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[Toady One]

1) Better lineage system and name generation. So that families will be more distinguishable, family members in the world trying to live in the same buildings, and, of course, all of them having same last name. Haven't seen this in planned updates, will it be implemented at some point?
2) Will it be possible to have some expanded family-level interaction? For example, greedy heirs giving you quests to assassinate the head of the family (as a subgroup of assassination quests mentioned in /dev), or possibility to gain influence with some people by helping their relatives (since losing it so that relatives seek revenge is already mentioned in /dev). Or even having a wife (or one-night stay) in adventure mode, birthing your adventurer's kid who is playable after growing up?

Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7810934#msg7810934
Manveru Taurënér: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7811082#msg7811082
Knight Otu: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7811151#msg7811151

Families will possibly begin to matter with the villain stuff.  It is an angle we are looking at, but I can't commit to anything for this arc until I get it done, as there'll be lots of complications.

With the addition of parties, will we be able to start as a performance troupe from setup or will we have to do so after the adventure starts?

It would be really cool to have a sort of traveling band spreading dwarves music across the world.

When creating multiple characters for Adventure mode will they have initial relationships between themselves similar to a Fortress mode starting 7? If so, will it be random, fixed, or customizable*?

Will we be able to define interpersonal relationships between adventurers? For instance can our party consist of sibling, parent and child, spouses, or distant cousins? By extension will adventurers have to belong to the same entity?

Both of these are in the possible-for-this-release notes (starting entity, starting relationship grid), but I don't know if the time will be there.  Definitely things we are looking forward to doing as we make party starts more and more interesting.

1. Will more than one person be able to sit on a single mount if the mount is big enough?

2. Will riders of mounts be able to control the abilities of the mounts? For example, would a rider of a giant armadillo, for example, be able to have the creature retract into its shell at will, or would the creature only do that on its own?

3. Will we see mounted soldiers in adventure mode if we stumble across a travelling army?

4. Will there be any changes to mounted unit AI in battle? Will someone on horseback with a bow try to stay away from melee soldiers, if they don't already? Will flying units do the same?

1. That's not supported right now, though the wagon has three 'riders' (this includes the horses!), so it isn't way out of the realm of possibility.

2. I don't currently have commands aside from movement, but these are possibilities; it would be cool if the breadth of the pet's powers became accessible by command, either through training/skill or by default, whether they are being ridden or not.

3. It isn't a high priority for this time, but it'll be more possible once this is done, as it'll understand specifically what's going on in the army mount-wise, at least for historical figures.

4. I doubt it, unless a mounted party feels super broken, which is possible.

With regards to agents/conspiracy/intrigue in the recent devblog, will players in Adventure mode be susceptible to being "turned" by plotters? E.g, the usual "troubles" dialogue could have falsified information if you ask an agent, to get you to unwittingly attack a target of the plot by describing them as a "bandit" or similar?

It's not likely to happen in this fashion, as false information isn't something we can do yet (outside of identities.)  That said, it might be possible to influence the greedy player, for instance, though money doesn't matter nearly enough yet.  An ideologically sympathetic player probably wouldn't consider themselves a villain, but that's how that works.  It remains to be seen which conversations we attempt, as that would be the additional effort needing to be spent here.

Will ethics bound torture methods have any further development on the basis of helping uncover conspiratorial villian plots in the latest development log or are you putting them aside for later use?

Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7812978#msg7812978

I don't foresee particularly diving into fortress mode modding here, especially because it shouldn't generally provide useful information and we can't do the real-life thing of it providing various nonsense they think you want to hear (because we don't yet support false information outside of identities.)

So, to expand on what you said in the devblog, if your mayor, your Captain of the Guard your bookkeeper and all your temple dancers are secretly plotting the downfall of civilization, what kind of Fun can we expect? Or is this 'hidden fun stuff' on a social level that we'll just have to discover for ourselves?

There may be some details in the logs as I do it, but this does seem like a rare opportunity to withhold some details, heh.

