Dwarf Fortress - Despite the multiple let's sperg threads, we never had a general

[Trigger Me Timbers]

To be fair the statues in Rimworld serve a gameplay purpose and the description is just flavor text that's a nice little unnecessary touch.

"Either do something well or not at all". I know they are not the feature but honestly just don't bother because the desc breaks character too much being so silly.

Dorf Steam release when?

No official date because Tarn Adams but the development progress is pretty steady. There is a YouTuber called BlindIRL who does lots of videos breaking down any leaks, official updates and has interviewed Tarn twice. Good shit if your desperate for DF steam news.

 

[cummytummies]

the development progress is pretty steady.

That's good to hear at least. I wouldn't describe myself as "desperate for news", I don't get any pleasure from following news or leaks, I just want the thing to come out.

Not that there's anything special about launching games through Steam, but some of the updates they're promising alongside the Steam release are stuff I've been wanting for a long time.

 

[Gender: Xenomorph]

It really is, I started playing DF again because I was playing Rimworld and got triggered that some statues my colonists made we're just babbys first proc-gen.

Rim World statue: “This shows an image of Jet, Jet is sleeping whiles 17 Dentists watch to the left, the image is of a serious tone. “

DF statue: This statue is by Uriest Goldfortunes in the dwarves fort of Fire Helmets, on the image is the Dwarf Olin Wavetreaties and the Forgotten beast Azkile Karkegstok The Murderous Bloodskies in Marble. Olin is striking down the beast with his Masterwork Steel Spear “Strong Straight”. The dwarf is striking a heroic pose. The beast is dying. This artwork related to the deafeat of the forgotten beast Murderos Bloodskies on the 2nd of Sandstone in the year 235. The object is studded with Green Praise and is adorned with rings of Pink rose gold.

Dwarf Fortress; the history generator.

There's also gameplay there somewhere...

 

[Coelacanth]

Oh sweet a DF general. Was thanks to the succession fort thread here that I got into the game and I can't go back to life without it. I'm a huge fan of Kruggsmash's content and I remember watching Monsterkiller with my jaw dropped at just how much content and storytelling could be done with the game. Steep learning curve, but absolutely worth it once I got to mining my first piece of candy. Would totally be down for another succession fort if you guys decide to try doing that again.

I have a story or two about some amazing things that happened in my playthroughs of the game if anybody wants to hear them.

Yer been tempted to make a new one for the new update. much more fun now dwarfs don't spiral into Detroit because they were in the rain for too long. I'm playing a fort now and having fun.


An idea I had for a fort was to establish a Kiwi Farm (the bird, not the fruit). I don't know how to force them onto a map, I keep embarking on areas they should spawn but never get them, If I find them I may make a Succession fort with the goal of keeping a thriving kiwi farm!

That would be cool. You think it would be possible to make a custom texture pack for it too? I'd love to see the Kiwi Farms logo representing all the little dwarves (in fact a lolcow-themed mod for the game would be amazing too now that I think about it).

 

[not william stenchever]

I have a story or two about some amazing things that happened in my playthroughs of the game if anybody wants to hear them.

DF story time sounds like fun. Back in an early 2010's build of the game I built a fort in the form of a suspended tower nestled into a chasm and managed to trap and tame Giant Cave Spiders. My supply of iron was pretty much entirely from the sustainable harvesting of goblinium and we were so rich. Very satisfying. I really need to get back into this game.

 

[Moths]

Oh sweet a DF general. Was thanks to the succession fort thread here that I got into the game and I can't go back to life without it. I'm a huge fan of Kruggsmash's content and I remember watching Monsterkiller with my jaw dropped at just how much content and storytelling could be done with the game. Steep learning curve, but absolutely worth it once I got to mining my first piece of candy. Would totally be down for another succession fort if you guys decide to try doing that again.

I have a story or two about some amazing things that happened in my playthroughs of the game if anybody wants to hear them.


That would be cool. You think it would be possible to make a custom texture pack for it too? I'd love to see the Kiwi Farms logo representing all the little dwarves (in fact a lolcow-themed mod for the game would be amazing too now that I think about it).

