Dwarf Fortress 2014 - Crazy Stories and Crazier Bugs

Kaalak

In celebration of Dwarf Fortress getting its first update in two years, I will share some of the most amusing stories/bugs the game has generated from across the web.

The target audience are people who are interested in what Dwarf Fortress is, but have had no experience with it. I will attempt to explain the background of some changes and provide a context for why the current version is hilarious/nuts.

I will make errors, so veteran Dwarf Fortress players feel free to chime in.

What is Dwarf Fortress?
Dwarf Fortress is less of a game, per say, and more of a world and fantasy simulation.  Most things (names, historical events, enemies such as Megabeasts/Night creatures, quests and just about everything else) are procedurally generated.  Certain entities like elves, humans or dwarves will be (mostly) homogeneous. Ie all elves will have two arms and two legs while this will not always be the case when you compare two Megabeasts.

Functionally this means that every game you play will be totally unique.

Dwarf Fortress has four modes that are strung together.  There is World Generation that you don't really play so much as set the parameters for the world you want, hit compile, and come back after dinner and a load of laundry until its done.  

In previous versions, once World Generation is complete, the civilizations, sites(locations), enemies and artifacts generated would be static until the player interacted with them in Adventure or Fortress mode. That has changed in the new version! (see below)

You can "play" or explore the text descriptions of all the people, places and things generated in your own unique world through the Legends Viewer

In Adventure Mode you control one elf, dwarf or human adventurer (represented on the map by an '@') and explore the world any way you wish.  Townspeople will give you directions to local horrors that need killing like animals, bandits, dragons, minotaurs, titans, Megabeasts, werebeasts and necromancers.  If the local population has had a rash of disapperances and killings then likely you have a vampire somewhere so you can accuse people of being the nefarious beast.  I think vampires can have a cult so this can be more dangerous than you suspect as the vampire and his cronies jump you upon accusation.  Everytime you kill a horrible thing you can brag about your deeds to the townspeople, increasing your reputation.  Also you can steal goods from merchants, you filthy thief.
Or raid a tomb and fight mummies! Or single handedly invade a necromancer's tower and steal the secrets to immortality!

Or homicidally rampage through a random civilization and sell all their stuff to the nearest friendly merchant. Whatever.

One note however. Currently there are no boats, so you are landlocked.

In Fortress Mode, the primary game mode, you pick a location on the world and supervise seven dwarves towards the goal of creating a successful outpost and eventually town.  You give orders to make crafts for trade based on the natural resources available to you and merchants from friendly civilizations show up periodically to trade for your goods in exchange for rarer items you fancy or need.  Your fortress increases in dwarfpower by periodic migrant waves of dwarves from your parent civilization.  In the current version, all these migrants (and your starting seven) have a detailed history and possibly family.

The 'goal' is to dig down past cavern one, cavern two and the magma sea until you hit adamantine and start using it for production of goods.  Once you hit the fabled adamantine a King or whatever will show up and bestow you with the highest honor, turning your site into a capitol.

Thwarting your development are evil civilizations like goblins and orcs and necromancers from their towers if they are within reach.  Generally the assault begins slowly with goblins sending lone thieves to steal your stuff and snatchers to kidnap your children.  Then small goblin groups begin attacking and this can culminate with full on warbands of 20-30 orcs mounted on everything from cave alligators to flying vampire bats trying to siege your fortress.  Necromancers can show up and turn every piece of a corpse within range into a near unkillable zombie.  Megabeasts and worse can crawl up from the cavern layers to try to break into your fortress.  Also dragons, hydras, titans made of living metal, infectious werebeasts immune to everything but a specific metal will attack you from the surface as you grow more famous by trade.  Vampires can hide in the dwarf migrant waves, appearing like just another dwarf, but once the blood drained bodies start piling up you know you have one.  Also, didn't properly bury your dead?  Have a ghost, which can range from mildly annoying to poltergeists that throw furnature around with fatal intent or spirits that make the walls bleed and literally try to scare your dwarves to death.

And that barely scratches the surface.

Unmodded Dwarf Fortress does not have modern graphics. It is rendered in ASCII and text.


Who is the head programmer?
One guy, Tarn Adams. PhD in Mathematics at Stanford (2005). Dissertation titled "Flat Chains in Banach Spaces".  He spent one year of a post-doc at Texas A&M then left after a bout of common sense.

Personally I think this is one of the (several) reasons Richard Garfield (of Magic the Gathering fame) who is also an ex-academic  (Professor of mathematics at Whitman College) donates regularly to Dwarf Fortress.