So when you mention a network, does that imply that each agent can have multiple agents of their own? Ie  Urist McMastermind might have three lieutenants, and each of those might have two underlings. If so, or even if the mastermind gets caught in old or unrelated charges what does this mean when the Mastermind is caught? What happens to the remaining agents? Do they continue with the plot on their own terms, or do they abandon the quest out of self preservation?

Yeah, that's right; as for what happens to decapitated plots, it really depends on what the plot and motive are, and whether it makes sense for the agent to either obtain the benefits as if they were the higher-up or whether their master is replaced (as might happen in an organization.)  The default would likely be abandonment, as the data structure would be hanging, but network repair is also part of the update, and that'll be taken as far as we can go with the time we have.

Will we have the option join an existing villainous plot, say if we proved our loyaty to a villain?

This seems quite possible but not guaranteed.  We're going to start with companions-as-agents (that is, you are the top villain), but with a few conversation options and the existing villainous tasks you'd be able to become a low/mid-tier agent as well.

As a followup to my previous question on underground cave rivers, will the terrain rewrite hypothetically allow for subterranean civilizations? The current iteration of subterranean animal people don't work too well as of the latest version, but they were pretty bare bones to begin with. Could this allow for them to be a little closer to normal civs if only in terms of being able to build sites underground?

PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7813769#msg7813769

So yeah, the closer you make them to regular civs, the more likely they are to happen with the map rewrite, and I'll be striving to remove the differentiation between above and below ground in terms of supporting robust sites and army pathing and so forth.

1. What do you think will be the full extend of possible rewards a villainous player could get for working for villains as their agent in their schemes in the upcoming villain fleshing out update? Like how many possible rewards can you list off the top of your head, please tell me.
2. If you are an agent of someone else can you still continue the branching chain of command by enticing with money or positions some subordinate agents to work for you to continue your master's plans?
3. Could being an agent for someone be a possible way to gain a civ level position as stated as one of the pre myth and magic release candidates?
4. Can you give me some examples of what agent missions would be like?

We don't know that you can be a mid-tier villain, as stated above, so the notion of adventurer rewards is not necessarily in play at all.  But in all cases you'd be able to create your own networks, and that doesn't immediately depend on what is going on above you (or to the sides/etc.; the networks don't need to be simple directed trees.)

If we do get to player rewards, the potential to gain a position is here, as that'll be one of the possible inducements for others; as is often the problem, the position's responsibilities might not be accessible to you (e.g. bookkeeping.)  The problem with the abstract tribute rewards is that without the economic stockpiles, the items don't actually exist.  There is some potential for items to be brought to your adventurer site, but that is by no means guaranteed.

We've talked about assassinations, kidnappings, smuggling out artifacts, acquiring subordinates, acquiring animals, building gangs, and abuses of various authority once a position holder is compromised (whether that's diplomatic responsibilities or some sort of bookkeeping issue; unclear in some cases what we can do), as well as more specialized tasks like acquiring corpses for raising and non-corpses for vampire matters.  From closer up, especially as somebody actually doing these things, there'll need to be several new conversation options, especially as they relate to particular relationships and pressure points.  That said, until it's mentioned as done in the dev log, I wouldn't count on a given mission type.  There's going to be some practical limitations based on what I can do over the next stretch of time.

You mention that you're using agreements instead of an entity for villain networks; I wondered if there was any mechanism planned for switching between the two?

For example, if a villainous group keeps adding layers to its network, it could end up with enough influence that the player might naturally think of it more like a civ they were at war with.
Perhaps a bit too suggestion-y, but maybe it could also work the other way: the leaders of a dying civ plotting to get revenge?

We had considered that at the very least they might step up to the level of having a name like a bandit gang, yeah, but there's a lot of overhead there so we wanted to make sure we had a lightweight option for a lot of the petty crap going on throughout the world.  I'm not sure what we'll get to.

So, there's a bug, or perhaps unintended 'feature' right now in which hist-fig citizens of your civ are out working as spies when they get migrated to your fortress (often dragged along by a family member). They retain their fake name and profession (dead give away as no other migrants have visitor types like peddler, criminal, etc) but otherwise act normally (but annoyingly retain their fake profession name even when in the military).

