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Humans... Neutral, Trade-based economy, Muskets, Paladins.

68 (23.4%)

Elves... Good, Plant/Creature-based economy, Magical, Rangers & Bowmen.

49 (16.8%)

Goblins... Evil, Slave-based economy, Dungeons, Demons, Whips.

46 (15.8%)

Warlocks... Evil, Magic-based economy, Necromancy, Transformations & Spells.

69 (23.7%)

Gnomes... Good, Tech-based economy, Steampunk, Machines.

59 (20.3%)

Total Members Voted: 179

[migshark]

Meph, I recall you mentioning once on reddit how much has been donated to you to date, and it being pitifully low, so I don't think that, with the ridiculously speedy releases and quality content, many of us have a problem with you being realistic with how you want to spend your own time and how money impacts on that.

As someone on a medical pension who can't afford diddly squat in the way of gaming, I'd personally like to thank you and point out that just by working so hard on a free mod of a free game, you're being pretty charitable to some people as it is. However, in light of this, I have trouble seeing the point of donating 50% to charity if we can reach the goal, especially if we can just lower the target if we reduce that half - perhaps you're just overly humble about asking for money? Though now that I've read my own words, that makes me sound like I selfishly just want more development 

If the idea goes ahead but the goal isn't reached, or you still donate 50% in the end, I'd like to nominate child's play as a charity - but I do like the idea of giving the other half to Bay12 as well. I also think Felius is right about how we'd much rather you stay interested and not burn out in the long run, than ruin your travels for the sake of a big flashy update sooner.

[Meph]

I had the idea with the charity, because many people I know personally (from travelling and blogging) do collect for that. And yes, probably because I am quite reserved about downright taking money for this. Toady is the obvious alternative choice

But the big concern about the new release is ill informed. Yes, there are compability issues, but it does have nothing to do with a new race or not. Its because of dfhack and the string-dump patcher. The raw-changes are mostly a simple thing on weapons, and new plants. The new version will even benefit new races a lot, with the new sites in worldgen and adv-mode. I dont think it will be harder to update the mod as it is, or the mod with an extra race.

I dont believe that I'd get burned out from 30 days of modding. Honestly.

[Tierre]

 I would:) I really burned out with just taking your mod 192 apart:) Remember that silly thread of mine? Well it turned me of DF for almost a year. So i want to do it again with MW4, but i am really afraid for it to happen again. If you can do 30 day modding and not burn out then i salute your love of modding:) I might even be able to donate you, but i cannot be positive about it (with a baby coming in january i will need every cent i can find).

Anyway - first thing is to ask Toady. He is very sensitive about money questions, and can understand it in the wrong way. So i guess 50% to bay12 might be more practical to ease his suspicions

[moseythepirate]

I would clear it with Toady, with after that, well...what do you have to lose? If you hit the goal, great! If you don't, your decision to donate to charity leaves you with integrity. So long as the legal issues are resolved, there is no losing scenario here.

I'd donate in a heartbeat.

[Deon]

If the charity is Toady, I am all for this .

[Godlysockpuppet]

Meph, I would definitely spend a little money towards you and charity. I spend so much damn time on this mod while off-duty that it's the least I could do. 

Jesus Christ your username and avatar send me waayyy back. So much so that I just rummaged around for my The First Decade disk, installed Yuri's Revenge, and played an online game. Wow

[Meph]

Since the feedback has been positive so far, I added a preliminary poll. I will gather all the info I need, then write a message to Toady One. I will leave for Malta tomorrow, which means that I wont be here for a week. In that time Toady has time to make a decision, the community has time to talk about it, and the poll can run its course.

[Meph]

The Idea
A Masterwork Dwarf Fortress fundraiser to allow the fast production of a new, playable race. Similar to Rainseekers Animal Sponsoring Drive, people can donate for more content. I will vouch to mod for one month, 6 days a week, 8h a day; on the project of a new race. Unique game mechanics, min. 50 buildings with fitting reactions, creature sprites, pets, plants, weapons and armor, everything that is needed, equal size to the existing kobold and orc races.
The Races
The MDF community can vote on a race of their choice. For simplicities sake I only added already existing races to the poll. I did leave out dwarves, orcs and kobolds, because they already exist. I left out drow, antmen and automatons, because other people work on those. I left out frost giants, because playing a race with megabeast-sized members is too easy for DF and because they are the arch-enemy in the mod.

 - Humans would be centered around big aboveground constructions from stone. Castles and towns. Their economy would be trade-based, which means that other civilizations trade materials that are needed by the humans to build specific buildings. 1-3 different merchants for example, a dwarf smith that creates better metals for their army, while an elven healer buffs their hospital. Pets would be RL domestic pets, sheeps, cows, chickens... Humans could produce wine, plant potatoes and cabbages, again, RL based plants. Their biggest assets are muskets/cannons on the ranged side, and paladins on the melee side.

