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[therahedwig]

Yeah, basically what is happening here is that the arc after the one that gave us the hospitals and caves and the current military system was going to be the 'caravan arc'. And during this period, the civs and site governments were given the abilities to set up trade routes and stuff, to the point that there is an actual trade sim. However, for one reason or the other completing the caravan arc proved to be too complicated (if I recall correctly the main problem is that there just isn't any mechanism to have the stuff you export from a fort to actually become part of the world proper), so development switched away from it.

You can already see some effects of it when you go to a market in adventure mode, the callers will yell where their products came from, and they're able to do that because of the existing sim. According to previous fotfs there are virtual caravans going around, but they aren't the ones you see in fort mode, which live in a separate world from the former. And now the trade companies are sitting on top of those virtual caravans, making friends in foreign lands while they're at it.

[falcc]

1) To what extent will your dwarves interact with prisoners as of this coming release? Will it be possible for the dwarf carrying water to prisoners to become friends with them, try to release them, petition for their release, or be blackmailed by them?

2) What kind of value changes result from thoughts related to imprisonment? Can someone released early or who sees their blackmailer jailed start to value the law and stop being villainous?

3) You mentioned that in world generation you've seen family members completely lose trust in their villainous kin. Are there any interactions family and friends can have with villainous people that sways them from committing further villainy once their current intrigues are thwarted?

4) Can you pull up a gremlin on charges for their lever crimes and send out a squad of dwarves to non-lethally nab the little buggers in the caverns locally? Can you integrate said little buggers from jail instead of cages if you're simultaneously training them?

5) How strong is the influence of law values on decision making when it comes to schemes? How strong is the influence of the trust value on letting somebody convince you that actually laws are arbitrary and worth breaking with schemes?

[BlevRuz]

Are there any plans for civilisation/era-specific architecture?

[therahedwig]

Are there any plans for civilisation/era-specific architecture?

Yes, it has been brought up several times, and there is even some of it already in the game(towns right now work in such a way so that if a human hamlet gets taken over by the elves and later the goblins, you get structures from all three civ-types in that town). From the last fotf there was comment from Toady that he was unsure when he would get into properly handling that type of stuff, at the very least the next section that needs to be done is the myth and magic map rewrite (because that should simplify multi-level stuff like the dwarf forts).

That said, this has always been about civ-specific structures, never about era specific, so I guess that part is still unknown :p

[BlevRuz]

Are there any plans for civilisation/era-specific architecture?

Yes, it has been brought up several times, and there is even some of it already in the game(towns right now work in such a way so that if a human hamlet gets taken over by the elves and later the goblins, you get structures from all three civ-types in that town). From the last fotf there was comment from Toady that he was unsure when he would get into properly handling that type of stuff, at the very least the next section that needs to be done is the myth and magic map rewrite (because that should simplify multi-level stuff like the dwarf forts).

That said, this has always been about civ-specific structures, never about era specific, so I guess that part is still unknown :p

Thanks! Hadn't looked hard enough, haha. I've yet to stumble over any such mixed town, too.
Something like specific architectural styles being defined and used instead of civ-wide standard buildings could be really interesting, but I don't know how hard it could be to put in practice. Down the line, perhaps! Enough on the plate as is, I suppose.

[Inarius]

Will AI agents try to re-mount if they fall from their mount ? I mean, is a bandit aware of the fact that he is on something, and that, if he falls from his mount, he can ride it again ?

Second question : do you plan to add the mounting part in Arena too ?

I'd really like to test many things with mounting.

[Death Dragon]

It seems to me that the "worldgen -> post-worldgen -> adventure mode -> fort mode" development process causes most of the new features to just be applied to the game's history generation, because by the time the actual gameplay parts of the development cycle are reached, there isn't much development time left.
Do you still prefer this development structure or would it be better for the game to go through it backwards and start development of new features in adv/fort mode?

[therahedwig]

Heh, Inarius, you wanna go jousting?

