I've been reading Conan the Barbarian lately. It occurred to me that most of them can be re-enacted in adventure mode, but with one key thing missing. Conan is always rescuing and seducing fair maidens in distress. Right now, there's none of that whatsoever in adventure mode. The adventurers we create are asexual, so they can't even participate in romance in fort mode. "Make Romance" is a need that can't be fulfilled. When can we expect adventurers to be able to romance?
Eric Blank:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8569568#msg8569568Untrustedlife:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8569610#msg8569610Rumrusher:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8569987#msg8569987Yeah, it's up in the longer term development goals. There are various issues and preliminaries as Eric Blank covered, but it's something we want to do. The question of following the character's personality is something that comes up generally in adventure mode, and we use needs right now to simulate part of that (encouraging actions to follow the personality), and the sort of stressful crying etc. that doesn't have an effect unless the character is activated in fort mode for another part (bad things happening.) But we don't have enough stressors for some actions, and stress doesn't matter much in adv mode.
Q1: In the "Mythic artifacts and expanded artifacts framework" section of your development document, you mention "Automatons and magical prostheses". How do you envision magical automatons functioning? Would they resemble classic D&D golems, or would you give them your own unique spin? Would they be created by fort magicians and, if so, what duties would they perform—hauling, cleaning, patrolling, etc.?
Q2: Where are dimple cup dimples? A single dimple on the top of the cap? Dispersed throughout the surface of the cap?
ryno:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8570031#msg8570031Q1: So as people have experienced, the new dev page was just about near-term future developments, and these broader questions weren't elaborated on, but they all still hold. I'm not so much about giving things unique spins as having the game come up with spins, but we always have to start somewhere, and it's hard to know whether that'll mean one spin or a few. Who makes them, what they are, what they do, all of that's up for grabs. We'd thought about divine servants, constructed runic/elemental critters, and the more mechanical stuff. I think the mechanical ones are trickier in a sense, since we try to do things in a vaguely properly physical way when they aren't magical (even if our mechanisms are very vague.) So for instance the steam punk style stuff is one where I'm not sure where we are going - it's more scientific than magical in that genre (mostly, afaik.), with the understanding that the science is "silly" (but not taken as silly.)
Overall, doing silly science is perfectly valid for the game but I don't know how we'll approach that - this goes to ryno's space mention as well. There's the spelljammer-style planar stuff which is more magically inflected, but then there's all the rest of scifi for spacey stuff, and where that fits into DF is harder, since there's a lot of tech separating them.
Q2: I originally imagined a dimple on the top. But I'm happy with other dimples.
After some time of testing, I have come to notice that the 7 symbols and throne require to be made out of items that are either GENERATED or SPECIAL, and the value of said item seems to not matter....
Out of curiosity, could this be tweaked for the items(symbols) to take in consideration the value of an item as well instead of just GENERATED/SPECIAL metals? Seems odd, but funny that a king would want adamantine or divine metals, but will turn a blind eye to an item that holds more value than a divine artifact. I would assume that artifacts with the value over 20k(ingame) would suffice as a symbol, or possible raw wise a material that holds a value over around 100 mat value would suffice possibly too. The more I looked into this, it is entirely possible to still avoid digging through the pillars to fulfill the king... by raiding vaults.
Eric Blank:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8570410#msg8570410TheFlame52:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8570415#msg8570415Yeah, the idea is to get people to dig downward, rather than just using the value. Vault raiding should be far more dangerous than it currently is.
On the topic of siege improvements, any chance war animals will get an improvement/rework as well? Currently, they tend to wander off randomly at the wrong moments so I find that they're mostly useful as extra muscle to be sent along with raiding/pillaging parties on off-site missions. Or I throw a bunch of them into cages and release them when invaders pass by. It would be great if they could follow squad orders, or at least not leave their masters' sides when the squad is being given orders during a siege.
Would introducing multiple vectors of attack be possible? Or have the army split up into multiple groups after spawning? I noticed that sieges tend to always spawn around the same general location, which I believe you are trying to address by getting them to use alternate routes. Having armies march in from multiple directions (perhaps even staggered as a method of employing diversions) could potentially force the player to spread their forces thin or leave their flanks open.
I'll give them a look. It's sad to not involve our animal friends.
We've come up with a few naughty things. Hopefully they will be troublesome.
1. Building sites in Adventure mode was mentioned. Will that just be about implementing the existing feature from the free version or can we expect new features and additions? Also are there any plans to expand on site management for both existing and self built sites? Taking over a site is already possible in both modes and with army stuff coming in the not so far future controlling one or more sites to get resources and manpower seems interesting.
