Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Grue]

/me wants pics of new rivers and seashore!

[Toady One]

Put some river pictures up:  scroll down here.  There's a bit to do, but for now the giant rivers will have to look pretty blocky (since they live in blocks which they then fill out -- to get them better it'll have to understand how to cross multiple block boundaries more smoothly).  I guess that means the largest rivers are roughly 45 tiles across.

[SwiftSpear]

quote:Originally posted by Explorer:
<STRONG>

But it seems to me that DF is a game trying to be consistent with itself. A fantasy world simulator must have a way to explain things. Dwarves Goblins, etc don't exist in our world, but they do in DF, so that's a difference. However, the laws of physics in DF are the same as in our world, so normal magma should cool lose its energy over time and cool down.</STRONG>

It's pretty arbitrary to say the DF world universally obeys the laws of physics.  The laws of physics applied to geology dictate that a magma river passing through the depths of a mountain that dwarfs would be able to dig into and utilize as a forging method is pretty much impossible.  It's there for gameplay...  Pretty much any magma at all is there for gameplay.  When magma hits air it's only a matter of time before it turns to rock, and digging down into magma pits your pretty much infinitely more likely to hit poisonous gas than actual real magma.  If we're willing to accept the plausibility of geologically discovering and then using this magical safe magma we have in DF, than we don't need to obey other arbitrary rules about it's use.  It's there for gameplay reasons, not because it's acctually realistic.

If you're going to make an argument for how something regarding magma should be done than argue for what it will contribute to gameplay, not because it "is realistic".  When it comes to game design you have to be VERY careful using realism correctly, if used to excessively you get massive CPU requirements for games that are boring because they just simulate things that you could go do in real life anyways.  Game realism needs to be used to expound the complexity of gameplay systems and allow players nodes of attachment they can use as mental grounding points for an immersive experience.  Basically, always be willing to disregard 'realism' when it will limit what the player can do/experience with the game.  It's perfectly acceptable for a gameplay device to be highly unrealistic.

[Explorer]

quote:Originally posted by SwiftSpear:
<STRONG>
It's pretty arbitrary to say the DF world universally obeys the laws of physics.  The laws of physics applied to geology dictate that a magma river passing through the depths of a mountain that dwarfs would be able to dig into and utilize as a forging method is pretty much impossible.  It's there for gameplay...  Pretty much any magma at all is there for gameplay.  When magma hits air it's only a matter of time before it turns to rock, and digging down into magma pits your pretty much infinitely more likely to hit poisonous gas than actual real magma.  If we're willing to accept the plausibility of geologically discovering and then using this magical safe magma we have in DF, than we don't need to obey other arbitrary rules about it's use.  It's there for gameplay reasons, not because it's acctually realistic.

If you're going to make an argument for how something regarding magma should be done than argue for what it will contribute to gameplay, not because it "is realistic".  When it comes to game design you have to be VERY careful using realism correctly, if used to excessively you get massive CPU requirements for games that are boring because they just simulate things that you could go do in real life anyways.  Game realism needs to be used to expound the complexity of gameplay systems and allow players nodes of attachment they can use as mental grounding points for an immersive experience.  Basically, always be willing to disregard 'realism' when it will limit what the player can do/experience with the game.  It's perfectly acceptable for a gameplay device to be highly unrealistic.</STRONG>

Okay, assuming that geologically, this is rather unsound, we have magma nearby. You mentioned that realism gives player 'nodes of attachment' for the player. One of the realistic systems in DF is a basic temperature simulation. Objects gain and lose thermal energy. It seems to me that in such a program when you encounter a thing such as magma where the main gimmick is that it is very hot, a portion of this temperature simulation, you would have to assume it will follow the basic rules of this system. That is... it's going to try to reach equilibrium with its surroundings.

To have a 'constantly' hot magma moat, you'd have to channel a flow where there is always new magma coming in, and the old flowing out... or find some magical way of heating it. But having an object in a program with temperature simulation that stays hot with no real explanation seems to break immersion. There simply needs to be an explanation. The geology part of all of this that is unrealistic doesn't really break much, because it's not really common enough knowledge to everyone. Basic thermodynamics is something we see everyday, so it should follow realism a little more rigidly.

[Core Xii]

Name a game, any other game, where magma doesn't "magically" stay hot.

[Explorer]

quote:Originally posted by Core Xii:
<STRONG>Name a game, any other game, where magma doesn't "magically" stay hot.</STRONG>

Name a game where objects and fluids carry temperature.

