Dev Notes [12/14/11] - Bodies down in the sewers

Bodies down in the sewers, respecting the proper historical context, to match the ones that were already in the dungeons and catacombs, but they can be skeletons down in the channel and so on. I made dungeons smaller in places that haven't had the time or occasion to make them large, and I made them less blocky. I think the overall list of 55 dungeon issues from the report is down to 39 now, so there has been some progress

That first sentence so perfectly represents DF that it may as well be a line in a poem.

Other game developers might tackle such issues as framerate problems or bugs, while others would be focused on tangible features and improvements.

Toady instead ensures that the sewers have corpses in them, and thank god for that because I refuse to quest in a sewer that has a shortage on corpses. Indeed, these aren't just any old corpses, but are the bodies of people that can be traced back in Legends mode.

Video games.

Anyway, if we're down to 39 issues than he knocked off 16 issues in 3 days. Such progress may even indicate he'll be down with his entire list in just over a week, allowing him to move onto other minor issues and bugs. Could we actually see a possible Christmas release?!

...

Probably not.

 

 

Dev Notes [12/12/11 - 12/13/11] - Slogging away

12/12/2011  Now it's time for the dungeon issues. If you remember the breakdown from the last B12 report, there were an awful lot of these, but it's all basically little ways to make going underneath the towns more entertaining. The list is mostly bugs and cosmetic changes, along with the main issue of grouping the dungeon inhabitants from world gen into sensible living areas (they are scattered pretty badly right now). It'll take more than this release to have a really good dungeon diving experience, but it'll be more interesting than wiping out an isolated night creature in its lair, anyway. 

12/13/2011  Sewer ramps and crossings, sewer elevation issues. A bridge problem came up that left the city walls empty... now I'm working on a dungeon room that's getting pinched down to nothing. And sock-wearing kobolds that have little coats and caps for some reason. Adventurers in world gen go down into the dungeons and sometimes run into trouble, and there are criminal gangs down there, and hopefully that'll be enough to get objects down there for you to find. The fewer spontaneously generated objects the better, but we'll make concessions for now if they are too boring.

Toady has started on the dungeon issues, which he assures us are numerous but not as timing consuming. If we are to believe the monthly report, there are perhaps 50 such issues. not including any issues he discovers along the way.

Also, perhaps it's due to this time of year, but I can't help but think the idea of a sock-wearing kobold in a little cap and coat is ridiculously adorable

Close enough

Dev Notes [12/10/11] - Future of the Fortress recap

The Future of the Fortress Q&A post is actually two posts this time: 12/10/11 Part 1 and 12/10/11 Part 2. There are some crayon drawings that we want to get in the mail on Monday, so we'll be setting those up now that I've finished typing up the posts. Late tonight and Sunday should see the return of eating and drinking to adventure mode.

As we anxiously await the return of eating and drinking (or, better stated, "starving and dying of thirst, alone, in a dungeon"), Toady has laid out a huge amount of answers to questions posed to him in the Future of the Fortress thread.

I won't bother summarizing his responses here because, honestly, 90% of them are about future goals and ideas that have no bearing on this release. But here are a few highlights...

• "This release obviously took a long time, and that time has clarified some things about that release list that is going to switch up the order a bit, I'm pretty sure.  Currently what's been decided is that the birth/death/succession stuff and the personality stuff will be moved up."

• "Yeah, anything in the 'd' menu [can be used for 3D designations]" 

• "[Vampires] only feed on sleeping people, and the vampires don't sleep.  So they'd have to wait for dinner to move in.  Then they'd probably go a bit piranha on it when it decides to sleep"

Also, here's a picture of an ABSURDLY yellow farm

Zombie hens beaten back, bees freed from the pastures, no more blinging of honeycombs

We're currently in the 2 (1/3/4) week (day/month/year) period where Toady does nothing but bug fixes. Nothing has been released yet, and we probably won't see anything until next week at the earliest, but you find the latest and greatest patch notes below.

Can we expect Dwarf Fortress this week?

And we're back! Just in time for the new version of Dwarf Fortress...or at least, we can speculate as much. Last Friday Toady posted a particularly awesome update to his devlog...

The current situation is that I expect a (buggy!) Windows release in about a week, with the 40d# merge commencing at that time (or within a few days of the release). This is a bit of a change of plan, since I was originally going to release for all operating systems at once, but I feel like I'm going to get even more bogged down if I don't do it this way and the initial pre-merge release will give us a control to work with in the same way that 40d can be compared to 40d#. The initial merge release shouldn't take too long though, and it will be the top priority aside from the worst catastrophic crashes and things of that nature. I know the merge changes make the game playable for many of you when it otherwise isn't.

The crowd went wild, as you might expect. Dwarf Fortress 2010...in a week? Seems like it. Toady is notoriously famous for missing deadlines, however; I know I'm not the only one who had expected the release in February of 2009. Still, I think we're at the stage where Toady wouldn't dare make false promises.

I hope!

Regardless, I have decided to start this blog back up in hopes of attracting some attention and serving as a hub for cool stories, news, and other stuff as I think of it. I dunno, I'm still trying to figure out what I want to do. Any thoughts or ideas?

Dev Notes: Lazy Edition

So I've been putting off talkng about the dev notes and such. There honestly hasn't been that much interesting going on, and with the beginning of the summer (and transition into job mode!) I haven't had the most time in the world.

