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[voliol]

Unless I missed it, we haven't seen any screenshots of the Classic/ASCII version yet. Any chance we can get a preview of what it will look like?

It is one of the last points in the roadmap, so I don’t think they have started working on it yet. Maybe they’ve done some small experiments, but I doubt they are representative enough of the final version to show.

[Toady One]

Is this part about the map screen in legends, and changes made to it for the upcoming release? Or don’t you think language borders will ever become clear in the game, even after entity/politics/what-have-you rewrites? I don’t know much about medeival geopolitics so I don’t know if fuzzy borders would be historically accurate.

Also, is the knowledge tab planned to eventually hold esoteric magicky knowledge? Or some other knowledge? It feels to me that the info in there wouldn’t be something I look up for an individual dwarf, because I don’t know how to interact with it, but maybe that is because it hasn’t surfaced before so I’ve not gotten used to it.

Inarius: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8365215#msg8365215
squamous: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8365412#msg8365412

Certainly nothing is happening with them in the upcoming release (aside from showing your holdings, allies, enemies, etc.)  And yeah, I think mainly I'm against the complete separation that you get in a lot of strategy games.  The language and economy are related to but not imposed entirely by the rulers, and the rulers aren't all-or-nothing either.  I just want to remain flexible, but I think it's also fair to want to see some clear information, and to be able to make/influence clear changes through your actions.

I remember reading once that the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art set up a preservation system for DF releases.  There was some quote about how if all of Bay12 blew up, their curators would have a copy.  Does that still exist, and will they get archival access to the premium releases?

I think they just meant that they download every copy that has been released.  I haven't spoken to them about the premium releases.  I wouldn't have any problem given them a key or whatever they need.  I'm not sure what their policy is though.

The new elven grown wood weapons seem to have leaves on them... Does this mean the graphics raws can differentiate between grown and normal wooden items?

Just weapons so far - I have to be pretty careful with the properties I allow in for each item to keep the texture lookup moving quickly.  I'm not sure I'll ever be able to change over to a more general system for this reason, though I haven't completely given up on it.

Last year you've made a statement of support to Palestine. It would mean a lot if you condemned russian genocide in Ukraine in similar way.

It's awful what is happening there, and as far as I can tell from reports, targeting of civilians by the Russian military appears to be systematic, which is evil.  The reason there isn't a post on the dev log is that although some of our more outlandish TV may make it look contested, it's not a controversial position here.  There are Ukrainian flags waving on houses in my neighborhood now, and the votes for Ukraine funding in our government have been near unanimous.

Are there any planned uses for golden salve and liquid fire?

Nothing specific planned, nope!  Now that they're starting to bump up against the myth/magic stuff slightly, it remains to be seen whether they'll get anything special first.  I may have mentioned before (I don't recall) that the golden salve at least has a little more hope ever since we added all those beneficial shrine effects.  It'd just require the hospital to keep it on hand and the doctors to understand what to do with it.

1. Will there be randomly generated “Chosen One(s)” “Son(s) of God(s)”, "Speakers for God(s)" or “Messiah(s)” in Dwarf Fortress's Myth Update? If so, how will they be fit into the wider Creation Story and can they be tied into play or will they be a strictly Legends-only edition?
2. Slightly riding off of question one -- Will there be various “Prophecies” or “End times” events for the Proc. Generated Myth? If that concept is planned, will some Prophecies and/or End times actually happen during gameplay (meaning you can actually WATCH the world be destroyed or reformed) or will it just be part of the Myth story?

I certainly doubt the term "messiah" will be used, but this does sound like it could be cool.  I wonder if it would be possible to start adventurer mode games as a "Chosen One".

1. This seems likely, at some point.  Making them playable would be almost an RPG genre requirement, though I wouldn't want to have them in every world.

