Dwarf Fortress Roundtable - Ep. 38: In Which New and Old Worlds Are Compared, And Other Stuff.

Episode Date: October 5, 2020

This episode, the three of us kick back and chat about Dwarf Fortress world creation, Among (Us) Dwarves, and Kruggsmash's latest stuff. We also comment on the newest preview of the Steam/Itch.io release. Can't wait! Steam Autumn UpdateDev NotesKruggsmash Chamberpoint Ep. 5 Support Dwarf Fortress Roundtable on Patreon Musical Attribution - Thanks so much to Kevin MacLeod for making his awesome music available to content creators! Skye Cuillin by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4371-skye-cuillinLicense: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Folk Round by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3770-folk-roundLicense: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Oh, the Eurist, Eurist, Eurist one. I saw this on Reddit, and I don't understand. Welcome to Dwarf Fortress Roundtable, the podcast for all things Dwarfee. I'm Jonathan. I'm Roland. I'm Tony. We are back. It's been a couple weeks.

Had a delay in our regular episode. releases, so we're sorry about that. You know, life happens, though. It is obviously 2020, so... But we're back. Woo-hoo! Yay! Hey, what's going on?

Sorry. Hey, what's been going on? Lots of stuff. It's been happening. Haven't played a whole lot of Fortress in the last few weeks, but it looks like the community has been, you know, on fire around us. Well, literally for Tarn, but... Yeah.

Well, maybe his community has not been on fire, but the wider community of of the West Coast. True story. Really, really was over the last few weeks. I played more than I have played recently. I had this idea, which I think I mentioned here a few weeks ago, and maybe it was hubris. I don't know what it was.

I'd been playing long enough and I could probably survive in any biome in any condition, so I was going to do just a quick tutorial. So I spun up a world and thought, you know, golly, I'll go for an old world here. This will be fun. And so I did that. And I think through the course of, I don't know, probably a dozen forts, I've created a world that's absolutely unplayable. So it's pretty funny.

So there really aren't any dwarfs left at all. So that's, well, that's challenge A. Oh. Uh-huh. Challenge B is that the safest location I could find to embark is surrounded by eight towers. So that's not great. And so I hadn't really checked any of this until I'd played my first, I don't know, forts or so. And then I was like, golly, this seems hard. What's going on? So I looked and

yeah, I mean, basically your average embark, you get maybe a couple weeks before your first undead invasion. And so, yeah, you know, I get to the point and I can get walls up and make them high enough so that they can't get in. And I dealt with a whole series of climbing undead, which was fun and a new challenge as well. But, you know, but then they don't leave. So you're sort of stuck with your seven dwarves in a very safe and protected place and there's nothing you can do about it. So that's a challenge. So I think I might give up on that world. But I don't know if you guys have run into anything quite so insane. But there are a lot of towers. Okay. Question about that. How is the safest place in your world surrounded by seven towers?

Yeah. I mean, it's not safe. I think is the point I'm making. Like, it's just completely. completely hostile and insane. Yeah, but how is that the safest place? What is happening in your world that seven towers are the least of your concern? Yeah, and so I think this might be an unplayable world. And even when things go well, of course, there are no migrants to be had. So even if I did survive, no one comes. I built taverns and they're empty.

I think it's like a dead world except for necromancers. there might not there might not be a lot left so are there are there even uh goblins left i don't think so i haven't seen any if there are i should probably go in and do worlds and you know see see what the hell happened to this place because now i kind of want to know but i think in my frustration i was like to hell with this and i think i nuked it but uh i might go back and and uh see if i've got a copy of it saved on a different machine it was just sheer absurdity oh wow okay good good good times what's the opposite of uh of a of a of the haunted biomes.

What's the really, really nicey, you know, frolicking unicorns one? Mirthful or whatever? Mirthful, that's it, yeah. So I found my answer to the, to the zombies and things like that by embarking to a mirthful biome. Yeah, and I think those go away, the more, or the older the world's get seems to be what I'm taking away from that. Like.

Could be, because this is a 150 world that I embarked. I didn't pick this mirthful place on purpose. I did the search for it by, you know, choosing that there was a river that it had, you know, doing the embark location finder. Yeah. The stuff that I usually do. And it just so happened that it, I get there on the map. And I noticed that it's been like two years and I've not been attacked by anything yet.

