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[Thundercraft]

...I know people enjoy having the freedom to settle anywhere they please, but it seems rather odd that you can choose to go to places where that your civilization (or any civilization, as the case may be) isn't even aware of the existence of, let alone has access to.

But that's just it: Many players enjoy the freedom to settle (almost) anywhere. And if that was taken away, you better believe that many would complain about it.

Did Christopher Columbus know about two huge American continents thousands of miles away when he set out to discover a new trade route? And, yet, he was allowed to travel that direction and "discover" them. And now we hear this happened long after the Vikings had established settlements there and, possibly, after the Chinese had already made said discovery. Never mind that Native Americans had already immigrated to the Americas via an Ice Age land bridge.

The idea of dwarves (or any civilization) knowing something about a certain location on the opposite side of the world really isn't that far-fetched, if you think about it. The very fact that such locations are named indicates that members of some civilization had to have visited the place or heard about it from someone who has. I mean, look at how rumors are spread in Dwarf Fortress and how they can be used, already.

How would they know about the presence or lack of flux stone, clay or aquifers? Who's to say that dwarves don't send out a scouting party to prospective locations before actually embarking? Maybe they pay for information or hire mercenary prospectors?

More likely, dwarves know because they received this info from the deities they worship. In DF, deites and other supernatural beings actually exist and actually have a measurable impact on the world. Anyway, the player basically takes on the role of a deity guiding the dwarves. We don't have direct control of individual dwarves. We only guide them. Perhaps we should call it "deific omniscience"?

The real issue here is not the knowing of an exotic location far away. Rather, it is a matter of travel. That's the problem: The lack of boats. But then, this is supposed to be addressed eventually, right?

DF seems to gradually be getting slower with the introduction of more and more game complexity and more and more things for the game to keep track of. IMO, it's kind of telling that DF benefits from the move to 64-bits for the sake of more memory as some where experiencing out-of-memory issues with really lengthy world gens and huge maps.

Toady's to-do list is a mile long and will occupy him for years to come. And you want the game to keep track of which areas a particular civilization does and does not know about in order for it to restrict players from embarking at an unexplored location?

[Mesa]

Toady's to-do list is a mile long and will occupy him for years to come. And you want the game to keep track of which areas a particular civilization does and does not know about in order for it to restrict players from embarking at an unexplored location?

I'm not suggesting it's a priority, I'm well aware it isn't; Besides, this is a game that keeps track of way more minute things already, ones that are of far lower gameplay or immersion impact, except for the most narrative-oriented players. It's not the most far-fetched to expect something of that nature in a game that attempts to be as detailed of a simulation as it can.
Bottom-line, make it optional, or have a starting scenario (once those are in) that are effectively what we have now, a group of seven going into the world without any greater goal in sight set by their lords.

I know the game makes some immersion-breaking sacrifices for gameplay purposes (hell, even the way fortress mode operates is kind of wonky, if you try to explain it from an in-game perspective), and I'm fine with those being around, but I would like to see them reduced eventually, or at least integrated into the game's many systems in some meaningful organic way.Maybe I'm alone in that, though.

[DG]

You're not alone.

[PatrikLundell]

It would make *logical* sense that some embark scenarios would restrict where you can embark (a defensive outpost in the middle of an otherwise uninhabited island?), but I think the logical reason should be quite strong for the game to *restrict* you from embarking in illogical places: after all, if the players care, they can impose such restrictions upon themselves, without burdening those who don't care with restrictions they don't like.
I am in favor of additional pre embark info that facilitates players' ability to embark in appropriate places, along the line of scenario dependent shading of the map to indicate where borders/... are to help player make choices that make sense. In general, I find it is better to help players make the choices they want to make than to forbid players to do what the developers think does not make sense (but is otherwise "harmless" from a game mechanic consistency point of view, even if it harms the narrative).
If it's cheap to program you might consider embark scenario embark restrictions that the player can toggle off/on in the pre embark phase to (not)/enforce logical embark locations.

A bit too suggestiony, but I couldn't come up with a better way of explaining what I mean.

[JesterHell696]

But that's just it: Many players enjoy the freedom to settle (almost) anywhere. And if that was taken away, you better believe that many would complain about it.

And? I don't see how people complaining about it is an issue, if Toady decides to do it then that's that and whether any of us agree is largely irrelevant, Toady has said before that he would get a "real" job to support himself and dev-DF on the side if necessary, and if it was added I can see it being one of the many init options, like how aquifers are and sapper are apparently going to be so there would be no reason to complain anyway.

I fully support Toady if he wants to add features I don't want or refuses to add features I do, so long as he's motive is that it does not fit his or Three Toes vision of DF.

Did Christopher Columbus know about two huge American continents thousands of miles away when he set out to discover a new trade route? And, yet, he was allowed to travel that direction and "discover" them. And now we hear this happened long after the Vikings had established settlements there and, possibly, after the Chinese had already made said discovery. Never mind that Native Americans had already immigrated to the Americas via an Ice Age land bridge.

This is reasonable, there no reason why you can't just travel "west" and see what you find, the problem is that the player can cherry pick a site even though there would be no real way of knowing until it is discovered and scouted by that civ.

The idea of dwarves (or any civilization) knowing something about a certain location on the opposite side of the world really isn't that far-fetched, if you think about it. The very fact that such locations are named indicates that members of some civilization had to have visited the place or heard about it from someone who has. I mean, look at how rumors are spread in Dwarf Fortress and how they can be used, already.

