Dwarf Fortress

[Night Goat]

I find this a good song for Dwarf Fortress:

 

[Destroid]

 

[Perkel]

Found some glorious place :

I set up colony on top of waterfall that is 20z levels deep and has perfect flat surface. It has two noticeable lowlands and they scream to set up there farms and small micro villages and leave top for big ass awesome castle with shit and bridges.

Cons is that a) there isn't really any wood beside few trees b) ton of wild animals constantly. It started with like 20 hippos and 4 aligators + ton of carps and shit in water that instantly was made red with hippo blood. Later ton of monkeys invaded my realm and they headed into my fortress but were dispatched by human caravan thankfully. I took like 10 monkeys and made shit ton of leather and meat + bones to carve. So i quickly decided to set up a wall and all my dogs at exit from my fortress as cheap security meanwhile i set up some basic weapon industry.

Also it is refreshing that space is so limited here and yet it look pleasing to eye.

 

[Pipeweed]

some promising updates from

:

I've started by playing around with the main job selection procedure. It'll take a bit to get it balanced out, but jobs-choosing-dwarves-independently is in the past. I have my little invisible help-wanted ads for them to look through now, followed by a little invisible pick-best-applicants procedure.

hopefully it wont take two years! meanwhile im trying out the new adventure stuff in iliac bay

 

[Borelli]

Whoa, how did you make iliac bay?

Found some glorious place :

Spoiler

I set up colony on top of waterfall that is 20z levels deep and has perfect flat surface. It has two noticeable lowlands and they scream to set up there farms and small micro villages and leave top for big ass awesome castle with shit and bridges.

Cons is that a) there isn't really any wood beside few trees b) ton of wild animals constantly. It started with like 20 hippos and 4 aligators + ton of carps and shit in water that instantly was made red with hippo blood. Later ton of monkeys invaded my realm and they headed into my fortress but were dispatched by human caravan thankfully. I took like 10 monkeys and made shit ton of leather and meat + bones to carve. So i quickly decided to set up a wall and all my dogs at exit from my fortress as cheap security meanwhile i set up some basic weapon industry.

Also it is refreshing that space is so limited here and yet it look pleasing to eye.

I would love to do the small farms outside, nobles inside setup but ambushes would kill them. I did once try to put ALL of my dwarves in the military until they reached about proficient in all skills (which also gave them above average to excellent in all physical stats) at which point i kept them in the military but deactivated so they kept walking around in full war gear.

 

[Perkel]

Yeah i am kind of fag that loves to do building outside, keeping nobles and stuff is several different districts by social status.

Next update with taverns and embark profiles should be groundbreaking for DF.

First one will introduce visitors from mercenaries, to dancers and stuff like that probably along with making use of crafts as it will work same way hospital works. Toady also said that in future he will try to do all stuff via zones so stuff you make will have impact on creations. If he would add tool usage same as clothes usage then it would be perfect as blacksmiths would for example create stuff for workshops and they will need to produce more stuff to keep it operational.

Second one embarking will be truly something most of people want to do but never had willpower to do so. Embarking as creating tavern mission vs build a fort should change things a lot from migrations waves types to other stuff.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

One of the main guys behind Stonesense 2D Isometric Visualizer has started a new project, using the Unity engine to create full 3D realtime graphics for DF:

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=146473.0

This "Armok Vision Project" will start off as a 3D visualizer, but one of the eventual goals is to make it control DF as well (same as what Stonesense sort of does now), so in essence be a full graphical interface. It's fairly early in development and pretty barebones right now, but it can already render basic terrain and some vegetation. Considering that Toady will probably work on the gameplay for the next 20 years, this project will probably be DF's best chance to become a full graphical game in the not-too-distant future. Cool stuff, and in a way, this could turn out to be a blessing for the game, the Tarn brothers focusing on their area of expertise and building ridiculously in-depth gameplay, and the community building up the graphics, interfaces and other peripheral stuff.