And then I look around a little bit closer and I see unicorns. I'm like, oh, it must be one of those really happy places. Yeah. There's like bubble blub or something. one of the things that you can find there. It sounds like the most cheery thing in the world. I love it. Yeah, I think the flaw here for me is the older the world, the more difficult the world is to play is kind of what I'm concluding from all this. Do you guys see that, Roland, have you ever how are you doing with the old worlds? Oh, okay, to be honest, I already have trouble making

them because my PC is not that good. And it takes hours to get like, an older world in which people are still somewhat alive but i had this project where i'm playing a world from year five and while i'm only at year i don't know 300 400 something so it's not that old it's already really really dead because i killed so many civilizations rated things and killed most of the remaining monsters it is a bit thin on

interesting civilization but old worlds seem to have either an extreme influx on visitors in my taverns because I have one okay

I have to start earlier I think because in school I have dwarf fortress on my portable SD card so I started up and generate worlds in school while I'm at lunch that works great because the computers are great in my school so I had this world which actually generated to the age of 150 and my tavern was full of visitors when I played that and I'm not talking about like 10, 15. I'm talking the maximum number in the lazy new pack is originally 80,

and I had 80 in my tavern at all times. So it was completely stalked with visitors. And when one dude left, the next person came in. So it was always at 80. I had some necromances, but they concentrated more on the southern hemispheres on my continent. But I did have a massive goblin problem, so to say. The goblins already had eradicated all humans. I don't know.

I wouldn't... Okay. Getting back to your question, because I feel like... I'm derailing a bit. Yeah, older worlds are a bit more hard to play, but usually I feel it is because the population has thinned out, and you either have a dead world with only necromances and zombies or a goblin world. So evil usually triumphs over good.

Yeah. That's what I'm hearing here. It's either because, well, necromancers and zombies do not die from old age or goblins that do not die from old age but have some armor and weapons they can craft. While elves don't die from old age as well, let's be honest, a bark armor is not that effective. And humans just, I don't know, they are a bit aggressive. but they're not good. I've never had a world. I've never seen a world where the humans actually were the strongest force.

I had many worlds where humans either didn't exist or died out. Hey, Roland. Yeah. You talked about running this running dwarf fortress off of an SD card. So it stays self-contained on that SD card. and you just execute it from there and all your saves go back to there. Is that right?

Yes, sir. Even whenever I transport it by a SD card, I always put it on a hard drive. I guess that I'm still stuck in an age where SD cards are too slow to run things on. Yeah, normally, yes, but it works. It works. I didn't really have any problems with it

because the processing of the world is still a bit slower than the actual what's called the gameplay part transfer rate I gotcha

so it's fine what were you about to say Tony I was going to say I've done it on a USB 3 thumb drive that works pretty well oh yeah they work really good so I actually get one with fast read and write speeds

it's great was that with full game play, not just building the world, but actually... I did the whole thing, yeah, because I, you know, when I was playing between multiple PCs or whatever, it would be nice to sort of have a portable world. Yeah, yeah, put it on your keychain

and just carry Dwarf Fortress wherever you go. Dwarfs anywhere. Nice. Yeah. So there was, this post on Reddit and I don't know the full detail of it but it was it posted yesterday I think and it got like over a thousand upvotes like almost instantly and everyone's given it awards so what is this among dwarves phenomenon well I didn't really understand it from the from the

subreddit post it yeah is it more than just somebody pasting to together, some pictures that they pulled from Door Fortress? Yes, yes, it is more because I'm not sure why or when it really happened, but the internet has been exploding over the game Among Us, which is a... Do you know TTS or Tracer game from what's it called Gary's Mod? I don't. Oh, okay, good, because that was my childhood, I guess.

It's a game in which you play with friends, and one of you is a traitor, and the traitor has to kill the others, why the others have to kill the traitor. But only the traitor knows that he is the traitor. Gotcha. So the others have to find out who is the evil man. and the evil man has to hide in between the others. It's a very basic game concept, and Hmong is really, it's not a huge game, but it seems it has gotten a lot of attention

in the last few months, even, and it just exploded completely, and the internet is full of it. So now somebody tried to make a post cross referencing among us to a dwarf fortress in which dwarfs not try to find

an imposter or traitor but a vampire and well if you saw the other original Among Us memes it is it is really funny how fitting it is

when you as the player is trying out to find out the vampire in your fortress and you're like, is it you? And you kill somebody or banished somebody and it wasn't the vampire and the killing still goes on and you're like, oh no. Whoops. Yeah.

