[1.8] Additional Team Members needed- Dwarf Fortress Role Play

[Mortifus]

Hi there, I wasn’t quite sure where to put this, so if I’ve made an error, let me know.

I’m Mortifus, administrator of a Dwarf Fortress role-play server. We've been around for nearly three years and have a healthy community.

A brief overview of the server; a divided community with four races that are in competition with one another, and a system of moderators or "storytellers" act as dungeon masters using limited plugins and “Imagination!” to progress plot.

Each world on our server is unique and the staff spend several months designing it by hand and writing up the lore. We find that the plugins work fine as of the moment, but we'd like to implement more energetic and frankly fucking awesome stuff.

To that end, a little over six months ago, I managed to garner interest from a few modders, some of them who worked on the revived Spider Queen mod who shared my vision of a server and single player mod for Dwarf Fortress in minecraft.  We plan to get the server stuff done first, which will make the single player versioning simpler.

I contacted Tarn Adams, the programmer of Dwarf Fortress who gave us his blessing, though took pains to tell us not to claim that our mod is "official"- which we don’t.

Over the past couple months since the initial planning for the mod start, we consulted with the community and with one or two additions to the team we have worked primarily on proofing the concept with tests and getting some initial modelling design work done.  We have also contracted a composer to design us a dramatic score to get the feeling of Dwarf Fortress moving.

Here's a link to the soundcloud giving you some examples of their work.

Some minor examples of early stage modelling and testing are below:

A video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXqoEgExFGg

The project is incredibly ambitious, we intend to completely modify the combat system, damage system - complete with decapitation, blood, dismemberment, crushed limbs and other status ailments. Have a vastly expanded inventory, including detailed health monitoring, a biography page based off of their in-game achievements (killing notable monsters, acquiring titles, etc.) a detailed breakdown of their skill progression. A butchering system that means you need to haul kills to a proper butchers table to be able to get the best out of your kill.

We plan to implement pretty much everything in Dwarf Fortress, from the mobs, to the varieties of stone, gems. An interactive method of smithing items, roaming and event based mega bosses and randomly generated "forgotten beasts"- A skill system that allows players to have a classless system to build their character within. Customised terrain generation and various tree schematics.

The thing is, we need more people to get involved. A lot more. Real life has taken a toll on a few members of the team, and while they are still committed, they can't put as much time into the project as they once were.

To that end, we're putting this post on the forge and sponge forums to try and get people interested in our project, and hopefully have you join the team.

We need Forge-literate programmers ready to be in for the long haul, and modellers who are up to making fantastic looking monsters and natural creatures.

I hope I’ve peaked some interest. If so, email me: [email protected]

 

Thanks for your time,

 

Mortifus

 

[Mortifus]

Wow, that was quick. To those who've emailed me, I've replied. Thanks for your interest!

[Draco18s]

You might be interested in taking a look at my artifacts mod, both for how to go about trying to randomly generate stuff, as well as content (crazy dwarves making crazy legendary items?  Why not!)

 

It may also interest you that I've been working on a mod to add some more realistic aspects to minecraft including ceiling collapses. I've been about two days away from release for a month now. But if your interested in some of that, I'd be willing to share.

[Mortifus]

You might be interested in taking a look at my artifacts mod, both for how to go about trying to randomly generate stuff, as well as content (crazy dwarves making crazy legendary items?  Why not!)

 

It may also interest you that I've been working on a mod to add some more realistic aspects to minecraft including ceiling collapses. I've been about two days away from release for a month now. But if your interested in some of that, I'd be willing to share.

 

Hi Draco, that sounds interesting! It'd be great to talk sometime about it. Email me the details?

[Mortifus]

It's just occurred to me that some of you might have questions. If you do, please feel free to post them here. I check in periodically.

 

Other things we want to implement:

 

Seige engines, traps, terrain physic and liquid physics. Dynamic weather (not just summer/autumn/winter/spring, but stuff like sandstorms, fog, etc.) and commandable AI guards (town watch etc.)

