Dwarf Fortress now on Steam with a graphical overhaul

[whydoibother]

I was playing adventurer mode a decade ago. How it is suddenly something breathlessly being awaited?

Because the dumbed down GUI version people paid for on Steam doesn't have it.

The Steam version is a better base than the main version, even if you mod it to have GUI. It is peak OLD GUD NEW BAD codexbrain to pretend otherwise.
Fucking MOUSE CONTROL. And somehow less FPS death and crashes.

 

[Bibbimbop]

I was playing adventurer mode a decade ago. How it is suddenly something breathlessly being awaited?

Because the dumbed down GUI version people paid for on Steam doesn't have it.

The Steam version is a better base than the main version, even if you mod it to have GUI. It is peak OLD GUD NEW BAD codexbrain to pretend otherwise.
Fucking MOUSE CONTROL. And somehow less FPS death and crashes.

How is the steam version a better 'base' when it isn't even a refactoring of the code?

Honestly, UI and graphics should be implementable without breaking major features.

The steam version is not a new base code. They chopped off Frankenstein's legs and arms to fit him in the box labelled "UI update" and now have to sow him back together piece by rotting piece.

But at least you can finally use a mouse, right? Meanwhile it's been a half decade since I touched a mouse, so I'll just wait until Toady has another health problem and he has to chop the game down to the actually fun 2007 core to fit it on tablets.

That should be a much better base to build from.

 

[Bibbimbop]

It's nice to be able to use mouse, but it is dumbed down. There are certain stuff you don't have access to anymore, like logs. Which ruins one important aspect of the game - roleplaying and forming stories.

Wow. That's just breath-taking.

Logs used to be a core piece of gameplay.

And it's been that way since December? How does this happen, when only adding some front-end interface and graphical elements? How do logs or adventurer mode interact with the front-end, such that they need to be chopped off? How does this status then persist for almost half a year?

Is anyone here worried that Toady just made an end-of-career cash grab and is now too preoccupied spit-roasting underaged boys with Three-toe on a tropical pleasure island?

 

[Sibylla]

Honestly before new release i mostly played adventure mode because it was easier and less work to control. With gui even people like me can enjoy fort mode.

 

[Bibbimbop]

You still have the squad junk that chased me to adventurer mode back in the day. I'd rather control battles than set up schedules in spreadsheets.

 

[Johannes]

The old UI is terrible, not because you need to MEMORISE HOTKEYS but the menus are just designed in an insane manner.

But the new UI doesn't seem like it's actually good either, it's easier to get into, but more pleasant to use once familiar? Idk about that.

 

[Gumsmith]

I checked the updates today and it turns out Putnam updated the engine last month. Now includes the mythical multi-threading! I knew that autistic modder would be able to patch things up a bit.

Aside from that essentially fuck all has been added in the last 6 months, not unexpected, but according to the dev blog soon they will add in the ability to review old reports and announcements. Imagine that! Maybe in a years time the new version will have all the features that were already in the previous version.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/975370?emclan=103582791464215078&emgid=3655282771707693473

 

[whydoibother]

Imagine that! Maybe in a years time the new version will have all the features that were already in the previous version.

Can you really make posts like that, given the glacial speed at which the main branch is being developed? By comparison, the Steam branch is blazing fast.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

Have they fixed logs yet?

What about adventure mode?

 

[Gumsmith]

Imagine that! Maybe in a years time the new version will have all the features that were already in the previous version.

Can you really make posts like that, given the glacial speed at which the main branch is being developed? By comparison, the Steam branch is blazing fast.

They are almost the same, both are version 50.09. Admittedly if you remove the small graphics additions the changelogs are even smaller but that's not much of a difference.

 

[Gumsmith]

Have they fixed logs yet?

What about adventure mode?

Logs SOON™, adventure mode eventually, at some point. Maybe at the end of the year.

 

[Bibbimbop]

Tarn got his yacht and his hoes.

Even Three-Toe been impregnating all them supermodels with his autistic seed. Imagine Three-Toe making retard noises while nutting inside a 10/10 supermodel. Your money made that dysgenia possible.

