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Author Topic: Reducing legends mode clutter  (Read 1810 times)

Hapchazzard

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Reducing legends mode clutter
« on: August 02, 2018, 08:27:34 pm »

After using legends mode for a little bit, I have some suggestions on how to possibly reduce clutter to bearable levels.

Timelines

When turning off all "non-important" events (in other words, displaying only the yellow text), it seems that 90% of the events consist of:

a) Random festivals, and every little detail about them listed individually (so you have stuff like "107th Crossbows Throwing Competition of the Armored Festival began" being regarded as a very important event. No joke, I literally pulled that example straight from the game.)

b) Random rampages and abductions.

These don't really ring the bell for me as being particularly important events for world history. When toggling "important events only", the following things should be displayed:

A) Megabeast deaths
B) Major sites being founded, conquered, or destroyed
C) Civilizations/Religions/Factions being founded or extinguished
D) Particularly 'important' (this might be difficult to determine) people getting into positions of power, e.g. powerful monarchs ascending the throne, extremely adept generals entering service, etc.
E) Wars breaking out and ending, major battles (Note - wars seem to be almost broken currently in worldgen. Basically every border skirmish is treated as a major war by the game, hence the vast majority of the "wars" in legends mode are single-battle affairs that last less than half a year. This should be fixed, obviously)
F) Important artifacts getting created, changing hands, lost or destroyed

Ideally, there should be some granularity when it comes to displaying this info, ranging from "Just give me the barest breakdown of the era" to "Give me an infodump of every minor event that happened during the era".

Regions

These should have the format of:

1) Intro
2) Flora and fauna
3) History overview
4) Points of interest

For example:

"The Infinite Fingers was a mountain chain on the continent of The Absolute Realm.

The flora mainly consisted of cottongrass and hair grass, with little in the way of larger vegetation. The fauna was as typical of mountain regions, with the large population of giant bats and giant bobcats being particularly noteworthy.

In primordial times, the mountains were inhabited only by tribes of kea men. During these times, the mighty roc Famime Fuchsiatulip ruled the region from the skies. In 46, the first dwarven settlers from The Nation of Hammers arrived and built the fortress of Cloisterrag. In 102, Famime Fuchsiatulip was struck down by the dwarf Tosid Trancepaint in the 3rd Ravaging of Cloisterrag by Famime Fuchsiatulip. In 183 Cloisterrag was sacked by elven forces in The Fierce Conflict and made part of the Cerulean Empire. In 202 Cloisterrag was retaken by The Nation of Hammers from The Cerulean Empire.

Points of interest:

Cloisterrag (Fortress) is the largest and oldest inhabited settlement in the region
The Tombs of Glistening (Tomb) is a large and ancient tomb complex near Cloisterrag
The Red Peak (Geographical feature) is the highest peak of the region"

Obviously, if someone desired more detailed info (like in the current version), there would be an option for that as well.

If I have any more ideas for other parts of legends mode, I'll post them.
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fonzacus

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Re: Reducing legends mode clutter
« Reply #1 on: August 02, 2018, 10:00:36 pm »

if you checked under your site, youd see tons of masterworks being produced. also dwarf A changed profession and whatnot. culling every useless nooks and cranny is a must IMHO.
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KittyTac

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Re: Reducing legends mode clutter
« Reply #2 on: August 02, 2018, 10:02:03 pm »

I agree, but there should be an option for those who like giant infodumps.
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Shonai_Dweller

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Re: Reducing legends mode clutter
« Reply #3 on: August 02, 2018, 10:07:28 pm »

Hiding the info with Mythgen style "hyperlinks" is a much better idea than culling everything that seems 'unimportant' at the moment.

External viewers do a great job of sorting all the information that Legends Mode can export into visually appealing sections. Wouldn't want to neuter them.
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Miles_Umbrae

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Re: Reducing legends mode clutter
« Reply #4 on: August 02, 2018, 10:08:51 pm »

I'm of the mindset the game should generate all the excessive information it does(or more) and then have a stand-alone tool with leavers, knobs, and buttons to filter it down what each individual player wants
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KittyTac

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Re: Reducing legends mode clutter
« Reply #5 on: August 02, 2018, 10:09:42 pm »

I'm of the mindset the game should generate all the excessive information it does(or more) and then have a stand-alone tool with leavers, knobs, and buttons to filter it down what each individual player wants
That's what Legends Viewer is.
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Shonai_Dweller

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Re: Reducing legends mode clutter
« Reply #6 on: August 02, 2018, 10:14:27 pm »

I'm of the mindset the game should generate all the excessive information it does(or more) and then have a stand-alone tool with leavers, knobs, and buttons to filter it down what each individual player wants
That's what Legends Viewer is.
I guess he means Toady should develop his own. Seems unlikely, but he is making an editor so who knows? More than likely he'll just increase the amount of data that can be exported to assist well established tools than make his own (besides adding the Mythgen interface, which will be a huge help).

