields (and hence, the prevention of the starvation of numerous kingdoms) does fit in precisely with Toady's fantasy.

[wierd]

Agreed!

[Starver]

Pratchett is a comedian who is lampooning what people believe about fantasy, and backfilling in explanations to justify how a world that sits on the back of elephants on the back of a turtle doesn't just plain fall apart.  (Pratchett even had a line in one of his earlier books when comparing how his world worked to the real world was that his world was something to the effect that it was created by a God of perhaps less technical expertise, but a much greater flair for creativity.)

Much as I admire comedians, I don't think I'd put Terry on that level.  But I suppose it depends on how you comparatively place (intelligent) parody in the spectrum of entertainment.

Also, he has described the decision to make the Discworld as it is as one of his big errors (he wanted somewhere "obviously fantastic", or words to that effect, when he started off what was originally lampooning the "bad fantasy" genre).  That accomplished (for better or worse), he's now as often or not trying to get the world to work logically.  Albeit that this logic does have to contend with the possibility of magic, and the nature of the Discworld being flat and on backs of the elephants on the back of the turtle, etc.

For the former, he has produced a magically-imbued world in which not performing magic is the biggest trick.  Wizards and witches both do their own particular magics, indeed, but both practice their own version of "headology" in preference, and actual 'magitech' devices such as picture-painting imps have become mundane through their very ubiquitousness...

As to being (ultimately) on the back of a star-turtle...  Well, just like you don't really have to deal too much with the reality that the ground beneath your feet actually curves around and lines radiating away from your current location would meet again in some antipodal point, very few Discworld inhabitants (save for the Krullians, most notably) actually have to consider the turtle.  (Indeed, the pre-reform Omnian religion had become very "Round Planet"-inclined, and the fact that "The Turtle Moves" (and thus belief in the existence of the Turtle at all) was an often fatally heretical point-of-view.)

Thus, hindered somewhat by its fantastical origins (and "being written by a younger, less experienced author", or words to that effect), the Disc has become a place of... rationality.  As rational a place as you can have, of course, with magic working (when it is used, or abused), various supernatural or supernaturally-capable beings (including one who TALKS LIKE THIS), and the necessary influence of the element Narrativium (or possibly the goddess Narrativia, although I believe she's more the active ingredient on this world).

(My apologies, I just happen to have a high affinity with the Pratchett oeuvre, so I can quite easily go on a lot longer than I intend to, in matters such as these.  I won't compound this by following up on the Tolkien-esque world, once more, or divert into the likes of Xanth or Narnia, at least not on this occasion.)


As to the rest, I don't really disagree.  Although Toady has rather started with a different setup, so along the way to the "emulating everything, even down to the quantum level" path there are already many abstractions brought in.  Forgotten Bests are conjured into existence without any parentage at all (the oldest known sentients also lack this information, although this information is available for their descendants, if any).  And for an individual creature, the game may indeed know that the lower limb of a being is attached to the (respective) upper limb at one end and (likewise) a hand, foot or alternate end-effector at the other, but if that limb is feathered (or leather-membraned or similar) and part of of a flying creature it does not work out the fluid dynamics of the air it flaps through and assess the energy transferral in order to assess the flight capabilities of the being.  If the creature is tagged as a flying one, it can (at least whilst it possesses a semblance of its flight-capable qualities, and consciousness) fly.  If it is not tagged for flying, then even the most elaborate plumage atop the lightest (yet strongest) skeleton and muscular frame is mere decoration in that regard.  So, for now at least, we can abstract away the need to have a CFD simulation (or even an X-Plane-like blade-element theory) applied, as being too messy a solution to something that can quite likely be  waved away as unnecessary.  Maybe (though I'm not saying it is this way) there's a similar attitude towards excrement tracking...

I, for one, would like to see a better information tracking system.   So that you cannot just assume, once you inform one remote villager of your success in defeating some obscure threat from the other side of the world (moreover, one that he would never have practically have even had a reason to know about) that your fame is instantaneously known (and believed!) by all other beings that you might wish to talk to...  Perhaps a little effort should be needed to spread word of your deeds, seeding the story among a few (credulous?) individuals, and perhaps getting more of an "Oh... well... if you say you've just killed a nest of vampires over in that other civilisation, I suppose you'd consider it a trivial matter to rid us of our pet peeve(!)" response.  I would also imagine it viable (and maybe even essential, especially for new adventurers) to allow 'creative' reporting.  Spreading a different kind of 'crap', you might say.


And, anyway, for none of the fantasy worlds we are discussing have we heard an echo of Carl Sagan's "If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe"...  Toady's probably the closest of all those so far mentioned, though, I suppose.

[wierd]

(Ventriloquist voice throw)

"But DF doesn't have apples, and doesn't have pies!

(Ducks!)