I could be wrong but I think pre-named regions are a place holder, once myth gen is in and region can change their sphere alignment then region will have to be re-nameable, doesn't make sense to call it the swamp of ducking muck if its been turned into a fiery hellscape now does it?

How would they know about the presence or lack of flux stone, clay or aquifers? Who's to say that dwarves don't send out a scouting party to prospective locations before actually embarking? Maybe they pay for information or hire mercenary prospectors?

DF is a simulation, which mean if they do send out scouts then that must be simulated, at least on some abstract level and it is, at lest a little as when you play adventure mode on large maps you can see the bounds of your civ's known lands in the travel map, so how do you know about the areas outside of these scouted lands?

More likely, dwarves know because they received this info from the deities they worship. In DF, deites and other supernatural beings actually exist and actually have a measurable impact on the world. Anyway, the player basically takes on the role of a deity guiding the dwarves. We don't have direct control of individual dwarves. We only guide them. Perhaps we should call it "deific omniscience"?

If they get this info from the god then how? do prophets have visions? is it a ritual? if yes then whats involved in that ritual? and what about worlds without gods or magic, how do they know then?

The real issue here is not the knowing of an exotic location far away. Rather, it is a matter of travel. That's the problem: The lack of boats. But then, this is supposed to be addressed eventually, right?

That's not the "real" issue, its another issue, something else on the list to be done whenever he gets around to it.

Toady's to-do list is a mile long and will occupy him for years to come. And you want the game to keep track of which areas a particular civilization does and does not know about in order for it to restrict players from embarking at an unexplored location?

Yes I do, I also want the game to track civ boarders and enforce them though civ actions, not simply telling the player "you can't embark here" but giving them a message saying "You risk war by embarking here : warning normal siege triggers are reduced for trespassing" meaning yes you can embark next to another civ's capital but don't bitch if they siege you on month 2 because you are within their boarders, unless of course those two civs have a mutual "settlement" agreement in which they can settle within each others boarders.


NOTE: All of the above is based upon my opinion that DF is first and foremost a simulation and a game second, this means that the player can do whatever they want within the simulation but they are bound by the rules of that simulation, like only using magic in worlds in which magic exists.

[Thundercraft]

...and if it was added I can see it being one of the many init options, like how aquifers are and sapper are apparently going to be so there would be no reason to complain anyway.

If it was made as an init option, then it would not be a freedom that is taken away from players - not really. But not all game features have init options.

I could be wrong but I think pre-named regions are a place holder, once myth gen is in and region can change their sphere alignment then region will have to be re-nameable, doesn't make sense to call it the swamp of ducking muck if its been turned into a fiery hellscape now does it?

From what I've read here, sphere influence is not meant to be static. I can see local inhabitants continuing to call it "Swamp of Ducking Muck" after being turn into a hellscape, even centuries later, if that is the way it has always been known to the inhabitants, particularly if it was labeled as such on maps and in historical documents and if that's how it was named in popular stories. I can even see this happening if rumors about a distant land turned out to be false.

IRL there are examples of places that were misnamed. Iceland is more green and temperate than Greenland. And Greenland would be far more appropriately called "Land of Ice".

Anyway, I have no problem with region names being changeable. But I don't see how this disproves my idea of civilizations already knowing about distant lands through unseen or non-simulated means, such as deity interactions, rumors or explorers.

...so how do you know about the areas outside of these scouted lands?

Like I said: Imagine whatever non-simulated scenario you think fits best. Myself, I think it makes perfect sense that Dwarves know about distant lands through deities they worship, with the player taking on the role of one.

Many players eschew graphics sets or visualizers like Stonesense in favor of a plain ASCII tileset. They rely on their imagination to fill in the details. That "H" is a scary freak'n Hydra. And that "g" is an evil, ugly goblin (or walking source of goblinite). Even with a graphics set, one still has to use one's imagination for certain things and text descriptions only go so far. To play DF is to celebrate imagination.

If they get this info from the god then how? do prophets have visions? is it a ritual? if yes then whats involved in that ritual? and what about worlds without gods or magic, how do they know then?

There have been several simulation games published over the years in which the player takes on the role of a god. Populous and Black & White are just two examples. How does the deity that the player represents convey their wishes to their followers? I don't believe such games simulate that. And I really don't think players care. "It's F'n Magic" is as good an excuse as any. I think it's safe to say that most players either don't dwell on it or they use their imagination.

NOTE: All of the above is based upon my opinion that DF is first and foremost a simulation and a game second...

Is it a simulation first and a game second? Has Toady answered this question before? If not, that's a good question to ask. If being a simulation is more important than being a game, does this mean that playability is to be sacrificed for the sake of making a more realistic simulation?

[PatrikLundell]

I've heard one version regarding the naming of Greenland as an early marketing ploy. When banished from Iceland for murder (as his father had been banished from Norway) the refugee wanted more people to come with him.

When it comes to places being inappropriately named, humans have a tendency to change the landscape by cutting down forests, drying out swamps, blasting away mountains, creating dams, etc.
Natural examples of inappropriate names are places called "bay" or "island" despite being kilometers away from the nearest body of water, this being the result of land (still) rising as a result of the ice age glaciers having melted away and no longer exerting a huge downwards pressure on the ground. I would also assume a number of formerly arable locations have been swallowed by deserts over the human history. Magic as an additional such feature bending force would be another example of where a formerly appropriate name no longer is.