2. Will building/owning stuff be possible within existing sites? Like buying a building in a village, building one yourself on a plot of land you bought inside said village or expanding/upgrading a house you bought and stuff like that.
3. Will the improved sieges only apply to defending your fort or will we be able to besiege others once the army stuff is done? I am imagining something like the Total War games but that probably isn't what Dwarf Fortress is aiming for.
DPh Kraken:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=183066.msg8570568#msg85705681. We're going to do something in addition, broadly. Site management'll have to start somewhere - our original plan for site management beginning was the old Army Arc stuff, which is kinda sorta up for grabs here but not yet turned into bullet points the way sieges have been. When we get closer to sites (and underground maps), we'll convert them into bullet points the same way. The number one emphasis will be getting the old stuff working. Then we'll do some new things from among crafting, cross-mode stuffs, etc.
2. It's on the dev pages, so it's on that timeline. Once you can do that, anything we've done up to that point for your own sites/buildings should apply to some extent, limited by whatever the site is and how it operates.
3. The near-term top-of-the-dev-pages siege stuff concerns being attacked. The larger army stuff included improving army use off-site, but we're not there yet.
1. What lead you to call that class of night creatures (lime green Ñ is still accurate here) "night trolls"? They're quite unlike the pre-defined troll creature, and their cryptic mannerisms read more along the lines of "witch" behaviors to me.
EDIT: This was addressed in the BlindIRL interview, with Scandinavian myths of trolls doing those things. Feel free to elaborate or not as you see fit.
2. How far do you plan to take the strategy game aspects of missions and diplomacy, will we be able to transition our games from Sims (or Rogue, dealer's choice) to Crusader Kings?
3. I'm interested in plans for more efficient layer graphics. The palettes we got last year were a huge step up for reducing redundant sprites and representing arbitrary materials, but for tissue colors there still needs to be the same amount of graphics definitions. Why were tissues converted in this way? Could we see more hair and skin colors represented with the next graphical update?
Doorkeeper:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=183066.msg8570610#msg8570610voliol:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=183066.msg8570629#msg85706291. Yeah, this was in an old series of books Zach and I had growing up, and they were called trolls there. This is also where Night Creatures got their name.
2. There's a bit of perspective difference there so I'm not sure we can show all the information Crusader Kings shows, if we get to that point, but we'd like to have a lot more options in how you interact with the outside world, and we'd like the outside world to be more interesting.
3. I don't recall if it predated the big standard palettes, or what the reason was. It has been inconvenient for sure to have the colors grouped in the way they are. I can't give a timeline for changes to it, since there's a lot already happening graphics-wise.
Are there any plans to tweak combat weirdness as far as armor goes? Like facial features not being protected by helmets, caps being a random 50/50 to block hits instead of being based on a skill, and large creatures like elephant men having much stronger armor due to their size. While the system is impressive (your use of momentum especially), seems like there's still a lot of nuance that can be put in to armored combat. Are these systems something that may be changeable soon by modding?
Oh, and a quick one: Will we be able to refill siegers' tunnels with dirt after a siege?
We're going to look at combat generally a bit, but it's not clear how much we'll get to when we're doing e.g. reach etc. Some of that will involve new moddable entries, but getting all of the combat logic out into scripts is not in the near-term plans.
Various people have expressed an interest in being able to refill with dirt, in order to maintain farming etc. So we'll likely provide something there - which does raise questions about clay and sand zones and etc. etc.
I'm a bit worried about the upcoming demolish and dig features for enemies. One of the main reasons I haven't played Rimworld since 2020 is the unsafe feeling that enemies can fall from the roof, dig through the floor and bash through the walls anytime with no way to completely stop it. It is interesting for a few times but soon becomes annoying.
Unlike Rimworld, Dwarf Fortress has much bigger potential in mega project building and social (tavern, library, temple) forts. As well as a much richer storytelling aspect so it doesn't need to fill the time with meat grinding events all the time.
So my question is will we be able to prevent demolishing and digging without turning off the whole feature? I'm mainly thinking about covering the fortress in steel walls and floors or something similar. It shouldn't be as easy to dig steel compared to soil or soft stone.
Also, if map have heavy aquifer will enemies suicidal dig through it? Or will there be something to let them do it without drowning?
Yeah, we've been looking up the history of rebar/reinforced walls and etc., and are plotting some options for people that want to turtle up a bit more. We don't want things to be unfair or arbitrary. Ultimately, they're still trying to kill you, so if you're in a place and are a target, that kind of thing will come up. But we're also hoping to strengthen the variety of starting scenarios as we get through the dev stuff, so that would be another tool (as it is already in a more stark way, embarking where you are inaccessible.)
