Hey Urists!

Alexandra is off today so you have to make do with me, Tanya. But I'll be brief.

As many of you probably already noticed, beta13 went live yesterday afternoon with these fixes:

• right click menu has option to move more than one tile
  
• npc sheets no longer give away their names unless you know them

• cleaned up an intermittent crash from playing multiple adventure worlds
  
• fixed crash from some old adventurers

• stopped lockpicking menu from popping up until that's ready
  
• fixed cave adaptation
  
• optimization for loading speed with regards to flow events
  
• restricted some actions like bookkeeping from happening outside fort mode
  
• centered display of some wide-bodied creatures (some bears, anaconda, python, some animal people

We're all hoping to get the food situation sorted soon (butchering, etc), along with many other wishes, but it'll have to wait awhile (probably 2+ weeks), because Tarn worked very very hard to bring you the beta on his birthday, then needed to hurry some crash fixes with Putnam, and now needs a small rest. He'll be back at the grindstone soon, we promise, and his fey moods will return. In the meantime, dabbling in thievery or playing as a goblin or a necromancer (edit: oops, not available yet, sorry) will also keep your belly from rumbling.

BUT! Very very shortly the portraits from Adventure Mode will be hitting the main branch for Fortress Mode, plus some bonus bugfixing while we're there, one that might be an all-time great. You'll know it when you see it in our update later this week.

Thank you for playing!
Tanya, on behalf of Kitfox and Bay 12

Hello Urists!

Alexandra here with a post-Adventure Mode beta launch update. We hope you’re enjoying all the mischief and mayhem that the beta has to offer. Some of the stories you’ve been sharing have been hilarious and thought-provoking to say the least. This story about stealing a shield gone wrong made me laugh a lot.


A big thank you to everyone who has been submitting bug reports to the tracker[dwarffortressbugtracker.com]. The team already patched early this morning with some fixes:

• Fixed region map scrolling crash
  
• Crash fix related to multithreading

In the beta, as you may have noticed, you can create a party in character generation, visit your old forts, retire, unretire, get NPC companions, take quests, fight monsters with the various melee/wrestling/ranged options, set fires, tell stories, and travel the world. Portraits are available for dwarves, humans, elves, goblins, kobolds (minus some clothing variations), animal people (no items), and necromancer experiments (no items). These portraits are in both modes on the beta branch.

These are the features and improvements we have planned for Adventure Mode, as listed by Tarn in his devlog[www.bay12games.com] yesterday. We plan on keeping the beta branch up till the full launch on the main branch so you’ll be able to continue to play as features get added.

Even just the first few items on the (non-exhaustive) list below might take a few weeks so you can expect the beta to last quite a bit longer than that, which unfortunately means the launch won’t be extremely soon, despite what we thought and said previously. We promise we’re looking at how to be as efficient as we can. We don’t yet have a target date for the full adventure mode launch, but you’ll know as soon as we do, and keep updating regularly.

Planned improvements, though not sure in what order they'll be attacked exactly yet:

• Quest log / information screen
  
• Butchering and crafting
  
• Ability use, from necromancy to pet animal to spit
  
• Composing
  
• Motion/attack indicators
  
• Building interactions (levers, doors, etc.)
  
• Wrestle button
  
• Stealth vision arcs
  
• Better UI for stuff like going through hatches over ramps
  
• Some other info like movement speed / encumbrance
  
• Tracking / odor / weather / light / time etc. information
  
• Some travel map stuff like visible armies and zooming and highlights
  
• Minimap / map memory
  
• Trading and bartering (and the town shops being generally a mess)
  
• Assuming false identities
  
• Full personality customization in chargen
  
• Graphics and audio that didn't make it in for the initial beta release
  
• Get Classic conversions for the new buttons etc.
  
• The new stuff: chosen mode with deities, town improvements, dungeon improvements, healing options, and so forth

As we’ve said before, cabin building is a larger interface project, so that'll have to wait until after the rest of Adventure Mode is launched. We might also shift some of these improvements to be post-Adventure Mode launch, depending on how things look as we go. We’ll keep you updated.


Also, after a bit of a hiccup on the backend, the Adventure Mode soundtrack is now available on Steam. You can even get a 10% discount on it and the other OST, if you already own the base game.

Check it out!

That’s all for now! We really appreciate all the support and kind words as we continue our own adventure (of development!)

-Alexandra + Tanya + Bay12