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[Cosmonot]

I'd like to politely add my opinion, if I may.

Right now Dwarf Fortress seems to be in a bit of an odd position. The game is mostly ASCII, but the extended symbols and flashing icons are  very unusual. I've gotten used to it most of the time, but much of the information it shows seems to be redundant. While it's good to know that a dwarf is hauling rock and to differentiate between lions and cats, it's not so good to have each type of rock wall have it's own icon, especially when you are considering adding more characters from another language, and the current double-engraved wall imagery is horrible.

Graphical tiles are nowhere near a perfect solution; I've seen the tiles Angband can use, and I know how tiles can be hideous, unrecognizable, and bland. However, there are roguelikes that use graphic tiles that are not so ugly, and at least one (IVAN) is capable of displaying things like missing limbs, different armor, weapon, and clothing types and materials, and even items or entities covered in liquids such as blood, sweat, or vomit. While this is certainly a large amount of tedious work to implement, and may be resource- it is conceivable that if toady had some time on his hands (much) later on, make it so that other people could do this for him, with this only being an option for those who want it, and shouldn't be shot down out of hand.

[ August 30, 2006: Message edited by: Cosmonot ]

[Varil]

Y'know, the reference to IVAN is a good point in favor of graphics.

I bet we'd see more good points if the graphics crowd had a few more people willing to spout ideas rather than flame.

Living proof it could work out...though IVAN is also alot simpler than DF. It also happens to be another inevitable march to destruction, but I suppose that is beside the point.(Why must I suck so *hard* at roguelikes, yet love them so? IVAN, baby, you're so cruel to me.)

One concern, though, is that IVAN's tiles were *big*, as I recall, at least as compared to most RLs. This would be problematic in Dwarven Fortress stretching for leagues under the mountain, I would think...maybe a 'zoom' function needs to be implemented if we ever get big 'ole purty tiles. Let us zoom out, move over(perhaps with the mouse!) then zoom back in to observe our poor, mortal servants from up close. This would allow us to look around, and it'd allow for a graphical tile that you could actually *do* something with.

I like the UTF8 idea. There was talk around the ToME forums of switching to that, I believe, last time I was there. Been awhile, might even be using them by now if the idea went through. ToME is a pretty complex Angband derivative, and the sheer volume of *stuff* was pretty impressive, so taking cues from that quarter might not be such a bad call.

[Toady One]

M...  mouse?

I don't have a lot of time to putter around right now, but the downside I've read about using things like TrueType fonts are speed issues, at least according to opengl.org.  Is that a problem in this case?  For instance, if I used something like FreeType (no idea what's out there), does it actually display 2000 characters very quickly in real time?  Or would it lag?  I haven't played with them at all.  The texture mapped fonts I'm using now are very fast as long as you've got some kind of reasonable graphics card.  It seems like the benefit would be accessing many more glyphs than I would want to draw, but if it takes a long time for them to be prepared, it wouldn't help.

[ August 31, 2006: Message edited by: Toady One ]

[Slartibartfast]

I'll just say this, please, no chinese/japanese/foreign language.
I don't want to learn a new language just so I can play DF, and I dont think I'll be able to memorize countless "glyphs".
I know that, for example, I would be comfortable with Hebrew used for some more characters, but then most other people will be confused and uncomfortable.

[Akjosch]

quote:Originally posted by Slartibartfast:
<STRONG>I'll just say this, please, no chinese/japanese/foreign language.
I don't want to learn a new language just so I can play DF, and I dont think I'll be able to memorize countless "glyphs".
I know that, for example, I would be comfortable with Hebrew used for some more characters, but then most other people will be confused and uncomfortable.</STRONG>

You don't have to "learn" a new language just to use the Chinese hanzi/Japanese kanji. They're ideograms - a lot of them look vaguely like the ideas they stand for (木 "tree", 林 "grove", 森 "forest", 火 "fire", 口 "opening", 田 "rice field", 門 "gate") and could be used as such, others could be used just for their looks. Hangul would also be used just for the looks since its characters don't have a meaning by themselves, the same as some latin characters are used for how they look already (ут, for example).

Hebrew ... would be just the seventh or eighth writing system for me to learn, not counting artificial ones. Bring it on.  

[Slartibartfast]

quote:Originally posted by Akjosch:
<STRONG>(木 "tree", 林 "grove", 森 "forest", 火 "fire", 口 "opening", 田 "rice field", 門 "gate")</STRONG>

All I'm seeing are question marks.

quote:Originally posted by Akjosch:
<STRONG>Hebrew ... would be just the seventh or eighth writing system for me to learn, not counting artificial ones. Bring it on.   </STRONG>

There are only 22 letters, so learning them all for an ASCII game shouldn't be too tough.
Also, there isn't that much to learn if you are trying to learn how to speak Hebrew, its current iteration is very young, and doesn't have much vocabulary for you to learn. Getting past the initial difficulties is hard though.
Originating from an ancient version of the language, there are all sorts of strange rules and exception, and english speakers have a hard time adjusting to writing RTL and male/female versions of everything (as well as remembering the gender of objects, a chair for example is male, a glass is female, and a knife is both)
Feel free to try, if you already know 7/8 languages I'm sure it wont be too hard

[Akjosch]

quote:Feel free to try, if you already know 7/8 languages I'm sure it wont be too hard [/QB]

6 or 7 writing systems. That's ... quite a few more languages (besides Japanese, which has three writing systems for a single language  ).

