From some of the general bitchiness coming from the replies to this thread, it seems like the main thrust of the OP was completely overlooked in trying to knit pick the details. Yes, it would be nice to have a round, or several, of bug fixes and general housekeeping. A feature that doesn't work is not a feature, its a bug. A work around is not a feature, its an exploit. (Quantum stockpiling, water reactors, ect) One the the main points about exploits is that if people are using them, you need to find out WHY they are using them and fix the root issue as well as removing the exploit in particular. So, while I may not agree with all of the items the OP listed particularly, I do agree that a series of releases related to bug fixes and other items would be good.
Particularly things that directly impact the game play/performance. Personally, I would love to get a release that doesn't send me into FPS death. To me, that is the one item that should probably be #1 on the dev list as it doesn't matter what features of the game you use, you are still affected by the FPS problem. A lot of the cool possibilities with the game are also curtailed because of this. (Imagine making a fort that took up the whole embark tile instead of a 4x4 or 6x6 chunk of it...) Most of the time on the suggestion thread we talk about new features that we would like to see implemented, interface complaints and such, mainly because we all believe that Toady is aware of all the routine normal problems and doesn't need to be reminded. I don't necessarily think it is fair to bash the OP because he did what we normally take for granted as a given.
Are we forgetting, or simply overlooking that 31.25 is after a round of bug testing? 31.19 was Release One of the Caravan Arc. He had 6 big bug fixes release. This release is new features, which, as every release contains, more bug fixes.
Again, I have to go back to how we dont know things are interconnected in dwarf fortress. This pertains to bugs, or incomplete feature sets. We dont know what is an easy fix, or what fixing a bug now means, in the near future.
And Toady is mindful of the FPS. He stated he's using using testing programs to find big knots in the game and work them out. In release 31.24 he posted a minor fix.
Optimizing now, would probably more of a waste of time, then anything, as when Toady gets back to moving forward on the game, that'll pretty start to decline and render all the optimization pointless.
Personally, I play on 5x5 embarkments with 200 dorfs, and everything on, and I'm fine with FPS.
--------------------
Thanks to those that you who've replied so far.
The poster immediately above me (ravaught) summarises the thrust of my post very well. I'll admit that the very short list of examples that I gave was weak in places (functionally, the game is fine without wagon, for instance), my point was that there are many features that are currently non-functional that previously worked fine. Ravaught makes an excellent point that workarounds and exploits are used because there's a problem, rather than because there's an opportunity.
MrWiggles, yes, I'm a forum reader and user. I'll admit that nobles aren't always popular and people have posted extensive research both here and on the wiki on how to get rid of them. But they're still part of the game and the "fun".
I'm aware that there's a deeper Grand Plan behind Dwarf Fortress, and I understand that I can't appriciate the fullness of where certain parts of the game are going. But I've also worked with programmers who can put a good enough skin on almost any solution so it can appear to the user that the problem has gone away when its really being fixed in a very different way. This is just the natural way problems get solved sometimes.
L.
I wouldnt want cosmetic fixes. It'd prefer if they're complete or fix, not appear to be fix. And just because that is a programming method, doesnt mean its Toady programming method.