Also, while I was at the DF website, I read up their Development plan for the first time in a while, and as always, it gave me a hard-on. There is just no other game in the entire history of gaming that can even dream about that kind of scope:

http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/dev.html

If they ever get finished with it, just thinking about the kind of gameplay that can happen when you combine "player gambling", "Historical figures allied or working under greater, possibly hidden Masters", "Disguises and impersonation through use of entity uniforms", "Ability to create new moves/styles when highly skilled", "Imprisonment (until there are ways to escape, might as well retire the character, at which point rescue might be possible by a subsequent character)", "Being able to assume a different name, Changing your clothes should affect the appearance tracking, Covering your face/hair with hoods, masks, etc. should affect appearance tracking, Skills for changing voice and mannerisms convincingly", "Have books around that can contain maps/locations/names/traps/purpose/artifacts of older sites", "Moving fortress sections (lifts, crushing traps, etc.)", etc among many other features makes my head spin. The one game to rule them all...

 

[jcd]

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[PorkyThePaladin]

Been there, done that, 6 years ago. All these fantastic features are coming to you in an update next Thursday™, 2020. Grimoire will come out before Dwarf Fortress remotely resembles a finished game.

They have added a ton of new stuff since 6 years ago though. I think your frustration (which is shared by some other people) is based on being used to typical video game timelines. A typical single player game gets made in 2-3 years, so when you compare DF against that, and it being in development for 13 years now, it seems like it should have a ton of complete gameplay. But in reality, its scope is so insane that its development timeline really is 30 years, they aren't joking about that. So right now, despite being 13 years old, it's still really very early alpha, and like any other game's early alpha, gameplay will be incomplete.

In proper procedural way, a lot of its systems are interrelated with each other, so one can't be completed before others are in place. So while they could try to "complete" the economic system right now, it depends on ships and caravans and other systems which aren't in place yet. So it will have to wait until those systems are implemented. If they polished it up right now to be more like a real game, they would have to tear it down again later on, once those other systems are done, and that would be wasteful.

Still, despite all of this, it's still fun to follow the development, be awed by their ambitions, and sometimes even play with these incomplete systems.

 

[Perkel]

O,O
""""
O
""""

 

[Perkel]

 

[Destroid]

Holy shit.

 

[Haba]

Meanwhile...

I've been reading about and am now working on the musical aspect of the new art forms. There'll be a few more days of messing around and then we should have more generated fun posted here. This one has a few more layers than the poems -- there's the scale/note choice side of it with its own generator, the rhythm side with its own generator, and then that's combined with a choice of generated instruments (including singing) and other information in varying degrees to say what's performed/composed and how all that works.

Yes, randomly generated poems and music. Just the thing DF needed.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Yes, randomly generated poems and music. Just the thing DF needed.

Well, again, if you don't follow DF development closely, it may seem that he is just pulling out random shit out of his ass to work on. But if you read the Q&As and the interviews, you see a very well planned long term approach. The poems and music let them flesh out taverns and inns, which in turn allow them to complete traveling systems which in turn lead to the economic aspects such as caravans possibly down the road, and so on. Unlike a lot of indie efforts, the guys behind DF are very bright (Toady either had a PhD in math from Stanford or was on his way to it before quitting for DF), and they really plan stuff out. In terms of the overall project, their goal isn't to produce something balanced and complete right off the bat, just to have to rebalance it every time a new feature is added, but instead to slowly add systems until the whole thing comes together.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Maybe he's too bright for his own good. I stopped paying attention to the updates when he was musing about making tree leaves fall to the ground in a realistic manner.

 

[Jagged Appliance]

Well, again, if you don't follow DF development closely, it may seem that he is just pulling out random shit out of his ass to work on. But if you read the Q&As and the interviews, you see a very well planned long term approach. The poems and music let them flesh out taverns and inns, which in turn allow them to complete traveling systems which in turn lead to the economic aspects such as caravans possibly down the road, and so on. Unlike a lot of indie efforts, the guys behind DF are very bright (Toady either had a PhD in math from Stanford or was on his way to it before quitting for DF), and they really plan stuff out. In terms of the overall project, their goal isn't to produce something balanced and complete right off the bat, just to have to rebalance it every time a new feature is added, but instead to slowly add systems until the whole thing comes together.

That's ass backwards dude. You don't start with poetry and then add traveling systems and caravans. If you believe that you'll believe anything. Adding more superfluous shit when you have a myriad of broken systems already in place is not super smart PhD game development.

 

[Raapys]

Tell Toady to build a house and he'll start by modeling the quarks and electrons.

