I don't know about others, but I was really liking the idea that occassionally a road or tunnel would just dead end for no reason (I'm sure a fictional reason could be made up, like the tunnelers were beseiged by kobolds from behind and slaughtered, or the tunnel hit a magma tube and needed to be abandonned. From what Toady says though, it sounds like road development is now more organic, with roads teetering off away from the main road like they would if they fell into disuse. This will make for exciting game play, me-thinks!
What will also be great is running into travelling merchants and caravans on the roads in adventure mode. That way we could sell up the gear we've been carting around with us without going all the way back to town. Another delicious development would just be travellers who ocassionally come onto your dwarf map and then leave as they travel the road. Quite flavoursome if this goes in!
Toady, I'm wondering how much would need to change so that our fortresses could be left functioning like the world gen towns and fortresses rather than abandonned?
Dwarf capitals don't seem to have much or do much, and the migrants left behind after abandonning appear, to all intents and purposes, the same as those in Dwarven Civs. Seems like a hop, skip, and a jump to get them settling in, trading, questing-joining, and quest giving.
Cheers!