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[zakarum]

maybe pay attention to the rest of the thread? Every question is replied to in this way by people who feel confident in answering it.

Maybe if you aren't 100% sure don't try and answer something you barely understood? Honestly the FotF became worse through the years because of this gate-keeping and you are the worst offender of it. Which makes me want to ask another question

Through the years in the FotF we have more and more people help you with answers, in the sense that you started to quote them for answers (in the past you rarely did that). It saves you time but we get less and less answers from you and we are left dealing with people that think they understand our questions as well as answers were they think they know the answer. It wasn't a huge thing before but it's getting worse through time IMO, though obviously not everyone is guilt of it and some are just trying to be helpful. Do you think that this "priest answering the devotees about the will and the thoughts of the Great Toady" is enabling this and can be harmful to the state of the FotF as well as inhibit direct engagement?

Your question was inherently speculative.

You can construe it that way, but it wasn't aimed at your speculation was it? Because I couldn't care less about you speculating on anything.

is pure speculation, you drew that scenario, formulating it as a question doesn't change that fact, and you used specific examples in your own question, the exact same way the reply did, so telling other people that they aren't allowed to is either 1. bad faith argumentation or 2. you simply forgot what your original question was.

Seems like you don't know the meaning of the word "speculation" to me. Let me help you:
spec·u·la·tion: the forming of a theory or conjecture without firm evidence.
Now if my question was speculation it would be necessary I wouldn't have any evidence (or barely any) a split could occur. It would also need to be a theory, not a question, but I'm not in the mood to explain the difference to you. Not really here to educate you, Putnam. But the scenario I "constructed" was based on things that happened, therefore, there's firm evidence that adopting a walled garden can do the things you think are speculation. The adoption of a walled garden is adding the possibility it will happen - how likely you think it is is irrelevant since, let's face it, I'm not interested in your opinion (and I highly doubt anyone here is).

EDIT: And of course the question was already answered: the creator has no responsibility here. The creator should not have responsibility here, and never should when it comes to modding games.

Of course you haven't read anything isn't, typical Putnam response: half answer that doesn't serve anything at all but waste everyone's time.

[Shonai_Dweller]

maybe pay attention to the rest of the thread? Every question is replied to in this way by people who feel confident in answering it.

Maybe if you aren't 100% sure don't try and answer something you barely understood? Honestly the FotF became worse through the years because of this gate-keeping and you are the worst offender of it. Which makes me want to ask another question

Through the years in the FotF we have more and more people help you with answers, in the sense that you started to quote them for answers (in the past you rarely did that). It saves you time but we get less and less answers from you

Just thought I'd point out that Toady agreed to a request to quote the people who try to answer the fotf questions, despite the extra time it takes him to do so, because it was hard for people to go back and search for the answers (previously he would say thanks and skip the questions that had already been answered). Now he quotes, and then adds his own answer. Referring to the previous attempts, how much he agrees with that and expanding with his own answers.

Now, despite the evidence in the thread, I realize that this says the exact opposite of what you say, so I'll add no more and wait for Toady's response at the end of the month.

[DG]

Let's just move on. Zak asked a question, people have added their 2 cents and now it's time to let Tarn answer it later.

[Putnam]

Not really here to educate you, Putnam. But the scenario I "constructed" was based on things that happened, therefore, there's firm evidence that adopting a walled garden can do the things you think are speculation.

It would do well for you to actually read the posts of people who reply to you instead of assuming that you're the only one who has even the slightest bit of intelligence or rigor in a conversation. I was saying you may be arguing in bad faith because when someone else provided evidence of this thing not happening you promptly ignored it and you continue to act as if you were the only person who has done so.

Do you think that Dwarf Fortress will end up like Tales of Maj'Eyal, with an official mod repository on its main website, a free version of the game available and steam workshop support on steam? Actually that's not a question, it's literally the exact same situation, and ToME does not have the problems you describe, but of course my example is invalid because it's not yours.

[zakarum]

It would do well for you to actually read the posts of people who reply to you instead of assuming that you're the only one who has even the slightest bit of intelligence or rigor in a conversation.

Funny thing because I can actually say this for almost every reply you give to any post here. I mean if you actually read anything I wrote before you wouldn't reply to me. In retrospect you would reply a lot less to posts if you did this.

I was saying you may be arguing in bad faith because when someone else provided evidence of this thing not happening you promptly ignored it and you continue to act as if you were the only person who has done so.

