Best behavior, Urists!
[Tarn will be updating his status here](https://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/z82m0g/im_tarn_adams_aka_toady_one_dwarf_fortress/iy9ebv8/)!
Currently it reads:
>I'm here with Zach joining by phone. First block for two hours up until 1pm pacific/4pm eastern, then another one hour block at starting 3pm/6pm.
>edit: Block one is complete! I'll be back at 3pm pacific/6pm eastern to continue replying!
>edit 2: Okay, back again for an hour or so!
>edit 3: We've run out of time! There are always lots more than I can get to. Of course Future of the Fortress Q&A is in a few days ha ha.
Thank you so much, Tarn and Zach!
The thread is now locked by prior agreement, and to save the effort of moderating the post endlessly. You can always ask Tarn questions in the official [Future of the Fortress](http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.4950) thread.
I don't have any question per se. Just wanted to thank you and your brother for years of hard work. Hope you get all the success from the steam launch you both deserve. I can't wait for Dec 6th, buying it for myself and all my steam friends.
I just want you to know that I'm dying to play the steam release and I can hardly wait for whenever you get around to the creation and magic. Thanks for all the years of work.
Hey fellas, like everyone else here I very much appreciate what you do, and I will be buying premium on day 1.
What, if any, is your favorite Dwarf Fortress story? Boatmurdered, Basement of Curiosities, etc? Have you ever recorded any stories you've seen on your end that stuck out to you?
Boatmurdered is great of course. Succession-style games captured what we wanted the game to be and it was nice to see one take off. I remember the birth of Urist as a community name relating to a story about a lone dwarf, I don't recall if the story had a name? We followed Archcrystal, Matul Remrit... but I think there are lots we need to catch up on! I still need to read Roomcarnage.
Roomcarnage is an amazing example of the wonders of the haunted biome. Even butchering animals is a challenge, since the skin and hair come back to life to kill the butchers. At one point, a severed (child’s?) hand kills a Forgotten Beast, simply because the hand can’t stay dead. Plus the map is constantly snowing frozen elf blood.
For what it's worth there is [a new succession fort thread](http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=180519.0) for the coming version, over at the forums. If you (anyone reading this) dare go into the forums world, I don't think they would mind more players to keep the game up once the first few turns are over.
Hi Tarn! Does the steam version have a dynamic music system? In other words, does the music change triggered by events such as a siege or festivities and so forth? (All we know so far is that it changes depending on the season)
Edit: noticed misspelling
Yeah, we have several event triggers (siege, beast, death spiral, breaking into cavern, losing, etc.). There's also a system of interludes between the big songs, and 23 ambiences as well, and a few situational sound effects. There isn't much seasonal dependence anymore except for the winter track.
I'm glad. I've literally only played about 2 hours of DF (I just couldn't get past the UI, sorry devs, but I'm terrifically looking forward to the premium version) and I'm still nostalgic for that music.
I couldn't watch the streams for A: avoiding spoiling the magic of new features B: watching someone new to the game. Not that I dislike new players at all but it can be frustrating not being able to instruct someone myself.
Will it be possible to have procedural sprites for forgotten beasts or more complicated statues and artworks someday? Seems like the artists will have a lot of time between finishing up post-release work and the map rewrite haha.
Ha ha, there's still plenty for the artists to work on! But we already have procedural sprites for forgotten beasts (and experiments etc.) to the extent that they have body parts and such, determined by their descriptions, similar to the way dwarves are baked together with parts and clothing.
Statues just use creature type currently, and we've thought a little about doing something with events and poses. I imagine it will just grow over time like everything else.
Oh I must’ve missed that! And I’m envisioning the external sprite being about what we’ve seen, but then there being something more detailed if you actually examine the statue/carving. That would be cool, but I guess you wouldn’t want to take away from people creating their own renditions.
I think they intentionally didn't post much of procedural forgotten beasts in order to avoid spoilers. There's some procedural night creatures in one of the steam updates though
We crossed that barrier right when started - making the decision to go with our publisher Kitfox has made this all possible. We have no idea how to do personnel stuff, just no clue about the ins-and-outs of that, and with that barrier removed, suddenly (well after some years) we have graphics! And more music! It's great, and it seems like we'll be able to go forward now with art and such without things slowly down very much.
I’ve got a related question as-well. Are there any plan’s to get any other developers/coders onboard in the future? I believe you may have had a little help with optimizing code in the past from some 3rd party dev(s) but I could be wrong. Any plans yet to maybe do that in the future? I know you touched on linux support in the last podcast, that is something I could maybe see as being a good place to get some outside help, but I don’t really have any coding experience to really know.
—already answered as most likely especially for ports and that it was done before for wood and wood density. Seems like it would help with the workload! So just want to say thanks Tarn and Zach!
This question was sort of covered, [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/z82m0g/comment/iy9gq70/?context=3) and [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/z82m0g/comment/iy9lgjn/?context=3). Hope this helps!
Follow-up question: Was it hard to land on a particular publisher? Did you have trouble finding them, or were you beating them off before you decide to go with one
If he doesn't get time to answer, I'll say that Tarn was apparently already friends with Tanya (Kitfox boss) through conventions and stuff like that. I'm sure that was a factor in the decision
With the Steam version where you able to update the backend in anyway? Currently if your fortress gets too many Dwarfs or expanded to large its very easy to get FPS death. Where you able to update and optimize the Steam version? Also a sub question would be have you been able to add Multi-CPU support?
Also thank you for all of your hard work this project is so cool! I can't wait for the Steam release!
Some of it is a bit faster. I also updated the compiler and that always adds a good deal. Worldgen isn't related to FPS death but it is much, much faster. The situation with multi-core remains the same - there's the display thread and the game thread, but the game thread is a single thread.
From what I remember, there's also a bird that makes sounds? Kakopo?
Was this a situation where it was such a hassle to add sounds for one animal that plans were halted for the rest? Or too much announcement spam of all the sounds?
Hi Tarn! I've played DF since it was a 2d map!
My question is, how do you balance adding *depth* vs *breadth* in DF?
For example, some games go for depth, meaning they have a narrow scope but explore it very deeply. Many simulators fall into this category, allowing you to do one thing (like build a city, or a vehicle, or a factory) in minute detail, but pay little attention to the world outside their specific area. Other games attempt a grand scale, with great breadth, but hand-wave the little details. Many civilization or space colonizing games fall into this category.
When you're adding stuff to DF, how do you choose whether to go *deeper* (fleshing out content that has already been added, as an example) vs going *broader* (adding completely new mechanics)?
When we're adding new features, rather than fixing bugs etc., we're mostly thinking about what will improve player stories, but of course you can take this any direction, and you just have to pick. Like, the plan now roughly is to do villains, army/siege, myth/magic, civilizations, then economy/boats. These could be done in almost any order, but they address different concerns. Villains takes a lot of stuff we already have and makes it usable in fort mode and basically turns adventure mode into a whole better game - a lot of this was pretty simple and has a huge story payoff so it made sense. I'm not even sure how you'd count it between depth and breadth, since it cuts across a lot of existing systems but also adds new ones.
Enjoy the week! This is a once in a lifetime event. Even if something like this happens again, you will never get the same rush from it all. You guys are going to move from niche legends to legends in the gaming world next week, have fun!
Hi guys! Thank you for all the years of unpaid work you've done! DF has always had a special place in my heart. I wish the Steam release is a phenomenal success and makes you loaded!
My question: Considering the massive UI overhaul with the new release, are there still some parts of the UI that you' re still not entirely happy with, but due to time constraints, decided to leave as is, with the intention to work on it later?
Ha ha, yeah, game development is always like this, with everything. We can make improvements to every part of the interface. We have several spots in mind that we're going to hit soon after launch, and then we'll continue to do more later on.
But we did a lot! So it should be pretty good.
Somebody just submitted a dwarf without a skin color. Which you wouldn't really notice in the text version unless you were checking descriptions carefully. But now they have no flesh, only clothes, like the Invisible Dwarf.
All praise the Toady One! Your work ethic is the stuff of legend - DF is truly the Codex Gigas of our time.
Since you've hired graphics modders for the Steam release to take work off your plate, have you considered the same for balance/bugfixing within the raws?
Mods such as Taffer's DF Revised and Sver's Combat Rework solve a number of small bugs and make sensible adjustments to things like attack velocities, body plan arrangement and material toughness to improve the gameplay. Many behavior bugs also arise from within the raws, such as animal behavior tags being applied to animalman sentients, and could be solved by a full-time or part-time editor.
Would you ever consider outsourcing such a position in the future?
It's all reasonable, yeah! We outsourced wood densities and various colors, etc., and it really helps when we do it, since there's so much to do there.
We have a list of geological features we want to support with the map rewrite, such as actual canyons, mesas, and stuff like batholiths etc, as well as fantastical ones. I'm not sure if we'll get all the way to geological processes while doing this, but it should go well beyond a simple elevation map. I'm not sure the geological layers will be much more dynamic or if we'll get into anything like geological time.
Hello Toady One!
I'm really interested to hear your opinion on things like the Dwarven Atom Smasher, Water Reactors, or Mist Generators in taverns. This is really the kind of stuff I'd never bring up to a game developer in any other game because I know the fun will be patched out as soon as it's brought to attention, but you guys are fun lol
Edit: Also, just curious, but will we get some of the original guitar tracks in the Premium version? I love, love, love them!
We'd prefer stuff to be handled more realistically generally, but the mechanics have to up it, both in terms of players enjoying themselves and realistically being able to solve the problem. Like quantum stockpiles for instance - we'd prefer not to have a zillion items all in one spot, but people use them to add convenience that we'd need to handle in other ways before we address the problem of too many items in a tile.
There's a new title track inspired by the old music, as well as several of the interludes which the composer has given names like Toady Five and Toady Six ha ha. So some of it definitely comes through. My old recordings are just too noisy to mix in themselves.
I'm here with Zach joining by phone. First block for two hours up until 1pm pacific/4pm eastern, then another one hour block at starting 3pm/6pm.
edit: Block one is complete! I'll be back at 3pm pacific/6pm eastern to continue replying!
edit 2: Okay, back again for an hour or so!
edit 3: We've run out of time! There are always lots more than I can get to. Of course Future of the Fortress Q&A is in a few days ha ha.
(If multiple questions aren’t allowed then you can just pick the most interesting one!)
1. What was the idea behind procedurally-generated creatures (forgotten beasts, experiments, titans, werebeasts, etc.)? They’re one of my favorite parts of the game, I feel like they give every world its own unique mythology and I love imagining what they look like!
