This isn’t real. It’s not a new feature of the game nor is it even a mod. It is just a conceptual video…but can you imagine?
Four words: Dear GOD, that’s awesome!
It’s not exactly news that Dwarf Fortress has a pretty poor graphical interface. ASCII graphics are tough enough to interpret, but in DF, not only is that “d” actually a dog, but it’s also on a hill that is higher than the ground to the left but lower than the ground to his right. It becomes pretty impossible to mentally visualize our fort in 3D when we’re looking at the game world as 2D slabs, one stacked on another, unable to see more than one z level at a time.
This technique, however, allows you to view multiple levels are once. Lower levels are gradually darkened out to denote depth. There is even a little animation that plays whenever you raise or lower the level. It feels natural and I would be willing to be it’s infinitely easier than redoing the graphical engine.
A small change like this would go a long way to the readability of DF…and for most new players, that’s one of the largest hurdles to jump over.
As you might know, ToadyOne and a couple of members from the official forums have been doing a monthly podcast since August. They cover a variety of features, usually talking about a single theme while Toady answers questions and speaks about all things Dwarf Fortress-y for a little over an hour.
The latest talk, number 3, is available at his website, and you can download it here. Below I have compiled a list of the highlights/new info we were able to glean from the talk. Everything is separated by categories and grouped together as such. It might not be 100% perfect or accurate, so definitely give the podcast a listen yourself!
Do be WARNED this post will contain spoilers for the next version. That is to be expected given that these talks are MEANT to be about the next version, but a warning is probably a good idea. No “Hidden Fun Stuff” will be spoiled, but some other features might be. You’ve been warned!
The Underground
Pain and suffering when you go down below. In all, the underground will be quite tough
Aquifers are still around, though they’ll behave with the new underground features and won’t flood them. It won’t be possible to (easily) flood the entirety of the underground due to how the caverns work. Still, expect to see water underground such as lakes, etc.
Even more HFS, not much to spoil, but actual HFS (game ending stuff) has changed, and there are random elements down there as well
“Fog of war” thing is one of the more exciting features (according to Toady). You won’t be able to know everything that’s in a cavern without exploring first. It will become necessary to do some exploring/scouting for both building your fort and dealing with any nasty creatures
There are roughly 2-5 “safe” layers before you start hitting caverns and such. You’ll need to be a bit more mindful when carving out a fort, and you’ll have to adapt your strategy based on what you’re around. You’ll get a good feeling of where you should be building, though. All of this can be toned down or turned off.
Layers are split into 3 major “groups”. At the top are your normal layers. In the middle are the caverns, etc. Towards the very bottom you’ll usually find magma and other such features
As such, you won’t have to search around for a proper site with magma. Most every site should be able to reach magma now, though if you’re near a volcano it’s obviously closer to the surface. Otherwise you have to deal with the critters down below
In all, there will be a risk/reward aspect to the underground. He doesn’t want people to freak out and wall up a breached cavern every time. You’ll find all sorts of goodies like mushroom forests, underground lakes, magma, etc., though you’ll also have to deal with animal people, critters, and other more dangerous things
Eventually the underground should be filled with “traditional” RPG elements. Forgotten temples, treasure, etc.
Underground critters and animal people
Underground critters (mainly animal people) will be much more advanced than they are now, harkening back to the 2D days when the underground was more challenging/dangerous
The underground animal people will be more “evil” than their above-ground counterparts, but will also be more “civilized”, meaning they’ll have crude weapons and mounts. Batmen riding a giant bad while shooting poison darts with a blowgun made out of a Giant Cave Spider leg…phew! Their goal in life is to cause as much trouble and violence as they can
Underground critters have multiple access points for spawning. They mainly use the edges of the maps to enter your location
Gremlins are returning – they can pull levers, jump on pressure plates, release animals from cages/chains, and are hidden from sight. Expect to hate them and lose many fortresses due to their antics
Underground creatures mostly hate each other. Animal people will war with one another AND you. Above ground animal creatures might be friendly towards each other, Elves, etc.
Forgotten Creatures
Forgotten creatures come in two flavors: Titans, which are above ground megabeasts, and Forgotten Creatures, who live below. They are both created at the beginning of world gen. They are single individuals (not races).
Titans above ground, randomly generated, oriented to a particular region (A neutral region will produce a normal monster, no sick things, etc. Evil will be more twisted, skin falling off, dark features, etc. Good regions avoid certain animals (you won’t find a carrion or venomous Good titan) and gives them a contemplative/good nature
These forgotten creatures can be made out of anything. Glass, mud, metals, etc. No super metals (adamantine), though. You can even have them made out of “gross” materials such as vomit, grime, and slime.