So that makes that last frame look better. It looks like that they threw the suspect into a lava pit and then it says that he wasn't the vampire. Yeah. But why was everybody called Eurist? Like, everyone in the whole fort seems to have been called that. Well, I think that's a Dwarf fortress meme. Because everybody is just called Euris Meg, whatever the hell.

He controls our email, too. Yeah, yeah. And I am called Euris citizen spikes on the survey. Yeah, I didn't know if there was a... Yeah, I was like, what mud, what fresh hell made that happen? Everybody has the same name. That sounds complicated. Yeah, I get it.

It really is. Yeah, there was definitely something fun. Maybe he came in and nicknamed them all. Or maybe there is an all-urist plug-in. There isn't now. I'm sure there will be with Steam. Oh, my God. I would play that.

It sounds horrible. So that makes that subreddit posts make more sense now, and since a bunch of the people on the subreddit probably also play that among us, then maybe that makes more sense. The person who posted that was, and, you know, it's hard to pronounce usernames, but it's spelled E-N-I-T-E-R-I-S,

Ineteris, Eneteris. So, yeah, that was cool. That was a really, really popular Dwar Fortress subreddit posting. Interesting. Oh, my God. Imagine a Among Us mod for Dwar fortress. Oh, wow. Oh, wow.

Okay. No, I'm fantasizing. I'm sorry. Perfect. You should better get crackin. Yeah, you could probably turn something like that. They had talked about possibly putting in campaigns and tutorials in Dwar Fortress to help people learn. And it's probably not going into the initial steam release.

But ever since I've been playing the game, they have mentioned offhandedly about possibly having those sort of things to help people learn how to play the game. And I could certainly imagine there being an among us scenario and among us campaign to where the whole point of the thing is for you to find the infiltrator. Yeah, it'd be pretty cool. The future is very bright with this. Yeah, and then... I'm glad this probably something. The other thing, I think. is really interesting right now is uh what do you call it that uh that that uh that that uh that

that guy that makes videos on youtube blend the r l before uh the other one that does the cool drawing the man yeah that drawing yeah drawing drawing yeah drawing that's extraordinary i don't know if you if you've caught up on the latest but uh yes i have uh yeah i have unfortunately been slacking on my crug smash watching well is this still the uh that same series that he had just started after uh after the last one that i can't remember the name of yeah yeah so it's the it's the sequel to not chamber pots bucket gap or whatever the other one was called chamber pots that that name becomes real appropriate though like you sort of get what the guy's been and like all of a sudden the new one the newest episode you're just like oh i see what you were doing

you rotten swine like it's like oh i get what you've been doing um yeah so i i would definitely recommend if you if you haven't watched all of them and you're like man what are what are we talking about just skip to the current one sorry mr youtube guy um but definitely chamber point chamber point yeah so anyway he's he's insane he's he's so insane it's like it's incredible what he's doing and how how he's playing the long game now is totally evident and awesome. So yeah, hats off to that dude

for constantly exceeding expectations because this new one is just totally insane what he's doing and how he's playing the game now. Doing things I'm guessing that Tarn probably didn't envision when he added these features to the game.

Yeah, so I think the last episode that I have actually seen for Chamberpoint is episode for the Angry Tournament. Yeah, so, So it sounds like five and six, there's a plot twist in here, huh? Yeah, all of it starts to make sense. I mean, you kind of start seeing a little foreshadowing in five.

And then in six, you're like, oh, I see what you've done. Yeah. Okay. Well, I know now we're two hours of mine, the remainder of my weekend, are going to go. Yeah, I would recommend it. Like, it's pretty solid, I would say. It's probably some of the best work he's done. awesome so it's so awesome to see him just like continuing to improve and like his editing's getting better his sound design's getting better his yeah i mean he's just it's so cool to see somebody like somebody's creativity kind of evolve and grow and just really land it and nail it so man looking forward to seeing what he does yeah i was i was a little concerned that he might be getting getting uh becoming a victim of burnout oh i know so and it's not don't get me wrong it's not anything about the quality of his

work, but I know that he's done a lot and every week he's putting those out. I mean, I know now he thankfully is taking a break every couple weeks, but I'm like, Nate, please don't bring yourself out. Like, whatever you need to do to look after yourself, dude, do it because we need more of this stuff and it's in nobody's best interest for you to get burned out. So anyway, I hope he's enjoying it still and it's not feeling like a slog because it's, it certainly is getting, it certainly is, you know, not that it was ever not good. It was just, it's just fascinating. see how much it's improving and how much he's growing. So pretty, pretty rad.

