So are Pews, Prayers Mats, and Priests (to replace or work with the entertainer) coming with this release?
It's still unclear how fortress mode will interact with any of the new religious stuff. The materials in the buildings haven't been a focus in world gen, though there are smaller 'shrine' type locations (abstractly currently) that will get map realizations when we move on, and that could have an impact. Whether that involves smaller shrine zones in the fort, and a higher bar for a temple, I'm not sure.
About magic, how do you plan to manage spell duration between adventure mode and fortress mode ? (i mean, spell which will last days/weeks/hours, for instance)
KittyTac:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7909146#msg7909146voliol:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7909237#msg7909237Yeah, it's really going to have to be handled case-by-case, and also require some play-tested iteration to get right. Certain spells will really need to be stretched (say, a defensive spell that works for 20 seconds in adv mode would actually be useful, where that's not even a tick of time in dwarf mode. It'd probably be best to use the 144x factor there so battles feel similar and can be similarly balanced.) Other spells, say, a curse with a year duration, would work perfectly fine between modes, obeying the calendar. Then there are uncomfortable time frames in between, especially as people travel in and out of the site. Morever, resources have the same problem -- a spell that creates food has almost entirely different meanings in fort/adv mode, if it makes, say, 10 fish. We'll just need to meet this head-on, and, just as it is now, some inconsistencies will have to be part of the game.
Q: Are you still quite fond of that mini-game concept for animal taming if time allowing, you roll around to having adventurers lock up animals in cages?
Q: Will we see any more mini-games sub-activities that aren't explicitly 'games' per say (dwarvish backgammon in the tavern) but rather game-ified actions for the player's enjoyment?
I'm probably just fond of complexifying animal systems in general, though I don't often get a chance to do so.
I'm not sure what counts here. The whole 'c' screen is a sort of mini-game, but you have to put a few dwarves in, similar to how you have to make a dwarf an animal tamer. Vampire detection is a kind of very simple logic game at times, and villain investigations will hopefully improve on that slightly. But the more isolated and unrelated it becomes, the less I'm into it, I guess? There could be exceptions. But we get more out of keeping things connected, and I'm not much of a polish-and-perfect designer when it comes to making tight little experiences, so it might be a misuse of my time.
With the coming releases will adventurers be able to enjoy sleeping in an inn bedroom, feel unhappy sleeping on the ground recently, and enjoy a bedroom like a personal palace when they've built their own site and stashed some treasure in their room? If adding actual focus consequences is out of the question is there something keeping adventurers from having the unpleasant sleeping on the ground memory now that such memories can carry over between fortress mode games?
Not sure if it's the sort of thing I should bug report because it seems more like a design that just predates adventurers being awake in fortress mode at all.
Once the villains are in, succession games can finally act out through play some of their terrible player grudge matches. What are your policies on using Dwarf Fortress as a platform for professional GMing? I am but a simple communist and don't know how all the property licensing of video games or table top games shakes out for people that do it for money. But I write a book for money. Can I make a personalized dwarf fortress succession game a tier on a patreon?
So here's my tragic backstory: for the past three and a half years I've been writing a [now Game of Thrones] sized novel that started out as Dwarf Fortress fanfiction. It started, appropriately enough, as a quick and dirty attempt writing my first full novel (post-college) and it went horribly out of proportion. Aside from a few Urists, which are all placement names, it wouldn't resemble the game right now at all, but you might get to something like it before I finish on my end at this rate.
I have some fans among my friends that I am finally getting into the game. But they'd have a much easier time if I could set up a world for them. That got me thinking: if somebody is supporting my patreon and I'm also GMing a game with DF as the platform, is this opening up some kind of weird bad legal situation for you? I'd hate for Disney to suddenly release a Dwarf Fortress movie and claim to own it because you didn't enforce one instance of profit-making. Such is the bizarre world of US copywrite law.
