Dwarf Fortress Roundtable - Ep. 89: Mystery Baroness Consort

Episode Date: September 19, 2023

This episode we discuss our fortresses, multithreading impact, and Roland's trip to Gamescom.

Welcome to Dwarf Fortress Roundtable, the podcast for all things Dwarfie. I'm Jonathan. I'm Roland. I'm Tony. And we're back for another wonderful episode of Dwarfie goodness talk. If you haven't noticed, we have a Discord server now, and you can find the link to join that Discord server on our homepage. and that is df roundtable.com So I've been playing more Dwarfortress since our last episode

and I ran into something weird that I thought that I would like to bring up with y'all. So do you know the sound that Dwarfortress makes whenever a werebeast comes on screen? It's like this bong. Oh, yeah. I don't think I've ever played the game with sound on. So I don't know that. No, I'm serious I've never played it with sound

I didn't even know it had a soundtrack To be perfectly honest With all I guess I never thought about I turned the music off But I do play with the environmental sounds on Because I think they're kind of nice To try that I'll have to try that

I do play with the sound But I haven't had a vampire or wear beast In literally like a year or two And I'm very annoyed about it Really? Really That's interesting Since the update

I have not one wear beast I don't know what's happening. I need to send you my world because they're in mine. We're moose. I already generated several worlds, but please go on. I know the sound. So,

that sound happened. And what it told me was that a baroness has come to your map. And it's talked about her just basically describing a baroness. I'm like, well, that's kind of weird. So I go into the units menu

and I see that it shows that she's hostile. And I go take a look at her description, and she looks pretty normal. It's slept in a bedroom. Well, that's not her. But, yeah, it just looked all pretty normal. But then I took a look at her and followed her around. She walks up to my fortress, and then when she gets and sees people, she runs away like

the mad hatter. And then she walks back up to the fortress and then runs away. You know, like a dwarf does whenever they're trying to get back home, but there's you know, a monster there? But they're getting spooked, yeah. Huh. Yeah, this is a dwarf baroness from a different civilization,

but is she showing to be hostile? I wonder, could we be at war with that civilization? Could that cause it? That is the only thing I can honestly think of. But then that would bring the question, why is she here at your fortress? Alone. If she was trying to do something stealthy,

She's doing a lousy job of it. I don't think the amount of, like, stealth needed to, like, sneak into your fortress and steal something while completely being hidden and hostile is not really in the game. So the criminals do come, but they're openly saying, oh, yeah, my name is Tim Buktu's, and I'm a criminal. And you're like, okay, thanks for telling me that. I've had them just try to basically force other people to do stuff, like compel other people in the fortress to steal stuff. And like the baddies will like hide out in the fortress for a while.

And then when I had this like group of people that would like hide out in the upper left in the trees, and then my people would like go talk to them. And then the next thing I know, somebody in my fortress is stealing shit. And then they're like giving it to these people up in the forest. So for that fortress, So just anytime people came out of the map, I try to kill him. I think it's a little out of hand there.

That is a way to approach the subject, I guess. Oh, it's one way. It is. It is. I kind of try to make like a border crossing, a protection control thing going, where people are not allowed directly into my fortress because it's walled off. And then there is like a waiting room that they can. can go into.

And when they get into the waiting room, I sent my captain of the guard, and then they interrogate them. And then I know, you know, what they're up about. Because if they're criminal, they're like, oh, yeah, hello, my name is Tim Buktu's, and I'm here to literally just steal things and, like, corrupt your people. And, okay, cool. But this is your typical justice system criminal bad guy. right yeah these are people who don't want to be caught you just catch them they will they will

pretend to be a bard or a prophet or like some kind of mercenary uh but a baroness that is from a different civilization and said outright says it's hostile i don't i don't think that is in the villain plot no that's really weird yeah i think something's goofed and i misspoke it's a it's a it's a baroness consort. It's not actually even the baroness. I don't think that she is from my civilization. I think she's from another civilization. So neither one of you have had a hostile dwarf

show up alone isolated when it's not a siege or an attack of any sort. I don't think I've ever experienced that. No, I don't remember any instance of that. But have you had a full moon yet? Because that

could be an explanation. Like, that is actually a wear beast, and the attack got a little bit goofed. Because when a wear beast approaches your map, like, it spawns onto your map, right? And then it does not get to be seen, but it gets to sneak up on your dwarfs, and then it sees it is being seen. And by, for example, like a cat or something, and then you get the gong and the text message, like, oh, no, now you know why you fear the night. But if in that meantime, they transform back to a dwarf or an elf or whatever, you get a weird message saying, oh, it's an elf. Now you know why you fear the night. But usually there is still the wording of now you know why you fear the night, right?