I guarantee you the new "multi-threading" is just a potemkin that isn't able to make anything important asynchronous in the Frankenstein mess of computationally expensive code.

If you want multi-threading, just put on another layer of clothes, nigga.

 

[Gumsmith]

I like to let everyone else bankroll the never finished art projects

Would not be surprised if you are right, though.

 

[Perkel]

I checked the updates today and it turns out Putnam updated the engine last month. Now includes the mythical multi-threading! I knew that autistic modder would be able to patch things up a bit.

Aside from that essentially fuck all has been added in the last 6 months, not unexpected, but according to the dev blog soon they will add in the ability to review old reports and announcements. Imagine that! Maybe in a years time the new version will have all the features that were already in the previous version.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/975370?emclan=103582791464215078&emgid=3655282771707693473

MT is in initial phase and doesn't help a lot. There are obvious low hanging fruits like temperature they will be porting soon but a lot of code simply can't be multithreaded easily.

Also updates to game now happen almost every month instead of 2-3 years. At this rate they should be at feature parity at the end of the year.

Hell maybe they will bring back economy from df40 tarn switched off

 

[Hace El Oso]

It’s a ‘small thing’, but I really dislike that they ruined the very charming and complex display of ocean surf breaking on the shore.

 

[Gumsmith]

I checked the updates today and it turns out Putnam updated the engine last month. Now includes the mythical multi-threading! I knew that autistic modder would be able to patch things up a bit.

Aside from that essentially fuck all has been added in the last 6 months, not unexpected, but according to the dev blog soon they will add in the ability to review old reports and announcements. Imagine that! Maybe in a years time the new version will have all the features that were already in the previous version.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/975370?emclan=103582791464215078&emgid=3655282771707693473

MT is in initial phase and doesn't help a lot. There are obvious low hanging fruits like temperature they will be porting soon but a lot of code simply can't be multithreaded easily.

Also updates to game now happen almost every month instead of 2-3 years. At this rate they should be at feature parity at the end of the year.

Hell maybe they will bring back economy from df40 tarn switched off

They're still patching the current release which is usually fairly fast, it'll be interesting to see how things go when it's time to make the next version.

 

[Perkel]

It’s a ‘small thing’, but I really dislike that they ruined the very charming and complex display of ocean surf breaking on the shore.

I just played with fort in seaside and everything is fixed. waves now come and go

 

[Sibylla]

He means in ascii, it looks really nice. If anyone played Brogue it also has great wave animations.

The multithreading was only for pathfinding code? The game is a lot faster now anyway.

 

[Gandalf]

Adventure mode coming next yearish.

Adventure Mode Roadmap Dwarf Fortress Dev Update

Hello!

We are here with a brand-new development roadmap outlining our plans for Adventure Mode and updates to Fortress Mode. Please keep in mind these are estimates. We do have a date in mind but we’re not quite confident enough to announce it yet. All we can say right now is “not this year”, but hopefully we’ll have more specifics soon. We know you’ve been waiting patiently, and we are working hard.

We will be building on the Adventure Mode framework that already exists. This is exciting because everything is working as intended and we “just” need to add the interface and graphics, which will take us some months.

Here’s the plan for how we get to Adventure Mode release, hopefully not-too-late next year:

To Start
First, the basics, which will let us actually see what’s going on at all in the new art style.

• Travel map - we have the world map, but sites need hundreds of sprites to match up with the ASCII that shows individual streets etc. We’ll be iterating on this until launch.
• Main interface layout - similar to Fortress Mode, there are tile-based actions, information menus, and other actions like travel. There’s also a day-night cycle and we’ll have a minimap this time around.
• Procedural portraits - we need to implement Carolyn’s great portraits for the humans/elves/dwarves/goblins/kobolds, and also get animal people displayed. Every animal person!

Once we have this framework, we’ll just start doing the actions and menus one at a time. Full keyboard and full mouse support for all play styles. Actions are challenging because they can be initiated by clicking the play area, through buttons and hot keys, or by accessing a full list. There must be several ways to perform the same action based on context, play style, and input method. Can you guess what the buttons below do?