Yeah, it's more incomplete than buggy, when it comes to adventurer thoughts. I haven't decided what I want to do with that completely, though we've pretty well leaned into the needs system there, and as that continues to impact adventurers, it'll continue to be necessary to do a better job with them.
I have no idea what the wrinkles are there, but I don't mind if you play a DF game with people, whether they are paying you or whatever. I ask that people not sell the binaries, and I'd prefer if people don't sell official Dwarf Fortress this-or-that, but the legal questions elude me. Trademark is different from copyright; I hold the trademark for DF in the US as it concerns Dwarf Fortress as a video game, and I have a world-wide copyright as I understand it, just by having written it, due to whatever convention (Berne?) But how that interacts with profit-making was a recent dispute in a reported post over in a 40K thread (or something) and I'd just as soon not have people fight out their perception of the details in here, heh. Please don't. I've always considered it a practical matter. I have the code, and I can make something people like using that, so I stay alive. The rest doesn't matter much, though I'm sure there are various esoteric ways to make my life miserable if people take a real crack at it. If Disney makes a DF movie, it'd be great advertising whether they screw me on fees or not.
Well, gotta ask this one (just regarding the villains release):
Fortress Mode coups? Yea? Nay? Maybe?
Grand Sage:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7912524#msg7912524FantasticDorf:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7912544#msg7912544therahedwig:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7912591#msg7912591Shonai_Dweller (op):
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7912703#msg7912703etc. (many more posts)
He he he.
Demon lords are included in the villain plans if I recall, right? If so:
Is it possible that with coups being a thing, demon rulers of human civs could become common enough that I might finally see one? For instance, it seems like now the possibility is open for a demon to actively plot a human law-giver's downfall rather than simply waiting until a vacancy opens up like they do now.
Yeah, any demon that is a plotter can plot to take over a civ. If they are the ruler of a goblin civ they wouldn't consider it an improvement to become a human civ ruler themselves (and would therefore place a subordinate in the role.) I haven't seen it yet, but I haven't been logging for it either; I think this is because mostly the demons just end up as or start as goblin civ rulers. There should be more diversity in their roles; perhaps it would make sense to make the named unique demons slightly more numerous now, though we don't want to over-vault the world either.
Hey Toady, concerning the ever shifting balance of stress mechanics, have you considered or made use of simulative models to identify whether dwarven stress can be managed at all, or is too easily managed given various time (time spent walking, sleeping, entertaining, etc), and quality of life (death of loved ones, isolation or existence of loved ones, wealth, fed levels, etc) budgets? If not, how do you establish estimates of whether dwarves can or shouldnt be able to furnish their unmet needs based on the situation?
Shonai_Dweller:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7915060#msg7915060I don't have much to add; there's stuff to fix and missing stuff. We ran some numbers, but it didn't matter. It's hard to set up, say, a unit test that'll stand the test of time on this one, since there's too much to control for.
It's still yet a but a glimmer in your eye as we can all tell and have been told, but will the fortress's (in fortress mode) own presence as a plot actor to hire a assassin on payroll, could fufill a purpose of 'evening the field' versus very strong and at the moment difficult to take down opponents like immortal tacticians and supernaturally strong defenders? (elves are huge tactics cheaters conquering wide swathes of land and usually beating on humans to extinction with with tactic boosted beasts, and demons really tank the worst of fortress lead tower raids making them very difficult to do unless they meet a accidental demise to pass along leadership) - hopefully without presuming too much with how, but it felt fair to ask since its on development goals.
Bit less of a opened up but still i guess complex question, How much different would deliberately targeting a historical individual be compared to targeting a historical beast/megabeast in terms of a monster hunter versus what the coming assassins will do?, or is it too premature a question with everything still being built up with w.g to comment?
I just saw the parallels in agency that pushing a wad of cash into a monster hunter's (or adventurer within perspective of being that NPC) palm to kill and bring back the corpse or assure a beast is dead would be more useful than having them endlessly wandering our caverns looking for famous monsters (usally made when they as fodder fall prey to something mundane) to come to them. But that's just my opinion.