Since Tarn is primarily a mathematician and not a computer programmer this may explain many of Dwarf Fortress's, er, unorthodox design and development choices.

Tarn works with his brother Zach to develop Dwarf Fortress.


Who cares? Or the Cultural Significance and Industry Impact of Dwarf Fortress.
Dwarf Fortress was featured in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 2013.  I've already mentioned the New York Times article. There was an article in the New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2013/04/simcitys-evil-twin.html

You may have noticed a growing number of "procedurally generated" games that involve colonization and management of a civilization being (pre)released on Steam such as Prison Architect, Maia, Space Base DF-9, RimWorld, Gnomoria, Towns, Clockwork Empires...you get the picture.  The developement of these games have been influenced by Dwarf Fortress.


What crazy stuff did Tarn add THIS release?
Note: "Entities" refers to humans, dwarves, elves, goblins and intelligent enemies like Megabeasts and Demons.

Changes important to understanding Dwarf Fortress stories and bugs below in italics

-Significant changes to Combat and Movement.
-Sound indicators and NPC cones of vision should allow sneaking as a valid tactic in Adventure Mode.  Get your Solid Snake on.
-Every entity leaves tracks which you can follow in Tracking mode.
-Vampires now can sense and track blood

-Ability to jump and climb added.
-Multi tile trees added.
-Goblins/Elves/Dwarf civilization sites now have procedurally generated explorable locations. Yes Elves now reside in treehouses and Goblins live in places that look like Moria.  Dwarf hill and mountain sites differ apparently.

-Procedurally generated divine-associated materials
-Demon Sites

-Necks. I believe creatures having necks is new thing. Yes this implies necks previously did not exist in all entities.

-Morale! All entities now respond to violence! Sometimes they run away! Sometimes they are stone cold murderers! Sometimes they will choose to fight non lethally! I believe an entities fear/acceptance of violence is a function of the new Discipline stat.

-Morale! Entities now can have loyalty(or not) to their organization! This means that if you are an enemy of their organization they may attack you, refuse to deal with you or be nasty!  Or maybe they really didn't like their home organization in the first place and they don't care what you do!  Entities may now rise up against their leaders!

-More Personality! Entities have emotions! Townspeople may lie to you! People recognize body parts from dead people and will react depending on their personality and how well they knew them! People may have life goals like wanting to take over the world!

-Civilizations are no longer static after World Generation!!!!!

This has the following ramifications:

• Starting a new Fortress or Adventure Mode currently result in two weeks of game time passing before play begins. Crashes may abound.
• Armies now exist on the world map and move about during play, and you can encounter their camps.
• Bandits harass townspeople
• Invaders cause mayhem in conquered sites
    ▬ Destroyed buildings, killed historical figures, things impaled on upright weapons...
    ▬ Killing their leader should often get them to leave
• Invaders have camps with tents for soldiers and large tents for their commanders.
• Commanders chased out of their camp try to return due to their responsibility.
• Soldiers patrol the camp, raise the alarm, etc.
• Entities have various “claims” to sites, rather than outright uncontested ownership every time.
• Sites may change ownership during play!
• Goblins will hunt down a civilization’s leaders and kill them, instead of just slaughtering indiscriminately.
• THIS MEANS YOU CAN TOO!!! KILL A KING AND TAKE HIS THRONE!!! OR OVERTHROW A MAYOR!!! WHATEVER!!!
• Retired fortresses can be reclaimed.
• Civs will now continue to build settlements after worldgen, with some limitations. No roads or markets will be made in these post-worldgen sites
• Armies inhabiting foreign conquered sites can now alter the sites to some degree.
     ▬ Goblins will begin building trenches and small towers “in human villages, elf sites and dwarf hill sites that have been taken after some time passes”

Full unoffical DF 2014 changelog here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Vgy5h5tmWFZLqCJMYd1cbGG67SUCSIn30Y--DNymzdg/edit


Where can I get the new version (0.40.02, as of 7/10/14)?
http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/


WHY DOES IT KEEP CRASHING? Wasn't it just released?
In the words of Tarn Adams (07/10/2014) "It's not DF without save corruption!"

Welcome to Dwarf Fortress. Don't expect fully stable version for at least two months.


Kaalak how do I...?
Hahahaha. I have no clue. I suggest asking reddit, Something Awful or the Dwarf Fortress forums.

