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[MrWiggles]

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).

The Steam version isnt getting anything special beside the tileset. And the tileset just comes bundle with the steam version. The speical work going in for the tileset, will be open to any future tileset.

[Schmaven]

When might we hope to see siege engines targeting accross multiple z-levels?

[therahedwig]

When might we hope to see siege engines targeting accross multiple z-levels?

Last answer on this...

Would the moving fortress part/boat arc also lay the groundwork for proper carts/wagons and invader siege engines (wheeled towers and battering rams in particular)?

Yep, the idea is that these are all the same thing.  There's a bit of a question down at the cart/minecart size, things that are just a few tiles, like if those'll be actual map sections or something more like the siege arrow that just sticks out from an item a bit.

Source

So that's gonna be a while still

[PatrikLundell]

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).

The Steam version isnt getting anything special beside the tileset. And the tileset just comes bundle with the steam version. The speical work going in for the tileset, will be open to any future tileset.

No. The Premium version (Steam AND Itch.io) should have a soundtrack as well as the tileset, while the Steam version seems to get Steam Achievements on top of that. Shonai_Dweller's question is quite relevant, as it IS unclear both if a tutorial type thing is going to be produced, and whether it's going to be available in all DF versions, Premium, or Steam only if it appears.

The underlying mechanics changes (whatever they end up being) are intended to be available to all DF versions (as stated), if I understand it correctly, so tileset artists should be able to create sets making use of those mechanics. This probably means only the Premium version will have a tileset at release, while community tilesets will play catch-up (as it's always been).

[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).

The Steam version isnt getting anything special beside the tileset. And the tileset just comes bundle with the steam version. The speical work going in for the tileset, will be open to any future tileset.

Just want to double-check as it's been mentioned as being "unclear". I assumed I must have missed some comment about it somewhere in the rush of info a couple of weeks ago.

[Miuramir]

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 ...

Well, the OG precedent is pretty clearly Tolkien, and works directly inspired by his legendarium.  The Wikipedia entry on Orc is a good starting point.  To summarize even further: in Tolkien's works, "orc" and "goblin" are used fairly interchangeably, and in a significant fraction of the works, orcs (goblins) are twisted and corrupted elves, possibly cross-bred with other races (including lesser Maia), and thus are as physically immortal as elves are. 

"Since Melkor could not 'create' an independent species, but had immense powers of corruption and distortion of those that came into his power, it is probable that these Orks had a mixed origin. Most of them plainly (and biologically) were corruptions of Elves (and probably later also of Men). But always among them (as special servants and spies of Melkor, and as leaders) there must have been numerous corrupted minor spirits who assumed similar bodily shapes. (These would exhibit terrifying and demonic characters.)"

Bolg, being the son of Azog, was the chieftain of the crcs who attacked Erebor in the Battle of Five Armies in TA 2941. Azog himself was killed in the Battle of Azanulbizar in TA 2799, so Bolg was at least 150 years old; and IIRC there's no indication that he was considered "elderly"; this strongly implies that at least some orcs had theoretical lifespans stretching to near the two century mark if not killed in battle or treachery before that point. 

If you read the discussion between Shagrat and Gorbag that Sam overhears shortly after the Shelob fight, they talk about remembering "old times" with no "Big Bosses"; that almost certainly has to have been before around TA 1300 when the Nazgul have reformed enough to start reasserting rule over Angmar and otherwise exerting the will of a reforming Sauron.  This implies that they're highly likely over 1,700 years old at a minimum.   

A somewhat more controversial reading of some of their other comments in that discussion can be taken to imply that they are *older than the Nazgul*.  As the Nazgul more or less came to prominence around SA 2250, that's about 1190 years of the latter part of the Second Age plus about 3020 years of the Third Age... over 4,200 years old.  Given that orcs were being bred up in quantity in Angband prior to the start of the *First* Age, it's at least possible that there are a tiny number of orcs out there that are over 7,000 years old; so in that context 4,200+ is not unreasonable.  However, reading a bit more between the lines, they seem to refer to Sauron as the "Biggest Boss", which implies that they probably post-date the defeat of Morgoth. 

(My personal head canon is that Shagrat and Gorbag probably date back to before the rise of the Nazgul in SA 2250, but after the massive defeat of Sauron's forces at the end of the War of the Elves and Sauron in SA 1700, as very few are said to have escaped the wrath of the united armies.  So, around 4,500 years old in round numbers (+- 200ish).  AFAIK this fits the available evidence and isn't contradicted or particularly unlikely.) 

Some side works pick up on this; for example, Lord of the Rings Online (which launched in April 2007, and obviously was being written several years before that) implicitly assumes in various plotlines that there are at least a few individual orcs still around from thousands of years ago, and probably previous Ages. 

[LordBaal]

I just used to mod them to live under 60~70 years.

[FantasticDorf]

I just used to mod them to live under 60~70 years.

Eh, i prefer to have have them be able to eat since it does give them a means to actually starve if they waste all of their resources or you pull the creatures they have from underneath them out of the tower in desolate conditions. Everyone has their own personal solutions i suppose.

