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[lastofthelight]

Assumptions:


1. A nontrivial proportion of all Dwarf Fortress players arrive at the game via boatmurdered.

2. When adamantine is struck, the message indicates dwarves know what adamantine IS, indicating they have struck it before.

Therefore

3. I propose that some sort of easter egg/reference be inserted into worldgen, where there is guaranteed to be an early fortress named boatmurdered, where they are guaranteed to have struck adamantine.

Obviously to keep with the sensation of a dynamic world creation system, the details would vary. And I doubt, with the many, many fortresses which appear in worldgen, that most of us would ever see it. But /some/ sort of reference to Boatmurdered would be appropriate as an easter egg.

[Capntastic]

I think Toady's said he's specifically against having named easter eggs like that.

I personally would hate it, as it pretty much breaks immersion.

[Dwaref]

yeah, by the sounds of things, it seems like he's not sure that there will be pregenned creatures based on real-life examples eventally either.
i'm all in favour! viva la worldsim

[neek]

Meh. Boatmurdered is funny, but this is going the way of Leeroy Jenkins, where game culture influences game design. Of course dwarves know what adamantine is: They know the name of EVERY stone and metal and ore, and how to work it. It's all about part of being a dwarf.

[Capntastic]

A fact to keep in mind is that metals may be randomized in the future, and civilizations may not have knowledge of all of them, so there's no narrative reason to have a backstory as to why dwarves know adamantine.

[HammerHand]

yeah, by the sounds of things, it seems like he's not sure that there will be pregenned creatures based on real-life examples eventally either.
i'm all in favour! viva la worldsim

Honestly, this worries me.  Not because I mind the addition of strange creatures (I don't), but because it makes the game a lot easier to understand when you're attacked by "Wolves" and hunt "Mountain Goats" than when you're attacked by "Hoodrits" and hunt "Dorragir."  There's no context to put it in, nothing to base our imagination on unless we specifically look at it.  And given the game's ASCII nature, imagination is paramount to understanding what's on your screen.

So, while I'm all in favor of creatures in the game not based on real-world examples, I'm also all in favor of those same real-world examples remaining forever.

Or... am I misunderstanding?

Back on topic:  Easter Eggs might be fun and all, but I'd be really disappointed if there were always a Boatmurdered - even one that is hard to find.

Back off topic:  I broke my left shift key while typing this post.  It stuck for a few moments before my curious proddings caused a small snap.  Now only the farthest left side of it registers.  This is unfortunate because I never stretch my pinky out that far, but almost always use the left shift while typing.   

[Silverionmox]

Back off topic:  I broke my left shift key while typing this post.  It stuck for a few moments before my curious proddings caused a small snap.  Now only the farthest left side of it registers.  This is unfortunate because I never stretch my pinky out that far, but almost always use the left shift while typing.   

I can imagine, it must be difficult typing with a hammer.

When generating random stuff, there needs to be a good way to introduce them to the player if it's more than just a few species. A backstory would help the player to group them together, or estimate the strength (eg. the age of the Goat begins, prompting more horned herbivores to appear; a portal to the plane of water opens; a mad wizard unleashes his creations; the god of fire, pineapples and mosquitos attempts to conquer this plane, etc.). The difficulty is that it is random, but sphere-based randomization must be doable. Random plants, metals and minerals seem to be easier because they don't really act, and the player can discover and test them at his leisure.

[Tack]

Ooh, ooh. Can I go designated tech wizard!?
yeeeah.

anyway, your shift key has probably just pulled loose from it's *wierd metal thing*.
Pull it off with a screwdriver, and then try to hook in the afore mentioned wierd metal thing while you plug it back in. unless it's a laptop, or a zboard, or something else wierd.

[Neonivek]

Meh. Boatmurdered is funny, but this is going the way of Leeroy Jenkins, where game culture influences game design. Of course dwarves know what adamantine is: They know the name of EVERY stone and metal and ore, and how to work it. It's all about part of being a dwarf.