 

[Perkel]

Well, again, if you don't follow DF development closely, it may seem that he is just pulling out random shit out of his ass to work on. But if you read the Q&As and the interviews, you see a very well planned long term approach. The poems and music let them flesh out taverns and inns, which in turn allow them to complete traveling systems which in turn lead to the economic aspects such as caravans possibly down the road, and so on. Unlike a lot of indie efforts, the guys behind DF are very bright (Toady either had a PhD in math from Stanford or was on his way to it before quitting for DF), and they really plan stuff out. In terms of the overall project, their goal isn't to produce something balanced and complete right off the bat, just to have to rebalance it every time a new feature is added, but instead to slowly add systems until the whole thing comes together.

That's ass backwards dude. You don't start with poetry and then add traveling systems and caravans. If you believe that you'll believe anything. Adding more superfluous shit when you have a myriad of broken systems already in place is not super smart PhD game development.

Actually what he says is true.

Toady will be overhauling break time and parties which will be tied to different types of buildings (which will be introduced later) which ties directly to his main goal he pursues: embark overhaul.

So why poetry, music and other shit ?
Because those will be needs along with for example prying to gods that will need to be fulfilled to keep dwarf happy.


So his goal for now is:

creating needs ---> introducing various buildings like inn, church (via zoning tool instead of bulding) ---> different types of embarks (create an outpost, create church, create military outpost, create mining colony and so on).

This will directly be tied to people which now will be coming to your fortress/church/inn as guests from mercenaries, to thiefs, to murderers, to bielievers and so on.


Latest updates from DF2012 to DF2014 are crazy good. He overhauls one things after another.

 

[Raapys]

I believe the real question is why he needs to make a random poem generator rather than just abstracting it like any sane developer would. The answer, which we've all come to realize in the last ten years or so, is that he's not sane.

What concerns me more than his state of mind however, is how he plans to conjure the processing power to handle all these ridiculous details. Particularly since he seems wholly uninterested in going with multi-threading.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

That's ass backwards dude. You don't start with poetry and then add traveling systems and caravans. If you believe that you'll believe anything. Adding more superfluous shit when you have a myriad of broken systems already in place is not super smart PhD game development.

The systems aren't really broken though, they are just incomplete. If you look at it through the prism of 30 year development cycle, a typical video game equivalent of DF would be maybe 1 year or less into development, and most of its systems would be incomplete too.

From what I understand, they have a long list of final goals before the game can become version 1.0, a list similar to the one in the Development section on the website. For each release, they pick one or more of those, and then implement stuff in terms of dependencies, so if C depends on B and B depends on A, and they want to do C, they ll do A, B, C. And then, they also mix things up between releases, so if one release they worked on the economy, the next they might want to work on stealth just to keeps things fresh. Otherwise such a massive undertaking can get old quickly.

To someone outside, this focus on different areas might seem arbitrary, but there is definitely logic to it.

Tell Toady to build a house and he'll start by modeling the quarks and electrons.

I believe the real question is why he needs to make a random poem generator rather than just abstracting it like any sane developer would. The answer, which we've all come to realize in the last ten years or so, is that he's not sane.

The reason for that lies with Oblivion. Do you remember how boring the dungeons/caves/forts were in Oblivion? Or in Daggerfall way before? Procedural generation doesn't work very well on a shallow level. If you just generate some shallow abstraction of things (be it poems, or dungeons, or history, or anything else), then procedural generation will lead to really boring gameplay. Every unfolding of events in every fantasy world generated would lead to same-ish outcomes, where after you've seen a few, you've seen them all. The way to avoid that is to have a lot of depth in your systems. Then, instead of Oblivion you have something more like NetHack, where any of the myriad of items can have many possible interactions with the world, and open up many gameplay possibilities.

Something like poems might seem like a trivial thing to go into such depth for, but when you combine all these "trivial" systems' complexities, it should open up a completely different level of gameplay and interaction from anything else out there. Maybe the player will be able to play as a bard and instead of just having a boring bland "poetry" skill, he will actually have to learn various cultural poetry forms as he travels around the fantasy world, and produce quality works in them to impress his listeners. Maybe a cultural misunderstanding about poetry forms will lead to an unintended insult and a great war. It's this kind of complexity that gives real life its depth and flavor, and can also contribute to a great game.

