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[zwei]

Some people answer to common complaints about DF with a very disregarding attitude (I'm not saying that this has happened in this thread; I have in mind another ones). I don't think there is unilateral hostility in pointing that this happens and that it's not something that should happen in a healthy community.

I think i will elaborate this:

As with any other game, discussions of its flaws comes and goes.

People can feel that they as fans of something under fire have to come to defence. And that people voicing their grievances are attacking the game for invalid (or even nefarious) reasons.

Reality is, people who take time to write something care - and want that game to be better for them. And flaws they see are real for them.

People who don't care or like the game simply move on and forget it. You never hear from them. Yet lots of people think that criticism come from those people exclusivelly.

Then I'll expound.

There are people who genuinely don't have a problem with the menu/lists aspects of the interface, because of muscle memory or not, so saying that anyone who might admit to that is only trying to fool people and drive prospective players away could cause offense.

You could have made your point with less unilateral hostility.

Was it untrue thou? Was is really hostile?

---

Anyway:

People who genuinely have no problem with bad ui should not have problem with improving it.

If they do, then they have hard time convicing others that it is not because of some sort of gatekeeping or elitism.

That is very counterproductive to what is goal of steam release.

[PatrikLundell]

I've encountered nutcases who complained that an announced game is totally worthless because it wasn't an RTS, but turn based, rather than just drop it into the "not interested" bin and move on, so yes, there are people who'll spend time ranting about how they hate games they have no interest in (I could understand it if it was some beloved license, but this wasn't such a case). Fortunately, though, they're not that many.

I agree completely that the DF UI could be improved. However, I'm sure there are several different opinions on what "improved" means. I, for one, would hate keyboard shortcuts being replaced with mouse click fests, for instance (it would kill DF completely for me). I don't care technically if a mouse based UI was available as long as the keyboard one remains (ideally cleaned up) and isn't hampered by the alternative one due to implementation issues on the mouse side (pop up menu length restrictions, or whatever). However, time spent on "useless" UI polishing is time not spent on DF functionality development as long as Toady does everything.

[Robsoie]

If it goes the way it works in mousequery plugin in dfhack, the mouse does not replace the interface keyboard system, it just provide more way to interact.
Many roguelikes are more mouse driven than DF+mousequery but can still be controlled by keyboard completely (doomrl, tome4, cogmind, brogue etc ....) so i doubt improvement of mouse support in DF would come at the cost of removing the whole keyboard based control.

[Tinnucorch]

I've encountered nutcases who complained that an announced game is totally worthless because it wasn't an RTS, but turn based, rather than just drop it into the "not interested" bin and move on, so yes, there are people who'll spend time ranting about how they hate games they have no interest in (I could understand it if it was some beloved license, but this wasn't such a case). Fortunately, though, they're not that many.

But when that's the case is quite obvious and engaging in a discussion is perfectly avoidable. But sometimes there is this urge to try to minimize or justify the flaws of this thing you really love which is not really helpful.

[DG]

Then I'll expound.

There are people who genuinely don't have a problem with the menu/lists aspects of the interface, because of muscle memory or not, so saying that anyone who might admit to that is only trying to fool people and drive prospective players away could cause offense.

You could have made your point with less unilateral hostility.

Just because you don't have a problem doesn't mean new players also won't, and bringing up that you're fine doesn't change their experience; he's making a valid point.

He also wasn't hostile about it, you're reading things into his post that are, at best, an attempt at a read at his intent; it's not actually in the post itself.

I didn't say that because I have no problem with it that no-one else should (I didn't even say that I have no problem with it, I do). What he did say is that anyone who doesn't agree that the interface is a "mess" is only fooling people and driving them away. You can agree with his sentiment somewhat or fully, but either way you shouldn't be giving that posts tone a pass.

[wierd]

I have mixed feelings about this topic.

On the one hand, as somebody that has climbed that hill, and now its all downhill and easy going-- (EG, I have the afore mentioned muscle memory, and can just fly through a fortress's management) I find that mastery of the UI is part of the learning process of getting good at the game.  (The frustration of having to look up the key shortcuts to do something in the wiki also invariably results in the additional attainment of useful information above and beyond "how do I make a table??" type query.  (EG, the wiki also discusses how quality in a room works, and how overlapping room zones work, etc.) this helps you avoid certain pitfalls in fortress design and management that you would otherwise not gain except through hours of frustration.

