As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/

Dwarf Fortress 0.31.25: probably got flying cars powered by plump helmets and beards

12728293032

Posts

  • CptHamiltonCptHamilton Registered User regular
    Aiserou wrote:
    I love DF, I really do, but it's not hard to learn because its ASCII and has keyboard commands. It's hard to learn because the UI is inconsistent and deliberately obtuse.

    Edit: And I say "deliberately" because he knows its difficult and refuses to do anything about it. I don't begrudge that, it's his game, but it is what it is.

    It's not just the UI. I mean, the UI is god awful, but it is possible to get around in it and, other than certain areas like the military screen, you get the hang of it pretty quickly.

    DF is a hard game to get into because of the graphics, and the UI, and the zero in-game tutoring, and the enormous hill of learning necessary even to make it as far as an embark that you won't die in during the first year, and the complexity.

    Consider: If DF had a perfect, Apple-QA-Tested UI and a friendly graphics set that made it obvious exactly what you were looking at, during your first game you would still have to figure out the world-gen options screen, guess what attributes of a region are desirable, guess what skills your dwarves should have, guess what supplies you'll need. Then, after your initial embark... what? You need to make your dwarves somewhere to live, but to do that you need to mine, and to do that you need miners, who need picks. You need to make beds, but first you need a carpentry shop, but first you need construction material, which means either mining or wood-cutting, and then you need a carpenter. Your dwarves are hungry, so you need food. But that means a farm, which means irrigating or knowing to dig in loam, and then you'll need seeds, which either means processing food (for which you'll need a still or a farmer's shop, which need architecture and brewing), or gathering food (you'll need an herbalist), or having known to bring them in the first place. And then there's planting. Which plants can be eaten? Do you need to use the fertilizing option? You had to irrigate once, possibly; do you need to do it again?

    Dwarf Fortress is an incredibly deep, complicated game, with absolutely no self-contained learning system. Getting a fort to the point where you can die from something fun instead of just having your dwarves all die of thirst is, itself, difficult when you first start playing. Minecraft had the same problem, initially, with the utter lack of a "what the hell do I do now?" tutorial, but reading one page of crafting recipes was enough to get you going. Getting up to speed on Dwarf Fortress involves hours of video tutorials and/or reading Magma-Wiki.

    PSN,Steam,Live | CptHamiltonian
  • GuildNavigatorGuildNavigator Registered User regular
    You're right, Hamilton, but as time goes on and more and more indie games succeed, Toady is looking less and less competent. There comes a point where a complete and utter lack of a UI or API steps from the lands of "That's my little quirk as a developer" into "I'm too God damn stubborn to turn this game from a middling experiment into a full blown success".

  • StregoneStregone VA, USARegistered User regular
    I haven't played DF in months. I still love it, but it is just so tedious to play. I still load it up every once in a while, usually when a new patch drops. But if for some reason Dwarf Therapist no longer worked and there was nothing like it to replace it I would not bother trying to play at all. I've been there and done that. It was fun the first time, but thats all.

    So much potential hidden under a mountain of tedium and obscurity. I think another large part of why I haven't played in so long is because of the huge disappointment I feel when I realize this. When I reach that tipping point of tedium that causes me to close the game and do my best to not think about it for a couple months.

  • MechMantisMechMantis Registered User regular
    You're right, Hamilton, but as time goes on and more and more indie games succeed, Toady is looking less and less competent. There comes a point where a complete and utter lack of a UI or API steps from the lands of "That's my little quirk as a developer" into "I'm too God damn stubborn to turn this game from a middling experiment into a full blown success".

    Perhaps he's...

    not trying to be a commercial success?

  • SarksusSarksus ATTACK AND DETHRONE GODRegistered User regular
    I think it's wrong to think of this from the regular game development/marketing perspective. That's not what Toady is doing. This is his passion, his obsession, his entire life. He has set out to create something that's extremely important to him. More important than tremendous financial success. He's a very brilliant person. He has a doctorate from Stanford. If he wanted he could create something that would make him money but he's not interested in that. Executing the game according to his wishes is what's important to him. Frankly, he is not making this game for anyone but himself and his brother. I'm really fine with that. I'm just glad that he decided to share it with us.

    I think it makes much more sense when you stop thinking about it from the perspective of a product that is meant to be financially successful and instead see it as Toady's journey through life. just read that NYTimes article. He fully intends, at least now, to spend his entire life working on this game. I'm sure it's going to turn into something that's very difficult to actually play, even more so than now, but watching someone work on something so important to them is really inspiring. This whole process is like a piece of art to me.

