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[Kazang]

The funny thing is everything he's so proud of there in that video could easily be done in DF if toady wanted to.

Then why is it not done if it is so easy?  Why do so many professional big name games have terrible a ui?  The UI is what is on show in that video and it is indeed extremely good, not without fault of course but the simplicity and function of it is very impressive.

The frankly awful ui and menu system in DF is probably the biggest hurdle it has to being more widely accepted, along with the poor graphics support.  I have introduced tons of people I know to DF but very few have got into it becasue to most people the UI is like trying to eat soup with a fork.  It takes immense patience to get to grips with and even when you do it is suboptimal at best.  It would be unplayable without such tools as dwarf companion and therapist.

If the UI is not being developed because toady doesn't want to then he's shooting himself in the foot.  Doing something purely for greed to get more customers, more money, etc is obviously not a good way to make a game if you have any kind of artistic principles.  But deliberately holding back the development of your own game is a folly.  I would hate to see DF die a slow death as a martyr to the temple of the roguelike when it has clearly grown far beyond that.

[sweitx]

If the UI is not being developed because toady doesn't want to then he's shooting himself in the foot.  Doing something purely for greed to get more customers, more money, etc is obviously not a good way to make a game if you have any kind of artistic principles.  But deliberately holding back the development of your own game is a folly.  I would hate to see DF die a slow death as a martyr to the temple of the roguelike when it has clearly grown far beyond that.

Not sure what Toady's stance is, but i suspect due to the future expansions as seen in his goals, Toady doesn't want to code a UI, and promptly have to tear it down to have to re-do later.
Toady do have UI improvement on his to-do list, it just doesn't look like it's a high priority item right now.

EDIT: Can someone point me to where Toady made a statement regarding DF UIs?

EDIT2: Maybe Toady One can reference this as a way to handle a mouse interface UI, any new information is always good (but still, remember, one guy coding, there's only so much he can do at one time).

[Urist McDepravity]

It would be unplayable without such tools as dwarf companion and therapist.

Always playing it w/out any external tools. Sure, managing all these annoying migrants is a pain, but it is definitely playable, and once fort reaches pop limit, there are no migrants anyway.

[abculatter_2]

It would be unplayable without such tools as dwarf companion and therapist.

Always playing it w/out any external tools. Sure, managing all these annoying migrants is a pain, but it is definitely playable, and once fort reaches pop limit, there are no migrants anyway.

That's because you've never played it with external tools. I used to never use Therapist too, and now I can't play without it, it's just that useful.

Also, I agree that the UI needs to be improved. As for the re-making it over and over, couldn't that be eliminated or at least reduced with a bit of planning?

[Richards]

That UI is exactly what DF needs.

[Vattic]

Mult. z-lvls & #roguelikes. My opinion: more complexity, difficult to visualize. Guardtowers/moats can be done without.

From his twitter.

So it's not going to have multiple z-levels, that already makes DF a very different beast.

I have mixed feelings about games inspired by DF, it must be quite flattering to inspire people, but if your income relies on what they are imitating it could be tough. At the same time I'm quite glad people are inspired by DF because a lot of the design principles behind DF would be interesting applied to other games. Toady mentioned the idea of a Sci-fi game with the same kind of scope but said he's already committed, imagine making two games like DF, so someone else needs to make it.

[Kogan Loloklam]

I don't see how his UI is so great. It seems that the main difference is it is done with a mouse and not a keyboard. This means MORE sub-menus, which in my opinion means a worse UI.

Of course I'm used to playing FPS where I'm the utility guy and can do just about any action fairly quickly, so I am used to the mouse only being used to aim and fire, not be any more useful than that. Maybe that makes me pretty biased, knowing how to navigate a keyboard effectively. Most people I know who were turned off the game would also be turned off of RPG maker. It's about the pretty colors. The only way Toady could capture them is to make his game a full 3-d client. maybe if one of the visualizers allowed exchanges of information they might get more, but I doubt it.

If Toady really wanted to do a "prettying up" for the game, he should seperate tiles from letters and let us make real tilesets and keep our text intact.

For the UI, he's progressing fine. You have to play with the feature before you know how you want to establish it. If you all really had that much issue with the UI, why not create a post about what is your problem with the UI, or what your new people found insurmountable with it.

Here's an example of how to do that, and likely get a response:

I don't like how the military screen has no mouse support when trying to click on the wizbang. It would be nice if when you clicked on the wizbang it cycled through the option to be cowardly or to be brave. More advanced options could be done by holding down on one of those and getting a submenu of wizbang effects. For keyboard input it could be keys c and b, with shift-C for submenu of cowardly wizbang, and Shift-B for brave wizbang. Doing it like this makes it easier to get a basic wizbang established while still allowing for the complex wizbang stances.