[ZM5]

A question I forgot to ask, inspired by some discussion on the Discord...Will there be a possibility different AI settings for creatures that modders will be able to set in the raws on an individual creature's basis?

For example, zombies and very simple-minded animals would have a setting, lets call it "mindless", so they act like they currently do, charging mindlessly without utilizing advanced tactics, concern for their own safety and not taking advantage of combat opportunities or surroundings.

On the other hand, humans, dwarves, and other intelligent humanoids would have a setting, lets call it "intelligent humanoid", so that they wouldn't mindlessly charge, instead changing up tactics depending on the opponent and taking opportunities - i.e against dragons and other firebreathers they'd spread out instead of clustering together, or against giant enemies you'd have several units grabbing onto their legs to keep the opponent distracted while others actually do damage; alternatively the melee weapon users would cluster around the giant to keep them from going anywhere and mostly staying on the defense, while the archers would keep their distance and pelt the enemy with arrows.

I understand there'd be a LOT more nuance to it (how armored the enemy/allies are, distance, possibility of picking up weapons if disarmed, wheter surrounding area has potentially deadly drops, personality of the individual creature - I can imagine an individual with high cruelty would needlessly prolong the death of their foe, whereas an individual with high bravery would be more likely to perform reckless charges against much stronger/tougher opponents even if its not to their advantage, etc.) and that it'd take a long time to actually get working to even a basic degree - I'm just wondering if its a possibility at any point in the future of the development.

[Thundercraft]

...Will there be a possibility different AI settings for creatures that modders will be able to set in the raws on an individual creature's basis?

For example, zombies and very simple-minded animals would have a setting, lets call it "mindless", so they act like they currently do, charging mindlessly without utilizing advanced tactics, concern for their own safety and not taking advantage of combat opportunities or surroundings.

IMO, that's a pretty good question. I remember when dead bodies and body parts being reanimated was still a new thing. And players were frustrated as embarking in evil biomes became suicide because zombies were not balanced well. They were not defined in the raws, though, so players had to wait patiently for an official fix.

[ZM5]

...Will there be a possibility different AI settings for creatures that modders will be able to set in the raws on an individual creature's basis?

For example, zombies and very simple-minded animals would have a setting, lets call it "mindless", so they act like they currently do, charging mindlessly without utilizing advanced tactics, concern for their own safety and not taking advantage of combat opportunities or surroundings.

IMO, that's a pretty good question. I remember when dead bodies and body parts being reanimated was still a new thing. And players were frustrated as embarking in evil biomes became suicide because zombies were not balanced well. They were not defined in the raws, though, so players had to wait patiently for an official fix.

I haven't played before zombies were introduced (I started playing in 40.xx) but I remember them being really powerful even in that version - it seems mostly fixed now since they're pretty suicidal and have terrible combat rolls (though I wish it was controlled by a token instead of tied to the effects of animation - same for the "instant companion" thing also being controlled by the animation effect instead of a token).

The AI thing could be tied to tokens as well, overriding the animated creatures default ones - since zombies aren't their own "creature" type, merely being a creature with a syndrome tacked on.

Would also be good groundwork for some new types of magic, like some kind of mind-break spell that reduces a creature's AI by one - with enough applications turning, lets say, a normal human into a simple-minded "zombie". Or doing the opposite - making an animal gain sentience.

[Mesa]

Would also be good groundwork for some new types of magic, like some kind of mind-break spell that reduces a creature's AI by one - with enough applications turning, lets say, a normal human into a simple-minded "zombie". Or doing the opposite - making an animal gain sentience.

A new explanation for the origin of animal men?

[ZM5]

Would also be good groundwork for some new types of magic, like some kind of mind-break spell that reduces a creature's AI by one - with enough applications turning, lets say, a normal human into a simple-minded "zombie". Or doing the opposite - making an animal gain sentience.

A new explanation for the origin of animal men?

Could be - some random magician in a time before written history gave a bunch of animals sentience !!FOR SCIENCE!! and let them "evolve", resulting in animal people tribes.

[FantasticDorf]

A question I forgot to ask, inspired by some discussion on the Discord...Will there be a possibility different AI settings for creatures that modders will be able to set in the raws on an individual creature's basis?

Suggestion territory really here. I guess you could rephrase it to be "have you been thinking of any more types of generic/important creature raws?". Though im curious to see if toady will reply, the ability to either write our own code or mix-match coded behaviors (this already exists with the [Crazed] raw, but something more articulate perhaps) is interesting non-the less

You could say that most of the generic humanoid behavior is emergent via the value sliders (and existing raw tags) because they will act off those accordingly, goblins with high anger and malice values argue and fight more etc, and dwarves are more motivated & feel pride in their work because of craftsmanship values.

[Shonai_Dweller]

I'd normally point out that this isn't the suggestion forum and whatever suggestions you write here will be lost to history even if it seems like a good idea, so kind of a pointless waste of time. But I guess it's a natural result of frustration caused by the combination of imminent release and late fotf so I'll just keep silent.

[Toady One]

Thanks to Shonai_Dweller, PatrikLundell, Putnam, FantasticDorf, Bumber, MrWiggles, and anybody I missed for helping to answer questions this time!