We need to address the assassin hiring conundrum post wg generally, but you'll very likely be able to send a dwarf at least. If they run afoul of the same questions of access as w.g. assassins, you'd need somebody on the inside first, but that's what agents are for. If the adventure mode experiments are successful, you'll likely get agents for free in fort mode as well.
Aside from whatever bugs people find, assassinating beasts is simply not considered in w.g. For consistency, it shouldn't be an option generally, until we figure out what the germane differences are (sleep, size, etc.) I don't have a conceptual problem with somebody assassinating, say, a giant, if what they do makes sense. I assume the current monster hunters would still be adrenalin junkies, but maybe some of them would prefer to rid the world of monsters with as little fuss as they can manage. Probably won't address that this time around though.
I do agree that the monster hunter cavern death-run as it stands is deeply silly.
I am getting a little worried we'll see a ton of goblin kings everywhere due the combo of eternal life+villain personalities. Do you have any kind of mechanisms in mind to avoid every single ruler being an immortal scumbag?
Also, future DF games will proly have a ton more kids if Nushrat's 7 children are any indication. Kinda cool a figure can really specialize in cloak and dagger though.
EDIT:
I just realized that the immortal scumbag kings would actually fit in a dystopian world. Will the mythgen happy-vs-terrible tone slider only affect the types of things and creatures in the world or do you think it might also affect how game mechanics operate?
Immortal critters do have a distinct advantage over people that die. Franchises have had various ways of dealing with this, with varying degrees of half-assitude. My current approach has been to skirt the line as long as possible, since I'm interested in seeing the dynamics and maintaining real differences. However, the myth release will throw a giant wrench into all of this, I think. Broad creature-type relations will be better understood, and the nature of immortality will be better understood. Humans and dwarves could still be immortal or have immortal subgroups. Whether or not we then apply additional world-building rules to the default immortal races will be a little easier to wrap our heads around (or totally impossible, he he he.)
The tone slider will definitely hit mechanics toward the peaceful direction, to the point of turning violence off, so it stands to reason that the harsher direction might also see some coaxing of mechanics, though the game is already quite violent and has dark mechanics, so it might be more subtle. There will be a lot of results-oriented tweaking and good-enoughedness applied here I suspect.
I was also wondering about assassinations:
Will we be able to target ANY historical figure in the world with assassinations/ kidnappings or are we limited to the ones who hold some kind of position like site ruler or the dean of the cheesemaker's guild? I was wondering what the interface for that menu would have to look like to not be too overwhelming.
Some other random questions:
Adjacent sites of the same civilisation can sometimes get into border disputes which lead to arguments and possibly armed combat. Do the new friendship/ rivalry/ villainy systems in some way interact with border disputes or is there no change to them?
In the roguelike celebration talk you gave the example of a necromancer who wants to take revenge on the town that initially banished him and who is able to start a war between humans and elves by sending someone to influence the human law giver. Is this all possible by now or is there still something missing for this to be possible?
Oh, just thought of another one because of the latest devlog:
Do you plan on making NPC assassin do their deeds secretly in a fort mode fort, like vampires do? What I mean is, will they be able to kill someone and leave the fort, passing by other dwarves without anyone noticing that they are a/ were the murderer?
It would be a bummer if they automatically just turned into "invader" status after the murder because that would mean no assassin would ever leave a player fort alive, like the guys who try to steal artifacts.
Yes, it's an open question as to who you should even be allowed to know about. Perhaps you'll need an agent in place to target other people? The position holders are probably public knowledge. There will likely be some cases we miss where a player has a cause to assassinate somebody lower down (a thief of an artifact, say?), and we'll have to catalog potential reasons to bump people up the priority lists perhaps.
More hearth vs. hearth etc. rivalries were on the list of possible avenues to explore, and we didn't get there, and probably won't for this time now. There's certainly a lot to do there. We are still, maybe, hoping to get some preferential treatment in terms of elevating hearth lords to important positions.