I'm not arguing, that's the point. I made a question over a possible scenario (and I admitted the possibility of it not happening). If you actually read the posts of people you are replying to you'd know better, but you don't. You are arguing over my question (where I just repeat myself over and over again) which is extremely petty but not out of character for you.

I didn't say it will happen, I said it could happen and asked Toady's opinion on it.
Shonai_dweller tried to help but he misunderstood, Patrik_Lundell and Meph gave their two cents, some people came here to argue and some to give their two cents (lots of times because they misunderstood my question) and you came here because you are Putnam.

Do you think that Dwarf Fortress will end up like Tales of Maj'Eyal, with an official mod repository on its main website, a free version of the game available and steam workshop support on steam? Actually that's not a question, it's literally the exact same situation, and ToME does not have the problems you describe, but of course my example is invalid because it's not yours.

I'm not interested in exposing "what I think" to you or the example you brought, I know examples of it happening or not exist. I'm interested in Toady's opinion over his choice, and the possible consequences for his consumers. Is that something hard to understand for you? But to be honest this misunderstanding has dragged on for long enough, derailed the thread long enough and it's close enough to breaking one of the few rules of the forums. And from my 8+ years here I know you won't understand anything I'm saying anyway and will just keep carrying on. So I will just carry on ignoring you or your opinion because that's really the best.

Just thought I'd point out that Toady agreed to a request to quote the people who try to answer the fotf questions, despite the extra time it takes him to do so, because it was hard for people to go back and search for the answers (previously he would say thanks and skip the questions that had already been answered). Now he quotes, and then adds his own answer. Referring to the previous attempts, how much he agrees with that and expanding with his own answers.

Now, despite the evidence in the thread, I realize that this says the exact opposite of what you say, so I'll add no more and wait for Toady's response at the end of the month.

I was referring to circa 2011-2012 but thanks for the help Shonai.

[Manveru Taurënér]

Through the years in the FotF we have more and more people help you with answers, in the sense that you started to quote them for answers (in the past you rarely did that). It saves you time but we get less and less answers from you and we are left dealing with people that think they understand our questions as well as answers were they think they know the answer. It wasn't a huge thing before but it's getting worse through time IMO, though obviously not everyone is guilt of it and some are just trying to be helpful. Do you think that this "priest answering the devotees about the will and the thoughts of the Great Toady" is enabling this and can be harmful to the state of the FotF as well as inhibit direct engagement?

Before assuming/claiming we're getting less answers you might want to actually LOOK at and compare FotF's from the past to the current ones (just did a quick run-through of random ones going back to 2010), which would've shown you that there hasn't been that big a change at all over the years. It spikes around announcements or high info periods and drops during lulls as expected, but if anything we've been slowly getting more and more of both questions and answers ever since the threads were first started. Not saying everyone does it perfectly, but having people who've been around and remember what's been answered already help answer repeat questions is hardly a bad thing considering. And it's no surprise some people get a bit agitated when you come in with all manner of hyperbole, veiled insults and personal attacks. Might want to consider how you express yourself, just saying.

[therahedwig]

Let's just move on. Zak asked a question, people have added their 2 cents and now it's time to let Tarn answer it later.

Nope, we're apparently going to run this into the ground. I can't wait for the next devlog, tbh.

[zakarum]

Before assuming/claiming we're getting less answers you might want to actually LOOK at and compare FotF's from the past to the current ones (just did a quick run-through of random ones going back to 2010), which would've shown you that there hasn't been that big a change at all over the years.

But I'm not assuming or claiming we are getting less (total) answers in no way, shape or form. The question is about who answers those questions - not that the total amount of answers went down.
The "you" part of the question is even in bold to denote that.
Damn it's expected for the amount of answers to go up as DF just got more popular through the years and the amount of questions also went up. The amount of questions he doesn't answer directly also went way up and that's the point of the question.

but having people who've been around and remember what's been answered already help answer repeat questions is hardly a bad thing considering

Sure, that's the good part. If someone asks "when is X coming" and someone reply "Toady said in Y arc" then you have an objective answer about something. Problem is the nature of human engagement isn't that simple and a lot of questions have some leeway for interpretation - and the interpretation we get is not from Toady.

Take my previous question. I expect Toady to quote Shonai_Dweller answer or answer the same thing. Why? Because, as we can see, there was a lot of misunderstanding on what the question was about. There's three possible scenarios here, where Toady reads the question and:
A)Understands what I meant and answers it.
B)Thinks he understood but skimming through the discussion around it is left in doubt over what I asked, as people are interpreting it some other way. Which can lead to either scenario A or C.
C)Understand it the way so many people misunderstood it, quote one of the answers that doesn't really answer the question and carries on.

