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[Makbeth]

As far as I can tell, it was removed precisely so you couldn't see what you were embarking on. Being able to pick a sedimentary site with flux, sand and/or whatever else every time with 100% accuracy isn't exactly in the Roguelike spirit. You're not supposed to know what's coming. You're supposed to make choices, and face the appropriate consequences, and if it just so happens that you don't get exactly what you want, then you're going to have to find some way of dealing with it.

Additionally, this sets up the stuff in later arcs where you might be running more than one site at a time (you'll only have a general idea about what minerals are in the area until you send somebody to check).

I figured that's probably why, but with the one-metal-type-per-embark thing now, you're no longer guaranteed to find iron even if you know you're embarking on sedimentary layers.  The job has already been accomplished with metal scarcity.  There's no need to not display the rocks, because the information implied from the rocks is much more ambiguous now, just like reality.  In real life, you know you're more likely to find good quality precious gemstones in pegmatites, and it's not hard to find pegmatite rocks on a geological map.  However, finding pegmatite does not mean there'll be anything worthwhile in it.  Same thing should be the case here.  We should have the option of knowing the rock layers, so we have an idea of what we could potentially find there, even though with the current metal distribution we could just get there and find nothing but limestone with a few calcite veins.  You know, like most real-life limestone layers.

As for other people's comment on my comparison to AC:

Why not compare it to AC?  There's no point in bringing AC's shortcomings up on the Ubisoft boards because it's a done deal there.  I made the comparison here specifically because DF is still in development, and there's a small chance that if enough of us don't like the new setup, then it can be changed.  As awesome as Toady is, he is still human and he occasionally makes mistakes when deciding whether features will improve the game or not.  Removing rock names in hard code is one of those mistakes.  If you want to have them hidden from you, fine.  I'm saying it should be an option.  You can already change the game's difficulty drastically by turning off invaders and artifacts.  Next to that, this seems a fairly appropriate addition to d_init.

[NotPete]

The "one metal per embark" thing has been replaced with a world gen option that decides mineral level. It can go even HIGHER than .18 amounts. At least from what I've heard.

The reason people don't like the comparison to Assassin's Creed is that because Toady might add other features that play off of this one, like sending out scouts or something with Embark Scenarios that would give you different info on the embark screen. (This being said, your complaint is not any less legitimate as that would mean that your opinion doesn't matter, which is wrong on so many levels) Also, unlike AC's combat and missions, it actually makes the game more enjoyable for some people, as the others have said.

Some kind of compromise would be dandy, like, as you said, a d_init option or maybe if Toady adds some later future that would make it unnecessary. What's beautiful about DF is the many different ways to play it and reasons why people enjoy it. Those that are interested in it for geological reasons, like zephyr, and those that who want to know what they're embarking on should not be shunned.

Personally, I like it. Not because for the reasons that other people said, just that I don't know what each specific layer type meant and this is easier to understand. Yup, I'm nooby.

[thvaz]

As for other people's comment on my comparison to AC:

Why not compare it to AC?  There's no point in bringing AC's shortcomings up on the Ubisoft boards because it's a done deal there.  I made the comparison here specifically because DF is still in development, and there's a small chance that if enough of us don't like the new setup, then it can be changed.  As awesome as Toady is, he is still human and he occasionally makes mistakes when deciding whether features will improve the game or not.  Removing rock names in hard code is one of those mistakes.  If you want to have them hidden from you, fine.  I'm saying it should be an option.  You can already change the game's difficulty drastically by turning off invaders and artifacts.  Next to that, this seems a fairly appropriate addition to d_init.

I don't believe that "Vox Populi Vox Dei". Up to now Toady has delivered the game that can be the game I always dreamt of. Assassins Creed wasn't the game it could be to appeal to most people possible. Every change he makes divides the fanbase. I can't think in one single change we universally agreed was bad. (There is the Arsenal Dwarf, but I think it was removed because it was bugged - the concept was pretty cool)

In short, Trust in the Toad.