[Random_Dragon]

So far I mostly just set them to need food and drink in Adventrurecraft, as immortality doesn't really affect adventure mode as much as being needless would. That change predates the update that made it so you could pull from secondary population sources for adventurers, so back then I decided to just see if making all available playable species (at the time mainly adding goblins and kobolds, don't recall if I implemented cave furry outsiders before or after that change) have basic needs would work without issue.

[clinodev]

Happy end of the month!

When you work on the greatly anticipated stress, needs, and happiness changes, will you focus more on fixing the little bugs that made your original plan not work, or more on modifying the algorithm to run stress towards "okay" rather than either ecstatic or misery until well-run, safe fortresses stop breaking around the 5-6 year mark (without extreme micromanagement?) Likely some of each, but have you decided a focus?

Note I'm not asking if it'll be fixed, as that's been well-covered, but it would be neat to see the original plan implemented! There was a moment around August when I was actually somewhat excited the needs bugs might encourage the fixing of long-standing but trivial bugs, like allowing dwarves to: enjoy well-made meals, rather than only (secretly) craving Zebra hearts or polar bear brains; seek out their specifically needed temple; seek out friendships and relationships; grab desired high-value clothes and trinkets from stockpiles, etc.

[Toady One]

Are you worried/have you given any thought about the the Steam Workshop creating a walled garden and splitting the modding community?  I understand your decision to opt for Steam Workshop integration but you are running the risk of making your consumers in Itch.io into second-class consumers. I also know you have no responsibility in regards to where modders choose to upload their mods, but you can create the walled garden that allows it to happen in the first place. So what's your take on this?

other posts: (long argument ensues, too many to link)

The forums are going to start with a huge headstart on the number of mods, and most of them won't be uploaded to workshop.  The walls are lower, but if anything is a walled garden of modded community content with established experienced modders, it'll be Classic/the B12 forums, for a good long while.  People in the thread provided examples of games working out in different ways, and as unlikely as a negative outcome is (I have no idea, but there seem to be plenty of healthy examples), that'll be a risk, sure.  That doesn't make it the wrong decision for us.  The big decision was to sell the game at all, which I believe is a more consequential walling/second-class-creation issue, at least until graphics mods catch up with the Steam version, and even afterward if we look at how easy it is to install a Steam/itch game.  It's a decision we avoided for more than a decade, since we wanted the game to be freely available.  Now the game will still be freely available, with some caveats.  It's the best we could figure out while remaining alive, etc.

Do you think the updates for Steam release will add enough changes that it will break saves like Mythgen probably will? Maybe that's a good thing for working without restrictions?

I certainly have to pretend I'm working without restrictions.  It's important to have the best Steam/itch launch possible.  All the same, I'm not sure saves will actually be affected.  It's quite likely we're going to change up the entire raw/init structure, etc., (since we can't just throw all the graphics into the save folders, for speed/size reasons if nothing else) but my current thinking is that it'll be possible to do that while maintaining the viability of old saves.  More localized, and perhaps more problematic, the way the old creature graphics txt files work will almost certainly be changed.  I think it'll be a manageable change, save-wise, but if it gets gnarly, yeah, I'll have to just make a break.

With the updates to the UI, are you going to take a stab at consolidating rooms, workshops, stockpiles and zones? It occurs to me that these are all "places where a certain activity is done" but they all have different menus and processes to do it, and this is the source of more confusion than having to learn which key does what.

Is there any chance that the Big Wait might be chopped into smaller waits? I was imagining that the map rewrite could accompany myths/legends (as pre-w.g fluff) before the mechanics of magic are added.

How far has the economy can been kicked down the road? Do you think that it will be more or less of a headache than organising a real economy?

Will the introduction of magic accompany a filling out of crafting options in adventurer mode? I ask because it occurred to me that the use of magical reagants is a standard fantasy trope, and that that might require a better fleshed out crafting interface. Additionally, transmutation of one object into another is a fantasy staple and I suppose that's another sort of crafting.

Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7953144#msg7953144
therahedwig: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7953146#msg7953146
Manveru Taurënér: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7953147#msg7953147
Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7953155#msg7953155
therahedwig: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7953156#msg7953156
Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7953156#msg7953156

Yeah, there just isn't going to be time to do the big reconsolidation cleanly, even though it'll mean losing some time and artwork on the old way of doing things.  Generally, it's not going to be a good time for risky rewrites, since there are enough issues to clean up as it stands.

Indeed, as therahedwig wrote, the Big Wait is already the chopped down version, at least in terms of the stuff that's going to take time.  The myths and map rewrite by themselves will take a year at least, I expect, and I also think I need to have something satisfying to show for all of that.