We still need the necromancer to act on an entity grudge. It's in the notes and we'll get to it. The necromancer-vampire stuff is one of the big outstanding w.g.-first items left to go, along with hideouts and some improvements to counter-intelligence and punishment.
I hadn't quite gamed out fort-mode assassination details; I think the way you describe is probably best, as a parallel to the "successful" assassinations from world gen. Sometimes, the w.g. ones 'fail', but there's still a duel where the assassin wins; this would probably be analogous to the invader version. Undetected murder probably involves them succeeding in their stealth rolls until they are adjacent to the target, and then rolling a good attack, which it would then fudge and just turn into a murder (like the fell mood) -- if they aren't sneaking (because they are a visitor or a citizen), they'd just need one stealth roll adjacent to the target to simulate the sudden attack, say, and then the good attack roll. The automatic fell murder strike successes have always needed some sort of additional justification or material check, but we can ignore that for now.
"Snang still carries it."
Does this mean that, now, artifact armors or weapons are actually used and "seen" by people, and considered as armors or weapons, and not just "treasures to be stored/displayed" ?
therahedwig:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7916276#msg7916276Inarius (op):
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7916284#msg7916284Untrustedlife:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7917788#msg7917788This one was held, yeah, but there's still a lot of storage. If I recollect, Snang just didn't have any place to put it. Still need to clean that up generally.
It seems all major position holders (kings, druids ect.) are also villains. Is this intended behaviour or just the effect of something, that isn't implemented yet, and will it stay that way in the release?
Are villains and there groups going to fight about there respective agents ect, or can any given person work for/be extorted by any given number of criminal organizations? in other words, will there be "turf wars" in any sense of the word?
I am not sure if this was asked before, but how many of these new noble positions will we see/be able to appoint in Fort mode?
thx in advance, and thx for an awesome devlog!
Shonai_Dweller:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7916533#msg7916533Death Dragon:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7916740#msg7916740As Shonai_Dweller says, they aren't all villains; I've just been talking about villains a lot.
There's some tussle between the orgs, but since the main villains are so secretive, it's indirect right now. The counter-intelligence stuff could end up changing that somewhat, but we'll see.
I haven't yet added new fort mode positions.
1. With the recent story about intrigue and landed titles and one of the remaining candidates being gaining entry level positions/titles from intrigue do you think it is becoming more likely that with the villain fleshing out update our adventurers will be able to get titles/positions in civilizations by doing quests for high ranking people?
2. In the recent story you posted a lot of land holding nobles were mentioned. Will the land they hold actually exist in that we could visit it? Also how big and how small a parcel of land could a noble hold? Would it have to be at least as big as a site or could they hold a subsection of land within a site?
3. Another thing mentioned in your recent story was assassins. Could our adventurers take up assassination quests in the coming update and like wise could our adventurers hire assassins to kill people? It was stated a while ago that our adventurers could hire their own agents.
4. Finally if our adventurers found a site will they be able to grant landed titles to their subjects?
Grand Sage:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7917303#msg7917303therahedwig:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7917347#msg7917347Grand Sage:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7917356#msg7917356Untrustedlife:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7917791#msg7917791Grand Sage:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7918387#msg7918387FantasticDorf:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7918511#msg79185111. We've been aiming at this as a pre-Big-Wait feature; as you suggest, it is closer now as the additions pile up. Maybe not this release though.
2. Yeah, this currently refers to the noble ranks and how they interlink w/ market towns and vassals and so forth. They hold the town they live in, and its linked villages (if they aren't held by somebody unattached), but it's an abstract notion. And yeah, the human 'lord' positions are a bit more involved now, as there can be hearthlords in market towns that get jumped up to a 'baron' status, and the nobles placed in townless castles are also 'barons' (I think, though I'd considered a name like 'castellan' that didn't quite fit as (I think) it has a more organized military inflection than I intended. This could still change.)
