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.