You know, I bet that's it. I bet either it had just been, like on a click or something before, it had been a Were Beast. And by the time that it actually got on my map and it announced itself, yeah, I bet there's like, like a, it's a matter of timing. I bet you're right. Because it's acting a lot like whenever a wear beast turns back into a, a dwarf, it's acting like they do, runs away, acting confused. Yeah, that makes sense.

I think that you may have solved the mystery. What I need to do is I need to set out a trap for this Baroness consort, see if I can trap her and just leave her in the cage for a month and see if she turns into a wear beast. probably if I can catch her before she runs off map if she counts as hostile that means you can get her into a cage trap that that should work so you could probably build a cage trap tell everybody to get in away from the cage trap so the consort then walks into the cage trap without being spooked first and then you you should have her caged yeah if my dwarfs weren't so damn slow I could get them to build a a wall around her. But by the time my dwarves actually picked up the blocks and, and, and, uh, and built a wall, what's that? D. D.F. Fassdorf space one.

That solves that problem for you. That would solve it, yeah. You know what? I got, I got stuff to do. I don't have time to sit around all day waiting for them to figure it out. Like, just get on with it, guys. Do my bidding. Well, would the Baroness become fast too, though?

Yeah, yeah. Everybody does. No. No, no. It basically, if she's, no, oh, she's hostile. That's right. If she's not part of your population, she does not get the speed bonus unless you go fast dwarf space one space one. Then everybody's fast.

Yeah, it's teleport. That's really fast. Okay. So what we're going to do here is I'm going to make a copy of my save and I might experiment with that. I don't want to do that. I kind of feel like it's cheating, although, you know, to each his own, right? I get it. I get it.

I mean, no judgment. Like, I get it. Okay. So I think that the mystery's been solved. Yeah, I like to test things a lot and try to figure stuff out. So when I'm trying to figure stuff out, if I just want to kind of like get to the point where I can test something, I will definitely fast off because it's like, look, I got an hour here. You know, like, get on with the dwarfs. Yeah, I say it sounds like, it sounds like cheating, but I have no problem at all, you know,

uh, showing myself where the veins of this particular mineral are that I want to dig out. So yeah, that's, which is just as much cheating is fast. So yeah, it's a game. It's a game, man. If it's a single player game, then, I mean, there's no rules for me. Like, I'm the guy that brought up the debugger when playing Baldur State 3 because I was sick of doing a bite twice. It's like, you know what? To memory we go.

Suddenly everything started to go a lot better. With sad cloud tears, the great scribe Michael Eller delivered a memorial. Bim ink-dented the elder, was born into the world in the year 21. A dwarf of vision and unyielding determination, Bim rose to lead the inaugural expedition of the Violet Rack, and his name would be forever etched in the annals of history as one of the seven dwarves who found founded the illustrious new tower of showing but bim's legacy extends beyond leadership he was a true craft's dwarf of rare caliber his genius gave birth to the wondrous artifact known as broil tames a floodgate that defied convention and marked a turning point in engineering not content with

being a mere thinker and builder bim proved his medal on the battlefield in a duel with the monstrous wycod cloister passions he emerged victorious securing the same of his people. Yet, even the bravest are not spared from the whims of fate. In the year 109, during the harrowing battle of Maustral Nashra, the squashed attack, Bim met his tragic end, felled by the sinister goblin Durple Echow wondered, and his silver mall. In honor of his indomitable spirit, a grand philite statue was erected, a masterpiece crafted by the skilled hand of risen Uselmill. It depicted Bim ink-dented and his fellow dwarves in poignant detail. marking the moment of his departure from leadership in the early summer of 108.

The Fluid Saga of Michael Ellers owed to Elder Bim Inc. Dented, a dwarf of vision, courage, and innovation endures as a testament to the indelible Mark I individual can leave on the tapestry of time. I did have another dwarf that showed to be extremely unhappy like the red, angry face, and then I went to look at them, and it said, I'm doing fine. And I looked down at the, at the, the memories and nothing really stood out to be bad. And then I looked at the, uh, the personality and, and all that kind of stuff. And then I noticed that further down this list, uh, he was, uh, panicking, reliving, being attacked.