Hm, as much as I sometimes feel the same, I think the current way of development is the most efficient: all fortmode and adventure mode interaction is intended to work for histfigs as well, because you are essentially controlling histfigs. So, for villains to be the most fun you will need to do worldgen work first and do it properly so that people who don't necessarily want to play villains can enjoy them them just as much as people who are looking forward to playing villains. And I suspect also that the vast majority of the worldgen work is design and testing of systems. Considering we've had bugs like the candy spires, as well as the mysterious nemesis bug, it doesn't seem all that strange to debug a lot here. And the design part as well, there's a reason DF clones get made so easily, and it isn't just because they're doing a shallow implementation of what df is, it is also because they have an example of how it could work. And especially in the case of villainy, implementing them game-side first just gives you a ton of actors that don't know what to do with your directions.

I mean, I do agree it is a bit annoying. There's very little challenge to running a successful tavern(outside of bugs), a performer adventurer will mostly be able to go between towns and get rep, but skill growth is pretty slow and there's no reason to increase your skill because the festivals and competitions don't exist. Stealing artifacts is... having questers run after you is sorta unnerving, but I never get attacked or really accosted by them, and the actual stealing itself is also rather trivial.

On the other hand, setting up a good library requires a surprising amount of careful decision making, and if bugs are fixed, having all the new linkages stuff will mean taverns+temples will be a lot more interesting next release(though, still not terribly hard to have a popular tavern). Raiding is sort of fun when it doesn't completely corrupt your game, though it is questionable why any mature fort would raid for artifacts given how often moods occur, so a lot of artifact related stuff isn't seen right now.


- Do horses need to graze in adv mode? I looked around, but couldn't see anything regarding it. Horses ignoring you to graze is a pretty universal horseback-riding experience.
- How are you planning on tackling the steam release? Just one big monthslong dev cycle, or are you going to break it up a little so you can fold it into the bugfix cycles and have binaries for M&M to experiment with?
- Will the new romance stuff also be delayed for fort mode to the post-steam releases?
- Do you think the army stuff will take as long as the villains release has? I mean, sure the villains release got delayed by all the linking stuff that cropped up, but as far as I know it is also a pretty ambitious system for a video game. Will the army stuff require a lot of worldgen work, or is it mostly interaction and UI side?

[PatrikLundell]

- As far as I understand it, there's going to be internal closed beta testing of the Premium release, which implies the work being split up to some extent, but to those outside of the beta it's a single unbroken run as usual, possibly with a little fewer new bugs than usual, although the rapidly diminishing time remaining until it has to be released will run counter to that.
- My understanding was that the romance modifications were done a year ago and haven't been released simply because there haven't been any releases since. Thus, I expect it to be included in the Villain release that release turned into.
- The Villains arc is a short one, in DF terms, at a bit over 1½ year (assuming its FIRST release happens within the next two months or so, and bug fix releases are kept to an absolute minimum [but hopefully not below that, this time]). I wouldn't expect a new arc to be shorter than a year, in particular if the development model is modified to support the latest release with fixes of important bugs and minor new features in parallel with new development to show the game isn't abandoned. Also note that Toady isn't one of the exceedingly rare SW developers who makes an accurate plan and sticks to it, but rather starts with an overfull table of features knowing some will have to be cut, an optimistic schedule, and pursuit of tangents, with the schedule the first thing to be adjusted when the plan didn't hold.

[therahedwig]

- As far as I understand it, there's going to be internal closed beta testing of the Premium release, which implies the work being split up to some extent, but to those outside of the beta it's a single unbroken run as usual, possibly with a little fewer new bugs than usual, although the rapidly diminishing time remaining until it has to be released will run counter to that.

- My understanding was that the romance modifications were done a year ago and haven't been released simply because there haven't been any releases since. Thus, I expect it to be included in the Villain release that release turned into.

I was reffering to romance in dwarf mode.

- The Villains arc is a short one, in DF terms, at a bit over 1½ year (assuming its FIRST release happens within the next two months or so, and bug fix releases are kept to an absolute minimum [but hopefully not below that, this time]). I wouldn't expect a new arc to be shorter than a year, in particular if the development model is modified to support the latest release with fixes of important bugs and minor new features in parallel with new development to show the game isn't abandoned. Also note that Toady isn't one of the exceedingly rare SW developers who makes an accurate plan and sticks to it, but rather starts with an overfull table of features knowing some will have to be cut, an optimistic schedule, and pursuit of tangents, with the schedule the first thing to be adjusted when the plan didn't hold.

