Dwarf Fortress goes next-gen: Payable Content

[torpid]

Skyway cannot into games with complex controls and gameplay. He is the casual gamer.

And a graphics whore to boot. I guess playing KOTOR seven times does takes it toll on the mind.

 

[Fowyr]

The learning curve isn't that bad; retarded fanbois who feel uber-1337 for managing to play it, after spending their twelve years on this planet playing some consoleshit games, promote that image. It's good for the self-esteem, see, when the people you've convinced of its difficulty are now recursively bitching about how difficult it is without ever having played it.

Well said.

 

[SkeleTony]

I just do not understand the crying and bitching coming from DF haters in here!? I myself cannot play DF because I am one of those guys who can't stand ascii and needs mouse support for a game this complex. But the game IS fucking brilliant and I will be happy to donate to Toady soon, in the hopes he will eventually be able to get to the GUI stuff(probably years from now but still...).

This stupidity of calling his stuff "DLC" and moaning like a sore hooker because the game is not yet to the point of mouse support and such...what is wrong with you?!
How does anything he has done even remotely compare to Bioware/Bethesda shit?!

 

[torpid]

I just do not understand the crying and bitching coming from DF haters in here!? I myself cannot play DF because I am one of those guys who can't stand ascii

Fucking texture packs man. There is no excuse

 

[thesheeep]

Days? Try 2 hours at the most.

Two hours, without ever having played something similar before?
Are you insane? This is just impossible.
After two hours, you probably have figured out how to dig and generally give useful orders. And mouse support would have halved that time.

It's good for the self-esteem, see, when the people you've convinced of its difficulty are now recursively bitching about how difficult it is without ever having played it.

I did play the game, I "mastered" the controls and I played for days, until the game kicked my ass (dwarves started to go all crazy underground, killing themselves for no apparent reason. No idea what was wrong...).
So I know very well what I'm talking about. The game would be much more enjoyable with mouse support. And easier to get into.

When I played it the last time... that must have been more than one year ago. Back than I had the time to get into the controls. Now I can safely say that I completely forgot how to play the game and would have to learn it again.
But now I don't have time spending hours/days figuring out controls. I rather spend my time having fun, playing Space Rangers 2 or the BG series for the 10000th time.

A good in-game tutorial (optional, of course) would also help a lot. It would be a start... the right step before mouse support.

 

[SkeleTony]

I just do not understand the crying and bitching coming from DF haters in here!? I myself cannot play DF because I am one of those guys who can't stand ascii

Fucking texture packs man. There is no excuse

I am well familiar with the tilesets like Mike Mayday's but since these are not yet officially supported, they are implemented in a way that leads to some screwyness such as text characters being replaced by tree tiles or some such. But even ignoring that the interface for this game just sucks. it would be fine in your average RPG but DF is so much more complex(and the game being real time does not help) that I just cannot do it. I am a 'hunt and pecker' typist so I have to look at the keyboard to find these keys as well.

 

[Destroid]

Days? Try 2 hours at the most.

Two hours, without ever having played something similar before?
Are you insane? This is just impossible.
After two hours, you probably have figured out how to dig and generally give useful orders. And mouse support would have halved that time.

It's good for the self-esteem, see, when the people you've convinced of its difficulty are now recursively bitching about how difficult it is without ever having played it.

I did play the game, I "mastered" the controls and I played for days, until the game kicked my ass (dwarves started to go all crazy underground, killing themselves for no apparent reason. No idea what was wrong...).
So I know very well what I'm talking about. The game would be much more enjoyable with mouse support. And easier to get into.

When I played it the last time... that must have been more than one year ago. Back than I had the time to get into the controls. Now I can safely say that I completely forgot how to play the game and would have to learn it again.
But now I don't have time spending hours/days figuring out controls. I rather spend my time having fun, playing Space Rangers 2 or the BG series for the 10000th time.

A good in-game tutorial (optional, of course) would also help a lot. It would be a start... the right step before mouse support.