[gimli]

quote:Originally posted by Virtz:
<STRONG>

Right then, go ahead and create 2d graphics allowing full limb removal of 14 body parts, equipping about 5 armour parts, 2 weapons and allowing random creature generation, smartass. I can't even imagine how you'd fit a 7 headed hydra in a single tile. And make a damn system able to automatically draw a generated abomination with 4 heads and 6 arms like some Hindu god.

And you judge games based on graphics! What are you? 8 years old? And you call yourself a serious gamer?! "Woooo, lookitme! Got a 1337 rig so I can run my shitty, over-hyped Oblivion ar-pee-gee!".</STRONG>

Yeh sure you retard. You are a funny little man. You can't see shit with this ASCII gfx, but you are already complaining that you won't see removed limbs in 2D. You need a doctor sir. Besides, decent artists could draw images about removed limbs even. They could draw a dwarf with 1 leg or whatever.
They could even draw dwarves in different armors. Everything is possible, because it is gfx. It is just a matter of time to make them.
Your IQ must be below average, or you are just fucking around here, hell knows why.
The fact is, that you can't see shit in ASCII just letters and colors, but you are already complaining about a 2D engine.
No fucking comment.

[gimli]

quote:Originally posted by Toady One:
<STRONG>Yeah, regardless of future extensions, for the core ascii stuff, it seems a lot of it comes down to creatures.  If I ended up changing up a lot of the terrain or some of the buildings and items to different symbols to introduce whatever feel or diversity or representation, as long as it weren't too concrete, it probably wouldn't be as important to the text peoples.  At the same time, a brown 'C' won't be just a cow forever the way things are going.  For the basic ASCII display, this is the part that still bugs me.  Once there are around 400 creatures, there will be guaranteed repeats (not just the stupid repeats I made already).  Adding new colors avoids this for only so long.  I thiiiink games like *band had a lot of repeats, but it wasn't so bad since most everything was depth-segregated.

[ August 30, 2006: Message edited by: Toady One ]

edit:  a nice curly script 'E' could be introduced for the elves...  fonts might be another amusing angle on the problem.

[ August 30, 2006: Message edited by: Toady One ]</STRONG>

Toady One, you are an intelligent person. The game what you made -DF- is awesome. You must realize, that sooner or later you will have to add a gfx engine. 400+ creatures, probably more resources, items etc. will be added to the game, as the development proceeds. It will be impossible to continue to work with ASCII. You will have to use the same symbols and letters from a period. Different colors cannot be a valid option. The only possible way to solve these future problems is.. add a gfx engine, and let us make gfx for it too. In fact you should make a subforum if you want, where the players would post their images and art for the engine. You could implent those images, once the gfx engine is ready.

[ August 31, 2006: Message edited by: gimli ]

[subject name here]

My penis is no longer interested. No use argueing Doli, Ginli, Whatever your name is because in ASCII country even mentioning graphics will get you burned at the stake. So I'm not gonna bother with this topic anymore.

[karnot]

quote: Besides, decent artists could draw images about removed limbs even.

Give me names and adresses of decent artists who would work for free. At least one. What, not even one ? I thought so.

[gimli]

quote:Originally posted by karnot:
<STRONG>
Give me names and adresses of decent artists who would work for free. At least one. What, not even one ? I thought so.</STRONG>

Dude, the regular players can make gfx for the game, just like in the civilization series. The fan made unit gfx and terrain gfx etc, are much better then the gfx shipped with the game. I bet that lot of fans would start to work on gfx for DF, if it would be possible.

[gimli]

quote:Originally posted by LurkerFromTheDeep:
<STRONG>My penis is no longer interested. No use argueing Doli, Ginli, Whatever your name is because in ASCII country even mentioning graphics will get you burned at the stake. So I'm not gonna bother with this topic anymore.</STRONG>

ascii land is dead f*ckerfromthekeep or whatever your name is, you just never realized it.

[Blackcat]

quote:Originally posted by gimli:

ascii land is dead

No it's not.

[ August 31, 2006: Message edited by: Blackcat ]

[gimli]

quote:Originally posted by Blackcat:
<STRONG>

No it's not.

[ August 31, 2006: Message edited by: Blackcat ]</STRONG>

Ok, 1000/1 player is still enjoying ascii.
Toady used ascii for this game, because it was easier to use for the development, then any kind of real gfx. This doesn't means that it won't be changed in time. If the dev wants much more people to play with the game, he will have to implent a gfx system. I guess all game devs goal is to attract more and more people to play with their game, and
1. more people will buy the software,
or [in our case]
2. more people will send money via paypal.

gfx = more players = more donations, so the game development can continue.

[ August 31, 2006: Message edited by: gimli ]