I think teaching them to aquifer break properly would be pretty advanced. They'll likely notice naturally damp stone instead (artificially damp stone might be another matter.) Then we have to think if that's too easily cheeseable and proceed from there.
You have talked about enemy avoiding death traps when they know there is one, can you give us more details ? I'm quite interested, it has a lot of implications i suppose in the change of enemy behaviour and AI of hostiles in general
I won't have real details until it's done, since I'm going to have to try some things! But in general there will be a lot more tracking of data for the siegers for use by their AI, and if they can find other paths, or other methods of probing (prisoners/animals vs traps etc etc), we're going to try to provide some.
I recall you talking in the past about multi-tile entities. While that was in the context of boats, I assume that such tech would be applicable to living creatures as well. My first thought on this is that the megabeasts that are drawn in the Steam version as way bigger than the tile they are located in would be the perfect candidates to become dimensionally larger. I have several questions about this:
1) Regarding navigation, how would a 2x2 creature act if it wanted to chase a dwarf/adventurer through a 1 tile wide corridor? Would is just not be able to do that (a common trope in media)?
2) Would different tiles contain different parts of the creature? I think that would mean that its facing direction mattered.
3) How would a multi-tile creature be displayed in classic's ASCII graphics? Just as a bunch of its associated symbols?
I was also going to ask about non-rectangular creatures, like a giant snake/worm that could actually snake through a fortress, or an giant octopus with physical tentacles, but that sounds like a completely different can of worms and unimaginable implementation nightmares.
Boats and multi-tile creatures wouldn't use the same tech, since boats are more like maps and have map-like things (buildings, stockpiles, etc.) Multi-tile creatures I've thought less about, but I think they'd occupy maps rather than being maps, like the current single-tile creatures. They also create a lot of problems. I don't have answers to your questions because they depend on the basic implementation, which isn't a settled matter. I wrote a multi-tile dragon prototype in Classic some years back that had different symbols for different parts, and they occupied different tiles, but this opens up a lot of problems with movement and pathing that didn't seem like they were time-efficient to get into.
Do you have plans in the near (pre-map rewrite) future to more organically incorporate dungeon denizens and magic materials/items into worldgen history? I get that their short-term implementation was intended more as a proof-of-concept than anything else, but (to me at least) they can currently feel distractingly disjointed from the lore of the world they exist in. Any small steps towards making them more active participants in a world's history would be welcome IMO.
They are intentionally un-incorporated so as not to break the tutorial/Chosen. It's an annoying problem with them, and generally, and we'll have to overcome it somehow. But yeah, I'm aware (and was aware before implementing them) that they'd feel a little hollow. Hopefully it can come together in some cheerful way in the future, but I'll always be a bit worried about the tutorial aspect.
Why can't Dwarf Fortress be closed with the game window's X button or from taskbar? You can only exit the game from the main menu or by stopping the process through the Task Manager.
jecowa:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=183066.msg8570753#msg8570753I'm not sure why it's no longer mapped. I think X used to open settings, which would help you get out, but maybe I'm thinking of something else. Having it hard exit the game would be unwelcome I think, since it would be too easy to do by mistake.
I hope it isn't too rude to bring up another game like this, but I ask as a lover of both:
Have you ever seen the game KeeperRL? While it was designed in the image of Dungeon Keeper, I think it takes a lot of notes from Dwarf Fortress.
In previous Q&A's there were discussions of transitioning between Fortress Mode and Adventure Mode. You mentioned issues with time passing, and KeeperRL happens to have similar gameplay where you have a real-time dungeon mode going on and a "Creature Mode" where you are manually controlling a single creature and time instead passes in turns just like in DF Adventure Mode. The game allows the player to switch between the two modes and changes the passage of time accordingly, from real-time to turn-based.
Might a design like that work for DF?
DPh Kraken:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=183066.msg8570859#msg8570859Yeah, there's the difference between the length of time, and that makes all the fort mode AI/jobs/etc. just not work in adventure mode, and vice versa. So switching back and forth at will isn't easy to do. Doing a one-time switch is probably what we'll get first.
Is it just me, or do subterranean creatures immediately attempt to exit the map via the surface's boundaries whenever they have the chance? If so, is this an intentional feature?
1. Is there any chance that this behavior might be modified in the future(I.e. hostile underground creatures might enter your fort, rampage around, then exit the map again through one of the cavern edges)?