In worlds where gods/forces physically exist, would the death of a god eventually lead to rumors of their death, which itself would cause their followers to worship another god? Would priests working in temples devoted to that god change their profession upon learning of their god's death? Would temples dedicated to that god be destroyed, or would they be re-dedicated to another god?

Addind to the above: Will creatures magically linked to the deities, possibly including priests, die/commit suicide?

Ha ha, all of those things would have to be added explicitly.  Even in the current version, unless it's broken, people can come to worship megabeasts that attack the towns enough, but they really don't give a crap if the megabeast dies or even if they see it.  It's just missing stuff that needs to be handled.

I have a question about sending dwarves off-map in the next release.

Will I be able to get sieges from ANY distance? I mean, if I send out a squad to raid some goblin pits or a necro tower far away. Or steal some of their stuff. Piss em off and make them attack.

If yes, then hooray! I can just build my fort wherever I want to, and always be able to summon some !FUN!

Yeah, it makes them count as "nearby" if you mess with them, to avoid asymmetric cheating, although that means (I think) that they might attack a fort closer to them than yours from your civilization if you antagonize them, or both.

Would the secondary load areas work like fort or adventure mode, meaning: do you move inside a square or will the map load chunks around an object that moves?

Hard to say -- by default the secondary area would be like another stationary fort map, but there might be cause for it to move, and that wouldn't be too difficult (just some variables that would need to be updated).

Since I am writing a book about dwarves right now, and music has a pretty big part in it, I had to ask:

Is there any possibility of clarifying the randomly generated musical instruments? So far if I want to build or buy some instruments, I have to go through a bit painful process of reading through what each instrument is and what it does. I mean, that is fun and kinda cool, but I would like it a lot if for example there was a (wind), or (string) tag in front of the random name. Would be much quicker and clearer in my opinion.

Yeah, we're going to have to come to terms with better exposition at some point, especially if we start generating more items.  On a related note, in the next version you should be able to get at some of the paragraphs more directly in the XML dump.

With the addition of expeditions, will you be able to send squads out to civs your at war with to negotiate a treaty?

Not yet!  We'll get to diplomacy as we go.  There'll be more of it in the embark scenario release, but we'll see if that involves that specific kind of diplomatic party.

Is it the state of war itself that will cancel your siege safety triggers, or just war caused directly by player meddling (squads)? Will that status carry over into your next fortress if you play the same civ (and the war hasn't yet been resolved)?

The first might make for some Fun embarks, and not completely unfair since you are warned in advance if you're at war with anyone.

My recollection is that it is only player meddling, and that the state does not carry over.

1. In worlds with afterlives will there sometimes be ways for adventurers to return to the mortal world in some way? Maybe by possibly making a deal with a powerful entity?
2. If an adventurer gets possessed by an entity, for example a demon, if they are strong willed enough will they be able to share control of their body with the entity? Would they be able to talk with the entity and possibly be able come to a truce to share the body?

1. Those sorts of rare journeys back and forth are common enough in real-world myths, so it fits the bill.  But it's unclear what'll come into the game of course.

2. Right now we have multiple souls supported for creatures (it's just not used), and there's an "active soul" that gets to control everything.  Smearing that out on a limited basis might end up being in the cards, especially as we get into spell effects like "possession" etc.  Hard to say exactly what though.

1. While reading one of ThreeToe's old stories, I was struck by the fact that the setting of one story seemed to have a named moon (Eros, if I recall correctly). Any chance of celestial bodies eventually being given their own unique names beyond just basics like "Sun" and "Moon" in worldgen, or perhaps even being capable of generating worlds with multiple suns or moons, etc.? It would certainly add depth to the lore of individual worlds in my opinion.
2. If in adventure mode your character becomes a threat to a major civilization (for example if he/she becomes a master criminal, night creature, evil sorceror, maybe they've just killed a few too many important people with a lack of reason for such, etc.), will it eventually be possible for NPC heroes to be issued quests to destroy you? Like, let's say, one day you're just minding your own business in your necromancer tower and then suddenly BOOM: an adventuring party armed with weapons shows up at your doorstep and tries to kill you? The idea of finding yourself being the villain of someone else's story is certainly something I find intriguing.

If NPCs can go on quests now, could they be assigned a quest to kill you if you are an enemy of the civ they are in?

1. Putnam mentioned multiple moons coming up before, and it's still the idea.  There are some annoying parts that need to be handled, in terms of things that are currently hard-coded (like the little sun/moon display at the top of adv mode travel).

2. There's nothing like that at this point, though it's sort of encircled by related code now, by your own quests and also monster hunters visiting forts and more.  Not sure when it'll come to fruition.

Will it be possible for powerful magic / godly entities to appear in the world with a certain goal in mind ? For example, entity X has the ability to animate corpses like your average necromancer, has divine equipment, vulnerable to Y substances / metals... and has the goal to Rule the World, and since it is really powerful, it will actually be a world threat and invade. I realise it might not be very balanced (might lead to world being invaded and destroyed in 100 years) but then we can always re-generate worlds as we please. Could also have other goals like building the biggest city / wonder, killing a certain family (avenging spirit ?), counter another powerful entity (Entity X appears / wakes up to invade the world with an army of undead, Entity Y appears to fight it back), make a demigod child with some king / lord...
Would be really nice as it would give mature worlds a big shake, maybe destroy some part of it so in an adventure playthrough you could witness the event itself, or perhaps the aftermath where civilizations slowly rebuild...