And then I see that this person is on a crutch. And I realize that this person is, uh, is maimed. Yet he is still in. the squad, and he was doing an individual combat drill, although he had good feelings about being able to use his crutch better. He felt satisfied upon improving crutch walking while he's in a combat drill. So I realized that that's probably not the best person to be in my squad if he's walking around with a crutch, so I took him out of the squad.

I'm hoping that he gets happier. But have either of you had any success getting a dwarf that is in the worst mood? out of that worst mood? Have you been able to recover a dwarf that has gotten that far down? No. It's corpse disposal as far as I'm concerned. Wow.

Yeah. It's a tough fort. I run a tight ship. No, I haven't ever. Once they're like melancholy, it's usually like wait till they go in a room and lock them in. Well, he's not acting melancholy, though. It's like he slept in a bedroom.

This could be bliss. He's blissful after sleeping in a good bedroom. bored after being unable to practice a craft. So he seems pretty normal. The only sign that he is in a horrible, horrible mood is that whenever I look at the unit screen, he has the angry red face by him, the worst mood. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is fine.

That is fine. That is completely fixable. That is completely fixable, especially if he gets normal mood boosters. For example, he likes his bedroom. He enjoys actually talking to friends. He enjoys crafting. because like a person that does not enjoy any of these things I've had them before you can't help them they don't enjoy anything in their life

therefore they get no bonus moods like no positive influences but as long as there are positive influences I've done this like several times at this point my entire fortress is basically either light green or dark green and so it is very possible to actually get dwarf away from red. You just have to focus on the dwarf and do a little bit min-maxing here and there and make sure that their needs are specifically taken care of. Often you can achieve a great amount of positive influence for the individual if you make, for example, a gold statue and put it in the room. That is, goes crazy. Or you make new.

clothing and then you kind of make sure that that person definitely gets new clothing on all body parts that also helps a lot or if for example you said the person is bored because they don't get to craft you put them into for example bone crafting bone carving and you just let them like shoot their shit with like 4,000 bones and you'll say go go hog wild just do whatever And that, it is recoverable. If it's red, it's recoverable. Cool. I struggle with the necromancer experiment types.

Like I've got these, this group, actually this world seems to have a ton of these. They're, you know, whatever necromancer experiencing experiments are called, like this one's called Lost Zombie. These guys don't feel anything whenever anything happens. So... Yeah, like it's a little hard to make them happy because they're not happy when they drink, even then they have a need to drink. Drinking more doesn't help them feel better. So, you know, it's been really interesting. So I've got my war elephants fort and I'm having behavioral problems.

And it's usually just these experiments. And then, I don't know, it's kind of weird. It's a little tough to balance some of their needs when they can't be satisfied. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That is actually something that I would deem to be a lost cause, but the undead do have the positive thing that they are in fact undead. So their mood has much less influence on what is happening in their head. I have to be honest, if I ever get a dwarf that is like bad in mood and they don't enjoy anything, they usually get a mean nickname, like Mr. Stinky, for example, was my last one. because then I can just filter out like the entire fortress is fully green and I have one person that is either orange or deep red and he's called Mr. Stinky so I instantly know

okay okay doesn't matter doesn't matter doesn't count and if you know if the person doesn't enjoy doing anything then that's it that's it like you don't enjoy crafting you don't enjoy martial arts you don't enjoy talking to friends you you don't enjoy anything. Like, I'm sorry, I can't help you. You need actual therapy, Michael. So these things that he's unhappy about because he wasn't able to do them are those things

that he necessarily enjoyed? Because the box says that he was uneasy after being able to admire art. He was lonely after being unable to make merry. He was lonely, being away from family, being away from friends, and so on. So does that indicate he likes him? things? He would enjoy doing these things. How much is still a question. There is a little bit of a difference between filling their needs and actually having like a positive mind influence on them. Honestly, Putnam explained it. I don't think I got it correctly. So I can't.