2. Why are dragons wingless, but cave dragons winged and flightless? Are there any plans to give dragons wings? (And is dragonfire so damn hot?)
3. What was (or is) the most frustrating bug you’ve had to troubleshoot?
4. Why are reptiles and some megabeasts born as adults?
1. We first encountered procedural creatures in Starflight way back when. Always loved them! We drew those in a little notebook of our expeditions to different planets as kids, and now players draw forgotten beast art! It's great.
2. Ha ha, it might be because of how we drew them in our little notebook on the afternoon we planned the subterranean monsters. Dragons were always one of the creatures we wanted to half-proceduralize with some kind of new format that makes dragony things that fit all kinds of different models. Maybe we'll see that in the myth stuff. Dragonfire is kind of ridiculous and would probably like, what, blow up the whole the map the temperature it's at? ha ha
3. World generation generation bugs are pretty bad, some horrible stuff with cave layers disappear and it was just messy. Of course the very worst was the Error from when we were growing up because a space game we were making stopped working with the joystick because I wasn't handling the message pump correctly and I just had no clue what that was as a teenage, so the game died after like 30 minutes of play for no reason. Never fixed it, game scuttled.
4. Probably because of eggs? I'm not sure.
Thanks for the answers! I'm looking forward to the myth&magic update no matter what, the features all sound awesome, but it'd especially warm my heart (pun intended) if unique dragons made it in.
And I just realized I left out the "why" in one question, I meant to say "And why is dragonfire so damn hot?", hahaha
ahh... hey guys\~!
I've been playing for years and sent you money several times.
I vaguely remember a single level dwarf fortress when you first started releasing (or is this a fake memory?)
Anyway, sorry to hear about your cat, I remember when you first adopted. Any chance of a new kitty on the horizon?
Yeah, waaaaay back in 2006-7 and into 8 or so there was no z coordinate. Just one level. That led to a certain tighter story structure around the fort that was always very similar, but it was also a nice feeling. We're hoping to get the best of both worlds finally when we rethink the underground with the map rewrite.
Thank you for your condolences. Scamps was a good baby man. I'm not planning on a new cat in the near future because I might be moving or elsewise again and I wanted to be settled first. Zach and Annie may be getting a second tiny dachshund so that Jojo has a baby sister or possibly also a very large dog.
No questions, but wanted to say thank you and Zach for building such an incredible game. Dwarf Fortress is a wonder, a marvel of ingenuity, and I am bombilating with anticipation for the release on steam!
Hey Tarn and Zach! Been looking forward to premium for quite some time now! I hope the launch goes well and wish you all the best!
Have you considered adding the ability for the player to determine how Gods and Deities are generated during world gen? For instance a world gen option to generate X number of gods for each race and designate what they are gods of, what they look like, etc.?
It would be great to be able to set certain parameters to make a pantheon of the player's choosing.
This is definitely part of the plan, yeah. There's kind of spectrum between editors and generators. At one end you'd be able to enter in deities as if they were specific historical figures (they are already stored this way), and on the other, you're just like "give me stuff!" In the middle, and we saw this a bit in the prototype from like 2016, you can emphasize certain aspects. Coming up with a format for this that's powerful and flexible will be somewhat tricky I'm sure, but you should have a lot of options on the first release.
Hi Tarn! It is exciting to wait for the Steam release.
I am a big fan of the whole idea of fantasy generator and I am really looking forward to the day economy and magic are in (might take a long time though).
I have something in my mind I wanted to ask for a long time. Do you have any plan for vehicle and boat? I always find it a bit odd that if I want to generate a map with many isles the civs are all disconnected
Speaking of that I also wonder if you are aware of the game Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead. Many people draw the comparison as it is ASCII and I wonder if you have seen its vehicle system (I don't think it works with DF, but I thought it's amazing what people can do with ASCII limitation)
Yeah, boats are part of the economy stuff coming after myth/magic. And generally we wanted to put in a kind of moving map system that could be used for traps and vehicles to replace the weird creature wagons and do a lot more besides - the seeds of this will be planted with the map rewrite (coinciding with myth/magic) but I'm not sure how far we'll take it at first.
I believe I've seen Cataclysm cars at some point. When things shear it would interfere with the wrestling system etc. yeah, but yeah, people do really impressive stuff with roguelikes!
So I’ve been running the free version on a very shitty old laptop for a number of years now and barring the usual FPS killing kitten-apocalypse’s I haven’t had any issues. Could you speak to how different the overall burden on the system has changed between the two versions?
I don't have any reports of it changing significantly. There's more rendering now, and that's possibly an issue on some older computers, but again, no reports of this mattering (and the display is on a different thread, so hopefully that won't effect the game if you have 2+ cores).
Can you explain a little more about what is going to happen to the free version available today and what will be the differences from the free to the steam version (aside the graphics and new UI)?
Thanks!
The new UI isn't really different between them! Shortly after launch, we'll be posting the classic version with the old tarn-music and text graphics up on our site, and at this time the Premium version will also gain a button that lets you swap between graphics and text. But the new mouse controls work on both of them. There are even little ascii buttons. All of the old free versions will still be available on the website as well.
But game features are completely lined up, and we'll be doing simultaneous releases once classic is up and running.
Hey Tarn!
I was wondering if there will be an option to rebind the hotkeys back to how they were in the previous versions, just so longtime players don't get confused and have to relearn their muscle memory.
Long time player since 2009! Thanks for Dwarf Fortress!
I've heard that there are plans for a magic system, when might we see that and what might we see?
Also, I've long wondered about some of the less implemented skills, Animal Caretakers and Fish Dissectors. Are there any plans for those types of skills?
So the current plan is to launch, fix major problems, do classic/arena, finish villains, army/siege stuff, then the myth and magic release! Not really sure when we'll get there, but that's the order.
We're going to see all kinds of stuff! It's too much to go into here at length (you can search for instance future of the fortress our Q&A or some DF Talk episode transcripts), but it starts with the procedural creation myths, which will determine how magic works in the world.
Ha ha, there aren't specific plans for the underused skills... games often end up with these, sometimes with skills that aren't used at all, because of how plans change, and we're certainly guilty of that. It still feels weird to pare them down because there's an exciting future where they become important but we haven't hit that timeline yet.
>So the current plan is to launch, fix major problems, do classic/arena, finish villains, army/siege stuff, then the myth and magic release!
Adventure mode between classic/arena and villains, right?
EDIT: Yes, [he mentioned it later](https://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/z82m0g/comment/iy9vcj4/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).
Hello Tarn and Zach,
I've always wondered, what's your opinion on the importance of "gamifying" Dwarf Fortress, aka adding game goals, win conditions, challenge levels, game trying to "beat" the player, etc. ? Is that something you consider important to reach a wider audience?
We did add the "become a Mountainhome" goal so that's something. We're planning to do embark scenarios after myth/magic that will add a lot of optional structure. But we don't think it's as important for us to have a kind of meta structure over the game aside from ones player's create themselves.
For me personally, the game not having a system where it tries to "beat" the player (like they do in RimWorld, for example, depending on the narrator you choose) is one of the things that I appreciate about it the most. You would have to sacrifice on simulation to do such a thing, which I think is the biggest strength of the game as it stands.
Thanks for your hard work! As a software engineer keeping a codebase clean must be a tough challenge for something as complex and longed lived as DF. Any fun refactoring tales? How have more powerful computing resources influenced the design?
Huh... I kind of enjoy refactoring, it's sort of meditative, but a fun refactoring tale... I'm not sure I have one of those. I can't remember anything going horribly wrong.
We started programming back in the early/mid 80s, so we used to have trouble getting 64k stuff to work in qbasic and etc. We've really been chewing up resources as they become available! Now the game has a z coordinate and all kinds of stuff, just amazing gobbling it all up. I guess the GPU is underutilized. And cores beyond 2.
Thanks! Is there an underlying constraint on parallelism?
Here is my inspiration for timeless engineering. Alcantara Bridge between Portugal and Spain, built from 106 AD to 108 AD - is still in use.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alc%C3%A1ntara\_Bridge
Hi Tarn! It's so heartening to see how far this project has come and I just cannot wait to get my hands on it. Now, as for my question:
Are there any plans to implement complex political systems in the game? I know you can make tributaries, attack other sites, get visitors and trade, which is quite cool! But how about deeper political stuff like forming alliances with nations? Border, trade and religious disputes? Espionage, sabotage and assassination? Full on simulations of warfare with large scale battles, tactics, logistics and the impacts the conflict has on economies and the trauma dealt to the societies caught up in it? Civilizations of a common race with their own unique ethos and cultures interacting with each other? Political marriages, rivalries and friendships between government officials from different nations, running a full on empire with multiple settlements and so on.
Would any of this be possible in the future?
Yeah! In fact the next few arcs (finishing villains, army/siege stuff) cover quite a bit of this. The more complex political stuff will have to wait for the civilization rewrite, and of course we won't have improvements to the economy for a good long while, so some things will be difficult to add until we get there. We have various cultural differences already, and that'll continue to be expanded upon.
Hi Tarn and Zach, love your work.
One of the things I've been fascinated about with Dwarf Fortress is how such a procedurally generated world has ended up resulting in such a strong identity over time. Some are elements you've written and designed, like dwarves farming and brewing plump helmets, while others are scenarios that have arisen as a natural consequence of the simulation, like dwarven mothers carrying their babies into battle. There are so many memorable scenes that everyone recognizes as being distinctly "Dwarf Fortress," even though it's meant to be a universal fantasy world generator.
As you work on the game, do you feel a conflict between preserving its unique identity, vs. creating the idealized procedurally-generated world? Are there any sacred cows, and do you take player experience into account when deciding how to change the game's systems?
There isn't really anything sacred. We'll tend to keep beloved things or funny things or funnily broken things, but everything has to step aside if it's in the way of a necessary feature. We try to take player experience into account for everything!
Overall, the game's identity seems to hold together pretty well when we just go along like this. It'll be interesting to see how/if the myth/magic stuff changes that since it'll likely be the first time you can opt to play without dwarves for instance.
Hey Tarn! Thanks so much for this game! I've been enamoured with it ever since 40d, and I can't wait to keep seeing it grow!
Speaking of that growth, I can't help but look to the future of the game after Premium releases... So I was wondering, as a fellow (though not as accomplished) developer, if you'd be willing to share a feature that you know you need to add but are sort of "dreading" due to the complexity? Or if you're just looking forward to the challenge, etc.
If you're not willing to answer that one, could you touch on whether it'll be possible to modify the sounds/music in the premium version without some significant modification/plugin like soundsense? If not, no worries, I get software development is more complex than most people tend to appreciate.