Underground megabeasts are the “ultimate challenge” of the game
A fun example of one such “friendly” titan: A giant shrimp with maroon hair and a long swinging trunk. He emanated an aura of giving and kindness
Forgotten beasts have no “history” to them. Further, there are only a certain amount of them and that’s it. Just like megabeasts they will not breed nor will more of them spawn after the initial world generation. There will be a larger amount of forgotten beasts than the others due to their nature (as in, you’ll be stumbling across quite a few as you play forts). In a small world you can expect to see a couple dozen forgotten beasts (Toady gave the number “27″ in a 33×33 world)
In some of the larger/typical worlds you can expect to find hundreds of forgotten beasts and dozens of titans
Difficulty
Toady gets his greatest kicks from us losing/failure/etc. Losing is fun! Getting people to “have fun losing” is a continued theme
Expect the underground to be quite difficult
“From within and from without, your fortress is going to be squeezed”
Turn it off in the init, but if you want to play something that feels like an active universe/fantasy world, they’ll be plenty of stuff to entertain you
Dwarves
There’s a new skill (Situational Awareness) for spotting sneaking creature. Now you can spot creatures farther away as the skill increases
Grime accumulates on the body and can increase the likelihood of an infection. You can wash the grime away with soap. Elves do not believe in soap (due to the materials used) and will use water, but they won’t fully be able to clean themselves because of this
He’s interested in the idea of age being more than a number. Already we have appearance modifiers, but soon you might see attribute/skill decreases, illness, etc.
Adventure Mode
Adventure mode is definitely not being forgotten this go around. Everything mentioned above will be able to be experienced as an adventurer. You can dive into caves, find animal people, fight forgotten beasts, etc. It’ll be very hard, though
Quest caves will make more sense than they do now due to the changes being made to caverns and caves
He wants to stay away from “making things up” in adventure mode to keep things interesting. Things like interesting quests, sites, adventures, etc. should be naturally made up by the game and not artificially added
Toady
Toady has a pretty average system. Integrated graphics, quadcore processor. As such he has the same FPS issues as us, which is good, as he’s able to make real time fixes and see the changes
He truly loves what he does
Scamps is pretty awesome
Other
They like the idea of immortal races (elves, goblins), but they haven’t been fully realized yet.
Elves sticking to forests is basically all that is saving the world from being taken over (scary!)
When Dwarf Fortress made the switch to 3D, Toady’s heavy interest in geology and mineralogy really came to light. He added 50+ real-world stones, all appearing in their proper layers, just as they appear in the real world. These additions were largely for flavor. There’s essentially no difference between Quartzite, Dolomite, Limestone, etc. Gabbro, Slate, Basalt, Felsite, Shale… I could keep going.
Point is, this same attention to detail wasn’t given to other natural-world formations, such as trees. Enter the very-simple Dendrology mod. It adds 67 real-world trees to Dwarf Fortress. Nothing more, nothing less. Maybe not the most exciting mod in the world, but hey, it certainly doesn’t hurt anything.
The temptation for mod-makers is usually to go big. Add dozens of creatures, gems, stones, civilizations… maybe even megabeasts. But the truth is that the best, most effective mods focus on one thing, and just do it very, very well. Orcs by Rysith is one of those mods.
Rysith didn’t find goblin sieges to be A) frequent enough or B) deadly enough. So… he solved this problem himself. With orcs. His own words:
Enter the orcs, a non-speaking race that will show up in large numbers. Larger and tougher than the average dwarf, they are raiders drawn by tales of wealth in dwarven (or human, or elven, or goblin) fortresses, and once they have arrived they show no fear and feel no pain until they have killed and plundered everything. Unless, of course, they get bored and leave for another fortress to loot and pillage. Assuming you can’t drive them away, though, you should be prepared to spend at least 6 months out of the year sealed away underground, not an easy task at all.
Orcs are faster, bigger, stronger, smarter, and all-around better adversaries for experienced Fortress runners. This isn’t a complex mod – it just makes Orcs siege you. A lot.
Orcs have caught on in such a way that *other* mod makers and graphics makers have started to include Orc compatibility with their own releases. The rantingrodent graphics pack we spotlighted the other day includes Orc graphics, for example.
For those fortress runners hoping for a deeper military arc, Orcs are a nice place to start.
Arguably the best all-purpose DF tutorial around is After Action Reporter’s The Complete and Utter Newby Tutorial for Dwarf Fortress . I have witnessed firsthand many people that had previously tried (but given up on) DF finally have the game snap into place for them after running through this guide. What makes it so good? Let me count the ways:
- It is incredibly comprehensive. I’ve been playing DF since 2D, and even I learned new things skimming through some of the later chapters (I had never noticed ramp removal under designate could be used outdoors to create steep cliff dropoffs). This comprehensiveness could actually be a problem, except…
- It is broken up into distinct sections. Know the DF basics, but just want to learn more about Magma, or the military, or traps? You can zip right to those areas.