  • StregoneStregone VA, USARegistered User regular
    We all get what he is doing. We understand its his baby that he can do whatever he wants with. He isn't trying to be a commercial success. But that point of view is completely irrelevant to us, it doesn't have anything to do with the people who play the game he has created. Just as he has the right to do his own thing, I think we have the right to be so disappointed when we play this game and see the greatness just out of reach, if only he did something rather simple that he just doesn't feel like doing right now...

  • ArcaArca Registered User regular
    Yeah from the NYTimes article you can tell he is happy doing his own thing and working on the game whilst living off of the donations that he gets.

    I'm just dissapointed that he isn't a commercial success, he might not want to be he damn well deserves it after putting in years of effort on this game and it is just out of his reach. A years work on the UI and it could easily function well enough that anybody could pick up and play the game, combined with the tutorials videos and an updated wiki tutorial means that it would reach a much larger audience.

    If he was commercially successful he wouldn't have to worry about bills at all and he could work on the game at his own pace with no stress as all.

    Saying that I know nothing I have to say is of any importance to him and it wont change anything, I'm really looking forward to the next update; vampire dwarves are going to be so awesome.

  • SmurphSmurph Registered User regular
    The most frustrating thing about DF isn't the interface. I mean yeah it is frustrating but it can be learned and it does work and designing a good GUI for something this complicated would actually be really fucking difficult. The most frustrating thing is that he pushes out builds full of bugs and then doesn't get around to fixing them for months because he is working on new features that are also going to be bugged when they are released. It sucks when you are reading about the game and see something like "Go edit this text file to get around the bug with the dungeon master not showing up, and then you can train war gorillas."

  • hatedinamericahatedinamerica Registered User regular
    I'd just like a little more consistency.

    For example: in some menus you make a square by starting at one corner and dragging the cursor to the opposite corner.
    But in other menus you make squares my increasing the dimensions with IJKLM or some other random letters.

    WHY? There is literally no reason to have those two actions be different, because they are the same action. It doesn't make any sense. And that's just one example.

  • StregoneStregone VA, USARegistered User regular
    Smurph wrote:
    The most frustrating thing about DF isn't the interface. I mean yeah it is frustrating but it can be learned and it does work and designing a good GUI for something this complicated would actually be really fucking difficult. The most frustrating thing is that he pushes out builds full of bugs and then doesn't get around to fixing them for months because he is working on new features that are also going to be bugged when they are released. It sucks when you are reading about the game and see something like "Go edit this text file to get around the bug with the dungeon master not showing up, and then you can train war gorillas."

    What is even more frustrating than that is when his fanboys praise DF for having such 'great' bugs.

  • Mojo_JojoMojo_Jojo We are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourse Registered User regular
    Sometimes the bugs are great. Like when geese laid iron chairs rather than eggs. That was a rich and golden era.

    His new development schedule seems to be more geared towards dealing with the annoying bugs though. After each content release he does a few big-fix releases.

    Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
  • ArcaArca Registered User regular
    Mojo_Jojo wrote:
    Sometimes the bugs are great. Like when geese laid iron chairs rather than eggs. That was a rich and golden era.

    Was just about to say this. Comparing this games bugs to any other game is great, there are so many which is a shame but damn do we get some of the funniest ones.
    Giving birth to an iron chair must be painful. :winky:

  • hailthefishhailthefish Registered User regular
    The best part about the iron chair bug is it was happening at a time when worldgen was being very very stingy with the minerals. So you could have forts whose only source of iron was smelted goose-chairs.

  • SarksusSarksus ATTACK AND DETHRONE GODRegistered User regular
    Stregone wrote:
    We all get what he is doing. We understand its his baby that he can do whatever he wants with. He isn't trying to be a commercial success. But that point of view is completely irrelevant to us, it doesn't have anything to do with the people who play the game he has created. Just as he has the right to do his own thing, I think we have the right to be so disappointed when we play this game and see the greatness just out of reach, if only he did something rather simple that he just doesn't feel like doing right now...

    Well it's not like somebody is going to break your door down and kidnap you for having an opinion but I just don't see the point of taking that perspective.

  • daveNYCdaveNYC Why universe hate Waspinator? Registered User regular
    Sarksus wrote:
    Stregone wrote:
    We all get what he is doing. We understand its his baby that he can do whatever he wants with. He isn't trying to be a commercial success. But that point of view is completely irrelevant to us, it doesn't have anything to do with the people who play the game he has created. Just as he has the right to do his own thing, I think we have the right to be so disappointed when we play this game and see the greatness just out of reach, if only he did something rather simple that he just doesn't feel like doing right now...

