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November 15, 2016 3:52 AM   Subscribe

The most ridiculous patch notes from 10 years of Dwarf Fortress. Here's how DF plays these days with some addons.
posted by Foci for Analysis (53 comments total) 41 users marked this as a favorite
 
And don't forget the nights when the stars are bold.
posted by fmoralesc at 4:49 AM on November 15, 2016 [4 favorites]


Nonlethal fall onto upright spike causes unreasonably high skill gain
Dude, if I fall on a spike, and manage not to die- it seems like that *should* cause a significant skill gain.
posted by nat at 4:52 AM on November 15, 2016 [6 favorites]


I love this.
posted by XtinaS at 4:56 AM on November 15, 2016


Giraffe is trainable for war

I see no reason why not
posted by timdiggerm at 5:01 AM on November 15, 2016 [13 favorites]


Seems impossible to satisfy a need for "introspection"

same
posted by zeptoweasel at 5:05 AM on November 15, 2016 [34 favorites]


Previously

Notable, because Tarn Adams mentions that he doesn't use any kind of version control to manage DF's source code.
posted by schmod at 5:07 AM on November 15, 2016 [3 favorites]


I can't even with this game. it's known in our house as Goblin Bureaucracy.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 5:11 AM on November 15, 2016 [10 favorites]


EVE Offline.
posted by delfin at 5:13 AM on November 15, 2016 [18 favorites]


I needed that.
posted by mikelieman at 5:23 AM on November 15, 2016


2005
Fixed bug with mules shitting luggage

2007
Fixed bug where all the local rock turned into sky whenever migrant groups were created anywhere in the world

2008
Allowed dwarves to get married

2010
Rain kills everything it lands on

2011
Dwarves come to hospital to Rest without injuries (and also endless tooth surgery)

2012
Weasels probably shouldn't be found on glaciers

2015
Seems impossible to satisfy a need for "introspection"

2017
Trump
posted by joeyh at 5:24 AM on November 15, 2016 [24 favorites]


A lot of these sound like really great short fiction writing prompts.

Made dungeon masters happy with their cloaks and boots again
...I'd read that.
posted by metaBugs at 5:31 AM on November 15, 2016 [4 favorites]


Dude, if I fall on a spike, and manage not to die- it seems like that *should* cause a significant skill gain.

I mean, significant, yeah. But not an unreasonable
posted by No-sword at 5:40 AM on November 15, 2016 [6 favorites]


See also @TheStrangeLog.
posted by 7segment at 5:42 AM on November 15, 2016 [4 favorites]


Moon snail men can't punch or see

Why would you fix this, are you against the natural order
posted by middleclasstool at 5:53 AM on November 15, 2016 [16 favorites]


Fixed problem with the king coming early

It's good to be the king.
posted by backseatpilot at 5:57 AM on November 15, 2016 [15 favorites]


TIL that reading about Dwarf Fortress is a rabbit hole of fascination second only to playing Dwarf Fortress.
posted by ardgedee at 6:05 AM on November 15, 2016 [6 favorites]


TIL that reading about Dwarf Fortress is a rabbit hole of fascination second only to playing Dwarf Fortress.

It's really true. Patch notes like these seem comical and almost makes it look like it's a fictional game, but it's not. This is what this game is. Every time you play you get new ridiculous and awesome interactions and stories that start to develop procedurally, and your human imagination overlays a whole new layer over it. If you can get into it Dwarf Fortress is an incredible game.
posted by gkhan at 6:23 AM on November 15, 2016 [7 favorites]


This game always reminds me of this cartoon that makes fun of hard MMOs. I always think that Dwarf Fortress should go where Eve Online is, as compared to similar type games.

