Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[miauw62]

Nightly releases might be a good idea. That way we can preview things before they come out and see whats being worked on and possibly provide constructive critisism, as well as having the convinience of releases nearly every day to spice up the game.

I know DDA and tons of other roguelikes do it, and as far as I know it worked for them.

These are open source, and nightly builds are really just releases of the binaries compiled by the auto-tester, afaik.

[palu]

There's absolutely no reason, for example, why Toady should share his personal project with us. Imho, this choice of explaining development and releasing it to the public only slow things down immensely, and doesn't ultimately lead to a better game.

Fixed that for you.

[Symmetry]

Just because I heard about DF on cesspit.net, I'll add my opinion to the heaving pile.

I'm personally shocked that people are willing to continue to donate when it goes two years without an update, and when all that's being worked on is adventure mode.  Then again I'm shocked people enjoy adventure mode, and they do.

I would like to see job priorities, the changes at the top of the suggestion voting, and more performance improvements and I'm willing, eager, to donate if they happen.  But as long as Toady can live fine doing what he likes to do it won't happen and I guess I'm ok with that.  I don't really have a choice

On the other hand I don't care about UI improvements.  The mods stuff is working fine, and being a little brutal, Toady clearly doesn't have the programming experience to design a good Model/View/Controller API.  Not many people do.

All that said, I remember a talk where the sewage question came up, and Toady said he didn't like the idea because having more things that interrupt dwarves would break the fortress mode gameplay.  They would likely spend all their time moving between bed, dining room, drink, breaks and toilet and never get anything done.  This kind of question is much more interesting to me, and I think much more central to the design of an indirect control game like DF, dungeon keeper, etc. than UIs or trees or even wheelbarrows and minecarts.  Work on this area could even affect adventure mode.  Servants to go gather food for dinner, or routines where someone always breaks for work at midday and goes to the toilet after etc.  Looking ahead to how long it'll take to travel the path they made and whether they'll get hungry in that time.  Lots of very cool AI and gameplay possibilities that we don't get explored.

I've turned this into a suggestion.  Sorry.  Lets be glad I avoid multitheading and move on to the the next layer of opinion in the pile.

[Footkerchief]

I'm personally shocked that people are willing to continue to donate when it goes two years without an update, and when all that's being worked on is adventure mode.  Then again I'm shocked people enjoy adventure mode, and they do.

I would like to see job priorities, the changes at the top of the suggestion voting, and more performance improvements and I'm willing, eager, to donate if they happen.  But as long as Toady can live fine doing what he likes to do it won't happen and I guess I'm ok with that.  I don't really have a choice

There were plenty of updates to Fortress Mode.  The claim that this release was all about Adv. Mode is a meme, not an observation.  The majority of new systems (trees, climbing, jumping, combat, stealth, emotions/morale) pertain to both modes.  There are some features still unique to Adv. Mode (conversations, tracking, site maps), but they'll become part of Fortress Mode as soon as you can send out armies/caravans/etc.  He also added features unique to Fortress Mode (retirement and reclaiming worldgen fortresses).

He rewrote the dwarven mind so that he could implement job priorities after the release:

The mind has been rewritten quite a bit -- people now experience emotions according to different circumstances (lots of awkward monologues there), and they consider actions differently.  The main outstanding issue is that I didn't get around to converting existing dwarf mode thoughts, so they sort of exist concurrently with the new emotions and that needs to be changed.  I'll get to that before job priorities (which was one of the main shorter-term reasons for the rewrite).  Some dwarves have life-long dreams and it is possible for them to recognize that they've accomplished the ones relating to skills and family.  They cannot yet realize their dreams of taking over the world.

There's absolutely no reason, for example, why you need to wait two years for the "new trees". Imho, this choice of keep development "secret" without releasing it to the public only slow things down immensely, and doesn't ultimately lead to a better game.

Let me read the first dev post he made after he wrapped up DF2012 and began development on this.

"Working now on nailing down the small group movement nuts and bolts to get bandits setting out from their camps to assert themselves on their town targets."

That was the first "this is exactly what I'm working on" post. It was not trees. So, no, it was not 2 years for some fucking trees.

You misunderstood.  Abalieno was not saying that trees took 2 years by themselves; he was saying that trees (and most of the other features) could have been separate releases.  We could easily have had four 6-month releases instead, with the same features.  I'd have preferred it.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

We could easily have had four 6-month releases instead, with the same features.

We could have? You best get to telling toady that!

Better relationship with mods, or more coordinated effort. This means giving them access to preliminary releases, as well integrating the stuff that you can find in DFhack, for example. The stuff that FIXES things, not the stuff that arbitrarily changes the game. Toady should work with them, talk with them and so on.

In the "Text Will Be Text - dfhack plugin" for example you can read:

I had a discussion with lxnt, baughn and Toady, and later on another with Taffer, Baughn and Toady. Baughn would like to update the graphics significantly, but cant work without source access. Toady understands this, but wont give this access. (which is perfectly within his right to do)

So a graphic engine update is most likely not going to happen any time soon.

So what I ask Toady isn't about going open source, but at least to reconsider these positions.

There was a time when he made significant progress in this direction. Then he stopped. I'm simply asking he goes back opening up the UI layer of the game (since it looks like Toady just won't do it by himself).

That was one aspect. The other aspect is that after two years of radical rewrites I hope he puts that kind of strategy on a similar year-or-two delay, so that the next couple of years are more focused on those features I defined "small things that have significant impact compared to significant things that make little difference."

You know, for someone so worried about the plight of modders, you've done zero to help the modding community. In fact, I'm pretty sure the quote you linked, the raw system, Toady having meetings with 3rd party developers, creating a subforum for the major mods is being explicitly friendly to the modding community.

Then again, I know you're not aware of this, since you've been involved at no point with the modding community. I'm simply letting you know you're completely wrong with your assumption that DF is somehow hostile to outside modifications and modders. What is silly is your thought that mods should become mainline because, like, content, amirite? What it is hostile to is pseudo-design guys who come in and tell Toady to open source his project.

[misko27]

Friendly reminder that with Toady buried under bug-reports, the maintenance of an atmosphere of chill is a group effort! 9 pages in a day is a little much.

[GavJ]

1) The game needs Needs NEEDS to make its GUI modular and separate from all underlying code. [...]

2) Less of a priority, but still I think more important than any given feature... As close as possible to every single constant number and string in the code should be moved to the RAWs. [..]

For point #2: Some of us don't use mods, so this really isn't a priority for everyone.  There are other features I'd much rather see.  Still, I'm sure Toady is aware of the modding community.

For point #1: It would be interesting if the UI could be decoupled but it's probably not an easy task.  Even though the UI is not a problem for me, I know it's a stumbling block for many people (especially new players) and it does need improvement.  Perhaps it can move to something customizable, over time.

With a decoupled gui and vastly better raws, everyone pretty much would be using mods, because mods would be 10x more epic. That's the point. This is kind of like saying "I don't think we need internal combustion engines, because I use a horse."

Although effort always may or may not be worth it in a person's opinion.

Also, many of the "features" like specific trees being researched and data-entered, are things that Toady doesn't really need to do. As an example of why raws help everyone. He could have spent twenty minutes explaining the tags and had us make all of them. Dunno how long he spends on that stuff, but some features you say you'd rather have would still be implemented in this way. More quickly even.

[Footkerchief]

We could have? You best get to telling toady that!

I'll quote myself here:

[...] the size of individual features is not what causes year-plus release cycles.  Rather, it's the number of features that get bundled into the release.  Long release cycles happen because all programmers have the impulse to bite off too much at once, even when they've been trained not to, even when they have colleagues or supervisors calling them out on it.

It's a universal problem and Toady is no exception.  I sympathize with the impulse, but I also try to discourage it.

You know, for someone so worried about the plight of modders, you've done zero to help the modding community. In fact, I'm pretty sure the quote you linked, the raw system, Toady having meetings with 3rd party developers, creating a subforum for the major mods is being explicitly friendly to the modding community.

Then again, I know you're not aware of this, since you've been involved at no point with the modding community. I'm simply letting you know you're completely wrong with your assumption that DF is somehow hostile to outside modifications and modders. What is silly is your thought that mods should become mainline because, like, content, amirite? What it is hostile to is pseudo-design guys who come in and tell Toady to open source his project.

Whether Abalieno is actively involved in the modding community has no bearing on the validity of his concerns.

With a decoupled gui and vastly better raws, everyone pretty much would be using mods, because mods would be 10x more epic. That's the point. This is kind of like saying "I don't think we need internal combustion engines, because I use a horse."

Although effort always may or may not be worth it in a person's opinion.

"More epic" is not everyone's priority.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

1) The game needs Needs NEEDS to make its GUI modular and separate from all underlying code. [...]

