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[Taffer]

It's been a long slog but I've finally finished most of what I wanted to do with the descriptions. There's still a final editing pass just to make any last fixes to grammar and I want to make sure flying humanoids are described as unnaturally light and thin, but once that's all done I intend to move on. The description-specific portions of my todo list are (mostly) complete.

After I'll be aiming at getting a stable release out the door quickly without getting carried away. There's not actually that long a todo list for Revised in general; the tedious description writing and rewriting has occupied almost all my time and attention for this project, and soon I can finally move on. In the time it takes me to do one "editing round" of the descriptions I could have looked in 3 or 4 other mods for features to bring in (with permission), and that's being conservative.

Any feedback on where Revised in general should head would be appreciated.

[Eligiblefoot]

Hey I love your mods but I'm not really a big fan of the language changes. So I use the default ones, but for some reason when using the Bitlands tileset, my game crashes if I try to design a new world with advance parameters. If I use your language files, it works fine. I'm not sure what the reason is. I have replaced language files before with no problems before.

[Naryar]

So this is sort the continuation of Button's Modest Mod ? Color me interested. Loved the original work, gonna put that in my RAWs. I tried to remove the scratch attacks from my dwarves by removing the nail tissues, but they still do scratch.

If I see any weird bugs, I'll mention them.

[no_way]

Eligiblefoot,

Are you sure that it is connected to the Bitlands tileset? I've also reverted the language changes from the mod for myself, and had similar crashes. I've found that entity_default.txt must also be edited. There is a [CULL_SYMBOL:ALL:OBSCENE] line for every civilization, and after removing those lines I was able to generate worlds again.

Regards,
way

[Eligiblefoot]

Eligiblefoot,

Are you sure that it is connected to the Bitlands tileset? I've also reverted the language changes from the mod for myself, and had similar crashes. I've found that entity_default.txt must also be edited. There is a [CULL_SYMBOL:ALL:OBSCENE] line for every civilization, and after removing those lines I was able to generate worlds again.

Regards,
way

Ah thank you. You are right. It is not related to Bitlands itself.

[Taffer]

Hey I love your mods but I'm not really a big fan of the language changes. So I use the default ones, but for some reason when using the Bitlands tileset, my game crashes if I try to design a new world with advance parameters. If I use your language files, it works fine. I'm not sure what the reason is. I have replaced language files before with no problems before.

Sorry, I'm a little attached to the language changes. I'm happy you sorted out how to remove them.

So this is sort the continuation of Button's Modest Mod ? Color me interested.

No (sorry). Well, yes and no. Technically the Modest Mod was where I started, but I don't have the same design goals as the Modest Mod. I want to change things, not just collect bug fixes. I've ignored many little fixes that I felt weren't necessary. I'm a minimalist, so I still end up sticking closely to vanilla, but I don't want people to get the idea that there'll never be any flavour changes or gameplay additions. I already was updating the Modest Mod unofficially, and I renamed it to do my own thing. Hopefully you're still interested!
 

Loved the original work, gonna put that in my RAWs. I tried to remove the scratch attacks from my dwarves by removing the nail tissues, but they still do scratch.

If I see any weird bugs, I'll mention them.

Please feel free to report any bugs, typos in the descriptions, or request features. Thank you!

Eligiblefoot,

...

Thank you for helping!

[Taffer]

I'm hoping to finally get the next release soonish. I don't intend to be in development forever. Once I'm finally content with the descriptions (my next release, probably) I have a bit of a todo list and then I'm going to consider it done. I'll update it for new DF releases, probably still poke the descriptions sometimes, and maybe still update it when the mood strikes, but I want things to be fairly stable and I want to actually be able to play the game. My goal is to spend most of Toady's BIG WAIT without an update (maybe a new module though) so that people can just play and enjoy it.

I don't know what the current status of Revised is in Meph's Tileset, but my next release is probably a good time to update things. The descriptions are the biggest source of churn by far (unless people are trying to hand-merge the language files) and I don't expect future releases to be as hard to merge. The comments were the other big source of diff churn and I'm trying to avoid changing those now unless they're inaccurate.

[Sver]

It appears that using ":" in a description cuts it off there and then, as can be seen in the human description. You've probably noticed it already, but I just wanted to let you know.

[Taffer]

It appears that using ":" in a description cuts it off there and then, as can be seen in the human description. You've probably noticed it already, but I just wanted to let you know.

Crap. Thank you for the report! I've fixed it. The descriptions don't (usually) need in-game testing and I've been working on them for so long that it's been a while since I needed to test anything.

[Taffer]

Dwarf Fortress Revised v2.1.0 is finally released! Here's the full changelog. Thank you for your patience, everybody! This represents a lot of work, despite the short changelog below.

* Bird people don't have back-wings anymore, their arms and their wings are the same. This is more consistent with player expectations and artwork. Armor should never cover the wings due to some internal limb shenanigans, because armored wings shouldn't be flightworthy. More information here. While I'm at it, I at least tried to include a bit about "unusually light bodies" for all flying humanoids. I want to go further and actually make them unnaturally thin, but that's probably better done in the RAWs than in the description tag.
* More importantly, the descriptions are finally finished. Probably. Writing is never finished, just abandoned; I think they're in a good enough place for me to stop obsessing over them. I've tried to compromise in regards to the nudity, and I've brought all of the descriptions closer to the vanilla descriptions, particularly in regards to animal people and giant variations. Some more information is here, although I changed my mind about the word 'primitive'.
* GoblinCookie's Expanded Dictionary has been updated to v0.2.

