Print

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

[angelious]

... and what did all this have to do with towers, again?

It did get a little off topic, ya?

When I saw this thread, obviously the first thing I thought of was "heaven".  It was a fairly obvious concept. Perhaps have a semi-solid cloud layer that you have to puncture before you could get there?

But thinking about it more, there should be more to it. Flying creatures are a start, but what about weather effects?

Thinning air could cause exhaustion in dwarves. During storms, there could be strong winds that knock exposed dwarves and objects around... even to the point of going over the edge.

"Urist McSplat cancels Build Wall: interrupted by gravity."
Now doesn't that sound like FUN?

there also needs to be rewards there... just no use building upwards since it gives nothing to you. im guessing. heaven could be loaded with shit like adamantium,golden masterpiece items and other stuff...or dunno.


just..there needs to be a reason other than invading heaven for people to risk it.

[NJW2000]

Like HFS?

Oh, war pets, webs and food and raw resource if you're lucky, yeah, but....

[Niddhoger]

Like HFS?

Oh, war pets, webs and food and raw resource if you're lucky, yeah, but....

As I mentioned earlier, the reward of HFS is Candy.  More specifically, its a -very- strong deterrent for digging deep and carelessly.  Until you are ready to fight the HFS, you have to only "trim" candy spires that you built airlocks leading to and carved fortifications into to check for demon presence, on a floor-by-floor basis (hollow pillars can be solid for the first few layers). Perhaps you even cast obsidian around the spire to trim more of the spire without breaching Hell. 

Actually defeating Hell is -not- rewarding.  However, HFS makes candy taste all the sweeter. 

[Evil One]

... and what did all this have to do with towers, again?

It did get a little off topic, ya?

When I saw this thread, obviously the first thing I thought of was "heaven".  It was a fairly obvious concept. Perhaps have a semi-solid cloud layer that you have to puncture before you could get there?

But thinking about it more, there should be more to it. Flying creatures are a start, but what about weather effects?

Thinning air could cause exhaustion in dwarves. During storms, there could be strong winds that knock exposed dwarves and objects around... even to the point of going over the edge.

"Urist McSplat cancels Build Wall: interrupted by gravity."
Now doesn't that sound like FUN?

there also needs to be rewards there... just no use building upwards since it gives nothing to you. im guessing. heaven could be loaded with shit like adamantium,golden masterpiece items and other stuff...or dunno.


just..there needs to be a reason other than invading heaven for people to risk it.

You know I find the idea of a bunch of drunken bearded psychopaths (AKA Dorfs) invading heaven, slaughtering the angels and stealing their stuff (maybe even mining the walls of their city for special stone) strangely appealing.

[Pearofclubs]

You know I find the idea of a bunch of drunken bearded psychopaths (AKA Dorfs) invading heaven, slaughtering the angels and stealing their stuff (maybe even mining the walls of their city for special stone) strangely appealing.

And why not? Our dwarves have proven that nearly anything is possible with enough needless death hard work.
Judging by the bible's description of heaven,  there would be many valuable metals and gems in heaven for dwarves to steal discover. Not to mention divine metal.
Besides, do dwarf fortress players ever really need a reward in order to motivate them to do something stupid amazing? Not really

[NJW2000]

+1, Pearofclubs

Adamantine can be dug without HFS being a problem: HFS checkers.

I reckon many DF players would be happier once their pointless megaproject endangers their fort and threatens to collapse in a pillar of dragonfire.

[Falconbridge]

Not much of a fan of the heaven idea: Dwarfs are not pillagers/thief. also the idea of a tower tall enought to reach thinner air is ridiculous.

IRL, tall structure are built for prestige or religion (the later being kind of a extenssion of the former), so why not make the incentive about that?...
-most dwarves should be affraid of height, but those few that aren't could require a bedroom with a view if they become nobles ! the higher they are the happier they get.
-if humans ever become playable in fortress mode, they would almost all want to live above ground.
- residents could get a happy thought everytime they go outside and see the tall structure ("felt safe realising he is part of such a mighty fortress"). if humans become playable,  they would pretty much have to build high stuff to compensate for the lack of other happy though provider (alcool is bad for them if abused, peasants dont eat in the dinning hall, ect)

all that just cause in a fantasy setting, dwarves don't build too much above ground... humans do.

[Vattic]

Not much of a fan of the heaven idea: Dwarfs are not pillagers/thief. also the idea of a tower tall enought to reach thinner air is ridiculous.

IRL, tall structure are built for prestige or religion (the later being kind of a extenssion of the former), so why not make the incentive about that?...

Having a tower of babel like structure that anger the gods would potentially fit the game thematically, no heaven specifically necessary. It would sort of fall under any structure to appease or profane the gods. You could upset some kind of magical balance rather than the gods causing weird effects around your embark.

[Evil One]

Not much of a fan of the heaven idea: Dwarfs are not pillagers/thief.

But this is Dwarf Fortress, a game where Dorfs used to trap and massacre mermaids just because their bones were valuable and are thrown off of cliffs just to give the surgeon something to practice on.

[NJW2000]

Heaven seems a bit too plot-imposing, if you see what I mean... some people might dislike it.

But an announcement like "a host of celestial beings has appeared at the boundary between our world and theirs, and the sky rages with the weight of the portal" might be quite fun... HFS but optional and attacks your aboveground structures.

[NW_Kohaku]

+1, Pearofclubs

Adamantine can be dug without HFS being a problem: HFS checkers.

I reckon many DF players would be happier once their pointless megaproject endangers their fort and threatens to collapse in a pillar of dragonfire.

That's an exploit. 