So, I'm just wondering what exactly is the "correct" behavior for these guys. Are they not meant to migrate in? Or should they revert to their original names? Or are they being cautious and are actually meant to retain their fake identities?

These poor dorfs are already highly suspicious and have no doubt succumbed to magma accidents by the hundreds so far. It's only going to get worse for them when villains start plotting and you have to chain someone up for interrogation.

If they are being dragged in from an assignment, they should stay out.  If they aren't turning their identities off after returning home, and then migrating in, the bug would be the identity remaining.

Have you been able to do any long-term testing on stress effects in 44.12?  I haven't seen a lot of bug reports on Mantis, but negative effects are still vastly overpowering positive ones, in addition to friendship-forming being exceedingly difficult.  The most specific bug I know of is a Dorf's favorite food must be that specific cut (pig heart vs. pig meat).  The 'lack of decent meals' thought occurs regardless of food quality, depending entirely on favorite ingredient.

On food -
feelotraveller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7818346#msg7818346

Long-term stress testing is more practically player-based; and we can continue to see what people are experiencing.  I've seen a lot of reports that generally the situation is better, overall.  The friend issue is still there, and we have various ways forward on that which we'll get to before the magic wait.  I haven't seen a specific formulation of the current state of negative effects; there are categories which should help (since a lot of negative memories are now grouped and leave space for positive ones), but perhaps the negative categories are still winning out?

1) If a spy were to say, have an ‘unfourtunate accident’, would there be any ramifications, i.e. someone being sent to find out what happened or friends trying to get revenge on the fort?

2) Will you be able to send spies to find news about the fate of your squads, if they don’t return?

3) Would a spy (or network) be able to influence an election, or the choosing of a monarch, if they hold enough sway?

4) Would spies be able to sabotage relations, or ‘convince’ two cives to fight each other?

5) Will the punishment for spies be subject to civ ethics on Treason if the crime were severe enough?

1) The current idea is that they need to keep an enemies list (which might just be rep, though we don't have this for forts outside of taverns and 'death trap' status and war +/- calcs), at the very least so they know if a fort or adventurer is 'pesky' or 'meddlesome' and needs to be dealt with.  I'm not sure if this'll involve the same sort of tracking you get with merchants, where their safety and integrity of belongings is sort of tracked against the baseline when they entered, or through some other means.

2) The rumor process there isn't very robust yet.  Once it can actually tell you properly, I'm not sure you'll need a spy.  Right now it doesn't know outside of historical events, which aren't the same as rumors.

3) We want position-based shenanigans, but since there are no actual time-taking systems in place right now (the election and succession are instantaneous), it's unclear what we'll actually get.  As with all things, having future stuff like the status/etc. release would be nice, but soooomething has to be put in first.  So it might be very abstract how it works.

4) This is a reasonable possibility.

5) For a dwarf that has been very bad?  It seems to fit the bill, though just as in real-life, the definition and conditions of treason are subject to debate.  It isn't clear in the game what the ethic means since we haven't had to deal with it yet.

With mounted adventurers, are we close to seeing fortress dwarves mount up on whatever's handy to meet their mounted invaders in a glorious clash? Or is that still a way off?

We haven't given it any particular consideration for this time.  Fantasy dwarves never seemed like avid horse riders and I'm still not sure what we'll end up with there.  Zach's stories often involve donkeys.

Are you considering using the 'mount control' mechanics in possessions by poltergeists / deities or even charm spells?
Perhaps a comparison between willpowers to determine whether a command is followed or not.

The system will be waiting when we get there, anyway.  I'm not sure what'll end up being most convenient.  It depends on the type of command.

If pets are possible.. will there be a update to let adventure mode players tame creatures?

"So if the mount is having an important issue of some kind, like being terrified, it won't necessarily follow your command, though they are pretty good about obeying."
Does how good the mount is at obeying depend on the rider's and/or the mount's skill, or is it more simple than that? Are there rider/mount skills or trust levels or anything?

