Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[DwarfMeister]

Most games follow a set of rules when they are programmed. They are designed to be easy to pick up and play, have a ton of shaders and 3d effects, Dolby Digital surround sound, a $60+ dollar price tag, tons of ads to tell everybody that it exists, etc. Dwarf Fortress breaks ALL of those rules and more, but for some odd reason, it's a damn good game. To put it simply, Dwarf Fortress is the Black Metal of video games. How did this happen?

[TheCoolSideofthePIllow]

People prefer shiny things to things that are fun and functional.

I'll admit; if it was within the possibility of our current technology to have Dwarf Fortress' game play and extensive depth with the current generation graphics, I would totally want it.

But think about how slow DF can get just using ASCII. If you put fancy graphics on it, it would never run!

[DwarfMeister]

I'll admit; if it was within the possibility of our current technology to have Dwarf Fortress' game play and extensive depth with the current generation graphics, I would totally want it.

That would KFA!!!
It would be YEARS before that could possibly happen on a desktop PC...
But, perhaps, with a computer cluster running a Linux build of the game...
Mwahahahahaha!!!

[Blade Master Model 42]

But think about how slow DF can get just using ASCII. If you put fancy graphics on it, it would never run!

Dwarf Fortress' slowdown comes almost entirely from the calculations it does keeping track of everything happening in the fort. There are a few third party visualizers that will let you view your fort graphically, and I think one or two (stonesense, I think...) update in real time, so you can view your fort as it runs.

[AustralianWinter]

Well, Dwarf Fortress has an enormous learning curve. It only appeals to (I gather) hardcore gamers, and the lack of any overall goals make it an odd experience for any casual gamer.

I have tried to get lots of my friends to play it, but in most cases simply opening the game and being totally overwhelmed by the sheer complexity and the large amounts of seemingly random information turns them off almost instantly. And we're talking people who normally won't give up even in tough circumstances.

So yeah, your Black Metal metaphor rings true. Few can muster the energy and willpower to understand it, and therefore can't reap the rewards.

[Starver]

Most games follow a set of rules when they are programmed. They are designed to be easy to pick up and play, have a ton of shaders and 3d effects, Dolby Digital surround sound, a $60+ dollar price tag, tons of ads to tell everybody that it exists, etc. Dwarf Fortress breaks ALL of those rules and more, but for some odd reason, it's a damn good game. To put it simply, Dwarf Fortress is the Black Metal of video games. How did this happen?

IMO, it is a damn good game, and while it isn't (anywhere near) finished, it is probably the leader in its particular class.  If you released a Doom-like[1] in this sort of state, people would look towards it, then turn slightly to look at one of the many other examples of competition for that genre and tend to wander off in that direction.

Arguably, Minecraft has an overlap in one direction (being a similar sandbox, much better graphics, but lower 'depth' of game-history, which is something we appreciate), but I can't think of any overt copy (with all the attendant problems, thereof) that has been anything like Dwarf Fortress.

And its not being done for out-and-out commercial success, so the usually necessary actions needed to make something a commercial success just aren't necessary (or would cause problems, if done).

And there are plenty of games projects (and world simulators) out there of different types that are "geek supported".  It's not exactly an isolated incident.  It just so happens that I, you, and everyone else who will ever get around to reading these words (and loads of people who won't, but could easily have done) happen to have landed upon Planet Bay12 as some point.  I could just as easily have ended up as The Biggest Fan Of "Rigs And Rods" Evaaarrrr!!!!, in some alternate universe.  (Although, having seen their forums, my use of the word "Evaaarrrr", with or without excessive exclamation marks would have marked me down as overly intellectual insofar as written English goes. )


As for "shiny graphics", if we were so shallow as to only be able to work with shiny graphics, we wouldn't be (or remain) here.  There will always be an anti-audience who can't appreciate the visualisation as it is.  And there is a fringe who highly appreciate the third-party apps such as Stonesense.  Personally, I don't even use non-vanilla tilesets, but horses for courses.