- Arguably the biggest benefit of all is that the tutorial very smartly comes with a DF pack that INCLUDES pre-installed graphics, and a fortress savegame. Without coming with a savegame, the tutorial would instead have to spend 100s of words right at the beginning explaining world-gen and embark profiles. But now, new players can just jump right in. It also ensures they can follow along very directly with the directions and screenshots.
- Lastly, the folks at AAR are just good teachers. The first time or two the guide tells you to do something, like chop down trees, or dig out a room, it tells you exactly what you need to do in dead-simple terms, down to every keystroke. But then it starts to lighten up, and might include an instruction like “go ahead and designate some more trees to be chopped” or “dig out some more bedrooms” to force you to do some things on your own and not just follow the guide letter by letter.
If you’re a DF fan hoping to get your friends & family interested, send them on over. If you don’t want to go through the guide page by page, or want to have a local copy for when you’re without internet access, there’s also a PDF version available for download.
For the last few days Toady has been trying to implement vertical connections between layers, especially as they relate to all the new special underground features he’s been working so hard on. We now have magma pipes working correctly, as well as other unspecified vertical connections he mentions in passing. He seems to hint that some new and perhaps much more epic Hidden Fun Stuff is on the way.
He also talks about an unofficial Dwarf Fortress meetup, so if you live in or around the Seattle area you should consider checking it out!
There’s going to be an unofficial meetup on October 22nd most likely at the Pike Place Brewery (same place as May) at 7PM, organized by a documentarian who is swinging through Seattle on an epic journey. Please drop by the thread if you think you might be able to make it. Optional documenting will occur, as well as webcasting courtesy of Sir Finkus, and Zach and I will be there.
We now have volcanic shafty pipey things shooting up through the layers again, and I didn’t spot any dangerous flooding. There are various other layer connections as well. The next big project involves similar stuff down deeper, on a much more grand scale than the previous incarnations (those being game-ending timers and little glowing pits with a few this-and-thats).
RantingRodent has created a nice, all-purpose tileset for anyone looking to try something new. It comes in two major flavors – natural, and brick:
Natural:
Brick:
Personally I’m not quite sure I’m ready to move on from the Mayday graphics pack,
but RantingRodent has done a great job keeping this set iconic and very readable, but still maintaining a “clean” style. Also, according to the author himself one of the key goals for the tileset was to modify “all of the stone, soil, ore, and gem tiles so that you can tell what you are looking at a lot more easily without having to check with ‘k’,” and we can all get behind that, right?Check it out:
Sounds like Toady got cave parameters working in world gen. Exciting! [Link]
Yesterday I put in the new parameters for world generation, so you can get rid of the underground features or constrain how open they are, peel off some layers, etc. The default settings are on the cavernous side, so that you’ll be guaranteed to find many things down there. I also fixed up some of the new code that unhides the map as your dwarves walk farther out into the unexplored caverns. There are a few ramp walls that still aren’t being uncovered properly, but it’s working pretty well.
The project for today and the next few days is setting up vertical connections between all of the layers, including but not limited to surface caves and volcanic features. This will also include the interfaces between hidden fun stuff and the friendlier layers. Ideally, an adventurer will be able to walk from some of the surface cave entrances all the way down to the worst the underground has to offer, passing through the various layers.
Toady had another in-depth Q&A session on the forums today, shedding lots of light on… a lot of things! Beware: There be potential spoilers in some of these answers. [Link]
Kaiser Reinhard
By the way, will we ever be able to have a operational fort and an active adventurer in the same world at the same time?
It depends on what you mean. The world all advances at once, so the current adventurer retirement might be the closest you get to having an adventurer and then moving over to a fort. There have been threads discussion the issues with temporarily suspending a fort. It’s something that would be nice to do, but it’s hard to get it working right when an adventurer comes to visit and you then want to restart it later. There are other things planned for the shorter term like being able to send out groups from your fortress which you might then be able to control during battles in a kind of time-stopped mode, but having something like that for a broader adventure wouldn’t work very well (the closest we might get to anything like a player controlled adventurer during dwarf mode would be following a group on a longer campaign or something)
Knight Otu
if castes in a species can have vastly different body sizes, or have a different set of the stout/narrow tags than others, how would armor clothing be handled for entities of that species? Would each caste have to make its own sets? Or would some castes be out of luck, clothing-wise?
Right now I’m passing on dealing with this one since it would be annoying to manage all of the different clothing. I think critters will be able to wear whatever, though it might not work across races of different sizes. There’s also the matter of children growing up with a single caste to further complicate this. Continued…
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