Will riding a mount give any combat advantages? In the Mount & Blade games, riding your mount gives speed to your weapon swing and bonuses to your attack damage, as well as making yourself difficult to hit by infantry. Will there be a mount-riding skill where if your skill is too low, your mount may turn tail and run in combat?

Speaking of which, will you be adding adventure mode taming alongside the ability to ride mounts?

There aren't any skills like riding at this point, though I agree there should be.  We do have the level at which a pet is tamed, from the fort mode animal system, but since your pets all start fully tamed in adv mode and you can't tame new ones yet, I haven't integrated that stuff.

On speed -
Buttery_Mess: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7819417#msg7819417

It doesn't currently help you evade except in that you have a higher chance of being completely out of range of an attack when it gets to its attack frame if you are moving quickly.

Q: Will mounts be required to be assigned war animals, pets or (in fortress mode) will they be able to be used interchangebly with any fortress member rather than a specific individual?

I haven't done anything with fortress mode mounts.

Will flying mounts be supported?

Will mounts in combat attack enemies indepedently of its rider?

Will bears be riddable by dwarves ?

Flying mounts shoooould work.  I haven't tried one yet, but they are available (to elves, generally), and the commands don't restrict to land-based movement, especially if you use the shift/control altitude controls.

Mounts will attack adjacent enemies, but they won't approach without a command.

There would need to be bears tamed by the civ for a dwarven adventurer to have access to them.  I haven't done anything with fort mode.

Since you've mentioned that mounts will wander around without direct input from the player, will we get the ability to tie them to trees and buildings and such so that we don't lose them?

All of your pets follow you around like companions when you aren't riding them, so it hasn't been necessary.  They can wander a bit when you ride them without controlling them, but that isn't very common.

1. Are mounts going to be chosen from the pool of a specific civ during adventurer creation? Say, an elf from a human civ can only access horses while an elf from an actual elven civ will get access to the whole zoo. Same with dwarves and whatever they have tamed so far.

2. Horses are known for being rather shy and skittish, so is proper war training going to be taken into account when leading them into battle?

3. Do horses or pets in general count as companions for purposes of bogeyman appearance?

Will mounts act like buddies, protecting us from bogeymen?

1. Yeah, it uses the civilization in question.

2. Not yet, though all of these considerations are important and will be good guidance over on suggestions as we go.

3. Hmm, I think so, unless I particularly checked the pet flag.  I don't recall if that's the case.  Probably didn't do that.

So with the new adventurer starting party system, I have to wonder how things that force hostility between party members would work between members of the starting party. For example, party member A is a werelion and party member B is a vampire. If A in human form walked in on B during a feeding, would they be hostile to one another? And if so, could you still switch control between them? Same goes if they were out adventuring together and the full moon rose causing A to lion out on B. Or, alternatively, what if the player(playing as one of the two) decided to attack the other? I'm just throwing this out there cause I really like the idea for the new system but want to make sure it won't bug out at times like this.

Ha, I guess it depends what you mean by bug-out here, since at some point it's up to you to roleplay conflicts you create yourself if you switch control.  Your created party members won't just take anything and willingly allow you to hack them to pieces, but you can also swap into their bodies.  I don't think this is a problem particularly.  It's odd, but so is controlling multiple people directly, and that doesn't mean it won't be fun to do.  If you get into a situation where everybody hates each other, you'll probably just have to fight it out until only one remains

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(see: Natuk)

, or have somebody yield if you aren't at a non-lethal state.  I'm sure there'll be real issues to fix, and over time ways to make long-term peace, but it'll also probably always be somewhat strange at times.

Would a mountlike system work for Guarddoggos and such too? I mean you put a thought into theyr head anyway and their training (Skill) could augment these thoughts. So a trained Warhorse could be less fearfull then a basic working horse - a war or guard dog more cautious towards starngers etc.

Also with working mounts would it be possible to get a 3 item chain to utilize the strength of those Animals in fort? A horse being guided by a dworf while pulling a lorry?