He might even avoid the question thinking the issue got too controversial. While I get a lot of people are trying to help (and I appreciate that), if no one ever answered it thinking that was answered in the Reddit AMA then the only possible scenarios would be he answering it (or not answering at all, which would also be fine). Whether his interpretation of my question was right or wrong, I'd have an answer from the person I'm asking - not from someone else.

Let's say I go to a Q&A with an author. Several people are there, so your question might be picked or not. That's part of it.
But if for your question that was picked someone else in the audience answered and the author just pointed towards the person who answered it, well, that could be frustrating couldn't it? I mean the purpose of the Q&A was to engage with the author and know what he thinks, in his words. Not what someone else in the audience thinks.

And it's no surprise some people get a bit agitated when you come in with all manner of hyperbole, veiled insults and personal attacks. Might want to consider how you express yourself, just saying.

There are no veiled insults or personal attacks in my questions to Toady. If you consider anything I wrote an hyperbole (and the only thing that could be construed that way was my second question, even though it clearly states an IMO which you might be interested to know means "in my opinion") then that's on you but hey, the question isn't directed to you. What compels you to make this strawman over a question that you (or anyone) are not obliged to answer is baffling. If you think I'm being rude when people drop in and interfere in a question I'm asking someone else, well, you are not obliged to interact with me either. Just ignore me.

[bloop_bleep]

:
Will you consider the ability to access menus without having to pause the game?

That's a dangerous thing to do. You select something and issues an order, and while you do that, said something ceases to exist (dorf killed, workshop toppled...). In the best case nothing happens because the reference is recognized as being invalid; in the bad case the action is performed on the wrong target because the reference to the target now is to a different entity; and in the worst case the reference is a pointer to something that used to be the object but now has been reused for something else, causing the action to write "randomly" into it, causing corruption.
It's not impossible to handle, but requires care and extra code.

Um, well, couldn't Toady just implement it so that whenever you perform an action in a screen, it pauses the game, performs the action, and then unpauses? It's the exact sequence of steps that a user would otherwise perform, so no potential for corruption.

[Manveru Taurënér]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

But I'm not assuming or claiming we are getting less (total) answers in no way, shape or form. The question is about who answers those questions - not that the total amount of answers went down.
The "you" part of the question is even in bold to denote that.
Damn it's expected for the amount of answers to go up as DF just got more popular through the years and the amount of questions also went up. The amount of questions he doesn't answer directly also went way up and that's the point of the question.

Sure, that's the good part. If someone asks "when is X coming" and someone reply "Toady said in Y arc" then you have an objective answer about something. Problem is the nature of human engagement isn't that simple and a lot of questions have some leeway for interpretation - and the interpretation we get is not from Toady.

Take my previous question. I expect Toady to quote Shonai_Dweller answer or answer the same thing. Why? Because, as we can see, there was a lot of misunderstanding on what the question was about. There's three possible scenarios here, where Toady reads the question and:
A)Understands what I meant and answers it.
B)Thinks he understood but skimming through the discussion around it is left in doubt over what I asked, as people are interpreting it some other way. Which can lead to either scenario A or C.
C)Understand it the way so many people misunderstood it, quote one of the answers that doesn't really answer the question and carries on.

He might even avoid the question thinking the issue got too controversial. While I get a lot of people are trying to help (and I appreciate that), if no one ever answered it thinking that was answered in the Reddit AMA then the only possible scenarios would be he answering it (or not answering at all, which would also be fine). Whether his interpretation of my question was right or wrong, I'd have an answer from the person I'm asking - not from someone else.

Let's say I go to a Q&A with an author. Several people are there, so your question might be picked or not. That's part of it.
But if for your question that was picked someone else in the audience answered and the author just pointed towards the person who answered it, well, that could be frustrating couldn't it? I mean the purpose of the Q&A was to engage with the author and know what he thinks, in his words. Not what someone else in the audience thinks.

There are no veiled insults or personal attacks in my questions to Toady. If you consider anything I wrote an hyperbole (and the only thing that could be construed that way was my second question, even though it clearly states an IMO which you might be interested to know means "in my opinion") then that's on you but hey, the question isn't directed to you. What compels you to make this strawman over a question that you (or anyone) are not obliged to answer is baffling. If you think I'm being rude when people drop in and interfere in a question I'm asking someone else, well, you are not obliged to interact with me either. Just ignore me.