Yeah, the economy can has been sitting down with boats at the post-property/law/etc. release for a long while now.  A lot of the industry and consumption is already in world generation, as well as certain sorts of trade, but it doesn't entirely make sense.  There are many things that can go wrong on the way, but there are also many tweaks and hand-waves at our disposal to fix them, so I don't think it'll be nearly as difficult as a real economic simulation.  I have some experience with this in side projects, and I've also read through some of the suggestion posts expression various concerns - I'm not yet worried.  But stuff can always come up, and there may or may not be good plateaus we can stop on, since the elements will all be interlinked or possibly just slow/mem heavy right at the outset.  At the very least, we can fall back on a fixed-price model, as in most games, and tweak a bit of oversaturated/rarity market pricing from there for flavor.  However, I want to try the more ambitious stuff first.

Kind of goes with your second question - as the need arises, we'll get more crafting, and as you suggest, several magic systems intersect heavily with crafting, but we're not sure what's going to be added.

Hi Toady. You've mentioned earlier that the game has software rendered graphics. Does it mean the built-in software renderer provided by  opengl vendors or something else. If yes then do you have any metrics about how much performance does it take and will you consider moving to hardware rendering?

Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7953567#msg7953567
Criperum (op): http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7953569#msg7953569
Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7953570#msg7953570
PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7953647#msg7953647

The link PatrikLundell posted is going to be the state of affairs on this - I haven't gotten a chance to look at it further and won't be able to until the villains are out.

Since the UI is getting increased mouse support, does this make a mobile version of dwarf fortress a possibility? The Steam Achievments code could also be wired into Google Play, which IIRC also has an achievements function.

Will there be any possibility of floating/dockable menus and submenus? Will you consider the ability to access menus without having to pause the game?

PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7954074#msg7954074
therahedwig: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7954126#msg7954126
PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7954182#msg7954182
Buttery_Mess (op): http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7954233#msg7954233
PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7954400#msg7954400
bloop_bleep: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7954856#msg7954856
Schmaven: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7954920#msg7954920
bloop_bleep: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7954926#msg7954926
PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7954958#msg7954958
bloop_bleep: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7954972#msg7954972

I'm not particularly thinking about a mobile version, but yeah, if we achieve total separation from the keyboard (unclear if we'll even get close to that), that would be more possible, though there are other obstacles I'm sure.

Yeah, there are a few outstanding issues, but at least out in the main fort mode part of the game, some work on modernized menus is under consideration.

I might have missed it in the long conversation, but an additional issue with having menus accessible during pause is, for instance, the item distance calculations that happen in the construction menu.  There's a little kerchunk non-trivial calc time that goes into that, and it can't easily be kept up to date.  For some other menus, yeah, there are various dynamic issues with dead objects etc., but it's more manageable, though I'm not sure we'll attempt it if the harder/slower menus can't come along for the ride.

With the new graphical capabilities, you'll be bringing a lot of the functionality that TWBT strived to bring to the game to vanilla, which is great. However, one thing TWBT never managed was to allow a separate tileset for the world map.[BlatantSuggestion] Might that be something you have planned for the Steam release? [/BlatantSuggestion].

If not, I'll just get on over to the Suggestions forum.

We've already been playing with art for that, yeah.  Nothing's finalized yet, but everybody's optimistic and it looks like we'll have a dedicated world map.

Hey Toady, you mentioned a potential concern of melanomas caused by sun exposure. I do think you know the whole sunblock thing already, but did you know that the scalp is rather sensetive to UV, regardless of hair coverage? A sun hat could be a pretty good call!

PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7954400#msg7954400

Through the years in the FotF we have more and more people help you with answers, in the sense that you started to quote them for answers (in the past you rarely did that). It saves you time but we get less and less answers from you and we are left dealing with people that think they understand our questions as well as answers were they think they know the answer. It wasn't a huge thing before but it's getting worse through time IMO, though obviously not everyone is guilt of it and some are just trying to be helpful. Do you think that this "priest answering the devotees about the will and the thoughts of the Great Toady" is enabling this and can be harmful to the state of the FotF as well as inhibit direct engagement?

More harmful to direct engagement would be the end of FotF, which would have happened years ago if not for all the people helping out in here.  There is no longer enough time to address every element of every question by myself.  It's an imperfect process, for a variety of reasons, as your question up at the top of post demonstrated, but I haven't received a better suggestion.

So, what's different about supernatural villains? Is it a secret?
Are we talking night trolls paying goblin snatchers for a bit of side work? Or special things only demons get up to?

And, will there be a "quickstart" option for Adventurer parties?Where you want a to play a party of 6 but don't want the hassle of having to define every member.

therahedwig: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7955751#msg7955751
Bumber: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7956144#msg7956144
Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7956154#msg7956154
Knight Otu: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7956165#msg7956165
Schmaven: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7956545#msg7956545

There's been a bit more about the supernatural in the logs since this question was asked, and now it's just up to time and what we get to, so I'll leave it to the logs rather than over-promising (though there is a tidbit in a question below.)

I haven't set up a quickstart option, but it's a sound idea.  It does take a bit of time to select even the basic options that many times.

In Adventure mode, will we witness bribe attempts (bribe or any other form of corruption) ? And will we be able (if we can) to interfere with them ?