Yeah, there's no reason why party tactical commands wouldn't eventually work on trained animals.  I don't even have them for party members yet, but I'm hoping to get there and maybe everybody gets to come along for the ride.

I don't have any particular plans for changing how the dwarf mode leading works, but we don't even have pulled carts there.

Will all members of a starting party have to come from the same entity or will multicultural starting parties be possible?
If I recruit one of my former adventurers will I be able to switch control to them without retiring?

You can start your party from all over.  I haven't integrated old retired adventurers into new parties when they join, but that might happen as an option before the release.

You mentioned that the player's velocity while riding a mount will be added to their attacks: will an equal bonus be applied by enemies who are, say, stabbing their pike at the horseman?

Currently, firing a bow or xbow prevents a player from doing anything for several rounds (usually resulting in them getting chopped to pieces). Will our new steeds continue to move while their riders shoot from horseback? Or will they also pause and get chopped to pieces?

And indeed, if I gallop full speed up to an enemy and take a swipe at them, will my horse just stop suddenly, or will it carry on moving past the enemy?

Death Dragon: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7820299#msg7820299

So there's the multiple attack interface, which is very clunky but allows continuous commands in the case of melee attacks.  Both to get around that, and to allow a broader range of actions, we've been considering another form of command which urges your mount on at a speed in their current direction.  Hopefully that'll be enough to solve initial issues without needing larger rewrites of other features (not that archery doesn't need a larger rewrite.)

Will we be able to ride animated undead animals, even if they haven't been tamed?

Can mounts jump? IIRC, animal men can't, so not sure if mounts can.

Similarly, could a rider use a mount with climbing abilities to get through terrain they couldn't easily traverse on their own?  While riding a giant cave spider, could you get through webs safely?

Does size matter, or can any mount carry any rider?

I don't think undead mounts will work currently.  Soulless creatures cannot accept commands, even without the issue of non-tame creatures not being mountable.  It'll require a better understanding of magic to get that sort of thing working when it should.

Jumping, Inarius: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7820254#msg7820254

As with the armadillo retraction above, it's reasonable to extend the command set beyond simple movement, and it would be cool to have both jump and climb options.  I don't have that yet.  It has been a decade, so I don't recall how webs work vs. giant spiders...  it's possible that part will actually work.

Size doesn't currently matter, I think, though it's possible riders are added to weight (maybe not though, if carried dwarves don't slow people down, as that also uses the rider system.)

1. Will the "command your allies" feature allow you to properly equip companions without exploiting the trade screen? (IE "Hey Urist, equip that steel short sword I gave you!")
2. Will the ability to command allies extend to zombies created with Necromancy?

1. I haven't done anything like that yet.
2. It isn't part of the spell, no, and souls are currently required.

1. Will it be possible to designate certain body parts to be where magic originates on a person/creature via modding? So say, for instance, an earthbender dwarf with the magic originating from their hands and feet.

2. Also are the gods/deities/primordials/titans/ect going to be generated as physical beings too? Like, an actual being moving around physically in the world or on one of the plains and is capable of being killed and can switch between planes, ect.

3. Will Divine Metals actually have any divine properties and will they be able to be found in their related sphere Biome (if Biomes related on Spheres is actually happening)?

To what extent will we be able to Mod the Magic and Myth systems?

1: It's a fine enough way of doing things; it's unclear when that axis of detail will be going in though, and there's a lot that needs to be supported specifically bit by bit, so it's just an issue of time.  Given the size of the release and how much we're going to have to adapt to circumstances as we go, I would assume 'no' on any given unpromised feature just to be safe, but there will be many, many features that do make it in.  Once the dev logs start rolling in, we'll have more information.

2,3, KittyTac: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7820146#msg7820146
followup, Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7820184#msg7820184

1. If you try to hop onto a untamed mount, will they throw you off?
2. Will we be able to tame/train wild animals in the near future, for the purpose of pets or mounts?
3. Will we be able to do “Hang on and try to calm” moves on spooked mounts?
4. Will we be able to knock others off a mount, or otherwise steal one?
5. If we get thrown off a mount, will we just magically appear unharmed on the ground, or will we actually be thrown?

