Bay 12 Games Forum

I have never even tried to get someone to play DF, as I try to keep my inner nerd to myself unless dealing with other nerds.

But I listen to the DF podcasts at work, and my co-worker has heard them all.  She doesn't play games, but she enjoys the concept of DF development and the personality of Toady.  And lately she has commented a few times that it has been a long time since there was a DF podcast.

I am both excited about bug fixes and ready for Toady to move on to new content.

I won't start a new fort until he is done with the bug fixes round, so while I want him to fix as many bugs as possible, I am also eager to play.

Either way all I really care about are progress updates.  I like to know what he is up to.  The development interests me just as much as actually playing the game.

For me the fun is in the complexity.

A lot of times I start playing a game, and pretty soon I am writing scripts, or tinkering with modding in an attempt to fix the broken combat AI.  Some times I never even finish the games but instead just tinker with the scripts for a very, very long time... eventually burning out and moving on to something else.

Dwarf Fortress is fun because there is always something else to learn, to try, to experience.

Plus I have to admit, I am equally fascinated with the development model that Tarn is using.  I like the idea that he freely looks at this as his life's work.  The standard business model that is used today doesn't work.  It leads to mediocrity.  Dwarf Fortress, however, is an example of what is possible outside of that stale old business model.  It is art.

When I started playing computer games in 1980 I always dreamed about how cool games would be in 30 years.  But the reality is that the games only look marginally better.  The game play has been stagnant for a long time, and in fact I would argue that the games are actually devolving rather than evolving.  There are fewer interesting games made today then in the 1990s.

Dwarf Fortress is a breath of fresh air.

So everyday I check in and see what Tarn is up to.

I haven't really played in a long time, but once he is done with the current bug fixes then I will fire up a new fortress and once again attempt to build my 40+ story tower of obsidian.  I will have tons of new problems, new things to learn, new set backs. 

And the best thing, I know that Tarn will be pushing the envelope, so in 2022 I will still be able to fire up Dwarf Fortress.  I know for a fact it will continue to grow.

Dwarf Fortress is the only game that has even come close to what I dreamed about 30 years ago.  Tarn's vision of a fantasy world simulator is pretty spot on to what I was thinking about.

I just think it is cool to have government positions to appoint.

I think all people miss is the title and position.

Personally, I would like to appoint all sorts of guild/service masters.

Dungeon Master - handles prisoners, torture, and the containment of wild monsters to fight in my arena

Master of Secrets - handles security, spying on foreign lands, perhaps even the rescuing of stolen children

Master of Arms - handles military security and all issues involving training

Master of Coins - handles your budget once the economy kicks back in

Footkerchief -

Thanks for all the links... I have read all of that stuff before, but I don't always remember everything that Toady has written/said over the years.

So many interesting ideas that it is hard to keep track of them all.

In some ways I will miss the dungeon master... would be cool if it was an appointed position so that the position wouldn't be gone, but rather just the way s/he comes to have the ability's of dungeon master.

It will be interesting to see all the new ways that the player will be able to influence the world.  I can only imagine what will be possible in 10 or 15 years.

I took a class on vampirism in college. Best class ever. Counted as either a literature, film, or German Language class depending on how you signed up for it. Not nearly as easy a course as you'd think... (Instructor was a little bit batty as well. She hated margins, line spacing, and paragraph breaks, so all your papers had to be printed out as a single block of text from the upper left to the bottom right corners of the page...)

I also took that class at University of California Santa Barbara in 1988 or so.

The professor wore a black leather trench coat with purple lining.  He was a funny fellow.

I believe the class was called Vampirism in German Literature, though it covered plenty of vampirism that wasn't part of German Literature.  A great class.

Never-the-less, with my training in vampirism, I will stay out of this argument over vampiric powers as I tend to find arguments about fictional creatures to be a bit of a dead end... though fun.

Don't forget the burial : that card is legendary.

haha...

We will see.  I got my new card today and I will install it over the weekend.  Should be interesting to see if it works and/or fixes my problem.

if it all goes well then I may have to celebrate the demise of my Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX