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[madrain]

Lately I've been genning worlds for use like mad because most of the ones I've turned up have been incredibly boring.  Horrible names like "Bagsnubosmlo, the wondrous dimension" (which isn't too terrible of a translation, but it sounds like a kobold named the place), coupled with completely uninteresting civilizations.  I genned a world the other night that had a great 6x6 site with everything I could ever want.. but none of the dwarven civilizations had history more than a page, and uninteresting stuff at that.

Besides that, I've had uninteresting topography.  I'll get worlds with very few haunted/terrifying areas, with lots of mountains and hills with nothing special about them.  That sort of thing.

So lately I've been rejecting world after world in one folder, while in another folder I play around with worldgen settings (which I don't understand at all), hoping to create a world with a cool temperature, high savagery, with glaciers and tundra all around but hopefully some jungles, swamps, or marshes in the middle so I can do a sort of lost world thing.  I've scanned the boards and found lots of requests for worldgens, but usually these sorts of requests are looking for sites with whatever features rather than an interesting world.

It made me wonder, am I the only person who does this?  Does anyone else reject otherwise functional worlds because the civilizations are all pansies who have never gone to war and whose only enemies are some long-dead animals?

(as an aside, please feel free to share worlds with interesting stories or topography so those of us who prefer that sort of thing can benefit)

[Criptfeind]

I don’t care what the civs have been up to but I never play a world without a breeding pair of dragons. I like to catch them, not tame them and breed up interesting arena matches.

[BurnedToast]

I really feel kind of bad saying it because Toady obviously put a lot of effort into world gen, and into making interesting worlds and civs but...

I really just don't care all that much. I never usually even check the history of the world or anything like that. It's nice when I get a dwarf civ at war with the elves (or humans but that's very rare) to mix things up a bit, but truthfully it doesn't matter that much and I wouldn't really mind if there was no world at all - you just specified what you wanted and it genned a site for you totally unconnected to anything else.

Maybe once you can interact with it more my opinion will change, but for now? meh.

[Neruz]

At the moment i don't care, once we get teh Army Arc and can run around invading people on the world map, i'll probably care more.

[MMad]

Yeah, I don't really care at this point either, since it doesn't seem to influence the actual game (dwarf mode) that much, if at all. I guess the only times it *is* visible it's mainly just annoying right now. :p E.g., caravans not coming because the civ was wiped out or whatever.

Mostly I gen a new world for each fortress. Not because I need to, but because I like the world gen process.

[Timst]

There's also the fact that the legend mode is incredibly boring, unpractical and unclear. It might even be the most obscure feature of the whole game, harder to navigate than the worst menus in dwarf mode and full of uninteresting data.

And I really don't like the name of the civs. The name generator might be great for small groups, or sites, but for civs it's totally unrealistic. I mean, look at the Earth. There countries like Japan, France, Germany, Spain, India, etc., but never things like "Groundfished the Pinnacle of Jewelry". Seriously, the worst offender in the real world might be United States of America or People Republic of China, and even here it's just "Political system + common name of the country", not "RandomnameRandomverb the Random of Random".

How can you remember who is who if every civ, group or religion have an absurd name ? Like, "You know Gearshafted the Grand-Muck of Wheat ? It's that dwarven civilization that totally kicked the ass of Shippedtoy the Ordeal of Brick, the last elven civ. Well, that's what before Urist Cartranged formed the group Spineparted the Millstone and founded the city Olmraised in the Plains of Dark-Smoothed Deers during the Age of Chaos".

Look like these horrible fantasy novels where they drop a dozen of name of places, people or artifacts on the first page. Actually it's even worse, because in these novels, they use (somewhat) short names, like Eternia or Kilmor etc., whereas in the world gen it's only "Nounverber the X-Y of Z".

That coupled with the lack of geographic landmark of the civs (no boundaries for instance) make it almost impossible to identify who is who in the world, or to know which civ is at war with which one, which religion belong to which civ, etc.

[madrain]

I don't have a problem identifying most of that stuff.  Actually a couple of them are so incredibly easy, and I'm a total DF noob.