A few people including myself have expressed interest so we might need an actual thread to sort out numbers and a theme

in reference to tilesets it doesnt sound too hard according to the DF redditors ( a slobbermutt tile for dogs would be amusing), tilesets that use graphics (ie, replace certain creature with this graphic) sounds like a bit more work but doable

and yes, more stories

 

[Coelacanth]

DF story time sounds like fun.

and yes, more stories

All right! It's a little long but bear with me. I was smart enough to write down most of the details in the aftermath of this event.

Spoiler: The Tale of Civetpuncher

This was in one of my early forts, so I was stupid enough to make the mistake of having a tavern in my temporary meeting hall that was open to the public. At the time I was moving everything from my temporary fort all the way down to the permanent fort I had just finished carving out when a message popped up:

The Werecivet has come! A civet twisted into human form. Now you will know why you fear the night!

If it wasn't for the kitten that had been scampering around in the entrance corridor I don't think this story would've played out as cleanly as it did. Most of the other dwarves were busy organising things in the new fort below, but some of them were still up top partying. I put the burrow on immediately and everybody dropped what they were doing and headed down while I brought out the hammer dwarves.

All but one.

Etur was pratically the embodiment of the phrase "a child does as it pleases!" - stubborn, cocky and no matter how much I tried I could not get him to follow the other dwarves. He just kept playing in the tavern, blissfully unaware that he was about to be massacred. With no way to make him move I moved my squad of hammer dwarves into the tavern and braced for the tantrum spiral that would inevitably follow.

The werecivet came through the doors - and thankfully for Etur - lunged at one of the bards playing near the entrance. Etur immediately ran over to it and the tiles around them turned red. The hammer dwarves followed - piling onto the werecivet and within about ten seconds it was over. I saw one of the hammer dwarves flashing and went to check the fight report.

The werecivet strikes the goblin bard in the lower body with her bronze toy axe, bruising the muscle!

Wait, what?

Not a single scratch or a bite. All of the werecivet's attacks had involved using a goddamn toy axe.

I searched around the area and eventually found it being carried away by none other than Etur - who had walked off from that fight completely unscathed. My jaw dropped a little. Kids in DF are danger magnets - how the hell was this one okay??? I went back and checked the report and was stunned by what I saw.

Etur punches the werecivet in the left foot and the injured part collapses into a lump of gore!
The werecivet falls!

This kid had ran up to what was at this point a fortress ending event and One-Punch Man'd it to the point where it couldn't stand up any more. The hammer dwarves had done the rest, but it had been little Etur that had sealed this creature's fate. In the aftermath I discovered that not only Etur was responsible for this gruesome injury, but he was also the son of the captain of the guard, Catten.

The only way I can interpret this event is Etur saw the toy axe and decided he was having it no matter what, but also saw it as an opportunity to impress his father. Well it certainly worked - most of the engravings and statues other dwarves made depicted this event in great detail, and Etur never left the axe out of his sight (it was put on a podium in his room when he grew up). But from that day onwards Etur was known as "Civetpuncher" - the kid who punched a werebeast and won.

 

[AnOminous]

The only way I can interpret this event is Etur saw the toy axe and decided he was having it no matter what, but also saw it as an opportunity to impress his father.

My guess is he even brought that toy axe into the tavern in the first place and dropped it there, maybe to get a drink, and the were grabbed it and tried to use it instead of the bites and such that spread lycanthropy.

 

[Coelacanth]

My guess is he even brought that toy axe into the tavern in the first place and dropped it there, maybe to get a drink, and the were grabbed it and tried to use it instead of the bites and such that spread lycanthropy.

From my notes I saw that at the time I didn't have any toys in the fort. The were was apparently so retarded that it thought using a toy axe would be better at hurting people than its own goddamn claws and teeth.

In retrospect no wonder Etur floored it. It was too dumb to live.

 

[Zebedee]

The knife eared shits might have got my fortress in the end, but I took their forests with me…

 

[Coelacanth]

The knife eared shits might have got my fortress in the end, but I took their forests with me…

The fact that you removed elf is all that matters in the end, my friend!