I do think it is a shame that a lot of people I know can't be easily indoctrinated introduced to DF.  But, without being in any way elitists about it, there are definitely sufficient numbers of people out there to give it a fan-base, with the wonders of the modern connected world drawing together everyone in the world who has the wherewithal to appreciate it, and that system works.  If and when it does not it'll either be changed or sink beneath the waves but, just like Earth is neither at the centre of the Universe or even of the Solar System, the fact that we have this focus and can currently enjoy it is not inevitable, but can be celebrated as something happily so for the purposes of the current argument...


[1] Sorry, showing my age here.  Doom (original Doom!) was not even the first FPS of its kind that I played, but it set a benchmark in my life that I can't shrug off...

[xeniorn]

Your GPU sits almost completely idle while playing DF. It's not a matter of computing power, it's a matter of programming time. You could play a mega-graphics DF on a same PC you play ascii DF as long as it had a decent GPU. It's just that Toady would rather spend time developing the game itself rather than the way it is presented (graphics, UI).

[Trickman]

I'd say Dwarf Fortress is the Jazz of videogames. Unless you embark to an evil site.

[Starver]

...when it's Free Jazz?

[weenog]

Those rules aren't rules for games.  They're formula for how to make a game appeal to the lowest common denominator (common being the key word) at a glance, and just long enough to pay for it.  Dwarf Fortress doesn't generate a profit directly linked to how many people buy it.  It needn't care how many people are playing it, and isn't desperate to grab your attention in the half second your eye falls on it while perusing the games shelf.

Dwarf Fortress lacks ads and product tie-ins, looks like typewriter barf, and is hard as hell because it can be.  Fearing to be those things is beneath it.

[bp1986]

In short, DF is an indy game. Toady makes his own rules and doesn't have 500+ people on the payroll!

Also, Toady is making a game that he truely enjoys rather than trying to appeal to the mass audience of 11 year olds who still have a rather large say in what happens with their parents disposable income.

Thank you Toady, thank you for not being a corporate whore!

[NTJedi]

Most games follow a set of rules when they are programmed. They are designed to be easy to pick up and play, have a ton of shaders and 3d effects, Dolby Digital surround sound, a $60+ dollar price tag, tons of ads to tell everybody that it exists, etc. Dwarf Fortress breaks ALL of those rules and more, but for some odd reason, it's a damn good game. To put it simply, Dwarf Fortress is the Black Metal of video games. How did this happen?

To put it simply... don't judge a book by its cover.   Many Game Publishers and Marketing care more about the visual appearance than the actual game depth.  In fact even many developers are also blinded by placing toooo high of a priority on graphics.  It's like buying a vehicle... it might look nice on the outside but within the first few days you'll know if you're stuck with a lemon.  Heck I wouldn't mind driving the ugliest vehicle on the road in a mad max world as long as I can crush and blow up other vehicles in my way.

[Melagius]

But black metal isn't original or good. 

[xeniorn]

But black metal isn't original or good. 

Indeed!

To put it simply... don't judge a book by its cover.   Many Game Publishers and Marketing care more about the visual appearance than the actual game depth.  In fact even many developers are also blinded by placing toooo high of a priority on graphics.  It's like buying a vehicle... it might look nice on the outside but within the first few days you'll know if you're stuck with a lemon.  Heck I wouldn't mind driving the ugliest vehicle on the road in a mad max world as long as I can crush and blow up other vehicles in my way.

It's like the deal with cheap electronics and other gadgety-stuff. They always come packed in shiny boxes, laced with promises of suberbness and they're everywhere commercial-wise. It makes you believe it's good and you need it / want it, but it ends up being s**t. With such products, marketing costs are a significant amount of total cost. DF doesn't bother with marketing almost at all, it rather relies for quality to speak for itself...

[AustralianWinter]

But black metal isn't original or good. 

That's the easy opinion. Perhaps not wrong (it's a matter of taste, and musical familarity, I gather), just easy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFbBKiSC2MY