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Author Topic: Why is Dwarf Fortress fun?  (Read 28320 times)

Alastar

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Re: Why is Dwarf Fortress fun?
« Reply #30 on: March 19, 2012, 03:25:28 pm »

Dwarf Fortress isn't much of a game (at least not in its unmodded state), but it may just be the greatest toy ever. Which other gives you as much context for interpretation and experimentation?

And while we're at the food analogy... I'd say it's a particularly impressive durian.
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NTJedi

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Re: Why is Dwarf Fortress fun?
« Reply #31 on: March 19, 2012, 05:24:34 pm »

so why IS Dwarf Fortress fun?
It's like the game Stronghold and Stronghold:Crusader... you build your own place and try surviving the dangers which appear.  Based on what I've been reading the main reason people stop playing dwarf fortress from what I've seen is because they become bored where their last games involve them looking for ways to have fun.  This problem exists mainly because sieges are unable to do anything about walls and raised gates which removes all risk from the game. Secondly because cage traps are unbalanced/overpoweredand to the point where using them feels almost like some cheat mode.  Third because there's needs to be more late game challenges/events.... for example you reach capital status and it only brings one negative trading side effect to your kingdom.  Now if a capital introduced the chance of armored cyclops armies attacking, meetings with royalties in the realm, and other late game events it would help maintain longterm interest. 
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Tolisk

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Re: Why is Dwarf Fortress fun?
« Reply #32 on: March 19, 2012, 06:31:55 pm »

I smell a mod idea.
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In the grim darkness of DF, there can be only FUN

Drago55577

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Re: Why is Dwarf Fortress fun?
« Reply #33 on: March 19, 2012, 06:45:29 pm »

^^^
within 5 months massive cyclops armored with steel are going to attack forts while riding interdimensional fluffy wamblers and Frost Wyrms.
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MenacesWithSpikes

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Re: Why is Dwarf Fortress fun?
« Reply #34 on: March 19, 2012, 07:36:29 pm »

Quote from: bombzero

so why IS Dwarf Fortress fun?

"...and the severed part flies off in an arc!"

"... menaces with spikes of..."

The fact that Cacame Awemedinade exists.

The massive collection of goblin/troll body parts your dwarves end up with after a siege walks into a trap corridor.

Reading the combat log immediately after the general of the goblin civilization is killed by one of the weapon traps in your trap corridor.

Realizing that your embark includes both flux AND iron ore.

Randomly generated names that actually aren't nonsensical.

Dragons.  Bronze Colossi.  And all megabeasts.

Having a Legendary Weaponsmith.

Actually getting something useful from a strange mood.
« Last Edit: March 19, 2012, 07:38:33 pm by MenacesWithSpikes »
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MenacesWithSpikes

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Re: Why is Dwarf Fortress fun?
« Reply #35 on: March 19, 2012, 07:37:44 pm »

oops redundant post - delete
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CodexDraco

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Re: Why is Dwarf Fortress fun?
« Reply #36 on: March 19, 2012, 07:53:59 pm »

why is it that the people who enjoy crappy games shooters, fixed-plot RPGs, and other such limited stories

Wow, try dialing down the elitism knob a little will ya?

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find them fun to replay over and over again?

Why do people keep watching the same movies or reading the same books over and over? Same thing.

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on a similar vein, what has happened to mainstream games nowadays, used to be an actual focus on making a long, detailed story.
now we have 3 hour campaigns, and redundant sidequests.

Do you realize that this make you look old? :-P. Complaining about the 'shit' that younglings watch/see/play today is causing the society to lose it's IQ/values/whatever it's one of the oldest constants of life. Before you make a claim like this realize that there were plenty of generic shit in your day and the thing you liked then was probably considered inferior by your parents/granpas.

Also, do you realize it's possible to like both Modern Warfare and Dwarf Fortress right? There is no dichotomy and I for one are happy that both exists (though I don't play shooters mind you).

Now, games are never about the final objective, if it was then we could simply look up for the ending on YouTube and save the money. No, games are about the experience, they are about what you do to get to the objective (if any) and what choices do you make during gameplay. They are about learning skills and improve them to be better  at the game.

PS: I think I missed the age when games were about making detailed stories. Do you have an example? If I remember correctly Mario Bross didn't have much of a story.
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Exlo

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Re: Why is Dwarf Fortress fun?
« Reply #37 on: March 19, 2012, 07:58:59 pm »

I like Dwarf Fortress because it provides a unique difficulty. Its not "frustratingly difficult" (I've been playing Jak 2 :D)  and at the same time it isn't completely easy. Some of you have brought up COD, and this is one that has, surprisingly, both of those extremes. Unless you are damn good, or just happen to find people at the same skill level as you, you will almost always get blown away in multiplayer. That's been my experience, and I suck, so I suppose that view is biased. In COD's campaign, the game is almost too easy. Turning up the difficulty just makes enemies healthier, and bullets hurt more. That is not !!FUN!! In most games with guns, Fallout 3 especially, I tend to find some way to edit the game to make damage to me and the enemy both lethal.

Now take a look at Dwarf Fortress. The danger to both me and my enemies are almost always, in some way, equal in Adventure Mode. Giant rat gets a lucky hit in on your throat? Too bad, you're jugular just got severed! Of course there are ways to improve your odds, but there's always that slight chance you know? Same goes for Fortress mode. Its so complex you can automatically assume you've done something wrong at some point, and that it will later come back to bite you in the rear. All you can do is try to learn what that is, and be prepared. Once you get good at it that challenge fades. Oddly enough, we the players take it upon ourselves to open those gates and face the pansy elven ambushers and goblin siegers ready to tear dwarven flesh in the name of their respective civs. In the end, the game sums up this question with its motto. Losing is fun.