So I decided I wanted to build a sky fort and I've learnt an awful lot about more advanced things in DF such as production management. It is also more time consuming to actually get basic things like bedrooms installed because you literally have to make all the resources needed by hand including walls and floors. At the moment I'm considering keeping all the mason/smithing trades underground while things like clothing, carpentry, etc can be in the sky fort.

Already lost a few dwarfs to falling (the fort is about 14 z levels in the air). The ones that survive and recover get the profession name "skyfaller" as a way of showing how they achieved escaping death by fall damage. The only other death was from old age - a rare sight to see in DF.

 

[Zebedee]

The fact that you removed elf is all that matters in the end, my friend!

So I decided I wanted to build a sky fort and I've learnt an awful lot about more advanced things in DF such as production management. It is also more time consuming to actually get basic things like bedrooms installed because you literally have to make all the resources needed by hand including walls and floors. At the moment I'm considering keeping all the mason/smithing trades underground while things like clothing, carpentry, etc can be in the sky fort.

Already lost a few dwarfs to falling (the fort is about 14 z levels in the air). The ones that survive and recover get the profession name "skyfaller" as a way of showing how they achieved escaping death by fall damage. The only other death was from old age - a rare sight to see in DF.

Sky dorfs sound like a cool concept, I’ve only ever tried to build above ground to minimise the chances of Balrog stand-ins occurring, but that just ended up with a vampiric infestation which ended my play through.

But yes, my beard quivers in anticipation whenever I see elves burn in my lava traps.

 

[AnOminous]

Finally started a new game with my new system. Previously, I'd start with a 2x2 embark in a micro-world and even then, my 100 fps would last for a few months and by the end of the first year, be down to 50 or less. Now it's still 100 fps after a whole year in a 3x3 embark.

 

[Rent Tin]

Looks like there is some drama going on regarding frequent forum user Meph who published a popular tileset for the game back in 2016. It pioneered a lot of TWBT changes and set a pretty high standard for "realism" tilesets that came out in the future. As a result of the popularity of his tileset, he was contracted by the developer of Dwarf Fortress in order to create the "official" Steam release tileset along with another forum user Mike Mayday.

As it turns out, he did not properly credit many of the sprites he obtained (and while I am not an expert, he is being accused of simply compiling and ripping sprites with small edits, and not doing any actual spriting of his own.) As such, he removed the download links for his tileset and they are no longer available through any official sources.

If he has "borrowed" more art for the official tileset this may be a big, big deal and a landmine field of legal issues.


That post can be found here:

☼Meph Tileset☼ V5.5 (32x32) - 47.05 - offline

☼Meph Tileset☼ V5.5 (32x32) - 47.05 - offline

www.bay12forums.com

The person lodging the accusations of stolen and improperly credited work is user Vettlingr who is making a tileset of his own found here:

☼«☼Vettlingr's Tileset☼»☼ 32x 1.6 - OUTLINED Edition. Updated 12/11-21

☼«☼Vettlingr's Tileset☼»☼ 32x 1.6 - OUTLINED Edition. Updated 12/11-21

www.bay12forums.com

Whether his outrage is just that of an artist who really, really hates when people mess with copyright stuff or that of someone who really could use some more traffic to his patreon for his tileset is up to you.

After a little bit more investigation, it appears that Vettlingr may have tiles derived from Meph's tileset and he is worried he will have to remove his tileset as a result.

Response from Vettlingr sent to me by a community member:


Archive Links
https://archive.md/GAU62 Vettlingr Tileset
https://archive.md/Dac0B Meph Tileset

 

[AnOminous]

Whether his outrage is just that of an artist who really, really hates when people mess with copyright stuff or that of someone who really could use some more traffic to his patreon for his tileset is up to you.

After a little bit more investigation, it appears that Vettlingr may have tiles derived from Meph's tileset and he is worried he will have to remove his tileset as a result.

So he's mad that the tiles he "borrowed" were previously "borrowed" by the guy he "borrowed" them from?

DF stuff is full of fairly blatant infringements, even common utilities like SoundSense are chock full of songs I'm pretty sure they had no permission to use. Some of the material like Simon Swerwer's songs were specifically written for it and used with permission but I'm pretty sure they didn't get permission for "Tabula Rasa" by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, among other things, much less the specific recording used.