3. (addressed w/ Untrustedlife question below)
4. These are civ-level distinctions, so the adventurer would need to found their own civilization/culture; so this is hampered by the fact that those are smashed together (something we wanted to address for the status/property/etc release.)
1. Will creatures always necessarily hold grudges against their former partners, or is it possible for a relationship to simply "not work out" with no ill-will between either person involved? What causes someone to end a relationship, aside from unwillingness to commit?
2a. Should a successful usurper lack the wisdom to properly dispose of the former monarch and their supporters, is it possible for said ex-monarch to orchestrate their own "counter coup" to take back power? If the ex-monarch dies before they can attempt to take back the throne, but still has kids kicking around, would those kids recognize their status as former heirs, and plot to reclaim their rightful throne?
2b. As an extension of the previous question, how will already existing claims interact with the new villain system? Would current position holders be able to recognize potential claimants as a threat, and dispose of them via assassins?
2c. Will we see the children of ruling monarchs engage in the historically time honored tradition of sibling rivarly over who gets to be the heir? Would the degree to which this occurs be affected by how much the civ in question values family / power?
3. Will villains attempt to place people other than themselves in civ ruler positions? For example, could a demon or rival civ leader try to position a more easily influenced or cowardly character as the leader of a neighboring civ? If so, is it necessary for said character to already be caught up in the web, or could this happen without their knowledge of the strings being pulled?
4. What happens if a coup attempt doesn't quite go the way the plotters were hoping?
5. What exactly happens if the monarch of a civ is the primary propagator of a villain network? Would there basically be no consequences whatsoever to be uncovered in that situation? [Who the heck is gonna punish you when you're already at the top of the chain?]
6. Does the abstracted "personal account" manifest in the world in any way, even if said manifestations are entirely arbitrary? IE: The hearthpeople of a rich lord being better equipped in general?
(updated: Is the puesdo-"equipment funds" system used exclusively by mercenaries, or will other civ landholders at various levels be able to interact with the system?)
And a few questions about the upcoming myth and magic arc:
7. We're going to be getting procedural civilized critters - Does this mean that we'll be seeing new types of procedurally generated populated sites? Or are generated creatures just gonna piggyback off of the existing types of sites for the first pass?
8. On the higher settings for randomness, is it possible for worlds to come out of world gen with more than one moon, or perhaps multiple suns? Or maybe no sun and/or no moon? Will these effect the daylight or seasonal cycle on the world? IE: pitch black nights on a world with no moon, different types or cycles of day for worlds with multiple suns, ect.
FantasticDorf:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7917624#msg79176241. Oftentimes people just break up right now. Grudges don't always happen.
2abc. We had this claim system, broken/unused for a long time, and it hasn't yet been resurrected. It'd be a fine time to get into civil wars and so forth, but it's still felt like the system doesn't quite support that kind of more society-wide factionalism; the villains have the convenience of operating where society doesn't need to evaluate their acts. We'll get it handled robustly at some point.
3. Yeah, sometimes the villain does not desire the position for themself. They don't work with personality traits yet though, and don't try to place uncorrupted people. We almost got to one case of this (related to site rulership vs. the notion of a 'weak' civ ruler that'd be less likely to retake a site), but it hasn't happened yet. As usual, the periphery of possible features grows faster than the implemented ones.
4. Ha ha, still need to handle punishment stuff, and hope to. Right now they just don't pull the trigger if success isn't guaranteed.
5. Yes, in this case they are just a tyrant messing with their people, so their own cops can't do much about it, legally.
6. All adventurer-type people from world gen can upgrade their equipment now, *if* they run into some accounted-for money, which most often but not exclusively happens with mercenaries. I haven't extended the system beyond that yet (aside from, say, the ability to start a merchant company, which also requires starting money.) There might be a bit more before release, since the villains haven't started spending on hideouts/strongholds yet.
7. For the myth/magic stuff, yeah, the hope is to blow the site notion wide open at some point (probably adjacent to the map rewrite.) If the map rewrite doesn't end up in the first pass, it would be best not to extend sites very much, as the work will end up wasted.
