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[utunnels]

I'm not sure why people feel they need graphics to play the game.

It is not all about need. I can play without graphics, but having graphics on makes things easier to recognize. A forest map may look like a junk yard in ascii mode, but it looks pretty neat if you are using phoebus tileset. And some sprites are so well drawn so it is also enjoyable to watch them.

[4maskwolf]

I'm not sure why people feel they need graphics to play the game.

It is not all about need. I can play without graphics, but having graphics on makes things easier to recognize. A forest map may look like a junk yard in ascii mode, but it looks pretty neat if you are using phoebus tileset. And some sprites are so well drawn so it is also enjoyable to watch them.

I can see that, but I find there to be something appealing about the ASCII.  To each their own.

[Deboche]

Some good stuff has come out of this thread already if we decide to make more tuts for new players and take the lead in advertising DF by our own means. We want Toady nice and rich so he can churn out updates non-stop.

[Bearskie]

I feel that the tileset graphics compensate well enough for most ocassions; Spacefox in particular I like because its got that cyanide & happiness vibe while keeping stuff very understandable.  Tbh, I doubt individual creatures will be recognizable on first sight by newcomers even with better graphics.  There's just such a huge variety of wildlife in the game, so much so that I actually find letters to be more understandable instead.  And there's always [k].

The UI and depth are arguably the two main factors that constitute the infamous DF learning curve towards newcomers.  However, I believe that the depth is part of DFs charm, even when it's seemingly unnecessary *cough*poems.  The issue with the UI is that while it's hideous, it is also highly functional once mastered.  Mantaining that level of functionality while improving the UI is something that I'm not sure as to what can be done, besides minor things such as "making hospitals from zones to rooms" (one of my why-not thoughts).

Perhaps we should focus more on promoting DF to those who will 'fit' into the df player mould, instead of appealing to the general public (Minimum requirement: a macabre sense of humour).  Massive screenshots from Isoworld showing them the scale of a mere pocket world.  Complicated diagrams of dwarven engineering.  3D visualizers shooting megafortresses. Drawings of cats on fire.

Eh, or maybe I'm just too much of a purist.

[Dyret]

Meh, if people don't want to play DF for whatever reason let them, we're not a religion.

[neblime]

Wasn't graphics one of the contributing factors to the death of Armok Chapter 1?

surely it would be far far far less time consuming to work on 2d graphics though (assuming that's what everyone here is talking about)
that said I'm not sure anything should really be done about the number of players
yes I would like toady to get more money but i'm sure he's aware that he could increase the popularity through various changes, and seems not to want to,
yes I would like to have more people who play df but that's kind of on us who do play the game to spread it around, toady has shown that he is mostly committed to finishing the game not so much to stopping and making it more accessible along the way

Meh, if people don't want to play DF for whatever reason let them, we're not a religion.

dibs on founding the church of dwarf fortress

[utunnels]

I'm not sure why people feel they need graphics to play the game.

It is not all about need. I can play without graphics, but having graphics on makes things easier to recognize. A forest map may look like a junk yard in ascii mode, but it looks pretty neat if you are using phoebus tileset. And some sprites are so well drawn so it is also enjoyable to watch them.

I can see that, but I find there to be something appealing about the ASCII.  To each their own.

When I get used to the something, I tend to forget how hard it was when I was still learning. I has been playing DF since 2007, but when the 3D version was released I almost gave up because I felt it's too frustrating to figure out the layout in 3 dimensions. And now I don't have any problem even if I don't use twbt multilevel rendering. Maybe DF can really train your spatial imagination.

My first 3D map had a relatively complex terrain, there were too many ramps and hills. Maybe to somebody it's a piece of beautiful ascii art, but at that time, I only saw random symbols (vegetations, dirts, open spaces, dot dot dot). I couldn't even find my dwarves if I looked at a wrong z level, let alone observing what they were doing.

[Putnam]

Wasn't graphics one of the contributing factors to the death of Armok Chapter 1?

That and leg hair curliness and magic systems taking priority over any sort of proper gameplay whatsoever.

[Urist McGoombaBrother]

That's an interesting topic.

Maybe some of you might call it blasphemy. But sometimes I try to imagine, how Dwarf Fortress could be when it had the support of another crowd funded game, with just a little more backers. I am talking about Star Citizen. Just leave away all that HD bling bling graphics for a moment, also the orchestral soundtracks. I try to imagine how deep and detailled the world could be when there are constantly working 10, 20, 50, 100 or even 300 people (as currently are employed by Chris Robersts) on indepth-gameplay, KI (maybe even dwarfs learning by themself when exploring their world), research all the necessary data of materials/items/lifeforms, constantly adding new features and more. An entire life very likely won't be enough to discover it completely.

