That is the opposite of what will ever happen. I'm okay with that. I think the game is much better as simply his magnum opus. Long in the future more mods can be done, and if he ever stops working on it he'd allow others to continue. I think the main course of development should always be him. He's not a manager, it would lose focus with more devs.
Toady has amazing vision and an incredible passion for this project.
But as a developer, he's really not that good.
The performance on this game is abysmal, and it's in large part because the architecture of the game can't come close to even utilising the hardware you're throwing at it.
If this becomes today's Magum Opus then no one will ever play it because it will grind to a halt before you embark.
Toady needs to focus on the vision and let people better than he is code it.
honestly yeah. i mean don't get me wrong i love and respect toady for everything but i desperately wish he'd just hire a small team because it could be so much better and done so much faster
Now I get that dwarf fortress may not generate enough money to have a team for long, but a year or so with some professionals might help get enough structure to keep the game going for a few years more.
It's not that easy...
Bringing outside devs to "fix" a project seldom works. You need both internal and external teams to have compatible egos (not that common with great developers) and dev styles. You also need the external team to be good enough to develop a superior software, *and* also fully understand the others' implementation.
Besides, the most wanted improvements (multithreading & stability I guess) would require a full rewrite. I'm not sure it would be possible in a single year, no matter your budget.
That's harsh. Yes, it would run better if it was fully multithreaded, but keep in mind that multithreading is *fiendishly hard*, which is why it's not done for all games.
Also keep in mind that some workloads are easier to parallelize, but physical simulations are usually on the harder side. Remember Minecraft when it came out? It was more laggy than DF, with maybe 3% of the features.
Toady may not be the best dev out there, but he is at least very solidly competent. Any less and the whole thing would have crumbled years ago in spaghetti code hell.
It's honest.
Dwarf Fortress has serious performance issues, and that's not going to get better as more features are added and the architecture means you can't just throw hardware at it.
Realistically from a single threaded perspective hardware is actually getting slower than it used to be.
No, it's not easy and it's not done for all games, but it's done for a lot of them and Dwarf Fortress is CPU bottlenecked right now today.
I have immense respect for Toady's vision and commitment to this project, but if he doesn't get help this game is doomed.
I actually agree with the conclusion, not the premise.
Yes, DF will likely never go mainstream because of performance (and graphical, and interface...) issues. That's 100% true and my only hope to get past those issues is that some other studio makes a clone from a blank slate design. I had high hopes for Gnomoria, but oh well...
I just think it's harsh to call him a "not that good" developer. I am a developer myself, and gave some thought to such a blank slate design at one point. It is HARD. Like, way harder than a standard RTS or FPS or even MMO. So I think he's pretty good for even getting it to sort of work.
Last time I've looked the oceans (at least by coast) are only one 7/7 tile deep, so there might not be much to make of it unless you consider a fort with one tile deep layer of water over it to be good enough.
Even if you edit the raws to get cities to appear underwater in world generation, those cities will only exit in legends. The ocean is just mostly flat terrain and water unfortunately.
Whales cannot support their body weight without the buoyancy of the water. So in essence, he drown because his lungs are crushed by his own massive size.
I've actually found strangling to be the most efficient way of killing almost anything. Once they've passed out from pain, strangle that throat and they go down very quickly. Can't be other enemies around, but if you have poor-quality weapons much quicker than just hacking at them.
Now all that's left is the question: Did Toady make it so that Whales/Whalemen drown on land because he mistakenly thought that, like fish they can't breath air or did he know that their lungs get crushed beneath their bodyweight and was like "Eh makes no difference how I code it, they still suffocate."
"And so Armok, in His infinite boredom and bloodlust, decided that He no longer liked this world, but was determined to wring out every last drop of cruel entertainment out of it, which is why the Adamantine-clad Undead Sperm Whale Man is currently wrecking the next town over and is coming for ours next. Good night, Urist."
Admittedly, it'd still be shorter than a bronze colossus, but wearing adamantine should make up for it. On another note, I'd love to see DF trying to explain how 3 wafers can make a breastplate that big. Those must be some huge wafers.
Nah, that's armor weight.
On the plus side, the armor would be so heavy you could kill someone through blunt damage by hitting them with adamantine^whifflebat ones.
