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[lue]

I've never found the UI to be much of a bother, except for dwarf labors. I hope that one of those "minor" releases that happen after the big one coming up would include its own version of Dwarf Therapist's job screen. (DT itself is a pain to deal with, from its barely functioning attempt at being compileable and its inability to be installed to /usr/local on Linux, to the fact that it can't play nice with the concept of "maximize window")

I actually like the sound of a moddable UI, so you can have vastly different interfaces based on various needs, without Toady needing to be the one to account for them specifically.

(I just remembered the g_src directory that comes in the Dwarf Fortress download. Seems to be the UI, or at least what draws it. Perhaps it's possible to modify it appropriately?)

[Vlad]

One day I hope every item will be tracked and you can trace who made it and where it came from... I want how much blood a dwarf has to be tracked,

The first I think is already there, but I'm not sure. The second is tracked in a number with an average of 6000 max for dwarves.

Blood and bleeding isn't too realistic right now. Like you can lose 1 arm and be fine but lose 2 arms and you're dead no matter what. Dwarves also seem to recover from blood loss very quickly.

Items aren't tracked the way I want. They are just abstract numbers in worldgen I believe. Like you can't trace a weapon back to it's specific maker.

[Putnam]

I thought you meant items made on-site, not worldgen items.

Also, I think blood recovers to full the instant the creature is outside of combat and stops bleeding.

[Vlad]

I thought you meant items made on-site, not worldgen items.

Also, I think blood recovers to full the instant the creature is outside of combat and stops bleeding.

Imo blood should take a lot longer to recover.

For items I think it would be cool to notice something like "That Goblin siege was using weapons made by that human civ we're at war with! I wonder if they were stolen or maybe the humans gave it to them..." Just being able to notice a craftsman's handiwork or a civs symbol on weapons (which I think already is present on the weapons and armor of some siegers) would be cool. I'm not sure if items are tracked by who their maker is in fortress mode.

[grody311]

I just got into DF this year.  I'm curious to know if the development of the game has slowed down compared to development in past years.  There are so many obvious bugs and annoyances in the game right now (which programs like dfhack try to address) that it's rather shocking that they aren't addressed (according to the wiki most of these problems have been around for years).  I mean, it's really hard to play this game and not have the concerns raised by the OP.

I guess I'm just surprised that with such an intelligent and dedicated fan base, how has this not taken off like Minecraft?  I mean, shouldn't development progress be accelerating over time?  Otherwise, then, well, you have to consider that the game is dying.

[AutomataKittay]

I just got into DF this year.  I'm curious to know if the development of the game has slowed down compared to development in past years.  There are so many obvious bugs and annoyances in the game right now (which programs like dfhack try to address) that it's rather shocking that they aren't addressed (according to the wiki most of these problems have been around for years).  I mean, it's really hard to play this game and not have the concerns raised by the OP.

I guess I'm just surprised that with such an intelligent and dedicated fan base, how has this not taken off like Minecraft?  I mean, shouldn't development progress be accelerating over time?  Otherwise, then, well, you have to consider that the game is dying.

DF isn't dying, it's got pretty stable fanbase. It's just not a popular game, and Minecraft's a whole different horse, nothing similar except in retro surface apperance. And this' also one-man circus, with very complex program that have many interacting parts, so development won't accelerate, ever. It's mostly one massive save-breaking version after a long period of development and then a long run of decently frequent bugfix and improvement releases before the next save-breaker.

Or did you decided the game must be dying because it's too complex for the average person to find fun in it?

This isn't to say that it don't have a lot of trouble and issues, but perception don't always matches reality and some of it is because DF don't really suits most people, Minecraft's more fun for most people than DF and from what I've heard, much easier to actually play. I don't have any interest in Minecraft, so I suppose I'm the anti-fan

[Emily Murkpaddled]

I started playing with the original 2D releases, and I can't really remember a time in those first hundreds of hours I played the game that I struggled with the UI. I taught other people to play before tutorials were widely available or of good quality, after the move to 3D, and a lot of them did just throw their hands up and quit because the UI is bad, but worse than the bad UI is trying to use it digging blindly through menus to figure out how to do what you want to do, or why something you thought would work doesn't work the way it should. (Many italics!) When I recently tried to come back to DF after a long hiatus, the UI wasn't bothersome at all ... for the many tasks that were still ingrained in muscle memory ... but baffling for anything contained within a new menu screen, or that was unfamiliar to me.

[Bandreus]

I can see where the OP is coming from.

What I cannot see is if the author even realizes how naive, arrogant and mildly offensive his post is.

[pedrousz]

Why people compare Minecraft with DF?

Just digging doesn't make the game similar. What make Minecraft popular was the "lego" experience in my opinion, when I played it with my friend we played to build churches, house, cities, etc. DF is a lot more about Simcity with Civilization, not a lego game like Minecraft

Minecraft nowadays (if i'm not wrong, long time that I don't play) have A LOT more features and the game still lost a lot of the initial popularity.

I agree that the UI is very scary and is probably the biggest step into learning the game, but the majority of my friends that don't play DF says that the game is too ugly or anything like that.

A new UI could help, but if you just want to play a game without looking at wiki each minute when you are learning you probably will not like DF (and most of people don't want that).

