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.
Id think the players are too, it has lead to some pretty important issues being unaddressed for a few versions. What is it, like a year and a half, little more since dwarves were completely oblivious (seperate issue in itself) to anything except massive mood infatuation but not much mechanical relationship growth to being haunted wrecks. (which fairly enough was unforseeable as a future problem at the time and was meant to be a effective fix to the issue)
Im not expecting a silver bullet by the next version as much as a developed assurance but its helpful to see a horizon eventually even if we have to wait for the extended steam release which going to a good cause kind of supplants the feeling that if it had not been the case we'd have the update in full and maybe a extra bit of flair presented to us already.
Vaguely seperate question for Toady:
Since elves operate in their own religious system compared to polytheism with the Druid holding higher office than the Queen, they are obviously different than all the other races for the next version who mostly adhere to polytheism (and goblin demonic monotheism, but until that's fixed: atheism). Besides establishments for shrines will there be any kind of barebones recognition of druidism from a playable fortress's perspective should a player switch the religious system in the raws and desire to pray to the natural spirit of the mountains?Its something i might probe into when the version with priests eventually rolls out, but i imagine they're probably far away from acolytes doing
very important nature stuff (purportedly via the mass recreational consumption of hemp plants grown locally) in that one day, a fortress priest/druid might inherit a prominent nationally important noble role via mass support or private selection of successors.