And just like Leeroy Jenkins it is getting so old that some people (actually just myself) are actually getting annoyed at the reference.

Anyhow it is already possible for a fortress to be called Boat Murdered as it is, I don't think the odds should be altered. Even if I didn't already think Boatmurdered is an overused joke/reference I would recognise that slathering it everywhere would kill the joke/reference by overexposing it.

[Bricks]

Honestly, this worries me.  Not because I mind the addition of strange creatures (I don't), but because it makes the game a lot easier to understand when you're attacked by "Wolves" and hunt "Mountain Goats" than when you're attacked by "Hoodrits" and hunt "Dorragir."  There's no context to put it in, nothing to base our imagination on unless we specifically look at it.  And given the game's ASCII nature, imagination is paramount to understanding what's on your screen.

Toady has acknowledged this.  He's mentioned that he would like optional randomized everything, on top of the predefined stuff, but wants to avoid it sounding like so much static.  Now that descriptions are being improved, I think it will be feasible to have a fully randomized world, if you so please.  Obviously, Toady should be able to pull this off, seeing as how well the world generator works.

[Dwaref]

Honestly, this worries me.  Not because I mind the addition of strange creatures (I don't), but because it makes the game a lot easier to understand when you're attacked by "Wolves" and hunt "Mountain Goats" than when you're attacked by "Hoodrits" and hunt "Dorragir."  There's no context to put it in, nothing to base our imagination on unless we specifically look at it.  And given the game's ASCII nature, imagination is paramount to understanding what's on your screen.

Toady has acknowledged this.  He's mentioned that he would like optional randomized everything, on top of the predefined stuff, but wants to avoid it sounding like so much static.  Now that descriptions are being improved, I think it will be feasible to have a fully randomized world, if you so please.  Obviously, Toady should be able to pull this off, seeing as how well the world generator works.

As long as it doesn't end up like SPORE, i think it would be radical.
If every creature ends up like some cheap sci-fi jar-jar bastardization, then i wouldn't use it.

Hopefully an eventual genetic algorithm would set creatures off evolving much like ours, all depending on surroundings, magical fields, malignant gods/wizards, what have you

[lastofthelight]

Ok. Bad idea.

[irmo]

A fact to keep in mind is that metals may be randomized in the future, and civilizations may not have knowledge of all of them, so there's no narrative reason to have a backstory as to why dwarves know adamantine.

That would be deeply stupid. You're talking about randomizing chemistry. "Well, in this world the atmosphere is toxic to all forms of life, so you don't get to play as anyone." Woohoo!

Randomizing the map, and some other elements of the game, gives you variety. Randomizing everything just gives you pure randomness, which is boring.

[Capntastic]

A fact to keep in mind is that metals may be randomized in the future, and civilizations may not have knowledge of all of them, so there's no narrative reason to have a backstory as to why dwarves know adamantine.

That would be deeply stupid. You're talking about randomizing chemistry. "Well, in this world the atmosphere is toxic to all forms of life, so you don't get to play as anyone." Woohoo!

Yes, that's exactly what I said.   

Edit:

RANDOMIZATION AND RAWS ARC: More things need to make it out to the raws, and when they arrive, there should be some ability to randomize what you get in play. Current raw objects such as creatures, entities, plants, metals or even stone should also be randomizable. This doesn't just include randomizing an existing entry, but, more importantly, the creation of entirely new objects. This behavior should be controlled by the world parameters so that you can run anything from a stock universe to a complete replacement of all existing raw objects. In worlds with random objects, the random objects need to be introduced to the player in such a way that familiarity can be gained (involving descriptions, back stories, etc.) so that it isn't just a mess of static with garbage names. Related to Core53, Core92, Core93, Core94, Core95 and Core96.

[Sensei]

Adamantine was obviously known as a legend from the age of myth.

I think demons being encased by mortals (don't think it says who) in adamantine shows up in the legends. So obviously once upon a time it was not only present in HFS. Maybe it requires magic to extract or create (or if you're just against magic, say it requires electrolysis to extract and assume there was an ancient steampunk civilization).