On the other hand, the bigger a community, the more likely you can find ignorant people, which think the louder they shout, the more right they are. Or some thinking they are some sort of self-announced speakers of the developers. In certain much bigger forums I have seen threads with actually not that bad suggestions followed by X pages of people simply shouting No. No. We don't want. No. Don't you read what this game is about before you suggest something. No. No. ... Of course, it can be highly debatable in some cases whether those suggestions fit and make sense. But it is another thing, when you have to browse X pages of crapload till you finally find a response giving reasons, why someone thinks that way. In such moments I am glad people are much more friendly and helpful at Bay12.

[Putnam]

you've seriously not seen people simply shouting "No. No. We don't want. No. Don't you read what this game is about before you suggest something. No. No" on this forum

[duleshna]

If I remember how I myself first discovered DF... it was through Youtube. One of my favorite let's players Onefjef had a DF playlist on his channel and I was very intriqued about how detailed the game was. I've always liked building/management games, so I started searching more vids about the game. I don't think I would have ever tried out the game unless I came up with another Youtuber captnduck and his amazing tutorials.

So, in short, how did the game "get to me"?
1. the game itself was so amazingly fun and had such potential I had to try it
2. the game had an excellent fanbase with lots of help and tutorials available
3. the game continues to expand even today!

That's like marketing one-on-one. First you lure in, then educate and finally offer more in the future. I think the best way we can lure in more players is to continue providing assistance, videos and basically all extra content. The game is fine on it's own. It's the extras that we need to focus on.

Just my two pieces of copper.

[mardouille]

One way to increase the player base would be to translate the game in foreign languages.

In android development there's a way to place stuff so you can translate the UI easily without touching your code too much.

I'm French Canadian and would love to translate the UI to French so my older kids could learn how to play.

We already have graphics tilesets, we just need a way to make language sets or something like that.

[Deboche]

Toady mentioned some of these things in the last interview:

IG: The UI for Dwarf Fortress is certainly not the strongest part of the game, is that something you’re going to work on?

Toady: Part of it is thinking about what the point is. How many people are we trying to serve? In what way? Is it better to be a niche thing for a thousand people? Or is it better to serve a million with something that’s going to be shallower because you have to work on getting appearances up? There’s a balance there that we can’t say we’ve found. We’re not professional business type people that do professional business type things and understand this stuff.

We do read when there’s an easy suggestion for something. Currently someone has mocked up a whole way just to reorganise the hotkeys on the main page. (currently in the game) One of the middle keys is ‘d’ for ‘designations’, but that’s actually how you make your *whole* fortress by mining… You REALLY want to give that a better name and put it at the top (laughs).

IG: For new people, the game has a very steep learning curve. Right from the start with the embark players are flooded with things to think about, what skills to give their dwarves and what to take and so on. Do you see that as part of the game?

Toady: Not necessarily. Something we’re working on is embark scenarios, for example. Would you like to be a military outpost? We can pick a dangerous spot for you here, here’s five spots, what do you think? These are the different traits. This one is near a goblin fortress, this one is in a dangerous undead forest, and these are the advantages and disadvantages. While at the same time, people who are used to the giant lists (which we currently have) will just have more lists and more choices and they’ll be able to choose what religion would they like to have for their pilgrimage, and what specific goal do they have, if any…

[Urist McGoombaBrother]

you've seriously not seen people simply shouting "No. No. We don't want. No. Don't you read what this game is about before you suggest something. No. No" on this forum

I am sure there also such threads here. But most are discussions. And I think it makes a huge difference, whether such threads are an exception or standard. However, that's not necessarily related to the size of community.

[DVNO]

My two cents?

I think the number of Dwarf Fortress gamers are increasing, and Toady does not need to change a single thing to keep that trend going. Back in 2002 - 2008, Inde Game Developer was not in the gaming lexicon, gamers were mainly focused on big titles like Call Of Duty, Metal Gear and Final Fantasy, and sending money to some guy who might return your investment with some sort of Alpha in two years time through the internet was seen as very shady territory.

But with the breakthroughs Notch, Kickstarter, and Steam Greenlight have made Gamers have adopted the social norm of patronage for Indie Developers and for Retro Games they like. The more people who are less skeptic about donating to fund what they like, the more donations come in. This is why the monthly Donations are on an uptrend, it's not because the pre-2012 fanbase has been donating more I can tell you that much.

Toady was just (shock) ahead of the curve again.