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[PlumpHelmetMan]

Something I've been curious about for a while:

What exactly was your inspiration for making goblins immortal? I've had trouble finding a precedent for it in fantasy games and literature, indeed they're often shown to have lifespans shorter than that of the average humanoid (vanilla D&D goblins seldom live more than 60 years, for instance). Or is it something just entirely original that you came up with on your own?

[Random_Dragon]

Something I've been curious about for a while:

What exactly was your inspiration for making goblins immortal? I've had trouble finding a precedent for it in fantasy games and literature, indeed they're often shown to have lifespans shorter than that of the average humanoid (vanilla D&D goblins seldom live more than 60 years, for instance). Or is it something just entirely original that you came up with on your own?

Despite occasional arguments to the contrary, I still can't help but suspect it's tied into the same reasons they were likely initially made so that they don't need food or drink: to ensure that all these factors don't add extra stress to the population of the most murder-happy civ in the game, one's been intended basically since the beginning to be THE main rival to a player's fortress.

Recall for a time that carnivorous civs used to have trouble surviving worldgen, and this was noticed to most prominently affect kobolds in vanilla (in addition to all the additional complications caused by an enforced low population cap, site restriction, and having worldgen battles with beasts HEAVILY stacked against them), whereas for goblins these tokens seemed to add further advantage towards making it through worldgen in fighting shape.

[iceball3]

Something I've been curious about for a while:

What exactly was your inspiration for making goblins immortal? I've had trouble finding a precedent for it in fantasy games and literature, indeed they're often shown to have lifespans shorter than that of the average humanoid (vanilla D&D goblins seldom live more than 60 years, for instance). Or is it something just entirely original that you came up with on your own?

Despite occasional arguments to the contrary, I still can't help but suspect it's tied into the same reasons they were likely initially made so that they don't need food or drink: to ensure that all these factors don't add extra stress to the population of the most murder-happy civ in the game, one's been intended basically since the beginning to be THE main rival to a player's fortress.

Recall for a time that carnivorous civs used to have trouble surviving worldgen, and this was noticed to most prominently affect kobolds in vanilla (in addition to all the additional complications caused by an enforced low population cap, site restriction, and having worldgen battles with beasts HEAVILY stacked against them), whereas for goblins these tokens seemed to add further advantage towards making it through worldgen in fighting shape.

I wonder, as mechanics open up that allow such a thing, would some means of their sustenance or continued success be expressed through an ingame resource or influence. Anything from a deity rewarding blood sacrifice with bounties of food to Sauron-esque dirt-and-magic fueled goblings. This could be an area where spheres of a species would be a bit relevant, too, i think.
Concerning the fact that modding not only can change the nature of races, but often replace or displace them, are there any concerns that the mythgen update and other planned procedural generation may be too dependent on quadruple supremacy of the goblins, elves, humans, and dwarves to produce sensible results in worlds with different ethical and cultural landscapes?

Will mythgen happen strictly before or after terrain generation?
For example, mythgen happening before worldgen would in theory allow different terrestrial worlds to share a common mythological backdrop via a seed, and the significance of regional disturbances, theological significance, etc would be retroactive.
Whereas mythgen happening after worldgen would mean the terrain that makes up the world could affect creation and/or creation myths, and may even have limited development of their permanent legacy as worldgen time ticks on, and potentially define significant theological figures based on the sculpting of the world itself, in theory.
And finally:
Will we be able to disable any "randomly generated objects" as they are implemented, from mythgen to magic, and make specific raw definitions that worlds would treat as any other generated definition? Similar to how current werewolf, vampire, regional disturbance, and boogeymen can currently be disabled and modded in.
Being able to custom build the world from the ground up sounds like it would work wonders for modding, but I imagine as things get more complex, decoupling things like actual magic from a world's theology becomes too much of a nuisance to allow rewriting from scratch in the raws.

