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[Brian]

Not too much of a big gripe, but exactly how long does it take to make a stockpile for only tallow, and a stockpile for only fat? It's a pain to be forced to pick each individual animal for each. Not that I am saying the stockpiles would necessarily be particularly useful (maybe they would).

[Beeskee]

Some of the long-standing bugs in the new version are starting to get to me. I have a fort that seems to have all of them at once. (Search for "Sealances" on DFFD) I was thinking about going back to the old version for a bit but I remember in that one it was nearly impossible to get metals other than from the goblin caravan.

[Vercingetorix]

Some of the long-standing bugs in the new version are starting to get to me. I have a fort that seems to have all of them at once. (Search for "Sealances" on DFFD) I was thinking about going back to the old version for a bit but I remember in that one it was nearly impossible to get metals other than from the goblin caravan.

Unless you're willing to really, really dig all over the place. 

[Beeskee]

Yeah.. heh. I haven't done any exploratory mining in the new version. I haven't had to.

Just the process of digging out a small fort gives me tones of stone and ore of all different types.

[Vercingetorix]

Yeah.. heh. I haven't done any exploratory mining in the new version. I haven't had to.

Just the process of digging out a small fort gives me tones of stone and ore of all different types.

I specifically got dfhack for the auto-vein mining tool.  I have no intention of using it on adamantine, at least for now...

EDIT: It isn't classified as a vein.  Nvm.

[Damn It]

I'm not usually one to resurrect old threads, but this is kind of pertinent because the thing that knocked me out of DF playing last time is the same thing that got me this time.

So it's been two years since I last tried to get into this game (my only other post was on this thread), and this time, within 2 days I had myself another Nemesis Load Error, which was the last straw during my previous attempt to romance this game. So with that (that wasn't the only issue I had, but it was the game breaker), I decided to put DF back on the shelf and go back to my other roguelikes until, I don't know, 2014?

I know this is a free game and any roguelike deserves due respect, but it is frustrating. I know this genre is right up my alley, and there's a big enough following of DF that I know logically that it cannot possibly be as buggy as I perceive it to be. That being said, my personal experience with DF wouldn't read too much differently than a story of one of my busted luck, drowning in a pool while someone else in the pool is biting his ankle, adventurers. I know I can create backups, but replaying the same stuff and achieving the same things over again, at least to me, is like getting my fingernails pulled and is against the whole purpose of playing a roguelike to begin with.

IMO the only thing that needs to be done with DF is bug fixes. Bug fixes first. I know that's not fun to do as a programmer, but no additional features of any kind are worth crap to me if I can't be confident that the universe is going to behave in a logical way, and most importantly is not going to crash to desktop or delete itself when I take my next step.

[adecoy95]

the game is sometimes complicated for the sake of being complicated. but i suppose thats a feature hehe

http://df.magmawiki.com/images/6/65/Df-crops-diagram.png

[tolkafox]

It helps if you offer your OS, RAM, processor, version of DF (I assume the latest and that you're playing adventure mode) and exactly what you were doing when the game crashed (I assume running freely through a world and continually pressing movement keys when the game delayed).

It sounds like you most likely have a memory problem that's causing it to crash, either from not having enough memory available or enough memory allotted to one program. The solution to these is easy, more memory or change of memory preference. I know it can be frustrating to encounter problems, but if you aren't willing to solve them you'll just keep running into them.

The thing that turns me off most about DF currently is the randomness of embarks. It just seems odd to me that my dwarves know that there's metal deep underground, but they fail to mention the large cluster of magnetite that makes up half of the surface.
Edit: Oh, and the children. They're so bloody useless, I don't want them farming because in 10 years I won't need farms anymore. Right now all they do is run around making parties and tripping over goblin ambushes. Why is a -40 year old dwarf considered an adult, anyways? My vision of an adult dwarf has been in his late 40's early 50's.
While I'm at it, parties. They don't contain food or drinks and I'm tired of the messages that remain me of such.

Wait, this is probably the biggest game killer for me: not being able to build walls on top of constructed floors. It makes above ground construction a pain.

[Tryble]

The thing that came closest to killing my interest in DF was 'how to do things'.  Not knowing how to just get the dwarves to do anything annoyed me.  After scouring the help file and a couple quick set up guides and still not grasping the concepts of jobs and dwarf labors, I was really close to deleting the whole shebang out of simple frustration.