Also, I know this is a stretch, but there's no hope for playing this on a Chromebook, correct?
posted by SpacemanStix at 6:23 AM on November 15, 2016


@SpacemanStix I don't know if there's a version for chromebooks (though I believe there's a Linux version, so you can probably swing it), but from a power perspective, it's doable. It's a game that's heavily CPU-bound, so you'll get framerates in the 10-15 range after a while, but it's playable that way. Also, there are several things you can do to avoid your framerate tanking, like playing in a smaller area (you get to decide how large your "play area" is during embark), limiting the population and not having constantly running water (i.e. don't connect a river to your main stairs to create a pretty waterfall, despite the fact that it gives your dwarves happy thoughts).
posted by gkhan at 6:33 AM on November 15, 2016 [3 favorites]


I'm loving this MarcusAureliusLP let's play! I love watching people play DF, and he does it amazingly. Great voice too.
posted by mayonnaises at 7:26 AM on November 15, 2016


Thank you for this. There is something about mistakes or unintended consequences that become greater than the sum of their parts - this also includes video game glitches or out of control cheat mods, mondegreens, and grammar mistakes - that makes me laugh until I wheeze and/or pee. I am in sore need of that this week.
posted by Lyn Never at 7:50 AM on November 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


Well there goes my day, trying to get into DF , again...
posted by humboldt32 at 7:52 AM on November 15, 2016


Dwarf misses completely unrelated dwarf

rip dwarf bowie
posted by Rock Steady at 7:57 AM on November 15, 2016 [18 favorites]


Nonlethal fall onto upright spike causes unreasonably high skill gain

Replace 'spike' with 'toxic waste' and that's basically Daredevil's origin story.
posted by straight at 8:09 AM on November 15, 2016 [4 favorites]


Stopped looping dwarves from constantly trying out gloves and boots when they should just pick one and go

If you could figure out a way to apply this patch to 5-year-olds you would be a millionaire.
posted by Rock Steady at 8:12 AM on November 15, 2016 [24 favorites]


"The Pixies to Minecraft's Nirvana"
posted by ODiV at 8:18 AM on November 15, 2016 [2 favorites]


Fixed a problem with blood hanging in the air

How is this a problem?

Stopped aerial births

For heavens sake why?
posted by kjs3 at 8:38 AM on November 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


Giraffe is trainable for war

I see no reason why not


my glorious mental image of this is nature program stock footage of giraffes having a neck battle while wearing horned valkyrie helmets. the battle is set to immigrant song.
posted by poffin boffin at 9:59 AM on November 15, 2016 [10 favorites]


Cleaned up the bear situation

I think this is related to an earlier patch allowing bears to get drunk.
posted by sebastienbailard at 10:11 AM on November 15, 2016 [4 favorites]


Fixed a problem with blood hanging in the air

Ugh, need this now
posted by rmless at 11:03 AM on November 15, 2016


Made all undead respectful of one another

This kind of kill the whole idea behind the Highlander franchise
posted by rmless at 11:06 AM on November 15, 2016 [4 favorites]


Dwarves given their choice of weapons will choose ones too big to use

Cf. Giving Trump the nuclear codes
posted by rmless at 11:08 AM on November 15, 2016


Dude, if I fall on a spike, and manage not to die- it seems like that *should* cause a significant skill gain.

There's actually a backstory to that one. People were building these "danger rooms" equipped with constantly triggering spike traps, and sending their military dwarves there, appropriately armored, for full-time, round-the-clock training. (If you make the traps with wooden spears, not metal spikes, even in the worst case they only break bones and don't… usually… kill the dwarves.) This was resulting in every fortress that wanted one having a ludicrously superpowered dwarven military pretty much overnight.

The list doesn't even have my all-time favorite DF bugfix — "babies no longer born strapped with knives"!
posted by RogerB at 11:40 AM on November 15, 2016 [9 favorites]


Cats dying for no reason - alcohol poisoning?

I remember hearing about this one. Drinks spilled would result in alcohol on the floor. Cats would walk through the alcohol, getting it on their bodies. They would then clean themselves in the typical cat fashion. In the process they would drink the alcohol, but the scaling was off, and the result was the drinks had would be the amount typical of a drinking dwarf. This is far too much for a cat's body mass, and they would perish as a result.
posted by JHarris at 11:42 AM on November 15, 2016 [11 favorites]


2017: Stopped the dwarfs from eating the plums in the icebox
posted by Quindar Beep at 12:42 PM on November 15, 2016 [6 favorites]


RogerB: Three Panel Soul has you covered.
posted by Grimgrin at 1:02 PM on November 15, 2016 [2 favorites]