A lot of you are presuming exploits and emergent player behavior as the assumed default settings of the game. 

Now, I'll agree there is some definite thematic appropriateness for a fortress that behaves with too great a hubris winding up with a karmic backlash, but the idea that we just see the heavens as automatically a new place to loot as its main purpose for existence is going a bit far. 

Again, Toady already wants to make it possible for players to visit other planes of existence.  In fact, the current HFS isn't supposed to simply be deep underground, but is supposed to be another dimension that is only accessed through gates dwarves can open through digging too greedily and too deep.  There's a long-term goal of letting players actually visit the afterlife and meeting up with their dead dwarves.  Hence, heaven is already planned.  Angels attacking if you misbehave is probably going to have to be part and parcel with that, because players will be sociopathic players.  I don't think Toady needs to go out of his way to reward players murdering the forces of good any more than players already will do so just for bragging rights. 

Likewise, I don't think there should necessarily be just some cloud you mine to open up the stratosphere, but rather some sort of dimensional portal that can be opened up that leads to a new map (or chunk of map), which is more the original goal, and which could exist in other layers than just "the top of the map" (a mountain god's home may exist in a portal in the middle cavern, for example...)

[angelious]

Heaven seems a bit too plot-imposing, if you see what I mean... some people might dislike it.

But an announcement like "a host of celestial beings has appeared at the boundary between our world and theirs, and the sky rages with the weight of the portal" might be quite fun... HFS but optional and attacks your aboveground structures.

IF heaven is plot imposing then hfs is plot imposing too.


and i cant see any problem with dorfs invading heaven for profit. its not even the worse thing people have done in this game..

[NW_Kohaku]

IF heaven is plot imposing then hfs is plot imposing too.


and i cant see any problem with dorfs invading heaven for profit. its not even the worse thing people have done in this game..

There is a difference between emergent behaviors and outright encouraged behaviors. 

It is totally possible in this game to breed and murder mermaids in giant oceanic factories for fun, but Toady took away the giant value multiplier that encouraged doing so.  Doing so is possible, but not encouraged by the mechanics of the game. 

Digging into the candy is encouraged by the game by being highly valuable and versitile. Fighting the HFS is heavily discouraged by being a box full of clowns with abilities that bypass all defenses aside from exploitative behaviors.  Defeating the clowns and colonising the HFS is heavily discouraged by the game mechanics by making stronger-than-FB creatures roam rampant and giving you basically no useful materials.  For that matter, game mechanic-wise, evil biomes are discouraged, and there is code to prevent any dwarves not controlled by the player from trying to settle there. 

Also consider that the boogeymen are from the shadow realms, and you can fight them as an adventurer, but everything they have dissolves into mist so you can't profit in any way but combat experience points from fighting them, even if you're strong enough to survive such fights.

Players can do those things for fun, (or Fun,) but there isn't any explicit encouragement in the code to do so, (and plenty of coding reasons not to,) and that's something you need to pay attention to. 

If divine realms are accessible, (because most gods are not fluffy-cloud-heaven-type deities, but are ocean gods or mountain gods or whatever,) then their intended purposes for being there should probably be for either peaceful communing or else being some sort of terrible threat to players first, and a potential source of loot only as a side benefit.  (In fact, Toady might well make divine metals cursed if wielded by dwarves, and have them directly harm any dwarf that tries to manipulate them if he feels it too warps the intent of the game.)

[angelious]

IF heaven is plot imposing then hfs is plot imposing too.


and i cant see any problem with dorfs invading heaven for profit. its not even the worse thing people have done in this game..

There is a difference between emergent behaviors and outright encouraged behaviors. 

It is totally possible in this game to breed and murder mermaids in giant oceanic factories for fun, but Toady took away the giant value multiplier that encouraged doing so.  Doing so is possible, but not encouraged by the mechanics of the game. 

Digging into the candy is encouraged by the game by being highly valuable and versitile. Fighting the HFS is heavily discouraged by being a box full of clowns with abilities that bypass all defenses aside from exploitative behaviors.  Defeating the clowns and colonising the HFS is heavily discouraged by the game mechanics by making stronger-than-FB creatures roam rampant and giving you basically no useful materials.  For that matter, game mechanic-wise, evil biomes are discouraged, and there is code to prevent any dwarves not controlled by the player from trying to settle there. 

Also consider that the boogeymen are from the shadow realms, and you can fight them as an adventurer, but everything they have dissolves into mist so you can't profit in any way but combat experience points from fighting them, even if you're strong enough to survive such fights.

Players can do those things for fun, (or Fun,) but there isn't any explicit encouragement in the code to do so, (and plenty of coding reasons not to,) and that's something you need to pay attention to. 

If divine realms are accessible, (because most gods are not fluffy-cloud-heaven-type deities, but are ocean gods or mountain gods or whatever,) then their intended purposes for being there should probably be for either peaceful communing or else being some sort of terrible threat to players first, and a potential source of loot only as a side benefit.  (In fact, Toady might well make divine metals cursed if wielded by dwarves, and have them directly harm any dwarf that tries to manipulate them if he feels it too warps the intent of the game.)

which is why i said there would need to be a reward for building upwards

[NW_Kohaku]

which is why i said there would need to be a reward for building upwards

That doesn't respond to anything I said. 

In fact, much of what I said was that you shouldn't just assume an automatic reward for having done so.  At best, it opens up interactions with new, powerful, creatures that may or may not be hostile, and may or may not exist purely as a punishment for specific behavior. 

Again, you gain nothing for dealing with the boogeymen, and they exist purely for the reason of making players not travel out alone at night.