Wherein Jake Talks About Modding

Toady is continuing his work on bug fixing, and has already made significant progress. He's fixed several particularly heinous bugs, including one that causes the game to crash if you try to talk to someone, and one that makes it so vampire dwarves don't disguise themselves when they try to move into your fortress.

Now that bug fixing is making progress, I can start talking about modding.

Dwarf Fortress, like many modern video games, makes its code available for modifications by the players. Dwarf Fortress has two aspects of its code. The "hard coding" and the "raws".

The hard coded parts of the game deal with the basics of Dwarf Fortress, such as "water flows" and "the moon exists". Raws deal with the more fluid parts of the game such as "rocks don't explode" and "blood isn't a solid", and are easily modified by the players.

This post will focus on modification of the raws, as only Toady really has the ability to modifiy the code in any way that makes sense.

                           Using the Genesis Mod, I created a minotaur adventurer and visited an orc town.


In the Dwarf Fortress modification community, there is arguably no one better than the forum user Deon. He is most popular for creating the Genesis Mod, which adds dozens of new monsters, creatures, plants, races, and interactions to the game. He used the raws to add new castes and subraces to the Dwarven people, and has added potion brewing, powerful magic, and alchemy to both Fortress Mode and Adventure Mode.

The new release introduces several new tags, which modify creature and item behavior, such as NOT_LIVING and OPPOSED_TO_LIFE, which tells the game that a creature isn't alive and actively wants to destroy living things.

Interactions have also been added in addition to the reactions that were the standard of previous versions. Reactions essentially allow an adventurer or a fortress citizen to create items using other items, or (through modification of the raw files) to create items out of nothing. Interactions, however, are the first true taste of magic in the game.

As of yet, only three interactions are featured in the game. One allows necromancers to raise the dead as walking corpses, another allows dragons to breathe fire, and another allows spiders to spin webs. Modification of the raws allows for interactions to do much, much more.

                                    My minotaur adventurer being mauled by a crapload of bogeymen

Interactions are made available to characters via syndromes, which have been updated since the last release. Syndromes are no longer used for making people vomit blood or ooze pus, but can now be used to make people capable of performing interactions.

Combining syndromes and interactions allows for adventurers to read the secrets of life and death in order to gain necromancer powers, and syndromes like lycanthropy and vampirism can be spread through bites and blood.

These new features are very good for Dwarf Fortress' thriving modding community, and many people (including myself) are looking forward to seeing what gets thought up.

Wherein Jake Gets Overexcited About Dwarves

Toady finally released version 0.34.01 of Dwarf Fortress! There's some pretty serious bugs that have to be addressed in the coming weeks, but I managed to generate a passable world. I'll be using the Phoebus tile set, which generally makes the game easier to understand by replacing the ASCII characters with little pictures of trees and dogs and demons and whatnot.

I'll be playing as Rorik Ironbutter, a proficient swordsman wielding quite possibly the worst weapon in the entire game: a copper two handed sword that can neither cut through armor nor be wielded properly while using a shield. A recipe for fun indeed.

I talked to a weaponsmith about any goings-on in the area surrounding the city. He pointed me in the direction of a dark and mysterious tower, instructing me to slay Xidel Eyescorched, the necromancer that lives there. Being the brave adventurer I am, I accepted.

After consulting my map, I plotted a course for the tower and set out. I had minimal food, minimal water, and no one to protect me from the horrible abominations that stalk the night. At last, I approached the tower, eager to sink my blade into the flesh of the undead.

Oh. Armok. No. I counted five necromancers and easily twice as many shambling corpses within the first floor of the tower. I tried to make a hasty retreat, hoping they hadn't spotted me, but I was far too late. Faced with no other recourse, I gripped my sword and charged into battle.

My first hit is a lucky one, severing one of the necromancer's tendons. His arm will be nearly useless for the remainder of this battle.

I retreated quickly out of the tower to reduce the chances of being cornered. Another blow to the necromancer slices open one of his arteries and causes him to drop his weapon.

His blood gushes out of the wound in his arm, quickly leaving his body empty. It slumps to the ground, pale and lifeless, before standing up again under the power of a different necromancer. It groans an unearthly groan and moves toward me.

A quick blow with my sword sends the abomination stumbling backward, giving me time to focus my attack on a different necromancer. After a few minor cuts and bruises, she begins fleeing for her life.