This game is great, and so very hard to get into (at least for someone with my attention span - that of a gnat's). I once followed a brief 'getting started' guide and actually was able to start a fortress. I even had a cat farm of sorts, but the cats were angry(?) and started fighting each other and the dwarves. Blood everywhere - surviving dwarves very disturbed. When the winter was over and a trading caravan came to trade, they took one look at my fortress and left in horror. I got embarrassed and haven't played since.
posted by destructive cactus at 1:23 PM on November 15, 2016 [16 favorites]


"The Pixies to Minecraft's Nirvana"

From that series of tweets, I guess someone must have asked Tarn about the Rimworld mess:


On coding in things akin to "are men ever bisexual?" in a game sim, "you can't avoid bringing your own crap into the game" so caution needed

For personality they looked around for a model with some validity, but says it's tricky to discern if a study is bad, esp. when you're shy

Wants to model sexuality & gender more but would need to gut the binary system to model gender and identity better; would be great to...

...include but really doesn't want a model to inadvertently traumatize players w/ intersecting life experience.

posted by atoxyl at 1:43 PM on November 15, 2016 [3 favorites]


Certainly seems like a more thoughtful response.
posted by atoxyl at 1:44 PM on November 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


also previously
posted by Sebmojo at 1:46 PM on November 15, 2016


All of these are from 2005:

Fixed a bug where animals could rent rooms
Fixed bug with animals picking out clothes to wear
Fixed bug with mules shitting luggage
Cleaned up the bear situation


And I'm wondering if they were inter-related somehow. And "cleaned up the bear situation" is just wonderfully vague.
posted by nubs at 2:32 PM on November 15, 2016 [2 favorites]


This is the first thing in a week to bring me true joy, so thanks for that. Feels good, man.
posted by obfuscation at 2:46 PM on November 15, 2016


Oh, oh, my favorite DF story (which might have been originally from /tg/?)
posted by figurant at 3:49 PM on November 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


2007:

Stopped happy thoughts from sleeping in beds in amazing dining rooms
Fixed bug where all the local rock turned into sky whenever migrant groups were created anywhere in the world
Made semimegabeasts get along better with their cave friends
Fixed a problem with blood hanging in the air


...I'm assuming this is the year the devs discovered psilocybin.
posted by lumpenprole at 3:50 PM on November 15, 2016 [6 favorites]


SpacemanStix: "This game always reminds me of this cartoon that makes fun of hard MMOs"

Actually, the cartoon was originally about Dwarf Fortress, the MMO version you link is an adaptation
posted by andycyca at 6:08 PM on November 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


Ok, now I'm wondering what the other games in that graph were originally.
posted by Canageek at 6:45 PM on November 15, 2016


I wonder if I'm better off sending Tarn the Working Effectively with Legacy Code book or just a sheet of blotter.
posted by Joe Chip at 6:49 PM on November 15, 2016 [3 favorites]


Actually, the cartoon was originally about Dwarf Fortress, the MMO version you link is an adaptation

What, really? I've only ever seen it for Eve, and I nod knowingly each time, as I've tried to play that game about five times, and each time quit half way through the tutorial. I am so attracted to emergent narrative games, but my eyes inevitably start to twitch if they get too complicated.
posted by SpacemanStix at 8:21 PM on November 15, 2016


I know nothing about this game, but that was HIGH-larious. Maybe ignorance made it more hilarious.
posted by medusa at 8:45 PM on November 15, 2016


What, really? I've only ever seen it for Eve, and I nod knowingly each time, as I've tried to play that game about five times, and each time quit half way through the tutorial. I am so attracted to emergent narrative games, but my eyes inevitably start to twitch if they get too complicated.

don't care to try to figure out which was first myself
posted by atoxyl at 9:08 PM on November 15, 2016


so I've made a few attempts over the years to try to actually Get Into Dwarf Fortress, but so far I've only made it as far as "my understanding is that it is like a combination of real-time strategy and Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures" and even that understanding may be fatally flawed
posted by DoctorFedora at 11:42 PM on November 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


They certainly both work exceptionally well for that graphic.
posted by SpacemanStix at 8:13 AM on November 16, 2016


2015:Frozen in time; no way to re-enter time continuum

Not a bug, just trying to avoid 2016. Please reinstate.
posted by Hactar at 10:24 AM on November 28, 2016


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