I also hold that the game just has too much stuff in it to "simplify" the user interface.  You would end up with a crowded list of category icons on the margin of the screen, and selection subpanes that dominate the whole damn viewport if you tried.  I don't think that what the users are shouting for is even possible to give them.

Combined, the complaints about the UI come off (at least to me) as being in the same vein as complaints about Dark Souls being "Too hard!!". Once you actually invest the time and effort to learn how the game works, that difficulty curve goes down, and you find yourself doing crazy shit just for the challenge.  This view is often derided in the other direction with sardonic allusions to "Get gud!" cat calling.  It's really not exactly.  You don't have to be a fucking wizard player to master the UI, and then spend your time actually playing the game.  I just hold that you do in fact need to master the UI to spend your time playing the game, instead of reading the wiki.  The game has too much shit in it to be able to forgo the wiki reading phase. That's my view.

[PatrikLundell]

You definitely can't add an icon interface to the 80*25 default DF window as it would eat up even more of the scarce screen real estate. To even make it possible to use graphical indication the minimum window size would have to be increased significantly, and even then, I'd definitely would want the option to hide the screen real estate hoggers (I guess you could have a UI option to replace key references with clickable (single character sized) icons, though, for the mouse only crowd. Hm, come to think of it, those "icons" might even depict the key references themselves).

Not that increasing DF's minimum window size would be a bad thing, but if it's Toady's time I'd rather have it spent on contents (which includes bug fixing).

[Sarmatian123]

The point is, DF _is_ _not_ yet released on Steam. The DF, which will be released on Steam will be version 45. Version 44 does not reflect state of this game, when it will be released on Steam to whole public. I guess these folks are complaining on current version 44...

UI (Adventure+Fortress) needs to be fixed just a little. Currently it looks like a crude patchwork, but it has all elements in, though not always well synchronized. There are computer science university courses on this topic btw.

To difference from smoothly running Fortress Mode (,which misses lots of "late game" content and has issue with psycho system balancing), the Adventure Mode needs way more love. Users were reporting game crashing bugs with this process translating from conceptual world to game world for years now. It is frequently crashing Adventure Mode at random with 0 weight animals, endless animal spawns occurring time after time in the very same one spot, non-typical cloth/tool/weapon assignments or even for no reason at all, when running after someone. It happens even in Fortress Mode due multiple retirements. If Adventure Mode could only be cured from those frequent crashes to desktop, the playing experience would improve many times over.

Copying directories manually with file browser can be seen by many modern gamers as something very... abstract. So, adding system for saves inside of game would fix it. Even if it is still only copying folders from one place to another.

DF version 45 with new graphics and music could be a smashing hit. Also... how about releasing it besides Stream also on Gog platform?

[PatrikLundell]

- Fixing all crash, major and medium bugs is a multi year project (and may also kill Toady's interest in DF...).
- Writing a new "graphics" engine takes time.
- Making a new UI takes time, and it doesn't matter if there are uni courses on it as Toady won't attend those (and it would take time if he did).
- Adding various convenience features takes time. Unless those are implemented by a wrapper/launcher (e.g. like the LNP) that's going to be done by Toady. This takes time.

The TODO list is overflowing badly, and the clock is ticking.

[Shonai_Dweller]

- Fixing all crash, major and medium bugs is a multi year project (and may also kill Toady's interest in DF...).
- Writing a new "graphics" engine takes time.
- Making a new UI takes time, and it doesn't matter if there are uni courses on it as Toady won't attend those (and it would take time if he did).
- Adding various convenience features takes time. Unless those are implemented by a wrapper/launcher (e.g. like the LNP) that's going to be done by Toady. This takes time.

The TODO list is overflowing badly, and the clock is ticking.

Which clock?
Steam release date is "time is subjective".

I doubt he's going to add much more than a graphics support upgrade (might take a while, but he has plenty of people actual making graphics to help with the design) and perhaps a menu to replace the .init file options (which isn't a massive project). Remember this isn't starting development until after the Villains release bug fixing phase.