Ha ha, PatrikLundell mentioned this is squarely in suggestion territory, and would make a fine thread over there, but I just wanted to say that, along the theme of "change", which is a big part of what the myth/magic release is to us, this sort of thing generally would fit.

- If I play a macro to place 10 thrones and 10 tables, but only have 6 thrones, the macro stops completely instead of just bypassing that step and building all the remaining tables.  Can you say offhand how difficult of a fix this would be?
- On a related note, have you considered adding a 'free build' mode for the purpose of macro recording ingame?  Just a blank canvas where digging and building are instantaneous.

I didn't write the macro code, so I really have no idea.

Somebody mentioned potential future site editing, in terms of the 'free build'.  As we approach that, we can all think of ways we might relate such a thing to the game.

(regarding dev log on drunken wandering dwarf quester)
I hope this interesting twist also means we'll get the means to give our questers more nuanced orders (should we want to avoid the interesting consequences of literally following the original (too brief) orders).

My question is, do you have any intention of adding IF/THEN/ELSE statements to the orders that you give to Artifact retrieval squads, for example

IF Owner human THEN Diplomacy ELSE Steal

Ha ha, yeah, that story raised those questions for us as well, and though we haven't done anything yet, I imagine that'll be part of a future update.  Depending on how annoying it is, sooner rather than later.

Is there a chance these parties we send may find something unexpected in their way? (ambushes by enemies or wild animals, bar fights, getting lost,  etc)

As you might imagine, having interesting and varied After Action Reports for our off-site squad journeys was an initial goal.  As you might also conclude, having watched the project for a time, we also totally ran out of time and whiffed, ha ha ha.  But we'll keep putting stuff in!

Will heroes and adventurers ever have titles related to their achievements? For example, in one adventure mode world I killed about twenty buzzards. Could there be a thing where I become MoonstoneFace the Buzzard Killer/Slayer of Birds, and could that be added to generated heroes based on their achievements?

Would be nice to see a more dynamic system that connects titles closer with reputation. That way, different parts of the world would know you by different titles, which seems to be how it works in a lot of fantasy. With an attached title only coming in when your reputation throughout the world is firmly established. We're already starting to see indications of that with 'protector of the weak' and such.

Yeah, we'd always wanted to make the titles more meaningful, but the name code doesn't currently support it.  The changes to language we are testing out with prophecies (not really noticeable in game, but the framework is growing) will hopefully come to suddenly allow all sorts of better constructions, related to in-game content and so forth.

With that awesome new devlog about the questing dwarf. In adventure mode Could I stalk an artifact quester to the dragons cave, without them noticing or maybe with a chance of being busted in the process, wait for them to retrieve it, then terminate them and get the glory for finding the artifact with no sequence breaks? Eg, can i follow them as they barhop directly and watch them walk into the cave or even see them sneak in and get the artifact?

Mostly, up until the part where they are actually supposed to pick up the thing in the cave if you follow them too closely.  Some of that is dodgy (ie, they have no meticulous local search code or whatever would be required).  If you hang back a bit, they can hit the cave more abstractly and you'd be able to rob them right afterward.  Ideally, they'd have the search code too, to complete the picture, but there just wasn't time for it.

What are the plans for crafting speeds of items? Making them more realistic would mean, for example, that good chain mail would take almost a season to make from a decent armourer. This would have quite a big impact on gameplay, not necessarily positive. Which one would you prefer in this case, realism or gameplay?

Currently the economy of dwarven forts resembles bronze age palace economies, which got me thinking: once monetary economy has been added back in and innovations affect gameplay, will the former require inventions to appear? So if you start a fort in a world where things like currency and private ownership haven't been invented yet, will the economy be like the current one where dwarves don't have personal wealth and share everything?

There's something hard lurking in there, between the fort/adv mode time differences, and what should be the overall worthlessness of your fort in the grand scheme of things.  I'm not quite sure what'll happen.  In some sense, "gameplay", whatever that means, must always win.  But it becomes a blurry concept with realism when you think of different moods you could be going for, and we vaguely slant realistic most of the time.  Adv mode is easier for me, since realistic times are easier to default to.  The fortress feels like it needs to remain a world participant, even if that involves fudging.

Ideally, the inventions/innovations would be required for a given thing to work.  Naturally there are practical problems with this, in terms of the amount of code work and sanity-checking that needs to be done for different combinations.

In adventure mode, will your character ever be able to call out a demon that's taken over a human civilization in the guise of a god (or, you know, any modded creature with the [POWER] token) as a false deity, in a similar way to how you can currently expose night creatures?

Ha ha ha, it's reasonable enough.  I'm not sure why we don't have something like that already.

I (sort of) maintain one of the more popular embark profile packs, and there's something of a mad scramble to playtest/fix them with each release (Embark points changed? Stepladders? Asexual livestock? Wooden axes?)

Are there any changes in the coming release/fixes that obviously require changes in Embark Profiles?

Hmm, I'm not sure what the typical problems are.  FantasticDorf mentioned that there'll be some new items, like display cases and pedestals.

Will we ever be able to run two fortresses at once?

