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DF General Discussion / Re: What turns you off about DF?
« on: April 20, 2009, 12:50:28 pm »
I joined just so I could throw in my two cents, since I believe the more people who discuss this, the better it will be for the game.
As background, I tried Dwarf Fortress for the first time last September. I played Adventure mode for about 15 minutes before quitting. I knew I didn't have enough time to devote to learning the UI, and then learning the game's nuances as well. It wasn't the graphics, since I happily played Nethack and Rouge on unix systems back in the day. It was the UI that turned me off.
I picked it up again about a month and a half ago determined to learn. I played through a few times in Adventure mode until I got accustomed to the controls and look of the game and went on to Dwarf Fortress when I realized there really wasn't all that much to do.
It has been said before, and everyone knows it, but it does bear repeating until we don't have to repeat it anymore. The UI is atrocious. It's not a subjective thing, it's objectively bad. I've learned the keypresses to get to most of the necessary menus, but everything is so disconnected, that I spend a lot of my time menu surfing. Some screens use /,* to page up and down, others use 9,3. Some use enter to turn on and off options, others use -,+. It's too unintuitive.
Consolidate as best as you can. Combine and link menus and objects. I should be able to click (mouse or keyboard click) on a dwarf or object and have access to everything about it right there. Clicking on an object/creature brings up the look information, which also gives the option to change to that object/creatures q or v menu, and the q or v menus gives you the options to go back to the k menu, etc.
So the UI was the biggest turnoff as a newbie. I know that people learn to deal with it, and it's bearable and they don't have much of a problem anymore, but I think they just need something better to make them look at the current iteration and vomit.
My second problem is that it's been about 6 weeks since I stared playing Dwarf Fortress and I'm pretty much done with it. I've made two fortresses and got them into the economy stage. On the frist one, once the framerate dropped to 10, I stopped and started another one and got it up and running faster, and had a bit more fun since I knew what to plan for, but had to stop again when the framerate became unbearable. It became too much of a waiting game. I tried starting a few more times, but just got bored with it. I did have fun, but I was easily turned off by the drop in playability towards the end.
I see the potential, but I can see how long I'll have to wait for these problems to be tackled. I'll probably wait for the next few versions to be released before jumping back in, not wanting to become accustomed to the way the game is, and then waiting for several months/years for fixes. A lot of the reasons 90% of the people run away are because the game is still in Alpha and does have a long way to go with optimization, gameplay, tweaks, bugfixes, etc. When the game is finally where Toady wants it to be and the only changes will be to simple gameplay tweaks, balancing, and bugfixes, I think I'll come back to give it another go. But I do have a strange feeling that is going to be quite a long way off.
As background, I tried Dwarf Fortress for the first time last September. I played Adventure mode for about 15 minutes before quitting. I knew I didn't have enough time to devote to learning the UI, and then learning the game's nuances as well. It wasn't the graphics, since I happily played Nethack and Rouge on unix systems back in the day. It was the UI that turned me off.
I picked it up again about a month and a half ago determined to learn. I played through a few times in Adventure mode until I got accustomed to the controls and look of the game and went on to Dwarf Fortress when I realized there really wasn't all that much to do.
It has been said before, and everyone knows it, but it does bear repeating until we don't have to repeat it anymore. The UI is atrocious. It's not a subjective thing, it's objectively bad. I've learned the keypresses to get to most of the necessary menus, but everything is so disconnected, that I spend a lot of my time menu surfing. Some screens use /,* to page up and down, others use 9,3. Some use enter to turn on and off options, others use -,+. It's too unintuitive.
Consolidate as best as you can. Combine and link menus and objects. I should be able to click (mouse or keyboard click) on a dwarf or object and have access to everything about it right there. Clicking on an object/creature brings up the look information, which also gives the option to change to that object/creatures q or v menu, and the q or v menus gives you the options to go back to the k menu, etc.
So the UI was the biggest turnoff as a newbie. I know that people learn to deal with it, and it's bearable and they don't have much of a problem anymore, but I think they just need something better to make them look at the current iteration and vomit.
My second problem is that it's been about 6 weeks since I stared playing Dwarf Fortress and I'm pretty much done with it. I've made two fortresses and got them into the economy stage. On the frist one, once the framerate dropped to 10, I stopped and started another one and got it up and running faster, and had a bit more fun since I knew what to plan for, but had to stop again when the framerate became unbearable. It became too much of a waiting game. I tried starting a few more times, but just got bored with it. I did have fun, but I was easily turned off by the drop in playability towards the end.
I see the potential, but I can see how long I'll have to wait for these problems to be tackled. I'll probably wait for the next few versions to be released before jumping back in, not wanting to become accustomed to the way the game is, and then waiting for several months/years for fixes. A lot of the reasons 90% of the people run away are because the game is still in Alpha and does have a long way to go with optimization, gameplay, tweaks, bugfixes, etc. When the game is finally where Toady wants it to be and the only changes will be to simple gameplay tweaks, balancing, and bugfixes, I think I'll come back to give it another go. But I do have a strange feeling that is going to be quite a long way off.