The names get to me a lot.  Something like Anusraped the Bleeding of Angels is bad, but I hardly get anything that interesting.  I end up with stuff like (making it up off the top of my head)  Fishbreached the Kettle of Embarking.  It's like.. wow that doesn't even make sense.

Mostly I can forgive them since you don't see it once you're in Fortress mode.  Squad names could use serious work though.

Still, a civilization could have an awesome name and be completely boring if they've never done anything.  I genned a world with a single dwarven civ and had nothing interesting to read besides who became leader at what year.  Yawn.  A different world, though, had a dwarven civilization that had repeatedly conquered the elves, taking over 2 out of 3 of the last elven civilization's sites, and had consistently put down elf rebellion after elf rebellion, accepting peace treaties each time only to be betrayed yet again.

For me that's context that makes the game world interesting.  I start as a member of that civ gunning for elven blood, because that's what a dwarf in that world would do, rather than because it's 's0 k3wl' on the boards to hate elves.

I mean, if all I wanted to do was build a world that had boring mobs and weather patterns, I could go to practically any MU* and be perfectly content.  It's the context that makes it more interesting for me once the basics of survival are grounded and self-sufficient.

(I get your point, Timst, about USA and China's bland names, but I think the worst RL name is South Africa. Talk about unimaginative.  :p)

[XSI]

(as an aside, please feel free to share worlds with interesting stories or topography so those of us who prefer that sort of thing can benefit)

Just posting here to later edit in the seed for a world with very interesting topography.

Imagine, a large central mountainmass ruled by dwarves, in the mountains is a large inland ocean(On top of the mountains I think actually), in the middle of that ocean is another island, also owned by the dwarves.
In the middle of that island is another ocean, and in the middle of that ocean is a mountain.

The only way to the first ocean is over dwarven roads.

There were also 2 human civilisations, the realm of emancipation and the realm of holes, situated very close together.

Also, I like interesting worlds, but it doesn't really hold any weight over where/how/when I build a fort.

[TomiTapio]

I really just don't care all that much. I never usually even check the history of the world or anything like that. It's nice when I get a dwarf civ at war with the elves (or humans but that's very rare) to mix things up a bit, but truthfully it doesn't matter that much and I wouldn't really mind if there was no world at all - you just specified what you wanted and it genned a site for you totally unconnected to anything else.

Then you couldn't be surprised, since you specified what is "out there". Imagine my surprise when one of the human caravans brought lots of Unicorn hides and meat. Or that one time when seven fast (faster than 1.25x speed horses) zombie unicorns attacked.

[MMad]

(as an aside, please feel free to share worlds with interesting stories or topography so those of us who prefer that sort of thing can benefit)

Just posting here to later edit in the seed for a world with very interesting topography.

Imagine, a large central mountainmass ruled by dwarves, in the mountains is a large inland ocean(On top of the mountains I think actually), in the middle of that ocean is another island, also owned by the dwarves.
In the middle of that island is another ocean, and in the middle of that ocean is a mountain.

The only way to the first ocean is over dwarven roads.

Wow. I'd love to see that.

[Volfram]

This sums up my opinions nicely.

[smjjames]

The random name generator can actually toss up some pretty good names once in a while. I had a civ called the Earthen Mansion, which was a pretty good one.

[Granite26]

That coupled with the lack of geographic landmark of the civs (no boundaries for instance) make it almost impossible to identify who is who in the world, or to know which civ is at war with which one, which religion belong to which civ, etc.

Excellent point there.  It might be nice to see a little work creating a more coherent whole in terms of world gen.  (simply creating a +1-+10 defense bonus when attacking over mountains or rivers should solve that problem)

Also, being able to access the legends (that you know about) from WITHIN Adventure or Dwarf Mode would be helpful...  Stories matter more when you're in the middle of them.

Oh (gets out drum), and XML-izing them to make them readable and searchable would help

[Sizik]

I once had a world with a haunted mountain range shaped roughly like South America in the center.

[Outcast Orange]

I like the world gen so far. The whole point is to carve out your own history.
YOU get to be the historical figures. That is what makes the worlds worth holding on to.
Also, they aren't going to be to the intended level of interesting until the sites and army arc are finished.
Then the world will seem much more dynamic.

All Hail Toady!