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[tps12]

I like Toady's current plan of having bug fixes in between big feature releases. It keeps things interesting while maintaining a steady rate of bugfixes to keep the new ones at bay and to eventually fix the main older bugs.

I would agree, but the current state of affairs is one where each feature set implemented adds on to the pile of pre-existing problems, which are subsequently put on the back burner in favor of more features.

I think the question being debated is whether that is indeed an accurate description of the current state of affairs. A very many pre-existing problems have been resolved rather than put on the back burner.

[G-Flex]

Well, it's undeniable that new feature sets are being implemented before current ones are worked on to full satisfaction/working order, but the degree to which that is happening is debatable, I guess, and it's not clear what's going to happen in the near future in terms of catching up. I'm personally more concerned about problems being fixed than outright bugs, personally, because the latter category is generally more obvious and stands a greater chance of seeing work, although the two sets have some significant overlap.

Time will tell, I guess, but I'd rather voice concerns than just wait and hope things go well.

[Jiri Petru]

(...)

The real question isn't why bugs aren't fixed but why features are left unfinished before being abandoned for the sake of other half-finished features. For example, as you've said, combat calculations work as intended in terms of regarding all bodyparts as being propped agains a solid wall. That's not a bug, that's how the system is coded. It's an unfinished feature that has deliberately been left in an unsatisfactory state. Unintended bugs I can understand. Intended half-features I can't.

[Untelligent]

Presumably because Toady gets bored working on the same thing for too long and at some point he's happy to put something into a state that kind of works and come back to it later. Nothing wrong with that.

[NSQuote]

Yeah, as long as he gets to it eventually and it isn't utterly game breaking, it's okay with me if he takes his time a bit with some fixes.

[Genoraven]

If he stayed with 1 feature till it was completely finished an relatively bugfree we would never get a release

[Cthulhu]

You guys are spoiled.  You know how long it took to go from DF3D to Temples'n'Shit DF?  Over a year.  No releases in between.

The thing I dislike the most about the current version is the way you pretty  much have to hit somebody in the head or heart to kill them.  I'd like to see some kind of trauma system put in where severe injuries have a chance to kill you outright, with that chance increasing as you become more badly injured and probably related to toughness.  Get impaled on a sword as a weedy peasant?  Probably instant death.  Same thing as a martial trancing axedorf?  You might die, but probably not, unless you're already badly hurt.

[NW_Kohaku]

If he stayed with 1 feature till it was completely finished an relatively bugfree we would never get a release

You can make releases in the interim.  It's just that you don't start on another feature until the old one is complete.

I can say that the new body types' most disappointingly unfinished business would be that these great big changes to the body system were there to make DF have more than just a size for a creature, and a set number of limbs, like in 40d.  The fact that we have dogs and cows and alligators all having fundamentally the same body, with only size being a real difference between them, however, means that Toady spent all that much work to be able to make these creatures potentially radically different... and then didn't actually make them different in any way besides size alone, which is exactly the same as before he went through the update.

As I've mentioned before, a cow's bite is actually stronger than an alligator's bite, because they use the same jaw, the same type of bite attack, and the cows are larger than the alligator, so cows are more fearsome by default.

Of course, even that doesn't matter when it comes to attrition, because 18 cuts of any size to the paper-thin skin of any unarmored creature will be enough to cause any creature to faint, causing three hoary marmots to be capable of killing an elephant.

[G-Flex]

If he stayed with 1 feature till it was completely finished an relatively bugfree we would never get a release

I don't mean "completely finished", just that it would be nice for the current systems to be worked on a bit more, as a general rule. I certainly wouldn't expect Toady to revamp body part positioning/relationships right off the bat, but there are some things, some of them very simple, that he could do now in order to cause the current system to give more consistently reasonable results.



I agree with what NW_Kohaku says above: The new body and wound systems are great ways to differentiate creatures and make combat interesting and realistic, but for that to happen, it has to work well and be provided with good data first. There are currently problems with both parts of this formula.

[EmeraldWind]

Dev log makes it sound like Toady's got started on the mummy-like Night Creatures. It will be fun to invade their resting place to bring their bitter wrath upon myself. I will sneak to the dungeon and steal the Slab of Immortality! The mummy will rise and say, "Return the slab or suffer my curse!"

From the sound of Threetoe's teaser in the Dev Log, it sounds curses can possibly alienate you from normal not cursed individuals. Will these curses be causing effects that might make you unpleasant for normals to deal with?

For example, a curse of sores or a curse of ugliness.  I imagine these types of curses might make it in because of how they are tied to mummies in fiction and simply want to know if they are within the scope of working on mummies. The idea of a curse making you an outcast is not uncommon either and that what it sounds like could happen from the Dev Log...

These powerful beings that can be disturbed. Will they all be Historical Figures that have been buried or will they be other Fun things as well?

Once again, sounds like mummies, but could there be things worse than mummies found in these resting places?

[Dante]

I WILL CHOOSE ADVENTURE, THREETOE.

THIS I PROMISE.

[NW_Kohaku]

I WILL CHOOSE ADVENTURE, THREETOE.

THIS I PROMISE.

... I've always wondered...

Whenever people ask questions like that in a fantasy RPG, they never actually give you much alternative.  I mean, until we get the caravan trading thing in, our choices are "adventure" and "just sit around town, maybe steal food or just starve". 

Those sorts of questions have more weight when there is an actual alternative choice that can be made.

[monk12]

I WILL CHOOSE ADVENTURE, THREETOE.

THIS I PROMISE.

... I've always wondered...

Whenever people ask questions like that in a fantasy RPG, they never actually give you much alternative.  I mean, until we get the caravan trading thing in, our choices are "adventure" and "just sit around town, maybe steal food or just starve". 

Those sorts of questions have more weight when there is an actual alternative choice that can be made.

Which is one of the reasons I'm excited about the caravan arc- "No thanks, my King, I have no desire to tramp across half a continent to kill some dragon that has been plaguing our people since the creation of the world. I'm perfectly capable of killing it should he try to meddle in my affairs, mind you, but I'd rather spend my time strengthening my stranglehold on the silver trade through my plan of economic domination, bribery, and strategic assassinations. But hey, if you would like some *silver warhammers* to equip some other fool with, don't hesitate to send your best offer!"

"Return the slab or suffer my curse!"

KING RAMSES!
The man in gauze!
The man in gauze!

[G-Flex]

I WILL CHOOSE ADVENTURE, THREETOE.

THIS I PROMISE.

... I've always wondered...

Whenever people ask questions like that in a fantasy RPG, they never actually give you much alternative.  I mean, until we get the caravan trading thing in, our choices are "adventure" and "just sit around town, maybe steal food or just starve". 

Those sorts of questions have more weight when there is an actual alternative choice that can be made.

It also means that the reward for such adventure would have to be really, really, really high in order to justify the risks.

Alternatively, maybe the adventurers are the desperate type. I can see more tomb-spelunking going on when there's a famine or something and people are willing to go to extreme lengths to improve their condition... as opposed to most fantasy settings, where it seems like people are willing to face down the Devil himself even when it means living some bizarrely-idyllic home-life behind.

[Yoink]

It would be cool if, other than just the terrible, zombifying curses, you could also get relatively benign ones, like a boil or wart on your character's nose, to set off the scars.