Other wrappers and such already exist and seem like they'll be just as compatible with the Steam version as classic.

It's not going to be a brand new game just because it's coming to Steam. For years people have battled through the interface, the bugs, the crashy mods and still people continue to pay Toady for the experience. Some won't ever try it, some will and will hate it despite the graphics. But a bunch more will realize the same thing we all have, that it's a damn fine game to play and to mod and to follow the development of for the next few decades.

[wierd]

IIRC, toady has given a tentative "after villain arc" timetable, with an additional "probably sometime this year" estimation.

[Shonai_Dweller]

IIRC, toady has given a tentative "after villain arc" timetable, with an additional "probably sometime this year" estimation.

Yes, that seems to be the current plan. Villains, villains bug-fixing rapid-fire releases then Steam release coding. Then armies and improved sieges, more bug fixing and finally Big Wait.

[Cruxador]

You definitely can't add an icon interface to the 80*25 default DF window as it would eat up even more of the scarce screen real estate. To even make it possible to use graphical indication the minimum window size would have to be increased significantly, and even then, I'd definitely would want the option to hide the screen real estate hoggers (I guess you could have a UI option to replace key references with clickable (single character sized) icons, though, for the mouse only crowd. Hm, come to think of it, those "icons" might even depict the key references themselves).

Not that increasing DF's minimum window size would be a bad thing, but if it's Toady's time I'd rather have it spent on contents (which includes bug fixing).

This is something that you can do with one tile only. I reckon it's viable enough while only increasing the side of the sidebar very slightly. And you can already hide it with the tab key; I normally do.

The point is, DF _is_ _not_ yet released on Steam. The DF, which will be released on Steam will be version 45.

How do you figure? Between the villain stuff and all that old accessibility arc stuff, I'm thinking it's gonna be more like version 47.

Copying directories manually with file browser can be seen by many modern gamers as something very... abstract. So, adding system for saves inside of game would fix it. Even if it is still only copying folders from one place to another.

Steam will install the game itself and any mods automatically, no need to do anything involving directories. I don't agree with the notion that modern gamers are necessarily technologically illiterate, but those that are will receive this benefit. You've never had to do anything with directories for saves, they're written and wrote to by the game automatically. I guess you could be talking about savescumming, but that's an exploit anyway, not intended behavior.

[mikekchar]

Prediction: The normal donation approach will make more than Steam/Itch.io.  DF is already famous.  I don't think Steam will bring in a lot of new players, especially at $20.  Steam may produce some headaches, but I think the idea is that Toady and Threetoe aren't going to deal with it.  That's Kitfox's job.  They will not be able to because the relationship with development isn't close enough.  "You have to fix X because I'm getting slaughtered on the Steam forum" is unlikely to fly.  After 6-8 months, I predict it will be back to normal.  I may be wrong, but I really don't think Toady is ready to change how he does things to the point where it will make a successful Steam launch.  If he does, then I'll win the "When will the Big Wait end" pool because he'll have to cancel the Big Wait....  And... that's not going to happen.

I'm in my 50's and wondering how the hell I'm going to afford retirement, so I can completely understand what's going on in Tarn's head.  However, I think the direction he's taking will require a lot more than he's willing to give at the moment.

[Cruxador]

Prediction: The normal donation approach will make more than Steam/Itch.io.  DF is already famous.  I don't think Steam will bring in a lot of new players, especially at $20.  Steam may produce some headaches, but I think the idea is that Toady and Threetoe aren't going to deal with it.  That's Kitfox's job.  They will not be able to because the relationship with development isn't close enough.  "You have to fix X because I'm getting slaughtered on the Steam forum" is unlikely to fly.  After 6-8 months, I predict it will be back to normal.  I may be wrong, but I really don't think Toady is ready to change how he does things to the point where it will make a successful Steam launch.  If he does, then I'll win the "When will the Big Wait end" pool because he'll have to cancel the Big Wait....  And... that's not going to happen.

I think you're severely underestimating the steam market. It opens the game up to be more readily discovered by impulse buyers and people who have heard of the game but never checked it out, and encourages people to buy it who previously wouldn't have.