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[Bumber]

Those fruit and berry eating birds are horrible, torturing those poor plants and fruits like that.

Warning! Graphic depictions of bird on fruit violence!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgAlnVtKbPQ

Won't somebody please save the unborn tree children?

[Asin]

Elves, the lot of you!

[FantasticDorf]

The canon seems to be that elven "grown" items do not harm the plant in any way, similar to a fruit that dropped off of its own volition.  Now, the fact that it was magically manipulated to form a wooden breastplate, and probably would not have dropped had the elves left it alone, requires a bit of cognitive dissonance.

Im just here thinking wouldn't playing as a elf fortress require production wise to actually either be a master terrain builder (because like in synch with nature you need to also encourage nature to work around you as much as you work around it) and/or functionally as a product require something along the lines of 'weaving' dead branches, rummaging ground stones.

Without actually planting trees/crops & grasses/using natural resources in a narrative driven way elven gameplay would be veeeeeeeery boring and linear, though people have modded around it to have certain reactions just make ethical grown wood spontaneously on a time loop. How are you supposed to realistically terraform a un-livable place (say a evil forest) or bizarre embark player fortress enviroments without tools & supplies? For even elves would need some stockpiles of plants to not only survive (fasioned inside grown barrels) but to propgate helping nature to grow

'Driven by desperation as the deathly cold nights began to set in, permeating their feeble featherwood tunics, the elves of the evil glacier embark known as "The howling moon" in a desperate act, murdered in cold blood their musk ox to huddle up inside its warm corpse while the storm rages, many animals die in the frost yet the yeti's, the only good thing to come out of this trip are drawn in by the stench of death and are quickly assimilated by the fair-folk. The lingering re-animated corpses are soon reduced to bones in violent conflict as the yeti's continue their feast coming in from miles away in droves.

Knowing they surely face exile for such a act and inflicted with horrible psychotic guilt, under direction of the shaman the yeti's have been co-operative in raiding local dwarven caravans to sift through their abhorrent supplies. Clinging on the edge of madness the elves do not care, drunk on the last of what little wine they can lick off the ice laden cups they heave the heavy metal tools & proceed. As the cold overworld quickly dissapears while they begin a maddening descent that feels unnatural if not hypocritical to find the dwarves that dwell in the deepest depths for asylum they feel the cool blood as the rough edges of the laborious dwarven inventions cut into their unblemished hands like a thousand splinters given by the nature spirit from tainted goods, yet proceed. They can't help but feel their chins itch, as if unnaturally as a few loose course hairs breach the surface.

To their suprise eventually they find a immense mushroom forest teeming with life, with tears of joy they hit their knees before they are quickly eviscerated by a enormous rythmically undulating tarantula with a blade like tail that has been lying in wait for the source of the distubance, they commit a prayer that life pursues even in such a desolate place.'

Question for Toady - Given that the next current few arcs are mostly entity/unit based, has there been any more inward developmental discussion about additional improvements to the natural world? Iterating some of the dev goals for a forseeable point which point towards soil properties/fertility etc.

[Migrant]

As far as I can tell no one had more information so I will ask Toady, invoking the ancient, lime green magicks required to do so.

 I am very interested in the 'debugging mode' you mentioned a while back (see the quote for context if it is needed) because I feel a spectator mode would be an ideal extension to Legends Mode. Would you care to elaborate on your debugging mode and would it be feasible to give the players access to this mode?

Aside Adventurer and Fortress modes, do you envision having any other modes to play the game in? Or would future additions just vary the content of those two? (playing as a monster in adventure, building a town in fortress) Asking very much in the 'what I think now' sense.

We had a bunch of ideas on the old dev page, but I'm not sure that's the way things are going.  Old items like "play a monster!" seem now like just tweaking how elephant man adventurers are regarded by others.  There could be some things in the more distant future that don't quite fit the current two paradigms, like playing a deity, but even that could just be seen as some amped up form of adv/dwf mode (like playing a powerful wizard).  I have a world debugging mode which is vaguely like being an observer-only deity, and something like that could eventually be incorporated, or be merged with an editor mode.

But for something like starting a new specific game mode where the title screen would say "Dwarf Fortress"/"Human Town"/"Adventurer"...  perhaps that isn't in the cards so much now?  The specific ordered events which made the early dwarf mode "dwarf mode" are something the game is leaning away from (stuff like autumn caravans and timed invasions and barony triggers), and we're going to see some new ways of thinking when the embark scenarios come up.  It might be possible that some severe blending happens at that point, especially as the game starts to appreciate more and more the realities of worldgen, like there being human populations at dwarven hillocks and all that.  "Human town" mode might creep up on us that way -- we've already seen it with the goblin monarchs you occasionally get, and the new tavern visitors/residents.  In the end the modes might just end up being "playing a site" and "playing a historical figure" -- the only real new mode we'd need there would be a civ-wide one, perhaps, though that could still be pretty easily centered around a capital or leader if one exists.  You can start to think of other edge cases from there.

[Silverybearded]

Are there plans to implement special holidays for the dwarves? For instance, since all deaths of old age occur on 1st of Granite, could the dwarves do a farewell ceremony on the day before for those damn quitters lucky few? Or, maybe, celebrate the founding of the fortress?
And, for that matter, do you think there could be non-celebratory rituals as well, such as when a new mayor is elected, the dwarves gather to cast their vote, or if someone is convicted of a crime, the execution just punishment becomes a public spectacle?