Yeah. So I'm really now looking forward to watching, watching those. So that's going to happen tonight. Awesome. Get some popcorn. Yeah, then you load up your own fort and you're like, oh, I should probably learn how screw pump stacks work properly. Bay 12 games dev notes came out.

and he comments on the effects that the smoke has had on his development routine. It's not done it any favors. Yeah, he doesn't much care for that. Yeah, it's not great. I mean, it's been a little rough. I know that up north, those guys in Pacific Northwest, definitely had a rough run of it. Yeah, it's been sucky. So hopefully all that stuff's done for now.

You had a pretty bad there for a while where you live, didn't you? Yeah, yeah, we had it bad, but it wasn't like, you know, it was in some of the places like Portland or whatever were, you know, we had a couple days of pretty insane stuff, but nothing like what they're getting up there. Well, they were telling you, you know, not to vacuum for stirring up smoke particles. Totally. Yeah, it was pretty lame. But, yeah, I'm glad things are getting back to normal. Get that steam release out, man. Yeah, yeah.

He released a through Kit Fox, and I guess it was on Steam, released Autumn Update. It is really cool. It's nice. There's actual gameplay for like the seven minutes long of the video. It is showing actual gameplay of Dwar Fortress with the new graphics and the new interface. So it is, it's really exciting, really looking forward to it. Glad they posted that. It's really nice to see him in those updates too.

Like, I think that's really cool. I'm glad they're doing that. I hope that's not too stressful or difficult for him because it's pretty neat to see. He made a comment. he had made a comment I think it was on the Pax video at least in one recent interview he had made the comment something about along the lines of deadlines

and he clarified in on Bay 12 games he clarified because apparently someone had taken from that that Kit Fox was pressuring him to hit deadlines and he's like no no no it's they're there if anything they're telling me to take more time off but yeah but

but yeah it's it's self-imposed deadlines which is nice to hear he's he said that a lot of that comes from his roots in academia that deadlines are something that you don't want to let slip and he's I don't know if he mentioned that there are contract deadlines but I don't know how solid those are you know but so yeah I mean I don't see Kit Fox is the kind of place that's going to send a bunch of lawyers of baseball bats over to his house or anything seem like the type but hey you know I'm just glad that he's able to work on a and we're all going to get something cool here. Yeah, there'll be goblins with maces. Or elves with maces. Elves with grown birch maces.

Well, the logs are heavy, so I get it. Yeah. Okay. All right. Let's take a look at the notes here, see if there's anything else I definitely want to cover. Got anything you want to add there? Euris sadism spikes?

Yeah, that is now my official name. I will call myself Euris from now on. But no, I don't really have anything to... Oh, I do have anything to add. Okay, so it's more of a question, and I don't really want an answer, but how deep do you think I went into, like, the dwarf fortress mindset

when I start to draw a layout, ford layouts on paper instead of actually playing the game. I think that's reasonable. I feel like that's not too over the top. You can always be building.

I too will admit to being way too far deep into it by sketching out fortress layouts on paper. So if you are too deep down the dwarf mine hole, then I guess we are, too, because I not only do that, I have put it on graph paper. Oh, okay, okay, okay. So I'm not completely gone. Well, just because I put it on graph paper and tried to calculate the most efficient way to route my dwarf paper.

just because I do that does not mean that you are not too deep. You can certainly be too deep, and so could I. But, you know, who cares? Too deep is not deep enough. With kindred spirits here, so that's all I'll say. There's no judgment. All right, guys. Okay, everybody.

Back to the forts. y'all take care and we will catch everybody would like to throw out one more time if you would like to stop by and say hi drop us an email at urst at df roundtable.com that is uriest at df roundtable.com and we'll get that set up all right guys y'all take it easy see you yep bye take care you guys This has been Dwarf Fortress Roundtable, the podcast for all things Dwarfee. You can find all our past episodes at DFRountable.com. Please stop by and leave a comment or suggestion in the comments section for this episode. While you're there, you can subscribe to Dwarf Fortress Roundtable or find us in the podcast service of your choice.

Music for this episode is from filmmusic.io. Skykew Ellen and Folk Round are both by Kevin McLeod. You can find more music from Kevin McLeod at Incompetec.com. Please consider donating to the creators of Dwell Fortress at Bay12games.com. If you'd like to help support Dwell Fortress Roundtable, you can find us on Patreon. Links to all of these are in the show notes.