    Well it's not like somebody is going to break your door down and kidnap you for having an opinion but I just don't see the point of taking that perspective.

    I think it's like listening to an alternate world Hendrix who, for some reason, never bothers to tune his guitar. So much potential that's being limited by something relatively minor and easy to fix*.

    * Yeah, a new UI/tileset/API for modders isn't that easy, but then again, he is a hyper-genius.

    Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
  • DisruptedCapitalistDisruptedCapitalist I swear! Registered User regular
    edited August 2011
    All the Dwarfs from The Hobbit movie posed for a group shot recently.

    linked for hugeness: http://www-images.theonering.org/torwp/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/DwarvesFinal.jpg

    I wonder if Toady's feature algorithm was used? :P

    DisruptedCapitalist on
    "Simple, real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time." -Mustrum Ridcully in Terry Pratchett's Hogfather p. 142 (HarperPrism 1996)
  • daveNYCdaveNYC Why universe hate Waspinator? Registered User regular
    Maybe they end up going into a depression death spiral after their losses in the Battle of the Five Armies.

    Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
  • AxenAxen My avatar is Excalibur. Yes, the sword.Registered User regular
    Just got back in to this after maybe a year away. Took me a little bit to relearn everything (wiki helps greatly) and now I have a nice little fort going. It is probably one of the best running forts I've had in a good long while. So here are a few random things from my current fort.

    I ran in to my first ever Cavern. Don't think they were in when I last played. The amount of wealth that was just waiting to be tapped down there was orgasmic. I had my newly minted squad of Hammerdwarfs go down there are start killing anything that didn't have a beard. Wasn't too long and I had a nice little outpost down there. Now it is pretty much my Fort away from Fort. The outpost has it's own squad, workshops, population, farms, everything dorfs need. I basically export ores, gems, wood, spider-webs, and the like from my outpost to my main Fort. The main Fort then exports finished goods to my outpost. It is weird.

    My squads have three Forgotten Beasts to their kill tally. I don't know if they start off easy and get harder, seems that way. The one that breathed fire was a bit of a problem, lost a good number of dorfs that day.

    I fucking love war dogs. Most of my outpost population has one assigned to them. Those brave and loyal hounds have saved numerous lives.

    On ground level I have this river that runs from left to right at the top of the map. A Goblin siege appeared on the other side of the river. Since the river forms a natural moat the goblins were stuck there while I prepared a large Marksdwarf squad to pick them off from my side of the river. . . then winter came. I forgot rivers freeze over. Still broke the siege without too much fuss though so all was well.

    I am sure it won't be long and it will all come tumbling down in a glorious blaze.

    A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
  • DisruptedCapitalistDisruptedCapitalist I swear! Registered User regular
    Wow, Axen, an outpost is a really good idea that I wish I had though of myself.

    If you get a chance can you post your maps? I'm sure people would be interested in what you've done. You can do it here.

    "Simple, real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time." -Mustrum Ridcully in Terry Pratchett's Hogfather p. 142 (HarperPrism 1996)
  • AxenAxen My avatar is Excalibur. Yes, the sword.Registered User regular
    I would love to post the map, but I don't have access to personal internet (deployed to Afghanistan currently :( ).

    In recent news, I completed a long ass road from my outpost to my main fort. I have now begun a massive constuction project to build walls alongside the parts of the road that are in the open since I don't want the dorfs who haul the goods from the outpost to the fort to be attacked (or interrupted grr). I will then carve fortifications in the wall (I think I can do that). My end goal is to have my squad of Marksdwarves I've been training patrol the Trade Road and unleash hell (from behind the safety of the wall) on any beardless monstrosity that gets near.

    Oh and I have a Baron now.

    Oh 2x, I am seriously thinking about walling up the entrance to the outside world. The cavern has provided me with pretty much everything I really use the outside world for (farms, trees, water). Plus my population is at a pretty healthy 120-some so I don't really need migrants. My livestock population is fairly strong too I think. Hell, I am damn near experiencing a "pig-splosion".

    Trade would be the biggest thing I'd be missing out on, but I really don't feel like I need anything. Certainly not from the elves and humans.

    I might try it, maybe it will all end in Fun.

    A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
  • hatedinamericahatedinamerica Registered User regular
    You can always just seal it up with a drawbridge and open it up if you need to for any reason.

