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[Veroule]

Any plans to extend the 256 ASCII-Tiles in the future? Probably to 512 or even unlimited tiles for optical differences. As there are so many tiles having multi-uses, it is quite confusing sometimes. I am not referring to adding graphics, just implementing other tiles not included in the ASCII e.g. horizontal brackets/letters or something like that. Same regarding colours. Any plans to increase them from 16 to e.g. 256 colours or even 24-bit? Some parts of the code like the color-definiton tokens seem to support them already. Or will that cause major recoding?
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I am not referring to graphics, which for sure will cause major and long time dedicated work. Just extending it from 256 tiles to some more. Additional tiles could be derived from e.g. UNICODE. I am no specialist regarding copyright. But as most of the UNICODE-tiles are from various recent/historic alphabets, I can't believe they are more restricted than ASCII.

Besides, moving to Unicode would require rewriting a large portion of the display code that relies on 8-bit display tiles.

Even a basic addition of another character page is not a rewrite I feel comfortable doing.  The DF part is fine -- it'd take a while, but I could do the DF side of it once I knew what data to push where.  However, I have no idea how to set up additional texture atlases while still keeping the speed up in OpenGL, assuming it wouldn't require a completely different approach, so I can't really start.  It's way on the back burner for this reason.  The game could probably use another thousand characters at this point to remove fundamental overlaps.  That's potentially independent of the item graphics problem, though they both run into the texture atlas issue (if you want more than a few item pictures).  Item pictures are also complicated by material considerations -- those aren't prohibitive, but take us into graphics territory that I don't want to get mired in.

Actually I have most of the code for handling the data structures that underlie the graphics functions written for a switch to a 65536 symbol base. It was something I was working on before Baughn kicked me out SDL project, however many years ago that was. I saw it was going to be necessary and started writing the parts that I could. If I recall correctly, Baughn's tileset code is wide open, calculating the number of tiles entirely from the tileset file and defined dimensions; of course being compiled with 32bit definitions sets 1 limit, and 64bit would set a different limit. Baughn was less particular about signing and sizing so the limit on number of tiles in the code he wrote should be around 2 billion. The speed in his code is largely dependent on the GPU and graphics card memory, I was never able to pick through all of it to optimize data handling. Even older graphics card should easily be able to handle 1024 symbol tilesets.

[utunnels]

Is there a reason why we can't construct most buildings near the edge? We can build floors and draw bridges and use them to seal the map anyway. So why not walls?

[LordBaal]

Don't quote me on this but I think it has to do with the spawning of entities in the border and maybe the pathfinding. But mostly (I think to recall it like that) is to not make it exploitable.

Yes you can have floors or draw bridges but they can't really block the entities spawning at the edge.

[mardouille]

Are there plans to make a switch from adventurer to fortress and vice versa more seamlessly?

I know about the retiring fortress and all but I think it would be nice if you could hop from one fortress to another with one of your adventurer.

Also, are there plans to translate the game to other languages?

[LordBaal]

Now that the game is interlocking it's two modes more deep (taverns for adventurers anyone?), have you thought of making the time more standard, or have you ever thought on making fortress time as slow as adventure time?

[Knight Otu]

Now that the game is interlocking it's two modes more deep (taverns for adventurers anyone?), have you thought of making the time more standard, or have you ever thought on making fortress time as slow as adventure time?

Is the way that time passes in fortress mode ever going to change? Or did you already put a ring on it?

I don't have any plans to change it.  People like to see their dwarves grow up and so on, and I think you'd have to run the equivalent of a 144 year fort to see a baby turn into a child if you were running at adventure mode speeds.  It's also difficult to support variable speeds.  Nothing's permanent though.

[King_of_Baboons]

Will it be possible to create or completely change the poetry/religion/combat styles of your civilization while you play Fortress/Adventure Mode?

Will it be finally possible to make acts of profanation or heresy in Adventure Mode?

Will players be able to create their own cults and religions with their own laws and rules?

In the late winter of 27568485630,Raul Tilaturist founded the Church of Armokism in the Mythical Plains.

In the late winter of 27568485630,The Church of Armokism declared war to the Warcraftism Cult.