What's that? Like Putnam explained a little bit about like happiness and filling needs and how it connects and where it doesn't. And I don't think I got the whole thing. correct. So I'm not going to say the whole thing because I would be wrong. If you can find the link to that where she explained that. I'll put it in the show notes because I'd definitely like to watch it. I really want to watch some of her stuff and I haven't seen or heard her do any presentations because I love hearing about the

innards and the mechanics and all that kind of stuff. Hey, and I also made myself a what I'm calling a happiness index for my fortresses. And so what I do is I multiply the lowest number of dwarves times zero, the next highest times one, the next highest times two, and so on until I get all the way up to, what is it, seven? Yeah, seven. And then I divide that by the number of dwarves I have in my fortress, and that basically gives me an average happiness rating of my fortress. Of course, it started off that I didn't have any dwarves in the red or orange levels. I had a few of them

in the just unhappier than neutral. Yeah, something happened and I've got some really sad dwarves. You hate to see it. Yeah, it happens to the best of us. The great bard Kleeneodev tells the ancient tale of

Newtowerov showing. In the spring of the year 110, amidst the bustling city, Mayor Obok-Tultrated found herself ensnared in a web of quiet. Troubling events had unfolded, shaking the very foundations of her leadership. In the span of but a few moons, the city faced the relentless onslaught of two goblin sieges, the harrowing assault of a fearsome were lemur and a formidable weremoose, the appearance of an enigmatic eton, and the menacing gaze of a cyclops. The toll of this tumultuous time was felt deeply,

as three valiant dwarves succumbed to the curse of lycanthropy, and the subsequent full moon saw them felled by their compatriots. Among those who sacrificed all for the city was the revered Biminkdented, whose loss in a goblin siege weighed heavily upon the hearts of the dwarves. Yet, amidst the shadowy tendrils of uncertainty, a vex in question emerged, had the gods cast their disfavor upon Mayor Obok's leadership? Could it be that Elder Bim's departure wore an ominous curse upon the fortress? Mayor Obok, her spirit burdened, since the need for solitude, a pilgrimage into the heart of isolation, in search of the divine will. As she contemplated her path, the destiny of New Tower Ruff showing hung in the balance,

its fate poised upon the precipice of uncertainty. So saith Clino Dev, Bard of the Ages. So I went ahead and saved a copy of my fortress to see if, that I'm going to tweak it and see if I can capture that barreness just to see what happens. It is the, I have to look, it's the third of Slate. I need to find out when the full moon is in Slate. Door Fortress Weekie. So did you guys play any Dwar Fortress over the week?

I sure did. Or has it been an all Bouther's Gate kind of thing for y'all? That's right. You're playing with your elephant fortress. Yeah, yeah. I've been doing that. I still am trying to figure out how to add animals to them. So I've got a lot of war elephants.

I just don't know how to give them to people anymore, assign them to people. So I'm still messing around trying to figure that out. But, yeah, I've got a whole bunch of war elephants, and, you know, they're trained and they're happy, and it's very sustainable, and they keep making more war elephants. How many trainers dive? Nobody. I mean, it's all been a very safe affair. They're very friendly elephants. Oh, cool.

But, yeah, do you guys know how to assign thing, work animals? Do you just, are they automatically assigned? or how do you haven't really figured out how to do that? I've got stray war elephants that are trained, but I just don't know how to assign them to people. So I know how it was before the update, but let me think, because after the update, there's two different ways you can do it. You can do it from the animal tab, if I remember correctly.

You can assign animals from the animal tab, but only if they're war or hunting trained and only then to their specific job. region. So, for example, a war-trained elephant can only be assigned to a soldier. But if you click on a person that you want to assign the animal to, you can also assign them other animals. This way, you can, for example, do what I did, assign war dogs to kids, so they are kept safe. That's a good idea. They keep the gremlins off of them. Yeah, I need to play around with that a little bit more, I guess. I got some stuff to do. But I'm happy. I got I got elephants for the first time ever, so that's cool. They're very helpful. Yeah. I just wish the whole thing

wasn't in a perpetual tantrum spiral. I usually don't have that problem. I'd say since this new update, I've had very few of these like sort of unresolvable tantrum spirals. Do you know what triggered it? The tantrum spirals? Yeah. Seems to be rain. Yeah, and as best I try to give them tunnels above ground to walk in. Occasionally, they just decide to go around the tunnels and go into the rain. And then there's not a whole lot you can do about that. Like, everyone's just furious about the rain. I'm like, I get it, you know.

I'm sorry we all live in Seattle, but like that's just what's happening here. Also, I've realized kind of letting the tantrum spirals just play out doesn't seem to be great because they all hate seeing Carnage everywhere. Oh, yeah. I don't love that. Yeah, I have in the past tended to exile dwarves that I was afraid we're about to go tantrum. I don't know. Can you exile a dwarf whenever they are in tantrum mode?

Kind of. I mean, you can tell them to do it, but they won't do it. I don't know. Yeah. Usually I just send my squad in to kill them. Damn. You both are ruthless. I love my dwarfs.