Anyway it's been very common up until now just not to give a shit about any of that, easy enough to do if you just take it down if it becomes an issue. Meph's behavior was not at all uncommon. They definitely have to fix that if they're going commercial, especially if the new tileset has more questionable "borrowings."

 

[Rent Tin]

So he's mad that the tiles he "borrowed" were previously "borrowed" by the guy he "borrowed" them from?

DF stuff is full of fairly blatant infringements, even common utilities like SoundSense are chock full of songs I'm pretty sure they had no permission to use. Some of the material like Simon Swerwer's songs were specifically written for it and used with permission but I'm pretty sure they didn't get permission for "Tabula Rasa" by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, among other things, much less the specific recording used.

Anyway it's been very common up until now just not to give a shit about any of that, easy enough to do if you just take it down if it becomes an issue. Meph's behavior was not at all uncommon. They definitely have to fix that if they're going commercial, especially if the new tileset has more questionable "borrowings."

Looks like Meph was fired.

Dwarf Fortress - Steam News - Meph and Kitfox part ways.

Meph has left the project and is no longer working on the official tileset. Kitfox is working to find a replacement artist. Some links with details.http://ww...

www.youtube.com

Spoiler: Video Archive

Reading between the lines it seems that he may have not have had an explanation for some of his contributions to the official tile-set and was let go because he couldn't say where it came from. Once the game became a paid product on Steam that could get the publisher in a shit ton of trouble if they have unlicensed/stolen assets.

Spoiler: Publisher Statement

 

[AnOminous]

Once the game became a paid product on Steam that could get the publisher in a shit ton of trouble if they have unlicensed/stolen assets.

If so it's pretty much hopelessly tainted at this point. With copyrights lasting a million zillion years and being extended everytime the Rat's copyrights are about to expire, you can't really afford a time bomb like that.

 

[Rent Tin]

If so it's pretty much hopelessly tainted at this point. With copyrights lasting a million zillion years and being extended everytime the Rat's copyrights are about to expire, you can't really afford a time bomb like that.

From what I understand from reading various forum posts and asking questions to a few key people:

-His contract with Kitfox involved Mayday doing the majority of the tiles and having Meph make edits and variations.

-Meph did have a few tiles that he submitted himself

-Any tiles that he submitted on his own are being completely ripped out of the game out of fear of plagiarism and will have to be replaced by Mayday at a later date.

-His edits of Mayday's work will stay, as they know the original source was Mayday.

-They are no longer presenting screenshots of the game for the near future. (This likely implies that some work on the interface or key elements was done by Meph and they need to rip those out and replace them)

 

[Orange Rhymer]

If so it's pretty much hopelessly tainted at this point. With copyrights lasting a million zillion years and being extended everytime the Rat's copyrights are about to expire, you can't really afford a time bomb like that.

I didn't pay too much attention when it happened - didn't Disney receive a special law protecting Mickey Mouse indefinitely?

If not - 2024 is rapidly approaching. Those congressional bribes aren't getting the mileage they used to...

 

[AnOminous]

I didn't pay too much attention when it happened - didn't Disney receive a special law protecting Mickey Mouse indefinitely?

If not - 2024 is rapidly approaching. Those congressional bribes aren't getting the mileage they used to...

Not really, Congress just keeps extending it. And it seems weirdly correlated with that particular event. In 2024, if copyright isn't extended yet again, this doesn't mean all Mickey Mouse content is suddenly public domain, just specific shit like Steamboat Willie. And even sufficiently different versions of the character are probably protected by copyright, so while you might be able to reproduce the entirety of the original Steamboat Willie, or to some extent the character in it, without having to worry about whether it's fair use, this wouldn't be the miracle it looks like on first glance.

Specifically, you don't have to worry about fair use of public domain material, because it simply isn't protected.

But if your use of Steamboat Willie did almost anything that seemed to copy plot elements from unexpired materials, Disney would find a way to fuck you on it even if it actually were fair use or use of the public domain material. Or come up with some contrived Lanham Act argument. Or a million other things including ancient common law trademark that might exist in your state or any other state where they could make up some bullshit to claim jurisdiction there.