Major Features
These are the biggest-risk items, each of which hopefully isn’t more than a few weeks, but it’s hard to say since they each have multiple sub-systems and open design questions to be solved between code and art.

• Inventory - equipping items and containers are the trickiest parts here. You can wear multiple shirts and nest containers as deep as you like, and the new interface will have to handle this with both keyboard and mouse support.
• Combat (striking and wrestling) - wrestling will be a bit of a doozy, as there’s a lot of physical/anatomical complexity that we’re not sure how best to communicate
• Conversations - this includes supporting the current Adventure Mode system of interleaving speech and actions, and having three or more participants in conversations
• Character generator - you can make a whole party in Adventure Mode and the character creation options are complex. We have to update this system.

More!
These are individually much less complicated and risky than the above, but still have lots of little fiddly bits to keep us busy.

• Status screens - wounds, skills, needs etc. There is a lot of information about every character, similar to the dwarf sheets in Fortress Mode.
• Journal screen (quests and knowledge) - we may integrate this with Legends Mode because they are very similar.
• Crafting and other powers - Adventure Mode is highly moddable and we need to support vast menus of magical powers and other abilities. Pet any animal!
• Various small menus/actions (“widgets”) - stealth, movement, tracking, odors, party controls, combat options, etc.
• Audio integration - the audio designers are working in parallel with us and we’ll be adding a whole new soundscape for Adventure Mode

Cabin building wasn’t properly feature-rich in the classic Adventure Mode. We’d love to expand on it, but it’s definitely more optional to the Adventure Mode experience than the above features and systems. We have the new Fortress Mode interface which will help a lot, but we may do it after launch if it becomes too complicated.


Ongoing Fortress Work
Work on Fortress Mode will continue in parallel with Adventure Mode. We’re reading the bug tracker and also have some content ideas which will complement Adventure Mode well. More on this later!


FAQ
Q: Will the game be localized/translated to my language?

It is difficult due to the procedural sentence constructions used throughout the game. Our best suggestion at this time is to use auto-translation tools for text on screen, which has been helping some users. We are investigating translation options behind the scenes but it’s very early stages.

Q: How can I report a bug?

You can track and report bugs on our MantisHub: https://kitfoxgames.notion.site/How-to-Report-Bugs-in-Dwarf-Fortress-b5e2ca19dabe408897d1c2669599b7a2

We know that this system isn’t working very well for our helpful bug wranglers though, so we’re looking into rolling back into the old system soon, in the hopes that we can rejuvenate the bug-hunting community like days of yore. We have double the code resources that we used to, but also ten times the bug reporters, so we’re still finding our feet to figure out how best to maximize this power. Please be patient.

Q: What about the Mac version?

Because of all the work that needs to be done for Adventure Mode, we won’t be able to start development on the Mac version until after its release, at the earliest.

Q: When are Steam Achievements coming?

We will consider implementing this after Adventure Mode. Several of the achievements will likely link the two modes together so it’s best to have these systems in place. The main problem with Achievements is that they also need to be a new ‘living’ system alongside all of the other features, and we’re not sure it’s a good idea for people to feel they have “100%ed” the game based on what’s essentially an arbitrary list of tasks. We’re considering it, but haven’t decided yet, and will come back to the topic after Adventure Mode.

-Kitfox Games + Bay 12 Games

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

At least it's on a roadmap now lol.

 

[ADL]

 

[covr]

What a lazy and crappy way to announce adventure mode.

 

[Casual Hero]

What a lazy and crappy way to announce adventure mode.

I mean, meh, whatever. The people who have been looking forward to the new adventure mode already knew that it was going to come at some point. I'm surprised there is a video at all. I just read the blog updates on bay12.
I'm sure most everyone who owns the game knew it was coming at some point. I don't really need huge trailers with EPIC music for DF announcements.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

I'm sure there were people who put off playing it due to the lack of AM. Missed marketing opportunity, especially during the holidays.

Given how little they're talking about it, it may be a barebones implementation, or something else might be wrong with it. Odd.

 

[Casual Hero]

Well, it is still 5 months off on the horizon.
Adventure mode is still barebones, though. It has a lot of content, even compared to some full games, but it is still very much the "side-project" of DF.