2. When, if ever, will we get visitors who enter (and/or leave) the map from the caverns?
A_Curious_Cat:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=183066.msg8570897#msg8570897amade:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=183066.msg8570901#msg8570901The underground is in a weird state now, since we have the 'armies' moving about aboveground, but they don't really work underground. There will likely be some changes/improvements here when we get to the underground map additions, either when fort mode attacks are updated, or adv mode underground travel.
Since we're getting closer and closer to myth and magic, and changes associated with it such as map rewrite what are your plans when it comes to ghosts in fortress mode? the current ghost mechanic seems too game'y and predictable. It would be really fun to see ghosts integrate into the narratives in the fortress instead of being just a motivator to bury your dwarves.
I think that a narrative where a dead squad commander comes back to finish his last battle would be a really nice example of storytelling in df
We don't have any current near-term plans. Ghosts are a bit more fleshed out than various other things. But I agree it could be more interesting.
This will maybe be answered by way of release before the month is over, but will ask it anyways. Will the Lua beta contain other changes/upgrades to modding, such as adding CUT_ and SELECT_ to all object types?
I'm not sure of the current state. I know Putnam is interested in making the commands consistent and more powerful if it's not currently the case.
Will the planned siege upgrades be accessible in existing worlds too?
Canapca:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=183066.msg8571112#msg8571112The things that require a world gen update (the kidnapped demon apprentice stuff, possibly the defenses for that) won't be there. The AI and siege weapon changes will carry over I think. It's not clear with the more granular combat changes - I think basic changes like adding reach will carry over, but some of the possible specifics there might not, if they are procedural.
What upcoming stuff do you find most exciting/enjoyable to work on?
It varies. I've had fun with my dye project. Less fun with menus. I think a lot of the siege stuff will be fun. Making maps, plotting through some magical stuff. Since the forms of enjoyment vary - I like being surprised by things, and I like it when something comes together nicely after tinkering with lots of components.
Will the map rewrite bring any changes to the settlements in adventure mode?
Currently they're quite repetitive and annoying to traverse, with some fortresses being so chaotic the architecture doesn't even make sense
There isn't a map rewrite anymore as a large chunk. There are the upcoming map things on the dev page, and then all the map stuff that comes after that. I think the upcoming map things will apply less to settlements since they need to be active in fort mode. There will probably be related changes to adventure mode site travel, depending on how the underground maps get glued together, that may at least address some of the traversal issues, but it's not clear how that will unfold since it isn't the focus.
Watched today's BlindIRL stream and got some questions i wanted to make, specially about defenses on sieges in later states of the Myth and Magic arc.
Will we be able to forgot the protection of gods, and have new rooms, like "Arcanum Sanctums" to act in a similar way to what you commented as temples and runes doing?
Mainly, because it's cool to have temples, and it's cool to have a religion system.
However, what if i wanna roleplay a more.... "Arcanocracy"? Where instead of relying on gods, they rely on the Magic, that i imagine will come later in the updates.
Having broad working interesting useful magic systems is one of the main goals of the overall magic work, but it isn't a focus of the siege stuff. For the sieges, we're just trying to provide something, and it'll become more varied later.
I noticed Only humans can be Outsiders, I was wondering if this is intentional, or simply something you didn't get around to yet. I feel like all the animal people who exist in the world would fit the "Outsider" Roll too...
With outsiders specifically, When i played, they only have access to weapons/armor. Is there any plans to add a "generic" set of gear, cause feels weird you cant start with socks, backpack, water skin, but you can wield platinum full plate armor.
Finally, With chosen and hero, Is there any plan of allowing followers of a lower type?.. like a Chosen hero, and his band of heroic (but not chosen) friends. or a Heroic knight and his Peasant squire? I assume there is hardware limitations, but curious how likely this is?
I've more and more lost the sense of what the Outsider is. We used to have some off-map foreign civilizations generated that could make more sense of the materials and clothing, but as everything became more of a simulation those fell out of favor and the world has more of its own things. Now the Outsider is a weird fighty player lens, which is why it's human. It should probably just be better specified or broken up.
Do you mean followers or party members specifically? You can already have lower tier followers. For party members, it's tricky because you can change to other party members, and then the whole focus/type of the game changes. So there are various cases and issues to handle there. Like, if you change off of your Chosen character (and I think there are already some bugs in this regard), would you be watching your other party member being told things by the gods and then they are still just sort of following you around, or asking you nicely to go do the thing (but not acting on it because they are a party member)? We haven't handled it, but ideally we would.
