Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

I support adding creature waste to the game

134 (46.9%)

I do NOT support adding creature waste to the game

86 (30.1%)

I would not mind, but do not care

37 (12.9%)

Other

3 (1%)

In the distant future, but not anytime soon. (You should vote yes instead of this, but it was called for.)

26 (9.1%)

Total Members Voted: 285

[Deathworks]

Hi!

*snip*

I'm pretty tired right now (half past midnight here) but did you just say that adding sewage to DF would fill the forums with child porn?

Whaaa?

Also, you misunderstood my analogy. What I was replying to was the accusation that sewage would inspire a certain genre of jokes. Though that is true, it's not a good enough reason to just scrap the entire idea completely, just like the fact that a small (OK, large) section of the internet is full of porn and rape doesn't mean that the entire internet should be taken down.

You misunderstood my point. I was responding to your argument that the internet is full of immaturity and so we should not care about whether we get an increase of immaturity where we visit. I used the child pornography as an example of other things that are frequently available on the internet in an analogy saying that if you say that we should welcome everything that is commonly out there on the internet, it means we should also welcome child pornography as it is also on the internet.

How do you justify not tolerating child pornography here if you say that mere common presence on the internet justifies anything to come here.

Bronzebeard: There are two minor misunderstanding I need to correct. I did not say that fecal humor was rare and hard to find. Doctor Slump, which has been internationally successful is an example of such base humor, and I think that some of the nastier American series also had it, but I am not one hundred percent sure. It is rare to find OUTSIDE that realm of immature humor.

Secondly, with "flexible" I am referring to the commonly assumed possibility that you can kill undesirable creatures by drowning them in that material. That it is commonly assumed is an extrapolation I made from various comments of people here as well as "drowning elves in feces" being the first pro argument the OP of the other ill-fated thread thought of. So, it is not so absurd. "Magma" is in as far comparatively flexible, as most discussions we have here involve some creatures, so "apply magma" always makes sense, especially as most people seem to favor sites with magma available. But "kill the elves" or "kill the kittens" requires that these creatures are actually present - elves are one of the first races to die during world gen, and many players seem to do their best not to have any cats around in their fortresses. And if the discussion makes it clear that these creatures are not there, those memes become completely absurd. "Feces" (or whatever) would be available (provided it is implemented as some kind of object) in all fortresses, thus making any memes based on it work out universally - just like magma.

So, the flexible was referring to its potential role in the community and not actually to its usage in the game, where drowning people in feces does not add any new functionality beyond what water and magma already offer you.

General: Personally, I would rather not continue to discuss in this vein as
a) I have stated that while I have these doubts in my heart, I am siding with the pro-faction, as that is where I belong (so why fight me?)
b) I consider discussing how such waste could be implemented functionally and interestingly in the game to be of much greater importance - this entire discussion here was based on a single paragraph by me which related to statements and positions I expressed in the other thread and which required me for completeness sake to mention them.

So, I would really appreciate it, if we could focus more on thinking about what waste management could actually look like. EDIT: I know this sounds hypocritical after making such a long post in this vein, but I felt that I was misunderstood and wanted to clarify my previous arguments. This post is not meant to add any new arguments but rather clarifies/describes the things I have posted in this thread before.

Deathworks

[Bronzebeard]

I am aware of the tone here, but let me point out I was not out to fight you insomuch as clarify what you said. It confused a number of others besides me, seemed a tad contradictory to itself and appeared to put you in the anti-waste lot. I'm still a bit hazy about what you mean with memes, and I have to point out that adding waste isn't a pursuit to add functionality to the game (as you said, magma and water are already satisfying means of killing elves, goblins or what have you) but including a facet of realism presently missing from the game, and apparently eliciting a thread concerning it and a vote cast predominantly in its favor. Any road, I recognize and respect your plea for no further arguments so I shall end my input here. :3

[Vester]

Well, Deathworks was around when Various Nonsense was at its peak of, well, nonsense, so I understand his trepidation. Still, you forget that there's always ThreeToe and his Banhammer +5. Toady and ThreeToe are good mods, and if a meme is explicitly against the rules of the board, I somehow doubt it'd proliferate.

[Deathworks]

Hi!

Bronzebeard: Thank you.