A reason why the adventurer is definitely planned to be a head villain that can send out lieutenants, but being an intermediate is much harder, is the local realization of all the plots.  In some cases, we don't have the systems in at all, and in others, it's still quite a bit of fiddly fiddly choreography that might be dangerous to do at this time.  It's much like the army rampages that way.  So I wouldn't expect everything to work.  We'll do the ones we can.

Do you plan to have the agents of villains use seduction as another method of manipulating people, or will that be limited to just flattery?

Seeing as we'll have these networks of agents and corrupted position holders and such, and we'll likely see the player being able to take a position on top of that hierarchy, I can't help but see some parallels with LCS. Terrible pickup lines probably don't have a place in DF, though. ;P

Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7956879#msg7956879

Did not do seduction or false-lovers at this point - even the 'fake friends' part from agents didn't end up being integrated much.  There's still some consolidation to do, though it'll have to be later now.  This often happens when we are experimenting with new systems, and we can only hope nothing else gets as out of hand as the buildings/zones/piles/rooms/locations stuff.

I am afraid of what our conversations will be like when I get there, since there will have to be something...  and it'll probably be very, very bad, like the rest of the conversations.

"... with the ability (upcoming in a bit) to expose most of the factors in the decision-making to legends mode."
Very interested in seeing more of these legends mode changes.

Does "bribery" include promising to share the secret of life and death with someone or is that not in the current version yet?
Actually, I assume that will be part of the "supernatural" villains stuff that is coming up next.

I'm also very curious, so let me extend the question: Would vampires and other intelligent night creatures be able to offer sharing their curse as reward or create criminal organizations composed only of their brethren?

voliol: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7957256#msg7957256

This is on the table for our supernatural additions, yeah.  The use of the curse as an inducement for agents or to grow the cult etc. is in the middle tier after we get the zombies and alliances up, and after a necessary general update to vampire cults (that became sidelined by all the villain stuff.)  So it's not guaranteed, but it's likely if time is in our favor.

What about threatening to out someones prior misbehavious (existent or not) to particular people. Say if someone embezzled funds and a conspirator would threaten to make this public unless that someone did XYZ.

therahedwig: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7957074#msg7957074

Yeah, that's the basic form of blackmail right now, using undiscovered prior criminal agreements or acts against them.

1. With the update to relationships coming will we see any cross race romance (if it doesn't happen now and I've just never seen it)? Ignoring half-bred offspring, I think it would be cool to see dwarves marry the local goblin or plump helmet man, or even cross-racial political marriages to give legitimacy to the odd elf who becomes a dwarven king, or to unite rival villain gangs.

2. As far as the villains go, I know they can lie and assume identities, but I was wondering if they will be able to hide inventory items from the player as part of their cover/deception with the update? This is also assuming that I've not figured out this is already happening, but it would make sense that we couldn't see what a thief is hiding in their tunic.

1. I haven't changed anything about it yet and don't have any particular plans.  It's a common enough theme, but it'd probably introduce some odd bugs due to the variable mismatches, so I might do it all at once, once we solve the child etc. issues.

2. I'm not sure here; giving the player a chance to catch them might be fun, but it'd be kind of irritating if it felt like you had to pore over every inventory list to see where one of your artifacts went.  With the vampires, we mostly erred on the siding of them being able to hide information from you.

Hello Toady, I have to ask during this noise, you are watching the Game of the Thrones or if you read "A Song of Ice and Fire"?

What do you think about the combat system now? What would you like to improve or change and when can you do it?

PlumpHelmetMan: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7958591#msg7958591
Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7958610#msg7958610
PlumpHelmetMan: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7958613#msg7958613
Mel_Vixen: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7958778#msg7958778

Yeah, I've read the books and have seen about half of the seasons (missed a lot of the middle for whatever reason.)  I didn't read the books until the show came on though, in 2011, so I'm not sure how influential it has been on DF stuff.

There are lots and lots of notes on combat stuff, scattered around.  There's the 'combat flow' and 'combat styles' sections on the main page here: http://bay12games.com/dwarves/dev.html .  And a lot of the stuff on the old pages still apply: http://bay12games.com/dwarves/dev_single.html .  But I'm not going to try to deal with choosing the details until later.  The next chance will be with any army-type stuff that occurs after the Steam/itch release.  After that, I'm not sure.

For the myth and magic stuff:
1. Will we ever see any "metamagic", actions/things/magic that changes how magic works/manifests?
2. Will we ever have people in-universe that try to "hack" or exploit loopholes in how the magic works, ala the dwemer from the Elder Scrolls, or the God-Learners from Glorantha?

Manveru Taurënér: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7959182#msg7959182

Yeah, we're hoping that some of the universes will get quite technical or otherwise allow for this sort of thing.  Of course, the ai characters can only go so far, and it'll surely be the player that comes up with the best 'exploits' in meta-magic-style systems.