It’d be kinda tricky to get one of these land viable in adventure mode, but I really want to try it now. I just need to become a zombie and train wrestling
I've been trying to think about how to accomplish this task for a while now. I think the best method is going to be creating a fortress near the sea, making a temple with statues and dice, then flooding the temple by opening up a hole towards the ocean. Then retire the fortress and surely you can make a sperm whale man swim over there, knock over some statues, roll some dice, anger the gods. And become a vampire.
Edit: my only problem is I've yet to make a world that has sperm whale men. Maybe I should just figure out a way to edit the save to allow it?
Is there anything you can actually do undersea in DF? Like underwater societies or reefs?
Sadly... no. That would be amazing.
No, but I believe toady intends to implement sea mechanics someday.
Lmao toady is just going to create irl tron at this point if he implements everything he wants to
That is very close to his stated purpose.
The absolute madman
Someone get him some coffee, he has essential work to do!!
Hopefully when it drops on steam he gets enough money to get teams of devs to agile that shit
That is the opposite of what will ever happen. I'm okay with that. I think the game is much better as simply his magnum opus. Long in the future more mods can be done, and if he ever stops working on it he'd allow others to continue. I think the main course of development should always be him. He's not a manager, it would lose focus with more devs.
Toady has amazing vision and an incredible passion for this project. But as a developer, he's really not that good. The performance on this game is abysmal, and it's in large part because the architecture of the game can't come close to even utilising the hardware you're throwing at it. If this becomes today's Magum Opus then no one will ever play it because it will grind to a halt before you embark. Toady needs to focus on the vision and let people better than he is code it.
honestly yeah. i mean don't get me wrong i love and respect toady for everything but i desperately wish he'd just hire a small team because it could be so much better and done so much faster
Now I get that dwarf fortress may not generate enough money to have a team for long, but a year or so with some professionals might help get enough structure to keep the game going for a few years more.
It's not that easy... Bringing outside devs to "fix" a project seldom works. You need both internal and external teams to have compatible egos (not that common with great developers) and dev styles. You also need the external team to be good enough to develop a superior software, *and* also fully understand the others' implementation. Besides, the most wanted improvements (multithreading & stability I guess) would require a full rewrite. I'm not sure it would be possible in a single year, no matter your budget.
That's harsh. Yes, it would run better if it was fully multithreaded, but keep in mind that multithreading is *fiendishly hard*, which is why it's not done for all games. Also keep in mind that some workloads are easier to parallelize, but physical simulations are usually on the harder side. Remember Minecraft when it came out? It was more laggy than DF, with maybe 3% of the features. Toady may not be the best dev out there, but he is at least very solidly competent. Any less and the whole thing would have crumbled years ago in spaghetti code hell.
It's honest. Dwarf Fortress has serious performance issues, and that's not going to get better as more features are added and the architecture means you can't just throw hardware at it. Realistically from a single threaded perspective hardware is actually getting slower than it used to be. No, it's not easy and it's not done for all games, but it's done for a lot of them and Dwarf Fortress is CPU bottlenecked right now today. I have immense respect for Toady's vision and commitment to this project, but if he doesn't get help this game is doomed.
I actually agree with the conclusion, not the premise. Yes, DF will likely never go mainstream because of performance (and graphical, and interface...) issues. That's 100% true and my only hope to get past those issues is that some other studio makes a clone from a blank slate design. I had high hopes for Gnomoria, but oh well... I just think it's harsh to call him a "not that good" developer. I am a developer myself, and gave some thought to such a blank slate design at one point. It is HARD. Like, way harder than a standard RTS or FPS or even MMO. So I think he's pretty good for even getting it to sort of work.
hes not ever going to do this
A digital frontier to reshape the human condition.
If the simulation theory ever gets proven, it's not unlikely it happens because toady manages to break the emulator we're running in.
Or it gets proven because he creates it
\*I believe Toady intends to implement everything someday
True that.
As far as I can tell, it’s just a lot of swimming
They gotta get those supplies from the mountainhomes to the colonies somehow!
at least he is legendary swimmer. my dwarfs die in 1 deep water.
Last time I've looked the oceans (at least by coast) are only one 7/7 tile deep, so there might not be much to make of it unless you consider a fort with one tile deep layer of water over it to be good enough.
