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Very good.

good.

meh.

bad.

Very bad.

[FallenJoe]

Loving the idea.

Masterwork was awesome, but some of it (Like guilds, religion, or castes) were getting both excessively complex and mandentory.  The usefulness of the guilds as compared to vanilla dwarves was so great that you couldn't just ignore it, but if you tried to ignore it things tended to spill over to other included features.

I seem to recall there being dangers associated with mining certain types of rock, which was much less of a danger to any miner caste dwarves. Warpstone or Weftstone, something.

But if I didn't want to use guilds, I had to turn off all the types of material that required miner caste to mine without dying.  And turning those materials off cut off quite a few other features that were based off those mined materials, which made me sad.

So TLDR: I would completely love it if you would remake at least a basic version of dwarf Masterwork, hopefully without so many interlinked features that you can't turn off one bit without turning off 20% of the mod.

[wrightly678]

I understand the appeal from a design perspective, the code/design would be cleaner, and there would likely be fewer bugs


-but.

I cant help but wonder about the "bloat" that you mention, I for one absoloutely LOVE warlocks, bugs be dammned, the overseerer role seems to fit so much better with a race of evil mages than with some allegedly normal society.
I'd hate to see warlocks go, and I'm sure there Are others who feel the same way about kobolds/orcs/humans


PArt of the magic of masterwork is in adding new sorts of game-modes(through the races) if that was lost, or even just trimmed to elf/goblin/human mode I think masterwork would be worse off for it.

Just my opinion, but there it is



EDIT: just read the above post from meph, detailing how the rework might happen, it sounds.... pretty darn cool- I originally voted Meh, but f I 7could  change it, i'd say give it a go.

[StagnantSoul]

I do agree, Kobolds and Orcs really made it good.

[Arcvasti]

I'm thinking that this might be an excellent idea, if done right. The feature bloat in Dwarf Mode is ridiculous and I much prefer the other races, not only because they feel unique to play, but because they have far less extraneous junk. I don't want to lose Warlock/Orc/Succubus/Gnome mode, or any of the others. And I ESPECIALLY don't want to lose my precious Kobolds or my favourite features for them.

I'd totally be willing to help port/recreate Kobolds over to this new thing for what its worth[I can't mod creatures or interactions very well.]. While I wouldn't be able to do much for the next few weeks, other then slowly learn how not to suck completely at modding, I have midterms in two weeks, which basically means a whole week off to do DF stuff. You have my axe, metaphorically speaking. Or my pointy stick, as it were.

One thing I definitely would like to see is less reliance on DFhack, since its much more difficult to update from version to version. The only major RAW changes in DF 40.xx, IIRC, were the introduction of gaits and multitile trees. But most of the under the hood stuff DFhack fiddles with is either gone or fundamentally different between releases.

[Loyal]

It's probably ideal to just remake Masterwork from the ground up . . . but only if you feel up to it.

In terms of "feature bloat," I'd like to see fewer "make the game easier" buildings/reactions. For instance, a legendary Praying dwarf can churn out absolutely ridiculous amounts of goods rapidly, automatically, and for free.

As a minor suggestion, there's also something weird about how easy it is do have a functioning, even thriving fort completely devoid of certain map features. A lack of wood is a serious challenge in Vanilla DF, but in Masterwork can be effortlessly overcome with a Stonecarver and a Brewery/Booze Cooker, and after a year or so you can just grow your own trees anyway. It is nice that workarounds exist for lack of a given resource, but I feel there should be more effort involved.

I'd also suggest holding off on actually beginning the remake until we reach a more stable version of DF where things like army camping, military dwarves standing uselessly, and so on are conclusively, definitely fixed. But that's just me.

[Moridin920]

I think it's a pretty good idea to start over and build it in small chunks as opposed to trying to port everything and dealing with all that.

I really like all the additional features in dwarf mode but some of them could use streamlining and whatnot.

[Boltgun]

While we're speaking of starting from scratch, obsidian soul is working on an higher res graphic set.

