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[Belteshazzar]

Perhaps it's just my Angband/ToME background talking but I would be very interesting to have a description of a monster by looking at it. This way we could describe custom or unusual (I know what a wolf looks like but not everyone knows what a Beakdog, Nightgaunt or somesuch is.)

It would be interesting to add so that when we get more monster abilites to add we can make for some truely horrific or bizzare enemies. Besides I tend to visualize the fight better when I can get a good 'look' at my foes

[Sowelu]

I swear I saw this on one of the reqs (or maybe bloats), but a cursory search didn't locate it.  In any case I'm pretty sure it's on the list--it's just that DF is going to blow other games out of the water with the detail in its descriptions.  Probably with some nice detailed individual descriptions for every single critter in the game.

It can't come soon enough in my mind...but all the other stuff before it is even more important, so..!

Still, very much yes!

[umiman]

You know what would be awesome? If the creature descriptions changed depending on the race you are using. So, for the Dwarf:

"This is a kobold thief. It is vile and disgusting. Covered with pus and ridden with disease, this creature clambers about clumsily attempting to put its grimy little claws on anything it can find. It's probably related to the cockroach, as there never is any end to their nuisance... not to mention the looks. Exterminate without prejudice."

For the Elf:

"This is a kobold thief. Centuries of oppression has turned this cherub to a life of crime to support it's darling ways. It's eyes are most bewitching, and one can stare at its lovely visage for days upon days and still hold nothing but love for its kind. A most benevolent race, it only takes what it needs to survive. A gift from the heavens, we should hate any who would strike at such a beautiful creature."

For the Human:

"This is a kobold thief. It usually has loot. Kill it to get the loot. Be careful not to damage the loot when killing it."

For the goblin:

"*gnash* KOBOLD... Theeese creatures arree... ANNOYING *gnash*. Killz it if theres nothin' elzes... left to kill!"

[Belteshazzar]

I would love the idea of independent descriptions for each player race. But it would make every  monster have a 2 page description in the edit files. Imagine trying to mod in a different player race. It would take even longer to make custom creatures.

[ April 05, 2008: Message edited by: Belteshazzar ]

[Ubersoldat]

Maybe the descriptions could be tied to language files. So if something uses TRANSLATION:ELF, you get the flowery, pansy description, etc. etc.

[Lyrax]

Also: Computer generated creatures with computer generated descriptions.  THAT'S DF for ya.

This is a deerman.  It has a deer's head, a human's upper torso, a human's lower torso, and the arms of a human.  It has the legs of a deer.

Eh?  Eh?

[MaxVance]

quote:Originally posted by Belteshazzar:
<STRONG>Perhaps it's just my Angband/ToME background talking but I would be very interesting to have a description of a monster by looking at it. This way we could describe custom or unusual (I know what a wolf looks like but not everyone knows what a Beakdog, Nightgaunt or somesuch is.) </STRONG>

Reminds me of the time I spent playing NetHack, which also came with an "encyclopedia" that gave descriptions of the various monsters, NPCs, and items, along with literary excerpts on many of them. A DF version of this with entries on several of Toady's creations (feather trees, plump helmets, etc.) would also be interesting to read. Named monsters could also get custom descriptions based on their exploits that caused them to get their name.

[Othob Rithol]

It would take Toady much less time to implement something like this if the descriptions were already written for him *hint* *hint*

[Fishersalwaysdie]

I doubt Toady would let anyone except for ThreeToe to write this stuff...

[Metal Chao]

The problem here is this:

Eventually, Toady (I think he said this somewhere anyway) plans to make a choice between the stock creatures (raws) or totally randomly generated animals.
Which would make descriptions in the raws impossible.

I guess they could be attached to body part tokens and cobbled together from there, but that might get a little odd.

[Heavy Flak]

Well, let's look at it from the perspective of the Dwarf profile.  Here, their characteristics are created on the fly, right?  "roll" a number and pick the trait.

Perhaps it could work similar to that for character description.  You have the basics:  If an Antman was Evil tagged and was viewed by a dwarf, it could read.

"This is an antman.  It has an [ants] head and two [antenae], and a [human] torso.  It has two arms and two legs.  It is a {vile wretch}"  The words in brackets could be supplied in the creature description when building the monster, and the curly braces could be a random description based on the evil tag.

[ April 06, 2008: Message edited by: Heavy Flak ]

[axus]

Yeah, first pass could be interesting details that already exist in the raws.  Size, speed, fattiness, material gloss...   You can already see all of their body parts in the damage screen.  It might be good to do a comparison of the number of body parts to the player's race... if something has a different number of arms/legs/heads, put that in the blurb.

Adding in colors would be nice.  If/when creature raws get expanded, put that in along with it.  It'd be nice if there was a classification system that multiple creatures could fit into, which determined their icon, generic description, and base set of RAW details.  Then specific creatures could inherit from that and only override things that were different.

Descriptions should probably be dispassionate... the only subjective things are in the preference strings  

[Belteshazzar]

While a class of randomly generated horrors from beyond would be interesting, part of the reason I love dwarf fortress is the promise of a layman like me to use simple descriptor tags and pseudo-code to make our own creations to share and slaughter. If all or even most of the monsters become randomly generated then we may see some seriously unscary or ridiculous things. I love random generators but have more faith in the creativity of man. Remember that random generators brought us the fail that is Oblivion, yet careful work brought us the win of Morrowind.

That said it would be hilarious to watch a cultist summon a chaos creature only to discover it 'randomly' has no arms with which to hurt others, possesses a healing bite, melts in sunlight or simply lacks lungs.

[ April 08, 2008: Message edited by: Belteshazzar ]

[Robke]

More or less added in with this suggestion, I would really love to see scars on creatures. I don't know if it's possible, but a yellow/red wound leaving a scar would be pretty nice I think.

[Captain Goatse]

quote:Originally posted by Robke:
<STRONG>More or less added in with this suggestion, I would really love to see scars on creatures. I don't know if it's possible, but a yellow/red wound leaving a scar would be pretty nice I think.</STRONG>

Nice idea, but only on a dwarf, critters usually are killed very quickly when receiving a wound!