Still, let's take a look at once has been happening this last week.

Any of the new positions can be linked to creature graphics in the same way as before now. I've also put in my first code-generated positions using the religions. It should give the high priest a position name related to their religion, for example, though until I fix up the human entities I won't be able to test it and share some of them. It'll also use this sort of generation procedure for all of the goblin positions, hopefully in a somewhat more involved fashion.

The big kicker here is that we can have code generated positions, which could lead to some pretty awesome scenarios. I don't want to read too much into it, but I believe this means that instead of having a "Priest" we could have a "Blood Priest of Armok", or whatever, depending on what the Priest worships

This could easily extend into other positions. Maybe if it finds a King who happens to have a lot of evil/controlling traits it could generate the position name "Tyrant" or some such.

Continuing along with yesterday's work. The administration of conquered sites is up now, and it'll create a position from scratch if one isn't provided in the raws (or if the one in the raws can't be filled by current critters on account of requirements). We won't be to any noticeable difference until I get to dwarf mode in a day or two though.

This one is interesting if only because of the possible changes this could have to leadership. Could we be seeing Dwarven Druids if they conquerer an retreat? Or will it generate a new position because dorfs don't give two shits about nature?


Anyways, that's really all that has been posted that's interesting. Toady is planning on possibly working all month (without breaking for his month end project) just to get this finished, which is encouraging. I think I speak for everyone when I say it's been far too fucking long since the last update, and though this one will definitely be one of the biggest and best...it just needs to come out already.

Dev Notes (or lack thereof), another Future of the Fortress update, and the meetup!

May has been a slow month for DF, and not much has been said in the way of updates.

Seems like entity positions are still being worked up and updated, though specifics of all of it are still shrouded in mystery and intrigue. The revamp will eventually allow us custom made positions and such, which definitely isn't a bad thing, and could lead the way to other more interesting nobles. Still, it'd nice to see something tangible.

Toady did another grab-bag of questions at the Future of the Fortress. Here's another summary of what he said:

-You'll be able to "create" deities and put them in the world. Indeed, eventually you'll be able to create almost any sort of historical figure and plop them in before genning a world.

-Nobles in the raws will allow you to have custom names for your nobles. Don't like the sound of 'King'? How about 'Warlord'?

-Not much else in terms of news, but some various hints into Toady's ideas for development crop up, so it's worth a look


Finally, today is the day of the Dwarf Fortress meetup. Assuming you can't make it to Washington state (and I'm sure there's a pretty big chance of that) you can follow the progress of it all in this topic. Or this live webcam of the action.

Yep, I said webcam.

Right now it's "off" as the festivites don't start until 6:00pst. But if you ever wanted to watch nerds talking to other nerds while being nerdy, well my good sir, you've found paradise.

Dev Notes 05/01/09

I'm starting with the entity position rewrite this month. Today I went through the notes and reorganized their list entry to remove some ambiguities and set things in more or less the order I want to follow. The primary goal here is to have some military structure in place for both the upcoming squad work as well as subsequent army releases.

Man, I miss underground month already!

I'm curious to see what these sort of changes bring with them. A look at the almighty list reveals that there's really not a whole lot of info one way or another. Most of the tasks are like, "Update mayor", but doesn't tell us how it's being updated or why.

Guess we'll be finding out!

I also wonder what type of changes this'll bring to the military. Will we be able to have generals now? Will command hierarchies make more sense? Hmm! We shall see!

Dev Notes 04/22/09

The invasion infrastructure has been updated, and layer civs should be able to invade from off the side of the map with all their items and mounts and things, although I've only tested it a few times (past 7AM already...), so there are some fixes needed.

Not much to say about this one. I'm excited at the implications...and I'm hoping we'll have situations where all the "stars align" and we get a goblin siege on the surface and a troglodyte siege underground. Hmm!

I'm also curious if this is laying the groundwork for more civs-that-aren't-really-civs. Right now we just have the staple 5 civilizations...it'd be interesting to allow for more TYPES of civilizations, such as those who exist underground, or in the sky, or...well, wherever!

In other news, I have just now finished the amazingly fantastic tale that is Nist Akath. If you haven't read this "Let's Play" yet, you owe yourself a dedicated afternoon to reading about Captain Ironblood and his various exploits.

Dev Notes 04/21/09

The animal people civilizations are now placed in the layers, associated to large populations, and I added the map revealing mechanism that I mentioned back on the 3rd. I took my first adventurer down into an abandoned fort that had penetrated an underground layer and walked over to the next world map square, so that all seems to be working. Next up likely the attack revamp.

Good update today...it's funny, but I find myself being excited about NOT being able to know everything the moment I breach a special underground feature. I mean, on the one hand, it's extraordinarily useful when planning your fortress. But it doesn't make things nearly as fun as "stumbling" upon a magma vent when you thought you had more room...

I'm also sickeningly excited about being able to traverse under the world via these large caves. It gives me this feeling...sort of like shivers. The idea of a lone adventurer delving deep into these huge caverns, wandering about for months, and emerging halfway across the globe is just...well, it's awesome.

It also sets up the framework for future features, such as connecting sites via these caves and tunnels. Maybe the cave underneath your feet eventually leads to a Goblin tower...and the goblins decide that's a much better way to get at you then attacking your well guarded frontdoor on the surface.

Perhaps!

All in all, the underground month is shaping up to be one of my favorites.