I take care of them. Well, once they're beating people up and causing people's teeth to go into a ballistic trajectory across the room, what else can you do but send in the swordsman? You rehabilitate them and you pamper them and you tell them everything is going to be fine and then they get better and then they get back to work and they have a family and they become stable and mentally stable and there's growth in their life? I don't know. That seems like a lot of work.

Yeah. Mine don't even want to bury their dead. Now it's like I just have corpses sitting out everywhere and they don't want to put them in the coffins, which is great. Thanks guys. So everybody goes into the atom smasher and then I build slabs. I don't know what's going on. That's an official way to play the game, by the way. I'm just fun.

Yeah, it's just like everyone. But then the children play in the atom smasher. So inevitably, I smash lots of children, too. But, you know, you got to break a few eggs to make an omelet. Right? Am I right? Wow. Okay, but serious question, how do your kids get into the atom smasher?

You know, it's kind of an open fortress. Like, they go through the door that is the atom smasher. I have it separated by a door, and I'll usually lock it when I pull the trigger, but I have a kid that just loves to play in the bones that are in the atom smasher, which is really kind of morbid. What are you going to do? Right? We like what we like.

The heart wants what the heart wants. Are you using like a quantum dump style atom smasher? Yeah. I've got a drawbridge with a trash pile underneath it, and then bam, down goes the drawbridge, out goes the garbage. That's how I usually do it, too. You put a wall around it so that the crap can't fly off. Yeah. I mean, this kid loves to play in the bodies of all these old things.

So this child is rummaging through the bones of like five different dwarves. And it says, feels nothing after seeing the dead body. It's a really interesting child. Oh, that's perfect, though. That's perfect because that child is not yearning for the minds. That child is yearning for the military. Yep. Mm-hmm.

Yep, you can see it. Yep, yep, yep. So if this child makes it out of the atom smasher, I think we've got a great. You've got a great option. I think we've got a great potential here. But you've got to get out of that smasher. You've got to help me help you.

He'll do wonderfully in today's Dwarven Army. I don't know. I'm a bit kind of like maybe it's time to pull the plug on this one. But I don't know. There's a little bit of the Roland idea. Maybe this could be saved. Yeah. I definitely want to save this, this fortress.

I don't want my people to endanger the fortress as a whole because this is the fortress in which the new mayor has found a grand, a grand purpose, which is building a giant statue of something. I don't know what yet, but she's going to build a giant statue. Okay, a giant one. That's cool. Yes, it's going to be probably 50. or 60 units, Z levels,

Z units tall. Well, that's... Oh, wow. That's not nothing. Okay. It's a big statue. You got some work cut out for you there. Yes, she does.

Yes, she does. But, uh, so we're going to try to see if we can rehabilitate these dwarves and make them happy so that we don't end up with a tantrum spiral that brings down the fortress. That's a good plan. Okay, dokey. Let's see what we got. I got some emails here that came in. over the summer.

Love it. We have one here from Rollversal. Rollversal asks, Hello, you Dwarven Delvers. I love your podcast series, and I notice that you talk about frame death a lot. From what I understand, it's because of the restriction of a single thread,

but with the new beta, there's now an option for multi-threaded processing. How do you all think it'll impact the future of the game? Do you think it'll slow down development of new features? I'd love to hear what y'all think about this. Death to Elves, rollversal. P.S., do y'all have a discord? Or is there someplace else where the DFR Outtable community has some sort of forum? Well, Rollversal, whenever you wrote that, we did not have a

discord, but we do now head to DFRondable.com and grab the link and join the Discord. It's almost good that we now come to that email because now we can actually talk about these things positively. Well, honestly, this was one of the emails that just sort of pushed me over the edge and to stop screwing around and go ahead and make a Discord server. Do it, yeah. Yeah, I did. So the multi-threading, you touched on a little bit

last episode, Roland. You said that it was didn't make anything faster, but it kept things from getting slower. Yep. Is that a good way to put it? Yep, yep, yep. I, yeah. But I have to say that the multi-threading is not like general multi-threading. It's

not the magic cure for all our FPS problems, because the game is technically still not being multi-threaded. As far as I understand it, different things got outsourced that are not needed. For example, graphics. Therefore, if you have long event chains that happen in the game, say, for example, I don't know, Battlefield, right? Everybody knows Battlefield. Battlefield is definitely running on server of course.