PatrikLundell mentioned portals, and that might be the first feeling of it.  And yeah, as for other instances of it, I'm not sure if there'll be something specific there, or a looser civ mode, out in the distant future of the future.

Will night trolls ever come to abduct dwarves in your fortress?

I wrote a suggestion about this about the time Toady was working on the night creatures.I thought then it wouldn't be so hard as there were mechanics for abductions already.

Yeah, not so much a tech problem, but one of the mental obstacles with diving into this was not being able to go out and rescue them.  Like, of course that was there for the kidnapped children, but piling up on that feeling of helplessness was a blocker for it.  And with the new off-site squads, that's settled now!  But I'm not sure when it'll actually happen, of course.  It'll be nice to continue making world gen and in-play more homogenous, anyway.

Once the magic system gets implemented (I'm aware that's still a while coming), will players creating their own magic-powered technology for their forts be a possibility?

Like...  crystal-powered mills and stuff?  I'm not sure.  Various objects and reagents are in the myths now, some more tech-feeling than others.

1. Will animal people and randomly generated races eventually get detailed facial and physique descriptions like humans, dwarves, elves, goblins etc.
2. If not how will law enforcement track the physical descriptions of animal people criminals without being suspicious of every animal person they see?
3. Will magic that disguises what you look like be possible in some worlds?

1. Ideally, but it's more work, and there are a lot of them.
2. They might very well be suspicious of all of them.  Certain critters like crows are very hard to tell apart in real life, so we might have to embrace that at some points anyway.
3. It's in the effect lists, which means it is on the plate but not necessarily on the first pass.

Do merchants notice/care if you try to sell them artifacts that belong to their civ? Do they recognise the diplomatic intent of offering them their artifacts for free (as opposed to free barrels of prepared meals for example which may well have a higher 'value')?

Yeah, there is a special pop-up window for it, and it understands trade vs. offer (vs. seize if you grab one back).

Once the justice system finds its way into adventure mode, will it be possible for your player character to start out as a prisoner?

People mentioned some issues with actually, like, being in a cage or something.  We always imagined our opening 'prisoner' situation would be something more like Ultima Underworld, say, where you're in more of an exile environment.  The rest depends on how time passage and/or escapes work.

Will the raws of procedurally generated creatures - titans, angels, forgotten beasts, etc. - eventually interact more with the other creature raws?

I noticed demons occasionally are made out of modded materials - would it be possible then to have procedurally generated creatures that derive from other files? I.e sometimes instead of an FB thats a "cat with three eyes and a tail" you'd have a giant gorlak made out of iron with horns, or a gargantuan dwarf with chitin instead of skin, eye stalks and antennae.

It gets harder and harder to parse that sort of thing.  I'd say it's closely linked to the "centaur" problem, of mixing a human and a horse raw object properly.  If we solve that we should have various interesting interactions.  Not sure when we'll try.  Maybe not for the first myth release though.

In your talk today, you started to talk about the major difficulties that you have to overcome and concluded that skipping another 1000 years after playing for a bit (returning to worldgen) is 'pretty hard'. I certainly think you're right in that lots of people want to see this someday, but is it something you think you're going to attempt one day or by 'hard' do you mean you just can't conceive of how you might even attempt such a thing?

Nah, we might try it.  The pure dumping of all the refined post w.g. data and going back to world gen isn't the hard part, it's more choosing which data to dump and doing that gracefully or in stages (I think I might have mentioned the problem of starting a 1000 year advance and then bailing out after 5 years, which would leave a shell of your former world if the data is dumped).  Well, the pure dump isn't *easy*, some care must be taken, but having some stark button like "I commit to a 100 year advance" is certainly in the realm of not-impossible things.

Will we ever be able to name our adventuring parties, at least once they acquire enough members? Fellowship of Urist's Glorious Cheeses FTW!

Probably, since the bandits can do it with their groups right now, and there are squads, and performance troupes.  Not sure when or what.

I noticed that in the screenshots of the myth generator information pertaining to individuals of a particular race's fates, such as if they have free will, their fates are predetermined or if some other entity controls their fates. How will this translate into game play? For example if dwarves fates are predetermined to what extent is it predetermined? Are the destined to die a certain way or are their entire lives mapped out? Also how will this mesh with the player and their inevitable random actions in the event they play a member of that race in adventure mode?

The nice thing about fate is that it doesn't need to matter at all, between free-will and predetermination.  But we can work it into what kinds of spell effects are available, how they work, and so on -- so there might be "strands of fate" linked to the "Wheel of Whatever" and all that, and it might change, in practice, some future prophecy or something like luck rolls.  It's mostly flavor text, but it's also usable.  It's very hard to actually map out a future life though, and we likely won't try that beyond certain specific manageable things.

I know they're not the focus of this particular release, but how are starting scenarios going to work as far as their availability goes - say, being determined based on some factors like current history and the needs/desires of your civ and its rulers (with some 'evergreen' scenarios that you can always pick, including some kind of "freeform" scenario that is basically what we have now, a party of seven coming together to venture out into the world and found a new home for themselves, as well as other scenarios that fall into a "there's always a need for this" category, such as a mining colony or roadside tavern), or is it going to be more like Cataclysm: DDA's "starting professions" where you can just pick whatever you fancy at any point, even if it might make relatively little sense (like a military outpost...for a civ that isn't at war with anyone)?