I recommend Getting Started with Dwarf Fortress by Peter Tyson. http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920022565.do

Seriously. I don't know.

Kaalak

These quotes and art are from around the web, mostly reddit, Something Awful and the DF forums themselves.

Dwarf fortress gameplay is generally hilarious, Tarantino levels of text-gruesome, or Lynchian surreal, and frequently all three.

Yeah, right now praying to your own deity is instant CTD. Not sure if bug or snide commentary.

Devlog two days before first release: Change one line and the world erupts in no-quarter knife fights apparently... hopefully we've emerged from that.

Been a long time since I've tried it, but with the next update upon us I think I'll take another stab at Adventure Mode.

I've never done much with it, aside from the time I saw a housecat become a named creature for killing those olms, so:

Human Demigod
Male pikeman, named Ciko
Max stats to facilitate immediate powerleveling

First step is to immediately flee my hometown and seek out a river, then practice drowning myself in the sneakiest way possible.


Edit: As soon as he's a legendary swimmer, Ciko is killed by a Sturgeon. Goddamnit.

ONE tree can give you like 50 logs. What the fuck.
The new dialogue tree is the most labyrinthine and complex menu yet.
SMELLS HAVE BEEN ADDED. Now you can enter your retired fort and take in the wonderful aromas!

Ha ha, I thought there was a bunch of leaves growing into the dirt, but he actually went ahead and gave trees roots.

Conversing in adventure mode is pretty nice since you just need to type in whatever keyword. Like old adventure games, you converse by going WEATHER, RUMORS, CHANGE, TROUBLE, LOCATION ad infininum.

You: A great beast threatens to bring ruin on our people.
Wingjustice the Rosy Periwinkle is in the Steppes of Autumn. Seek
this place if you hunt Necalo Gulfclans the Squid of Sacks the roc. 
Knowing no mercy, Necalo devoured our livestock and stole our 
treasures! This vile fiend even killed eight in her lust for 
murder!
Nique Ibucosin, Lasher: It is terrifying.
Ari Sulazedku, Bowman: It is terrifying.
You: It is terrifying.

I came upon an encampment of sleeping goblins. Easily, I went from each to each, taking their heads as trophies. I bashed in the throat of their leader and watched him suffocate. When one awoke he ran screaming and calling for help from his comrades, helpless to stop me as I killed the rest. Finally, as I slowly approached him he tried to climb a tree. I slashed him open from behind and pulled him down by yanking on his intestines.

Release owns.

A passing parakeet woman just spontaneously burst apart by an unknown force (the combat logs only refer to an "impact") and all the dwarves, animals, and other parakeet people who witnessed the event are "overwhelmed by horror." It was enough to make my carpenter cancel the bed he was working on

 I made an adventurer, was asked to kill a vampire, and insisted the vampire was fantastic to the unimpressed lord. I then stood in the middle of town and screamed requests for the vampire's whereabouts while people confusedly lobbed information at me. Then they all became frightened because I was holding a weapon. After that I went into the wilds and was attacked and torn apart by bogeymen. Highlights include one of them kicking me in the left small toe so hard that it exploded into gore.

I sautered into the local tavern and begun interrorgating the locals on things to kill. None of them would join me, but went ahead and told me about a band of kobolds they didnt like a while off in the Desert of Boring, but told me a local dwarf named Zas knew more. I found Zas heading outside while talking with an axeman about the weather, but he agreed to join me and also gave me better directions to the kobold camp.

I showed up to the camp and the kobolds didnt really care that much, and in fact, didnt have much to say at all. I went ahead and chopped ones head off, which didnt really raise much commotion amongst the others, aside from throwing blue !'s above them which... meant something. I went ahead and killed the rest of them, and Zas told me about a nearby bandit encampment. Those guys were similarly benign; I stabbed one repeatedly in the gut until he collapsed cursing me, and none of his companions moved to save him either, although they did spit at me. I found the cheftian and told him I was claiming the site and that he could come chill as my underling, which he replied would be resisted with all his force. He was all talk tho and I decided to stab his face too, which roused a nearby bowman to aid him. Both of them went down, and a nearby bandit wrestler agreed to be my hearthman or what have you.

Satisfied, I left, slaughtered another camp while demanding they pay homage to my own. There was only one guy and he demanded my site pay homage to his. I cut his hands off and he bled to death while crying that he was yielding. Zas showed up and commented about being surrounded by death, and said that we should "avoid hurting anybody". I decided to head back to the tavern when my game crashed again.