General: Actually, people bringing up the question of waste from workshops has me think of another interesting aspect (although there is some inherent silliness to it as well, sorry).

You see, when we see a dwarf with a strange mood, they will collect the most unlikely materials and use them up in creating the most bizzare objects. While we might see the creation of a sword made of cloth as the result of incredible skill, there is actually still the riddle of how making the decorations for said sword could use up 6 units of stone that would suffice to build a 6 tile long bridge of constructed floors (the sword is just a fictive example).

With a workshop waste system, you could have strange mood result in a realistic (?) amount of workshop waste to be created, thus posing an additional challenge surrounding strange moods (I mean, if you have a dwarf create a single ring out of several units of stone, there must be a gigantic heap of stone dust next to the workshop).

That was just another thing that came to my mind reading the input here.

Deathworks

[DalGren]

If we are aiming for such realism, how come there are no discussions of air management in fortresses? Do you really consider a single tile entrance into a fortress, providing airflow into it, more realistic than dwarves not producing filth?
It is a case where "necessary realism" should be taken into account, and breathing takes more priority than using the toilet for ever single relevant creature in terms of realism.
However, the priority is sewage.

Generic sewage/filth itself as suggested in a post before can be a decent optional challenge, though. Although general plumbing would be the same thing and pretty much the same challenge (without needing to separate residual and clean clean, so 50%).
Also consider the increased settling difficulty. When nothing is set, and your starting dwarves are losing time in restroom breaks and cleaning up the embarking pets and stuff....things will get slow. Also some spots have little water sources, and you can't buy water from merchants, so once all your water is contaminated, you lose. This will make many spots useless, or securing a water source exceedingly time-critical. (and rivers can make the game lose some FPS!)
I don't really think you can run a water supply/sewer system with wine and beer. (happy dwarves!)

This would as well need a wide array of possible contaminants and how they mix together. Not all contaminated water is essentially poisoned/infectious/useless, you'd need a way to display and control what water can be recycled and what is dangerous to use into anything.
As well, different interactions based on what type of contaminant exist in water...muddy water would flow slower.
Water purifying and storage should be included as well. Desalinization, too. The value of water in economy should be reflected as well. (Can you see merchants being greedy when knowing how valuable would clean water be in your disease-ridden and dry mountain hole?).
Not to mention not all natural water sources are exempt of being contaminated from vermin or natural causes (some ponds might be too muddy, or too stagnant to be safe...).

Those who don't consider all those factors, and remember realism is being used as a pro-waste argument...just want the juvenile side of this. Those with realistic waste management in mind should be aware of what I said. It might end being simply "water" and "green water/waste", but if it's a separate game object, it won't be usable for tasks that require water (no farming plots). If you want to micromanage bowel movements and grime, industrial waste water and such, it's too limiting and makes most sites unusable.

But, someone mentioned that this is a topic not seen in literature often...well, in all epic stories, you generally want to omit certain details. The story would be more realistic, but would suffer if we knew the hero got some intestinal sickness from eating stale berries. Realistic, but should be omitted.

[Footkerchief]

If we are aiming for such realism, how come there are no discussions of air management in fortresses? Do you really consider a single tile entrance into a fortress, providing airflow into it, more realistic than dwarves not producing filth?

There are a ton of discussions of air management in fortresses:

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=4226.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=46062.msg910985#msg910985
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=5698.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=20156.msg214237#msg214237
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=4020.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=42344.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=4672.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=28699.msg366879#msg366879

And even if there weren't, that would still be easily explained by the fact that ventilation has never been as universal and fundamental a concern for cities as sewage has.

[darkflagrance]

If we are aiming for such realism, how come there are no discussions of air management in fortresses? Do you really consider a single tile entrance into a fortress, providing airflow into it, more realistic than dwarves not producing filth?

There are a ton of discussions of air management in fortresses:

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=4226.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=46062.msg910985#msg910985
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=5698.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=20156.msg214237#msg214237
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=4020.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=42344.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=4672.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=28699.msg366879#msg366879

And even if there weren't, that would still be easily explained by the fact that ventilation has never been as universal and fundamental a concern for cities as sewage has.

With regards to the last point, it isn't as if real cities have been built miles underground now, have they?

[Deathworks]

Hi!

Some interesting points you raise, DalGren. However, from my perspective, some of these do not weigh as much.

The loss of bizarre embarkment points is something I can live with quite nicely, thank you. Personally, I already prefer to settle in places that are favorable for habitation with fresh water, wood, plants around while not plagued by undead or other extremely deadly creatures. So, on my personal level, you are not removing any embarkment options that I am interested in anyway.

As for such extreme embarkment sites (deserts, glaciers), are they not already chosen as special challenges by their players? And knowing that water will be hard to come by in a desert (at least on the surface level) should not come as a surprise, so I think there is fair warning. But that is not a point I feel qualified to discuss to the end since I usually do not embark in extreme locales anyway.

As for water not being available for purchase from the merchants - that is what we have at the moment. But if the role of water changes from basically a gap-filler for other drinks to an essential element for any settlement activity (as it is in real life), it would seem reasonable to see merchant caravans with barrels of water rather than fly blood. So, the merchant issue is just a matter of implementation that can be met with relative ease (was not sand added just recently to the caravans?).

As for all the details you have mentioned, I am personally not opposed to them either and I do find them to be very enriching for the game experience. Having individual murky pools that are poisonous, others that are muddy while others are pristine gives a greater variety even at a single site. These features can then easily invite you to design your fortress accordingly, moving social areas closer to the good places while moving all the nasty things (like the tanner) close to places that already have problematic backgrounds.

Of course, there are issues of implementation, especially concerning speed, so some details may not be practicable. But I don't see why they should be excluded from the debate.

Deathworks

[DalGren]

If we are aiming for such realism, how come there are no discussions of air management in fortresses? Do you really consider a single tile entrance into a fortress, providing airflow into it, more realistic than dwarves not producing filth?

There are a ton of discussions of air management in fortresses:

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=4226.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=46062.msg910985#msg910985
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=5698.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=20156.msg214237#msg214237
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=4020.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=42344.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=4672.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=28699.msg366879#msg366879

And even if there weren't, that would still be easily explained by the fact that ventilation has never been as universal and fundamental a concern for cities as sewage has.

We are talking underground or inside-earth constructions, real-life underground constructions do have ways to move clean air inside. And breathing is much more important, you die faster from not breathing than from infections after all!
It was an example though, going out of the gross factor, I consider adding waste too much a sacrifice in versatility and ease-of-use.
Did you read the rest of the post? The problems arising with water management are much more important, I think.

EDIT TO NOT DOUBLE-POST:
@Deathworks:
Interesting point, but consider that the army arc might make the choice of sites more complex, perhaps the only good embark areas are under war or with more complex situations arising at worldgen.
I think that if we need to get to such nanomanagement, it should be done right, with diverse types of contaminants and uses, and water industry. There are wars/political conflict all over water in many countries. For some it's more important than gold.
And even made optional, I think it'll generate a number of interface issues that might be more or less pleasant. How will be all management and display managed? Will it cause conflict with regular game menus even with the option disabled?
Making it default would certainly make the game exceedingly difficult, as well. Specially during setup.

[Deathworks]

Hi!

DalGren: Actually, your comments on real life wars is a pro argument in my eyes. And having your site lying in a contested area makes things quite interesting as the neighboring civs may be at war with each other because of that river you settle at. It would of course also add interesting situations for diplomacy, especially if you have natural flowing water on your map and waste water is considered in its effect beyond the site (if you settle upstream from a human town, they might be less than thrilled if you started to to dump the refuse from your smelter (mercury comes to mind, I think) in the river.

Of course, if you ensure that you do not allow your refuse to go beyond your site, people will be less likely to protest.

You are right to point out that the actual implementation would require a well-considered effort. There are two things I want to point out in that regard: 1. It seems that a lot of people (including myself) think this feature should be toggable (whether that can be via the init.txt file or via the world gen because of its fundamental influence is another point of debate). 2. The interface itself is considered to be non-final, so it is a bit difficult to argue about that. It is a matter of finding the right and most efficient design.

Deathworks

[Kilo24]

I'm not as worried as such about another inane meme being attached to Dwarf Fortress as Deathworks is (though it still is a problem.)  It's mainly that, Dwarf Fortress would become the first game to implement feces to any significant depth.

The Sims has waste, too.  What's different?  In DF, you'll be able to swim in waste, hurl it at people, track it around the whole fortress, flood their fortress with it, and, heck, maybe dry it out and make it into a sort of concrete to build your whole fortress out of.  Somebody might feature those elements prominently in a community fortress that hits the popularity of Boatmurdered, and Dwarf Fortress's fecal obsession will be linked in the minds of the people who've read/heard of Shitmurdered.  Even if it's just a realistic handling of waste and not a wholesale obsession.  And I doubt that a euphemism will stop it from being called shit by enough people on the internet, if it is made out to unambiguously be that by the game.

I'd like to mention Fox News's story on Mass Effect, here.  From the Wikipedia article, "[The reporter] stated that the game "leaves nothing to the imagination" and features "the ability for players to engage in full graphic sex" where the player gets to decide what happens".  Despite that being patently false (and the reporter later retracting her statements), it still linked Mass Effect to wanton pornography in a lot of people's minds.  Fox News isn't the most reliable of sources, but it shows that insane exaggerations of tame systems can be passed as fact by the media.

To hamstring my own argument here, I do think that this worst-case scenario is not that likely to happen, and even if it does then it'll still probably just blow over (I doubt a fecally inclined fortress will hit the popularity of Boatmurdered, for one.)  But, I also think that there are lots of risk-free systems with at least as much gameplay/setting realism value that should be implemented before waste.  Adding lots of other systems first also means that the game gets deeper and people are a bit less likely to tout the waste as a significant point of the game, and also shows that playing with shit isn't a primary focus for the developer.

In any case, that's my (somewhat tenuous) argument about it from controversy/the game's reputation.  There are other things to worry about:
- I don't want a system that causes much more than a bit of unhappiness/dwarves being forced to go outside for ignoring it, because I don't want yet another system people have to deal with to get a fortress that can survive. 
- Forcing waste to be handled through a sewer system would also screw with maps without water (not sure if there are many of those any longer, due to the underground caverns.) 
- I don't like dwarves taking another break during their jobs, because it's hard enough to corral them already (maybe let them visit the facilities only while on break.) 
- I think I'd actually prefer bodily waste to just be ignored, and workshop waste/disposing of corpses and other rotting things to be the things which encourage a more complicated waste disposal system.  Those are more optional, and you don't absolutely need them for a functioning fortress.
-In Fortress Mode, creatures that aren't your dwarves shouldn't deal with waste at all, IMO.  Too big a drain on CPU resources, dwarf cleaning resources, and not particularly aesthetically pleasing to the whole fortress.  One suggestion to allow for fertilizing fields with manure regardless of no-dung-for-pets would involve assigning a pet to a fallow plot, who'd automatically fertilize it for the next season (or something like that.)

[mnjiman]

I have read every single post here for this, and I think someone is using multi accounts to vote.

ALOT and the MAJORITY of people here speaking do not agree with this, and yet that is not the case for the votes.

REALLY odd.

[Josephus]

People come in and vote without posting. I know I did.

Voted Yes, by the way. Unconditional yes.

[Nikov]

...only 33% of DF players oppose the addition of sewage, a recent survey shows. With prevailing discussion including an init option, this pundit suggests no more players will quit the game than did when they realized the economy was broken...

[Rotten]

I have read every single post here for this, and I think someone is using multi accounts to vote.

ALOT and the MAJORITY of people here speaking do not agree with this, and yet that is not the case for the votes.

REALLY odd.

I find quite the opposite, myself. Who in this thread doesn't agree?

In favor of sewage and other water contaminants myself. Would be awesome to also see farming produce muddy water, butchers to produce bloody water, water passing near the breached HFS to become glowing and undrinkable, etc.

If sewage offends you then either you're a robot or incredibly immature. Its a basic bodily function, for crying out loud! Have you ever gone camping (real camping, not in a camp park or an RV). You do business in a pit in the ground, and I'd say nobody there was offended (well, besides our senses of smell... but anyways). It's not a horrible thing anymore than starving nobles to death or tearing elves apart is a horrible thing.

EDIT: Oh, sorry. I didn't realize this was so old. Move along...