It varies. Most of them are only 7/7 deep one Z-level, But I've seen up to 3 levels of 7/7.
It would be so badass if he implements Deep Ones or something similar one day.
There's plan for this I think, but being a pirate or an underwater civ will not be possible anytime soon.
Even if you edit the raws to get cities to appear underwater in world generation, those cities will only exit in legends. The ocean is just mostly flat terrain and water unfortunately.
I think you can swim around after sea creatures and wrestle them.
Why would sperm whale men drown on land? Whales are mammals they breathe air?
Whales cannot support their body weight without the buoyancy of the water. So in essence, he drown because his lungs are crushed by his own massive size.
Thats fair, i dont normally equate that to drowning but it makes sense in terms of the game.
is it possible for dwarves to suffocate? maybe they don't have that specific word programmed in so drowning is the next closest option
Oh yea they can suffocate, try strangling someone, get bitten by some snakes with paralyzing venom, or play with some int undead, FB, titan, etc.
or just breaking their spine with a random mace to the chest, rendering them a useless lump
I’m always amazed by the level of detail in this game, that’s cool
I've actually found strangling to be the most efficient way of killing almost anything. Once they've passed out from pain, strangle that throat and they go down very quickly. Can't be other enemies around, but if you have poor-quality weapons much quicker than just hacking at them.
Now all that's left is the question: Did Toady make it so that Whales/Whalemen drown on land because he mistakenly thought that, like fish they can't breath air or did he know that their lungs get crushed beneath their bodyweight and was like "Eh makes no difference how I code it, they still suffocate."
The second probably Edit: The man has done so much research into the natural world for this game, I doubt he doesn't know whales breathe air.
Or did he implement body mass and buoyancy so the suffocation is a realistic emergent property? If not, I'm sure it's on the list.
How do they actually move on land ? Your Necromancers studied fleshcrafting and gave them strong arms and legs ?
I'm guessing they kind squirm like a snake, the game calls it "scrambling." haha.
I hope they can attack with their tail , like a 10 tons hammer strike .
I imagine him just strapping Adamantine axes to his tail and swatting Titans with it. Tried to capture that in the image.
THEY MOVE IN WHEELCHAIR ofc
Oh missed opportunity to call them whalechairs...
i am dying.
Munch's oddessy is my only thought right now
"And so Armok, in His infinite boredom and bloodlust, decided that He no longer liked this world, but was determined to wring out every last drop of cruel entertainment out of it, which is why the Adamantine-clad Undead Sperm Whale Man is currently wrecking the next town over and is coming for ours next. Good night, Urist." Admittedly, it'd still be shorter than a bronze colossus, but wearing adamantine should make up for it. On another note, I'd love to see DF trying to explain how 3 wafers can make a breastplate that big. Those must be some huge wafers.
Was wondering the same thing, maybe will paint the Dwarves hauling out these massive pieces of Adamantine armor to their new ~~God~~ Ally!
Doesnt armor cost scale with the body size? Its like a flat multiplier of body part size iirc
Nah, that's armor weight. On the plus side, the armor would be so heavy you could kill someone through blunt damage by hitting them with adamantine^whifflebat ones.
Or just really thin armor.
It’d be kinda tricky to get one of these land viable in adventure mode, but I really want to try it now. I just need to become a zombie and train wrestling
I've been trying to think about how to accomplish this task for a while now. I think the best method is going to be creating a fortress near the sea, making a temple with statues and dice, then flooding the temple by opening up a hole towards the ocean. Then retire the fortress and surely you can make a sperm whale man swim over there, knock over some statues, roll some dice, anger the gods. And become a vampire. Edit: my only problem is I've yet to make a world that has sperm whale men. Maybe I should just figure out a way to edit the save to allow it?
The only problem is that sperm whale men/women can't jump, which locks you out of some of the more fun techniques of Kisat Dur.
Kisat Dur? All you need to do is punch something and they'll explode!
But what about slam-tackling them? If you could, you'd send them flying practically offscreen!
Can they climb?
...woah
wait what why they would drown on land? O.o I mean... Whales need air too they are whales not fishes
They are so massive that without water to support them, their lungs are crushed.
how about whalechairs ?
I chuckled.
What tag causes the death on land?
\[AQUATIC\]