I know people who basically stopped to play WoW because they are addicted to Dwarf Fortress. Gameplay > Graphics...
I am a big DF addict now as well. Even though lot of things aint added yet, also there isnt a real goal in the game yet, but somehow this game is extremely addictive already. [Future dev plans are icredible, there will be dimplomacy with other civilizations, magic, you can raise real armies and attack other civilizations and cities etc, and tons of other things, just check out the development section for more details:]
BURROWS, TRANSPORTION AND AUTOMATION ARC: Make dwarves live and restrict their movements to sections ("burrows") of the cave to reduce the amount of hauling. This includes many of the haul/pile reqs. Other workshops could be automated, while the work order system could be made more robust to decrease the amount of interface fiddling required to produce glass and soap, for example. Related to Core36, Req1, Req18, Req22, Req24, Req28, Req47, Req67, Req128, Req129, Req146, Req162, Req273, Bloat32.
FIRE AND LIGHTING ARC: The lighting in caves is artificial right now. It should be pitch black. This is also true of moonless cloudy nights. Once that's in, your adventurer will want fire. Fire can also come up in dwarf mode in various ways. Related to Core14, Req96.
ADVANCED HELP ARC: Yeah, dwarves has a steep learning curve. Tutorials and advisors could help this. Related to Core19, Core22.
CARAVAN ARC: As a prelude to armies, we'll have caravans actually move around the world map rather than just appear at your outpost. They'll move between each city on the map, though we'll try to stay away from supporting a real economy for the time being. You should be able to find items you traded in your fortress in adventure mode, and a caravan could come to your fortress with an adventure mode item. Related to Core3, Req204.
COUNTY ARC: When you get a baron, you'll be able to send out patrols. Once you get a count, you'll get a village outside your fortress and be able to organize armies. This arc would have to be developed along with the army arc. Related to Core27, Core28, Core29.
ARMY ARC: You should be able to control patrols and then armies in dwarf mode. The adventurer should be able to both go with and command armies. In dwarf mode, you should have the option to control your individual patrol members as you would in adventure mode. This comes back to adventure mode in terms of being able to control each member in a party of adventurers you make yourself. You could lead one and the others follow (as it is currently) or control them all, particularly during tense situations where you don't want to count on the AI. Entities should war with each other from bandit and monster raids to full fledged wars. Upset enties could patrol near their sites, leading to new wilderness encounters etc. Related to Core24, Core25, Core26, Core30, Core33, Core35, Req221.
NEMESIS ARC: The civilization leaders should be fleshed out in many ways. Related to Core11, Core40, Bloat68.
HOUSEHOLD ARC: You should be able to take a spouse, make a household, and create playable heirs as an adventurer. The dwarven relationships and personalities can also be expanded upon. Houses should have tables, cabinets, boxes, beds w/ enough random crafts to steal, there could be workshops in stores, etc.
DIPLOMACY ARC: There should be a lot more diplomacy between your outpost and the outside world, especially as you get more nobles. Right now there's hardly anything.
GHOSTS ARC: When you take an adventurer back to a fortress, it could afford to be a lot more interesting. Since it keeps track of all the dwarves that ever lived or died in each outpost, it might as well utilize them. When the civs fight in world gen, it could also create ruins from earlier times, and you could go to these places (old castles, temples, etc.).
AFFILIATION ARC: You should be able to rise to the top of an entity (civilization, town, etc.) in adventure mode. While the full set of responsibilities that would entail will have to wait, it should at least be possible to attain this status for the first version. You should be able to do things for individuals. This could earn you favors from sleeping in their home and food gifts all the way to a marriage offer. There can be smaller entities like bandits and cults which could offer more unsavory tasks for similar privileges (steal, kill, kidnap, etc.). Can earn right to sleep in the large hall in town if you've become affiliated with them, but vagrancy needs to be punished and the camping must be harsher before this is meaningful.
COMBAT ARC: Many more combat skills and more attributes, etc. Related to Req92, Req171, Req183, Req188, Req200, Req206, Req224, Req233, Req234, Req315, Req330, Req331, Bloat15, Bloat55, Bloat76, Bloat102, Bloat135, Bloat136, Bloat137, Bloat138, Bloat139, Bloat141, Bloat142.
SCENARIOS ARC: Character generation is due for a major change. The current plan is to have an interactive history generator that takes your character from birth to a playable age, incorporating them into the fabric of the world. Pressing "Play Now!" would answer the questions automatically, perhaps with a strong tendency to place you in dire/interesting situations.
LIFE CYCLE ARC: Right now, there are no births and no aging in the towns and other populations. From the founding of a town, it should instead simulating and track these things during world creation. This makes the world much more interesting and also more resilient to changes inflicted by the player. At the same time, it creates instability unrelated to the actions of the player, so it has to be done carefully.
ARTIFACT ARC: Special items made by the dwarves aren't very interesting right now, and there's not much for an adventurer to do with them. These objects should have magical powers and they should have a huge influence on the actions of entities that come into contact with them. Even if your adventurer can't make use of a particular artifact, you could arrange for buyers in the nobility, and use those opportunitites to get a home or good entity standing, for instance.
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT ARC: There should be mild punishments for mild crimes, for instance. This could include making the drunks in the town more interesting and adding bar fights, as well as proper thievery.
