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[Hapchazzard]

I'm curious as to what the forum's thoughts/predictions are on how long the 'Big Wait' will be? My personal thoughts are that it will be at least two years, or more than three if Toady decides to also add in a secondary magical system like basic alchemy on the first pass. After that, I predict that It'll take at least one and a half years for proper planar mechanics to also get added (assuming they'll be done on a second pass), or two years if alchemy/magical metallurgy is instead implemented on a second pass along with said planar mechanics. What are your thoughts?

EDIT: Predictions so far:

Sanctume : April 5th, 2021
thefriendlyhacker: May 12th, 2021
Real_Bang : May 15th, 2021
Starver: June 5th, 2021
Casany: July 23rd, 2021
Voliol : Sept 19th, 2021
Urlance Woolsbane: Sept 15th, 2021
Death Dragon : Oct 1st, 2021
Shonai_Dweller : Jan 15th, 2022
Inarius: April 15th, 2022
Beag : July 7th 2022
PlumpHelmetMan: September 15th, 2022
KittyTac : Oct 24th, 2022
quekwoambojish : Oct 30th, 2022
Witty: December 10th, 2022
Grand Sage : January 1st, 2023
Asin : January 24th, 2023
VislarRn: February 24th, 2023
Criperum : July 15th, 2023 (mid summer)
Malvado: December 31st, 2023

[quekwoambojish]

I thought the big wait was going to start almost a year ago with the demonstration announcements and whatnot. Long waits that weren’t called ‘the long wait’ have taken 2 years before.

I’m guessing 4 years +

But what’s nice with this, is Toady now makes mini releases much more frequently, so that’s nice and exciting in the meantime. Hopefully the long wait has a couple of those, otherwise like before, I’ll wait a year for mods to ramp up, and I’ll play those until the main release. (Looking at you Meph!)

My biggest concern is post long wait. I wonder if DF will still be the primary concern. My life has conditioned me to believing DF is a constant in our world, but idk, I get a feeling Toady might pick up something else after the long wait. Anyone else get that feeling at all?

[KittyTac]

DF is a project for life for Toady. It's not like he's going to trash his plans after more than 15 years of development. The wait probably won't be 4 years long. Maybe 3.

[quekwoambojish]

DF is a project for life for Toady. It's not like he's going to trash his plans after more than 15 years of development. The wait probably won't be 4 years long. Maybe 3.

I didn’t say trash, I said primary concern.

This is the longest projected dev cycle for a release that I remember seeing (and I think I started following the cycles in 2008-9ish). Some of  the rhetoric lately just feels that way is all, I think it was one of the talks last year he mentioned possibility of it (could be a false memory). I couldn’t blame him if he wanted a side distraction after this release.

[Telgin]

At least 2 years, almost certainly.  As quekwoambojish said, even when Toady didn't call out previous releases as coming after a Big Wait, that's about how long they took.  Maybe Toady is just being more cognizant of the time required after having gone through so much development, or maybe he's acknowledging that it's going to be a very large undertaking, bigger than the ones before it.

Then again, one reason for previous releases taking so long are all of the rabbit holes he ends up going down.  For example, if I'm not mistaken he originally planned for the "night creature" release to come before October of one year, and it ended up dragging on for almost a full year longer because he ended up needing to add things like the interaction system to handle necromancy.  Maybe this time he has a better idea of what will be required.  Personal experience with programming tells me that there will be a lot of surprises anyway though.

My biggest concern is post long wait. I wonder if DF will still be the primary concern. My life has conditioned me to believing DF is a constant in our world, but idk, I get a feeling Toady might pick up something else after the long wait. Anyone else get that feeling at all?

I doubt DF will stop being Toady's primary focus any time soon, but he did mention once a few years back that he had other projects he was working on occasionally now.  What their status is is anyone's guess, and as far as I know he hasn't even said what they are.

Unless that was a fever dream I had... my memory isn't what it used to be.

[therahedwig]

I wouldn't worry about it. After the move to 3d the thing that really changed everything around and kinda marks modern df is the addition of material changes(that's also when hospitals and the current underground were added), and Toady just kept on chugging after that

Also, it might be you are remembering the end-of-month project which he was talking about which afaik was... the mythgen

My best guess is 2, 2.5 years. The longest we've had up till now is 2 years, which was... Either the town one or the one with the emotions.

[Beag]

My guess is around 3 to 4 years. I hope Tarn keeps supplying us with interesting anecdotes about the bugs he finds during his time working on the myth and magic update.

[DG]

Such pessimism in this thread stemming from vague feelings of uncertain origin. If you're worried, the chances are that it's your personal fear of disappointment that is the source, not something unremembered that Toady has or hasn't done or said.

More on topic: there's no way he'll let it get to 4 years. 2 years at most is my guess so long as his finances stay stable.

It'll be fun to come back to this after the release to see how far off we are.

[Bumber]

Such pessimism in this thread stemming from vague feelings of uncertain origin. If you're worried, the chances are that it's your personal fear of disappointment that is the source, not something unremembered that Toady has or hasn't done or said.

"Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law."

Myth and Magic was kind of supposed to have already started by now.

[PlumpHelmetMan]

Wait, according to whom? Pretty sure I remember Toady saying that the preparations would go well into fall of 2018, so we're not off-schedule just yet.

Of course, that ETA could itself be the result of an earlier delay for all I know.

[DG]

Work on Myth and Magic has already started if you count the prototype myth generator and the planning already done but that isn't specifically about the length of the wait between the last non M&M release and the first save-breaking M&M release.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Wait, according to whom? Pretty sure I remember Toady saying that the preparations would go well into fall of 2018, so we're not off-schedule just yet.

Of course, that ETA could itself be the result of an earlier delay for all I know.

Initial eta was "about 6 months" made in April.
Later predictions were "around the end of this year".

So, kind of overtime from the first prediction, but Toady's never been that accurate. Last Big Wait was about a year over the first prediction he made...

[Inarius]

Maybe we could all say a guess on this (future) date, and bury this thread after that, for a while, until the big wait ends ? That would be some fun !

[KittyTac]

2 years. 3 if something goes wrong.

[thefriendlyhacker]

Maybe we could all say a guess on this (future) date, and bury this thread after that, for a while, until the big wait ends ? That would be some fun !

May 12th, 2021 +-1 week.

Bam.

Gaze in awe, future onlookers, and wonder at the source of my incredible divining skills.

The trick is to only make predictions semi-seriously.  That way, I don't have a 98% failure rate.  I have a 98% sarcasm rate.