That's the difference here. Most games don't need to worry about such things, because they don't have temperature simulation, and most of the time the magma exists to be an obstacle, not a  simulated device with which you can do many things.

And that's fine. Most games don't need to worry about such things.
But I think that it's more than reasonable to need to consider such a thing in this particular game. It seems to fit the realism that is being considered in pretty much every other aspect!

[ July 18, 2007: Message edited by: Explorer ]

[Eiba]

quote:Originally posted by Toady One:
<STRONG>I guess that means the largest rivers are roughly 45 tiles across.</STRONG>

Would there be something done about the ten tile limit bridges currently have? Even in the current version it bothers me to no end that I sometimes have to make short little extra bridges for the magma flow, I don't don't even want to contemplate the aesthetic issues with needing five bridges to cross a river...

[Zhentar]

quote:Originally posted by Toady One:
<STRONG>Put some river pictures up:  scroll down here.  There's a bit to do, but for now the giant rivers will have to look pretty blocky (since they live in blocks which they then fill out -- to get them better it'll have to understand how to cross multiple block boundaries more smoothly).  I guess that means the largest rivers are roughly 45 tiles across.</STRONG>

That makes me want something I don't see in the screenshots- Islands in the rivers. I'd want to start a fortress in an island, so that there's a natural moat around my entrance (and of course, I'd want a drawbridge out doors too, but that's a different story). Will you do anything to bring back river islands any time soon?

[Grue]

I don't think the dwarves are technologically advanced enough to build a bridge across a really wide (and deep) river. This is something that IRL became possible only in XIX/XX centuries with the advent of better construction techniques and stronger materials. Before that, boats were used, but unfortunately there's no boats in DF yet.

[hactar1]

What's stopping you from building 4 bridges end-on-end?  Just think of them as multiple spans of the same bridge.

[Fieari]

That'll do as a stopgap measure.  But eventually, I'd like to see ferries implemented.  String ropes across the river, and use them to guide rafts to go across.

Incidentally, I definitely agree magma/lava should cool down on its own, forcing us to develop some sort of circulation system.  Let us show off that dwarven ingenuity!

[ July 18, 2007: Message edited by: Fieari ]

[Eiba]

quote:Originally posted by Grue:
<STRONG>I don't think the dwarves are technologically advanced enough to build a bridge across a really wide (and deep) river. This is something that IRL became possible only in XIX/XX centuries with the advent of better construction techniques and stronger materials. Before that, boats were used, but unfortunately there's no boats in DF yet.</STRONG>

Oh? All I know off the top of my head is that the Romans built a bridge out of wood roughly where London Bridge is today. The Thames is no Mississippi or Amazon, but I imagine it's wider than 10 tiles, and it's deep enough to be navigable by oceangoing ships...

I thought the biggest issue was building bridges that boats of any reasonable size could go under- Something like the Tower Bridge, for example, would only be possible in the nineteenth or twentieth centuries.

quote:Originally posted by Fieari:
<STRONG>That'll do as a stopgap measure. But eventually, I'd like to see ferries implemented. String ropes across the river, and use them to guide rafts to go across.</STRONG>

Bah, that would require swimming. A true Dwarven solution would be to dig down to bedrock and tunnel beneath the river.

[Pnx]

The list of tasks yet to be done now fits on my screen as one page. It used to be almost 3 pages when it started out, this feels like a big acheivement.

But in any case yeah I think that dwarves should be able to bridge most rivers. Maybe not if it's a river of molten fire but either way it seems slightly more dwarven to just dig under it and have some system to keep the tunnels dry.

[ July 18, 2007: Message edited by: Pnx ]

[Dreamer]

Yeah - Now that we have a Z axis, bridges aren't even going to be a requirement.  The only problem is going to be with caravans and immigrants before that tunnel has been dug...

Also, if we can construct rock tiles (walls), it's likely that we could simply make a bridge out of the mountain that you dig into, and, if you really want a river island fortress, one could perhaps divert the river long enough to make the island, and afterwards widen the river so that it won't overflow when you divert it to its original path...

Or, better yet, plan out a 'new' river, put your island there, then open up your new river to the original river and block off the old one.

This new version's going to add a lot of possibilities...  Man, I'm excited.

[Toady One]

I have a list of features for the inside and outside rivers, including the old bulges and river islands, but I'm not sure I'll get to it this time around.  A lot of the peripherals are going to suffer as I get closer to releasing the next version, I think, since there's still a lot of core things left to do and I haven't released for a while.