[therahedwig]

There was talk about magic, tone and I think randomness sliders, so I suposse setting the latter to 0 would turn off all randomly generated objects

[Shonai_Dweller]

There was talk about magic, tone and I think randomness sliders, so I suposse setting the latter to 0 would turn off all randomly generated objects

And a fixed world editor too for creating myths, artifacts, histfigs, sites and so on. Coming sometime during Mythgen releases.
If you search back through fotf you'll find the topic of modding, mythgen, randomness and other stuff covered a few times.

[Real_bang]

1. Should we expect necromancer alliances to take over the world with even bigger zombie army?
2. Should we expect the whole world (or at least most of the world civilizations) uniting before the great danger of the demon king or zombie army?

[Egan_BW]

2. Should we expect the whole world (or at least most of the world civilizations) uniting before the great danger of the demon king or zombie army?

Ah yes, we draw ever closer to being able to play That Which Sleeps entirely within DF.

[Death Dragon]

Will this necromancer villain code most likely be applicable to any body-using, randomly generated magic of the magic update, or is it gonna require some rewrites later?

[therahedwig]

Do you guys have plans for player forts to participate in alliances before the big wait?

It's starting to sound like having the diplomat/liason go mad because they can't path out of the fortress might actually be detrimental on the long term next release...

Oh, and what kind of factors are involved with investigating histfigs regarding what kind of investigation technique they use? Are these the same as villain's corruption techniques? Like, for example, can a investigating histfig suspect someone might have been bribed without interrogating them? Or is a goblin investigator more likely to use torture? Do goblins at all care about investigating?

[voliol]

Will this necromancer villain code most likely be applicable to any body-using, randomly generated magic of the magic update, or is it gonna require some rewrites later?

An expansion to this question, and then another one:
1. Do the supernatural villains act according to the interaction tokens given in the raws (so modded interactees are properly supported), or is it currently mostly the vanilla villain types that have hard-coded support?
2. To which degree do the villains consider their own physical properties when making up plans? A giant-beast necromancer wouldn't have any problems with producing corpses for themselves to use in raising, I imagine. Also related are meek dwarves considering physical threats to get their way.

[Shonai_Dweller]

As an adventurer we can follow the villain clues, interrogate the sub-agents and finally take out the big baddie ourselves (I assume), but can we also contribute towards our civ's overall counter-intelligence operations? Like, hunt the clues, find out who's behind the plotting, and then tell the king/spymaster about it and have his armies take out the top plotter hq instead of doing it ourselves?

[Beag]

Since the player adventurer can be a villain themselves with agents will they be able to make alliances with other villains? If so what would the benefits and costs of such alliances be?

[Shonai_Dweller]

Since the player adventurer can be a villain themselves with agents will they be able to make alliances with other villains? If so what would the benefits and costs of such alliances be?

I suspect we won't get that far until the post-Steam pre-Big Wait update (if it happens) when you'll potentially have actual armies at your command.  Also people being plotted against by you will form alliances with their allies, whether they are villains or not is presumably irrelevant. An alliance of criminal organizations trying to take you out would  be pretty interesting though!

[Shonai_Dweller]

Is the tutorial you've been thinking of (PC Gamer) likely to be an addition for the paid version of DF like the tileset and music, or is this something for the game in general? (I know the tutorial-by-acheivement idea would have to be Steam only, just meaning the regular 'how to build stuff, restore your woodcutter's arms' parts).

[FantasticDorf]

Do you guys have plans for player forts to participate in alliances before the big wait?

It's starting to sound like having the diplomat/liason go mad because they can't path out of the fortress might actually be detrimental on the long term next release...

"Never thought id die fighting side by side with a elf"

*looks up at the dribbling elf wearing wood looking off into the distance*

"By Armok we're all dead already."

Though in fairness elves have lots of beasts that could help with the state of how powerful animals are in non-real time fighting, whether they decide to bring them is another matter.