Below I've answered a few questions that haven't become more evident now that the release has been out for a bit. And now it's time to let this thread drift down off the front page.
Toady, is it possible we might see insurance or mutual aid societies in the future, where dwarfs can get together and help each other pay for expensive things (like, say better off family members allowing their poorer relatives to use their accounts or a group of farmers pooling their money to help pay the medical costs of an injured farmer)
The first step for that kind of thing would be having more subgroups in the fortress, which is definitely going to happen. It should make the game more interesting. After that, it'll really depend on how the subgroups work. The largest groups like civilizations don't even do projects outside of world gen, and even then they don't involve any kind of resource pooling. As that stuff is handled, whatever subgroups that go in might see some automatic benefits, but it'll depend on how it works.
Toady, is it possible that you could start giving major versions (versions that are likely to break compatibility or where the game mechanics change significantly) non-version number names (think Ubuntu's name system) so that we can have an easy way of referring to versions that doesn't risk confusion (like "40d" might)? This would definitely help out on the wiki where we're trying to figure out how to deal with keeping data for different versions. And I'm sure it would help out with mods and utilities to have a nice way to state version aside from the numbers themselves.
He he he, the fewer nineteen or whatever month waits we have the better, so I don't really want to institutionalize this. I also feel kind of weird about the names in general, but I guess some people don't like numbers either, especially since 0.31 is "less" than 40d... I still feel weird about names though, like, when to have a new name or whether people want to name the game after animals or something.
Is having a world surrounded by magma ever going to be an option ?
Ha ha ha, I guess that would be the first replacement for an ocean since we already have magma as the only other fluid, but it would take a bit of work to get water out of there so it's not a high priority.
Will we see odd "partnerships" beyond the concept of non-hetrosexuality? Different species interacting?
or even gods(true or false) that mate with mortals, fathering potential semi-divine heroes
or even monsters anywhere between semi-megabeasts to super-megabeasts like the most horrible and powerful titans/forgotten beasts that the RNG can spit out.
Like half-elves and stuff? We had a half-dwarf in a Threetoe story -- that kind of interbreeding seems like a traditional option. It has the same issues as polymorphing and all that. It needs to understand how to mix the creature definitions together, which is a project. Demigods and minotaur-product type matings are also popular and involve the same issues if the baby isn't just a copy of the god's "race" or mortal parent's race. I imagine once we've got some creature blenders together than can mix and match and average etc., it'll open some doors.
Are the medical skills moodable? If not, why not? Provide examples.
Ha ha, no. I'm not sure what a legendary crutch walker would do as a mood. The surgeons and bone setters and suturers might work with the fell mood or the macabre mood. It would certainly make them more creepy. We'd obviously need electricity before they can make anything alive out of dead stuff, though I guess you don't need electricity to make living stuff out of stuff that's already alive, or something.
Toady, do you have any plans for eventually differentatiating the different edible/non-edible organs and tissues that we're going to get out of butchery (e.g. more non-food uses, scraps for animals, cultural views regarding eating or not eating certain parts, creature distaste for some parts, etc.)?
Aside from putting them in the game for... flavor, I didn't plan out anything specifically. I'm sure it'll come up though. Guts are fun.