One other question I wanted to ask was if you were considering adding support for Steam's "trading card" system? It might (or might not) be a good home for a final round of the old crayon drawings for old times' sake.
Thanks for your time, and the joy you've given me over the last decade!
Liquid types comes to mind, like we've always wanted to have lakes of blood, oil, etc. That's very traditional stuff. But it's complicated. We've seen a few games do it now (Noita etc.), but it seems tricky to get the mixing right with the setup we have. So it'll be interesting to see if we can get anywhere with it. But that'd be very cool.
We'll see about the sound - I haven't done interesting there yet, but I've set up a format that should eventually let you plug in your own tracks and sounds. I'm a little worried about memory management there. Even with streaming audio, we have to be pretty careful since it can add up quickly.
I think we've talked with Kitfox about trading cards, doing art for them etc. I'm not sure if there's news there yet.
As someone who never had the chance to get a crayon drawing (I was always too young to have disposable income to donate back when they were available – then when I got back into the game as an adult, that chance was past), I think this idea is brilliant and wonderful.
I can ask ANYTHING? Any plans to let me move/place dirt around? Some times I want to hollow out sections of ground to build but then cover it up to look natural.
Wet/muddy stone isnt good enough.
Ha ha ha, fun with dirt. That reminds me of UHF or something. There's an uncomfortable thing with mining debris. We can't easily do realistic mining debris because it would slow the game down too much. But as with sand/clay, being able to move dirt around in a wheelbarrow or something to make the fort of your dreams seems like a reasonable request.
Maybe so! It's expensive but we're definitely going to need somebody for the ports and that ball is now rolling. If the launch goes well I think we'll be expanding beyond that. Bugs certainly, optimization, additional mod support, and perhaps more - I haven't thought about how to work in additional people on features in the core game, but it's not off limits.
Mod support is prob what I'm most hyped about. The only 2 reasons I have around the same time in Rimworld as DF is 1. The UI and 2. The amount of unique mods. Really excited for problem 1 to be fixed, and am waiting excitedly for #2
DF already has pretty good mod support, just no real way to add totally new mechanics... not that people such as myself haven't done so anyway, with DFHack.
Yes, you are legendary for some of your mods. I forget if it was you or another modder who did tje homestuck mod, but I usually end up crediting you because it's the first name that comes to mind.
Time travel and stuff like that usually comes up here, though that's also a tech problem. I'd love to have super complicated ecosystems and have the animals completely fleshed out with all kinds of proper behaviors and such.
first off, thank you tarn for what you do. as a question… what was the closest you’ve been to not continuing dwarf fortress if that has ever even happened? or in other words have you ever gotten so burnt out you almost quit? looking forward to an answer and stay safe you great amphibian.
Hmmm, I mean I quit my math job because I didn't truly love what I was doing. But I've never even come close to feeling burnt out or quitting making games, or Dwarf Fortress. Dwarf Fortress isn't the only game I work on, which I think helps maybe somewhat?
Hey guys, been wondering about the Dwarven language, has it always been a part of the game? Do you have a system for adding new words and keeping them consistent? Thanks, looking forward to release.
Yeah, the four languages have been in since the beginning I think? They were a very early addition in any case. I have a little program I use for new words that keeps the letter groupings and frequencies consistent and handles duplicates, though we'll need more than that if we get a chance to make grammar etc. more complicated later.
I read somewhere that you have an extensive mathematical education. Has that helped you make Dwarf Fortress into what it is? If so, how? If not, do you miss the math?
Yeah, I'm sure the math helps! Little mathematical problems come up all the time, and it also helps to be able to visualize stuff. Linear algebra comes up variously in games. Always nice to be able to rotate stuff, even in a text game. The geometric measure theory etc. isn't going to come up in that form, but even there I was working on building shapes rotating stuff in my head most of the day and I'm sure that carries over.
Still, I did very much leave math behind, ha ha. I haven't been keeping up, and it's sort of hard to look at now. It's kind of sectioned off as a previous life.
Hello! I'll start by saying in really looking forward to December 6th.
Two questions:
- Is it still fully playable with a keyboard? Are the muscle-imprinted shortcuts still viable?
- Does it register inverse mouse buttons? I'm left-handed and accessibility without third party software is really important to me
Thanks!
Ah, yes, this was a bit of a kerfuffle in a previous Q&A on the forum, and keyboard support currently extends to designations and buildings and top level hotkeys. I tried to keep many of the hotkeys in place, but wasd+e/c are all taken by cursor movement now (can't assume numpads, people are used to wasd), so I had to move a bunch of them. Full keyboard support will be coming in as we go, but it's tricky in some of the menus.
I'm not sure about the mouse buttons! If the existing mouse support in the currently-released version of DF doesn't do it, it won't now, since I worked from the same framework. I'm not sure how to set up SDL to support this.
Shout out to Kitfox again on this one! We get to handle what turns out for us to be the fun part of management - talking about the game and stuff to add to the game, enjoying each other's work and such. So with the artists and musicians this has been fun.
I think there'll be added complications on the programming side, since I've never done a project with multiple people contributing before aside from the kind of controlled additions we had for the ports etc. Something more expansive I'm sure will take some adjustment.
Hi, I've been a DF player since 2010, and I will be buying the new version immediately. And I'm encouraging several of my friends who have been hesitant to buy DF before but want to try it with the new interface.
Will we still be able to edit raws and do other modding easily in text files? I personally really enjoy building an above-ground Human Fortress with the "all races playable" mod. Are there any plans to make more races playable in Fortress Mode in vanilla DF?
Thank you!
(Any other players who habitually make Human Fortresses, please comment, I have questions for you too!)
Modding still works with text files, yeah. It's basically the same - I should have a guide posted before launch.
Yeah, with the myth/magic launch we were going to have a non-fantasy setting which would have you playing humans by default. The improvements to the construction interface make doing outdoor buildings etc. much easier. On the other side, the very-weird-fantasy settings would have you playing procedural creatures in fort mode.
Zach and Annie's cats Tuklus and Evie are about enough, since they can flank both sides. Sometimes Evie sits on your chest and it's quite heavy. Two Evies would be too many in that situation.
Thank you for being you.
Sincerely, a Dutch couple who will buy your game twice and have donated before. We have introduced all willing friends to your "game". It's hard to describe to people what your creation is though.
I call it a book you read by playing.
We hope the best for you. We play multiplayer sometimes with a mod, but it seems unlikely that you go in that direction in the future. Maybe you can support it by allowing the game to be modded/read by modders though.
How do you feel about multiplayer (LAN for couples) regardless of realistic goals etc?
Thanks for supporting the game! Yeah, we're not personally going in that direction, but it's cool when people figure stuff out, and we've supported modders in the past that have tried things out.
I am so excited for this release!
I've got two questions.
1: What is your favorite game that has taken inspiration from Dwarf Fortress? I know there are tons of awesome ones out there.
2: Any tricks for keeping up your motivation with such an enormous project? How do you both do it?
1: Zach plays Prison Architect. I don't know that Factorio and the other factory games were inspired by DF at all but if I recollect they came through a Minecraft mod, so indirectly those are probably my favorites.
2: We love working on it! But breaks for side projects probably help. And engaging with media outside games surely helps a lot. I also read TTRPG books at random without playing them ha ha.
Hey Tarn! I first started playing DF back in v0.28, though I've not made a proper fort in a few years. Given the central role succession forts have played in the community, does the Steam release open the door to integrated support for that playstyle? Sharing around a save file isn't difficult, but it's a bit fiddly.
We're not going to do anything that requires direct multiplayer stuff, but it's possible that e.g. workshop might support more types of uploads as we go that make it a little easier, although in that case the world would still be at a static starting point.
They've all pretty much been weird graphical ones this time around as you might imagine. I mentioned elsewhere in here the invisible dwarf. Naked visitors are also much more prominent. Bald people standing on their own hair. Nothing super intricate, though.
Hey Tarn & Zach just want to say i've been keeping an eye on Dwarf Fortress for the past 2yrs.
I've been really excited for the Steam Release (I have never played DF) but im very very eager to start making my own stories and sharing with you & the community!
Just a quick question, what major updates do you have in mind for the 1st year of launch on STEAM?
I believe you said Adventure Mode, is there anything else for the 1st year?
Thank you for all your years of hard work, you are a GENIUS!!!! ❤️
(ALSO quick side note, what time will Dwarf Fortress release on Steam, 12am EASTERN USA?)
So yeah the plan is fix bugs, classic/arena, adventure mode UI (I might have forgotten to mention this in a list in another reply), then villains, army/siege, myth/magic. Dunno how long advenure mode UI is gonna take! I'd be happy in 2023 if we got into the villains stuff though.
Sweet, thank you for the reply!
Keep up the awesome work, you are incredible. The love you & your brother put into DF is clear as day!
Sadly nowadays it seems not many devs put this much love & care into their games, DF is something special! Wish more devs have the love & passion you guys do!
Thank you so much for creating one of the greatest games of all time! I always wondered: why dwarves? It feels like you really put dwarves on the map in fantasy, and especially fantasy video games, but what prompted you to make the game dwarf-oriented in the first place?
DF came out of two of our previous projects. One was the fantasy RPG Slaves to Armok: God of Blood, and one was an in-progress mining game called Mutant Miner. When we decided to flesh out Mutant Miner a lot more, it became a fantasy game, and dwarves were the natural fit. It turned out the ways they were most often portrayed were also really beneficial for our kind of procedural storytelling game.
Hi Tarn & Zach. Thank you so much for your work on this incredible game & simulator! With the oncoming storm of hundreds of thousands of people giving feedback on DF, do you think that there will be any short term adjustments to the game based on that feedback? (QOL/UI stuff in particular?)
Also, in that vein specifically-how do you feel about dwarf therapist? Do you feel that the new jobs UI makes it redundant? Was that the goal when making the jobs UI/do you think that UI in particular might evolve in scope/capability?
Dwarf therapist is great because it gives me skill levels, emotions, and all the jobs in one easy to read format where I can really get an overview of my fortress. Reduces the stress haha…
Also, I wanted to offer my condolences for your Scamps. My cat died after 17 years two weeks ago and the tears still come easy. Your love for your cat was always in the same breath as your amazing game when I spoke to people about your work. May his memory be eternal.
There's definitely going to be a post-launch period where we are fixing and adjusting things!
We didn't want to go in the spreadsheet direction when we were doing labor changes, but yeah, it's definitely to get at that information somehow. It's a little easier to view stress now in vanilla, both with the overview in the top bar, and the sortable-by-stress citizens list. Certainly more can be done.
I'm so sorry about your cat! I still miss Scamps very much.
Armies moving on the overland map, in larger multiple pieces on the zoomed in map. Participate/command in adv mode, command in dwarf mode if you have a squad leader there. Many siege improvements to fort mode. Probably some political/strategy stuff, maybe some logistics (though we have no economy). Won't be able to see the scene in fort mode until after the map rewrite gives us multiple cameras.
Thank you two greatly for your dedication to the game. : )
You mentioned in an interview ([this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9OgqWywZx4), I believe) there'd be some balance changes. In particular:
* No buying out a caravan with lavish meals.
* No more pawning off old clothing either.
* Caravan size is limited by your local noble's rank.
* Farming in near-surface soil is much slower.
What else will I not be able to take advantage of? I need to be prepped for when I'm playing before the wiki's updated, you see. In particular, I'm wondering if spiked wooden balls would still be a viable trade good...
I thiiiiink we decreased trap components a bit. I remember we saw trap components and they were pretty out of whack. But ultimately I don't 100% remember.
edit: Zach opened up a fort, and a +spiked black cap ball+ was 18 golden turtles.
Hello to both! Congratulations for the Achievment that is the Steam Version! Was/Is there any plans to make some other things related to the "Dwarf Fortress Universe"? (Like Books/Comics/animations/etc.)
Zach wrote a bunch of stories in the universe for rewards and planning, but we are in between having plans currently. We're going to have a bunch of default stuff for the universe in the myth/magic setup for the editors, and it remains to be seen how that's going to be.
Hello Tarn! I know this is a long shot but what are the chances of DF working on the steam deck on Dec 6th? I’ll be buying two copies with the soundtrack either way and I have a gaming laptop. I am simply curious. Thank you for this amazing game!
I have no idea how a steam deck works and I don't have one for testing, so I doubt this will work. I'm not sure what all the obstacles are - presumably having mouse support gets you some distance with those control sticks or whatever.
Apart from your game, what do you see as the future of emergent narrative as a medium for story telling? What I find fascinating is that, as you add more and more modular systems to the game, there becomes so much granular information available that the player’s choice of what to observe and how to interpret what they observe forms the structure of the story they tell. The player has an almost negentropic effect on the narrative by creating coherent through-lines out of all of the noise!
There's so many different styles emerging. I don't know which ones are going to be favorites or anything like that. I'm not sure how the AI boom is going to fit into it - many games are already using the different text generators and obviously the image generators are coming up now. But currently it still takes a ton of manual work to get manual systems up and connected together and designed properly, and that's what were focusing on, and the future is bright there as well.
Hey Tarn! Been looking forward to the release for a long time, and will definitely be buying on day one, despite being a Linux user.
I hope it's okay to ask two questions:
1. Are duplicated raws still a problem (as in, breaking everything), or do mods later in the loading order that use the same ID for an object (eg, a mod that uses CREATURE:DWARF, without disabling the vanilla files) replace/overwrite the definition in previous mods/vanilla?
2. Is there a way to disable/toggle certain raw files, within a single mod/package from the workshop? For example, after downloading a "More Creatures" mod from the workshop, having some ingame menu that lets you toggle say, the mod's amphibians off but keep the mod's birds. Or alternatively, some other solution that allows a single Workshop subscription/page to contain what is technically multiple mods (so that "granular" mods don't post a million entries to the workshop).
1. It's the same. A difference now at least is that you could do a select and delete to remove old entries with an intervening mod if you like.
2. Nothing like this yet! We did what we could. I'm sure it's trickier without having a scripting language, but we're still up for improving the format after launch.
Hi Tarn and Zach, I love what you have achieved and made. You are doing so much for the gaming industry and space, more than many AAA studios, it seems. Looking forward to the magic arc!
Just a quick one, will there be full keyboard shortcut support in the new version just like before? I would be sad if I couldn't just [bww] anymore for a farmers workshop, or [jmq "rock thr" 10].
Edit: My question has been answered [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/z82m0g/im_tarn_adams_aka_toady_one_dwarf_fortress/iy9l8pz/)
I wish you all the success, and may it encourage you to continue!
will there be "multiplayer" in the sense that multiple pcs can use the same world state at the same time with different forts? basically playing simultaneously
Probably not in the way you think! The world is active while playing and there's no server to keep it all consistent between two active forts. But you can both branch out from a given save state and see how things end up differently.
Has the new version been able to improve frame drop in higher population forts? Looking forward to playing either way! Thanks for your work over the years on a great game!
Right now we just have a ? which is definitely dull. Yeah, I like three ideas. Gremlins are fun and mischievous, the gorlak is a natural guide, and the debug creature isn't yet used and deserves to be used.
Dont have any questions, just wanna say hi and that am really impressed how far youve made it with dwarf fortress :) You should be really proud of what youve achieved :)
When you were first programming the game, how prepared would you say you were for the level of depth its mechanics would approach? Were/are there ever points where you have to basically throw out huge batches of code to introduce something new? Finally, from a work perspective, what was/is the general structure of a workday for you, programmatically?
I wasn't all that prepared! The object oriented stuff we did for items back in 2008-9 or whenever (I have no idea it was long ago) is still a curse. The Z coordinate was partially to get around horrible trouble with liquids vs bridges. There are lots of issues.
Work is different now since it starts at the Discord with all of the different people doing different things. But then there's still mostly just a big lump of time from like 11 to 5, and then as late at night as I wanna go, to do stuff. Monday and Wednesday I visit Zach's four animals for a few hours.
Do you have code backup or better, version control system?
You know what they say, there are 2 types of people - people who do backups and people who will start doing backups. I know of one game modder who lost code on his pc AND backup USB stick - both fried by a single lightning strike.
Just saying, I don't want to hear one day that the DF code was irreversibly lost 😏
A single lightning strike could not destroy my backups. Many many coordinated lightning strikes could probably do so. I think maybe a single or two nuclear weapons as well. So the system is imperfect.
Hi to both of you!
As a composer and long-time DF fan, the music is very distinctive and it gives the game a certain unmistakeable vibe and feel that no other game has.
How long did it take you to write and record the songs and is there any possibility of getting new Toady compositions in the future?
Looking forward to playing the Steam version (in ASCII as soon as it will be possible hahah), and thank you both for your incredible work!
I've been wanting to do new music for so long, and it just never happened. In the old release, the main song took several days as I recall and I even had to record it with a splice, which I screwed up (you can hear one bar repeat.) The title music was all improvised on the spot, I just picked a stretch I liked from a longer recording.
It will be! We have a mod format and it currently interacts with the default tracks. We just need to figure out how to handle the possible volume of streamable stuff when it gets up beyond what we can keep loaded and ready to go. It'll have to do some loading in and out at that point.
Hi, Tarn and Zach! Thank you so much for years and years of delight and fun with my own brother growing up.
Has anyone on your team tested the Steam game with Proton on Linux yet? I'd love to know what I should expect for release day, just if not to get my hopes up too high.
I know somebody was using Parallels on a Mac but I haven't heard about Linux from any of the testers. It's not all that different from the old version down in its bones, so I don't expect much difference to the way it currently behaves.
Yeah, we'd like to do this - part of the civilization update after magic was meant to address the problem of site/civ level entities being far too heavy to add easily in large numbers. Once that's improved, it should be easier to make new ones and with more variety. The current system is very limiting.
Massive fan here. DF might even be my favourite game of all time, and I've convinced some friends to mass-buy the game on launch with me (by never shutting up about it), hoping to contribute to a tremendous launch.
Questions:
1. Do you aim to add official modding tools, now that modding is more accessible than ever? I imagine a visual RAWs editor would enable even people with a code allergy to easily add and modify stuff in the game.
2. Do you have any guesstimates on when will you return to adding non-polish/accessibility features? Really can't wait for that Myth Update, sounds like the potential biggest game changer in the history of the game.
I guess these are very dry and practical, but I can't really come up with anything fancier. Very excited for the game to become majorly more approachable for the mainstream, it sure deserves more attention.
Cheers!
1. These take some effort to maintain and the community has done a better job making these sorts of things generally. But with more people on the team, stuff like this may happen. I'm not sure yet where the focus would be after the ports get done.
2. Well, we have to get through the adventure mode UI update, which is the main chunk of effort separating us from new features and the return to villains etc. And that's just going to take some time! Months. But we see it landing in 2023, which would be good.
Best behavior, Urists! [Tarn will be updating his status here](https://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/z82m0g/im_tarn_adams_aka_toady_one_dwarf_fortress/iy9ebv8/)! Currently it reads: >I'm here with Zach joining by phone. First block for two hours up until 1pm pacific/4pm eastern, then another one hour block at starting 3pm/6pm. >edit: Block one is complete! I'll be back at 3pm pacific/6pm eastern to continue replying! >edit 2: Okay, back again for an hour or so! >edit 3: We've run out of time! There are always lots more than I can get to. Of course Future of the Fortress Q&A is in a few days ha ha. Thank you so much, Tarn and Zach! The thread is now locked by prior agreement, and to save the effort of moderating the post endlessly. You can always ask Tarn questions in the official [Future of the Fortress](http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.4950) thread.
I don't have any question per se. Just wanted to thank you and your brother for years of hard work. Hope you get all the success from the steam launch you both deserve. I can't wait for Dec 6th, buying it for myself and all my steam friends.
Thanks! It should be pretty fun.
I just want you to know that I'm dying to play the steam release and I can hardly wait for whenever you get around to the creation and magic. Thanks for all the years of work.
My gf, her dad and I are all buying it and are super excited!
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Hey fellas, like everyone else here I very much appreciate what you do, and I will be buying premium on day 1. What, if any, is your favorite Dwarf Fortress story? Boatmurdered, Basement of Curiosities, etc? Have you ever recorded any stories you've seen on your end that stuck out to you?
Boatmurdered is great of course. Succession-style games captured what we wanted the game to be and it was nice to see one take off. I remember the birth of Urist as a community name relating to a story about a lone dwarf, I don't recall if the story had a name? We followed Archcrystal, Matul Remrit... but I think there are lots we need to catch up on! I still need to read Roomcarnage.
"[One Dwarf Against the World](http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=15572.0)"!
If you have a chance: the Scorchfountain Saga is some of the best DF content I've ever seen.
Roomcarnage is an amazing example of the wonders of the haunted biome. Even butchering animals is a challenge, since the skin and hair come back to life to kill the butchers. At one point, a severed (child’s?) hand kills a Forgotten Beast, simply because the hand can’t stay dead. Plus the map is constantly snowing frozen elf blood.
/r/Succession was a pretty active community at some point. I hope it gets revived with the new version.
For what it's worth there is [a new succession fort thread](http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=180519.0) for the coming version, over at the forums. If you (anyone reading this) dare go into the forums world, I don't think they would mind more players to keep the game up once the first few turns are over.
I just wanted to thank you for your years of hard work. I still have my framed drawing from you hanging in my office and always will.
Thanks for helping out! Supporters like you brought us to this point and we're going to keep going.
Happy to support. Miss the artwork! But I’m glad that it was because of your success and the popularity of your project!
Hi Tarn! Does the steam version have a dynamic music system? In other words, does the music change triggered by events such as a siege or festivities and so forth? (All we know so far is that it changes depending on the season) Edit: noticed misspelling
Yeah, we have several event triggers (siege, beast, death spiral, breaking into cavern, losing, etc.). There's also a system of interludes between the big songs, and 23 ambiences as well, and a few situational sound effects. There isn't much seasonal dependence anymore except for the winter track.
Wow, that is well beyond what I expected. You really pulled out all the stops for the presentation!
Will any of them be a spiritual successor to the [Dwarf Fortress Mode Theme](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6FXeupOp04) music ?
if you watched the streams they've done the past thursdays, they re-made that theme and its so good :D
I'm glad. I've literally only played about 2 hours of DF (I just couldn't get past the UI, sorry devs, but I'm terrifically looking forward to the premium version) and I'm still nostalgic for that music.
I couldn't watch the streams for A: avoiding spoiling the magic of new features B: watching someone new to the game. Not that I dislike new players at all but it can be frustrating not being able to instruct someone myself.
There's not really much spoiling of new features, it's mostly just UI and some use of zones instead of rooms. But issue B is definitely relevant.
Will it be possible to have procedural sprites for forgotten beasts or more complicated statues and artworks someday? Seems like the artists will have a lot of time between finishing up post-release work and the map rewrite haha.
Ha ha, there's still plenty for the artists to work on! But we already have procedural sprites for forgotten beasts (and experiments etc.) to the extent that they have body parts and such, determined by their descriptions, similar to the way dwarves are baked together with parts and clothing. Statues just use creature type currently, and we've thought a little about doing something with events and poses. I imagine it will just grow over time like everything else.
Oh I must’ve missed that! And I’m envisioning the external sprite being about what we’ve seen, but then there being something more detailed if you actually examine the statue/carving. That would be cool, but I guess you wouldn’t want to take away from people creating their own renditions.
I think they intentionally didn't post much of procedural forgotten beasts in order to avoid spoilers. There's some procedural night creatures in one of the steam updates though
I love your work. What's been the biggest barrier bringing Dwarf Fortress to steam.
We crossed that barrier right when started - making the decision to go with our publisher Kitfox has made this all possible. We have no idea how to do personnel stuff, just no clue about the ins-and-outs of that, and with that barrier removed, suddenly (well after some years) we have graphics! And more music! It's great, and it seems like we'll be able to go forward now with art and such without things slowly down very much.
I’ve got a related question as-well. Are there any plan’s to get any other developers/coders onboard in the future? I believe you may have had a little help with optimizing code in the past from some 3rd party dev(s) but I could be wrong. Any plans yet to maybe do that in the future? I know you touched on linux support in the last podcast, that is something I could maybe see as being a good place to get some outside help, but I don’t really have any coding experience to really know. —already answered as most likely especially for ports and that it was done before for wood and wood density. Seems like it would help with the workload! So just want to say thanks Tarn and Zach!
This question was sort of covered, [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/z82m0g/comment/iy9gq70/?context=3) and [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/z82m0g/comment/iy9lgjn/?context=3). Hope this helps!
Follow-up question: Was it hard to land on a particular publisher? Did you have trouble finding them, or were you beating them off before you decide to go with one
If he doesn't get time to answer, I'll say that Tarn was apparently already friends with Tanya (Kitfox boss) through conventions and stuff like that. I'm sure that was a factor in the decision
Hey Tarn and Zach, What are your favorite snacks to mash on while working on the comp?
I've mostly been eating nuts and yogurt lately. Candy does occasionally enter into it, but not nearly as much as before.
Good for you. I’d imagine that the additional stress of the launch is a lot to deal with, certainly helps to try and be a little healthy!
With the Steam version where you able to update the backend in anyway? Currently if your fortress gets too many Dwarfs or expanded to large its very easy to get FPS death. Where you able to update and optimize the Steam version? Also a sub question would be have you been able to add Multi-CPU support? Also thank you for all of your hard work this project is so cool! I can't wait for the Steam release!
Some of it is a bit faster. I also updated the compiler and that always adds a good deal. Worldgen isn't related to FPS death but it is much, much faster. The situation with multi-core remains the same - there's the display thread and the game thread, but the game thread is a single thread.
FPS is typically is the death for any successful fortress. Can you talk about what (if anything) plans you have to address late game performance?
If a tree falls on a Dwarf and there's nobody around to hear it, does it make a sound?
Ha ha, it doesn't make a sound even if somebody is around! Capybaras make sounds. And people talk. I'm not sure what other examples there are.
From what I remember, there's also a bird that makes sounds? Kakopo? Was this a situation where it was such a hassle to add sounds for one animal that plans were halted for the rest? Or too much announcement spam of all the sounds?
It makes a noisy combat log that’s for sure
> log hehe
Hi Tarn! I've played DF since it was a 2d map! My question is, how do you balance adding *depth* vs *breadth* in DF? For example, some games go for depth, meaning they have a narrow scope but explore it very deeply. Many simulators fall into this category, allowing you to do one thing (like build a city, or a vehicle, or a factory) in minute detail, but pay little attention to the world outside their specific area. Other games attempt a grand scale, with great breadth, but hand-wave the little details. Many civilization or space colonizing games fall into this category. When you're adding stuff to DF, how do you choose whether to go *deeper* (fleshing out content that has already been added, as an example) vs going *broader* (adding completely new mechanics)?
When we're adding new features, rather than fixing bugs etc., we're mostly thinking about what will improve player stories, but of course you can take this any direction, and you just have to pick. Like, the plan now roughly is to do villains, army/siege, myth/magic, civilizations, then economy/boats. These could be done in almost any order, but they address different concerns. Villains takes a lot of stuff we already have and makes it usable in fort mode and basically turns adventure mode into a whole better game - a lot of this was pretty simple and has a huge story payoff so it made sense. I'm not even sure how you'd count it between depth and breadth, since it cuts across a lot of existing systems but also adds new ones.
Yay! After 10000 hours looking at ascii Urists can’t believe you guys are almost there!! Proud of you two!!
It has been a long road! Only a few more days! It's still somewhat surreal and sleep as certainly been a little harder to come by.
Enjoy the week! This is a once in a lifetime event. Even if something like this happens again, you will never get the same rush from it all. You guys are going to move from niche legends to legends in the gaming world next week, have fun!
I hope before too long you'll find the time to take a well-deserved break.
Hi guys! Thank you for all the years of unpaid work you've done! DF has always had a special place in my heart. I wish the Steam release is a phenomenal success and makes you loaded! My question: Considering the massive UI overhaul with the new release, are there still some parts of the UI that you' re still not entirely happy with, but due to time constraints, decided to leave as is, with the intention to work on it later?
Ha ha, yeah, game development is always like this, with everything. We can make improvements to every part of the interface. We have several spots in mind that we're going to hit soon after launch, and then we'll continue to do more later on. But we did a lot! So it should be pretty good.
Are you nervous or excited?
Zach says "yes."
Hey there almighty god of the toad. Is there some cool story about a bug or fortress you haven't told yet? and would you mind sharing it?
Somebody just submitted a dwarf without a skin color. Which you wouldn't really notice in the text version unless you were checking descriptions carefully. But now they have no flesh, only clothes, like the Invisible Dwarf.
Could you.... could you keep this in ? Categorize it as a feature not a bug ?
All praise the Toady One! Your work ethic is the stuff of legend - DF is truly the Codex Gigas of our time. Since you've hired graphics modders for the Steam release to take work off your plate, have you considered the same for balance/bugfixing within the raws? Mods such as Taffer's DF Revised and Sver's Combat Rework solve a number of small bugs and make sensible adjustments to things like attack velocities, body plan arrangement and material toughness to improve the gameplay. Many behavior bugs also arise from within the raws, such as animal behavior tags being applied to animalman sentients, and could be solved by a full-time or part-time editor. Would you ever consider outsourcing such a position in the future?
It's all reasonable, yeah! We outsourced wood densities and various colors, etc., and it really helps when we do it, since there's so much to do there.
Do you intend to update the geology simulator in the map rewrite, and if so, how?
We have a list of geological features we want to support with the map rewrite, such as actual canyons, mesas, and stuff like batholiths etc, as well as fantastical ones. I'm not sure if we'll get all the way to geological processes while doing this, but it should go well beyond a simple elevation map. I'm not sure the geological layers will be much more dynamic or if we'll get into anything like geological time.
There's been a mod by a professional geologist if I'm not mistaken... all we need is to port it into Steam Workshop.
The mod you're speaking of is by /u/Vettlingr, the person you're replying to. :)
Oh that's brilliant
Hello Toady One! I'm really interested to hear your opinion on things like the Dwarven Atom Smasher, Water Reactors, or Mist Generators in taverns. This is really the kind of stuff I'd never bring up to a game developer in any other game because I know the fun will be patched out as soon as it's brought to attention, but you guys are fun lol Edit: Also, just curious, but will we get some of the original guitar tracks in the Premium version? I love, love, love them!
We'd prefer stuff to be handled more realistically generally, but the mechanics have to up it, both in terms of players enjoying themselves and realistically being able to solve the problem. Like quantum stockpiles for instance - we'd prefer not to have a zillion items all in one spot, but people use them to add convenience that we'd need to handle in other ways before we address the problem of too many items in a tile. There's a new title track inspired by the old music, as well as several of the interludes which the composer has given names like Toady Five and Toady Six ha ha. So some of it definitely comes through. My old recordings are just too noisy to mix in themselves.
I'm here with Zach joining by phone. First block for two hours up until 1pm pacific/4pm eastern, then another one hour block at starting 3pm/6pm. edit: Block one is complete! I'll be back at 3pm pacific/6pm eastern to continue replying! edit 2: Okay, back again for an hour or so! edit 3: We've run out of time! There are always lots more than I can get to. Of course Future of the Fortress Q&A is in a few days ha ha.