[MrCaracal]

I am an enormous fan of DF. The music and the entity models you have shown off so far are quite beautifully done, I am impressed.

 

Your project has certainly piqued my interest, but I am wary of recruiting-type posts such as these. I'm not saying this is the case here, but I have found that projects presented in this way often have a deficit of programmers on the team and a surfeit of idea-persons and/or artists. I have nothing against idea-persons or artists but my interest would be in the experience of mutual collaboration with a team of fellow programmers and not being simply "the programmer" who is told to implement other persons' ideas, so please forgive my caution and allow me to ask a few questions regarding your project:

 

- How much coding has been accomplished so far?

- How many coders are there on the team?

- What kind of expectations would you have of a team member?

- I noticed your Alpaca demonstration video is about nine months old, how active is development of this project currently?

 

Again, I am not trying to disparage your project.

 

Now, regarding my potential contribution: By some twist of fate, I happen to have a working set of Dwarf-Fortress "dwarven" crops that I developed as a personal project for 1.7.10 but never released publicly. Implemented are all the "classic" crops, Cave Wheat, Plump Helmets, Pigtails, Sweetpods, Dimple Cups, and Quarry Bushes. The sprites and code are original, and a few screenshots can be found in the following imgur album:

[Mortifus]

Hi MrCaracal

 

You're right to be cautious, and that's absolutely fair.

 

Insofar as coding goes, We have some basic items, additional stone types implemented and textured. A language-based chat plugin. Alpacas are implemented (The initial point of them was to prove that the planned slaughtering function would/could work). We have basic models for each race: Dwarf, Human, Kobold, Elf and goblin (non-player race) and a few other small things like world barriers that allow us to set up events based stuff.

 

The thing we've mostly been focussing on is working out the components of Dwarf Fortress: Itemizing everything, working out what entities belong in what biomes, getting schematics for trees, mushrooms. Working out a method of world-stitching so we can have proper cavern layers and a magma sea. A lot of planning. The team consists of, at present 3 programmers (with one new one we've just recruited joining us soon), a texture artist, the composer who works through me on a contractual basis, and my staff from the server.

 

The way we've been working is to divide the workload and create databases. We're now at a point where we want to launch into production based off of the plans and consultation between myself and one other person who have done the majority of the design work. We've also been contacting Toady about questions of fluff, etc to shape the mechanical needs of each race.

 

In short, as I said, we're launching into full production soon, but we have one of the programmers dealing with real-life issues. I'm acquiring new staff to hopefully keep the project moving and bring a new perspective.

 

If you're still interested, please feel free to contact me on email. We can skype to discuss any further concerns you have, or I can tour you of the server we currently run.

 

Thanks for the post!

 

 

I am an enormous fan of DF. The music and the entity models you have shown off so far are quite beautifully done, I am impressed.

 

Your project has certainly piqued my interest, but I am wary of recruiting-type posts such as these. I'm not saying this is the case here, but I have found that projects presented in this way often have a deficit of programmers on the team and a surfeit of idea-persons and/or artists. I have nothing against idea-persons or artists but my interest would be in the experience of mutual collaboration with a team of fellow programmers and not being simply "the programmer" who is told to implement other persons' ideas, so please forgive my caution and allow me to ask a few questions regarding your project:

 

- How much coding has been accomplished so far?

- How many coders are there on the team?

- What kind of expectations would you have of a team member?

- I noticed your Alpaca demonstration video is about nine months old, how active is development of this project currently?

 

Again, I am not trying to disparage your project.

 

Now, regarding my potential contribution: By some twist of fate, I happen to have a working set of Dwarf-Fortress "dwarven" crops that I developed as a personal project for 1.7.10 but never released publicly. Implemented are all the "classic" crops, Cave Wheat, Plump Helmets, Pigtails, Sweetpods, Dimple Cups, and Quarry Bushes. The sprites and code are original, and a few screenshots can be found in the following imgur album: