Bay 12 Games Forum

I searched, and while there are a few topics discussing UI improvements I felt was necessary to call this out in specific.

The Thoughts screen is in some trouble. The amount of info it contains has increased over the years and its grown from a simple collection of thoughts and preferences and has since turned into a 30 page dossier created by the NSA

It's not just a "nice to have" feature anymore. A dwarf's personality, needs, physicality, etc. all have actual impacts on gameplay and in some cases dramatically so.

It's time to move away form the walls of text and make it a bit more readable

Here are a few suggestions

1. Add 2 Line Breaks Between Sections
This is the easiest one to implement. It doesn't address how vertically "long" the screen is, but it makes it far easier to parse. 

Simply add a double line break so that sections are separated by a blank line. This is a standard when separating paragraphs without using an indent.


2. Give Each Section a Title
Thoughts and Preferences contains way more than those two things these days. The UI should be updated to remind the user what each section actually is

All players could benefit from a reminder, but new players - particularly viewers of Let's Plays - would find such info vital.

Something like:

Personal Values
Like others of her culture, she holds craftsdwarfship to be of the highest...etc

Personality
She has little interest in playing around. She needs alcohol to get through the working day...etc


3. Hide Extraneous Information
There are generally two use cases for accessing Thoughts:
-I need to know a vital piece of information so I can perform a game action, like assigning them a job, addressing their needs, addressing their unhappiness, etc.
-I want to know flavor information about a dwarf, often in the context of sharing the dwarf in a Let's Play situation

I'd propose that Thoughts have two 'modes' that you can toggle with a button.

The first mode shows the basics or "rolled up" versions of each section. For example, if a dwarf is largely undistracted it'll simple say "She is undistracted" and will not display the 15-20 factors contributing to her undistraction.

The second mode shows the expanded version, which is what we have today


4. Consolidate Redundant Text
This one is harder by virtue of the fact there's a text generator that needs to worry about all sorts of possible strings that may or may not exist, strings that can could vary in wording and length, etc. etc..

That said, consolidating accomplishes two things:
-You reduce the amount of words, making it look less daunting
-You improve the 'flow' of a sentence, making it easier to read, conceptualize, and memorize

"She is a citizen of the Youthful Basement. She is a member of the Fleshy Crypt" -> "She is a citizen of the Youthful Basement and a member of the Fleshy Crypt"

"Her hair is straight. Her very long hair is arranged in double braids. Her hair is flax" -> "Her very long flaxen hair is straight and arranged in double braids"

I know this has been suggested before and some areas are already 'consolidated', but look for some more easy wins

Playing Dwarf Fortress can be likened to driving a very complicated car. Oh sure, some cars might be able to "go forward" when you press "gas", and yes, I guess you could say it probably makes sense to have some sort of "braking mechanism". The Dwarf Fortress car does not have any of those things, though, and instead is operated through a complicated series of pulleys, levers, and buttons.

Where is this analogy going, you ask? Well, once most people get a hang of how to drive the damn thing they usually ignore everything else for fear of losing their sanity. Besides, after you finally figure out how to go forward, why would you care what that big red button does?

Point is, plenty of people, from the newest of new players to the more grizzled of veterans, probably don't know half of the features and controls that the game has to offer. This topic hopes to rectify that problem and make your Dwarf Fortress experience all the more efficient, easy, and most of all, enjoyable.

So let's begin!

There appears to be a pretty big disconnect with how much the game thinks I should value my masterpieces and how I actually value my masterpieces. Masterpieces are announced, tracked in Legends mode, and cause large amounts of distress when they're destroyed.

The problem is that masterpieces really aren't all that special or important. In fact, my stonescrafter is usually cranking out masterpieces within the first year for the first Fall caravan. Secondly, while masterpieces are 2x stronger/more damage/etc. vs. a normal weapon, it's only .2 better than Exceptional, the one below it. The difference between two soldiers wielding a Exceptional vs. a Masterpiece or even a Superior vs. a Masterpiece is so negligible I can not picture myself caring enough to min/max their weapons.

I want to care about masterpieces. Here are a few of my ideas...some might work in tandem with others, some might not, but I think they all serve the purpose of making masterpieces more interesting and worthwhile.

-Dramatically decrease the % chance of generating a masterpiece item. Any skill level below "Master" should have a <1% chance to produce a masterpiece item. Even legendary dwarves should only have a 5-10% chance.

-Make them a more obvious stepping stone between "normal" items and artifacts. Increase their value modifier to x30 (1/4 of an artifact) and increase their weapon and armor modifies to 2.5.

-Masterpiece items should come with images, text, and other decorations by default. A dwarf should get "inspired" and grab other items when they are making a masterpiece much like they would in a strange mood, only they cannot "fail" these.

-Dwarves should be able to differentiate themselves by their masterpieces. A "Is happy to be the proud owner of a <Dwarf Name> designed item!" thought when a dwarf owns a masterpiece, for example. Nobles can demand items from a specific worker if said worker is the known creator of a lot of master pieces.


Any other ideas to make masterpieces worth having or keeping?

I have a hard time trying to play Fortress or Adventurer mode with the new version so close to release. I do love my some Legends mode, though, and have decided to act upon an idea I had awhile back.

The idea it this will be part CYOA (kinda...), part Legends exploration, part storytelling.

To begin, I genned a very large world full of a lot of civilizations and megabeasts and set it to run for 1000 years. After that I dove into Legends mode and picked a historical figure at random. I looked at their life, their family, and made up a story about them which you will find below.

Your job at the end of each story is to pick a new thread to follow that was somehow related to the previous one. For instance, if I talk about a great war between two factions that Urist McSomeone was apart of, you may want to pick Urist as the next story thread we follow. I will then make up another story about this historical figure, location (such as a city or a region), or event (like a war, kidnapping, marriage, etc.) and then we go from there.

The idea is to build this web of stories, all connected to each other in some way. Let's see how many stories we can find without ever booting Adventure or Fortress mode up.


A Web of Stories

Here are all the threads we've explored so far. They're all in the format of "Name of thread, relation to the previous thread, and a short summary"

Thread 1 - Nako Bolteddevils, daughter of a prisoner, and her struggles with her religion [Keep scrolling down to find this one!]
Thread 2 - Gadoc Laborglimmers, murderer of Nako's mother, and how he plots a revolution
Thread 3 - Clustergladness, a town in which Gadoc himself was kidnapped from, and how they've dealt with the war with the goblins
Thread 4 - Crewedices, a city in the same civilization as Clustergladness, and how they're deal with the guerrilla warfare of the goblins
Thread 5 - The Carnal Kingdoms, the neighboring civilization to Clustergladness/Crewedices, and how their lust for power caused them to betray their own race
Thread 6 - Craftstown, the hometown of Rigoth Razorgroups who slew the cyclops terrorizing Crewedices, and how their engineers dealt with the megabeast problem of their own
Thread 7 - Uristoshar, the dwarven mountainhome below the Carnal Kingdom, and how their 180 years of peace ended with a 5 year war that wiped them off the map




Thread 1 - Nako Bolteddevils


Every night she cursed the gods. She knew all of their names by heart, the three human gods her mother had taught her about. Sporro, Pibang, Quesa...she knew their essences, knew their lack of mercy and their cold hearts. Her hatred for them burned deep. Her mother was dead for over a decade, but these gods of her's would never die.





"Mommy...why do you pray to those gods?" her daughter asked her, staring up from the stone floor she she slept. Slaves weren't allowed beds in the tower, but Nako had been able to find a job as a butcher and was rewarded with a cot to sleep on. Her daughter was still too young to work, and thus considered a slave in the tower. A prisoner. Like her parents and husband had been.







"I am not praying, Utes. Our god is not a god at all, but a demon, and he is ever powerful." She considered what she said for a moment before continuing, shaking her head. "No, I do not pray. These were the gods of our people. They have abandoned us, forsaken us. I curse them. And by cursing our old gods I in turn pray to our new one. All hail Atu Fatalhell."





Utes nodded, understanding very little but not wanting to disappoint her mother. How could she understand, Nako wondered, she has been a slave all her life. She knows nothing of our old gods, no more than I did at her age.

She began her chanting again, closing her eyes tight. "Sporro...Pibang...Quesa. Curse you. Sporro...Pibang...Quesa. Curse you!" Nako was alone in this tower, save for her daughter and father. Her mother had been murdered by a fellow human slave named Gadoc Laborglimmers 15 years prior. Her husband fancied himself a great hunter, but in the end his final resting place was the stomach of an alligator in the Murk of Lusters. She cared little for her husband's death, for she had never loved him. But she hated her mother for dying.





"You said...you promised," she hissed through clenched teeth. "'Pray to the gods', you said. 'They would show us the way out', you said! Sporro, Pibang, Quesa...the goddesses of inspiration, sky, and freedom. Where are they now, mother? Where are you? You left me alone in this forsaken tower as it stretches ever onwards to the sky, where...where you..." She trailed off, suddenly understanding the meaning of the words she had chanted for years. How had she missed what was so obvious?

Sporro, goddess of the sky. The top of the tower has no walls, it is open to the sky. Pibang, goddess of inspiration. If I could get sneak my way to the top of the tower, I'd be able to form a plan, exploit a weakness, find some sort of path down...I'd be able to... Quesa, goddess of freedom. ...I'd be able to escape...

Was this what her mother was trying to tell her all along? Or was this a message from the gods themselves?

Could she bring Utes with her? Or her father, for that matter? She thought not. She was a butcher now, and while she could make up some sort of story as to why she needed to go to the top of the tower she wouldn't be able to find an excuse for all three of them. She could tell them she was looking for birds that nested in the spires so she could make a bird stew. Yes...let them think she was a bird killer, when in fact, she was a bird herself, one about to grow wings and fly away.

She couldn't do it tonight...or the next night. She could wait until the demon marched to war...and then...

Sporro, Pibang, Quesa. Still a chant, yet not spoken like a curse. A prayer. A desperate prayer. Sporro, Pibang, Quesa.


New thread choices
a) The demon Atu Fatalhall, most likely following any wars he was apart of
b) Gadoc Laborglimmers, the human slave turned murderer that killed Nako's mother
c) The town of Jestedoxen, where Nako's mother was born
d) Someone/something/somewhere else!

Yeah, I know that title is inaccurate at best and distasteful at worst...BUT...

Well as the story goes I unleashed a demon pit and all hell broke loose. Everyone died by 3, two of which were in their beds resting injuries and one was my DM who fell last. My DM is currently laying on the floor unconscious and mangled the hell and back.

All of this happened towards the end of Mid-Winter and is it now Mid-Spring. The two resting dorfs have long since died of dehydration. But my DM?



He's not even thirsty! Or hungry. He shows no indication he's in any way dying! He just lays there in a coma.

Right now I'm anxiously awaiting migrants and hoping I can redo a fortress far away from the disaster zone...but I'm pretty sure my DM should at least be a bit thirsty, if not downright a shriveled up corpse by now.

http://twitter.com/UristMcDorf

It all makes so much more sense now.

Namely, the 17th of Limestone.

A few things:

-It's right after my seasonal save. Luckily the crash happens only 17 "days" after the save so it's easy to reproduce

-Crash happens no matter what my dwarves are doing. It happens with 0 idlers, also happens with 6 idlers (one guy is on bedrest). Every time it happens at the 17th of Limestone.

-It's a new fort - this is my first Autumn

-It doesn't freeze. It just crashes. No errors. Nothing in the error log. Windows doesn't tell me anything went wrong. It just dies.

-Around the 17th Dwarves start going to bed and such...could be related?

-Happens without ANY input from me. I just sit there..and it crashes.

It's annoying as hell...I was having so much fun with this fortress already..ah well. Hopefully you can figure it out and no one else will have to suffer!

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=P6MYZ8QY

Toady's last post on the forum was almost 2 weeks ago.

His last dev_now was 5 days ago.

I know his break began the 22nd (23rd?), but he never even made an update about it, which is something he always did.

So what's up?