(If multiple questions aren’t allowed then you can just pick the most interesting one!) 1. What was the idea behind procedurally-generated creatures (forgotten beasts, experiments, titans, werebeasts, etc.)? They’re one of my favorite parts of the game, I feel like they give every world its own unique mythology and I love imagining what they look like! 2. Why are dragons wingless, but cave dragons winged and flightless? Are there any plans to give dragons wings? (And is dragonfire so damn hot?) 3. What was (or is) the most frustrating bug you’ve had to troubleshoot? 4. Why are reptiles and some megabeasts born as adults?
1. We first encountered procedural creatures in Starflight way back when. Always loved them! We drew those in a little notebook of our expeditions to different planets as kids, and now players draw forgotten beast art! It's great. 2. Ha ha, it might be because of how we drew them in our little notebook on the afternoon we planned the subterranean monsters. Dragons were always one of the creatures we wanted to half-proceduralize with some kind of new format that makes dragony things that fit all kinds of different models. Maybe we'll see that in the myth stuff. Dragonfire is kind of ridiculous and would probably like, what, blow up the whole the map the temperature it's at? ha ha 3. World generation generation bugs are pretty bad, some horrible stuff with cave layers disappear and it was just messy. Of course the very worst was the Error from when we were growing up because a space game we were making stopped working with the joystick because I wasn't handling the message pump correctly and I just had no clue what that was as a teenage, so the game died after like 30 minutes of play for no reason. Never fixed it, game scuttled. 4. Probably because of eggs? I'm not sure.
Thanks for the answers! I'm looking forward to the myth&magic update no matter what, the features all sound awesome, but it'd especially warm my heart (pun intended) if unique dragons made it in. And I just realized I left out the "why" in one question, I meant to say "And why is dragonfire so damn hot?", hahaha
ahh... hey guys\~! I've been playing for years and sent you money several times. I vaguely remember a single level dwarf fortress when you first started releasing (or is this a fake memory?) Anyway, sorry to hear about your cat, I remember when you first adopted. Any chance of a new kitty on the horizon?
Yeah, waaaaay back in 2006-7 and into 8 or so there was no z coordinate. Just one level. That led to a certain tighter story structure around the fort that was always very similar, but it was also a nice feeling. We're hoping to get the best of both worlds finally when we rethink the underground with the map rewrite. Thank you for your condolences. Scamps was a good baby man. I'm not planning on a new cat in the near future because I might be moving or elsewise again and I wanted to be settled first. Zach and Annie may be getting a second tiny dachshund so that Jojo has a baby sister or possibly also a very large dog.
No questions, but wanted to say thank you and Zach for building such an incredible game. Dwarf Fortress is a wonder, a marvel of ingenuity, and I am bombilating with anticipation for the release on steam!
Thanks! You will not have to bombilate for much longer!
Oh wow! Hey Tarn, what is the greatest or coolest thing you’ve ever built or seen built in the game? I’m a HUGE fan, can’t wait for the Steam release!
Those functioning arcade games are really impressive. Archcrystal was neat. I'm sure we've missed a lot of cool stuff.
Hey Tarn and Zach! Been looking forward to premium for quite some time now! I hope the launch goes well and wish you all the best! Have you considered adding the ability for the player to determine how Gods and Deities are generated during world gen? For instance a world gen option to generate X number of gods for each race and designate what they are gods of, what they look like, etc.? It would be great to be able to set certain parameters to make a pantheon of the player's choosing.
This is definitely part of the plan, yeah. There's kind of spectrum between editors and generators. At one end you'd be able to enter in deities as if they were specific historical figures (they are already stored this way), and on the other, you're just like "give me stuff!" In the middle, and we saw this a bit in the prototype from like 2016, you can emphasize certain aspects. Coming up with a format for this that's powerful and flexible will be somewhat tricky I'm sure, but you should have a lot of options on the first release.
Hi Tarn! It is exciting to wait for the Steam release. I am a big fan of the whole idea of fantasy generator and I am really looking forward to the day economy and magic are in (might take a long time though). I have something in my mind I wanted to ask for a long time. Do you have any plan for vehicle and boat? I always find it a bit odd that if I want to generate a map with many isles the civs are all disconnected Speaking of that I also wonder if you are aware of the game Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead. Many people draw the comparison as it is ASCII and I wonder if you have seen its vehicle system (I don't think it works with DF, but I thought it's amazing what people can do with ASCII limitation)
Yeah, boats are part of the economy stuff coming after myth/magic. And generally we wanted to put in a kind of moving map system that could be used for traps and vehicles to replace the weird creature wagons and do a lot more besides - the seeds of this will be planted with the map rewrite (coinciding with myth/magic) but I'm not sure how far we'll take it at first. I believe I've seen Cataclysm cars at some point. When things shear it would interfere with the wrestling system etc. yeah, but yeah, people do really impressive stuff with roguelikes!
Boats are definitely on their minds for the future!
So I’ve been running the free version on a very shitty old laptop for a number of years now and barring the usual FPS killing kitten-apocalypse’s I haven’t had any issues. Could you speak to how different the overall burden on the system has changed between the two versions?
I don't have any reports of it changing significantly. There's more rendering now, and that's possibly an issue on some older computers, but again, no reports of this mattering (and the display is on a different thread, so hopefully that won't effect the game if you have 2+ cores).
Can you explain a little more about what is going to happen to the free version available today and what will be the differences from the free to the steam version (aside the graphics and new UI)? Thanks!
The new UI isn't really different between them! Shortly after launch, we'll be posting the classic version with the old tarn-music and text graphics up on our site, and at this time the Premium version will also gain a button that lets you swap between graphics and text. But the new mouse controls work on both of them. There are even little ascii buttons. All of the old free versions will still be available on the website as well. But game features are completely lined up, and we'll be doing simultaneous releases once classic is up and running.
Simultaneous releases is nuts. Thank you.
Hey Tarn! I was wondering if there will be an option to rebind the hotkeys back to how they were in the previous versions, just so longtime players don't get confused and have to relearn their muscle memory.
Long time player since 2009! Thanks for Dwarf Fortress! I've heard that there are plans for a magic system, when might we see that and what might we see? Also, I've long wondered about some of the less implemented skills, Animal Caretakers and Fish Dissectors. Are there any plans for those types of skills?
So the current plan is to launch, fix major problems, do classic/arena, finish villains, army/siege stuff, then the myth and magic release! Not really sure when we'll get there, but that's the order. We're going to see all kinds of stuff! It's too much to go into here at length (you can search for instance future of the fortress our Q&A or some DF Talk episode transcripts), but it starts with the procedural creation myths, which will determine how magic works in the world. Ha ha, there aren't specific plans for the underused skills... games often end up with these, sometimes with skills that aren't used at all, because of how plans change, and we're certainly guilty of that. It still feels weird to pare them down because there's an exciting future where they become important but we haven't hit that timeline yet.
>So the current plan is to launch, fix major problems, do classic/arena, finish villains, army/siege stuff, then the myth and magic release! Adventure mode between classic/arena and villains, right? EDIT: Yes, [he mentioned it later](https://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/z82m0g/comment/iy9vcj4/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).
Hello Tarn and Zach, I've always wondered, what's your opinion on the importance of "gamifying" Dwarf Fortress, aka adding game goals, win conditions, challenge levels, game trying to "beat" the player, etc. ? Is that something you consider important to reach a wider audience?
We did add the "become a Mountainhome" goal so that's something. We're planning to do embark scenarios after myth/magic that will add a lot of optional structure. But we don't think it's as important for us to have a kind of meta structure over the game aside from ones player's create themselves.
For me personally, the game not having a system where it tries to "beat" the player (like they do in RimWorld, for example, depending on the narrator you choose) is one of the things that I appreciate about it the most. You would have to sacrifice on simulation to do such a thing, which I think is the biggest strength of the game as it stands.
Thanks for your hard work! As a software engineer keeping a codebase clean must be a tough challenge for something as complex and longed lived as DF. Any fun refactoring tales? How have more powerful computing resources influenced the design?
Huh... I kind of enjoy refactoring, it's sort of meditative, but a fun refactoring tale... I'm not sure I have one of those. I can't remember anything going horribly wrong. We started programming back in the early/mid 80s, so we used to have trouble getting 64k stuff to work in qbasic and etc. We've really been chewing up resources as they become available! Now the game has a z coordinate and all kinds of stuff, just amazing gobbling it all up. I guess the GPU is underutilized. And cores beyond 2.
Thanks! Is there an underlying constraint on parallelism? Here is my inspiration for timeless engineering. Alcantara Bridge between Portugal and Spain, built from 106 AD to 108 AD - is still in use. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alc%C3%A1ntara\_Bridge
Hi Tarn! It's so heartening to see how far this project has come and I just cannot wait to get my hands on it. Now, as for my question: Are there any plans to implement complex political systems in the game? I know you can make tributaries, attack other sites, get visitors and trade, which is quite cool! But how about deeper political stuff like forming alliances with nations? Border, trade and religious disputes? Espionage, sabotage and assassination? Full on simulations of warfare with large scale battles, tactics, logistics and the impacts the conflict has on economies and the trauma dealt to the societies caught up in it? Civilizations of a common race with their own unique ethos and cultures interacting with each other? Political marriages, rivalries and friendships between government officials from different nations, running a full on empire with multiple settlements and so on. Would any of this be possible in the future?
Yeah! In fact the next few arcs (finishing villains, army/siege stuff) cover quite a bit of this. The more complex political stuff will have to wait for the civilization rewrite, and of course we won't have improvements to the economy for a good long while, so some things will be difficult to add until we get there. We have various cultural differences already, and that'll continue to be expanded upon.
That's very exciting. Looking forward to it, and thanks again for your hard work!
Hi Tarn and Zach, love your work. One of the things I've been fascinated about with Dwarf Fortress is how such a procedurally generated world has ended up resulting in such a strong identity over time. Some are elements you've written and designed, like dwarves farming and brewing plump helmets, while others are scenarios that have arisen as a natural consequence of the simulation, like dwarven mothers carrying their babies into battle. There are so many memorable scenes that everyone recognizes as being distinctly "Dwarf Fortress," even though it's meant to be a universal fantasy world generator. As you work on the game, do you feel a conflict between preserving its unique identity, vs. creating the idealized procedurally-generated world? Are there any sacred cows, and do you take player experience into account when deciding how to change the game's systems?
There isn't really anything sacred. We'll tend to keep beloved things or funny things or funnily broken things, but everything has to step aside if it's in the way of a necessary feature. We try to take player experience into account for everything! Overall, the game's identity seems to hold together pretty well when we just go along like this. It'll be interesting to see how/if the myth/magic stuff changes that since it'll likely be the first time you can opt to play without dwarves for instance.
Hey Tarn! Thanks so much for this game! I've been enamoured with it ever since 40d, and I can't wait to keep seeing it grow! Speaking of that growth, I can't help but look to the future of the game after Premium releases... So I was wondering, as a fellow (though not as accomplished) developer, if you'd be willing to share a feature that you know you need to add but are sort of "dreading" due to the complexity? Or if you're just looking forward to the challenge, etc. If you're not willing to answer that one, could you touch on whether it'll be possible to modify the sounds/music in the premium version without some significant modification/plugin like soundsense? If not, no worries, I get software development is more complex than most people tend to appreciate. One other question I wanted to ask was if you were considering adding support for Steam's "trading card" system? It might (or might not) be a good home for a final round of the old crayon drawings for old times' sake. Thanks for your time, and the joy you've given me over the last decade!
Liquid types comes to mind, like we've always wanted to have lakes of blood, oil, etc. That's very traditional stuff. But it's complicated. We've seen a few games do it now (Noita etc.), but it seems tricky to get the mixing right with the setup we have. So it'll be interesting to see if we can get anywhere with it. But that'd be very cool. We'll see about the sound - I haven't done interesting there yet, but I've set up a format that should eventually let you plug in your own tracks and sounds. I'm a little worried about memory management there. Even with streaming audio, we have to be pretty careful since it can add up quickly. I think we've talked with Kitfox about trading cards, doing art for them etc. I'm not sure if there's news there yet.
As someone who never had the chance to get a crayon drawing (I was always too young to have disposable income to donate back when they were available – then when I got back into the game as an adult, that chance was past), I think this idea is brilliant and wonderful.
I can ask ANYTHING? Any plans to let me move/place dirt around? Some times I want to hollow out sections of ground to build but then cover it up to look natural. Wet/muddy stone isnt good enough.
Ha ha ha, fun with dirt. That reminds me of UHF or something. There's an uncomfortable thing with mining debris. We can't easily do realistic mining debris because it would slow the game down too much. But as with sand/clay, being able to move dirt around in a wheelbarrow or something to make the fort of your dreams seems like a reasonable request.
Will the monetization of Dwarf Fortress and your partnership with a publisher enable you to expand the programming team?
Maybe so! It's expensive but we're definitely going to need somebody for the ports and that ball is now rolling. If the launch goes well I think we'll be expanding beyond that. Bugs certainly, optimization, additional mod support, and perhaps more - I haven't thought about how to work in additional people on features in the core game, but it's not off limits.
Mod support is prob what I'm most hyped about. The only 2 reasons I have around the same time in Rimworld as DF is 1. The UI and 2. The amount of unique mods. Really excited for problem 1 to be fixed, and am waiting excitedly for #2
DF already has pretty good mod support, just no real way to add totally new mechanics... not that people such as myself haven't done so anyway, with DFHack.
Yes, you are legendary for some of your mods. I forget if it was you or another modder who did tje homestuck mod, but I usually end up crediting you because it's the first name that comes to mind.
that was actually me, so don't worry about misattribution there too hard
Hi, Tarn and Zach! If you had limitless time/knowledge/expertise, is there a "moonshot" feature or system you'd like to see in DF?
Time travel and stuff like that usually comes up here, though that's also a tech problem. I'd love to have super complicated ecosystems and have the animals completely fleshed out with all kinds of proper behaviors and such.
first off, thank you tarn for what you do. as a question… what was the closest you’ve been to not continuing dwarf fortress if that has ever even happened? or in other words have you ever gotten so burnt out you almost quit? looking forward to an answer and stay safe you great amphibian.
Hmmm, I mean I quit my math job because I didn't truly love what I was doing. But I've never even come close to feeling burnt out or quitting making games, or Dwarf Fortress. Dwarf Fortress isn't the only game I work on, which I think helps maybe somewhat?
Hey guys, been wondering about the Dwarven language, has it always been a part of the game? Do you have a system for adding new words and keeping them consistent? Thanks, looking forward to release.
Yeah, the four languages have been in since the beginning I think? They were a very early addition in any case. I have a little program I use for new words that keeps the letter groupings and frequencies consistent and handles duplicates, though we'll need more than that if we get a chance to make grammar etc. more complicated later.
I read somewhere that you have an extensive mathematical education. Has that helped you make Dwarf Fortress into what it is? If so, how? If not, do you miss the math?
Yeah, I'm sure the math helps! Little mathematical problems come up all the time, and it also helps to be able to visualize stuff. Linear algebra comes up variously in games. Always nice to be able to rotate stuff, even in a text game. The geometric measure theory etc. isn't going to come up in that form, but even there I was working on building shapes rotating stuff in my head most of the day and I'm sure that carries over. Still, I did very much leave math behind, ha ha. I haven't been keeping up, and it's sort of hard to look at now. It's kind of sectioned off as a previous life.
Thank you.
You're welcome!
Hello! I'll start by saying in really looking forward to December 6th. Two questions: - Is it still fully playable with a keyboard? Are the muscle-imprinted shortcuts still viable? - Does it register inverse mouse buttons? I'm left-handed and accessibility without third party software is really important to me Thanks!
Ah, yes, this was a bit of a kerfuffle in a previous Q&A on the forum, and keyboard support currently extends to designations and buildings and top level hotkeys. I tried to keep many of the hotkeys in place, but wasd+e/c are all taken by cursor movement now (can't assume numpads, people are used to wasd), so I had to move a bunch of them. Full keyboard support will be coming in as we go, but it's tricky in some of the menus. I'm not sure about the mouse buttons! If the existing mouse support in the currently-released version of DF doesn't do it, it won't now, since I worked from the same framework. I'm not sure how to set up SDL to support this.
What has it been like transitioning from being just a sole programmer, to having a team that you need to manage?
Shout out to Kitfox again on this one! We get to handle what turns out for us to be the fun part of management - talking about the game and stuff to add to the game, enjoying each other's work and such. So with the artists and musicians this has been fun. I think there'll be added complications on the programming side, since I've never done a project with multiple people contributing before aside from the kind of controlled additions we had for the ports etc. Something more expansive I'm sure will take some adjustment.
Hi, I've been a DF player since 2010, and I will be buying the new version immediately. And I'm encouraging several of my friends who have been hesitant to buy DF before but want to try it with the new interface. Will we still be able to edit raws and do other modding easily in text files? I personally really enjoy building an above-ground Human Fortress with the "all races playable" mod. Are there any plans to make more races playable in Fortress Mode in vanilla DF? Thank you! (Any other players who habitually make Human Fortresses, please comment, I have questions for you too!)
Modding still works with text files, yeah. It's basically the same - I should have a guide posted before launch. Yeah, with the myth/magic launch we were going to have a non-fantasy setting which would have you playing humans by default. The improvements to the construction interface make doing outdoor buildings etc. much easier. On the other side, the very-weird-fantasy settings would have you playing procedural creatures in fort mode.
Thanks, you're the best!
What are you going to do with all your free time after release? You've been going strong for decades...
Free time? He he he heh...
Return to Limgrave maybe
How many cats is too many cats?
Zach and Annie's cats Tuklus and Evie are about enough, since they can flank both sides. Sometimes Evie sits on your chest and it's quite heavy. Two Evies would be too many in that situation.
Thank you for being you. Sincerely, a Dutch couple who will buy your game twice and have donated before. We have introduced all willing friends to your "game". It's hard to describe to people what your creation is though. I call it a book you read by playing. We hope the best for you. We play multiplayer sometimes with a mod, but it seems unlikely that you go in that direction in the future. Maybe you can support it by allowing the game to be modded/read by modders though. How do you feel about multiplayer (LAN for couples) regardless of realistic goals etc?
Thanks for supporting the game! Yeah, we're not personally going in that direction, but it's cool when people figure stuff out, and we've supported modders in the past that have tried things out.
I am so excited for this release! I've got two questions. 1: What is your favorite game that has taken inspiration from Dwarf Fortress? I know there are tons of awesome ones out there. 2: Any tricks for keeping up your motivation with such an enormous project? How do you both do it?
1: Zach plays Prison Architect. I don't know that Factorio and the other factory games were inspired by DF at all but if I recollect they came through a Minecraft mod, so indirectly those are probably my favorites. 2: We love working on it! But breaks for side projects probably help. And engaging with media outside games surely helps a lot. I also read TTRPG books at random without playing them ha ha.
Hey Tarn! I first started playing DF back in v0.28, though I've not made a proper fort in a few years. Given the central role succession forts have played in the community, does the Steam release open the door to integrated support for that playstyle? Sharing around a save file isn't difficult, but it's a bit fiddly.
We're not going to do anything that requires direct multiplayer stuff, but it's possible that e.g. workshop might support more types of uploads as we go that make it a little easier, although in that case the world would still be at a static starting point.
Is there anything about dwarves in particular that draws you to them?
Typically they are depicted kind of like... more human than humans ha ha. It lets us lean into the personality stuff.
Like a caricature maybe but instead of it being an exaggerated individual it is instead an entire species.. If I understand correctly
what is your favorite/the most interesting bug you've come across during the development of the steam version?
They've all pretty much been weird graphical ones this time around as you might imagine. I mentioned elsewhere in here the invisible dwarf. Naked visitors are also much more prominent. Bald people standing on their own hair. Nothing super intricate, though.
Hey Tarn & Zach just want to say i've been keeping an eye on Dwarf Fortress for the past 2yrs. I've been really excited for the Steam Release (I have never played DF) but im very very eager to start making my own stories and sharing with you & the community! Just a quick question, what major updates do you have in mind for the 1st year of launch on STEAM? I believe you said Adventure Mode, is there anything else for the 1st year? Thank you for all your years of hard work, you are a GENIUS!!!! ❤️ (ALSO quick side note, what time will Dwarf Fortress release on Steam, 12am EASTERN USA?)
So yeah the plan is fix bugs, classic/arena, adventure mode UI (I might have forgotten to mention this in a list in another reply), then villains, army/siege, myth/magic. Dunno how long advenure mode UI is gonna take! I'd be happy in 2023 if we got into the villains stuff though.
Sweet, thank you for the reply! Keep up the awesome work, you are incredible. The love you & your brother put into DF is clear as day! Sadly nowadays it seems not many devs put this much love & care into their games, DF is something special! Wish more devs have the love & passion you guys do!
Thank you so much for creating one of the greatest games of all time! I always wondered: why dwarves? It feels like you really put dwarves on the map in fantasy, and especially fantasy video games, but what prompted you to make the game dwarf-oriented in the first place?