So with players having access to villain commands, we can now kidnap, torture and sell into slavery people we don't like? That sounds fun. Will slave markets actually make it out of worldgen, or is that a future post-economy update thing? Maybe just trading them with individuals (with the right ethics)? Or sending a companion away with orders to go sell the slaves in an abstract off-map market?

therahedwig: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7959924#msg7959924

I haven't added anything either personal or institutional - much like the captive-taking in world gen wars, they just get transferred over to one of the civ's sites and have an abstract slave status.  I'm not sure yet how that will manifest in adv mode.  There will be a flurry of decision-making when we get there it seems!  Since individual ownership isn't involved, the companion thing sounds like the best guess.

If the Steam release is wildly successful and you have lots of extra funds, have you considered using an NDA to bring in professional programming help?  If only to cleanup and otherwise optimize the code.

That's a possibility, yeah, if we want some poor soul to suffer.  Depending on the kind of cleanup, some general source availability might be more appropriate, number-of-eyes-wise, though there are a still boatload of issues to consider there even when the overall funds issue is removed.

I think I'm most hyped about the ability to instigate wars between civs. Really hope that the player will be able to send out agents in fort mode with that goal.

Can you give a little example of a villain who instigated a war in your testing? What made him do it? A grudge with a ruler perhaps?
Because of this addition, will there be more wars in general than we have now or will it be balanced out in some way? Will it be possible (or more likely) that the player's fort starts out immediately at war with the humans for example?

Other questions:
It sorta came up before, but wasn't really addressed: Are there cavalry mercenary companies?
Also, when hist figs spend their funds to buy equipment, does that just mean items or can they also acquire pet animals or mounts?

PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7960019#msg7960019

I didn't do a story log since time has been shorter lately, with all the extra email and Steam-adjacent work that's been floating about.  I saw that a few villain-led wars were started, but I didn't go through and investigate what was going on.  It's quite likely a ruler grudge, yeah, though whether that was due to past religious persecution or just because the villain was jealous over a lover or something, I didn't check, ha ha ha.

Clearly that means more wars, just based on the mechanics, but stuff like the upcoming alliances will be a counterbalance.  We'll see if scheming ex-lovers cause the end of civilization, I suppose, once I get my first zombie apocalypse rolling.  I do have to be careful in general, since a world gen that just ends all life on the planet is not exactly a playable world.  At least it shouldn't be the default!  And as with some of the other unbalanced parts of world gen, it might be the end state of all worlds now if necromantic secrets always arise; they just need to succeed one time, while the living need to win each war.  Will continue to test and ponder as we go.  But yeah, you might start more often in an atypical war now, due to the specific historical situation.

I haven't done anything with mercenary mounts; world gen is a bit pesky and particular about animal populations outside of the heroic tamings, so we're currently still working only with the new adv mode stuff.  When I do the final bits there, purchases and so on, we'll see if there are additional changes.  Probably not, but can't be sure.

[Toady One]

It may be too soon to tell, but what are the chances you think existing saves from 44.12 will work with the new villains release?

Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7960076#msg7960076
PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7960179#msg7960179
Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7960183#msg7960183

Yeah, they work now, and there's nothing so large coming that that should change.  You can never 100% rule it out, but it seems likely everything will work at some baseline level.  However, yeah, there won't be any plots in place for history, no mercenary companies or any of that, and all of the new relationship variables will be at default levels, so, as usual, it might be good to wrap up the stuff you are working on eventually and then cook up a new world for the full experience, depending on the project.

Given that the villains can now start wars, and that civs can now have a claim on artifacts, are you considering getting rid of the siege triggers? Or do you guys still have a bunch of other... fun you want to implement to make sieges a naturally occurring thing? Similarly, will villain-caused wars listen to the invasion toggle in the configuration, or will it be like the raid-response sieges? I'd ask the same thing for the megabeasts, but I already know they live very boring lives outside of initial worldgen.

I've been reading/watching people's DF let's plays lately, and I am noticing a lot of them aren't interacting with the civ screen much despite it being one of the most important screens when it comes to DF throwing dangers at you. And I am wondering if that's not because most of the dangers just kinda come at you out of nowhere. As for the init setting, was mostly wondering because then we can reliably test how good villains are at generating fort mode Fun without the game having to fudge it a bit.

Actually continuing on that thought a bit:


* Are there plans to flesh out refugees a little in the last bits of the pre-magic arc? They seem to be a very underdeveloped symptom of bleak stuff happening in the world, and there's a whole lot of new bleak stuff for them to run away from. Like, is there anything fundamental stopping them from showing up at your tavern like performance and quester troupes do?
* Will we see escapees show up at our forts?
* Do you think worldgen actors will be smart enough to chase after refugees and escapees?

Death Dragon: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7960950#msg7960950
Telgin: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7960952#msg7960952
EternalCaveDragon: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7960954#msg7960954
PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7960975#msg7960975
therahedwig: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7960996#msg7960996
Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7961099#msg7961099

Yeah, overall, we're slowly entering a world where most siege triggers are unnecessary, both as a form of protection and as a form of forcing invasions.  The 'c' screen change was a first step, and we should see additional changes as we go through the pre-Big-Wait army changes (even if nothing happens this time.)  Ideally, we can almost entirely get rid of them then, but there's still the missing notion of your fort being an economic target, which we don't have any systems for yet.  Once you can, say, send out caravans or something, we can get rid of that one too.