Like graphics, best anyone can expect in the way of "official" graphics is "improved support for graphics modders".
« Last Edit: August 02, 2018, 10:16:54 pm by Shonai_Dweller »
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Miles_Umbrae

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Re: Reducing legends mode clutter
« Reply #7 on: August 03, 2018, 10:00:20 pm »

I'm of the mindset the game should generate all the excessive information it does(or more) and then have a stand-alone tool with leavers, knobs, and buttons to filter it down what each individual player wants
That's what Legends Viewer is.
I guess he means Toady should develop his own. Seems unlikely, but he is making an editor so who knows? More than likely he'll just increase the amount of data that can be exported to assist well established tools than make his own (besides adding the Mythgen interface, which will be a huge help).

Like graphics, best anyone can expect in the way of "official" graphics is "improved support for graphics modders".
Not necessarily made by Toady, but at least that the generated information and the tool to sort through it all is developed to work together.

As it is now it feels like(at least for me as a player) that the tools are somehow created disjointed from the game, like third-party kits made to "fix design-flaws" in consoles.
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Shonai_Dweller

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Re: Reducing legends mode clutter
« Reply #8 on: August 03, 2018, 10:08:11 pm »

I'm of the mindset the game should generate all the excessive information it does(or more) and then have a stand-alone tool with leavers, knobs, and buttons to filter it down what each individual player wants
That's what Legends Viewer is.
I guess he means Toady should develop his own. Seems unlikely, but he is making an editor so who knows? More than likely he'll just increase the amount of data that can be exported to assist well established tools than make his own (besides adding the Mythgen interface, which will be a huge help).

Like graphics, best anyone can expect in the way of "official" graphics is "improved support for graphics modders".
Not necessarily made by Toady, but at least that the generated information and the tool to sort through it all is developed to work together.

As it is now it feels like(at least for me as a player) that the tools are somehow created disjointed from the game, like third-party kits made to "fix design-flaws" in consoles.
Toady makes dwarf fortress. If something official is to be developed, Toady will have to make it.

Still, the more info that Toady makes able to be dumped to xml, and the clearer that info, the better external viewers will be at harmoniously utilising the data.
« Last Edit: August 03, 2018, 10:09:44 pm by Shonai_Dweller »
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Miles_Umbrae

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Re: Reducing legends mode clutter
« Reply #9 on: August 03, 2018, 10:36:10 pm »

I'm of the mindset the game should generate all the excessive information it does(or more) and then have a stand-alone tool with leavers, knobs, and buttons to filter it down what each individual player wants
That's what Legends Viewer is.
I guess he means Toady should develop his own. Seems unlikely, but he is making an editor so who knows? More than likely he'll just increase the amount of data that can be exported to assist well established tools than make his own (besides adding the Mythgen interface, which will be a huge help).

Like graphics, best anyone can expect in the way of "official" graphics is "improved support for graphics modders".
Not necessarily made by Toady, but at least that the generated information and the tool to sort through it all is developed to work together.

As it is now it feels like(at least for me as a player) that the tools are somehow created disjointed from the game, like third-party kits made to "fix design-flaws" in consoles.
Toady makes dwarf fortress. If something official is to be developed, Toady will have to make it.

Still, the more info that Toady makes able to be dumped to xml, and the clearer that info, the better external viewers will be at harmoniously utilising the data.
Meant that it could be a collaboration between Toady and the developer of the tool.
Toady could ask the tool-developer to design it this or that way, and similarly the tool-developer could ask Toady to include data about something or to tweak how the text is formatted for easier presentation in the tool.
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Shonai_Dweller

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Re: Reducing legends mode clutter
« Reply #10 on: August 03, 2018, 10:38:39 pm »

I'm of the mindset the game should generate all the excessive information it does(or more) and then have a stand-alone tool with leavers, knobs, and buttons to filter it down what each individual player wants
That's what Legends Viewer is.
I guess he means Toady should develop his own. Seems unlikely, but he is making an editor so who knows? More than likely he'll just increase the amount of data that can be exported to assist well established tools than make his own (besides adding the Mythgen interface, which will be a huge help).

Like graphics, best anyone can expect in the way of "official" graphics is "improved support for graphics modders".
Not necessarily made by Toady, but at least that the generated information and the tool to sort through it all is developed to work together.

As it is now it feels like(at least for me as a player) that the tools are somehow created disjointed from the game, like third-party kits made to "fix design-flaws" in consoles.
Toady makes dwarf fortress. If something official is to be developed, Toady will have to make it.

Still, the more info that Toady makes able to be dumped to xml, and the clearer that info, the better external viewers will be at harmoniously utilising the data.
Meant that it could be a collaboration between Toady and the developer of the tool.
Toady could ask the tool-developer to design it this or that way, and similarly the tool-developer could ask Toady to include data about something or to tweak how the text is formatted for easier presentation in the tool.
Well, yeah. Anythings possible I suppose...
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