8. This is already implicit (but not present) in the prototype, as I've separated out all the astronomical objects. There's a bit of coding to do to get them physically respected in the lighting and in various displays, but yes, having completely different or non-existent day/night cycles is a goal, including situations like the giant pillars w/ lights or light trees from Tolkien, say, where the relevant object isn't necessarily an astronomical object. And of course the 'astronomical' objects could be deities-in-chariots or whatever. Some cases are harder than others, and that practicality will guide what happens in most cases for the first pass especially.
1. Will player adventurers be able to join an existing villains organization and actually participate
2. Are the assassin agreements available to player adventurers in adventure mode? I’ve always wanted to play as a proper assassin. And the most recent dev log made me excited.
2. This is hoped, but there are some details that need to be worked out. The floating of the contracts is abstracted in world generation, and we'd need to come to terms with how that works in practice.
1. More generally, there are a couple issues: recruitment and local realization of missions. Neither of these are strictly required for the adventurer to be a top villain (just a little recruitment-like chat with the companion, if that.) Certain local realizations, like artifact thefts and assassinations, are already done with existing structures. Doing a local realization of blackmail or a coup or a corrupt position appointment would require more work, and we haven't committed to that. Recruitment runs counter to investigation to some extent; they can't just give themselves away. Ponderment continues.
Since you are working along the usual worldgen -> post w.g. -> adventure -> fortress cycle, which ones of the following features are more likely than not to make it to fortress mode (I'm basing myself off your devlogs since the last release):
1. Advanced romance (divorces, rejections, triangles, jealousy, simultaneous partnerships, remarriages, children outside wedding, etc)
2. Dwarven mounts
3. Visitor agents that are part of villain networks, and/or villain citizens
4. Plots to obtain positions (mayor, baron, etc.) or artifacts
5. Assassinations, kidnapping, theft, insurrection, tips for invasion as a result of these plots
6. "Intrigue skill" or loyalty being relevant and/or trainable
7. Sending agents of your own, capturing or killing the villain offsite
8. False identities for agents, villains and other non-vampire migrants/visitors
9. Advanced friendships (people becoming war buddies or childhood friends in your fort, or war buddies/childhood friends arriving together as migrants, etc)
10. Advanced crimes (corruption, embezzling, blackmailing, sabotage)
11. Athletic competitions
12. Appointable new positions (keeper of the seal, royal justiciar, master of beasts, etc.)
13. Foreign trading outposts, and/or being able to send trading outposts offsite
14. Prophets and/or priests arising from temples or arriving as visitors
15. Religion conversion, priesthood positions/occupations
16. Monastic orders
EDIT: to clarify, I'm asking about whether they'll be implemented in fort mode as an actual gameplay element, and in this upcoming release (or at least in subsequent passes, before the big wait, in one of the minor incremental/bugfix ones)
therahedwig:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7918596#msg7918596Untrustedlife:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7918635#msg7918635Death Dragon:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7918698#msg7918698therahedwig:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7918759#msg7918759Grand Sage:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7918864#msg7918864Shonai_Dweller:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7918942#msg7918942therahedwig is correct on 5, 8, 9, 11. I have just the slightest more optimism on 13-16, but only to the extent I've mentioned so far; we might do some token offering to religion and trade, as time permits.
A bit of 1 is likely. 2 is not (for the next release; can't say for any army stuff that happens before big wait.) 3/4 guaranteed for next time, though for 4, plots to obtain positions run afoul of the player's ability to use the 'n' screen for appointed positions. 6 seems likely as part of fortress investigations. 7 is almost guaranteed (just need to see how the adv mode orders work out, seems like a go.)
12 depends on if I change the raws. Dwarves don't currently indulge in variable position definitions, so anything there would need to be added explicitly, and a barrier there is that fort mode is more granular and so there'd need to be some implementation detail that w.g. doesn't have.
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Topic: Future of the Fortress (Read 3134431 times)