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Infinitely large planet with every terrain combination

11 (21.2%)

Flat planet

16 (30.8%)

Cylindrical planet

7 (13.5%)

Some other shape (Post to specify)

18 (34.6%)

Total Members Voted: 52

[sackhead]

i believe it is shaped like a banana

[Naryar]

i believe it is shaped like a banana

Yeah, right. [/sarcasm]

How can you have a planet shape poll and not have the one canonically correct answer on it?

It's a sphere.  It's supposed to be an Earth-like planet and we're only looking at a tiny portion of it, small enough that distortions from the curvature of the globe doesn't significantly impact the map shape.

But... only one pole of the planet is cold, not two. and the planet spins, considering we have a day/night cycle.

So... problem ?

[Owlbread]

How can you have a planet shape poll and not have the one canonically correct answer on it?

It's a sphere.  It's supposed to be an Earth-like planet and we're only looking at a tiny portion of it, small enough that distortions from the curvature of the globe doesn't significantly impact the map shape.

I was saying though, when you look at a model of the Earth and start looking at the pacific, you are looking at one "side" (wrong word) of the sphere because you cannot see, for example, Moldova but you can see Kiribati. I know spheres only have one side but it's one "perspective" of the globe or something. Maybe a large region in DF is like that.

[NW_Kohaku]

But... only one pole of the planet is cold, not two. and the planet spins, considering we have a day/night cycle.

So... problem ?

Yes, I've only said in every post since the second, including the one you're responding to, that you're not looking at the whole globe on the map, just a region.  (Which is why adventurers come from "outside".)

There isn't any pole, the map only represents a slice of one hemisphere.  It's a slice small enough that distortions from Mercator cartography are negligible.

Again, the whole map is still only the size of a nation like Ireland or Belgium.  A Pocket Island is hardly the size of a tiny country, and a large land is not even close to a quadrant of the Earth.  (4 m^2 local tile * 48*48 area tiles * 16*16 world map tiles * 257*257 total area / 1,000,000 m^2 per km^2) = 155,829 km, or around the size of Greece. 

Toady merely exacerbates temperature differences to give the full variety of biomes per world.  Nothing ever says the north end of the map is a pole or an equator, and nothing says you fall off if you go past the edges - in fact, the game explicitly has mechanics that rely upon things coming in from past those borders, so that's just wrong.

[Buttery_Mess]

Where did Toady ever say that the world that the game generates is meant to be a sphere?

[feelotraveller]

Armok made the world in his own image. 

And behold the world was a d6. 

Then in his infinite wisdom Armok decided that one face was unsurpassably hot and one unsurpassably cold.

Armok then created all the creatures that move upon the cube and sentenced them to mediocrity.

Ever since dwarves all over the cube over have been alcoholics struggling to come to terms with never being outright successes or abject failures but merely blood for the workings of the cube.

[NW_Kohaku]

Where did Toady ever say that the world that the game generates is meant to be a sphere?

The point of what I'm saying is that it's not meant to be the whole world, just a slice.

He's said that he would have made the world into a sphere, but programming anything but a rectangle would have been a serious pain. 

However, more to my point, he's also said that it's not the whole world, but a region where populations walk in or out (moreso in the past), including the still very-much-observable fact that any new start of an Adventurer allows for a start as a "Human Outsider".  Meaning, not from that region.

The quotes I was specifically thinking of were from one of the DF talks, I believe, but those things are frustratingly difficult to actually search if you can't precisely remember the terms, so I came up with a quote that was as close to the one I was thinking of as possible.

A flat projection of a sphere is somewhat tricky.  You can't represent everything with a rectangle, anyway, not without distortion or tearing.  You can't even do a portion of a sphere without distortion.  So, the current world is distorted, if you assume it's spherical in the first place.  Right now the edge blocks, but what did you want?  If you wrap around the left/right edges, you have a cylindrical world.  If you walk off the top, you have to decide where you want that to go as well, and you can either end up with a torus or some kind of weird projective space depending on how you define it, but you're not going to get a sphere if you want a rectangular map.  An actual sphere would require significant revisions to world map storage and how it interprets the local maps in that space.<P>We have lots of land now because water is relatively pointless space.  This can change when ships go in, yeah.  It also doesn't simulate an entire world so that repopulation can occur from the edges and shores of edge-touching oceans.  I haven't done the Life Cycles arc, but even after I do, world population will probably always have a downward trend if the world is self-contained, unless the game is relatively non-violent.

As for the intent to make a sphere, best evidence is to see this older post.

The limits of the world are just set up the easy way right now.  It would be very tricky to make the world a sphere, just because it is impossible to tile a sphere evenly with squares, so the current map storage system wouldn't work.  Making the world a torus or a cylinder would be easier    When I set up the universe/world parameters generator, the limits of the world could be any sort of thing -- just a mist that you walk into to go to a different world, or a drop-off into the void, whatever.  Making the world round will be much harder.