It has not become that. The game is not running on several cores. Several things that were not needed for the main process got outsourced to a second processor core. The actual big, real DeWar Fortress game is still a single thread game and it will stay forever a single thread game. So the multi-threading, which I've seen several times in the community that people slightly misunderstood what is happening with the multi-threading. multi-threading is not suddenly everything is like on as many court as you want. It is just a few processes not integral to the game got outsourced. That's, that's it.

Yeah, I agree. I think it's a great start. I have no doubt that this is a massively complex code base that's been developed and refined over decades. And so as such, I'm sure there's a lot of. complexity and a lot of unwinding. And I would imagine, yeah, like you say, Roland, this isn't the magic fix that suddenly FPS deaths will never happen if you have a 20 core processor. But I would imagine that it's the start of some experimentation, which will likely lead to improvements in the future, particularly as like the way the game is written,

starts to change and adapt. If that makes sense, I don't know, I'm kind of rambling. but I think I know what I'm saying. It's like, it's a start, and I think as things continue, it will continue to be leveraged in, you know, now that it's available. That's kind of my guess. Yeah, I could see that, you know. More processes getting outsourced to a second processor core, more, for example, the whole several Z levels being shown, like when you enable that,

that you can see several Z levels, for example, that still Vags, quite heavily. I hope that at some point that gets outsourced to other course. But we will see about multi-freading because at the end of the day, TOTI would have to do that and TOTE doesn't know how to multi-friend. Well, I think it's also a complicated structure because the way that everything is emulated, you sort of need things to happen. Yeah, it kind of needs to all, it needs to like run through a whole cycle and then run through the whole cycle again. And so, you know, if you had somebody in one, you know, I, I think there's just a lot of complexity and the fact that Putnam was able to get it in in some state so quickly is pretty neat. And I think kind of a great

sign that things are going to start, you know, like now TOTI had, you know, you had one perspective on how to do things. Now there's two. And so now you've got two like really good developers kind of working together with new tools and they can kind of, you know, be like a dev team. So that's awesome. And I think we're all going to start to see how that comes together and starts to work. So, I mean, it's just, to me, it was just like an introduction of the concept, which is really neat because I bet Putnam was looking at it and was like, hey, you know what? This might be able to be multi-threaded.

Hey, look, it's multi-threaded, you know? And it's like, now the option can present itself to sort of go back and look for other opportunities, I guess. I don't know. Speculation Station. Also, I think that future features can be developed, possibly, at least it can be considered. Is this something that we could pass off to another thread, or is it something that needs to go in the game loop?

Exactly. Yeah. I think it's just teeing up for the future. That's kind of the way I felt. But you are right, Roland, multi-threaded programming is very different. There's just a lot, especially whenever you're writing in a, in a, I think he's doing some strange mixture of C and C++. At least that's what the original code base was, I think.

Yeah, they're not porting it to JavaScript training. Thank God. Or an interpreted language that will handle the threading for you. Yeah. No, it's, it is what it is, and it's awesome. Did we ask you a question, or a reversal? Yes. Oh, great.

Perfect. The revelation came from the venerable scribe, Mr. Dutzy. One night, in the early spring of the year 110, Mayor Obok-tultrated ventured into the untamed wilderness, guided by an unyielding resolve. For a span of 40 days and 40 nights, she sought solitude amidst the wind-swept expanse known as the passionate dune of the great land. During this self-imposed exile, Mayor Obok surrendered herself to the relentless embrace of hunger, thirst, and the moment. the capricious elements, placing her fate squarely in the hands of destiny. And it was there, in that crucible of existence, that she experienced a revelation, a vision of monumental proportions. In the ethereal realm of her mind's eye, she beheld a colossal figure, a guardian astride a mighty

river, its protective shadow cast not only over new tower of showing and the violet rack, but over the entirety of the mythical planet itself. Empowered by this newfound clarity of purpose, Mayor Obok-Tultrated returned to her cherished fortress imbued with a confidence that could only stem from a divine touch. She understood her calling,

as well as that of New Tower, a mission ordained by fate itself. With unwavering determination, she summoned her core of engineers, ready to shape the future as foretold by Mr. Gutzi. Thus, the die was cast, and the tale unfolded.

Roland, you know, You were at GamesCon. GamesCon. You were at GamesCon, right? What was that? Oh, boy. Okay. You have to imagine that this is like the biggest games convention currently that we have.