2) Less of a priority, but still I think more important than any given feature... As close as possible to every single constant number and string in the code should be moved to the RAWs. [..]

For point #2: Some of us don't use mods, so this really isn't a priority for everyone.  There are other features I'd much rather see.  Still, I'm sure Toady is aware of the modding community.

For point #1: It would be interesting if the UI could be decoupled but it's probably not an easy task.  Even though the UI is not a problem for me, I know it's a stumbling block for many people (especially new players) and it does need improvement.  Perhaps it can move to something customizable, over time.

With a decoupled gui and vastly better raws, everyone pretty much would be using mods, because mods would be 10x more epic. That's the point. This is kind of like saying "I don't think we need internal combustion engines, because I use a horse."

Although effort always may or may not be worth it in a person's opinion.

Toady's been moving mechanic after mechanic into raws for years..

[...] the size of individual features is not what causes year-plus release cycles.  Rather, it's the number of features that get bundled into the release.  Long release cycles happen because all programmers have the impulse to bite off too much at once, even when they've been trained not to, even when they have colleagues or supervisors calling them out on it.

It's a universal problem and Toady is no exception.  I sympathize with the impulse, but I also try to discourage it.

The mechanics that were worked on in this release tie together in many ways. You of all people know Toady doesn't like to leave gaping holes in implementation, even if the gooey center consists of '//needs changing'.

Sure, he could've done just the trees, then just the combat overhauls, then just the stealth mechanics, then the active conflicts, then the active armies.. or he could work on it the way he always does, implement the things that synergize, stabilize it, and improve it later. You don't think it would've been development hell to do all these things separately in separate releases? Back in the times of frequent releases we were'nt getting massive overhauls all the time, so it's not really comparable to modern day DF development.

Hell, I remember when first attempts of the army arc development took, what, almost a year? Before Toady decided he needed to flesh other things out to work on it proper. I'd rather get 10 updates in 1 then 1 update every 6 months to appease some people.

Whether Abalieno is actively involved in the modding community has no bearing on the validity of his concerns.

Er, yeah, it kinda does when he isn't involved with any modding, yet claims Toady is hostile to 3rd parties, is completely unaware of the development of things like DFHack [which has been treated much in the same way he laments Toady for not treating 3rd party modders]. This isn't a disagreement. He's simply blatantly incorrect.

[GavJ]

Toady's been moving mechanic after mechanic into raws for years..

And that's great. It's still more efficient though IMO for him to keep on doing so until there is literally nothing ELSE left to add. Than it is to make new features.

By efficient, I mean player fun and donations too, which is not the same thing as Toady's vision. However he does need to eat.

[Henman]

If you guys are still looking for someone who enjoys DF with no mods, I'm right here.

[GavJ]

It's not that vanilla isn't fun. It's that DF can get more fun more quickly and efficienrly with modding support hours spent than with direct feature hours spent.

[Footkerchief]

It's not that vanilla isn't fun. It's that DF can get more fun more quickly and efficienrly with modding support hours spent than with direct feature hours spent.

What's fun for you is not necessarily fun for everyone else.  There can't be much of a conversation unless you accept this.

Er, yeah, it kinda does when he isn't involved with any modding, yet claims Toady is hostile to 3rd parties, is completely unaware of the development of things like DFHack [which has been treated much in the same way he laments Toady for not treating 3rd party modders]. This isn't a disagreement. He's simply blatantly incorrect.

I don't see any evidence that Abalieno "claims Toady is hostile to 3rd parties" or "is completely unaware of the development of things like DFHack".

[misko27]

And it should be noted that DF is largely determined by what Toady finds fun.

[Putnam]

You know, for someone so worried about the plight of modders, you've done zero to help the modding community. In fact, I'm pretty sure the quote you linked, the raw system, Toady having meetings with 3rd party developers, creating a subforum for the major mods is being explicitly friendly to the modding community.

Then again, I know you're not aware of this, since you've been involved at no point with the modding community. I'm simply letting you know you're completely wrong with your assumption that DF is somehow hostile to outside modifications and modders. What is silly is your thought that mods should become mainline because, like, content, amirite? What it is hostile to is pseudo-design guys who come in and tell Toady to open source his project.

The Masterwork subforum was created at Meph's request and the rest of the subforums were created at my suggestion, so it's not exactly like Toady just kinda made those just because, but he did basically just go "okay" when I suggested them offhandedly, so yeah, he's almost overtly friendly to modders