How many more things need to be done before dwarf fortress can be released on steam?
A lot more than there's time for. As far as I understand, there's a contractual obligation to release it before a deadline (approaching fast, at a rate of one day per day), with Toady having made the unusual move of mentioning a release before the end of the year, and a huge table filled with stuff that ought to be done. The result will be the usual for DF (and SW in general): as the time runs out things will have to be cut at an accelerating pace.
Things to do:
- Tile sets and support for it (multiple grids, etc.). The initial phase is done, but the artists will have their hands full, and I'd expect Toady to have to make adjustments as issues are encountered (and display of clothing hasn't been shown, so it may or may not be in progress).
- UI revamp (current main focus).
- UI issues to make things more logical, with ties to the top layer of underlying functionality (key remapping, mouse support, plus underlying stuff where stockpiles and the army screen has been mentioned, but there is a large queue of candidates behind these two).
- Newbie friendliness efforts.
- Tutorial
- Bug fixes (crash bugs, such as the elusive equipment corruption that keeps popping up every time it's been addressed, and less serious but equally newbie killing ones).
- Stress and needs balancing.
- Closed beta play testing.
- Vendor platform integration (not sure if Steam is the only one, or if Itch.io has some things as well).
- Other things that need to go in as well...