It is, or at least it was before Corona, bigger than E3. So it's full. There's a lot of people. And it is like halls that are filled with people. And then you have like an aerobiles. like an area that is walled off and then you have some PCs or screens or whatever and then you have like presenters and they're talking into microphones and there's music playing and it's it's a whole thing right but when I arrived at the convention I instantly looked at the map and was like okay

where are the indie games and then I just walked straight into the indie game corner I also brought my brother. I was like, okay, sorry, but you're overruled. We are going there first. And then... He's like, but I want Fortnite. Oh, no, he was aware that I was going to like push him into that direction first. He was fine with that. And then we walked around a little. The indie game corner has become so massive. Like previously, in previous years, it was much smaller, but now there's a whole it's a whole hall okay and it is like a labyrinth of two or three or four PCs for for like one game or one developer and then everybody's like running around these PCs and everything is a little bit like small very crammed and people are waiting to play people are just like okay somebody else

is already waiting so I'm going to the next PC that is like two meters over there and I'm going to play a different game and it's so many games it is insane and we we found dwarf fortress which was already a thing and then i got there and i look at it and somebody is playing the game and he doesn't know what is happening he looks lost he comes he looks completely lost and on what is happening so you know i i scoot over there and i look over his shoulder and i'm like excuse me you need help and then I told him like oh try this and try that and

I think it kind of made him scared to realize that there's so much going on and he just kind of left so you got his you got his terminal right so then you sat down and that's what you do is you belittle someone who's playing a game in a department store so that you can take over the game

I actually wanted to help him because I do have the game at home so why would I play it at the Gamescom but I ultimately did sit down and play there at the Gamescom because, you know, I'm like, I also, way too late but I came up with the idea I should have probably

just copied my own fortress brought it to the Gamescom and played it on their PC there so that the people that get there can start with a new fortress, like they look into an actually already running 100 person fort instead of, oh, there's nothing

on my map and I have like two horses. But yeah, Let's talk about the people there. Obviously, Alexandra herself was there. I talked to her. She's very nice in person. I think she was intimidated by my height, which I guess, I guess. I can understand that.

Who else was there? Obviously, Tody. And I freaked me out, right? I was on the PC, and I'm turning around to talk to my brother who stands behind me. and behind him there's Toadie and I glance over my brother's shoulder and I'm like and he's like what

what what? And then like he's here and you know I scooted over there and I introduced myself and he's like oh the podcast

and you know if you remembered me that was very cool very nice cool cool cool and I don't know what we

we talked about the game and what he's currently working on and he said he's kind of kind of sick of all the menu stuff and he wants to get back into the good bits like going back and doing the

what's it called not law and order what's what's uh justice yeah the justice and the the justices the villains that is the word the villains law and order what the hell that is a series and he also talked about the magic thing

and I was like wow you're like grasping into the future here what else what else oh he said something very funny I think he's fine with me he's saying that but so he asked my brother whether or not my brother is also playing my brother doesn't really play the game

because before there was no graphics up it and it just kind of pressured him into trying at least and totally was like yeah you know just you know just you know copy the game it's like copy by the things on steam and give it to him and I'm like that is stealing from you I'm speaking to you and he's like yeah I don't care uh I mean okay that is piracy I don't know like okay I promote piracy I think he's been pretty consistent, though, about it. You know, like, he made this game for years and gave it away. So, you know, I would imagine, you know, speculation here on my part, that his goal is to make a game that he wants people to play,

which is why he gave it away for nearly 20 years. And I would imagine there was some conflict internally about selling it. I mean, I think it's awesome that he did. and it's great that now it gives them the freedom to just work on it without having the shackles of capitalism in the American health care system driving the conversation. If that can free them to be able to do it and give it away, like, that's cool. I'm happy to support it. But, yeah, I would imagine it's kind of like a bit of a balance, you know, rather than a, you know, it's like I make this game and I want everyone to play it. Like, that seems pretty consistent with the way he's always done things.

That's, I guess, how I would. But yeah, super open A super open dude I found that very funny And he also back paddled a little And was like, oh wait I can't I can't say that You know because you're the press

And I'm like I'm not the press I'm just some dude that talks on the internet Well see it's how you just reported it To the public Well yeah Official press Maybe next time I just get like a

How's it called like a press button So I get into the secret halls of the gamescom where only like members of the press are. A press credentials badge, yeah. You know what you could have said? You could have said, come on, Tody. You wouldn't download a car. Well, if you would, if he could.