Luckily it finally clicked, and I stuck with it.  But I spent way, way more time than I normally would accept just trying to figure out basic controls.  If I hadn't plowed through it out of spite and stubbornness I'd have been another casualty to non-intuitive interfacing.

Spite and stubbornness:  It does a dwarf (and DF player) good.

[MantisMan]

Personally, I didn't have too much of a problem with getting into DF. I read Boatmurdered, laughed hard enough to fall out of my chair and get a nosebleed, then read a week's worth of articles on the Wiki. I followed one of the startup guides on the wiki to introduce myself to the gameplay, and things continued on from there.

The only problems I'm dealing with nowadays is getting the game configured with a square ascii set everytime I get the new version.

I think a problem with many new players is that they expect this game to be one you can just jump into and instantly understand. If they can come in with the mentality that they should read about how to do things before they play the game, then there would be a much lower chance of them thinking the game is nothing more than an incomprehensible mess.

Whore out the wiki more, and tell new players to watch the lets play videos on youtube and use the start up guides to get them started rather than let them think that they don't need to learn how to play.

I have a friend who used to think that if a game didn't have ultra-modern high-end graphics, then the designers were being lazy and that it was a bad game. Trying to convince him that dwarf fortress can't really be done in 3d wasn't working. After he got into Minecraft, he at least conceded that a game doesn't need super high-end graphics to be good, but he still thinks that modern games have to be in 3d for them to be good. What I'm trying to say with this is that there are a lot of people who are too literal and set in their thinking for them to be able to like a game like DF. I guess that's not new information to anyone, but it seemed a relevant thing to mention.

[shadus]

I'm a late comer to this thread, but I'll answer since I've only been playing dwarf fortress seriously for 6mo or so... I was flat out ready to throw up my hands and quit... when i discovered dwarf therapist.  The in game management for jobs and such is rough... dwarf therapist makes it simple and it wouldn't be tremendously hard to replicate something similar in a curses style interface (see sysv-rc-conf in linux for managing the startup services.)

The other thing I feel is missing is a priority system for jobs.  The military system isn't tremendously intuitive and the first raid can ruin your day if you're not prepared... if I had to have only two items it would be #1) Good in game management of Jobs  #2) (for new people especially) A good tutorial system to at least introduce the basic concepts.

Also, as someone coming from other roguelikes for ah *considers the age that many years of playing games makes him* a lot of years, defaulting the multicharacter grass to off would make it easier for other roguelike players to accommodate, i know right off the rip I had serious issues because the grass overwhelmed and made it hard to figure what was happening for me.

[Graebeard]

Epic necro is epic.

[Ifeno]

making an awesome fortress just to realize that the environment isn't evil enough and that it'll be too difficult to lose here...

[Azated]

making an awesome fortress just to realize that the environment isn't evil enough and that it'll be too difficult to lose here...

Only in dwarf fortress is not losing a bad thing.


On topic: To be honest, the only thing that turns me off is the performance. It gets really irritating to have a fortress running at 20 frames when it could be at a few hundred (If you turn FPS limiting off in the settings). You can't do a damn thing about it either. No matter how many dwarves you splatter, no matter how many animals you butcher, no matter how many rocks you remove, after a certain point it's as slow as a wet week.


The best thing about DF for me is the difficulty. I really don't like games with scaling difficulty, like oblivion. Sure it was a fun game, but I like to walk into a cave thinking it's safe, then WHAM, a troll paints the wall with my brains.

To me, a game that is relatively as easy as when you begin is a little pointless. There should be places that are so easy you can do it blindfolded, then other areas that are so far out of your reach you don't even want to think about the various ways you'll be disemboweled should you venture there.

Epic necro is epic.

[Protactinium]

This is a long running thread that's supposed to get necro'd from time to time. Nothing wrong happening.



I will agree that the number one turn-off on any long-running for is the performance drop. I've got a 150-dwarf fort of 11 years, and I run at 9 FPS with no fancy pumping or waterfalls going on. Half my dwarves are basically just hauling clothes to my magma chute. The only reason I do this in-game activity is for the game to perform better, in a strange twist.

I'm actually still actively having fun, but I know that in the past, all my lulls between gameplay have been from 2-FPS unplayable fortresses.