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[Tormy]

quote:Originally posted by Mayday:
<STRONG>The only problem I have with DF elves is not that they fanatically live in harmony with the environment, it is that they lack any kind of shelters.
I can't imagine that even elves would enjoy it freezing and pouring with rain.
Given that it is entirely possible to build shelter without having to hurt the environment, such as with thatching.

You can also make solid constructions from straw and mud.</STRONG>

I think Elves as a civilization now is pretty much weird. For example, why cant we trade wood items with them? Elves should prefer wood over everything else. They are forest people. They are the best archers in all gaming worlds. If they are not in DF, change their race name to something else. [Not to mention that ranged weapons must be fixed, marksdwarves are acting like a modern army with machineguns. + basically all ranged untis are extremely powerful.]

[ September 02, 2007: Message edited by: Tormy ]

[Lightning4]

quote:Originally posted by Tormy:
<STRONG>

I think Elves as a civilization now is pretty much weird. For example, why cant we trade wood items with them? Elves should prefer wood over everything else. They are forest people. They are the best archers in all gaming worlds. If they are not in DF, change their race name to something else. [Not to mention that ranged weapons must be fixed, marksdwarves are acting like a modern army with machineguns. + basically all ranged untis are extremely powerful.]

[ September 02, 2007: Message edited by: Tormy ]</STRONG>

Because they're stupid hippies that refuse to cut down trees. They will not accept wood items because they know the "lesser" races are not capable of using wood to make things like the elves can. At least, I'm assuming the Elves have some sort of way of gathering wood from a tree without killing it. If not, then they're just a bunch of hypocrites, which makes drowning them all the better.

[Shades]

quote:Originally posted by mickel:
<STRONG>
I've always been against artificially "balancing" things in RTS:es or other games. You end up in an eternal circle of "nerfing" this and "buffing" that until every side is essentially the same but with different graphics. Most games don't even try for originality; "Side A has a heavy tank, therefore side B must have a heavy tank", which I think is a fallacy, and it should go more like "Side A has a heavy tank, therefore side B ought to have developed a countermeasure."</STRONG>

This is because they don't understand that the concept of balancing is to make it so no side always dominates a game, the quickest and most mindless way to do this is to make each side a reflection of the others. This of course doesn't balance units so you end up with everyone just using the one unit, again the quickest way to balance would be to remove all the other units.

The concept of balancing is a good one, and required to make a game fun, if one side always wins it won't be fun to play the others, if one sides is mearly a little more powerful this isn't a problem. (challenge is fun, impossibility is not).

That said I'm not sure how this is relatable to df until we see how, if at all, the other races are playable. As someone pointed out once you get shops for the other races the adventure mode should be well balanced.

[mickel]

I'm not sure if it relates to Dwarf Fortress at all, since Dwarf Fortress is not a competition between two or several players. There is no need to balance the sides on the same delicate scales as is needed in competetive play like chess (which is almost perfectly balanced).

Players of DF set their own challenges, and if there's a need to compete with someone else, it's simple enough to give another player the exact same conditions that you have by giving them your savefile.

The races don't need to be balanced against each other so much as become an enjoyable experience to play - a process which I understand is already underway.

[mickel]

As for the elves and their wood gathering, it's not that strange to assume them to believe trees are in possession of a soul or spirit - after all the trees in Elven settlements are all given names.

This was true in many cultures, including my own, and the common practice was to perform a ritual to beg the tree-spirit's indulgence, explain the necessity of killing or damaging the tree, giving the spirit time to prepare (by moving, or something else) and then, after cutting, apologise to the tree-spirits.

(This evolved into a quick apology muttered under your breath before swinging the axe, and perhaps supplemented with a charm to ward off evil spirits.)

If this is the case with the elves, their concern with other races cutting down trees would probably be that these "lesser" races presumably do not observe the correct ceremony when cutting down the trees.

[Capntastic]

Also anyone who says "ELVES IN DF SUCK BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT ALL WEARING GREEN AND SHOOTING ORCS WITH BOWS LIKE IN D&D WHICH IS LIKE TOLKEIN" needs to take a deep breath and meditate on the nature of creativity and originality and how it is good.  Half the reason I like DF's setting (sparse as it is, at the moment.   Understandably.)  is that it's not "The same old thing."  

I mean, some things are pretty in line with accepted standards (Dwarves have beards, live in holes, etc.) but there's some deviation that is quite enjoyable.

Edit:   Wait no I was wrong Toady needs to conform the game's elves more like the COMMONLY ACCEPTED VIEW of what an elf is.   Give them pointy hats and set them to making cookies and toys in arctic regions.   Or else you shouldn't call them elves!!!

[ September 03, 2007: Message edited by: Capntastic ]

[ September 03, 2007: Message edited by: Capntastic ]

[Tormy]

quote:Originally posted by Capntastic:
<STRONG>Also anyone who says "ELVES IN DF SUCK BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT ALL WEARING GREEN AND SHOOTING ORCS WITH BOWS LIKE IN D&D WHICH IS LIKE TOLKEIN" needs to take a deep breath and meditate on the nature of creativity and originality and how it is good.  Half the reason I like DF's setting (sparse as it is, at the moment.   Understandably.)  is that it's not "The same old thing."  

I mean, some things are pretty in line with accepted standards (Dwarves have beards, live in holes, etc.) but there's some deviation that is quite enjoyable.

Edit:   Wait no I was wrong Toady needs to conform the game's elves more like the COMMONLY ACCEPTED VIEW of what an elf is.   Give them pointy hats and set them to making cookies and toys in arctic regions.   Or else you shouldn't call them elves!!!