[clc02]

Every change he makes divides the fanbase. I can't think in one single change we universally agreed was bad. (There is the Arsenal Dwarf, but I think it was removed because it was bugged - the concept was pretty cool)

But as a rule of thumb he has added the ability to change what he changed himself, if you didn't like murderous carp you could of tuned down their damage, you could of disabled the Arsenal Dwarf in the raws, etc.  Like you said every change divides the fanbase, I just don't see the reason why it couldn't be a simple yes or no option.  If it's built on more then it is now, say you get to control a empire, there shouldn't be too much hassle to remove a simple if check and have it give the enigmatic description it does now.  Right now it seems just as much work as it was adding in the ability to replace first or full name when you set nicknames, I don't see why it couldn't happen with this, keep everyone happy.

[NW_Kohaku]

I don't believe that "Vox Populi Vox Dei". Up to now Toady has delivered the game that can be the game I always dreamt of. Assassins Creed wasn't the game it could be to appeal to most people possible. Every change he makes divides the fanbase. I can't think in one single change we universally agreed was bad. (There is the Arsenal Dwarf, but I think it was removed because it was bugged - the concept was pretty cool)

In short, Trust in the Toad.

If Toady truly didn't care what people thought, why would there have been an Eternal Suggestion Voting, with the top ten winners being put on the devpage to be worked on after he was done with Caravan Arc stuff?

Why is it that after the outcry from some corners of the forums, Toady went ahead and announced putting in the init option for the super-abundant stone of previous versions?  That was a direct bow to pressure.

We're getting random animals put into the game based upon what animals people sponsored right now.

The taverns we are soon going to get and the caverns we have had since the start of 31.x started as suggestions.

This isn't a "sit down and shut up, you'll get what you're getting, and you're going to like it" kind of operation. 

Now, I don't mind the mineral scarcity, even though it's wonky, but I know why it's there, and didn't like the previous 31.x overabundance, and hope that it will improve, but the ability to know what it is you are embarking on is a very fair thing to ask, and it was something that was brought up by many people at the time.

Not telling people what they are embarking on doesn't "make the game exciting", it just makes you dig down to find out what metal you are on top of, and if it isn't what you like, you abandon and try again.  Embarking on a glacier is a nice challenge, or embarking on a place where you know there are NO metals and an evil biome is a nice challenge - but you know what you are getting into when you pick that.  You know what site you want, and you're getting it. 

In 40d, there weren't subterranean rivers or chasms or volcanos or sand in every embark, but you would be able to know when you found one, and know when you didn't if you so chose to look.  A great many people would try to embark once on a place with everything on it (Dwarf Heaven), just to see all the features, but would generally settle down on evil biomes or glaciers or the like.

In the current model, maybe you are going to be dissapointed by how EASY the game is with readily available iron and flux and coal all in one place, and have to abandon because of that...

Basically, there is no real game benefit to the choice (especially if Toady just puts in an init option to turn it off if you really don't want it), but a major game cost to the choice in terms of frustration to some of the players who are looking for specific things.  As a game developer, that's just not a wise choice.

[thvaz]

I was debating the analogy with Assassins Creed, not the merit of the new embarking info.

Of course Toady will listen to the players, I just hope he won't bend his vision of the game for us, as we rarely see a universal agreement about a feature or removal of it here.

[bombcar]

I just wish the wiki had been updated; I spend quite some time trying to get it to show me layers instead of just "shallow metal" - now I know. Once I understand it more, I may update the wiki myself.

[Interus]

You mentioned there being only one metal, and I was under the impression that if it said "Shallow metals" and "deep metals" that those would refer both to multiple kinds of metal in those two seperate ranges.  I haven't played much though, so I don't know.

Normally I'm pretty fond of changes, but I'm not sure how I feel about this.  I sort of think that it wouldn't bother me at all if it had been that way from the start.  But transitioning from being able to know exactly what I'm embarking on to only having a vague idea is rough.  I'd at least like to know if there are sedimentary layers or not, since I have a strange fondness for Slate and Shale.  In general though, I think that the new method is to try and provide enough information without giving too much away.  I feel like I should be in favor of this, but it's not a particularly "cool" feature and knowing exactly what minerals are in the ground doesn't seem like that big a deal.