 - Elves could very well be aboveground only, which huge discomforts from cave-adaption. They cant cut trees, but produce their own, unlimited wood. Intelligent creatures, like Treants (Tree-Men) could be planted in farmplots; the elves would grow their own guardian army. Their hamlets could follow different, distinctive paths, be it Woodelves that rely on nature and creatures, or Highelves that wear mithril and use magic. They would make heavy use of good plants and trees, giving them a huge buff if they embark in those biomes.

 - Goblins are kidnappers and should rely on outside labor. Thanks to dfhack scripts captured invaders could be converted, workshop-based raids on other civs could result in new civ-members... since many goblin civs in DF are ruled by a demon lawgiver, a demonic altar and connections to the HFS could be established, a goblin dungeon with demon warbeasts. Lashes and whips would be weapons of choice. I can see how goblins can easily tantrum, making your fort-members your greatest enemies.

 - Warlocks. Currently very unbalanced as enemies, a necromancy, werebeast and vampire based playable race could be made of them. Being able to magically create their own build materials, having elaborate skill-trees of different spells, being low in number but highly specialised. Their greatest assets would be armies of undeads, their ability to turn invaders against each other, and their longevity. I can easily see a Warlock Towers that gets no migrants and has to manage the few members with a lot of thought to use their powers to maximum effect. Evil regions could give this race a nice boost.

 - Gnomes. Tiny and harmless themselves, they produce advanced machinery. Mods like automaton fortress (non MDF-related), Deons clockworks and Dwemer/TES mods have shown that people rather like the idea of steampunk and tech-based races. Gnomes could be great metalworkers that produce their own creatures in workshops, upgrade their own bodies, or create eloberate traps and defensive mechanisms. Allied with humans, dwarves and elves.
The Money
To work fulltime on this mod for one month, I have to at least break even with my expenses. A 500$ minimum would be the goal that has to be reached. My first idea was to split the money between a charity, voted for by the community, mostly because it feels odd for me to actually accept money for a free mod for a free game. People here have so far responded with: Thats ok; Thats ok, but we dont need a charity; and Thats ok, but instead of a charity donate half to Toady One. These three options I added to the poll above.

I would set up a donations buttons with Paypal, update the community on the progress and post a list of donations, once the 30 days are over. People could decide if they donate anonymously or with their names shown. If the goal of 500$ (or 1000$, if the donations should be split for MDF/Charity/ToadyOne) is reached, I will begin developement. If the goal is not reached, I will donate all the money to either the voted charity or Toady One.
The Developement
I would post daily dev-logs and take community feedback into consideration while modding. The developement would be different from my current modus operandi, I would mod a feature, playtest a feature, finish it, write the manual, write the dev-log, then start the next feature. Step by step, till I do a release after one month. Current MDF modding is more a "something something, weekly release, no bugtesting, bugfixing together with the next release". I'd change that a bit for this project.
The Why
For those who care: 6 months ago 4 modders started on 4 playable races, none of which are finished. When I asked about more races, the people responded very positive and want to play new races, but I cant find the 100-200h it would take. The only way to ensure that is working full-time on it. As I described previously, I think it would be a win-win situation. Users get quality content, Toady/Charity gets money and I either break even or get money. All users would have access to the release of course, this is no DLC, no one is forced to pay anything. This is all based on a reddit discussion I had, and as someone on this thread said: "What do you have to lose? If you hit the goal, great! If you don't, your decision to donate to charity leaves you with integrity. So long as the legal issues are resolved, there is no losing scenario here."
Here you go. Make of it what you like. I will write Toady One about this idea, and leave for a short vacation tomorrow. I'll be back in one week and see what happened to this thread. Possible outcomes are:
 - Toady says no. => No means no.
 - Toady says yes, but not enough money is gathered => everything goes to charity/Toady.
 - Toady says yes, enough money is gathered => players will get a new race to play with, 50% of the money goes to charity/Toady, 50% to me.

See you all in a week.

Edit: Message to Tarn Adams is out, lets see how his verdict will be.

[moseythepirate]

It was a tough call, but I voted for humans over gnomes. I really want to see what neat things can be done with a trade focused species, and I'm afraid that gnomes will play too similarly to dwarves.

[Uloldodok]

Come on guys, let the Elves win so that we finally can sacrifice them all to Armok!

Serious note though; I think a "tree-people" would be awesome, especially if you make them grow their walls/buildings instead of constructing them.

"The magnificent treehouse made by The Frail Poles of Handling in 35 is grown with steeloak for walls, so hard not even fire could reach the hippies."

[Etherdrinker]

The Races


 - Humans would be centered around big aboveground constructions from stone. Castles and towns. Their economy would be trade-based, which means that other civilizations trade materials that are needed by the humans to build specific buildings. 1-3 different merchants for example, a dwarf smith that creates better metals for their army, while an elven healer buffs their hospital. Pets would be RL domestic pets, sheeps, cows, chickens... Humans could produce wine, plant potatoes and cabbages, again, RL based plants. Their biggest assets are muskets/cannons on the ranged side, and paladins on the melee side.

