You’re absolutely right, and in a sense that’s what we’re shifting to do. However, the way that the system is currently architected does not make this a possibility, hence the re-write. Chris can speak to this a bit better than me though, to be fair.
Also, you’ve mentioned pathfinding a few times. If it’s not clear, this type of rework will very much help the pathfinding in relation to building a structure. The different underlying model allows us to decompose the structure in a different way than we can currently, which in turn will allow the AI to be smarter about how it builds the structure.
The current tool for building UI is a struggle for players that aren’t familiar with the intricacies of it. The current model doesn’t line up with the intuitive expectation that new players have when they first come into the game, and this problem became exceptionally clear as we continually saw players stumbling over the same problems and then walking away at our PAX booths. The Sims has a good model for building construction, so we are looking at it for lessons we can take away, but our goal is not to replicate the Sims tool. As you’ve pointed out, it’s simply a different problem space then us, and it isn’t 1:1 applicable. We want a tool that’s powerful and easy to use, both for new and old players alike, and one that’s fun enough that players may find themselves defaulting to custom construction instead of relying on existing templates.
The two systems you mentioned are stepping stones along the way to building a social system. As a result of the work associated with traits, we can now crate more variety in individual hearthlings and can have them react to situations in different ways. As a result of the conversation system work, we now have a formalized way for hearthlings to interact with each other, and each hearthling has a living memory of the things they most recently interacted with (and opinions of them too). Ideas and concepts can pass around a town. Now that that groundwork is laid, we can shift into building a reasonably deep social system, where people get into arguments, for rivalries, make friends, get angry when people insult their family, etc. A social system isn’t the next thing we plan to work on (we want to focus on more gameplay related things next), but we have the groundwork in place ready to go when we want to start.
I don’t think this is impossible at all. Dwarf Fortress has emergent interactions almost exactly like this.
Fair. We’re not there yet.
Every week we go through a process as a team talking through what is the most important thing we can be working on. That process is informed by the feedback people like yourself provide here on this forum every day. The work we’ve been doing now gives us a shared framework to have this debate, so that even if we disagree we are all debating based on the same core fundamental goals. We feel this type of process ultimately allows us to be more reactive to you guys, but there is a hidden cost. There’s a lot of stuff we want to do, and a bunch of it is stuff that we’re probably 85-90% sure will get done at some point. However, if we come out and openly discuss specifics, that sets your guys’ expectations, and if our priorities end up changing then that can cause problems and frustrations down the road.
This conversation has a specific example of that. We previously talked about how Albert’s next major tech priority was to fix water, and it was going to happen soon. However, after a bit of investigation we realized that we had underestimated the water work that was involved, and at the same time we started discussing the need to add more engineers (especially senior engineers), to the team. Of anyone on the team Albert was among the best suited to help us recruit and vet really talented engineers, so we ultimately decided that work was more important to do now than to finish the water work, as on-boarding a bunch of new engineers would allow us to accelerate everything the team does. I definitely feel that was the right choice, especially because those new hires have allowed talented engineers like Chris to focus on big problems like building instead of always having to context switch from one bug to another. That said, since we were so specific about what Albert was doing, it set expectations for players like yourself, and in turn makes the associated delays with fixing water feel like we are letting you guys down.
We don’t want to be closed off about what we’re doing, as we think a healthy and open discussion around the game with players is essential to crafting a lasting and delightful experience. Figuring out that balance though, of being open and managing expectations, is a super tough thing to do, and even with eight years in the industry I get it wrong sometimes myself. I do try and err on the side of being open though, which is why I’m willing to sometimes come out and say “Yeah, we don’t quite know yet, but here’s what we’re thinking,” like in the post you linked. My theory is that it’s better to push the conversation forward and get feedback then to remain silent.