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[YetAnotherStupidDorf]

Feature creep is what happens when things are implemented on a lark, or that have little to do with the original goals, or aren't cohesive.

Yes, zombie apocalypse, necromancers, mummies, werewolfes, justice system have, in fact, little to do with original goal - better town maps. Whoa, who would guess??

[monk12]

Feature creep is what happens when things are implemented on a lark, or that have little to do with the original goals, or aren't cohesive.

Yes, zombie apocalypse, necromancers, mummies, werewolfes, justice system have, in fact, little to do with original goal - better town maps. Whoa, who would guess??

Of course, all of these things were added to make towns interesting places to be- otherwise there would be no point to ever visit, let alone do interesting things there. And rather than incorporate half-finished features, Toady took the time to do'm properly- maybe not being the complete embodiment of his vision, but enough to be playable, interesting, and more importantly fun on their own. Let's face it, all the sexy fun things about this release have been a result of that sidetrack- this will indeed be a delicious cheeseburger, whenever it gets here.

I'd rather have that approach than, say, the Minecraft approach of "add one thing that does one thing and is otherwise pointless," or worse the "add one thing that does nothing but now we can say we added it!" (XP anyone?)

[greenskye]

As I said originally, I'm not against feature creep. It makes sense for Toady to build systems while the relevant code is fresh in his mind. I was merely pointing out that it is indeed feature creep.

All that feature creep really means is that Toady doesn't like to plan things out too much ahead of time. Rather than spend a bunch of time coming up with design documents and carefully planning out each feature, Toady seems to prefer a more off-the-cuff style of programming. If Dwarf Fortress is what happens when you allow a programmer to do this, I say more companies need to try it.

[Footkerchief]

Of course, all of these things were added to make towns interesting places to be- otherwise there would be no point to ever visit, let alone do interesting things there.

Sewers, dungeons and catacombs populated with bandits and wild animals, as well as markets, were all within the scope of the stated release plans.  Those would have been sufficient to make cities interesting, and we could have been exploring those features while Toady works on night creatures.

[G-Flex]

Feature creep is what happens when things are implemented on a lark, or that have little to do with the original goals, or aren't cohesive.

Yes, zombie apocalypse, necromancers, mummies, werewolfes, justice system have, in fact, little to do with original goal - better town maps. Whoa, who would guess??

I meant the goals of the game, not one particular release cycle. You could argue that the release itself is a little muddled, but... well, what Footkerchief said.

Granted, I disagree with him that we can know if a feature is "half-finished" or more fully realized until we actually see it in action. In my opinion, a lot of the features introduced/altered in 0.31.1 are still half-finished, for instance (only an opinion to some degree; there are some pretty objective and far-reaching things wrong with them that require fixing at some point).

[monk12]

Of course, all of these things were added to make towns interesting places to be- otherwise there would be no point to ever visit, let alone do interesting things there.

Sewers, dungeons and catacombs populated with bandits and wild animals, as well as markets, were all within the scope of the stated release plans.  Those would have been sufficient to make cities interesting, and we could have been exploring those features while Toady works on night creatures.

Ah, but what kind of catacomb lacks ravening hordes of the undead   I should say I'm not suggesting that features haven't creeped, just that (most) of our feature creep has followed a logical, cohesive path, though not exactly the path he foresaw when making his release schedule. Deviating from that schedule is one of the joys of self-employment, methinks.

[Neonivek]

I think what Spacequest Nanobot Footkerchief meant was that Nightcreatures weren't required to make the release interesting and that they the game could have been released earlier while Toady worked on them anyway.

A Matter of Fact statement.

[Footkerchief]

Ah, but what kind of catacomb lacks ravening hordes of the undead   I should say I'm not suggesting that features haven't creeped, just that (most) of our feature creep has followed a logical, cohesive path, though not exactly the path he foresaw when making his release schedule. Deviating from that schedule is one of the joys of self-employment, methinks.

There are certainly thematic connections, yeah.  I guess we should count ourselves lucky that this release only involves one new framework (interactions) instead of the half-dozen or so in the 2010 release.

[Dakk]

Do these vampires actualy fear or get burned by the sun? If they do, well, since fortress mode has no day night cycle (since times goes so fast in fortress mode it'd look real silly, like a flickering lightbulb), how will it work?

They probably don't or else they'd just burn on arrival

[Footkerchief]

Do these vampires actualy fear or get burned by the sun? If they do, well, since fortress mode has no day night cycle (since times goes so fast in fortress mode it'd look real silly, like a flickering lightbulb), how will it work?

They probably don't or else they'd just burn on arrival

Looks like the answer is yes, but not sure how that'll work in Fort Mode.

Will sunlight always be a bad thing for vampires?

Right now it doesn't take things far from the classic models, so yeah.  The most would be a variety that doesn't care.  Anything more exotic has to wait until we can avoid the gray-goo effect of complete randomization through more careful exposition than we've got now.  Sticking with archetypes makes that a little less necessary.

[Shadowlord]

If the military interface becomes non-cumbersome, this (the stuff with vampires) might actually get me to play again.

I was going to wait for the whole "you can send armies to attack your attackers" arc because I was quite tired of infinite armies, but... I could just turn those off, I suppose.

[Kogut]

Is it planned to fix in this release bug 972 (Diplomat/liaison arrives, immediately dies of old age (and other old age issues)) to prevent automatic death of all mortal historic figures appearing in old forts?

And is it planned to fix (in new version or following bugfixes) impossible mandates (slade - bug #782, blue jay tooth etc - bug #1623) due to strange preferences (wagon wood - bug #3676 etc) - as common workaround is to never assign sheriff position, what will be impossible in new version.

[Cruxador]

Is it planned to fix in this release bug 972 (Diplomat/liaison arrives, immediately dies of old age (and other old age issues)) to prevent automatic death of all mortal historic figures appearing in old forts?

And is it planned to fix (in new version or following bugfixes) impossible mandates (slade - bug #782, blue jay tooth etc - bug #1623) due to strange preferences (wagon wood - bug #3676 etc) - as common workaround is to never assign sheriff position, what will be impossible in new version.

It is planned to fix the bugs. It is not planned at any particular time.

[G-Flex]

Is it planned to fix in this release bug 972 (Diplomat/liaison arrives, immediately dies of old age (and other old age issues)) to prevent automatic death of all mortal historic figures appearing in old forts?

And is it planned to fix (in new version or following bugfixes) impossible mandates (slade - bug #782, blue jay tooth etc - bug #1623) due to strange preferences (wagon wood - bug #3676 etc) - as common workaround is to never assign sheriff position, what will be impossible in new version.

It is planned to fix the bugs. It is not planned at any particular time.

Sure, although it would be nice to receive at least some acknowledgement of bug reports that have been sitting on the tracker for months.

[Cruxador]

It is probable that Toady will heavily consider this poll while making his decisions. He certainly knows that some bugs have existed for a long time. But he's never given guarantees on bugfixes before (or on anything) and I see no reason why it would be advisable for him to start.