    That's what I usually do when/if I make it to the cavern-discovering stage of things.

  • WishpigWishpig Registered User regular
    goddamn I love arena mode. I just reenacted Rise of Planet of the Apes... except instead of apes vs humans, it was apes vs dragons.

    One of the orangutans died via a bath of boiling chimpanzee blood. It doesn't get more epic.

    WARNING: Picture below may cause spontaneous growth of facial hair and/or body hair.
    622545-8-1261525714230.jpg

    Image by Sharpwriter on deviantart.com
  • BonepartBonepart Registered User regular
    I'm starting to get that Dwarf Fortress itch again. I think I'll start up a new Fortress today if I get some free time.

    This time I'm planning on leaving at least 1z level above and below each 'floor' so I can make easy plumbing connections. And maybe a small closed walkway around the central staircase to pass power/water vertically between floors.

    hhuumm...and finding a site with a stream for easy hydro-power...

    I must plot!

    XBL Gamertag: Ipori
  • TIFunkaliciousTIFunkalicious Kicking back in NebraskaRegistered User regular
    edited September 2011
    started a new fort with a starting build of only necessities: farmers, miners, chooper, carpenter, mason. Was planning to make things village style and basically accommodate all immigrant skills to the best of my ability rather than trying to jam everyone into whatever industry I decided to focus on.

    Turns out alot of immigrants are unskilled and it doesn't take much farm power to keep a whole fort alive. 1 stonecrafter (a profession I consider cheating) is creating enough wealth that I can trade everything I want from caravans using only crowns and toys. Once you have the basics down the beginning seasons can be downright boring and I have a bunch of dudes sitting around because I've only given them a couple tasks, the skilled guys have all the required ones taken care of!

    Had my first real experience with injury. That is to day the kind that forced me to use the hospital system rather than the dwarf dying outright. Me trying to mine out the cone part of a rocky hill peak caused a small cave in. A celebrated stonecrafter was obliterated and my best miner had her left arm and leg more or less destroyed. I was frantically looking from the wiki to the game as I set up an impromptu hospital zone and got all the right materials together. Fortress efficiency took a hit as I turned jobs off so a couple splints and traction bench could get done faster. The miner was cleaned, sutured, bones set, and only had Pale under the wounds screen. Things were looking pretty bright right before she gave in to infection.

    TIFunkalicious on
  • DisruptedCapitalistDisruptedCapitalist I swear! Registered User regular
    I'm still having a devil of a time with the military system. I've abandoned every fort I've tried making in the past few months right when I get my first ambush. (Though the elven tiger-rider attack was pretty amazing, I had to stick around to see what happened.)

    "Simple, real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time." -Mustrum Ridcully in Terry Pratchett's Hogfather p. 142 (HarperPrism 1996)
  • BonepartBonepart Registered User regular
    Soap. Learn it. Love it.

    XBL Gamertag: Ipori
  • ArbitraryDescriptorArbitraryDescriptor changed Registered User regular
    Toady should implement leeches as capturable vermin. I'll have to submit them in the next contest.

    I won't even have to specify their function as I'm confident that as soon as he starts adding them he'll go "Ok, so what to Leeches need to do..." and launch off on an obscure tangent allowing them to be added to a hospital as medical supplies for removing poison and dealing with necrotic flesh.

  • daveNYCdaveNYC Why universe hate Waspinator? Registered User regular
    I thought that maggots were good for dealing with necrotic flesh, and leeches were used for restoring circulation to re-attached limbs. Throw in honey and bread mold and you'll be good to go.

    Bonus points if your medical dorf can get the same project obsession thing that crafting dorfs do.

    Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
  • TheKoolEagleTheKoolEagle Registered User regular
    can't wait for dwarven centipede to happen from a fell/macabre mood

    uNMAGLm.png Mon-Fri 8:30 PM CST - 11:30 PM CST
  • ArbitraryDescriptorArbitraryDescriptor changed Registered User regular
    daveNYC wrote:
    I thought that maggots were good for dealing with necrotic flesh, and leeches were used for restoring circulation to re-attached limbs. Throw in honey and bread mold and you'll be good to go.

    Bonus points if your medical dorf can get the same project obsession thing that crafting dorfs do.

    Oh yeah, Purring maggots. I was trying to think of the vermin you could milk but came up blank. Maggots would do just fine. Leeches for limb reattachment would be great, if only because that could lead to medic-dogs who fetch lost appendages.

