Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Ogdibus]

.

[Rafal99]

Well personally I would prefer shorter gaps between releases, as it usually benefits both the community and the author, but in DF case it is not that simple. DF is a piece of art and every new feature is something totally unique and you simply can't estimate how long it will take to program. Issues arise where you don't expect them and the real amount of work needed is never known until it is fully complete. Toady is still pretty good at sticking to his plans, almost all the stuff he did was somewhere in the development overview page. And as a hobby programmer myself I know how things sometimes go - you are working on a feature X, then suddenly you get this totally awesome idea how to implement feature Y and you must go start programing it right NOW or go insane trying...
Edit: I forgot to add that the next release will be for sure worth the waiting, no matter when it comes.

[Zesty]

I don't really care about the feature creep, that's cool and all. I am a bit worried however that longer time between releases means less donations to Toady.

On the other hand, I fear people would take frequent, yet smaller updates for granted.

[nenjin]

I do remember, not too long ago, when Toady said he wanted to get away from these long, long development periods and focus on smaller but more consistent content updates.

Well, that obviously didn't work out as planned, but hey, you can only work the way you're truly motivated to work. Strike while the iron is hot, yadda yadda.

It's constantly done in the spirit of "if I put this in now as it stands, it won't be terribly fun" so I'm ok with it. Cities without goods moving through them, people, ghosts, a readable map, sewers, catacombs, stuff in the catacombs.....wouldn't have given us half as much stuff to enjoy when it's finally going to release.

[Zesty]

Indeed. My excitement has not waned over the past couple years.

The DF Talks help with that as well.

[Telgin]

you must go start programing it right NOW or go insane trying...

Yes, it would be a tragedy for the next dev log to read: "Toady One cancels program Dwarf Fortress: went insane!  Toady One has gone stark raving mad!"

I'll second that it's critical to get as much done on related code as you can while it's fresh in your mind.  It's like night and day how productive I am when working on old vs. new code.  Of course, my old code is an unholy mess, whereas my new code is a regular mess, but that's another issue.

I'm looking forward to the next version though.  This is the only version I've played, but I'm liking what I see is coming up in the next version.  I don't know what all bugs Toady has fixed for the next version, but I'm looking forward to them as well.  There will be new ones of course, but maybe they'll be Fun for a while.

[h45hc0d3]

you must go start programing it right NOW or go insane trying...

Yes, it would be a tragedy for the next dev log to read: "Toady One cancels program Dwarf Fortress: went insane!  Toady One has gone stark raving mad!"

This brings up a very interesting question. I assume Toady works from home - is his house cluttered? Maybe we should all volunteer to go clean it - or at least move all his unneeded possessions to the dump so he can work faster.

[Gatleos]

Let's not start that Toadysitting discussion again... it got a bit embarrassing last time.

[Neonivek]

Let's not start that Toadysitting discussion again... it got a bit embarrassing last time.

Besides it isn't how clean his house you should be concerned with.

It is what is in his fridge that should turn some heads.

[freeformschooler]

Let's not start that Toadysitting discussion again... it got a bit embarrassing last time.

Besides it isn't how clean his house you should be concerned with.

It is what is in his fridge that should turn some heads.

Is Toady drinking too much soda?

[MrWiggles]

If you read the Dev Blog, his tangents on side projects make sense.

Yes, this was suppose to be released several months ago. It looks like a December release maybe even a January release.

But, he started to add more cities stuff,  because they were incredibly bland, according to Toady (and probably by Three Toes, and the other folks that get to play daily builds). Like tasteless unfulling corn wafers. That meant the under cities. That meant content for the under cities.

A lot of the stuff, aren't independently added in, for no real reason. They're added in, to make the new content, planned for release 2, fun.

Some of the are, ansillary goals, such as adding in the animals from the X-Mas drive. That meant making them not suck, that meant reworking the materiel breath weapons, from that, it allowed FBs to shoot webs.

Toady devolopment methods, are some of what he, and his brother thinks is cool, but a lot of is, just trying to make what they're adding in, worthwhile.

[612DwarfAvenue]

I see you didn't understood what I meant 

What I'm trying to tell is that he's going too far ahead with new content before getting what was planned done. The current version was supposed to be released around half a year ago, but Toady went on and kept on adding new stuff all the time, preventing the completion of it.

Just as it was recently, he was sorting out the last vampire related things, seemed to be the last thing before the release, but then he added the new crime system and the need to get rid of any kinks that came along with it, while probably adding once more something new and the need to fix it.

It's just common sense that he releases what's in as soon as possible, then begins the bug-fixing of those and FINALLY going back to new features, or otherwise he'll be buried under all that work, unable to complete anything.

I'm concerned that this might turn into a DNF rollercoaster, that's all. 

I think he just wants to add in more features per release, not only to make them more interesting, but also to see how the features interact with each other and what bugs they generate so he has an easier time doing bugfixes, rather then releasing X features, fixing the bugs it creates, release Y feature, then having to fix the bugs it creates when interacting with X and the rest of the game, etc.
While this makes bugfixing take a long time, I think it makes things faster and easier to deal with in the long run, I think. Anyway I'm pretty ok with his current way of doing things.

What Dakk said. If Toady just spewed out release after release instead of taking the time to bugfix and make things actually FUN, things would go downhill. Yes, this release may have some feature creep, but i'd gladly wait the extra time it'll take him to put in stuff to compliment the other stuff already there. Having just vampires would be a little "meh", but instead we're getting vastly improved cities, sewers, necromancers, were-creatures, some justice additions, mummies, etc. along with the vampires.

[tolkafox]

you must go start programing it right NOW or go insane trying...

Yes, it would be a tragedy for the next dev log to read: "Toady One cancels program Dwarf Fortress: went insane!  Toady One has gone stark raving mad!"

This brings up a very interesting question. I assume Toady works from home - is his house cluttered? Maybe we should all volunteer to go clean it - or at least move all his unneeded possessions to the dump so he can work faster.

No, the problem is Toady's chair. Lets all pitch in and buy him this:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Just throw in a soda hat and some rearrangement of his house for minimal 'bed to chair to bathroom' distance and he should be more productive.

Taking soda away from Toady is like taking booze away from the dwarves. It doesn't work.

Honestly though, I doubt anyone should be concerned with his health. Imo it's his life and he's free to do whatever he pleases. From experience my brother in law has consumed nothing but sprite and pizza his entire life (seriously, I take him grocery shopping) and smokes a pack a day. If he can live into his forties I'm sure Toady will live much longer.

And from further experience, I've seen developers live in worse conditions. He could be living in a two bedroom apartment with 8 other people who each are chronic smokers.

To the OP: I'm still waiting for parties to be updated. I'm sick of these lame party messages about lack of food and drink.

[Cruxador]

I agree entirely and wish Toady would stick more closely to his planned release schedule.

But it's not long now.

[Azated]

Because DF is so complex, I like to think of added new features like the butterfly effect. You add a tiny, inconsequential item and it causes the world to explode.

Think of carp; They're just a simple fish with a few violent tags. Not a problem, right? Well, we all know how that turned out.


Personally, I'm fine with the long development time. I prefer games with reasonable tangent additions, not games that have a bunch of really good features, but for some totally stupid reason something simple is missing that could link them all together and make the game awesome.


I can only imagine what new kind of weaponry Dorfperture Labs will develop on the new release. I keep thinking of skeletal vampire zombie necromancer forgotten beast migrants with nuke breath.