Toady can examine that, and a few others, and puts it together to give it a test run in the next version, especially if it sounds like it would be a great improvement.

If you all think this guy's UI is so great, provide details as to why you think it is. I personally feel it's crap, since it just replaces current actions with mouse clicks instead. (Rectangles? k and u. Long walls? u. It'd be nice if wall segments allowed corners, but the commands work just fine, and we have a macro creator that you can setup to make your corners. I haven't used it yet, but it's there. All the clicking to me is stupid though. It requires more clicking in his "demo" than it requires to play Warcraft 3 effectively.)

[Jiri Petru]

If you all really had that much issue with the UI, why not create a post about what is your problem with the UI, or what your new people found insurmountable with it.

Here

[MaDeR Levap]

This project have nothing to do with Impaler. I also think, while it is clearly inspired by DF, this will go in different direction - if go at all.

Anyway, competition is good thing - and maybe at last will force Toady to do something about abomination mistakenly called UI in DF.

I always thought "why UI? will tear up it anyway in future" argument as pure BS. Why?

• This game have gigantic amount of placeholders anyway. Placeholders that, guess what, will be teared up in future and replaced with something else. Multiple times over. Why UI would be exemption?
• Sanely projected and programmed UI would be very easy to change with changes in core game. Internal API and other simplifications (like reducing 4 ways of designating something to 1) would really help with it.
• Someone extrapolated current progress and claimed that 1.0 version would be in 20 years. And this insanity called DF UI would be present whole time? Yeahhhh riiiight.

As side note, Toady make his life harder by making UI initimately connected to inner working of DF engine. Good grief.

[forsaken1111]

Aside: I yearn for the day that we can designate allowed labors by creature caste, or at least preferred.

SLAVE LABOR.

[Rowanas]

Controlling with mouse?
So, no DF on laptops?
Shame, it's all I own.

[forsaken1111]

Controlling with mouse?
So, no DF on laptops?
Shame, it's all I own.

Your laptop has no mouse? No trackball? No touchpad? You control your operating system entirely with keyboard shortcuts?

You are hardcore.

[Rowanas]

Trackpads make me sick,
I lost the last mouse I stole.
Steal one tomorrow.

Living without mouse
Prevents me from playing games
Damn you, trackpad. Die!

[forsaken1111]

Trackpads make me sick,
I lost the last mouse I stole.
Steal one tomorrow.

Living without mouse
Prevents me from playing games
Damn you, trackpad. Die!

Good job. Bit lame, but good job.

[ein]

I just watched the video and I feel that the UI is not better than DF's.

I don't see how his UI is so great. It seems that the main difference is it is done with a mouse and not a keyboard. This means MORE sub-menus, which in my opinion means a worse UI.

Of course I'm used to playing FPS where I'm the utility guy and can do just about any action fairly quickly, so I am used to the mouse only being used to aim and fire, not be any more useful than that. Maybe that makes me pretty biased, knowing how to navigate a keyboard effectively. Most people I know who were turned off the game would also be turned off of RPG maker. It's about the pretty colors. The only way Toady could capture them is to make his game a full 3-d client. maybe if one of the visualizers allowed exchanges of information they might get more, but I doubt it.

If Toady really wanted to do a "prettying up" for the game, he should seperate tiles from letters and let us make real tilesets and keep our text intact.

For the UI, he's progressing fine. You have to play with the feature before you know how you want to establish it. If you all really had that much issue with the UI, why not create a post about what is your problem with the UI, or what your new people found insurmountable with it.

Here's an example of how to do that, and likely get a response:

I don't like how the military screen has no mouse support when trying to click on the wizbang. It would be nice if when you clicked on the wizbang it cycled through the option to be cowardly or to be brave. More advanced options could be done by holding down on one of those and getting a submenu of wizbang effects. For keyboard input it could be keys c and b, with shift-C for submenu of cowardly wizbang, and Shift-B for brave wizbang. Doing it like this makes it easier to get a basic wizbang established while still allowing for the complex wizbang stances.

Toady can examine that, and a few others, and puts it together to give it a test run in the next version, especially if it sounds like it would be a great improvement.

If you all think this guy's UI is so great, provide details as to why you think it is. I personally feel it's crap, since it just replaces current actions with mouse clicks instead. (Rectangles? k and u. Long walls? u. It'd be nice if wall segments allowed corners, but the commands work just fine, and we have a macro creator that you can setup to make your corners. I haven't used it yet, but it's there. All the clicking to me is stupid though. It requires more clicking in his "demo" than it requires to play Warcraft 3 effectively.)

This sums up my opinions pretty nicely.
It's a helluva lot easier to remember a few keystrokes than to navigate with the mouse.
Especially if you know touch typing.
In LCS, I often hit the keys faster than the game can process them.