[TurnpikeLad]

All these caravan arc changes will make a lot more sense after the whole worldwide trading network thing gets some more work on it.  It's going to be a lot more easy to take whatever valuables you have in your fort and trade them in quantity to another civ for a lot of the metal you want.  That's why I like the more realistic mineral scarcity and the uncertainty on embark: it makes your fortress more dependent on trade.

I think it's pretty safe to say that Toady will probably put in a [SHOW_METALS_ON_EMBARK:ALWAYS] tag in the init... he did the same thing in a similar situation with magma and hfs in 40d.  But I enjoy the option to be surprised what I get metal-wise when I arrive at a site.  I like not knowing what kind of resources I might discover under the ground.  There aren't enough totally unpredictable aspects of this game, I think, and it's nice to have one in this feature.

Also I doubt that dwarves have geological maps of the whole world, even ones just showing the surface mineral layer.

[j0nas]

In FarCry 2, they took one of the first true open-world FPS engines

New to gaming, I see.  Welcome to the internet!

[Makbeth]

In FarCry 2, they took one of the first true open-world FPS engines

New to gaming, I see.  Welcome to the internet!

How many open-world FPS games were there before that?  I'd been waiting for one ever since Turok on the N64.  I didn't notice any.

[NW_Kohaku]

Actually, let me say something I find a little annoying and hard to find - I don't like having overabundant steel (I think it makes the game too easy), and so tend to prefer a place where it's easy to make bronze (so bronze is common while steel is rare), and you can get both cassiterite and native copper/tetrahydrite from granite (I also haven't gotten tired of clay yet, so I want some cassiterite for tin glazing pottery sometimes).

Now, I can search for clay, but I can't tell if I have sand unless it's a desert.  So I can specifically have the game tell me that clay is there because that's a mandatory part of the pottery industry, but sand doesn't get that courtesy.

For looking for granite, however, I'm SOL - it's actually much easier to make steel than it is to make bronze.

I honestly think this isn't a matter of Toady deciding to hide data from us to make the game harder, but, especially when you consider that the search panel and data display on the right is crammed full, I think Toady chose to display less data just because that was the only way to make the data appear on one page.  That is, rather than let players have an ability to see and search for sand, he prioritized making the list fit on one page.

If that's true, then I really hope that players can convince Toady to just go ahead and make the jump to having multi-page/tab data readouts and lists of search parameters on the embark screen, since there's only going to be more data thrown in over time.

[bombcar]

I think it would be interesting to make the metals you are able to see before picking the site somehow connected with the points you spend when embarking.

So if you want to see two metals, or layers, or something, you're forced to have one dwarf with points as high as he can go in mining, or you end up with 25 less points in total, or similar.

Kind of like the difficulty levels in Oregon Trail.

[Urist Imiknorris]

I would like it if we had either an init option or a buyable surveying report or something.

[Makbeth]

I wonder what people would say if only the surface geology were visible.

Or, perhaps, geology would be known within the bounds of your civilization (and perhaps other friendly civs), and you could extend the area of known geology by scouting it as an adventurer.  Obviously it wouldn't be local tile by local tile, maybe just per biome or even region tile.  Once you set foot in a biome or region tile, the whole biome or region tile is considered to be surveyed.

That... would be badass.  Actual geological surveys in a game!  And it would be more of an incentive for the fortress mode players to play adventure mode more often.  Of course, I'm not sure how many others that would appeal to.  Probably just me.

*sigh* if so much of the game weren't hardcoded...  What a foundation DF would be for a modding community, if it were as pliable as Unreal or Neverwinter Nights or even Civilization.  If I had access to the world generation code, that would probably be the thing that finally motivated me to really learn to write code instead of just transplanting and splicing it, just so I could make a realistic geology mod.