And, you know, there was a thought on the, I think it was the subredd at one time. And it was basically like, what is he going to do with all the money? is he is he going to be like a become like a villain and I brought that question up to him you know like hey what are you doing with the money you know are you sitting on it and um he obviously talked about like okay he is now actually able to afford health care properly and he feels very taken care of and he his his future is now much more secure than it was before but ultimately

he was like oh I bought this shirt and I'm like okay oh and did you see my Lamborghini he got there by public transportation so you know

this is not this is not Lamborghini money to people just just for you know like you have to kind of view it as you total up the amount of money that somebody makes working throughout their life

and you'll be surprised how much it is and how much you don't have at the end. And, you know, like, this is that for him. So instead of him getting this, like, developer salary at work for the last 20 years, this is like catch up. You know what I mean? It's like a lump sum payment for your life's work. Here you are.

This is what is. You know what I mean? It's like, this is not Lamborghini money. This is not Todi Flunny as well. I think we talked about this with him ages ago or maybe somebody else did. It's all jumbled. And he was just like, you know, I would be a terrible billionaire because, I would give it all the way.

It would be like Brewster's millions. And I thought that was like the most realistic and grounded way. I've heard somebody talk about money, and I thought it was amazing. So I take him at his word. Yeah. And if I got that kind of a windfall, then I would, you know, the smart thing to be is to like put it in some funds, some safe investments and, you know, get your salary off of the interest.

So lock it in, you know, lock it in something with a high rate, like 5 or 6% now. What are rates are really high, just have it pay you out 5% on 3 million bucks or whatever for, you know, that's a salary. It's like 100 to 200 grand. That's pretty cool. And he did not say, it's none of your damn business in the end. That's true.

I mean, look, they're pretty open about it. I don't think you're going to see super villain layers built out of that. And certainly not with the amount of money that they've been talking about. like this is low low seven figures so I wouldn't I wouldn't worry about this is like what Bezos sneezes into a hand handkerchief and throws away you know like this is this is that kind of money it's not not serious money yep Roland I'm very jealous you met TOTI won congratulations congratulations that's awesome I I was a little upset at myself because I should have brought like an older type camera, like a Polaroid, where you instantly get the photo out, because then I could have made him sign the photograph of us both. And that would have been absolutely delicious. So now I just have a photo with us both posing, which is already pretty cool. I have to print that out and actually put that into a frame. I told him that I'm going to frame that

I'm going to frame that and he just laughed and he's like I don't know if that is a good photo to hang up onto a wall it is

it's got toty in it right it's got you in it exactly yes yeah of course it's like see I find that to be more impressive

than those pictures of shaking the hands with the president people frame those and put them on the yeah it's cooler it is more special

hell I might frame your picture with Tony. Just put your own photo over the top of it. And by the way, we got into talking and he said something that I wasn't fully aware of because I never really thought about it. But the Gamescom was the first time

he actually showed off his game in like a public setting. Like, oh, you can't play. You know, it's here. It's right here. here on the PC. I'm not just talking about it. Sit down and play it and have fun in like a public setting. So he never had a, I'm surprised he never had a booth at a, yeah, this, this was the first time and I'm surprised about that. I thought he was at some conventions earlier, but apparently

he just talked about the game and didn't actually bring the game itself. So all these things cost money. That's true. That's true. The booth costs money, you know, so this is all coming out of what we what we spent and I think that's great you know like the goal of getting people to play the game is getting out there and and doing this kind of stuff so I mean I hope it I hope it pays for itself tenfold you know like I I want them to have a lot more they deserve a lot more true you know they make they're making great software agreed agree it's a good product well glad you had a good time at GamesCon. Yeah, it sounds super fun. Oh, and I

found out that Alexandra also plays a World of Warcraft, and I gained a lot of respect for her when I found out that she mainly played troll. All right, so I think that's going to wrap up this episode of

Dwarfortress Roundtable. If you have any questions, you can send them to us at Eurist at DF Roundtable.com. That's U-R-I-S-T-R-T-Rondable.com. once again stop by the website and uh and join the discord server if you enjoy interacting with your fellow listeners and us so yep it's been fun there's been a ton of people on there and i'm really happy how the uh turnout has as uh has come into the uh the discord

and now i wish that i've done a lot of sooner i agree that statement it has been fun and I was surprised on how quickly a lot of people joined up in the Discord. And I was like, it, it like rattles my phone every time somebody joins and I'm like, oh, oh, oh, attention, oh. Okay, guys, well, we'll see you in a couple weeks. And until then, everyone out there, good luck and dig deep. I'm trying to come up with a good, like, end quote here, but I'm struggling. Strike the Earth.

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