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The Guiding Principles and New Rules
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MINECRAFT - Build to the sky, Dig to the depths. Join the masses.
Posts
I picked up minecraft and immediately knew what to do. right click, left click. Oh hold down the button and I can dig. Hmmm, I wonder if I can dig a canal over to that water. Oh look, the water has current and carries me downstream.
Whereas for DF it was more like. Hmm, here's an x and an @ symbol and a % and a ^ and a (). Let me look that up on the wiki. Ok, so this symbol means that. Now what are these things moving around? Let me look that up. Ok so now I want to dig a tunnel to take shelter in i guess. Oh wait I didn't include a miner or a pick axe in my party generation. Ok let's start over. Ok I've got a tunnel now, oops my dwarves are starving cause I didn't bring enough food. Ok, let's start over.
And then I got bored and read a book.
People give games shit all the time for things "you'd never figure out without a strategy guide". Yeah, Minecraft has some things that would be greatly clarified by a working tutorial and tooltips, but the learning curve lasts for five minutes and then you're only limited by your creativity and creeper-attractiveness.
And don't forget that the biggest thing you need the wiki for, crafting, is something that Notch has flat out said he wants to put into the tutorial when he gets that in place.
It just defines what kind of generation you come from. I'm into typing out what I want, a la Zork and other Interactive Fiction games. I like giving commands and using the 101-keys presented to me. There's something genuine about moving around and manipulated nearly 100 dwarves and assuring that they all live.
Minecraft is huge because it's so damn simple. It has a great appeal because of this, but also has the potential to be so much more. I don't know where he's taking it, but I'd love to see it evolve to include other civilizations and towns with NPC's and whatnot.
I would empty my wallet out, and go mug as many old ladies as it takes, if it'd mean that Minecraft and Dwarf Fortress converge on some perfect point of complexity and interface.
E: not bashing DF. Just saying it's not for me for the exact reason the Minecraft is. MC is accessible, limited by only your imagination (and the height of the world) and random encounters, however calamitous are not irreversible.
There's also something genuine about tabbing over to Dwarf Therapist and clicking on the jobs you want them to do, quickly and efficiently.
Dwarf Fortress seems awesome, in theory. But (and my first games were on a Lisa) the interface is too much for me. I could sit and watch someone play Minecraft. That's fun. I can read the stories of DF games, that's fun, too.
But is it wierd that one of the best stories for DF is that story that someone made and created art for? Is it wierd that I thought that's what the game looked like at first?
I love Minecraft.
Tax on earnings for a company in sweden are way lower though, so as long as he got the company set up quickly the tax is only something in the 20s.
I've played text-adventures. DF is nothing like that. At least with Interactive Fiction I can read what's going on in plain english, as opposed to DF which reminds me of the Tycoon and Sim games on crack. I like typing out what I want too...but only when I know that picking up a key is done with "pick up key" and not some arcane combination of function and letter keys.
While I drove under a bridge, I noticed a pile of stones that was washed down from the slope and was wondering who grieved it and how easy it must be to fix it.
Mincecraft is making me aware of my surroundings.
Which story is that? My favorites have always been Boatmurdered and The Fable of Catten and the Eagle but I don't think either of those has any custom art.
Yeah, they are both awesome games. I wish I had made clear in my earlier post how much I love DF. I think I came off sounding more critical of the game than I actually feel. Personally I love ASCII graphics, deep mechanics and while I find the interface obtuse, it's definitely manageable for me.
I'm not quite sure where to connect this to Rapture or how to get under Columbia without messing up the farmland. These are minor details that can be ironed out later though. Also, Noisymunk has convinced me that an underground system is definitely not the way to go.
Thoughts?
wut
How much land is that? That's damned impressive.
This is what I'm leaning toward. Plus, it could always be drained and used as a railway system once minecarts are fixed.
Bronzemurder
Think more like this:
Put Grand Central Station at /Home, because that's where people spawn in. Then think of it like spokes on a wheel, which a track to the coast at each biome. Then you connect each of those stations. That way, you can go to home, choose a different train and be on your way, or you can go from land to land.
Then, once that framework is in, each island nation can build it's own railway connected to the main station.
I think building it about 5 blocks high is high enough to give a great view of the scenery, and low enough that it's not obnoxiously blocking scenery.
A combination of above/below ground would be nice, too. Tunneling through mountains and what not.
The track to Ember would definitely have to dive below the sea and deep into the ground :-p.
And, Tim's fields are kind of off-limits for shenanigans, so I don't know that he'd want a major transportation hub down there.
Boatmurdered does, and it's the best DF story in the history of ever.
Pretty sure you can't make DIAGONAL TRACKS ( read: ANYTHING) in Minecraft. Laterally, anyway. It all has to go exactly north, south, east, or west.
BRAWL: 1160-9686-9416
You can do a diagonal waterway but it will have to be at least 3 blocks wide to allow people to go in a straight line along it on a boat. Wouldn't be compatible with minecarts in the future, though.
And I guess zig zagging it is just too ugly or something?
Zig zagging actually counts as diagonal for minecart tracks. Looks funky, but when actually riding on it the cart will travel diagonally.
Try to imagine traveling a mile or two along that.
Yeah.
BRAWL: 1160-9686-9416
Also, is there a bug with night and day?
Good to know.
Question guys. I started off in a snowy place, if I travel far enough will it stop snowing or do I need to restart? I'd like a change in scenery but I also like my diamond tools and my house.
You don't actually zig zag though - you move in a smooth diagonal the same way you move on a straight line. It just LOOKS funky on the ground. Functionally, it is diagonal.
Restart. Snow is an all or nothing proposition.
Well, yeah... I'm not saying DF is an IF game, but it's certainly not a simple point-and-click.
Hotkeys have been around for ages. The word "arcane" is getting tossed around way too much, and it's simply not the case. I know that THIS key goes to THIS menu, and then THIS key will make THIS happen in my designated area.
If you have put in the effort to play DF on a level of comfort, it's not as complex as newcomers view it.
If it's snowing, it's snowing. I heard about Notch wanting to include biomes where you can have different types of weather in different areas though.
I thought it was super pretty when I got a snow world, except all the water being ice was lame.
3DS: 1650-8480-6786
Switch: SW-0653-8208-4705
The snow is unfortunately permanent.
Hopefully he'll get biomes in this week's update though.
Edit: Beaten bad
I'm really looking forward to biomes and holding off on doing anything major until I can start a new world with them.