Anywhoo.. I am still of the opinion that the muck and grime would make the world more believable and more interesting, especially for adv mode.  Imagine all the contaminants that a major city would put into an ajdacent brook, river, or stream, for instance-- and the effect this would have on getting fresh water-- of, for those that like to be evil adventurers, what smearing deadly syndrome causing filth all over would quickly cause to transpire.

Part of a good story and belivable narrative is the concept of conequences, and living together in a town or fortress most certainly has conequences.

I still hold that the filth is a vitally required aspect for believability. Otherwise the inhabitants are far less "real", since they have much less to care about.

(A recent game that peeved me off to no end about the absurdity of part of its plot was Skyward Sword for the wii. You have about 50 people, tops, living in very close quarters. This is too small a population to survive, and too small an area of farmland to sustain them anyway. 4 generations like that, with miraculous food production, and everyone would be more closely related to each other than brother and sisters of normal ethnic groups, and they would have to retligiously practice population control to avoid overcrowding. Yet, the game tries to paint this as idyllic and wonderful. This is IMHO, an extreme example of "magic did it!" That completely breaks all belivability in the world. )

I prefer a nice balance between the fantastic and the realistic. You can avoid having characters use bathrooms in stories, but conspicuously leaving them out because you think they are yucky or tacky, only serves to puncture the illusion of suspended disbelief.

Take for instance the recent TES series games.  People live in apparently well thought out houses, and gameplay mechanics would be greatly complicated by adding a need to go potty, but that doesn't mean that outhouse assets couldn't have been added for background color, and to improve the illusion of the game's towns and inhaitants actually being real.  Instead, you have people constantly eating and drinking, but clearly never voiding, because even if they are implied to do that, there is no place to do that. It breaks the belivability of the world.

Consider, you come over to my house, and nature calls. Guess what! The achitect decided that bathrooms are an icky distraction! There isn't even a shower!  Would you really believe that I actually lived in that house?

You don't have to get all in your face about poo and other kinds of excrement. Simple hints are enough. The TES games could put round half barrels outside as bathtubs, and outhouses on the edges of lawns, and otherwise never discuss or elaborate further, and even never have NPCs interact with them in any way, and make that word be radically more believable. Instead, the usual arguments are "the artists time is better spent making XXX and YYYs.", and "because that's just gross, get your head out of the gutter."  The reality is that it doesn't take long to build a dummy object that you can't interact with for color, and that the game artists spend lots of time making such objects in the forms of spoons, kitchen forks, wooden plates and bowls, potted plants, and the like anyway, and a handful of additional objects would not have cost that much dev time, and would have greatly increased the realism of the world, and thus its belivability.  That just leaves the "eww, that's just icky!" People who can't get over their own hangups to appreciate a well built game world other than for blowing stuff up. It's all the little things working together and adding up that create an immersive experience, and without those little things, the world can't help but feel artificial.

The stark absence of very real requirements to cater to the "eww, gross!" Crowd totally destroys that immersion for me.  It's like trying really hard to make a model of an attractive female NPC, and neglect giving her even the hint of having breasts. (Cause well, you are just supposed to know she has them, and breasts aren't something you should be caring about, you pervert.) Nvermind that leaving them off makes her look like a total freak, or like a man in a dress. (I don't mean crazy boobs here. Just the general shape appropriate for the gender vs making her into a flat chested ironing board in a dress.) The conspicuous LACK of inclusion draws attention more than a token head nod would.

The dwarves don't need to be vulgar about the dookie, and adv mode villagers don't even need to go out of their way to find a latrine while you are playing.  But a gentle spattering of suggestive contaminants in adv mode would let you know that yes, those people do have to go too, and the same isse with contaminants could be introduced tactfully in fortress mode when lots of animals are piled up in an enclosed space. (Like turkeys in the dining hall.)  Just add a modified version of grass grow algorithm to paint tiles with filth.

Dwarves don't need to take potty breaks. Players don't need to know with grisly detail of who made what poop. (This is a pile of Lolot axegriner's dwarf poop, for instance, when "a smear of brown filth" would be more than adequate.) And the realism of the world, and inclusion of consequences for certain types of routine practices would become more apparent.

In short, the desire to see realistic levels of excrement in the game isn't some sick fettishistic demand.  It's just a desire for more realistic gameplay.

Much like saying "you know, I really think the female lead for that 3d game should actually look female, and not like a broomstick" isn't the same as demanding she have big floppy double D breasts.

One is a genuinely reasonable request for better immersion.  The other is just deviant.

We don't really want nor need deviant levels of attention drawn here. Just reasonably justifiable levels to improve immersion.

[Starver]

I'm just going to say that your use the word "immersion", at the end there, doesn't paint a pretty picture...  Nor does my allusion to 'painting', now I think of it....

[wierd]

(Looks both ways...)

"Only where elven caravans are concerned! Open the floodgate!"

(Moments later)

"Are you fairy princesses SURE you don't want to buy our FABULOUS kitten tallow soaps? Eh? EH?"


(I am going to hell for that, I'm sure..)