from the games-that-make-it-look-like-you-are-working dept.
Dwarf Fortress, the free ASCII fantasy world simulator and rogue-like game will soon be getting a new version after a two-year development cycle. The long-awaited new version is slated to be released next July according to its developers.
The game has been in constant development for the past 11 years and its developers, "Toady One" and "Threetoe", have been living solely on fan donations since its initial public release in 2006.
A comprehensive list of the changes and additions has been compiled by the community and can be found on Google docs. The list includes long-awaited features such as multi-tile trees (that will hopefully still grow over time), people (and dwarves) of the world having long-term goals and dreams as well as a complete combat and dialog system rewrite.
All these features will contribute to make this accurate fantasy world simulator even more realistic... and possibly even more complicated to play.
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Furthermore, since we don't log IP addresses in access.log, and IP's run through Slash are turned into IPIDs, its hard to get an idea of where our userbase is (the general feeling is the vast majority of us are based in the United States, but even then, that's more because our peak hours of traffic are between 4 and 10 PM EST). We've wanted to get a better idea of what our traffic and userbase are, so we're asking permission from the community to install piWik, and embed its javascript tag in the footer of each page, which will give us a wide berth of solid information to work from.
(Score: 2) by MozeeToby on Thursday June 05 2014, @01:35PM
Sad to see so few changes to fortress mode. I haven't really played much since the last update came out (mine carts, wheelbarrows, and massive movement penalties for not using them seemed a bit too daunting) but it was always fun to see what the procedural stuff came up with. The game's rules are loosely defined enough and complex enough that a lot of random, unexpected things can happen; which is pretty incredible for a one person effort, even if the graphics leave an awful lot to be desired.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Marneus68 on Thursday June 05 2014, @01:40PM
A lot of changes are made to the fortress mode too, namely, the hill dwarves mechanic (which is something I never really liked, but there it is) that connects your fortress to the outside world, thus making the moving armies, other sites and and inter-species relations tied in to the fortress.
We'll see more news once the acutual build is out.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday June 05 2014, @02:47PM
It's right there in the summary. Unless the guy has multiple personalities?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday June 05 2014, @02:52PM
And according to Wikipedia, "The game is programmed solely by developer Tarn Adams, with input from his brother Zach Adams."
Hmm.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Informative) by pbnjoe on Thursday June 05 2014, @03:14PM
Yeah, Tarn does all the programming, and Zach brainstorms ideas to put into the game (and also makes donation rewards) with Tarn, but doesn't touch the keyboard.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Thursday June 05 2014, @04:37PM
Threetoe helps build the world to my understanding, for instance, he's the one who decided elves should be friends of nature, and thus not accept wood products in trade, but have no issues eating the bodies of their dead enemies.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Thursday June 05 2014, @02:55PM
Urist McNCommander Cancels: Manage SoylentNews: New Update of Dwarf Fortress
Seriously ..., I do love that game, I even have recently started a DF2012 fort which is at war with the elves, had a human "diety" visit, and have managed to flood part of my basement. Perhaps if there are enough players here we should setup a succession/bloodline game?
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by The Archon V2.0 on Thursday June 05 2014, @02:58PM
Soylentmurdered?
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Thursday June 05 2014, @03:12PM
We should mod the game to create newspapers (created from velium) as our chief export :-)
Still always moving
(Score: 3, Interesting) by pbnjoe on Thursday June 05 2014, @03:01PM
Count me in for the succession/bloodline game; hopefully there are enough of us to make it worthwhile :)
(Score: 2) by Marneus68 on Thursday June 05 2014, @03:06PM
I'm gald you like it too. I was really unsure if posting about it here was appropriate or not.
>Perhaps if there are enough players here we should setup a succession/bloodline game?
That would be a damn sweet idea.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Friday June 06 2014, @01:01AM
See the sidebar about the succession game.
Still always moving
(Score: 1) by Nygmus on Thursday June 05 2014, @03:33PM
As an alumnus of the insanity that was Deathgate and is Murdermachines, I'd 100% be willing to go in on that.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NCommander on Thursday June 05 2014, @04:32PM
You're on Bay12?!
I played in Deathgate (I had the dubious honor of inventing Dwarven Vacciation, as well as creating CARP marines, and immolating one of the masons with a obsidian casting accident). I still need to at some point build an adventurer and slay the llama daemon that is the leader of the humans. Didn't sign up for Murdermachines since at the time, I was suffering DF burnout, but I've kept my eye on it.
(I also took a turn in Swordthunders and make the Hell Waterslide Attraction due to a misinstalled bridge.)
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by pbnjoe on Thursday June 05 2014, @04:54PM
I was assuming if we got a big enough group we'd do the game on the forums, but now I'm pretty sure of it. What's the amount of participants you'd want before we start one up?