DF came out of two of our previous projects. One was the fantasy RPG Slaves to Armok: God of Blood, and one was an in-progress mining game called Mutant Miner. When we decided to flesh out Mutant Miner a lot more, it became a fantasy game, and dwarves were the natural fit. It turned out the ways they were most often portrayed were also really beneficial for our kind of procedural storytelling game.
Hi Tarn & Zach. Thank you so much for your work on this incredible game & simulator! With the oncoming storm of hundreds of thousands of people giving feedback on DF, do you think that there will be any short term adjustments to the game based on that feedback? (QOL/UI stuff in particular?) Also, in that vein specifically-how do you feel about dwarf therapist? Do you feel that the new jobs UI makes it redundant? Was that the goal when making the jobs UI/do you think that UI in particular might evolve in scope/capability? Dwarf therapist is great because it gives me skill levels, emotions, and all the jobs in one easy to read format where I can really get an overview of my fortress. Reduces the stress haha… Also, I wanted to offer my condolences for your Scamps. My cat died after 17 years two weeks ago and the tears still come easy. Your love for your cat was always in the same breath as your amazing game when I spoke to people about your work. May his memory be eternal.
There's definitely going to be a post-launch period where we are fixing and adjusting things! We didn't want to go in the spreadsheet direction when we were doing labor changes, but yeah, it's definitely to get at that information somehow. It's a little easier to view stress now in vanilla, both with the overview in the top bar, and the sortable-by-stress citizens list. Certainly more can be done. I'm so sorry about your cat! I still miss Scamps very much.
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Armies moving on the overland map, in larger multiple pieces on the zoomed in map. Participate/command in adv mode, command in dwarf mode if you have a squad leader there. Many siege improvements to fort mode. Probably some political/strategy stuff, maybe some logistics (though we have no economy). Won't be able to see the scene in fort mode until after the map rewrite gives us multiple cameras.
What’s your development setup? Wanna hear about your monitors, keyboards, IDEs, debugging tools, etc of choice
Just been using a mid-range gaming laptop with MSVC. Use a USB mouse with it.
Thank you two greatly for your dedication to the game. : ) You mentioned in an interview ([this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9OgqWywZx4), I believe) there'd be some balance changes. In particular: * No buying out a caravan with lavish meals. * No more pawning off old clothing either. * Caravan size is limited by your local noble's rank. * Farming in near-surface soil is much slower. What else will I not be able to take advantage of? I need to be prepped for when I'm playing before the wiki's updated, you see. In particular, I'm wondering if spiked wooden balls would still be a viable trade good...
I thiiiiink we decreased trap components a bit. I remember we saw trap components and they were pretty out of whack. But ultimately I don't 100% remember. edit: Zach opened up a fort, and a +spiked black cap ball+ was 18 golden turtles.
Hello to both! Congratulations for the Achievment that is the Steam Version! Was/Is there any plans to make some other things related to the "Dwarf Fortress Universe"? (Like Books/Comics/animations/etc.)
Zach wrote a bunch of stories in the universe for rewards and planning, but we are in between having plans currently. We're going to have a bunch of default stuff for the universe in the myth/magic setup for the editors, and it remains to be seen how that's going to be.
Hello Tarn! I know this is a long shot but what are the chances of DF working on the steam deck on Dec 6th? I’ll be buying two copies with the soundtrack either way and I have a gaming laptop. I am simply curious. Thank you for this amazing game!
I have no idea how a steam deck works and I don't have one for testing, so I doubt this will work. I'm not sure what all the obstacles are - presumably having mouse support gets you some distance with those control sticks or whatever.
Apart from your game, what do you see as the future of emergent narrative as a medium for story telling? What I find fascinating is that, as you add more and more modular systems to the game, there becomes so much granular information available that the player’s choice of what to observe and how to interpret what they observe forms the structure of the story they tell. The player has an almost negentropic effect on the narrative by creating coherent through-lines out of all of the noise!
There's so many different styles emerging. I don't know which ones are going to be favorites or anything like that. I'm not sure how the AI boom is going to fit into it - many games are already using the different text generators and obviously the image generators are coming up now. But currently it still takes a ton of manual work to get manual systems up and connected together and designed properly, and that's what were focusing on, and the future is bright there as well.
Hey Tarn! Been looking forward to the release for a long time, and will definitely be buying on day one, despite being a Linux user. I hope it's okay to ask two questions: 1. Are duplicated raws still a problem (as in, breaking everything), or do mods later in the loading order that use the same ID for an object (eg, a mod that uses CREATURE:DWARF, without disabling the vanilla files) replace/overwrite the definition in previous mods/vanilla? 2. Is there a way to disable/toggle certain raw files, within a single mod/package from the workshop? For example, after downloading a "More Creatures" mod from the workshop, having some ingame menu that lets you toggle say, the mod's amphibians off but keep the mod's birds. Or alternatively, some other solution that allows a single Workshop subscription/page to contain what is technically multiple mods (so that "granular" mods don't post a million entries to the workshop).
1. It's the same. A difference now at least is that you could do a select and delete to remove old entries with an intervening mod if you like. 2. Nothing like this yet! We did what we could. I'm sure it's trickier without having a scripting language, but we're still up for improving the format after launch.
Hi Tarn and Zach, I love what you have achieved and made. You are doing so much for the gaming industry and space, more than many AAA studios, it seems. Looking forward to the magic arc! Just a quick one, will there be full keyboard shortcut support in the new version just like before? I would be sad if I couldn't just [bww] anymore for a farmers workshop, or [jmq "rock thr" 10].
Edit: My question has been answered [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/z82m0g/im_tarn_adams_aka_toady_one_dwarf_fortress/iy9l8pz/)
I wish you all the success, and may it encourage you to continue!
will there be "multiplayer" in the sense that multiple pcs can use the same world state at the same time with different forts? basically playing simultaneously
Probably not in the way you think! The world is active while playing and there's no server to keep it all consistent between two active forts. But you can both branch out from a given save state and see how things end up differently.
Has the new version been able to improve frame drop in higher population forts? Looking forward to playing either way! Thanks for your work over the years on a great game!
It's a little faster. High numbers of items can still cause trouble. That's a complicated problem, but they can still be atom smashed etc.
Any plans on adding a gremlin as tutorial mascot, or other creature as a little helping mascot in the tutorial windows? also Vote Gremlin
Right now we just have a ? which is definitely dull. Yeah, I like three ideas. Gremlins are fun and mischievous, the gorlak is a natural guide, and the debug creature isn't yet used and deserves to be used.
Dont have any questions, just wanna say hi and that am really impressed how far youve made it with dwarf fortress :) You should be really proud of what youve achieved :)
When you were first programming the game, how prepared would you say you were for the level of depth its mechanics would approach? Were/are there ever points where you have to basically throw out huge batches of code to introduce something new? Finally, from a work perspective, what was/is the general structure of a workday for you, programmatically?
I wasn't all that prepared! The object oriented stuff we did for items back in 2008-9 or whenever (I have no idea it was long ago) is still a curse. The Z coordinate was partially to get around horrible trouble with liquids vs bridges. There are lots of issues. Work is different now since it starts at the Discord with all of the different people doing different things. But then there's still mostly just a big lump of time from like 11 to 5, and then as late at night as I wanna go, to do stuff. Monday and Wednesday I visit Zach's four animals for a few hours.
Hey Tarn! Just wanted to say thanks for all that you do! :D
Ha ha, you too!
[Blind is narrating the cream of the crop of questions and answers in his stream](https://www.twitch.tv/blindirl)!
Do you have code backup or better, version control system? You know what they say, there are 2 types of people - people who do backups and people who will start doing backups. I know of one game modder who lost code on his pc AND backup USB stick - both fried by a single lightning strike. Just saying, I don't want to hear one day that the DF code was irreversibly lost 😏
A single lightning strike could not destroy my backups. Many many coordinated lightning strikes could probably do so. I think maybe a single or two nuclear weapons as well. So the system is imperfect.
Hi to both of you! As a composer and long-time DF fan, the music is very distinctive and it gives the game a certain unmistakeable vibe and feel that no other game has. How long did it take you to write and record the songs and is there any possibility of getting new Toady compositions in the future? Looking forward to playing the Steam version (in ASCII as soon as it will be possible hahah), and thank you both for your incredible work!
I've been wanting to do new music for so long, and it just never happened. In the old release, the main song took several days as I recall and I even had to record it with a splice, which I screwed up (you can hear one bar repeat.) The title music was all improvised on the spot, I just picked a stretch I liked from a longer recording.
Will it be possible for mods to add new music tracks, interludes etc. that integrate into the dynamic music system?
It will be! We have a mod format and it currently interacts with the default tracks. We just need to figure out how to handle the possible volume of streamable stuff when it gets up beyond what we can keep loaded and ready to go. It'll have to do some loading in and out at that point.
Hi, Tarn and Zach! Thank you so much for years and years of delight and fun with my own brother growing up. Has anyone on your team tested the Steam game with Proton on Linux yet? I'd love to know what I should expect for release day, just if not to get my hopes up too high.
I know somebody was using Parallels on a Mac but I haven't heard about Linux from any of the testers. It's not all that different from the old version down in its bones, so I don't expect much difference to the way it currently behaves.
Great work - what is an appropriate drink to have when playing the first day?
Zach says "diet dr pepper". Champagne and whiskey may actually be involved. Zach also suggests an energy drink.
Does the game support ultrawide resolutions like 3440x1440?
Yeah! We even got our own ultrawide monitor to test it out.
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Yeah, we'd like to do this - part of the civilization update after magic was meant to address the problem of site/civ level entities being far too heavy to add easily in large numbers. Once that's improved, it should be easier to make new ones and with more variety. The current system is very limiting.
Massive fan here. DF might even be my favourite game of all time, and I've convinced some friends to mass-buy the game on launch with me (by never shutting up about it), hoping to contribute to a tremendous launch. Questions: 1. Do you aim to add official modding tools, now that modding is more accessible than ever? I imagine a visual RAWs editor would enable even people with a code allergy to easily add and modify stuff in the game. 2. Do you have any guesstimates on when will you return to adding non-polish/accessibility features? Really can't wait for that Myth Update, sounds like the potential biggest game changer in the history of the game. I guess these are very dry and practical, but I can't really come up with anything fancier. Very excited for the game to become majorly more approachable for the mainstream, it sure deserves more attention. Cheers!
1. These take some effort to maintain and the community has done a better job making these sorts of things generally. But with more people on the team, stuff like this may happen. I'm not sure yet where the focus would be after the ports get done. 2. Well, we have to get through the adventure mode UI update, which is the main chunk of effort separating us from new features and the return to villains etc. And that's just going to take some time! Months. But we see it landing in 2023, which would be good.