It would take a very long time to build a 24x or 32x set but that might be great to start making space for one in masterwork.

[IndigoFenix]

Everything that has been said so far sounds good.  As you already know, dwarves have a lot of bloat because they were designed first, before the idea of having multiple specialized races even existed, and many of their functions (I'm specifically referring to things that involve transformations) exist as they are because they were designed before better, DFHack methods for those systems existed.  Your planned changes sound good, although I'm a bit iffy on the drilling rig... I guess it depends on how 'steampunky' you want your dwarves to be.

Concerning gnomes, I would like to port them over.  The machine code has to be redone though, as it's kind of buggy right now.  Rubble includes the basic machina system, presumably with a great deal of bugfixes.  I don't want to leave them as they are in Rubble (no factory related traps/accidents?  Laaaame) but I might use that as a starting point, once I figure out how it works.

Beyond that, I'd say wait a bit before deciding whether or not they should remain active.  The new DF has a lot more complexity when it comes to determining who sieges you, so it might be possible to prevent gnome sieges by messing with their personalities and civ values.



One other change that hasn't been brought up too much is the wild animals.  They were all kind of ported in from various different source mods, without much in the way of universal cohesion or theme.  Supernatural creatures seem too common, for instance, and petvalue is all over the place.  Also, the NATURAL tag is kind of thrown around without much forethought, admittedly because it doesn't matter much for most races, but it does determine AT_PEACE_WITH_WILDLIFE, so it would be nice to have that aspect be a little more intuitive.  (Giant spiders: friendly.  Great Cow: not friendly).  This will require a major overhaul, but I guess it could be done a little bit at a time.  There should probably be an overall plan first, though.

[Putnam]

I voted for 'Good' instead of 'Very Good', simply b/c starting completely from scratch, even when you have basis to reference, can be both daunting and mentally draining.  Will weigh in on the Dwarf revamp later, must sleep now :/

You haven't worked with the current state of the raws...

A complete rewrite would be for the best.

It got my "very good" vote.

[Cruxador]

As someone who doesn't play or like Masterwork, if it were redone with less bloat and bugs it might be worth having a go.

[Meph]

While we're speaking of starting from scratch, obsidian soul is working on an higher res graphic set.

It would take a very long time to build a 24x or 32x set but that might be great to start making space for one in masterwork.

You were reading my mind. If you check his thread, one of the first things you see is me asking if he might be able to do sprites for the mod.

IndigoFenix, the creatures wouldnt be ported from Masterwork. I'd start with the ones in vanilla DF, then make careful additions, for example a separation of the three caverns. But not forest spiders on glacier, as is the norm right now. About the Gnomes you have free decision making, if you want to port them, I'll put them right next to Orcs and Succubi.

The drilling rig is the only building of the four that I did not use myself yet. But if the machinism script doesnt work with the new DF, then adding Gnome buildings to Dwarf mode is out of the question anyway. For now.

As someone who doesn't play or like Masterwork, if it were redone with less bloat and bugs it might be worth having a go.

Silly question from me side: If you dont like nor play it, how come you found this thread? ^^

[Moorindal]

Totally yes. Do it.

[Insanegame27]

as long as my wasps get a spot, i'm happy. was looking forward to mdf with my race

[kizucha]

The biggest thing i think what i will miss are the warlocks. Love it but i play DF not really that much at the time, the biggest reason i think is because i waiting for the "patch" for them.^^

So i'm ok with a new start and maybe with a new version that its compatible with the newest DF it grabs me again and i play the dwarf mode like crazy.

But as alway's for me, meph do what you think its the best for you and your mod.^.^ If you think you can do it or if its better for modding because it makes it easier, do it right now. If its to much work and the danger you put the modding on the nail, DONT DO IT!

[Emperor]

Travelling the world, and yet having time and energy to rewrite a mod of such size, with all these DF2014 additions...

You're crazy, Meph, but i support the idea wholeheartedly.