Basically, how much depth is there meant to be wrt the starting scenarios before you pick one, if that makes sense?

I know it's probably the worst way to word this kind of question (it's basically a suggestion wrapped under a paper-thin veil of a question at this point), but I haven't really seen too many mentions of how that part of the scenarios is going to work (although I will admit I haven't done much in terms of actively looking for it, so maybe that's on me).

The idea, which admittedly is a bit far off to detail, was definitely to tie it in closely to the current state of the civilization, so that it would understand what the "point" of your fort is in the same way that it understands other new sites it makes (of course that's not involved now either, but it will be in that release).  Now, I think there's a fair concern in terms of wanting to have this or that style fortress and it just not being supported by any world civs, and perhaps something like the grayed out "not recommended" race/class combinations in some games (that you are still allowed to pick) would work.  I guess we'll figure that out closer to the time.

So, prophets and prophecies are kind of intriguing. I understand they'll all be 'fake prophets' this time around (even the ones which aren't spies) but what do you have planned for their prophecies when they're not fake? Can the game predict the future? How does that work? I know you mentioned it in a talk at gdc, but I don't think I understood it...at all...

Ha ha, yeah, it's a hard problem, but certainly a simple timed event (like the world being bathed in fire in the year 500) is easy enough to manage.  The harder part is more like conditional prophecies, or the fate of a given character hinging on this or that nebulous state.

- With a understandable risk of being targeted for 'accidents' because the player knows its a dummy profession (or least a generic concealable one) do peddlers have any specific purpose to fortress mode to dissasuade players from calling a militia onto them pre-emptively to out a suspected spy or releasing traps to arrange fatal accidents? (visitor looting is already quite popular)

- Are peddlers within worldgen as you might find wandering around more receptive to trading requests?

Ha ha, not yet.  We knew we didn't have the economy, but we did want to plant a flag on behalf of the peddler having a future role, so they are there, useless.

Since there's already people being identified by descriptions with the new made up identities do you plan to eventually have artifacts spotted somewhere described by appearance if someone doesn't really know about it? I know you've played Caves of Qud and their artifacts need to be identified, but that game obviously doesn't have all the same tracking code DF does

Yeah, we'd hoped to play around with that in the future.  The way it just gives you the name for free now is weird, and that can be spread out to apply to more than just the player (and going on a whole quest just to get the name of an artifact might be cool, or something like Gandalf's archive search to ID the ring, etc).  Not sure when, naturally!

As we'll be able to play as humans and other non-dwarven races in the future, I'd like to ask something about them. Will other races besides dwarves be able to live underground and dig as proficiently as dwarves? I don't think they should. Some big penalty to mining speed would do the trick and ensure players won't make underground fortresses with humans or whatever, and some health effect that is the opposite of cave adaptation (caused by entering underground after a long period of living above ground)  would be nice as well.

It certainly makes sense...  it probably ties into the whole discussion of how mining can be made more involved in general, in which case we'd have more conceptual levers to play with.

What would happen if you sent two separate squads out after the same artifact, one right after the other? If the first squad successfully obtained the artifact, would the second squad try to violently or stealthily take it from the first squad in order to bring it back to the fortress themselves?

As I recollect, there's a civ check that'll prevent them from becoming hostile, but I suspect they would follow the other squad back with some interest (ie, like glue).  Wouldn't commit to that w/out a test of course.

So I found out you could make adventure mode sites in caverns. Is it possible that when they are linked with civs in the upcoming update (if I am understanding things correctly, that's on the list of changes), you could make an underground tavern that people will visit?

On another note, would visitors petition for residency in an adventurer-built site?

Ha ha, I really have no idea.  Seems more and more likely as we get the links properly formed that things'll pop in automatically.  On petitions, on the other hand, those are fortress-mode specific right now.

If we'll eventually be able to control any civilization, does that mean the game might be renamed once dwarves are no longer the central focus? Not that I have a problem at all with the current name, just something I'm curious about.

Ha ha, I doubt we should rename it now.  We have tried to make sure that "Dwarf" isn't hard-coded very many places, to make mods feel full, and I thought at one point that might include the title at the top during play.

With mythgen (and beyond) what do you see happening with the concept of 'natural enemies'?
Right now, at year 0, everyone hates goblins because they snatch babies and kobolds because they're thieves. Tags make it true for all time. Is that going to be more defined and mixed up during mythgen (dwarves hate humans naturally because in a time before time humans were created after their god betrayed the dwarven gods, etc)? Or are you thinking of phasing out tag-dictated natural enemies altogether and leaving it all to history (dwarf civ 1 and goblin civ 3 have been strong allies ever since a goblin adventurer recovered the dwarf civ 1's artifacts from a bunch of elves in the year 24. Dwarf civ 3 have never forgiven human civ 2 for the sacking of their capital in the year 4, etc).

There's a part of that that's tied up in ethics tags, rather than "snatcher", I think, though I don't precisely recall, and ethics tags are going to weaken over time as strict raw elements as new systems appear (eg laws/customs/status).  And stuff like "snatcher"...  well, those too.  Those shouldn't exist, really, outside of something more like a better customs frameworks.  I don't mind the idea of myths setting up very strong issues between critters, even kill-on-sight stuff, though of course what goes in is anybody's guess, and it's more interesting if those initial issues can get bent oftentimes in the course of history.

