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[Tynan]

Hello. I was wondering why the game (and some people) keep stressing that losing is fun? Last time I checked, getting all of my dwarves wiped out after many hours spent lovingly caring for them (not to mention the fortress) was anything but fun. Just wondering...

    Also, is there a pre-set point in the game where, if your fortress becomes large and famous enough, the game declares you "winner"? Or can you run a fortress indefinitely with no predetermined end-point, provided you don't get wiped?

Thanks!

[DR]

quote:Originally posted by Tynan:
<STRONG>Hello. I was wondering why the game (and some people) keep stressing that losing is fun? Last time I checked, getting all of my dwarves wiped out after many hours spent lovingly caring for them (not to mention the fortress) was anything but fun. Just wondering...

    Also, is there a pre-set point in the game where, if your fortress becomes large and famous enough, the game declares you "winner"? Or can you run a fortress indefinitely with no predetermined end-point, provided you don't get wiped?

Thanks!</STRONG>

Mostly because the game is extremely challenging until you figure everything out at which point it becomes ludicrously easy (on the whole).

[Red Jackard]

There are currently no winning conditions in the game - you might as well grow used to defeat. Once you are able to finish a fortress without actually abandoning it, this may change.

As for the fun - some losses can be enlightening, others hilarious.

[ December 29, 2007: Message edited by: Red Jackard ]

[Radtse]

It's only when you lose everything that you're free to do anything.

[ December 29, 2007: Message edited by: Radtse ]

[Helmaroc]

It is also fun to lose in adventure mode. You know, go on some quests, rest some, talk to all the people of mention, die, go in the legends book (mode), get shoes with pictures of you laced on. (that really happened, I examined a shoe and it had a pic of a previous adventurer.

[Tynan]

Thanks all!

So I guess the only end is if the dwarves stop producing children and/or die of old age...

[Red Jackard]

I don't believe even that would be an end - wouldn't there still be migrants?

[dethb0y]

Every successful fortress is, fundamentally, the same. Every one that fails is, in it's own way, unique.

To me the point of the game is kind of like juggling. The goal is to see how long you can keep it going before something goes horrifically, irrevocably wrong.

Then again, i was the kind of guy who'd turn lose all the disasters at once on my cities in simcity.

[Eagle of Fire]

The "it's fun to lose" trademark originate mostly from 23a, in which if you were successful enough you'd eventually get the King... Who kept pressing you with mandates to dig further and further, until you inevitably dug thru adamantine and thru the demon pit...

Then, you would have the game ending "dug too deep"...

In resume, the game was forcing you sooner or later to "lose". The fun was to manage to get to that part. And also maybe come back with an adventurer to wipe all the monsters who would have claimed your fortress afterward...  

[BurnedToast]

I played the 2d version alot, and I read the wiki alot and as a result, I've never actually 'lost' the 3d version (unless abandoning out of boredom counts as losing). It is, in fact, very very rare for me to even have dwarves die.

Very often I read about the gruesome ends that many forts meet and really get the feeling that *I* am the one doing something wrong   Losing is a heck of alot more fun then the current alternative.

[Yat]

Yeah, it comes down to trying crazier builds for you engineering or trying "challenge modes" I'm going to go without beds, or without booze or without stone. Mess around with any kind of fluid and you're sure to loose at least a few times, remember right now we're testing the game, we're finding the bugs and whathave so whenever something inadvertently destroys your work, it might be a success.

[xzzy]

The best fun in the game comes from sharing stories with friends about the ways dwarves get themselves killed.. despite your best efforts to prevent it.

[MyBeardIsOnFire]

quote:Originally posted by dethb0y:
<STRONG>Then again, i was the kind of guy who'd turn lose all the disasters at once on my cities in simcity.</STRONG>

Ooh, fun times!

[ColonelTEE3]

quote:Originally posted by Tynan:
<STRONG>Hello. I was wondering why the game (and some people) keep stressing that losing is fun? Last time I checked, getting all of my dwarves wiped out after many hours spent lovingly caring for them (not to mention the fortress) was anything but fun. Just wondering...

    Also, is there a pre-set point in the game where, if your fortress becomes large and famous enough, the game declares you "winner"? Or can you run a fortress indefinitely with no predetermined end-point, provided you don't get wiped?

Thanks!</STRONG>

I found out immediately upon playing DF why it was fun to lose; losing was always hilarious for me. One of my very first deaths was when a giant cave spider came out of the chasm (old df where everyone had chasms) and all of my dwarves kept trying to go to work but theyd get interrupted, so it ended up being this huge mob of dwarves all in a bundle moving forward as a group, then running away as a group, until it cornered them and pretty much covered the walls and floor with blood. Losing can also be spectacular to watch / command; in another file, i had one single swordsdwarf charge the battlefield, arrows whistling by him, as he jumped into goblin ranks and killed many before they finally slew him, and (in my mind) my other dwarves were roused to action and went out to meet the goblins in battle in one glorious blood rush of a slaughter.

[AlanL]

For me, all losing does is take some big plans of mine and make it so I can't finish them. I consider winning to be when I finish my big plan (either a heroic adventurer, some sort of enormous project in fortress mode, or a combination of the two).

Usually, I find winning to be more fun than losing unless I deliberately intend to lose.