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[mscottveach]

I've been thinking a bit lately about makes DF more compelling than one might expect. And it's led me to be
curious about two things:

1. Has Tarn talked much about the algorithms he uses for language construction? I can't quite put my finger on
it but the number of delightful language constructions that occur in this game is shockingly high. How did he brew that? Is
that his and his brother's language taste just getting packaged for us.. or did he stumble on to a grammar that
works surprisingly well. How often does he tweak it?

2. And that leads into my second question. It seems like a huge amount of what makes DF fun is that it's just
complex enough and that entities collide in unpredictable collisions. And while we know how some of the systems
work, we're in the dark enough to be surprised and/or potentially delighted when some novel behavior explodes
out of a unexpected collision. The key to this working is that we can't just check a wiki and know how every system
is designed. My question is: do the developers explicitly keep the system mechanics secret? Or do they offer them ad
hoc if asked? If the former, have they ever talked about how they decided what to reveal and what to keep secret?
Curilous if they've ever regretted revealing something.

[PatrikLundell]

There's a thread for this kind of questions, Future of the Fortress (FotF), http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=159164.0 where forumites ask questions to Toady (as well as answer/discuss questions). At the start of the month Toady posts answers to the questions asked during the last month. As a convention, questions to Toady are painted in lime green for easy identification.

[They Got Leader]

1) As a linguist, I do not believe that it would be very hard to simulate language, especially in the context that I have seen in my Dwarf Fortress years. There is a file in your game which acts as an index, which can be seen here ^{[DF wiki]}. You can go ahead and edit the languages as you see fit.

As for the algorithm, by the looks of it, I think that fortress names and group names are a series of strings that you give meaning to. The computer just picks bits and pieces and assembles them together. Or are you referencing something specific? (More on algorithms below)

2) What you are witnessing here is called emergent game play ^wikipedia. The idea is that the game runs algorithms upon algorithms to produce a lifelike simulation. Everything is made by statistical chance, and through the RAWS ^{DF wiki}. These RAWS are the building blocks that the generational algorithms use. Then, the rest is purely "magic" because it all functions together, or shows a semblance of functioning (there are gaps, and we all see and know them. But we accept that they are there). The algorithm for world creation is explained here ^aigamedev, and you can find more information on it through Google searching.

Several things you must understand about Toady is that, last time I checked, he is a genius-level mathematician who loves stories. Writing and creating these things is not hard for him. He also stated once that the source code for Dwarf Fortress is not public because he fears someone using it to create a spinoff that would inevitably ruin Dwarf Fortress. That being said, if you post questions and are truly curious, I bet that between his/his brothers responses or the help of the forums, you could find some form of an answer.

[mscottveach]

1) As a linguist, I do not believe that it would be very hard to simulate language, especially in the context that I have seen in my Dwarf Fortress years. There is a file in your game which acts as an index, which can be seen here ^{[DF wiki]}. You can go ahead and edit the languages as you see fit.

2) What you are witnessing here is called emergent game play ^wikipedia.

Hmm, yes, I guess I didn't qualify my questtion/comment correctly. I'm a TV writer but once upon a time I got a CS PhD -- I'm no linguist but i have some experience in NLP and related fields. Which is to say that I've seen a lot of machine constructed language. I was remarking that there's something special about what DF does that I can't quite put my finger on... it's better than anything else I can think of except some of the very new cutting edge stuff coming out of Fei Fei Liu's lab.  I would imagine that as a linguist maybe you could see what it is... it's some kind of expertise that the designers have encoded... some intuition they have about which words to include and what kind of grammar to use.

Like it's not even remotely close to the only procedurally generasted naming system but the names it generates. They're so rich that they beg you to start building a story around them. The magic here isn't technicasl (I don't think).. it's poetry. It's some kind of understanding about what words do what things when...

It's weird, I remember listening to one of the podcasts they used to dp and someone was commenting on how well his pathing system worked and they wanted to know what his trick was..and i had noticed it myself... it does work well... and he was like "iuhhhh, it's just A*... and I think.I put in a tweak or two that I can't remember.. but really it's A* and I remember thinking that those tweaks might be more impressive than he realizes. I have a feeling he just cobbled together a straight-forward grammar and didn't realize that there's something about his touch that makes it different.

@PatrikLundell Thanks. I know about the thread. I guess I was more interested in what has been said in the past but even more interested in what thoughts other players had about these aspects of the game.

[They Got Leader]

I do not know if he has a special way of writing his grammar that I have noticed. The sentences are extremely simple as far as I can tell. They tend to be "URIST is BEARDED", and he keeps adding adjectives. Once again, what specific thing are you noticing, or are you commenting about the overall image? That is part of the beauty: we start with something simple, and them our mind makes a gestalt out of it. We see the image as something greater than it is, and so we create a story with the information given.

On that note: I have no honest idea what his pathfinding or algorithms are. It looks like an A* with a tweak (however, if you watch, you can find patterns, like how all dwarves like to build in certain areas over others first, or which side they choose when building). Once again, he is a math genius, so it is probably something that he made.

[steel jackal]

there was a thread a while back that was doing !!SCIENCE!! about fur color in animals and if the parents passed their color to the children.
the post had a quote from today saying that he himself didnt know how fur colors worked.

so either A: he programmed it a long time ago, forgot, and he is one of those people who dont comment in their code.
or B: the way he coded the creatures involves a lot of witchcraft that he just dosnt understand.

what im saying is that he probably has no idea how most of the games older mechanics work.


also last time i checked DF just smashes random words together with a RNG and calls it a language


EDIT: nvm im just now remembering about books, i dont understand libraries so i dont see books too often

[Sanctume]

From what I understand, Toady created the building blocks, and so the results are mostly unique because of the large combinations / permutation from all the build blocks involve in creating that story.