It's meant to be as close to a spheric world as possible without screwing around with complex mechanics that wouldn't add too much to the game, anyway.  (Unless Toady eventually wants to start having trade with "distant lands" you can't actually enter, and are just abstracted.)

[Aerie]

What you believe doesn't mean what's really there will be any different.

This is why we can edit the raws.

[Buttery_Mess]

I wouldn't say that counts as evidence that Toady intends the world generated to be considered spherical; or if you want to be precise, that the region generated is part of the surface of a sphere. He probably doesn't care; DF is a work in progress, and he hasn't put all that stuff in yet. He's got ideas for randomly generated creation mythologies, world shapes and all that stuff in the pipeline though. Maybe he'll think about expanding or at least implementing world shapes in the future. Personally, I can't help but think of the world as being an oblong bounded by impenetrable opaque barriers because that is literally what is represented in game. You have to mentally fudge what's actually happening in game to think of the world any other way.

Whether or not you interpret a DF region as being a segment of a larger world is purely a matter of preference. The code can call in new populations ex nihilo as required; whether you choose to imagine this represents populations wandering in from elsewhere or not is up to the player.

[Aerie]

Considering that the world is created by Armok, I'd imagine that he can shape it however goddamn well he pleases.

[NW_Kohaku]

I wouldn't say that counts as evidence that Toady intends the world generated to be considered spherical; or if you want to be precise, that the region generated is part of the surface of a sphere. He probably doesn't care; DF is a work in progress, and he hasn't put all that stuff in yet. He's got ideas for randomly generated creation mythologies, world shapes and all that stuff in the pipeline though. Maybe he'll think about expanding or at least implementing world shapes in the future. Personally, I can't help but think of the world as being an oblong bounded by impenetrable opaque barriers because that is literally what is represented in game. You have to mentally fudge what's actually happening in game to think of the world any other way.

Whether or not you interpret a DF region as being a segment of a larger world is purely a matter of preference. The code can call in new populations ex nihilo as required; whether you choose to imagine this represents populations wandering in from elsewhere or not is up to the player.

If you want to interpret the game world as a plane and Toady doesn't want to change it, that's one thing; The game actually supports that claim.

If you want to interpret the game world as having impenetrable boundaries or not a segment of a larger world, that is not; Creatures move into the world from outside the boundaries, including "human outsider" adventurers, which you can find proof of yourself in less than a minute if you just open up the game and start a new adventurer.  That is explicitly what Toady has said, and what the game demonstrates.

[NW_Kohaku]

What you believe doesn't mean what's really there will be any different.

This is why we can edit the raws.

In-context, I was talking about the difference between Subjective Reality and Objective Reality.

In Objective Reality, if you think that the sound of a creature bumping around on the other side of a door might be a troll, you can open up the door, and find out it's just a kitten bumping up against a chair.  If it were Subjective Reality, your belief would change reality and make that kitten actually be a troll if you believed it would be. 

Dwarf Fortress exists in Objective Reality - things are defined, and your perspective on the matter doesn't change reality.  Changing the raws merely changes the objective properties of materials or shapes of objects, but they are still objective and measurable.  (Just like how changing a stick by cutting it down from 5 inches long to 4 inches long doesn't change that it's an objectively measurable object.)

Considering that the world is created by Armok, I'd imagine that he can shape it however goddamn well he pleases.

Armok doesn't exist in the current game. There are gods, there are creators, but they're not Armok. There isn't even a word for Armok in any race's languages. Armok is merely an artifact of a previous game until Toady decides he wants to actually put Armok in.

[Owlbread]

Though it is largely without basis I believe that the "Forces Unknown" that guide adventurers are Armok.

[Aerie]

Armok doesn't exist in the current game. There are gods, there are creators, but they're not Armok. There isn't even a word for Armok in any race's languages. Armok is merely an artifact of a previous game until Toady decides he wants to actually put Armok in.

According to the lore of Dwarf Fortress' prequel, Slaves to Armok: God of Blood, Armok is the creator of the world and the in-game explanation for the random world generation:

"Armok, the God of Blood, is just about the only constant in these chaotic random universes. A general sense of conflict keeps Armok appeased - when the universe becomes too boring it is set on the anvil of creation to be reforged."

"The destruction of the world by Armok will arise inevitably in most game worlds. As civilizations spread and the frontier closes, the world will start to look homogeneous. Armok, looking upon this decadence in disgust, will reform the world. Basically, when the universe has become too boring, it will be changed."

This also heavily implies that Armok is the in-world personification of the player entity.

[Buttery_Mess]

Pfft. "Objective Reality" is a non-concept.