What concerns me more than his state of mind however, is how he plans to conjure the processing power to handle all these ridiculous details. Particularly since he seems wholly uninterested in going with multi-threading.

By the time he's done with the game, there will probably be Quantum Computers around anyway or who know what. And if all the processing does begin to slow the game down significantly, he will probably retool the code for multi-threading at some point.

 

[Jagged Appliance]

The systems aren't really broken though, they are just incomplete.

Semantics.

If you look at it through the prism of 30 year development cycle, a typical video game equivalent of DF would be maybe 1 year or less into development, and most of its systems would be incomplete too.

If I look at it through the prism of 10+ years of development I am seriously disappointed and blame it on the creator's retarded priorities.

The reason for that lies with Oblivion. Do you remember how boring the dungeons/caves/forts were in Oblivion? Or in Daggerfall way before? Procedural generation doesn't work very well on a shallow level. If you just generate some shallow abstraction of things (be it poems, or dungeons, or history, or anything else), then procedural generation will lead to really boring gameplay.

The real issue is that generating poems doesn't lead to any gameplay whatsoever. So much pie in the sky bullshit regarding the possible implications of poems, it's nonsense.

 

[Norfleet]

The real issue is that generating poems doesn't lead to any gameplay whatsoever. So much pie in the sky bullshit regarding the possible implications of poems, it's nonsense.

I would say it does lead to gameplay. If your kids can get their English class homework out of the way faster, they can get more gameplay time. And they will badger you less for help if you can just refer them to Dwarf Fortress, which means YOU can get more Dwarf Fortress in.

 

[Haba]

Too bad the songs and poems don't contribute anything to Dwarf FORTRESS, the game.

"Here, let me take a break from micromanaging this fortress of 500 homicidal alcoholics to listen to this intriguing Elvish song about the rape of Nyar-nig-nog"

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

The real issue is that generating poems doesn't lead to any gameplay whatsoever. So much pie in the sky bullshit regarding the possible implications of poems, it's nonsense.

Too bad the songs and poems don't contribute anything to Dwarf FORTRESS, the game.

In my opinion, it absolutely leads to gameplay and contributes to the game. Poets will write poems about major events in the game, just like right now, artisans can sometimes craft objects depicting battle scenes from the game. Then you can read those poems with your adventurer later on or even within the same dwarf fortress mode hundreds of years later, the DF equivalent of Beowulf or Homer's works. When I play RPGs, I love to read in-game books to learn the lore and possibly valuable information, welli with this poetry aspect, DF will have that generated procedurally and reflect actual real events and characters.

Similarly, as I already mentioned, if you play a bard type of adventurer, all this poetry stuff will lead to far richer gameplay than some high level abstraction.

I think part of the problem some people have with DF's direction is that they think of it in terms of common genres, like city building or RPGs. So yeah, in a citybuilder, you just need a good solid economy, some good social model, maybe some military stuff, and everything else is just for flavor. But DF is not a city builder nor an RPG, it is a fantasy world generator, essentially a simulator of life. So in that sense, it needs to be able to procedurally generate the equivalent of Middle Earth (albeit a much simpler version of course). In Tolkien's works, you had all those poems and songs, so would it have been the same if the books had some shallow high level abstraction for that? No, and that's why it's so beneficial for DF to do this sort of thing as well.

 

[Perkel]

I believe the real question is why he needs to make a random poem generator rather than just abstracting it like any sane developer would. The answer, which we've all come to realize in the last ten years or so, is that he's not sane.

What concerns me more than his state of mind however, is how he plans to conjure the processing power to handle all these ridiculous details. Particularly since he seems wholly uninterested in going with multi-threading.

Same reason why you have descriptions to almost every item instead of item being well item.
This is part of game which ton of people loves. Reading about your dwarf history written on walls and artifacts is awesome.
Now to add more of above you will be hearing about songs, games and so on based on your fort history or other fort histories.

I think second biggest feature will be adding non player created artifacts which he will be doing after inns are complete so for example dude from some different region can come to you with artifact that will let's say gradually changes people to warewolves on contact along with history that it was created by human blacksmiths in some backwar village that revered Koon evil god of polymorph.

Typical game dev would give you ability to create artifact weapon but that weapon would be only +2 to attack and 0 story behind it.