Fair enough on the ratio vs total, still something that's best to clarify then, cause if unspecified the latter would usually be how one interprets that imo (and does kind of frame the entire question in a completely different light).

As for your scenarios, people trying to answer but misunderstanding would imo under optimal circumstances (where it doesn't devolve into arguing) simply lead to the person asking getting feedback that their question might be misunderstood, and help them clarify it (or the discussion itself clarifying it), increasing the likelihood of it being answered properly (and also decreasing the likelihood of scenario D, it not being answered at all). As long as one gets a quote and link to the words of the person one wanted them from then I don't see what difference it makes if it comes via someone else. And yes, not everyone does that which I've agreed isn't ideal, but that doesn't really seem to be the main contention here, unless I'm again completely misunderstanding you?

Not making a strawman either (since that would imply me intentionally trying to misconstrue you, which certainly wasn't my intent), just stated it as I saw it, which again might just be me misunderstanding you then. And I would've ignored it all if there hadn't been an as I saw it blatantly false statement being made (albeit based on misunderstanding the question). It was all meant to be helpful still, despite the slight passive aggressiveness that is hard to not fall into in such perceived circumstances. Prefer to clear up misunderstandings if they happen anyhow. Sorry for the tone and confusion.

[Schmaven]

Um, well, couldn't Toady just implement it so that whenever you perform an action in a screen, it pauses the game, performs the action, and then unpauses? It's the exact sequence of steps that a user would otherwise perform, so no potential for corruption.

Do you mean like a micro-pause just long enough for the action to sort through any incongruities rather than pausing for the whole menu operation?  That seems more possible.  But the part that seems like it would require pausing is the target of the action.  Whether it be a creature or an item, if it is not paused, the target could be destroyed, used, or made unavailable between the time that part of the menu is accessed and the selection is made.  Or, if all that was accounted for, the menu options for the action's target would be ever changing and it would be a challenge to select 1 from the ever rotating and dancing list of targets. 

To avoid that, maybe it could just generate an announcement that the action failed if the target becomes somehow unavailable - like job cancellation spam messages.  That seems realistically possible.  It could get annoying to have to keep designating actions for things that go in and out of availability often.  Pausing it oneself before entering the menus would solve that, but that is where we are now. Having it be an option might work, so players could choose whether they want to have the menus auto-pause, or not.  Although the volume job cancellation spam has in effect just caused me to ignore all those messages entirely.  So really, the optimal solution would not add to that flood of text to ignore.

I don't know much about the actual details of programming or things getting corrupted, so take the above with a grain of salt.

[bloop_bleep]

Well, I mean, the menu code and simulation code are in the same thread, I think. So it would be possible to just do this every tick while in menu:

1. Compute 1 tick of simulation.
2. Update menu screen *according to status of simulation.* Thus if something disappeared since last time, any option to perform actions on it would now be gone.
3. Handle menu inputs and perform indicated actions on game memory.

Even if the input handling is in another thread, it shouldn't be too hard to simply push the keys onto a queue for the simulation thread to pop off on the end of the next tick.

It might even be possible to do something with mutexes or futures to make this work. It's just essential that the input is handled between the time the menu is updated and the next tick is calculated.

[PatrikLundell]

@bloop_bleep: There are various ways to handle concurrency. In the case of menu entry it could be to store the selected target in a safe, i.e. non mutable, manner (such as the unit id rather than the index in the unit vector, for instance), and make sure the code performing the task (in the main thread, where it's done within a single tick) validates the target (and any potential parameters) before performing the action. It's not particularly hard, but it results in added/changed code for each instance, which adds up over all the possible interactions in the UI (you can probably reduce the number of validation actions used to a limited sets and just call the validation routines from the input code, but you'd still have to add the calls to every action). You'd also have to implement failure feedback for everything that can fail validation. You'd also have to deal with bug reports of this kind: "I produced a masterworks bed and went to place it, but no longer how long I waited for the bed to show up in my placement menu, it never appeared" (because the menu would probably be a snapshot rather than a dynamically changing list).

[bloop_bleep]

Ah, I assumed the menu would dynamically change, and I thought you were worried about split-second asynchronies between the menu and the actual game data. Under that assumption my suggestion would work.

[Shonai_Dweller]

So, what's different about supernatural villains? Is it a secret?
Are we talking night trolls paying goblin snatchers for a bit of side work? Or special things only demons get up to?

And, will there be a "quickstart" option for Adventurer parties?Where you want a to play a party of 6 but don't want the hassle of having to define every member.