  • daveNYCdaveNYC Why universe hate Waspinator? Registered User regular
    daveNYC wrote:
    I thought that maggots were good for dealing with necrotic flesh, and leeches were used for restoring circulation to re-attached limbs. Throw in honey and bread mold and you'll be good to go.

    Bonus points if your medical dorf can get the same project obsession thing that crafting dorfs do.

    Oh yeah, Purring maggots. I was trying to think of the vermin you could milk but came up blank. Maggots would do just fine. Leeches for limb reattachment would be great, if only because that could lead to medic-dogs who fetch lost appendages.

    I suspect the bugs that would result from medic dogs would be quite entertaining. Medic dog fetches a limb, gets it back to the hospital but then his hunger level makes him eat it, the doctor attempts to take the limb from the dog and it all ends in tears.

    Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
  • ArbitraryDescriptorArbitraryDescriptor changed Registered User regular
    edited September 2011
    daveNYC wrote:
    daveNYC wrote:
    I thought that maggots were good for dealing with necrotic flesh, and leeches were used for restoring circulation to re-attached limbs. Throw in honey and bread mold and you'll be good to go.

    Bonus points if your medical dorf can get the same project obsession thing that crafting dorfs do.

    Oh yeah, Purring maggots. I was trying to think of the vermin you could milk but came up blank. Maggots would do just fine. Leeches for limb reattachment would be great, if only because that could lead to medic-dogs who fetch lost appendages.

    I suspect the bugs that would result from medic dogs would be quite entertaining. Medic dog fetches a limb, gets it back to the hospital but then his hunger level makes him eat it, the doctor attempts to take the limb from the dog and it all ends in tears.
    Thought that said "the doctor attempts to make the limb from the dog," like use the dog for a leg.

    Alt: Medic dog fetches goblin limb, Dwarf throws tantrum when the doctor removes the bandages for the first time.

    ArbitraryDescriptor on
  • furlionfurlion Riskbreaker Lea MondeRegistered User regular
    Finally found some free time to start up a new fortress to hold me over till the next release. This release seems to be heavily favoring adventure mode which I don't mind even though I have never played it. Some of the stuff will carry over into fortress mode and that is enough for me. Still this could attract a lot more players who are looking for a more Roguelike experience then the adventure mode currently brings.

    sig.gif Gamertag: KL Retribution
    PSN:Furlion
  • Anon the FelonAnon the Felon In bat country.Registered User regular
    Don't you need a pretty extensive fortress to do adventure mode? I was under the impression you made a fort, it failed or something, then you started in adventure and delved your abandoned fort...

  • TheKoolEagleTheKoolEagle Registered User regular
    dwarf fortress develops an entire world for you, including generating other forts and dungeons and things to explore, but if you have made forts and abandoned them for whatever reason, you can explore them in adventure mode.

    queue making godlike silver hammer and placing it in a treasure room for an adventurer to find.

    uNMAGLm.png Mon-Fri 8:30 PM CST - 11:30 PM CST
  • gilraingilrain Registered User regular
    queue making godlike silver hammer and placing it in a treasure room for an adventurer to find.

    If only there were a way to rig it so that, when they found it, it came down on their head and made sure they were dead.

  • TheKoolEagleTheKoolEagle Registered User regular
    how awesome would it be if there was a way to export 'dungeons' to other peoples worlds, where you could rig up traps and things like that, i mean you can always make your own diabolical forts, but you know where all the traps are in that scenario

    uNMAGLm.png Mon-Fri 8:30 PM CST - 11:30 PM CST
  • Anon the FelonAnon the Felon In bat country.Registered User regular
    Very doable, just make a fort, then upload the save folder onto a dropbox or something and have some one run through it in Adventure mode. That could actually be way fun.

  • TIFunkaliciousTIFunkalicious Kicking back in NebraskaRegistered User regular
    basically everything is in place for the fortress to interact with the rest of the world except actually being able to go out and interact with the world

    I want nothing more than to build up an army and actually send them somewhere :(

  • Anon the FelonAnon the Felon In bat country.Registered User regular
    edited September 2011
    I started an adventure game. After 3 tries with instant deaths I decided to actually read the wiki advice.

    Now I have a nice little ambusher marksdwarf who has collected a nice belt of goblin scalps. Adventure mode is so much Fun.

    Although, I think it would be nice to play as a Goblin, I know there are mods out there, but at this point I can't play DF without May-Green's tile pack.

    Anon the Felon on
Sign In or Register to comment.