IN A TIME BEFORE TIME, THE WASTE DEMON EZUK NECROVOMIT THE LUSTFUL HAG THRUST A SPIRE OF SLADE UP FROM THE UNDERWORLD, NAMING IT THE BASTION OF MUCUS, AND ESTABLISHED A GATEWAY BETWEEN WORLDS IN DUNGEONDELLS

 I discovered a cool little story in the legends: a human woman named Lene Alothaimaza ("Tonguesnake") was born in 464, who became a trader. She wandered for about 45 years beginning at age 52, then went on to confront a forgotten beast*, was defeated but unharmed, then came back two years later to slay it for good. The next year, she died of old age at 100. That's one badass old lady.

* a scaly, firebreathing leech of 75 kills

I went to a necromancer tower and the zombies up and killed all of their masters before killing me. I don't think that's supposed to happen E: AND THEN THEY WERE REANIMATED BY THEIR BROTHERS AND SISTERS HOLY SHIT

Lomoth Greencobalt the Terrible Menace of Curses was an ape brute. He was the only one of his kind. A towering scaly ape twisted into humanoid form. It murmurs horrible curses. Its eyes glow scarlet. Its buff scales are round and set far apart. Beware its noxious secretions! Lomoth was associated with murder and light.

In a time before time, Lomoth thrust a spire of slade up from the underworld, naming it the Radiant Citadel, and established a gateway between worlds in Scourgedsenses.

In a time before time, Lomoth ruled from The Radiant Citadel of the Midnight of Marshes in Scourgedsenses.

quote:

Zothrol aided Lomoth in becoming a permanent part of the living world that more might be murdered. The ritual took place in Spiderhelped using the Phantom of Plagues.

Zothrol was a deity that occurs in the myths of the Kingdom of Culmination. Zothrol was most often depicted as a male human and was associated with death and murder.

Deities grant demons immortal magic powers now. That's unbelievably hardcore

e: He named his general NOURISHEDPROFANE. Goblin civs are seriously living death metal albums.

I just found a goblin hair crown on a goblin.

A goblin toupee.

Well that's lovely. My dwarves carved a statue depicting a Roc tearing out a dwarfs eye. The dwarf is crying. The roc is striking a menacing pose.

Having attempted to generate several worlds, all ending in the age of death, I have a theory as to why.

Towers use historical figures as the zombies, and those count against the maximum number allowed in the world, so all the available "people" are zombies, causing the end of the world.

I ran across two giant sponges in adventure mode, I was just walking down to the river when I heard some screaming. Turns out they hated each other and kept yelling at the other to surrender, or the occasional "Let's stop this pointless violence!" followed by a "Never!" Stuck eternally, next to someone you hate more than anything, unable to do anything but sling insults at each other.

Also as I took a running jump over the river (which was hella rad) the sponges saw me and for a moment were surprised. "What's this, are we under attack?" "An ambush!" Or something like that.

I started an elf adventurer (who doesn't like wooden weapons?) and asked the adjacent elf for a quest. She gave me one to kill a bronze colossus with seventy-five kills to its name, then promptly walked off the tree and died.

Now the colossus has eighty six kills... A random kingsnake woman I picked up as a follower on the way over, which the colossus punted into the trunk of a faraway tree.

This new update is fun.

Tracking Bugs:

Dwarf Fortress 2014 - Merchants climb up tree and go insane
http://bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=6625

Dwarf Fortress 2014 - Macedwarf continually spits on a sleeping priest
http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/m...iew.php?id=6657

quote:

When I arrived in town around sunset, three soldiers were having a brawl with a war leader and a priest. I watched it for a while, trying to work out what was going on, and it didn't stop even when the priest surrendered and the war leader was unconscious (although they did at least stop attacking the priest). After sleeping, I found one of the soldiers standing by the (now sleeping) priest and spitting on him every so often. He claims he is on an important mission.

Aramel

Aiee, there's an update?

Ssaliss

Also, for anyone interested in getting into DF: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Main_Page

Tridemon

About being landlocked, that's not quiiiiiite true... Necromancers in particular have no need for food, drink, or sleep. Meaning that if you're willing to take the time, you can literally SWIM across the oceans. 

Ssaliss

I hope they update Dwarf Therapist soon so I can manage my dwarves through it... Doing it the "normal" way is such a PITA

Aramel

No Dwarf Therapist = I can't play DF right now. I rely on all the assorted helper tools so much.

Shaddus

Do they have a phone app like this?