We had some notes on refugees but haven't gotten to it yet.  Not sure about the future.  The main issue is that there are too many of them, oftentimes, so they should instead probably join a village outside your fort and then send a representative to talk to you, something like that.

Escapees have to go somewhere.  But I have no idea if I'll get to any special announcements about it, or if they'll just resume their lives.

They aren't smart enough to chase them now, though they can continue to plot against them, which can feel vaguely the same in w.g. sometimes.  After w.g., it probably won't feel nearly so timely.

Will interface changes (especially mouse support and better control windows) be available on classic version or they are steam/itchio exclusive like tileset and sound effects?

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).

PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7960341#msg7960341

MrWiggles: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7963029#msg7963029
PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7963050#msg7963050
Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7963084#msg7963084

Yeah, the Classic version should get the mouse stuff and all of the accessibility changes.  It's just easier to do it that way, I think, rather than trying to maintain two totally different interface schemes, though we're also going to try to keep the full text console-style version.

We can now request people from our holdings and all, so:
Will we see anytime soon the mountainhome request military aid in the form of soldiers or attack orders?
I could see conscription being pretty easy to implement as it can simply be the liaison telling you to "expel" this or that dwarf or some number of able bodied dwarves back to wherever, but that would probably be too annoying if you couldn't refuse.

PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7960485#msg7960485
Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7960491#msg7960491
PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7960553#msg7960553

The alliance dev log came after these questions, but it's probably the biggest angle now.  I'm not sure exactly what form alliances vs. fort mode will take this time through, but now that we're actually going to engage in that sort of positive and active politics, I think the chances have increased significantly.  And it might even matter in some substantive way in e.g. the fight against the goblins or the dead.  There's a kind of betterment to the player's overall military-political understanding of the world implicit in organized villains and alliances and army battles that, if we're lucky, will achieve a kind of happy balanced picture before we go off to do magic.  It's also quite possible it'll still be mega-lumpy, like everything else in the game.

Last time i asked about army bugs but was too uncertain. The exact one I'm concerned about is frequent inability of soldiers to find their armor, weapon and equipment even if they were specifically designated to wear specific part of it. Will this be fixed in some near future?

Eric Blank: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7960570#msg7960570
therahedwig: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7960601#msg7960601
PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7960613#msg7960613
clinodev: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7960844#msg7960844
Death Dragon: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7960950#msg7960950
PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7960975#msg7960975

The linked bug 535 (in therahedwig's post) has become a container for all equipment bugs, so it might not ever be closed.  All the same, we're going to be working a lot with equipment information before the Steam release, as part of the accessibility improvements, and I imagine some bugs will end up squashed once we have better reports on which items have been selected and should be in their hands (or why not, if they are having trouble getting an assignment, due to layering or civ/mil conflicts or whatever.)

The raid issue mentioned in the linked posts, as I recollect, was something I tried for some time to fix in the past, and had to add a hacky patch to stop some of the crashing (and apparently not all of it.)  I'm not sure if the situation has changed, but, while the end symptoms reproduced, I haven't seen a way yet to reproduce the root cause from start to finish, so it's just been impossible to fix.  Kind of like the nemesis load error, this might be one that just gets patched over in more and more ways, and we just never figure out what's up.

1.What are the middle-term plans for parrying and shielding?
2.Is it possible to modify together an item that works both as a shield and as something equivalent to a crutch?
3. For adventurer medical improvements, how much will be hardcoded?

Specifically I'm thinking about the fact that some of these rock bracelets ought to be very heavy. And in theory a stone splint, something meant to keep you immobile or minimize movement when you heal, would be pretty cool as a variation on splints. But learning to move with something like that puts me in the mind of crutch-walking taking a lot of time to master. But since I'm not suggesting any of it, I'm curious how moddable something like that could be before the big wait. Either with planned additions or what's in the raws now.

4. Once adventurer medical improvements are in, can you get a reputation for treating people's injuries? Any possibility of being treated like a physician (since the skill exists in a scholarly way already) that is welcome in enemy lands because you're so well known for treating anyone you come across? How about treating someone unconscious from a kill on sight faction in order to build personal/entity trust?

5. Can you get hired to take care of these people being tortured in towers, giving you the chance to free them?

6. Will this mean caring for your pets injuries as well?

7. Could you treat the dead's wounds indefinitely to improve your skills provided you were the necromancer that summoned them? Just getting that out of the way now.

therahedwig: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7961676#msg7961676
PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7961730#msg7961730

1. Nothing I can recall, aside from parrying natural attacks.  I'm sure it'll enter into whatever we do with combat styles, but we're far from having specific plans.

2. I'm not sure what the modders have done, but generally, the items are pretty separate from each other, which is a failure of the original design.  What's likely to happen is the tool items getting more and more features until they are essentially doing an entity component system instead of using hierarchical types, and then we'll be fine, and most of the other item types can be dropped (once various interface etc issues are figured out.)  But that's a large project, at least to get it all the way finished.  It does have the benefit of being able to piecemeal for a while, but some of the interface decisions probably need a cleaner break, and we won't be there for a while.