1+5. Just not an option currently.
2. Near future?  Probably not.
3. Nope.
4. I don't recall what happens currently with mounted people and ground charging; perhaps they are disallowed.  I haven't changed anything.  You'd have to find somebody mounted first anyway, which won't necessarily be easy.

With riding, do we get intentionally jumping on and holding onto other, larger creatures? Can i grab a dragon and hold on for dear life while trying to stab it?
Like, you can ride a creature as a mount, but can i pounce on wild horses and shiv them? Would they be able to shake me off or attack me?

Additionally, is it possible to attack your mount while making a targetted attack? If i accidentally shank my horse, will it immediately become hostile? Is there any way i can calm down an unintelligent mount?

No; that feels more like wrestling should be involved, but there's an area in between we haven't explored.

I think you can probably attack your own tame horse, since it just checks proximity for targeting, though I haven't tried it.  If do start a fight for some reason, I don't think there's anything you can do to mend relations.

Do reactions like shooting fireballs, for example have any effect on off-site battles?

KittyTac: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7821013#msg7821013

Regarding Putnam: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7821460#msg7821460

Way back when there was a simple 'fire breath' tag, it provided a strength bonus and even checked against fire immunity, but as interactions became more complicated, the calculation switched over to a perpetual to-do comment in the strength calc.  This'll probably have to be tackled for the magic release to make much sense.

Are there plans to ever implement a sort of an "Interesting start date" feature? To clarify - if, during worldgen, the game detects that some kind of interesting, massive upheaval is going to happen in the world (or at least, in some specific part of the world) the player would get the choice to stop worldgen there and start in a region of the world defined as most important for said scenario. This would allow for players to start playing a few years before stuff like huge extraplanar invasions, a large change in the magic system of the world (with it's accompanying effects), huge wars, the unleashing of an ancient evil, etc. Hence, players would actually be able to play the stereotypical D&D band of heroes out to save the world, or just to merely watch history unfold from the front seat.

Inarius: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7821206#msg7821206
Criperum: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7821226#msg7821226

Yeah - when it comes to magical stuff, things where we can look at important dates or cycles or long-term rituals that are coming to fruition, we've said we'd like to give that a shot.  More mundane stuff is more difficult, though it could detect, say, the starts of wars or first contact situations, which'll matter when those are more interesting.

When it comes to dwarven friendships, why not use some modern research into the topic?

I'm open to changes; suggestions are a good place for specific ideas!

Are there any near-term plans to add in 'friendly' missions? Right now, you can either explore abandoned ruins, or raid an occupied site. Are there any, again near-term, plans to, say, send a diplomat to another site to say "Yo!" or to send your own trading caravans out to nearby retreats, towns, and fortresses?

I know there are plans to flesh out diplomacy properly, so this kind of thing will probably wait until then. I was just wondering if there might be an interim period, especially with the player-created trading caravan thing.

Not particular near-term plans no.  As stated above with messengers, it's not entirely off the table, but the table is also quite full.  Sending off trading caravans will almost certainly wait, though there's an off-chance some sort of villain demand might yield that ability.  We don't have any number of missing elements required to make that work as a peaceful feature, though we could wing it somehow using the new abstract tribute percentages (which you'd be trading for, somehow.)

[Tinnucorch]

So, to expand on what you said in the devblog, if your mayor, your Captain of the Guard your bookkeeper and all your temple dancers are secretly plotting the downfall of civilization, what kind of Fun can we expect? Or is this 'hidden fun stuff' on a social level that we'll just have to discover for ourselves?

There may be some details in the logs as I do it, but this does seem like a rare opportunity to withhold some details, heh.

I can't help but to press a little more on the matter above:

1- Can we expect from agents/inflitrators, at any point of the developement, to act as if they had knowledge of the consequences of their actions? Or asked in another way: what tools will these characters have to identify appropriate ways of acting? Will we see things like some traitor opening our gates to an invading army, trying to pull whatever lever that should not be touched or realeasing dangereous creatures from cages? What about all at the same time (like, aiming to create a diversion)?

