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[Ragnar_Deerslayer]

On the Development page, the stated goals for the current release are:

“Better town maps involving workshops/markets/shops based on world gen economic activities”

But to the town maps were added the Undercity (sewers, catacombs, dungeons).
To the Undercity were added night creatures (werewolves, vampires, mummies, necromancers, etc.)
To the mummies were added pyramids with traps, and curses.
The curses developed into an entire pseudo-magic “interaction” system.
Interactions prompted a material breath rewrite.
To the necromancers were added the ability to take an apprentice (including a PC), and book writing.
To the vampires were added the ability to assume an identity (and be in disguise), as well as kidnapping, lying, and other wrinkles to the fortress-mode justice system.

(For a fuller list, check out this page)

Well, sooner or later, we’ll have the current release (Release 1) and a few bugfixing releases afterwards.  Presumably, Toady will then begin on Release 2:

“Villager/farmer schedules/activities”
“Work with 3D mineral veins and mine maps”

Given the past history, it would be surprising if Release 2 didn’t experience feature creep, as well.  What features do you expect to arise naturally from the development of the two above goals?

This isn’t a “what I wish it would include,” but a “given that Toady’s feature-creep is nearly always related (directly or indirectly) to the original features he planned, what features would be reasonable to expect if Toady indulges in feature-creep again?”

I’ll start:
* Schedules could quickly lead to the personality rewrite (now scheduled for Release 8 )
* Activities could lead to basic adventure mode skills of growing crops and raising livestock
* Schedules and activities, with people coming and going from their houses, could lead to implementation of “valuables and mansions,” with associated available wealth for PC burglars, and associated developments of the justice system
* 3D mineral veins and mine maps might lead to the various hauling improvements, workshop material use, and further development of traps (in conjunction with the adventure-mode traps from Release 1)
* hopefully, vein auto-mining will develop from this as well.

Other guesses?

Ragnar

[Tryble]

Hard to say...
I'd hazard a guess that 3D mineral maps and such might end up with additions in belowground features (underground rivers and so on).

[Cruxador]

Who knows? I never would have guessed city maps would lead to books.

[thvaz]

A personality rewrite is very likely, as it would make easier a lot of already planned features. Another one is 3D underground features like pockets of water, subterranean rivers and smaller caves.

Who knows, maybe the mineral veins leads to tunnel supports and then to a cave-in rewrite?

[monk12]

Who knows? I never would have guessed city maps would lead to books.

No, but you may have guessed that city maps -> catacombs -> undead rewrite -> necromancy -> seeeeecret stuff -> books. This is why guessing is fun!

I don't think the personality rewrite will get pushed forward, just because it's already scheduled. Do we have a quote for what exactly "Village schedules/activities" entails? The feature creep there will likely be related to the specifics- further dwarf mode skill implementation in adventure mode is the most likely candidate.

I rather hope the mineral vein rewrite does lead to underground rivers- I miss those. World-gen mines and mining towns would also follow naturally.

[Kilroy the Grand]

Maybe structural integrity, so no more balancing entire fortresses on pillars.

[Untelligent]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[KoboldWarmonger]

OBNOXIOUS PREEMPTIVE RED TEXT:
Guys, this is a cool thread, if you feel like hijacking it and bashing Toady's dev style/him personally please take your haterade somewhere else. There's a big difference between playful/wishful speculation and being a dick. The second someone talks about the relative merits/challenges of Toady's dev style, someone else will disagree and reply, and we're on the express train to a locked thread.

I agree with the dudes speculating that 3d mineral veins could become other cool cave features, lakes etc. What would be *really* cool would be if individual cave systems could have their own randomly generated biome inhabitants.. "HEY GUYS I FOUND THIS TUNNEL FULL OF VICIOUS BADGER-CARP!!"

Who knows, maybe the mineral veins leads to tunnel supports and then to a cave-in rewrite?

Maybe structural integrity, so no more balancing entire fortresses on pillars.