3. I don't know that we'd suddenly have bracelets emerge with a use like that; it doesn't seem likely.  Just getting up to some of what can happen in dwarf mode would be useful, and that just means items that work more or less how they work now.

4. I'm not sure if this is worth it just because it'd be so uncommon to be in a position where you can help a random third party, without the ability to accompany them on some dangerous task or something, without a lot of sitting around and waiting and then popping into scenes that aren't currently coded.

5. A kidnapping is one of the villainous plots to be investigated, and freeing captives seems natural enough, but we haven't nailed down how the investigations start yet.  If you mean in the medical context, then there's currently no notion of hiring for that sort of thing, and it wasn't part of the plan, similar to the answer for #4, since there's not a lot of third-party injuries generally.

6. If you mean adv mode medical, rather than the upcoming pet release, it seems possible, in the same way you'd care for your companions, though fort mode is very underdeveloped along these lines, so I'm not sure.

7. In the way people throw stones constantly to become legendary throwers?  I suppose to some extent it would let you suture them up and so forth, but you might have to rebreak them afterward?  Or tear the sutures out?  But yeah, as long as you can find a pathway that works, I don't see why it wouldn't work, somewhat.  Medical students work with unanimated cadavers profitably, though perhaps the game should be taught that working with the undead isn't exactly live practice either.

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: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7961944#msg7961944
iceball3: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7961949#msg7961949
Miuramir: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7963297#msg7963297

Been a while, so I don't recall exactly, though as Miuramir recounts, it's Tolkieny, like a lot of DF, and was perhaps just the default decision for that reason.  Afterward, in some of the TT stories, they became more underworld inflected and demon-like, and it fit our general concept that they should die only violent deaths.  However, like all of our stuff, we don't actually want to have a canon -- the myth generator is intended to allow for actual different possibilities, and the idea of DF as a 'fantasy world simulator' should allow for the setting to be defined freely, without any pins tacking it here or there, or at least as few as possible (clearly, having a dwarf-style colony is still a strong requirement, though we'd like to lessen that as we can over the long haul.)  I mean, I can't tell somebody named PlumpHelmetMan not to be attached to the current canon, he he he, and there will likely always be a default set of raw-type files for people to play with, but I expect mortal goblins and various other possibilities will be generated once we get there.  Goblins that starve to death, elves that aren't *that* hungry, etc.  The generator will need to know which parts of the default raws are crucial, and which ones are mutable, and that'll likely depend on a txt similar to the current world gen parameters, probably, though there are enough concerns laying on the architecture now that I don't want to commit to anything without looking over all the notes and being careful about it, when the time comes.

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: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7962006#msg7962006
Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7962021#msg7962021

As stated in the response to the previous question, I certainly don't plan for it to always be dependent on the four main races being represented in as equal numbers as possible.

There's no set idea now about exactly how the terrain is going to be defined -- there are abstract stand-in objects that get more detail as it goes, and it seems quite possible for the exact terrain details to pop in either earlier or later in the process, even in stages.  I gave a talk at some point (the progmech one maybe?) where I had the granularity of time and space increasing as you go, and the order in which those steps happen doesn't have to be fully determined.  It's of course more work to allow for more possibilities, and I'm not sure at this point which option(s) will make sense to try first.  And in a sense, due to the ongoing nature of magic etc., myth gen doesn't ever really end, even when the historical years and civs are running, since there can still be interventions or other major mythological events.  In the models with cycles or an apocalypse, these events can be just as large as the original myth events, though one does have to be careful about memory/wasting people's time at some point.

And yeah, as the responses indicate, you'll be able to shut all the random stuff off and build the world up from scratch if you want.  There will have to be a raw format for all of the magic-myth links, but our generators have always generated into a txt format (even if the generators themselves aren't text), so this should be doable.

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?

1. We have to explore the psychology of the necromancers a small bit, why they behave so strangely after learning the secrets, and that'll likely determine if/how they interface with the alliance code at all.  They seem friendly enough in their apprentice structures currently, but I'm not sure that'll last, or if it extends to like-minded strangers.
2. Yeah, that's the idea, even if some of the sides are looking to bail and backstab right when the tide turns.

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.

I'm not exactly aiming for future proofing on this particular part of the update - the myth/magic stuff is going to be too disruptive.  Just going to have a little fun.

1. I haven't been following closely how it currently works, but that'll likely continue.  As with the future myth/magic tie-ins, broad support is not the priority here, since most of this is going to be trashed in some form or another later.  The myth/magic release is going to be closely interlocked with modding, and we should start to see much more appropriate ai/etc. support at that time (though at some point of course it's impossible for an analyzer to detect how to use an effect and it'll require hints, in what'll possibly be a much-expanded version of the current system, or something else.)

2. There isn't much of this at all.  Plan-making is rarely able to be that free-form, and I have to spend most of my time on the common cases.

