The Tarn Adams interview, part 2
(Part 1 of this interview appears here.)
Matt: Getting back to the subject, Dwarf Fortress really is a game that’s unlike any other, in that you have all these little individual guys running around with their own wants and needs instead of, say, construction drone #27. And now you’re kind of expanding that to cover a whole world instead of one fortress.
Tarn: Yeah, we’ve always been into that sort of detail. Even if it is to chuckle at their personalized misfortunes.
Matt: Down to even whether or not someone’s toe is broken.
Tarn: I think it’s a lot more satisfying that way, rather than watching the HP meters go up and down, though I guess there’s a place for that. The adventure mode fights are pretty fun.
Matt: The same guy I was talking about who wants to mod the game was surprised you went as far as to, say, let dwarves buy right and left socks individually.
Tarn: Yeah, there was some question about whether it should go that far, but I really wanted it for adventure mode. I don’t like things like “boots” that you wear, when one of your feet can get chopped off and not the other. It removes the ambiguity.
But the downside is that it can add more hassles to the dwarf part of the game, since you’ll have to do more micromanaging and you’ll just have more garbage lying around. I’ve added a few interface controls to help out with all the extra debris recently, but more can clearly be done.
Matt: Yeah, I had some dwarves who really loved socks.
Tarn: Well, there’s that too. The dwarves that pile goblet after goblet in their rooms. They are a little singleminded when it comes to their hobbies.
Matt: So, what went live with the version you put out this week? I’ve browsed the devlog but I didn’t see a big list.
Tarn: The main thing for this time was the world generation update. It had just been cities with populations that grow, but there weren’t any interactions. Now they’ll start wars and stretch each other’s skin over the castle walls and eat each other and stuff.
The idea is to set the stage for both dwarf and adventure mode. When you want to do things like “random quests”, you can of course just start in on it, but they’ll be a lot more satisfying if you have a lot of building blocks to play with, and diplomacy in dwarf mode can be more satisfying when there are reasons behind everything, and real things to be fought over.
Matt: What’s next on your plate?
Tarn: We’re still deciding. The posted dev item is getting armies to move around during regular play and letting you interact with them, in preparation for dwarf mode army stuff. But there will probably be other adventure mode improvements as well. Perhaps allowing your adventurer to do more of the things that can be done in dwarf mode.
I’ll also need to introduce resource tracking at some point, so that the world economy can start up and they have more to do than just kill each other. Of course, while all of this prepares for dwarf mode additions, it also neglects dwarf mode in the sort term, which I’ve already been doing for months, so I’ll also probably find some things to add there as well.
We’ll be finalizing the plan at the end of the month. For now, I’m just fixing bugs. After the last major release, all sorts of untoward things have been happening.
Matt: Like sleeping dwarves not waking up?
Tarn: Yeah, and animal drunks.
Matt: Hah.
Continue on to Part 3
Tags: recreation, trivia, pop culture
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Was reading this and the socks reminded me of a nice comic about Dwarf Fortress. Two actually. Well three technically.
http://maze.icomix.com/comicpage/badcomics/bad053.jpg
http://maze.icomix.com/comicpage/badcomics/bad073.jpg
Anyway, I love the game and it’s nice to know what’s going on with Tarn besides his devlogs.
Modibility is a very useful aspect of games. It taps an unprecedented amount of cheap development at a variety of quality. But it’s understandable that Tarn is wary of it. A large-scale change such as, oh I dunno, adding a dimension, on his side can annul all the work that the modding community has done. So opening up hooks into an alpha project like this is dangerous. Still though, I would advise it after the project is stable enough to warrant it. That’s a judgment call that should be left entirely to you Tarn. Letting others make the interface will take a mountain of work off your shoulders (allowing you to work on the fun stuff), open up the game to a larger audience (which earns you cash), and will probably be prettier then anything you would care to make. I mean, have you seen Ian’s sprites? Really though, I’m an ASCII man myself, it’s leading dwarf armies that has me chomping at the bit.
-Phil
Great interview, definitely cool to get more of the details on how Tarn works from day to day. It’s amazing he can survive on donations alone for an alpha game, yet obviously possible with the support of his large fan base.
Where is the original full sized pic of the elephant/dwarves? I remember seeing it on the the forum quite a long time ago but hadn’t saved it. I haven’t been able to find it with any forum searches so far
That picture is from Boatmurdered. http://fromearth.net/LetsPlay/Boatmurdered/ I have no idea which chapter, so happy digging.
Ahh yeah, boatmurdered, how could I have forgotten. I found the pic at the bottom of update 27. I had thought there was another pic to go with that showing the lava rushing out… maybe not, or maybe its just in the original SA thread somewhere.
Looking back on boatmurdered after playing the z depth versions the past year and a half is quite a huge difference. I cant imagine going back to the standard forest/rock/river/rock/chasm/rock/lava/rock/depths x/y versions. Its incredible how far Toady had gone in that update, even if it did take another year to get there.