2- Leaving aside practical examples, what limits do you expect these tools actually will have for this next release?


Even if you decide to keep things for discovering by ourselves, thanks in advance for taking the time to read this.

[Nahere]

Thanks for the answers Toady.

[Death Dragon]

Hmm.  Well, I can try this, but I'm finding this takes more of my time than I can manage.  If the previous method hasn't been working, I'm not sure what to do.

Do what you prefer, Toady. If you think it takes too much time, it's not necessary to do cause people can just look through the thread on their own if they really care about it.

[Criperum]

Thank you for the answers, Toady.

[KittyTac]

Thanks.

[Random_Dragon]

So, given it seems you can encounter non-questors taking the identity of criminal, and it seems they might not always actually have a criminal record, what even is the justification for them being labelled criminals?

I'm immediately thinking up the mental image of them calling themselves that a being basically some sort of fantasy-realm punk subculture thing.

Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7805208#msg7805208
golemgunk: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7806894#msg7806894

That...doesn't really do anything to answer the question. My point is that I have encountered NPCs who don't APPEAR to be artifact hunters, but have nonetheless assumed an identity as a self-labelled criminal, nor do they end up with an association with local criminal gangs.

The two responses you linked to basically amounted to "nah they're definitely questing, either that or herp derp we don't know what the fuck you're on about'" so citing them kinda does nothing useful.

EDIT: To clarify, I was referring specifically to adventure mode by the way. Though admittedly it is hard as hell in adventure to get an artifact hunter to reveal their objective, so it may be that all "criminals" in adventure mode and the ability to oust them is just lacking.

[recneps]

With future world generation changes making it more fantastic - less Earthlike - will things such as randomized biomes be possible? e.g. could you have a more erratic world that has fiery swamps -associated with Fire, Muck, and Peace- full of unicorns and satyrs, or a forest -associated with Healing, Darkness, and Defomority- that periodically has healing rain in addition to ogres and procgenned monsters?

[Manveru Taurënér]

With future world generation changes making it more fantastic - less Earthlike - will things such as randomized biomes be possible? e.g. could you have a more erratic world that has fiery swamps -associated with Fire, Muck, and Peace- full of unicorns and satyrs, or a forest -associated with Healing, Darkness, and Defomority- that periodically has healing rain in addition to ogres and procgenned monsters?

That is pretty much the plan yes, unless you mean something more specific about it that I'm missing. Some bits from the dev notes and dftalk on the subject:

Core94, RANDOMIZED REGIONS AND THEIR FLORA/FAUNA, (Future): The current good/evil regions should be scrapped and replaced by a system that aligns a region to varying degrees with a set of spheres. In this way you could end up with a desert where the stones sing or a forest where the trees bleed, with all sorts of randomly generated creatures and plants that are appropriate to the sphere settings. It's important that randomly generated objects be introduced to the player carefully during play rather than just being thrown one after another to allow for immersion, though there's also something to be said for cold dumping the player in a world with completely random settings, provided they can access enough information by looking/listening and having conversations, etc. Requires Core92.

Rainseeker:   [3]Let's talk about spheres for a second. Are the zombies, skeletons, undead and such; are they going to appear only in the undead region sphere now? Or will they come in other areas too.
Toady:   It depends on one of those things we were talking about, like do undead have souls, and what is the undead? If it's somebody combing partially back to life then it could be any sphere that's related to death or rebirth even; it's kind of weird to have the sphere of rebirth have undead things but it's possible.
Rainseeker:   They're good zombies, maybe.
Toady:   Yeah, they're good zombies, with little fairy hats and stuff ... whatever a fairy hat is. But then there's the notion of just animating a corpse, and that's the purview of death or if brooms and stuff are also moving around then it's more of a regular magical thing. But there's also the notion of having some kind of spirits from the underworld populate the body, then that could be any kind of evil.
Ampersand:   There's also another concept of it being a disease that is passed between individuals.
Toady:   Yeah, there's the viral zombie model ... [and] there's also the radiation zombie model I guess. So the viral thing, I don't know ... are they dead? Or are they ...
Capntastic:   Their brain's just messed up by like ...
Toady:   Yeah, viruses. I guess what the 28 Days Later model is it's just sort of a viral rage thing, but they aren't actually dead; is that correct? And then they starve to death. So any of those is fair game as they come up. Now, the undead that'll come in at first; I still have evil regions in this release so things will probably be the same as they were before, and then as I move over to sphere-based regions then at first it's going to be just kind of a death thing I guess, and to make them fairly common those will just be common areas. The whole idea of undead in general is going to be generalised to the notion of a curse, and that could just be some random sphere thing: there could just be a bunch of fire dear, and fire elk, and fire chipmunks and the fire man; that's kind of the cheesy thing that you'd expect out of the game after a while. Of course we can get more sophisticated but you don't start there.