In case my note to Meph was missed above: I'm hoping that the next few releases will have a comparably small amount of line-by-line changes, so this might be a good release for anyone to re-base off of.

Please continue to let me know if there are bugs or if you have suggestions, including for the descriptions.

I don't know when the next release will come, but I work a lot faster on gameplay changes than I do on rewriting things. I could also definitely use some volunteers to help test things, if I need it.

... and I'm intrigued by both the simplified clothing and the varied army compositions idea.

I'm still interested in simplified clothing but I don't remember at all what I mean by varied army compositions. I've been working on the descriptions for too long.

I'll also be giving bird people arm talons...

This wasn't done. I was in a Zelda mood and Kass was my "source material" here. It also complicates the raws unnecessarily: I'd need to keep the talon-scratch and kick change from the Modest Mod (because they use the same limb), and add a new one throughout. Too much noise.

... and I'll be contemplating removing sponge people and giant sponges from the game, because neither make sense (sponges don't move, even in DF).

This seemed like an unnecessary deviation from vanilla.

[Sver]

... and I'm intrigued by both the simplified clothing and the varied army compositions idea.

I'm still interested in simplified clothing but I don't remember at all what I mean by varied army compositions. I've been working on the descriptions for too long.

Well, now that I've got an update as a base for the next release, these two are certainly on their way

Varied army compositions is the idea I'm playtesting currently: basically, it means creating a bunch of duplicate entity files for, say, goblins, but giving each a different arrangement of weapons and armor. The problem I've always had with default-style entities is that they randomly dispense all kinds of available weapons across the invading troops, which is particularly painful to watch after I've spent so much time at making these weapons work in a certain distinct way. Varied army compositions aim to address it by creating, for instance, a type of civ that only uses pikes and crossbows, or only two-handers and plate armor, or only top-tier weapons and big shields with no armor, etc.
Obviously, the player will only get one type of civ per race as a neighbour, but since this is somewhat random, and the player can pick fights with whoever they want as of late, this doesn't seem like a problem to me.

[Taffer]

There's a poll up. Comments are welcome.

[Teneb]

There's a poll up. Comments are welcome.

While I voted for the second option, I think a better solution is to rename <Animal>man to <Animal>folk. Much like the standard fantasy Lizardfolk.

[Taffer]

While I voted for the second option, I think a better solution is to rename <Animal>man to <Animal>folk. Much like the standard fantasy Lizardfolk.

I liked this so much that I built it into the poll as part of the first option. Thanks for the suggestion! It'd be a little odd looking at a "masked lovebird folk" (singular), but it works IMO.

[Thundercraft]

Taffer, first of all, I want to express my gratitude for sharing this mod and admiration for the continued work and keeping it updated.

Something I wanted to ask about: I've noticed there are a few differences (a few features that seem missing by way of omission/mention) between the readme for v2.1.0 and v1.7.0.

• missing brackets have been added to the raws where they were missing. (Taffer)
• swan, duck, and goose bites aren't edged. Giant tortoise bites are. (Button)
• bayberry trees are tropical, not temperate. (Scam Tank)
• moon snails also live in tropical oceans. (Button)
• chitin and shells are used for crafts. (Button)
• warthogs and hippos aren't benign. (Button)
• owls sleep at night now. (Button)

Your new readme does mention "hippos and orcas aren't benign", but says nothing of warthogs.

I have a suspicion that most of these are no longer mentioned because Toady got around to fixing them. But I wanted to ask.

While I voted for the second option, I think a better solution is to rename <Animal>man to <Animal>folk. Much like the standard fantasy Lizardfolk.

I liked this so much that I built it into the poll as part of the first option. Thanks for the suggestion! It'd be a little odd looking at a "masked lovebird folk" (singular), but it works IMO.

For dilemmas on what Revised should or should not change, I think we should consider: What is the primary goal or aim of Revised? Is it to more-or-less fill the role that Modest Mod used to serve: To fix some bugs and make very minor changes that virtually nobody would object to? Is it to change things for the sake of realism, convenience or to better fit traditional fantasy tropes? Or, perhaps, is it something in between?

Of course, since this is Taffer's mod, he would have to answer that. But I would point out that more and more controversial changes would, inevitably, lead some to decide to avoid using Revised.

If the purpose of Revised is the former - to fix things and make changes that are not controversial - then I don't think a change such as this is wise. For one thing, changing the names of various things in Dwarf Fortress - particularly the names of animal people or other races - will confuse new players.

It is especially confusing or inconvenient in how such radically-altered names would not align with the names used in the official wiki. If we, for example, type in "Lizardfolk" in the search form and click, we get "There were no results matching the query." However, if we type in "Lizardman", the wiki redirects to "Reptile man" and it gives us the relevant info.

EDIT:
This push to rename animal people from using the "-man" suffix to using the "-folk" suffix is not motivated by a desire for the game to be made more PC... is it...?