[falcc]

This isn't related to the next release but:
What do you see as the long term future of poisons and poison classes? Will there be generated poison classes so various creatures could be immune to one another or susceptible to one another? I know poisoning isn't very Dwarfy, but could creatures gradually develop immunity or cures for various kinds of creature poisons? I'm thinking fish growing immune to anemones, but also adventurers developing poison immunities through controlled exposure.

[Scoops Novel]

How do you feel about ancient technologies such as Hero's steam engine (62ish AD) and the  Antikythera mechanism (205 BC)?

[Urist Tilaturist]

When will humans finally be able to steal dwarven steel making technology? We could do it by 1400, and we are very good at stealing ideas.

[Pootis]

Apologies if this has already been asked, but:
What's the timeframe for the current release? Will this one be another year+ in development or are we moving towards a more frequent cycle of updates?

[Knight Otu]

Apologies if this has already been asked, but:
What's the timeframe for the current release? Will this one be another year+ in development or are we moving towards a more frequent cycle of updates?

As always, the plan is to have more short-term updates, and to that end, Toady and ThreeToe have created the four-section dev plan on the dev page, of which job priorities is done (for now), and taverns is in progress. The sub-items are mostly natural breaks where Toady thinks he can release a new version when it takes too long.

Threetoe:     Okay, after the first section, which is job priorities, then we move on to do dwarf fortress mode inns and taverns. Because we want to add something fun, so that we aren't just doing another giant release for the sake of everybody's sanity with their interface problems.
Toady:     Yeah, the two-year release was really long, he he. And there was a lot of foundational work that was done. And we're trying to break this next one up. Well we always try, he he, but we're going to succeed this time! We're breaking this one up into some smaller fun stuff.

When will humans finally be able to steal dwarven steel making technology? We could do it by 1400, and we are very good at stealing ideas.

I believe this is the latest post on this matter:

Are Elves going to have any preference/dislike for trading for metal? They can't really tell if it was made using charcoal or coke, and it's generally superior to what they can do natively, so could that be something effected by the ruler's preferences?

Also, will we eventually see other civs trying to trade for your metalworking secrets? A human king offering an alliance in exchange for you teaching some human smiths how to make steel, for example?

In the same way that they might no longer trade for clothing that doesn't fit, elves might reject metal weapons as a matter of entity definitions, but not as a matter of tree-cutting ethics.  I guess if there's a ruler that can override the entity defs, then they'd buy metal.  It probably won't happen now.

I haven't really thought about technology issues that much, but it would be reasonable to go into what the permitted jobs and reactions mean in the entity defs (whether it is a matter of knowledge or cultural preferences for example).  At that point it would definitely be fair to pass the information around as a game mechanic, even if your dwarves don't look kindly upon it happening (I imagine that would be the norm).

[SimRobert2001]

With the new poetry, is there a specific artifact that peots can make? Such as a great peom that inspires bravery?

[Knight Otu]

With the new poetry, is there a specific artifact that peots can make? Such as a great peom that inspires bravery?

Since that borders on magic, and would require some changes for moods, that's pretty unlikely.

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That interview does put a new spin on Toady's multi-tile creature experiments. I hadn't expected boats to be on the short list for the fifth spot. That's just boats, and not full vehicles, I assume? There are generally fewer obstacles on the water, after all. (below it on the other hand...)

Also, Cruxador's twelve-stringed long-necked dog lute from earlier in the thread almost makes an appearance.

[Cruxador]

If temples are affected by material wealth within its zones and number of worshippers will there be a chance for positive blessings such as attribute/skill boost? Or is this related to artifacts? Also will dieties bless the fort with materilas/objects such as the procedurally genereated ones, will certain deities be more likely to gift certain materials eg. god of gems gives some rare gems?

I don't have a specific positive effects plan in place right now.  It's kind of lumped in with magic.

Is this specifying "positive" because of curses like the worldgen ones or?

Is poetry and music going to stay within te current modern western paradigm? Or might we have things like freestyle, forms that blend poetry and music (like rap) or forms of oppositional poetry like flyting and rap battles?

I didn't really mean specific details of given forms. The latter two questions were meant to elaborate upon the first. Rap came up twice because it's a very good example that a lot of people are familiar with of something that contains significant elements of poetry but which isn't often called that, especially outside of academia.