 - Elves could very well be aboveground only, which huge discomforts from cave-adaption. They cant cut trees, but produce their own, unlimited wood. Intelligent creatures, like Treants (Tree-Men) could be planted in farmplots; the elves would grow their own guardian army. Their hamlets could follow different, distinctive paths, be it Woodelves that rely on nature and creatures, or Highelves that wear mithril and use magic. They would make heavy use of good plants and trees, giving them a huge buff if they embark in those biomes.

- Goblins are kidnappers and should rely on outside labor. Thanks to dfhack scripts captured invaders could be converted, workshop-based raids on other civs could result in new civ-members... since many goblin civs in DF are ruled by a demon lawgiver, a demonic altar and connections to the HFS could be established, a goblin dungeon with demon warbeasts. Lashes and whips would be weapons of choice. I can see how goblins can easily tantrum, making your fort-members your greatest enemies.

- Warlocks. Currently very unbalanced as enemies, a necromancy, werebeast and vampire based playable race could be made of them. Being able to magically create their own build materials, having elaborate skill-trees of different spells, being low in number but highly specialised. Their greatest assets would be armies of undeads, their ability to turn invaders against each other, and their longevity. I can easily see a Warlock Towers that gets no migrants and has to manage the few members with a lot of thought to use their powers to maximum effect. Evil regions could give this race a nice boost.

- Gnomes. Tiny and harmless themselves, they produce advanced machinery. Mods like automaton fortress (non MDF-related), Deons clockworks and Dwemer/TES mods have shown that people rather like the idea of steampunk and tech-based races. Gnomes could be great metalworkers that produce their own creatures in workshops, upgrade their own bodies, or create eloberate traps and defensive mechanisms. Allied with humans, dwarves and elves. [/b]

Warlocks, yes and yes, Both Goblins and Warlocks even Gnomes are way more interesting than the hummies and elves.

The specialized spot you mention is the most thing are getting me excited, cause I like quality over quantity.

Is necessary I thinking to learn about raw modding... or find someone than could translate the idea to raws.

[Karadrass_Fr]

- New races ares interesting if the features are really differents. It requires some work. But in my opinion the most important thing is not new features, it is to make dwarf fortress more noob friendly.

- I would like tutorials "videos" included inside the game for every features possible : how to use any workshop, how to use gears, how to control magma, how to control armies etc. I ll be Okay for giving money to this project, about DF and/too about DF masterwork !

- And outside the game : how to use the best DF Hack, DF therapist, QuickFort etc. because from now I am not sure to all understand of theses things.

- More complexites, or new features are secondaries. The most important thing is to bring new people to the game. New people = more money for Toady and maybe more money to you Meph, if your project of raize founding works. Frow now, in my feeling of new player of dwarf fortress, when I have seen your mod and all these features, I have been very impressed but too disgusted by all these features. It is important to seeing this sensation of hubris.

[Etherdrinker]

Nope. For noob friend already exist a Vanilla version with DF included and a FPS boosting.

Actually MWDF is for adding more complexity, you are pretty wrong about for what is done this mod.

Mep was doing this mod in his free time, and free for anyone than could like more complexity, the Fund idea was just added few days ago.

 If you are too disgusted you can try Toggle off the noob-killer features or donīt play MWDF at all.

A lot of stuff you are talking about, are already in a lot of videos in Youtube, guides in the Wiki and stuff.

In fact, I really Suggest to you, create a new thread and create a poll / discussion about Noobwork DF. How you are going to do this?

Simple, create a list in base how the poll or your suggestions for an additional Download in the Mep thread. Were some stuff are toggled off .


Again, I will never suggest for starters at all MWDF, unless, I send to that person a pretty tunned up GUI version, with warning to donīt change anything.

[moseythepirate]

Hmm...after reading a few responses, I think that the path forward is pretty clear. While I personally want the humans, I think that the top priority should be making a race that plays as differently from the other races as possible. In that case, I hate to admit it, but it looks like the winner is warlocks. Elves would be strikingly different too, though.

Maybe one of you fellows could answer a little question regarding warlocks. Things like moods and migrant waves are hardcoded, right? So how could one go about allowing moods in extremely low-pop dark fortresses? And is there a way to prevent the first two migrant waves? I don't think the first two waves should be disallowed, but it's a conversation worth having.

As for the idea of growing constructions, I don't really see how it would work...that said, trees are impassible, right? So maybe you could have fast growing trees that grow where you want them too. You'd still need floors, though. But that doesn't seem like it would be doable via the raws.

[Etherdrinker]

Well DF hack can change Floors, walls and liquids. So creating a evil nexus than spread "evil moss" or a creeping mold than infect the biome, is pretty viable IMO

About immigrants, Mep was talking about that and looks like is not going to be a trouble. A special floor? they can use the vanilla moss spread. In fact Mep already do it with the 3 cavern. Warlocks are pretty viable to create and are better than Humans, cause is about trade (not interesting), about muskets? (already added in the Dwarfs), Paladins? (they are just tunned mages). Obviously that race could have other stuff, but in first sight I donīt see anything really appealing and different.

Still wanna Warlocks / Goblins