Threetoe:   Okay, so the second question comes from King Mir: 'You've stated previously how the good and evil regions are ultimately going to be replaced by sphere-aligned regions. Recently you added a lot to the evil regions; how have these changes affected your future plans? Are you going to put as much work into every sphere? Will some spheres be much more distinct than others, or will you just stick with good and evil?'
Toady:   We did add a lot of undead and blood rain and mists and things floating around in the evil regions because we were just on our continuing night creatures drive, to get through those. It hasn't really affected the long-term plans. We still plan to diversify what the regions look like. The spheres ... talking about them specifically, like sphere-regions, is ... when you say, 'Will some be more distinct than others?' there are spheres like 'trade', or something like that, where because that's such a civilized concept ... there are probably going to be some spheres that simply aren't appropriate for regions, and a sphere is really just an idea, or a concept, so if you want to make one region more musical, or fiery, or evil, or torture-based, or darker, these different concepts ... that's really what we're getting at, that we wanted to have a strong sense of flavoring to the regions that sets the atmosphere but doesn't just go along this linear scale of good or evil, that allows things to be more diverse. So in a sense just adding stuff to the regions moves us along the way there. We haven't really started that project yet, but I it's still something that I think we're planning to do.

[recneps]

Thanks.. That is what I meant, yeah.

[Unknown72]

So on the case of these deities/titans/ect being physical, would it be possible for one to migrate/petition to join a fort or integrate itself into a civ in some form phsyically (like becoming king/queen of the dwarves) or even start up their own civ with themselves at the head of it?

[Tinnucorch]

So on the case of these deities/titans/ect being physical, would it be possible for one to migrate/petition to join a fort or integrate itself into a civ in some form phsyically (like becoming king/queen of the dwarves) or even start up their own civ with themselves at the head of it?

That last part about supernatural beings as civ leaders is already in play with goblin civs. So I guess it should be only a matter of expanding that feature.

[Rockphed]

So on the case of these deities/titans/ect being physical, would it be possible for one to migrate/petition to join a fort or integrate itself into a civ in some form phsyically (like becoming king/queen of the dwarves) or even start up their own civ with themselves at the head of it?

That last part about supernatural beings as civ leaders is already in play with goblin civs. So I guess it should be only a matter of expanding that feature.

For a while there were supernatural leaders of human civs.  I don't know if they ever managed to become leaders of dwarf or elf civs, but we have seen Elf dwarven queens, so it might be doable.

[lovesword]

Is it possible that the villain update might bring a unique purpose to the venoms by allowing schemes to involve a poisoning of a target or the fort's food supply?

[Death Dragon]

Is it possible that the villain update might bring a unique purpose to the venoms by allowing schemes to involve a poisoning of a target or the fort's food supply?

I'd say probably not. More interactions with poison will come eventually for sure, but Toady already made so many plans for the next updates that he's probably just gonna go with the easiest way to implement assassinations, which would be without poison.
I don't think poisoning an NPC site's food supply would really do anything before the economy update. Maybe spies will be able to sabotage player forts by messing with farm plots, but who knows. Toady is probably not gonna tell us cause he seems to want to surprise us with the negative consequences of spies.