I wonder if ordinary difficulty option for adv mode will at least go back to 47.05 with being able to pick any site to start from as long as the adv playable entities owns it. As it now set up the filters on sites limits the modder options on site types to use for modding at least for adventure mode. As I tested removing the site from the character starting pool also removes the creature from play but if you add the removed site back into the list the creature could start in any other location.
I feel like if the reason for removing the sites were due to some players inability to escape from the site, then a warning would probably help for folks who want to risk the dangers of being lost.
As it seems ordinary is said to have 'the most freedom. all features are accessible but has no direction' or something like that.
I don't know why campsites, lairs, and caves and a bunch of other starts were removed from the starting pool as those just plop you directly on the surface?
I'm not sure a warning is enough, since it'd be easy to bypass. But while the sites are still junk, perhaps a setting would work, though that can also change by accident. I think the others were also removed because they are confusing, not as maps, but as empty somewhat anti-social places. I'll give it more consideration.
Similar question, different focus: Right now it seems that every world has just one type of mysterious site/artifact, determined randomly at world-gen; if an adventurer gets hold of an <elder mudstone ring>, for example, it's safe to assume that every other mysterious site in that world will have <elder mudstone> artifacts as well. Will it be possible at some point to get mysterious sites of multiple different sphere types in the same world?
DPh Kraken:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=183066.msg8571757#msg8571757Superdorf (op):
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=183066.msg8571788#msg85717881-Will caves and other structures be recognized by other NPC's? Like characters setting up camps around them, talking about the monster's weaknesses or appearance, arguing about who will hunt it etc.
2-Can ''Dwarf Fortress Consolidated Development'' (the one that has powergoals, bloat...) be still considered a good source to learn/read what's to come? I know the order is not 1:1, new dev page has released and arc system is gone but I believe the plans and contents of that dev page didn't change but I'm not sure.
DPh Kraken:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=183066.msg8572205#msg85722051-We haven't yet done NPCs going off and hunting all the beasts, since it'll depopulate the world pretty quickly. We'll have to figure out a way to be more careful with it.
2-It's a pretty old page, some of that stuff going back more than 20 years, but it's not a terrible place to look. We're only going to get through so much of course, in the next many years, and it's proven to be a slow process.
1. Right now the dev page is divided in three parts: the short term roadmap you updated, the various 2020 goals, and the long term stuff like Adventurer roles. Does it still roughly match current plans?
2. Re: temple stuff that should protect you from warlocks. How does it tie in with the current religion framework? In worldgen there are prophets, holy relics, heresies, various forms of strife. Will player fortresses be involved in these foundational/disruptive events with possible consequences for fortress defense?
3. Are adventurer villains or player fortress led intrigues/plots still on the table?
4. What kind of weird deep sites do you have in mind? (Referring to the Blind interview)
5. Re: army improvements. Are off-site shenanigans (sending armies to intercept incoming sieges, battles at holdings, more featured holding management, etc.) still on the table?
6. Will more advanced diplomacy (possibly moddable/scriptable) be part of these siege improvements? Relatedly, will siege improvements tie in with the former intrigue arc? Seeing how historically a huge part of sieges involved parleying, ceasefire agreements, but also treachery from inside to open the gates, assassinations of recalcitrant officials and so on.
7. In your lore, are strange moods divinely inspired (and thus subject to alterations in future myth and magic updates) or an inherent property of dwarven genius?
1. The short term roadmap is the only settled matter timeline wise. The next short term roadmap will be built based on our needs at that time. But the 2020 and roles etc. notes will have a great deal to do with populating the new short term map. But we have to be flexible about the timeline.
2. This is not yet clear, but will be interesting, especially if defenses become inflected about a particular deity or religion, since this would say a lot about worship in a fortress. A lot of the worldgen stuff is less related, but would be delightful to get up in running in the fort, for societal collapse releases and others.
3+5. They are on the dev pages, and that's the best estimate we have of the longer term timeline.
4. Stuff related to underground animal people. Stuff related to new myth stuff. Stuff related to old myth stuff. Stuff related to gobby and kobby stuff. Stuff that makes for a nice expansive varied underground. Other stuff. They have to be fun to crack open in fort mode and they have to be fun to arrive at in adventure mode if they have more traditional entrances intact. You should be able to incorporate them into your fortresses, or interact with them if they are friendly somehow.
6. We've discussed some examples in the planning, but it's not the emphasis. We need the regular old siege attacks to be better in a basic way first.
7. There are five kinds, and at least one of them sounds supernatural (the possession.) I think they are all subject to alteration regardless of any divine nature, since there will be all sorts of magical things.
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Topic: Future of the Fortress (Read 17134 times)