Bow before the Toady One.
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Exlo

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Re: Why is Dwarf Fortress fun?
« Reply #38 on: March 19, 2012, 08:09:48 pm »

And to CodexDraco - you have to admit things are a lot more redundant than they used to be. EVERY sequel that tries to stick to the fundamentals of the first is always simply the first game with new features. While this happened back then, it happens very much more so today. With the industry growing, companies always have to do something that's already been done unless they're particularly creative. That's not their fault, games have been around for so long that ideas are beginning to get recycled. What I think others are trying to say is that Dwarf Fortress is unique, unlike COD: Modern Warfare 3. Because yes, that IS the same game for the third time with new graphics, guns, and maps. There's no shame in that if you like more of the same. Like me. You know I still play Jak and Daxter, because that's just what I did back then. I love going back to that and doing it all over again. Its like being a tiny me. Mini-me! I better stop typing before I make more Austin Powers references...
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KodKod

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Re: Why is Dwarf Fortress fun?
« Reply #39 on: March 19, 2012, 08:30:14 pm »

This is simple.

Dwarf Fortress is fun because of the attrocities that it brings upon the player, and the attrocities that it allows the player themself to permit.

And in terms of attrocity-level it is second only to a fluffy wuffy game called Creatures 2 in terms of the sheer suffering that is brought upon the game's inhabitants.
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CodexDraco

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Re: Why is Dwarf Fortress fun?
« Reply #40 on: March 19, 2012, 08:57:27 pm »

And to CodexDraco - you have to admit things are a lot more redundant than they used to be. EVERY sequel that tries to stick to the fundamentals of the first is always simply the first game with new features. While this happened back then, it happens very much more so today.

Well, I disagree. While obviously there are more stablished franchises today than there were before there is also a lot of new franchises and dozens of games released every month. If there even was a golden age of gaming it is today. Also, a game with new features is a new game in my book. You can't expect game companies to reinvent a completely innovative gameplay all the time for sequels can you?

Yesterday I was playing a little gem called Blit.Trip runner and I recently finished Space Marine and both of them were great experiences and innovative in their own way. While nobody will remember those in a couple of years I don't regret having bought them a bit.

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What I think others are trying to say is that Dwarf Fortress is unique
Can't argue with that.
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unlike COD: Modern Warfare 3. Because yes, that IS the same game for the third time with new graphics, guns, and maps.
I critic my friends that buy FIFA every year because to me they are the same but with different names, but they always tell me that no, these are completely new games. I have no reason to disbelieve them. In the other hand I like Street Fighter games and while Capcom loves to milk this franchise every 'sequel' they make changes the balance of the game, add characters and change core mechanics. This makes the experience completely different.

That said, the day Activision innovates I'll eat my shirt.
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Exlo

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Re: Why is Dwarf Fortress fun?
« Reply #41 on: March 19, 2012, 09:56:25 pm »

Fair enough. I guess I'd be lying if I said I bought a sequel to something I liked and didn't think everything was a %100 better. Mass Effect 2 was a good example. I find most games to be carbon copies of their predecessors, but in the end it comes down to taste.
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Drago55577

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Re: Why is Dwarf Fortress fun?
« Reply #42 on: March 19, 2012, 10:06:49 pm »

DF is fun because it's realistic, which means the odds of dying are equal, which makes it fun (for me anyway). I would play Fallout if it was like DF, the only other thing for me that makes a game fun is awesome graphics. I hate FPS games.(besides COD BO (MW sucks) and Battlefield 3 cause I can demolish people and make them rage quit and halo, no idea just love halo)
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werechicken

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Re: Why is Dwarf Fortress fun?
« Reply #43 on: March 19, 2012, 10:13:02 pm »

I like it for the horrible things I can do.

Executions and zombie experiments on captured goblin prisoners.

Forcing my subjects to toil away to build an unholy monument to death.

Allowing vampires to gorge themselves on the useless dreggs of my fortress (it's all about the careful application of burrows)

Feeding human and elven merchants to my zombie immortal legion

God I love this game!

Edit: due to the awful predictive text on my phone
« Last Edit: March 19, 2012, 10:24:16 pm by werechicken »
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hermes

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Re: Why is Dwarf Fortress fun?
« Reply #44 on: March 20, 2012, 02:41:54 am »

tl;dr version: Curiousity, Experementation, Exploration. In Dwarf Fortress losing is winning. In Dwarf Fortress you dont necessarily know what that mysterious new object does, but I want to find out. and lastly: Because.

I'd like to second this idea.  Right now I'm splitting gameplay time between my Argonian scumbag in Skyrim and Dwarf Fortress (mostly adventure mode).

My highlight in Skyrim this week was sitting in the chapel in Solitude just taking in the atmosphere.  The architecture was beautiful and matched the powerful music accompanying it.  Yet, rather little of any surprise happened.  Generally, I plan to do something, do it, plan to go back home and sell/dump everything, and do that.

In adventure mode, on the other hand, I died the other night because a wild boar kicked my head in with her right fore trotter.  This unexpected demise greatly amused me and I said to my wife, "Hey, a wild boar just killed me!  This game is great!"  Conversation in our home is pretty riveting as you can imagine.  Yes an evening's play was "lost" in game terms, but I see it as experience that hopefully counts towards my DF gaming skill, and more than that, I have been left with this great image of my adventurer screaming in terror as a giant she-boar rears up and then stamps down on his head.  Where else can I get such memories?
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