It's ok if you don't want to learn new things. Really, how much would a mouse actually help anyway? Sure it might be good to have to help people get into the game, but in the long term it would make you slower to play, not faster. You can currently use the mouse to designate digging (I forget what else, have't played in ages) using the mouse to navigate menus would simply be slow.

 

[20 Eyes]

If you think DF needs mouse support, you don't know how to play it. It'd be nice for those that want it, but there is a huge list of shit I'd rather see Toady work on.

The ASCII is fine, though I think it looks much better with a square font. The default is rectangle iirc, and it throws off the symmetry of your fort.

Dwarf Fortress is one of those games that you just have to fuck around with for a few hours until you get it.

 

[thesheeep]

Really, how much would a mouse actually help anyway? Sure it might be good to have to help people get into the game, but in the long term it would make you slower to play, not faster. You can currently use the mouse to designate digging (I forget what else, have't played in ages) using the mouse to navigate menus would simply be slow.

If navigating menus is slower or faster with mouse entirely depends on how fast you are with the keyboard. For some it will faster, for some not.
I think keyboard will be faster for most.

But navigating menus is not the only thing you do. Try selecting a dwarf on the screen with the keyboard faster than with the mouse. And selecting single dwarves to get information and give orders is not a small portion of the game.
Also, I never denied that you would be able to play the game faster using hotkeys only. This is about getting into the game faster, and mouse does help there. Like it does in every simulation/strategy game.

Being fast is not the key factor in playing a game. Feeling comfortable while playing is much more important. And most players feel more comfortable using the mouse than hacking away on the keybord.
And therefore, having no mouse supports prevents many interested players from playing such an otherwise great game. Simple fact. And why would anyone want to prevent people from playing their game? To feel more elite? Great achievement

 

[MetalCraze]

Skyway cannot into games with complex controls and gameplay. He is the casual gamer.

Shitty controls do not equal complex controls, mein bro

It's like saying that you are a casual gamer if you play GTR2 with a gamepad or, god forbid, a steering wheel instead of a keyboard.

And a graphics whore to boot

No what you wanted to say is: oh gawd look at that apostrophe moving behind that big D letter. Fap fap fap!!

 

[torpid]

I play the game with a texture pack. Maybe you don't know how to follow simple downloading and installing instructions either?

 

[zeitgeist]

It's ok if you don't want to learn new things. Really, how much would a mouse actually help anyway?

Not much, mainly because the DF developer knows nothing at all about UI design and usability (and is unwilling to learn because the money keeps coming in regardless). A mouse-driven menu system designed by the same person would probably be even clunkier.

 

[MetalCraze]

I play the game with a texture pack. Maybe you don't know how to follow simple downloading and installing instructions either?

Yes I can't get beyond the first step: the requirement to become a pretentious asshole who thinks that spending more time pushing keys than selecting unit makes you a hardcore leet while people who want to just play the game are casual gamers.

 

[torpid]

I play the game with a texture pack. Maybe you don't know how to follow simple downloading and installing instructions either?

Yes I can't get beyond the first step: the requirement to become a pretentious asshole who thinks that playing a game where you spend more time pushing keys than selecting unit makes him a hardcore leet

Do I smell butthurt?

Pretentious assholes only play Arma II while ragging on every other FPS in existence for not being a spergy military "sim".

 

[thesheeep]

Skyway trolls Keyboard Defenders(tm).
Critical Hit!
Keyboard Defenders(tm) is trolled.
-------------------------------------------------
M-M-M-MONSTER TROLL-Troll-troll....
-------------------------------------------------

 

[Johannes]

The issue with the UI is not just lack of mouse. Mouse is faster than hotkeys in only a few situations anyway, like dragging boxes and selecting single item from a menu that doesn't have key shortcuts (like a list of items or dwarves).

But overall the menu structure is just fucking bad. I haven't played the game in a while so I can't reliably give specific example but things just aren't laid out in a logical way, what submenu can be reached from what menu, and can you get back to that menu from the submenu or will you have to exit to the main view before you can again open that menu? And nowhere you can find good overview for a lot of things, instead you have to browse through countless entries for single dwarves and workshops to find you what exactly is going on in your fort.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Yeah, what it really need most UI wise is some sort of search/parser that would let you find various things quickly. Like being able to type in 'maso' and get a list of all your masons, as well as any dwarves with 'maso' in their names. Currently the slowest most aggravating thing for me is trying to set up a new workshop and having to paw through all 40+ dwarves to find out which one has the highest skill who isn't also a legendary something else.

That and the dwarf ai needs to suck a bit less. Stronger priorities for reducing time spent traveling and putting off resting until the dwarf also needs to eat and drink, so it does all 3 at once, instead of crossing the fort 10 times to work, then eat, then work, then drink, then work, then sleep, then work, then drink again, then work, then 'take a break' (Different from sleeping, eating or drinking for some reason), then finally work for more than a minute.

 

[Destroid]

There is a third party program called Dwarf Therapist that some guys I know swear by (they won't play without it), I myself have never used it but apparently it's very good.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

There are lots of new domestic animals. We also added giraffes, rhinos, honey bees and bumblebees. Bees were the winner of the animal sponsorship drive and they had many associated jobs, so we didn't try to get into the other sponsored beasts, but we'll be adding those in with every release.

Something Awful Goons detected.

 

[Castanova]

DF is kind of dumb because you have to spend weeks learning the ins and outs of about 10,000 different things going on in your fortress/world only to discover that you've learned all this for no purpose. A good, innovative game teaches you things and then tests your new knowledge. DF just teaches you things.

 

[Berekän]

There is a third party program called Dwarf Therapist that some guys I know swear by (they won't play without it), I myself have never used it but apparently it's very good.

Try it.

 

[Johannes]

DF is kind of dumb because you have to spend weeks learning the ins and outs of about 10,000 different things going on in your fortress/world only to discover that you've learned all this for no purpose. A good, innovative game teaches you things and then tests your new knowledge. DF just teaches you things.

It does test it somewhat, whether you can keep your fort alive. But it does get too easy to survive actually, if you know the game well. Once you've set up well it's smooth sailing.
That's when you enter making all kinds of silly projects, gigantic dwarf statues shitting lava or whatever. Or more likely quit.

I wouldn't need any sort of win condition or such, just that the basic survival would be actually hard (even after you've fortified your position properly). Like if I play Tetris for example, you just struggle for as long as you can and that's challenging and engaging.
For me something like that, that you can improve your performance indefinitely, kinda is more interesting than something that only requires you to have a certain amount of skill to beat the game, but after that has no further challenge to offer.

 

[poocolator]

There are lots of new domestic animals. We also added giraffes, rhinos, honey bees and bumblebees. Bees were the winner of the animal sponsorship drive and they had many associated jobs, so we didn't try to get into the other sponsored beasts, but we'll be adding those in with every release.

Something Awful Goons detected.

No.

 

[Heechee]

The good thing about the latest update is the much reduced amount of metal ores, which makes the game somewhat harder. As expected, the game's forum radiates butthurt more than ever. Hopefully we will see the butthurt individuals preferring a total sandbox approach leave, ultimately allowing for further development of invaders (digging, etc.).

 

[20 Eyes]

The good thing about the latest update is the much reduced amount of metal ores, which makes the game somewhat harder. As expected, the game's forum radiates butthurt more than ever. Hopefully we will see the butthurt individuals preferring a total sandbox approach leave, ultimately allowing for further development of invaders (digging, etc.).

Awesome, I haven't played in a few months. I think I'm going to try to get a few hours in this weekend. I like what I'm hearing so far. I remember when Toady made underground farming require irrigation, and the amounts of butt-hurt that followed when people realized you couldn't just instantly have an endless and renewable food source.

Digging invaders is one of the upcoming features I really want. I might have mentioned it in an earlier post in this forum, but I'm too lazy to check. Having invasions actually be threatening, instead of just invaders funneling themselves through your trapped rape-halls (if they even get that far) would be great for the difficulty.

But it does get too easy to survive actually, if you know the game well. Once you've set up well it's smooth sailing.

Yeah, once you get a good water source and set up a farm you're pretty much free to do whatever the hell you want. Survival is almost guaranteed at that point unless you intentionally leave your fort vulnerable.