2. The existing prophets have very (very) bad 'procedural' prophecies we were hoping to expand upon.  One of the key themes for myth/magic was emphasizing and allowing change, and blowing up the entire world etc. is a good and extreme example.  There are lots of practical issues with this of course, the main one being what the player thinks and how it affects their ability to play (that is, taking it away.)  So it's just sitting on the idea table currently, eliminating the world variously, in all modes (though it's pretty silly if it happens in legends, since you wouldn't be able to play at all unless the world is reborn - I'm not wholly against this, but it feels like it should be opt-in.)  Of course, some apocalypses are partial in the sense that they are just terrible but don't destroy the world utterly, and w.g. could have multiple of these before you start playing.

More generally prophecies are hard because it's hard to get all the elements lined up and to respect them, but something is doable.

Animal people from in the caverns are listed as possible targets for interrogation. Technically regular animals are too, so this might not be intended behavior. It still got me thinking.
A ) Will there be a chance of a wanderer in the caverns being propositioned to steal something by the local animal people instead of just attacking every time?
B ) Is there any chance that animal people and/or trolls be able to petition release?
C ) What about getting messengers, negotiations, or demands from the elves petitioning for the release of animal people?

I know I've asked about trolls before but you recently talked about being unsure if they could be citizens already so I wondered if you'd changed your mind.

D ) Since changes to sieges and the second villains release are now both coming before The Big Wait will there be more ways of non-lethally incapacitating invaders than just static cages? Or options to leave them unconscious to be dragged off by their retreating army?

E ) If someone's armies get wooped in battle enough do they form a rival attachment to an enemy general? Or is that only for athletic matters? Semi-related do rivals have a bias towards or against kissing one another before/after an athletic competition?

FantasticDorf: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8369684#msg8369684

Interrogating animals may be the same silliness that convicting animals is.

A+B+C) This is all reasonable stuff.  But yeah, I dunno when it fits or what's gonna happen.  The underground animal people in generally used to be a much bigger part of the game, and I'd also like to get regular animal people out of limbo, and that fits somewhere with the map rewrite and the entity rewrite down the line.
D) Some of this is quite possible.  I know dealing with captives more robustly and possibly humanely is in the army arc notes, anyway, after various previous discussions here.
E) The rival relationship is completely underutilized since it was (I think) part of the way to expand friend/acquaintance networks to jumpstart the villain stuff, which was then put on hold.  Like other w.g. mechanics of this sort, it's hoped that we'll get it into play some day, and we don't even have athletics in play (and that feels very complicated.)  But yeah, the term should also apply elsewhere.

Are expansions to the C screen now you've revamped it in the recent devlog on the table for the future? trying not to skew the question with a suggestion, but practical ones like seeing tunnel connection points between fortresses and any subterrenean FOV your civilization has relevant for travelling.

It's there to be expanded as features are expanded, at least.  I'm not sure we'll get to tunnel connections at all before the map rewrite since redoing how the underground works is one of the main points of the map rewrite.

Regarding the early game stress fixes you posted about; How will the game handle a migrant who has family on the other side of the world, so he is immediately depressed due to missing family?

If I remember the stress science thread(s), and this part hasn't changed, missing needs in generally don't cause that much trouble stress-wise even though they were blaring alarms in the thoughts - though we still have a list of unmeetable needs we're hoping to look at when we start in on bugs, and now that we have the C screen up, there may be some way to address it.  There's that specific thought for w.g. kidnapped people which is a separate matter as well.

A trade depot in 0.47.05 can hold several caravans simultaneously.  When the player tries to trade, the UI asks which one to trade with.  I don't recall seeing anything about this (admittedly niche) feature in the Premium devlogs and previews.

Can a trade depot in Premium still accept multiple caravans?

Immortal-D: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8370242#msg8370242

Ha ha, it has been a while, so I don't even remember.  It would have been in the screen notes but this is exactly the kind of thing that makes up the end of Stage 1 on the roadmap.  Lemmesee...  doesn't look like it!  Just a note to add it on the loop where it selects the active merchant.  So yeah, must have been a day where I was just like "not another scrollbar..." and moved on.  This was not uncommon.  But I'm cleaning it all up now, along with choosing sizes for clothing and various other missing bits.

These new animal people sprites have more variance in their body shapes than I remember from the ones shown earlier, though the two bird-men and insect-men seem to have the same base. Will they have support for showing actual worn clothing/armor where possible (i.e. the body because they all have unique heads and limbs)? Or will the brown tunic be the extent of their graphical wardrobe? Or some in-between where the tunic can be palette-swapped according to profession?

Edit: And apropos of the giant toad/toad man shown, do you have any plans for how to fix that bug of them not appearing in-game? Will the principle of creatures not just "spawning" but having to arrive from off-screen be broken, since ponds never cross the borders of the map?

We're trying to keep the number of body variants manageable for equipment purposes, yeah, though it remains to be seen whether the initial vanilla release will have equipment sets for every one of them.

Ah, I wasn't even aware of the giant toad/toad man problem, so I don't have plans for it.  Seems like something that should be fixed though!  We haven't done much with behavior of creatures in their environments so pond restrictions don't seem important to maintain for things like toad people.

Unless I missed it, we haven't seen any screenshots of the Classic/ASCII version yet. Any chance we can get a preview of what it will look like?

voliol: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8370851#msg8370851

voliol has answered this one.  It hasn't started yet.  The general idea is to keep everything in one interface, which means replacing borders and such with ASCII glyphs, and (the more difficult part) buttons etc. with ASCII equivalents.

[Su]

in all our time on bay12, we don't think we've ever seen zack post to the main page. what brought that about?

[FantasticDorf]

Ah, I wasn't even aware of the giant toad/toad man problem, so I don't have plans for it.  Seems like something that should be fixed though!  We haven't done much with behavior of creatures in their environments so pond restrictions don't seem important to maintain for things like toad people.

Thanks for the replies Toady!

Yeah, ponds and rivers and lake biomes are a bit weird in their own ways with how little the animals move/populate. I've made a suggestion thread about it directly inspired by the replies here.

in all our time on bay12, we don't think we've ever seen zack post to the main page. what brought that about?

Threetoe has contributed their stories before onto the frontpage so i don't think its too unusual personally, I just assume Toady's just insanely busy at the moment so its better to defer the responsibility.

[Putnam]

in all our time on bay12, we don't think we've ever seen zack post to the main page. what brought that about?

It's actually happened a few times, outside the aforementioned stories:

http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/dev_2018.html#2018-12-05
http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/dev_2017.html#2017-07-13
http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/dev_2016.html#2016-06-28

[falcc]

Thanks for the answers, Toady. Good luck on this push towards the end of the premium release!

[Bloodwarrior]

im going to put a question in for the next one.

1 will prophets have more functions in the myth and magic update depending on who they serve.

2 would it be possible when prophecies come out to proclaim your own.[/glow][/glow][/glow][/glow]

[Siredeturtle]

In the past I remember mentions of adventurer-conquerors and government positions as a possible part of the upcoming Army Arc (the later being possible already with a little dialogue trick, but not very satisfying). After a long time and the current developments in the Steam version, my question is:

What can we expect from the Army Arc regarding adventure mode?

[FantasticDorf]

im going to put a question in for the next one.

1 will prophets have more functions in the myth and magic update depending on who they serve.

2 would it be possible when prophecies come out to proclaim your own.

Lime green so they're read please @Bloodwarrior.

About #1 Do you mean by the context of interpretation/actions they take to try and follow their gods direction? In the Bible, 'God' regularly intervened with the lives of the Disciples, going where they were directed by 'him' or whisked away abroad to spread Christianity faster and correct notions on his intentions to deviate from the set Abrahamic Judaic view of the faith (which i guess is a bit like travelling inside one DF religious sphere of nature, and ending up with a emphasis on trees on the related childtype on similar but different values).

Or uh, did you have something slightly more cultishly world-doom cataclysmic dramatic in mind?

I think Toady would have difficulty with that question on the first try to be honest, it took me a few re-edits of this post to try and understand it, if you could expand the question with a bit more detail that'd help.
To answer #2 abstractly, (genuine) prophets do technically already work as the middlemen to deliver religion to the non-believers, so when they have a mechanic to actually communicate with gods as actors (which is something im not entirely sure you need myth and magic to do, gods already "talk" with the mortal world through dice) it may be a thing to pursue in adventuremode once villian arc gets more fleshing out.

If you're a good persuader you can already sway people with the power of arguement on mundane topics through talking or writing very well, notably in fortress mode, priests can convert folks inside of temples burrowed there within listening distance when they deliver their sermons, so even if you make it up in adventuremode, you can in theory just choose a diety, and go prophiezing from there town to town with your persuader skill until people knock-on effect believe you. (if something like that ends up being implemented)

[GOTOTOTOE]

in your gdc 2016 talk, you showed off the creation myth generator that seemed to be a generally separate program from dwarf fortress proper (assumably to be reintegrated into df when myths starts development). would you be cool with sharing it for the community to get a taste of myths long before it comes out or would this fall under code being shared? i would personally just like to play around with it since worldbuildings fun but i can definitely see how it conflicts with the "no code sharing" policy.

[Eric Blank]

Toady has said in the past he doesn't want to release it directly because its content and function would inevitably become what people expect the DF mythgen system to be, and he wants freedom to essentially set up the df mythgen system separately, doing things that that generator can't do and otherwise not trying to emulate it

[GOTOTOTOE]

Toady has said in the past he doesn't want to release it directly because its content and function would inevitably become what people expect the DF mythgen system to be, and he wants freedom to essentially set up the df mythgen system separately, doing things that that generator can't do and otherwise not trying to emulate it

he has already shown it though, has he? i doubt people being able to play around with it themselves would shape the expectations people have of it to a point the gdc talk itself hasn't already

[Bloodwarrior]

im going to put a question in for the next one.

1 will prophets have more functions in the myth and magic update depending on who they serve.

2 would it be possible when prophecies come out to proclaim your own.

Lime green so they're read please @Bloodwarrior.


About #1 Do you mean by the context of interpretation/actions they take to try and follow their gods direction? In the Bible, 'God' regularly intervened with the lives of the Disciples, going where they were directed by 'him' or whisked away abroad to spread Christianity faster and correct notions on his intentions to deviate from the set Abrahamic Judaic view of the faith (which i guess is a bit like travelling inside one DF religious sphere of nature, and ending up with a emphasis on trees on the related childtype on similar but different values).

Or uh, did you have something slightly more cultishly world-doom cataclysmic dramatic in mind?

I think Toady would have difficulty with that question on the first try to be honest, it took me a few re-edits of this post to try and understand it, if you could expand the question with a bit more detail that'd help.
To answer #2 abstractly, (genuine) prophets do technically already work as the middlemen to deliver religion to the non-believers, so when they have a mechanic to actually communicate with gods as actors (which is something im not entirely sure you need myth and magic to do, gods already "talk" with the mortal world through dice) it may be a thing to pursue in adventuremode once villian arc gets more fleshing out.

If you're a good persuader you can already sway people with the power of arguement on mundane topics through talking or writing very well, notably in fortress mode, priests can convert folks inside of temples burrowed there within listening distance when they deliver their sermons, so even if you make it up in adventuremode, you can in theory just choose a diety, and go prophiezing from there town to town with your persuader skill until people knock-on effect believe you. (if something like that ends up being implemented)

sorta like actually communicate like give quests like talking to npc do or gods  visiting

[Fikilili]

Not entirely game related, but I've had this question living rent free in my head since the unfortunate and tragic death of Kentaro Miura, who left us with his unfinished magnum opus.
1. With the arrival of the Steam version and the ever growing list of to-be-added features in the Bay12 Development log, do you still feel like you'll be able to one day complete the game? Don't you feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work it represents, or do you really think you have the time to polish it/finish it completely before... Well, anything unfortunate happens to you?
2. If you and Threetoe were to leave the game unfinished, who would take the lead and keep its development? Would you leave DF to the community like ID Software did with Doom? Or will someone else keep developing it, albeit, in a different form?
Don't interpret my questions as mean spirited, but this last decade has been chokeful of artists who left us or abandoned their work without finishing it, so the slow but steady development of DF sometimes worries me. Although don't worry, I have faith in the two of you.

[BlueManedHawk]

What is the "shrouded history" mentioned in the prefstring of kobold bulbs?