[mscottveach]

Once again, what specific thing are you noticing, or are you commenting about the overall image? That is part of the beauty: we start with something simple, and them our mind makes a gestalt out of it. We see the image as something greater than it is, and so we create a story with the information given.

I'll pay attention more and start logging some. Even right now, I'm suddenly realizing that part of what I am reacting to is the unique style of compound word he creates. "Boatmurdered" and "Battlefailed" -- that simple word smashing has just the right dictionary to make for some v compelling words. But it's more than just that. I'll pay more attention and maybe come back!

[Sanctume]

In the embark screen, where you can choose Fortress Name, or Group Name, there is a (r)andom where you can generate simple compound words. 

What is even better is looking over Legends and you see all kinds of "compounds of compounds compounds" stuff just from name of locations and historical figure titles.

[DeKaFu]

It's human nature to be really good at reading meaning where there is none, and I think DF's name system often brings things just far enough that it's easy for us as players to do the rest and fill in that meaning. It's one of the things I really love about it.

I recently had a hammerdwarf singlehandedly kill a dragon that was devastating the area around my fortress, and he immediately bestowed a name on his silver hammer: "Wardnut the Warrior-Dominion of Tin". It's nonsense, but it somehow still feels like an appropriate name for a dragon-slaying hammer used to protect an entire settlement.

One of my first fortresses was overrun and utterly destroyed by a pair of hippos. They attacked one after the other, and between them managed to dismember something like 80 dwarves by biting their limbs and ripping them off. The game chose to name the pair of nightmare beasts "Nastymeal" and "Perfectfeast".

I played that fort 8 years ago. Would I still remember it so clearly if not for that extra touch of storytelling the game provided? Probably not.

[Urlance Woolsbane]

It's human nature to be really good at reading meaning where there is none, and I think DF's name system often brings things just far enough that it's easy for us as players to do the rest and fill in that meaning. It's one of the things I really love about it.

I recently had a hammerdwarf singlehandedly kill a dragon that was devastating the area around my fortress, and he immediately bestowed a name on his silver hammer: "Wardnut the Warrior-Dominion of Tin". It's nonsense, but it somehow still feels like an appropriate name for a dragon-slaying hammer used to protect an entire settlement.

One of my first fortresses was overrun and utterly destroyed by a pair of hippos. They attacked one after the other, and between them managed to dismember something like 80 dwarves by biting their limbs and ripping them off. The game chose to name the pair of nightmare beasts "Nastymeal" and "Perfectfeast".

I played that fort 8 years ago. Would I still remember it so clearly if not for that extra touch of storytelling the game provided? Probably not.

Speaking of titles, there seems to be some rhyme or reason to them, at least when it comes to demons. I recall them getting conspicuously nasty names like "Gristlypukes."

[Tawa]

Some things have their titles drawn from a list of words. I've found demons usually get names like that, as do evil biomes; good biomes in my experience don't seem to get "gumdrops and rainbows" names with the same frequency that evil biomes get blood-and-thunder ones, but good biomes never seem to get said blood-and-thunder names; also, wars tend to get combat-related names (leading to low-level nonsense like "the violent battle",) and worlds always get grandiose names like "The Dimension of Mist" or "The Eternal Realms". Most everything else, as far as I can tell, is saddled with relatively random names.

[NullForceOmega]

There is a series of tags that help determine how things are named, they divide the language files into various categories such as: good, evil, violent, etc.

These are then 'weighted' through the RAWS, for example:

Code: [Select]

[SELECT_SYMBOL:WAR:NAME_WAR]
[SUBSELECT_SYMBOL:WAR:VIOLENT]
[SELECT_SYMBOL:BATTLE:NAME_BATTLE]
[SUBSELECT_SYMBOL:BATTLE:VIOLENT]
[SELECT_SYMBOL:SIEGE:NAME_SIEGE]
[SUBSELECT_SYMBOL:SIEGE:VIOLENT]
[SELECT_SYMBOL:ROAD:NAME_ROAD]
[SELECT_SYMBOL:TUNNEL:NAME_TUNNEL]
[SELECT_SYMBOL:BRIDGE:NAME_BRIDGE]
[SELECT_SYMBOL:WALL:NAME_WALL]
[SELECT_SYMBOL:REMAINING:ARTIFICE]
[SELECT_SYMBOL:REMAINING:EARTH]
[CULL_SYMBOL:ALL:DOMESTIC]
[CULL_SYMBOL:ALL:SUBORDINATE]
[CULL_SYMBOL:ALL:EVIL]
[CULL_SYMBOL:ALL:UNTOWARD]
[CULL_SYMBOL:ALL:FLOWERY]
[CULL_SYMBOL:ALL:NEGATIVE]
[CULL_SYMBOL:ALL:UGLY]
[CULL_SYMBOL:ALL:NEGATOR]
Are the tags in the Dwarf entity that controls naming of everything dwarven.

[Goatmaan]

Id just like to throw in that if you run a large enough fort you will find dwarf first names sorely lack variety.
I've got 8 named Urist, and last time I checked only 1 with a unique name...Dumed.

  Goatmaan

[DeCervantes]

I am doing a PhD in neurobiology and a term that comes up when studying brains is "emergent properties". I basically is some kind of sinergy, when certain properties arise not because of a specific factor but because of the different parts working together. This is something that comes up on dwarf fortress, where the complex code sometimes does hilariously amazing things just because of unexpected interactions.