Erm... Patrick, I have been playing this game since slightly before the 0.31.01 release... that's... 2009. There has been slight variations to the arc rhythm. For example, the animal drive was a series of bugfix releases that included a bunch of new animals each release, as well as associated nestboxes and beekeeping and clay. The minecart release also took about a month or two in total. What these releases have in common is that they required very little worldgen work. The villains release is still a relatively long DF devcycle. The longest has been 2~ years, which was the world activation release if I recall correctly. This one, also required a lot of worldgen work. Therefore, my conclusion of 10 years of observing the development, is that worldgen work is very intensive (and probably this has good reasons, I already laid out what my speculations here are). Ergo, I am asking how much is suspected to be in terms of worldgen work, because my experience is that once that foundation is laid, development goes pretty quickly.

[PatrikLundell]

What's "romance", unless it's the multiple lovers/lover(s) beside a spouse? If you mean fixing relations so dorfs actually are able to get them (to fulfill needs), then it should be part of the bug fixing part of the Premium release work.

[Shonai_Dweller]

What's "romance", unless it's the multiple lovers/lover(s) beside a spouse?

Yes, that's the only "New romance stuff" going on. That and villains taking advantage of the new grudges / passions of jealous husbands and jilted lovers which Toady already mentioned in the devlog as happening in fortress mode. There's no "new fortress romance" stuff, whatever that might theoretically consist of (mind boggles). The only missing "romance" stuff is for the poor old Adventurer who won't be getting any loving for several years yet.

They go about the typical business of these visitors, and any dwarves they encounter are subject to attempts to sway their loyalties, using the techniques from world generation (flattery, intimidation, promise of revenge against a grudge, promise of immortality, etc.)

"Army stuff" going strictly by the devlog is mainly fortress mode Improved Sieges. Although management of armies in off-site holdings is also there. Actual armies already move about and fight each each other in worldgen, so probably not much to add as far as worldgen goes.

But....pre Big-Wait rabbit hole combined with adding the stuff from Villains which didn't make it could be pretty long.
And would actually be a very welcome thing. This whole, "I'm going to cut the most ambitious development arc in years due to pressure from business people" is just depressing.

[therahedwig]

At some point early on, perhaps before traitors, we'll also have to bring the fort in line with the new relationship model. This will expand what grudges and friendships mean, and it will also allow the new w.g. features like divorce and multiple lovers to happen in fort mode.

This is what I am talking about, you guys never saw it? (I mean, it's a long devlog)

This whole, "I'm going to cut the most ambitious development arc in years due to pressure from business people" is just depressing.

Where are people getting this from? Devcycles have been cut before because they were too long? I am pretty sure it's just a self-driven sense of deadline?

[PlumpHelmetMan]

Indeed. Even months before the Steam announcement, Toady was already expressing frustration at the degree to which he was dragging this cycle out. Don't think Kitfox has much (if anything) to do with it.

[Shonai_Dweller]

At some point early on, perhaps before traitors, we'll also have to bring the fort in line with the new relationship model. This will expand what grudges and friendships mean, and it will also allow the new w.g. features like divorce and multiple lovers to happen in fort mode.

This is what I am talking about, you guys never saw it? (I mean, it's a long devlog)

This whole, "I'm going to cut the most ambitious development arc in years due to pressure from business people" is just depressing.

Where are people getting this from? Devcycles have been cut before because they were too long? I am pretty sure it's just a self-driven sense of deadline?

And a couple of devlogs ago, as I quoted, he said villains were working in Dwarf mode by offering the promise of revenge against a grudge. That wouldn't work if the new relationships weren't working. It's the point of doing it.

And in yesterday's blog he quoted "obligations" and the need to get on with Steam and touch base with the artists, etc. as the reason for cutting stuff.
I mean, that's fine, he usually cuts stuff for his own time limits. But this is the first time he's quoted actual outside pressure as the reason. Meh, no need to read too deeply into that though.

The Steam work has been put off for a long while, and we have obligations to meet there, and artists and others to coordinate with, so some bits may have to be placed with the post-Steam army work.