ADVENTURER SKILLS ARC: It's nice to have all those jobs and professions sitting around in the dwarf mode. The adventurer should be able to do these things, especially those skills related to survival in the wilderness.
HIGH LEVEL PLOTS AND DIPLOMACY: Various intrigue and interesting not-necessarily-violent conflict between entities and individuals. Once you place the actors in place, they should act according to their wants and the wants of their associated entities based on the strength of those ties. Both adventurers and dwarf fortresses can become immersed in the push and pull which arises from the AI. This is already true to some extent (the current quests are all created from the surroundings and entity ties), but these effects can be made pervasive. Since armies and invasions will be done before we get here, there will already be some of this AI in place to work with.
LATE GAME: As you kill the large creatures, the world becomes more... boring. The game can be prepared for this kind of change and move over into a sort of fairy-tale/Beowulf/Robert E Howard type of hybrid with human civs and occasional monsters so that things continue to be interesting. This already happens naturally in a way, but the dialogue and reactions of people to these changes should be there to fully adjust to the new setting. Related to Bloat149.
EARLY GAME: The Age of Myth in world generation should be playable. Related to Bloat148.
HUMAN TOWN: You should be able to control a human town, as you control a dwarf fortress, but with changes appropriate to the new setting. Related to Bloat146.
BANDITS/MOUNTAIN MEN: There might already be bandits and cults and all that by the time we get here, but what we mean here is being able to start a group of bandits and make a camp or construct a cabin out in the woods and have your own site. If you have enough people, it could switch over to a kind of human town mode where you control the bandits more strategically.
GOBLIN/KOBOLD/CAVER: Controlling the bad guys is an obvious extension, and you've got the whole friendly happy world waiting for your raiding parties.
ELF FOREST RETREAT: Yes, elves for the elf people -- but thinking more general, as we list all these racial civilizations, we should think in broad terms and use the civilization definitions to allow any type of civilization to be played. Elves will provide some necessary extra elements for this process. Mixing the cliff dwelling, wilderness dwelling, town building, good vs. evil tendencies into a robust interface for civilization building is a long-term goal.
MONSTER: Playing the dragons and other large beasts seems like another good (and fairly easy) extension. You'd have to be careful, since there aren't very many large beasts in the world and you don't want to just possess them and have them all burn out in a blaze of glory. Or maybe you do... or it could just give you new ones. You could also just occasionally have fun going out on an excursion and retiring, then play an adventurer and take a quest from a town to go and dispatch your old self.
MERCHANT: With the Caravan Arc, we have traders moving around the world, but I said over there that I didn't want to mess around too much with having a real economy, or it would surely fall apart and all the towns would starve. Once I get up the nerve to tackle these problems, it would be a lot of fun to play a merchant or guild yourself. You could even retire and be visited by yourself in a subsequent dwarf game.
MAGIC: This would allow for the flashier stuff, but it wouldn't have to be in every region. Related to Core15.
CONTROL A WIZARD ENTITY: Not just one of those guys that backs up the team and shoots fireballs, but run something more like a dwarven outpost and construct your own multilevel tower or other such dwelling. This could include adventure style elements where your wizard is engaged in various activities, as well as larger scale army battles and so on. Randomized creatures could also be introduced as you create your minions, and they should be able to breed and expand outward, perhaps becoming a playable race in either adventure or civilization modes. Related to Bloat147.
DEITY: Have religions in the game correspond to forces or deities and let you play one and do whatever you like, possibly restricted by your defining characteristics and geography.
WORLD GENERATION PARAMETERS: While not yet getting to the level of some of the things below, you should be able to set parameters for world generation. Order up a world-wide swamp punctuated by glowing towers and some randomized creatures, and so on.
TERRAIN/WEATHER/SWIMMING/FLYING/BOATS: Boats of some kind might go in early to make different regions more accessible, but you won't be able to be a pirate or an undersea civ for quite a while. Rivers freeze with daily temperatures instead of seasonal temperatures. Realize river and ocean squares when you visit them (forcing town layouts to adapt). Realize interesting canyons and so on in such areas. Track hurricanes and other major storm/disasters, in-game and during world gen. Thunderstorms with lightning strikes (with corresponding lighting effects) and hail. Levels of rainfall. Eating snow, making snowballs and picking up hail during and after hail storms. Tornados with wind flows that push items, projectiles and creatures. Proper eclipse modeling. Tides, deep oceans and pearl-diving, etc. More intricate interplay between cliff faces, inner rivers and outer rivers, using Z coord and waterfalls.
PLANES: Once it's all established, you can make regions arbitrarily strange, and you make a lot of them. The real chore here is allowing multiple world maps to be active in one way or another and to allow game elements to move between them. It would be a headache to program, but it would add a lot to the game.
EDITORS: Those things that made programming the first Armok so annoying! As the format of game elements become more stable, we can allow you to change them. Draw your own region maps, create your own towns, creatures, items, start situations, etc.
AND MORE, AND WORSE: I'm still too embarrassed to share every idea we had...
This is the game of the year for me, and Doms 3. of course.
PS. Big thanks to Endoperez once again, because it was him, who introduced this game to us.
I've just made a search on google for dwarf fortress, and it seems that the game has began to conquer the gaming communities, Ive found threads on various forums with 400+ posts already about the game, and it was just released. Incredible.
Re: OT: Dwarf Fortress
Linear Mode