I think most of people how got hooked with DF was hooked for the complexity (with the hilarious descriptions, the massive world generations, the community stories, the random-ish factor, etc) of the game knowing that wouldn't be easy at first time.

[eccentric]

OT: They are being compared because Notch has cited DF as one of the sources of inspiration for Minecraft. It looks like Infiniminer (other source of inspiration) but it does have some of the elements of DF.

Minecraft is also the gold standard which all other indie/sandbox games are measured against. There are other DF inspired games but people don't know those. I've seen a few on Steam there is one on Kickstarter now. I supported one called Castle Story that was DF-esque and looked interesting but they just aren't popular enough to compare and have the other person know what you're talking about.

[DG]

Hi guys,

I stopped playing DF a while ago because there are certain things that annoy me and eventually forced me to quit. Since it's been a while, and since DF is the only game that is close to being the game that I dream of, I decided to try again. Unfortunately I've found that the problems still exist. I have been patient, but I'm starting to wonder how patient I'd need to be, and I'd much rather Toady refocus his development on those things that would keep me playing now, rather than in the (probably distant) future. Before you interpret my wants as selfish, I'll point out that Toady would make heaps of cash if he did as I requested.

My problem is that Toady is still being funded and getting enough money to keep going as is. Development has been going steadily for years which makes it difficult for me to convince anyone that the game is in danger of dying, but I'll insinuate that all the same and hope that I'm not called on it.  I figure that my only realistic chance of getting Toady to change his ways is to convince his current backers to stop donating until he changes focus to the UI and the many other things that keep me from enjoying and playing his game.

I'm not sure how to do that other than to suggest that the status quo is doomed to failure or that he would get more money. Hopefully those two angles will cost him a few future donations which would make him reconsider. Maybe there are some people donating simply because they want to make Toady richer (I must believe this to be true otherwise why would the idea of Toady making more money change anyones mind, right?), so I'll remind them that any donations he loses now will be recouped in triplicate once he starts developing properly.

So in essence I know I'm complaining about the support that Toady gets from his fanbase, but I'll say that I'm not anyway and hopefully that will head off any criticism from that sector. Anyway, thanks for reading. I hope you guys see it my way and do your best to help me to convince Toady. Together we can make a difference.

Kind regards
OP

[Manveru Taurënér]

Hi guys,
... snip

I'm sorry, but I just can't get past how selfish posts like these seem. Maybe I'm just extraordinarily patient, but to me it's quite obvious that:

Toady enjoyment>>>>>>Player enjoyment,

seeing as there's still a good 20 years to go most likely until this game is anywhere close to finished. So if Toady doesn't feel like doing work on the UI right now that might also need to be scrapped in say 10 years anyway then who are we to try and convince him otherwise. And encouraging people to stop donating to get your point across is kind of a dick thing to do. Besides, the UI can be managed, no matter how unintuitive it is. Bugs and incomplete features however can not. And bugs will be getting another round after this release so complaining about those is a bit pointless.

I haven't actually played for about a year either, mostly due to said incomplete features and bugs annoying me too much (The UI I don't really mind that much, I even play without DFtherapist and dfhack etc), and I'm not sure if I will come the next release either. But yeah, maybe I'm just extremely patient

[DG]

Sorry, my post was satire but obviously poorly done as can be inferred from your reaction. Poe's Law and all that, though I thought signing it as the OP would make it obvious.

So here's something more constructive by way of making amends.

I too have taken a long sabbatical from DF because of things not yet implemented, but I try not to bore people with my reasons for not playing because I'm sure they'd be trifling to most players (not to say I haven't mentioned things here or there when it seemed in context). I don't have any major issues with the UI. Probably the most annoying times are when I have to scroll through an interminable list to find an item. I do however acknowledge that the way the UI is currently implemented affects the way I play the game. For instance I always choose flat embark sites because I feel DF does a very poor job of displaying action across z levels, and I think that is also the reason why many player forts sprawl out horizontally (but that's just conjecture).

Maybe the reason I feel that years go by too quickly in DF is because I get tired of doing the same repetitive things in the caravan trading screens and so I wish it would be longer between having to repeat them. That would be a UI thing. I tend to try to play with no more than 30 or so dwarves because any more than that and I lose connection with individual dwarves. That's arguably a UI thing, too. There are probably other examples that I don't recall right now. So I agree that the UI needs work but I think that people don't look into it thoughtfully or deeply enough in regards to how it shapes game play. NW_Kohaku made a very good post on it somewhere a while ago. Because the UI doesn't keep me from playing and doesn't affect my enjoyment of the game much, I obviously don't think it's a pressing concern for development.

But I am aware that it does keep other people from playing the game and I don't begrudge them that. I don't even mind if they make posts trying to convince other people to feel the same way, as long as it's not done disingenuously. I do feel that the OP was disingenuous, but probably not consciously so. Thus I poked fun at it with my previous post.

[Kamamura]

I think cults like this one here are generally tolerable, as long as they keep their stuff inside the changelog.

[Manveru Taurënér]

Ah, my bad then. I'm horrible at noticing  satire/irony and stuff like that, even when it isn't in text (mild autism ftl)