The fool. She thought that she could escape death by practicing unholy magics and making covenants with demons, but all the magic in the world couldn't save her from my sword. Her intestines spill to the ground, and I move my focus to another foe. The necromancer is no concern of mine any longer, death will find her soon enough.

The next necromancer's left arm is shattered by a powerful blow of my sword. Copper may not be strong enough to sever limbs, but the force of the strike leaves him wracked with pain. He passes out, unable to handle it, and I slash his head apart at my leisure. Three down. Two to go.

Running? Oh, you poor things. Haven't you learned that running from Rorik Ironbutter can only end in a slow and painful death?

I finally catch up to the fleeing necromancer, and stab him in the back. He attempts to attack me, but his efforts are fruitless.

With my sword embedded in his back, I am left with no other option than to punch the necromancer in the back of the head. The intensity of the battle has given me superhuman strength, it would seem, for I easily crush his skull and destroy his brain. He falls to the ground and I remove my sword, just in time for the final necromancer to raise him as a walking corpse.

The battle with the final necromancer is short. Fearful for his life, he makes several mistakes, allowing me to sever the motor nerves of both his feet. He falls to the ground, unable to move, and I slice open his belly and leave him to die.

With the necromancers dead, all that remains is to clear the landscape of their unholy work. My muscles ache and my bones grow weary. I am covered in cuts and bruises and I have seen more death today than most will witness in a lifetime. I couldn't be happier.

Oh, Rorik. You got dark.

EDIT: Rorik was later eaten by wolves.

What's Next?

Dwarf Fortress is still in an open-alpha stage of development, and less than one third of the finished game is complete. Toady releases the game in bits and pieces after accomplishing milestones in the game's development.

A new version of the game is due to be released in the next week or so, and several huge changes are expected. This post will list the most exciting of these changes and talk about them in an incredibly excited manner.

Vampires

Yes, that's right. Vampires. These horrible blood-sucking monsters are going to be introduced into the world of Dwarf Fortress for the first time in the coming release. Vampire dwarves will infiltrate your fortresses disguised as peasants and weavers, and will slowly turn your once thriving industrious dwarves into an army of horrible bloodthirsty monsters.

Adventure Mode will also see benefits from the introduction of vampires, allowing the player character to battle, slay, and even become one of these undead abominations. Vampires will drink the blood of unsuspecting villagers, form cults to protect their identities, and even become the tyrannical rulers of civilizations.

                                    this is a vampire in the world travel screen (from the DF website)


Necromancers

Dwarf Fortress, despite featuring dwarves and elves and demons, has always been a low fantasy game, meaning that there is a lack of black and white morality and prominent magic. This will be changed somewhat with the new release and the introduction of necromancers.

Brave adventurers or power-hungry sociopaths will discover secrets hidden by gods and demons, buried under the earth to seal away their power. Life and death will become nothing to them, and they will raise armies of zombies and construct terrifying towers filled with their undead minions.

Adventurers who are brave enough may try to invade their towers, slay these necromancers, and claim their power for their own.

Dwarves will be beseiged by armies of the undead as necromancers look to add the citizens of their fortress to their growing army of the undead.

Magic, for the first time, has been introduced to Dwarf Fortress.

Cities

This is perhaps the largest and most difficult change implemented in Dwarf Fortress. Instead of small, nearly empty towns, large metropolises will spring up throughout the history of the generated world. Adventurers can shop, fight, and journey through the cities and their underground network of sewers and crypts.

Powerful kings and hidden horrors will rule and lurk in cities populated by thousands upon thousands of unique citizens and historical figures, and trade from Fortress Mode will affect the goods available in Adventure Mode.

                                              projected model of a city (from the DF website)

                                     the new and improved city travel screen (from the DF website)
                 


Hunger and Thirst

In the past, Adventure Mode had a feature that caused your adventurer to require food and water in order to function. In today's version it has been removed to allow for increased travel. Toady will be reintroducing hunger and thirst back into Adventure Mode in this new version, as well as requiring vampires to drink blood semi-regularly in order to function.

These changes will add a much-needed amount of realism to the game and contrast the wild fantasy and excitement of the addition of magic and immortality into the game.

Toady's brother Zach has said that it is possible to spend your adventurer's entire career inside of just one city.

These changes are going to completely change the game as we know it. According to Zach, they make Adventure Mode "100,000 times more fun."

I am so excited that when it comes out, I am liable to lock myself in my room and do nothing by slay trolls and murder vampires until I waste away from starvation.