This'd be my first succession so I'm looking forward to this :) Also, dibs on being one of the first seven dorfs!
(Score: 2) by DrMag on Thursday June 05 2014, @05:06PM
Having dabbled in DF, I'm curious just how succession play works--what exactly is being proposed here?
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Thursday June 05 2014, @05:25PM
Succession (sometimes called Bloodline games) are where a group of players each play the fort for one year (Spring to Spring), then pass off the save to the next, while detailing what they did for the year, usually casting themselves as one of the dwarves in-universe (i.e., you'd claim a dwarf by nicknaming it, and in universe, that dwarf is the overseer). Boatmurdered was basically the first well known one, but there've been plenty of others such as Battlefailed, Failcannon, Deathgate, and plenty of others. Half the fun is watching how other people cause the fort to self-destruct, or half-created megaprojects being finished by multiple people, and then exploding (aka, FAILCANNON).
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by Marneus68 on Thursday June 05 2014, @06:58PM
That would be very cool ! We have to organize that !
(Score: 2) by pbnjoe on Thursday June 05 2014, @07:15PM
I think IRC (#Soylent on irc.sylnt.us or whatever the regular URL is) would be the best place to do so. I won't be on for about 4 hours, but I should be able to read scrollback and catch up if anything's decided between now and then. We could also talk about it in the thread that's created for it, but that'd interrupt the story flow with bits of "ooh can I play" and such I think.
Regardless, to toss my wishes in now: I'd like to be a miner, and take my turn 3rd.
(Score: 2) by Marneus68 on Thursday June 05 2014, @08:40PM
Unfortunately don't have much time to be on IRC right now, but if our great NCommander overlord can create and link to a thread where we can discuss all this in peace !
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Friday June 06 2014, @01:02AM
Journal post (see the site news box on the left) is up about this.
Still always moving
(Score: 1) by Nygmus on Monday June 16 2014, @03:20PM
I post as kefkakrazy on Bay12. I'm still active on the Murdermachines thread, for a given degree of active.
I'm the one who build the DUCKOTRON.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Bartman12345 on Thursday June 05 2014, @04:12PM
had a human "diety" visit
Must have been the low carb version of the FSM...
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Thursday June 05 2014, @04:33PM
I was playing with the diplomat fix, and a demon had become leader of the humans, who decided to visit my fort, he showed up as Urist McDemon, diety, and talked with my Baron before leaving the map.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday June 05 2014, @03:55PM
These guys have been living off of donations from all 13 people who actually ever saw this game for 11 years?
I suspect there must be a Mom and a Basement somewhere in that picture.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Sir Finkus on Thursday June 05 2014, @04:03PM
They pull in around 4k a month last I checked, but the last time they had a big release they got around 16k in one month. Zach doesn't work on the game full time, and has a job if I remember correctly.
Join our Folding@Home team! [stanford.edu]
(Score: 2) by forsythe on Thursday June 05 2014, @05:14PM
A bit more than `13'. For example, the members list on the bay12 forum [bay12forums.com] has over 40k members.
(And, though it is more relevant to tone than content, Tarn Adams has earned his doctorate in mathematics from Stanford [stanford.edu].)
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday June 05 2014, @08:29PM
I send them enough for a bag of groceries every time I go thru a phase of playing DF for 8 hours a day. I'm due for another once the new release comes out. Maybe later in the summer when its too hot to go outside and I get cabin fever. There are actually 10K or so other people doing the same thing as me, not just 12 others. It would be mildly amusing to enumerate just how many other SN readers donate to DF.
Its a fairly painless process; they take paypal.
http://www.bay12games.com/champions.html [bay12games.com]
I tend to play until I burn out on the micromanagement, then swear I'll never play again, and guess where you'll find me again six months later...
(Score: 1) by Hyperturtle on Thursday June 05 2014, @10:59PM
I have also donated; twice in the past four years. I have opted for the crayon art as the "reward" each time.
I had always liked the nethack style of game, so this had a certain allure for me.
In my case, the fortresses always died a death of not enough CPU power...I have a 50 year fortress and a 60 year fortress saved away in case I someday have a computer powerful enough to run them faster than 15 fps.
Hopefully the new version has been optimized a bit more to bring me up to 20fps! Single core application performance is only going to get improved so much... especially now that the desktop market is gone.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Thursday June 05 2014, @11:02PM
Micromanagement can be dealt w with dfhack autolabor and careful use of the manager. If you play with all the bug fixes even military training works without using the squad of 2 workaround. I currently have 5 of each Axe lords, sword masters, spear masters, hammerlord, elite marksdwarfs and soon to have macelords.
Still always moving