[FantasticDorf]

Are there plans to implement special holidays for the dwarves? For instance, since all deaths of old age occur on 1st of Granite, could the dwarves do a farewell ceremony on the day before for those damn quitters lucky few? Or, maybe, celebrate the founding of the fortress?
And, for that matter, do you think there could be non-celebratory rituals as well, such as when a new mayor is elected, the dwarves gather to cast their vote, or if someone is convicted of a crime, the execution just punishment becomes a public spectacle?

Celebrations do happen in worldgen but they aren't just represented in fortressmode or really adventure mode. Dwarves like wrestling & traditional olympic like events and competitions, while other races have more festivity driven things (goblins ritually dress up in mask and parade a bit like Mexico's "day of the dead" or halloween every so many times in a couple of years)

What you're referring to is more, emergent celebrations that appear over time. Not all dwarves die precisely on the first of granite, contrary to popular belief as some die a few days and a few years off that mark. Its more of a suggestion than a question.

[Silverybearded]

[...]contrary to popular belief as some die a few days and a few years off that mark.

I'm sorry, how can you die several years after the 1st of Granite?

[FantasticDorf]

[...]contrary to popular belief as some die a few days and a few years off that mark.

I'm sorry, how can you die several years after the 1st of Granite?

I don't know. Yoga? Dwarves aren't lemmings.

The age until they die isn't strict like i said, a few days or even years give or take off the mark.

[Bumber]

[...]contrary to popular belief as some die a few days and a few years off that mark.

I'm sorry, how can you die several years after the 1st of Granite?

Time dilation? Refusing to turn the page on the calendar?

[Max™]

Slade is dense enough that there might be visible redshift/blueshift from looking up/down near it, as well as gravitational lensing as I recall, wait, was it like neutron star material, or was it merely solar core densities? Either way it would induce a good amount of time dilation for those who spent more time down near it, quite a bit more than the fractions of a second difference between the surface here and orbit.

Oh!
Recently while poking around with dfhack I noticed the option to make myself or others a tavern keeper or monster slayer occupation, I tried to make sure it was all linked properly in other locations but can't be sure if I did.

Is there any behavior/response/conversation option in adventurer mode for being/encountering a monster slayer? Being a tavern keeper in a tavern results in people shouting out orders and responding normally there, but I'm not sure where any monster slayer responses would crop up.

[Putnam]

[...]contrary to popular belief as some die a few days and a few years off that mark.

I'm sorry, how can you die several years after the 1st of Granite?

I don't know. Yoga? Dwarves aren't lemmings.

The age until they die isn't strict like i said, a few days or even years give or take off the mark.

No, unit.relations.old_year and unit.relations.old_time give the exact moment of death by old age for that particular unit down to the tick. It shouldn't be happening on 1st granite, I don't think...

[PatrikLundell]

[...]contrary to popular belief as some die a few days and a few years off that mark.

I'm sorry, how can you die several years after the 1st of Granite?

I don't know. Yoga? Dwarves aren't lemmings.

The age until they die isn't strict like i said, a few days or even years give or take off the mark.

No, unit.relations.old_year and unit.relations.old_time give the exact moment of death by old age for that particular unit down to the tick. It shouldn't be happening on 1st granite, I don't think...

My experience is that there's an old age die-off at the turn of the year, and I've never seen it at any other time (a 0.40.X version had migrants that were dying of old age in just a few years, and I'm still seeing animal death at that time but no other). However, a possible implementation of death by old age is to specify it down to the tick, but only check it at the turn of the year (in which case units might survive their expected time of death by up to 12 months).
I guess it's something that ought to be investigated.

[ZM5]

I have 3 questions.

The first one has probably been asked before, but will there eventually be legendary/folklore figures generated as well? Something in the vein of King Arthur or Robin Hood, where their existence is disputed and so on.
I'd guess in some worlds they could potentially be actual historical figures (though of course it'd be random as to which parts of the legend would be true, embellishments of the truth or merely made-up events) and in others they'd simply be subjects of legends and works of art.

This could be useful for modding as a replacement for deities and the like - so instead of worshipping deities, some races would revere and look up to the heroes of their legends.

Second question more related to modding: will there be a possibility of being able to mod in set historical figures that always appear in every generated world? As in, they'd always have the same name, race, and description - essentially they'd be constants in the same way as megabeasts and the like are.

Lastly, do you intend to have values affect societal structures in civilizations, as well as their behaviour? For instance, a civilization which values knowledge would be more neutral and send out more scholars and explorers into the world, and their people would give out more quests to get books in adventure mode; whereas a civ that values martial prowess would possibly have a warrior-king/queen with an artifact weapon and legendary combat skills, and a way to gain their respect and/or friendship would be to slay various beasts around the world and bring back parts of their bodies - skulls, hands, etc. - as proof.

[Dirst]

The first one has probably been asked before, but will there eventually be legendary/folklore figures generated as well? Something in the vein of King Arthur or Robin Hood, where their existence is disputed and so on.
I'd guess in some worlds they could potentially be actual historical figures (though of course it'd be random as to which parts of the legend would be true, embellishments of the truth or merely made-up events) and in others they'd simply be subjects of legends and works of art.

"Ha Ha! You can't kill me.  I have a [DOES_NOT_EXIST] tag!"

[Fleeting Frames]

@ZM5: You can mod in things like shapes and associations by language raw editing. I think something like that was done for Cacame.