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?

Before the big wait?  Seems quite likely, yeah.  Maybe even for this time, though the word 'participate' might be doing some heavy-lifting.

The investigators are pretty half-baked compared to all the time I spent on villains; the interrogations use skills, but they don't attempt to say, bribe or blackmail the suspect, even if they have the power to do it.  They can have evidence without interrogation, from witness reports (for instance), but they don't pick up little hints (that would just be made up in world gen anyway, as it is for catching embezzlers, since we don't have granular detail most places.)  The goblin justice apparatus is currently too kind on certain issues, but executes for treason.  Overall, counter-intelligence needs more work, and might get some as I get into adv and fort mode investigations and start to feel certain absences, but I felt like it was time to move on for now.

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?

I'm really not sure yet, but after doing the counter-intelligence stuff, it's starting to look like this might be almost a kind of default quest setup, yeah.  The spies/sheriffs/etc. always end up wanting to speak to people beyond their reach - the arms of the law are not very long right now, without some enterprising person willing to go off into other territory, especially because we didn't get to active counter-intelligence plots by the civs.  The idea of a final climactic army strike against villains doesn't happen in w.g. right now - it might be one of those things that turns out being so necessary it just goes in (we'll even have a shot presently with the alliance stuff, depending on how the nature of the evil is interpreted by the civs.)  Generally, there's this feeling currently that the clean investigative process we were imagining when we started is often going to be more dirty with half-explored graphs etc, as there's so much out there, and this'll possibly integrate well with the civ-led processes.  We'll try to identify the most promising game tracks as we go.  It's pretty funny how foggy the iterative process ends up being sometimes, even after trying to hash out details for a long time in advance.

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: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7962863#msg7962863

The current alliance plan operates at the entity level, so there's a sort of gray area there as it concerns the player, since the player can create an entity, but many villains are not inclined to do so.  I'm also not sure on this first pass how far the alliance concept will go - it'll be a general state, like most other things, but the triggers for it will begin against these large threats as described.  Whether or not we get it working at smaller scales will depend on how easily it feels like it can go or matter that way mechnically right now - if alliances only relate to raising civ-style armies, they mostly won't apply to criminal organizations.

When might we hope to see siege engines targeting accross multiple z-levels?

therahedwig: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7963044#msg7963044

On the targeting question specifically, I just haven't addressed it (as I recollect, siege engines predate the Z coordinate and then I just never worked on them again), and (as linked by therahedwig) there have been such grandiose plans for future engines that nothing has happened.  That's where we're at still.

When you work on the greatly anticipated stress, needs, and happiness changes, will you focus more on fixing the little bugs that made your original plan not work, or more on modifying the algorithm to run stress towards "okay" rather than either ecstatic or misery until well-run, safe fortresses stop breaking around the 5-6 year mark (without extreme micromanagement?) Likely some of each, but have you decided a focus?

Note I'm not asking if it'll be fixed, as that's been well-covered, but it would be neat to see the original plan implemented! There was a moment around August when I was actually somewhat excited the needs bugs might encourage the fixing of long-standing but trivial bugs, like allowing dwarves to: enjoy well-made meals, rather than only (secretly) craving Zebra hearts or polar bear brains; seek out their specifically needed temple; seek out friendships and relationships; grab desired high-value clothes and trinkets from stockpiles, etc.

That might even be mostly the same thing, depending on how much the long-term stress problems depend on broken needs vs. e.g. broken memories.  A lot of the notes I've taken down are about several issues with socializing, meal thoughts, etc.  I haven't jumped into it yet, which makes it hard to answer your question completely.  Issues with long-term memories inside stress-prone dwarves, that kind of thing; I haven't gotten up to speed on all of it yet, and won't until the work begins.  I have some threads marked down to look at when the time comes.  Ideally, a really poorly run fortress will break over the needs issues, while even an 'okay' fortress won't completely fall apart over the background stressors.

[Real_bang]

Thank you for answers!

[clinodev]

Thank you for the replies! Exciting times!

[Death Dragon]

I didn't do a story log since time has been shorter lately, with all the extra email and Steam-adjacent work that's been floating about.  I saw that a few villain-led wars were started, but I didn't go through and investigate what was going on.  It's quite likely a ruler grudge, yeah, though whether that was due to past religious persecution or just because the villain was jealous over a lover or something, I didn't check, ha ha ha.

Clearly that means more wars, just based on the mechanics, but stuff like the upcoming alliances will be a counterbalance.  We'll see if scheming ex-lovers cause the end of civilization, I suppose, once I get my first zombie apocalypse rolling.  I do have to be careful in general, since a world gen that just ends all life on the planet is not exactly a playable world.  At least it shouldn't be the default!  And as with some of the other unbalanced parts of world gen, it might be the end state of all worlds now if necromantic secrets always arise; they just need to succeed one time, while the living need to win each war.  Will continue to test and ponder as we go.  But yeah, you might start more often in an atypical war now, due to the specific historical situation.

Hell yeah, thanks.