[ September 03, 2007: Message edited by: Capntastic ]

[ September 03, 2007: Message edited by: Capntastic ]</STRONG>

Well either way its not a big deal as it is now, and maybe it wont be a problem later on at all, thanks to MODDING. Everyone should be able to change all details of the various civilizations. [or create new civs -> replace the old ones] Simple like that.

[Eagleon]

quote:Originally posted by mickel:
<STRONG>As for the elves and their wood gathering...</STRONG>

Or, y'know, they get deadwood, trees split by lightning, etc.

I think elves could definitely get more interesting. They should have some metal tools and weapons if they don't mind dwarves trading them. They could be nomadic, or even migratory, moving with the changing seasons - tree retreats could be food caches and the dwelling-places of craftselves that need to stay put to do their work, more than cities. There's all sorts of things you could doc with them.

The real issue is we need different social structures and living styles for every entity, which is where real flavor comes in, not just special abilites like magic and the ability to dig ridiculously quickly. There are a lot of styles to pick from in human history. There's even an underground city in Cappadocia carved from solid rock (okay, tuff, which isn't that hard when wet) That will probably go in much later, and with that, technology will also scale more reasonably.

[mickel]

I don't think dead wood is suitable for all the purpouses that live wood is. But I guess a culture which reveres trees would use already dead wood as much as possible... unless they consider it as atrocious as our cultures tend to view messing around with dead bodies?

It's also possible they know something we don't about how to gather wood from trees without killing them. Gardeners can do some pretty atrocious stuff to trees and they survive.

Anyway...

I loved the idea about migratory elves, it fits in with my vision of the elves really well.

[Tamren]

The balance must exist. A game that you can not lose will become boring instantly.

The elves will get worked on eventually. The only thing holding them back right now is that most of the game mechanics required to flesh them out do not exist yet. Supposedly they live in tree houses, well Toady is just now making it possible for tree houses to exist.

Obviously the elves can get wood without harming the trees, but the only explanation possible at the moment is that they collect fallen and dead wood. Both exist in large quanities but alone would not be enough to support a civilization.

Elves are powerful in combat, but only because bows and other missile weapons are ludicrously overpowered. I once picked up a dead elephant and threw it halfway across the map into another elephant, knocking it out. Bows do not need to be reloaded and fire every game "turn" leading to the machine gunning we see with bows and xbows. Eventually armour mechanics will be changed or buffs and missile weapons will lose that potency. We will then need to change the way bows work in order to maintain the balance. Again this comes later.

-For now lets just deal with what we can at the moment. Z-levels make tree houses and towers possible. So what would you like to see in a tree house?

[Capntastic]

I see elves having simple 'decorations'- wreathes of leaves and flowers and the like.

Small pools of water instead of wells, arrangements of stone, and such.  

The sort of natural things that you wouldn't cause you to notice you're in an elven retreat right away.

I also see work being done in shallow pits, or on large flat rocks.   It'd be here that they chip their arrowheads.   If it turns out they do their wood-crafting with some sort of magic, then that could possibly done at the aforementioned stone arrangements, or something.

[Turgid Bolk]

Dare I suggest...suspension bridges? Visions of Endor come to mind...  

Graceful rope bridges strung from tree to tree would give them a use for all that extra rope they seem to have. And how about living inside a big hollowed-out tree? At least have a throne room or something inside a tree, cause that's just cool and elf-like. Obviously the tree would have grown like that (with a little [magical?] help) and would still be living. Maybe just at the capital.

[Savok]

quote:Originally posted by Turgid Bolk:
<STRONG>And how about living inside a big hollowed-out tree? At least have a throne room or something inside a tree, cause that's just cool and elf-like. Obviously the tree would have grown like that (with a little [magical?] help) and would still be living. Maybe just at the capital.</STRONG>

Read The Wiki
Specifically, the last section on that page.

[mickel]

Rope reed hammocks seem like a good idea. I'm also thinking about pottery - the elves could be pretty good at that stuff.

[Tamren]

quote:Originally posted by Savok:
<STRONG>Specifically, the last section on that page.</STRONG>

The fact that this is a suggestions forum renders the entire wiki irrelevant.

quote:Originally posted by Turgid Bolk:
<STRONG>Dare I suggest...suspension bridges? Visions of Endor come to mind...  

Graceful rope bridges strung from tree to tree would give them a use for all that extra rope they seem to have. And how about living inside a big hollowed-out tree? At least have a throne room or something inside a tree, cause that's just cool and elf-like. Obviously the tree would have grown like that (with a little [magical?] help) and would still be living. Maybe just at the capital.</STRONG>

Rope bridges would be great. The only difference really from a normal bridge is that they do not retract or raise. We know for a fact that elves use rope reed and lots of it, which can be made into a stack of ropes with easy.

Im not sure how the tree houses would work. When i think of a tree house its a normal house or shack built out of planks like some kind of parasitic growth on the side of the tree.

The more druidic "elven" way would be to put a house in the tree and have the tree grow around it somehow. Or to have the tree grow in such a way that it leaves an empty space and live in it.

quote:Originally posted by mickel:
<STRONG>Rope reed hammocks seem like a good idea. I'm also thinking about pottery - the elves could be pretty good at that stuff.</STRONG>

Hammocks are a great idea, so far the only beds in the game have to be made of wood.

Pottery came up as an idea awile back. No one had anything bad to say about it. Its pretty much just an entirely new material, like stone or glass. It would have its own workshops and kilns and such. It would be a great material for the elves to work with because clay is renewable and basic pottery does not even need a kiln.

In fact the only question we had at that point was where the clay would come from? Obviously you would not be able to find it everywhere.