Will we, as fortress overseers, be able to arbitrate the arrest of fortress visitors (with or without diplomatic penalties with whoever they're associated with), now that the risk of a siege worth of party-goers accumulating in the pub is now very real?

For future versions:
How conscious of transformative conditions do you think society ingame should be? For instance, would anyone attempt to perform experiments, inquisitions, worship, or otherwise hold study topics about werewolfism or some other manner of syndrome?

Do you think societal interactions with conditions like these should be handled heuristically (takes social values of race and compares them to the effects of the syndrome/transformation in question) or dictatively (Specific tags in syndrome and/or civ/value system raws that allow one to directly set how a community generated from those raws would likely respond to the condition)?

Haven't done anything with this yet, and not really sure how much that'll come up until we understand the justice system a bit better.

We had a bit on the dev page about, say, a holy order that would be able to help you hunt night creatures or something.  Linking the current knowledge system used by scholars in with the fantasy facts of the world is sort of a myth release goal, along the lines of "magical research" but not necessarily restricted to that.

Tagless heuristics are best if you can get them to work in a way that doesn't step on common sense or moddability.  Not sure what we'll end up with, especially when that's all mashed into myth gen (which has a much more mushy quality to it, and a sort of cascading relationship with mods and parameters).

Will artifact weapons and armour be used in martial pursuits?

Will named food items be eaten?

And can artifact weapons and armours can be taken from corpses after a battle ?

People can carry their treasures, and this'll be especially true of weapons/shields/etc. given names during world gen, but it doesn't specifically try to set anything up now either.  Dunno if there's named food, unless that's a bug.

There is corpse raiding for artifacts, though I never observed it in-play for dwarf squads.  Have seen it in world gen.

After this gets implemented, will players/dwarves eventually be able to pray to a deity and ask to change the sphere of a region to something else (such as to reflect the sphere of the deity being prayed to)?

On the "change" theme, we intend to code the new region states as changeable.  Haven't really committed to specific mechanisms though.

Kind of an odd question, but will there eventually be an option to have creature names remain untranslated - and also in that case, have a chance for the second word of their last name to be omitted?

I.e instead of Kogan Oddomzangin (would normally mean Cloistercreek) it'd just be shortened to Kogan Oddom, remaining untranslated when speaking to the dwarf.

I often use the word sets I generate for DF with external applications for settings and characters I write - it'd be a neat feature immersion-wise; it may be personal preference but I notice the names would roll of the tongue better
if they were left untranslated and kept to only single words for the name and last name.

I'm open to suggestions for various options, although there's some inertia in the code pushing against a really easy change here.  It's almost random now whether it chooses to show an untranslated, translated or both names in a given context.

Will there ever be limits with regards to areas in which you can embark, beyond the obvious "literally can't embark here because it's the middle of the damn sea"? I know people enjoy having the freedom to settle anywhere they please, but it seems rather odd that you can choose to go to places where that your civilization (or any civilization, as the case may be) isn't even aware of the existence of, let alone has access to.

There's the whole exploration section of the dev page, where it's sort of assumed there's partial maps and all that sort of thing.  Of course, people like their cool hard-to-find embarks and so on, so we'd be careful with it, but a sort of default might be that you can strike out a little beyond the known lands, or more ambitiously we'd dive into one of those Oregon-trailesque suggestions of having your party actually go out from a fortress in a sort of pre-fort mode where you could strike out as far as you can for whatever reason, perhaps running into trouble along the way.

A question I forgot to ask, inspired by some discussion on the Discord...Will there be a possibility different AI settings for creatures that modders will be able to set in the raws on an individual creature's basis?

For example, zombies and very simple-minded animals would have a setting, lets call it "mindless", so they act like they currently do, charging mindlessly without utilizing advanced tactics, concern for their own safety and not taking advantage of combat opportunities or surroundings.

On the other hand, humans, dwarves, and other intelligent humanoids would have a setting, lets call it "intelligent humanoid", so that they wouldn't mindlessly charge, instead changing up tactics depending on the opponent and taking opportunities - i.e against dragons and other firebreathers they'd spread out instead of clustering together, or against giant enemies you'd have several units grabbing onto their legs to keep the opponent distracted while others actually do damage; alternatively the melee weapon users would cluster around the giant to keep them from going anywhere and mostly staying on the defense, while the archers would keep their distance and pelt the enemy with arrows.

I understand there'd be a LOT more nuance to it (how armored the enemy/allies are, distance, possibility of picking up weapons if disarmed, wheter surrounding area has potentially deadly drops, personality of the individual creature - I can imagine an individual with high cruelty would needlessly prolong the death of their foe, whereas an individual with high bravery would be more likely to perform reckless charges against much stronger/tougher opponents even if its not to their advantage, etc.) and that it'd take a long time to actually get working to even a basic degree - I'm just wondering if its a possibility at any point in the future of the development.

There's a sense in which this is already the case -- that is, scared people run away, and zombies don't, and there are a few distinctions elsewhere, peppered throughout various decisions.  As we add more stuff as we go, it'll apply to proper things, as combat continues to be expanded.  That doesn't relate specifically to modding yet, since we haven't had much to work with, but as a simple case I certainly see a future where there are things like pack hunting vs. ambush hunting (that's already vaguely in there in some broken spiderish cases or spawn number type things, but I mean, more correctly), and then on from there.