With Toady's deep math background I doubt he would be silly enough to give himself such a hard problem on a whim- not with any realism, anyway. It was mentioned on the DF talks and he seems weary of how much work it could end up being. You could say that he did the same thing with the Z-coordinate, but to be fair, the math there looks pretty trivial to a mathematician. He might opt to add new simple cave-in rules a la the 7-square rooms of old, but I don't think it'd go farther than that.

"Mine maps" seems to imply (to me anyway) that we may see some new mining mechanics, which could easily become the trap rewrite and even moving fortress parts. That could mean mining elevators, pop-up pillboxes, and undersea fortresses connected rapture-style to the surface!

[thvaz]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It looks great! Can't wait already.

[Capntastic]

As I've said for years, everything is leading towards tac-nukes.

[Pokon]

As I've said for years, everything is leading towards tac-nukes.

Nah, Necromancy is the new nuke. If you will, invision a fort that accidently taints the main water supply with the blood of some random titan associated with death. Then, as eventualy everything gets covered in this stuff, dwarves go insane and,when they die, raise from the dead. Ghosts torment the still-living, and if they drown they will lurk at the very bottom of a river or stream, perhapes even producing more of the taint. Animals are not immune to this stuff, and flying things will drip this stuff all over the map long before it turns hostile on your dwarves. Eventualy, you may just have to go underground Fallout-style, and hope those traders can survive the worse-than-boatmurder like landscape you created.


Welcome to Dwarf Bunker. Hope you have a few males on hand. You might be down here a while.

[JDF117]

 Villager/Farmer Schedules/Activities.
   NPC-Terrain interaction
     Building building
       Fortress layout
     Advanced pathfinding.
       Optimisations
         Bug fixes for flying sieges and amphibian mounts.
         Additional invader strategy tokens.
      NPC Farming
       Above-ground crop diversity and availability
         Workshops in farming houses (Ties into Building building)
            Civilian profession distribution. (You need brewers, woodcutters, and carpenters for a
                                                       farm, not Siege Operators.)
          Good/Evil area entity spawn fix (The trees)


Work with 3D mineral veins and mine maps
  3D mineral veins
    Z-level level gen interactions
      Better looking caverns
        Underground animal tribe refinement
      Mineral token overhaul
      Better waterfalls (Gentler gradient)
        River reworking

  Hey, it works for him.

[Eagleon]

haterade

Refreshing and vindictive! If this is a mistake, it's a glorious one.

I think auto-designation is a good possibility. From there, it's a pretty obvious step to prevent miners from auto-designating smoothed walls, which could lead into adding auto-masonry and then reconstruction of wall engravings in mason workshops to appease affronted artists, mosaics, and decorated pillars (why not). Because once you have that, you can have your miners be as blunderous and greedy they ought to be without seriously annoying the player.

Because of the need for scaffolding for dwarves to navigate to high places in walls, auto-masonry could lead to buildings being made by villagers as you watch, since that's really all that's needed along with a desire from villagers to trade/produce construction materials. Besides the potential for hilarious bugged miscalculations for the structural integrity of scaffolding, that would be an easy inroad to quarries for humans, as wood isn't going to be found easily in a lot of places. Then if quarries aren't an option due to aquifers or low population, straw-and-mud or stretched-hide constructions could be put in.

[jellsprout]

The material breath rewrite was actually prompted by the squids from the Animal Drive. There will probably a lot of new features from that in the next release. Such as scavenging from hyenas, which will also lead to predators hunting, animal specific hatreds from mongooses or bite strength and jaw size getting separated from snapping turtles.

[HungryHobo]

Work with 3D mineral veins and mine maps
  3D mineral veins
    Z-level level gen interactions
      Better looking caverns
        Underground animal tribe refinement
      Mineral token overhaul
      Better waterfalls (Gentler gradient)
        River reworking

I could imagine him applying a similar approach to caves as he does to rivers in world gen, perhaps a rework where it simulates a crack in the rock then erodes out a realistic cave. Not sure how good this would be for underground civs.

if he's working on the underground anyway I could imagine a rework to make it easier to navigate the underground in adventure mode since right now if you go down you'll never go up again.

perhaps an option to toggle cancel on damp/warm stone while ingame without having to exit and edit the config files.