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[arthos]

Hi, I've playing for a couple of weeks with DF, and I really like the new version. My brother has introduced the game to me.
I have a serious problem with the game, and that is the following:
The game is very dull after a period. There are no goals in the game, I have a feeling when my fortress is big enough, that I am playing in "sandbox" mode. Basically after the fort is big enough, you have lot of dwarves, and lot of stuff built, you cannot do anything. I dont see any point to continue that fortress. If I start a new game, I will end up like that again.
Its totally understandable, since this is an alpha version, the problem is that the development is very very slow. Perhaps when the military stuff will be added and other new stuff, it will be more fun to play after you have a big fortress...right now its just boring and dull. I fear that a real game concept change wont happen in the upcoming months, since this new version was in the works for almost a year. I am talking about the military stuff and the other planned features. Its a pain to wait so much time.
Take this new version for example. I really love it, but now my fortress is big already, Ive built what can be built in the new version, now I dont know that what should I do. I had some invaders, and easily destroyed them all. (Marksdwarves are still insane powerful     }

Please dont take my words as it was rant or whining, I am just only sharing my feelings about the game. I know that there will be a point to continue playing when you have everything in your fortress, but its probably many months or even years? away.

Anyone can give me some advice that what should I do when I have a very powerful fortress already? What are you doing when you have everything what is possible in the newest version? I've already built 2 fortresses in 2 very different biomes, and both of them are huge already.

[ November 04, 2007: Message edited by: arthos ]

[Teldin]

Try a more challenging location, try to do something special instead of just make a big fortress. The goal isn't "make a big fortress and survive", it's "have fun doing it". If you're bored with just managing a fortress, try something else.

Examples:

* Glacier map, no magma.

* Learn how to mod the game by editing the raws. A lot of fun stuff you can do there.

* Try to build yourself the Great Lighthouse of Dwarfexandria by building a huge tower by the ocean.

* See how long you can last by building your fortress on top of a goblin city.

* Try to carve out Moria from Lord of the Rings, complete with narrow bridge over a 10-level-deep cavern and secret entrance into a cliff face. Bonus points by naming your head dwarf "Gimli".

* Get some experience in creative writing by making a journal for one of your more fun forts and posting it online here. Or, join succession games, which are always a lot of fun.

[Tormy]

arthos is my bro.    
Btw, hes a good DF player, he had more success with the new version than I had so far, I wasnt able to build a proper fortress yet at all.    

[ November 04, 2007: Message edited by: Tormy ]

[ November 04, 2007: Message edited by: Tormy ]

[ravensword227]

quote:Originally posted by arthos:
<STRONG>There are no goals in the game, I have a feeling when my fortress is big enough, that I am playing in "sandbox" mode. </STRONG>

I don't feel this way at all - maybe I just got lucky.  In one fortress I got attacked by mega beasts: hydra, bronze colossus and dragon.  They seem to be thrown at me in increasingly difficulty (from what I read, people have been getting their hydras before dragons, for example).  Granted, they were no match for my weapon traps, but my fortress still starved with 60 dwarves.

The goal, as I understand it, is to see how long you can survive.  Then when you're wiped out or you abandon, you should be able to go through in Adventure mode as a dwarf and reclaim all your masterpiece steel weapon and armor - you did make masterpiece steel weapons and armor, didn't you?

EDIT: When you get attacked by a bronze colossus or dragon, send your "too powerful" marks dwarves out to stop them.  
 

[ November 04, 2007: Message edited by: ravensword227 ]

[Death Dragon]

quote:Originally posted by arthos:
<STRONG>There are no goals in the game, I have a feeling when my fortress is big enough, that I am playing in "sandbox" mode.</STRONG>

That's how I feel about the new version.

[Tracker]

It's how I've always really felt about the game, but I still have fun.

[Baneslave]

quote:Originally posted by Death Dragon:
<STRONG>
That's how I feel about the new version.</STRONG>

But what was versions before this? They were sandboxes too, but there weren't too much difference between them. It was always the same, river, chasm, magma, pits and adamantine. There was every medal in every fortress, cliff-face was always the  same too.

Now? You tell me.

quote:Originally posted by Tracker:
<STRONG>It's how I've always really felt about the game, but I still have fun.</STRONG>

Agreed.

[ November 04, 2007: Message edited by: Baneslave ]

[Grek]

Set some challenges for yourself. Right now I am on a map with an undead ruin, a volcano and a cave. No starting military dwarfs. It's great.

[Serialized]

In the previous version digging deeper and progressing the fortress felt like a clear cut goal. In this one, it all feels a little pointless in some sense to me, and I can't quite figure out what would fix it.

I liked hitting the river, building a farm so I didn't die, then the chasm, then the magma... it all felt very goal oriented.

Maybe if there is more outside world interaction, like being sieged more, more advanced alliances or something, the game would feel like it had more of a purpose again.  I think it needs some end-game things that are very hard to achieve, like defending against a dragon attack, or making legendary items and gaining a very successful economy.

[RPB]

Yeesh. And here I thought I was bad at being self-motivated.

[Funkadelic Jive Turkey]

I think one major problem here is that your land area is always so huge with no clear direction of where to mine. Before you knew to dig inward for your iron and magma, now you don't even know if you have it. Add to this that sieges are often broken and many people are left with no direction or danger after farming.

Solution: Find a challenging start location, or continue searching your current one till you find something nasty underground. My super river creatures of dwarven doom have whittled away half my fort last night. And there I was thinking that river would be a cakewalk on my way to the chasm! Good fun though.

[isitanos]

I agree, in the current version the game seems kind of pointless, even if being able to build anywhere is cool. Before if danger didn't come from outside (calm area and no elephants) it would come from inside: the cave river, chasm and magma river. There was an incentive to dig deeper to get better minerals, or to get more action if you were bored. Now you can have totally and utterly boring maps.

Another thing is that the "dig deeper" feeling is completely lost: you can dig stairs straight down to the bottom of the playable area in no time, and 1- there's nothing there most of the time except an artificial limit, and 2- it's not deep at all.

Toady warned us that the new version would be less playable overall than the last one, until he implements new stuff, but we can still discuss how the game could be made more fun.

Personally I think that you should be able to dig down indefinitely (but rock could get harder and harder as you reach pure magmatic stone eventually); and there should always be something to find down there. Between underground rivers, cave systems, ancient mines, underground (friendly or hostile) civilisations, magma, demons, spirits of the deep, Cthulu and his friends, or whatever else, there should be something at almost every location. This is a fantasy world, after all, and most of all it's a game, i.e. supposed to be fun. Now, we might want to keep a few safe-ish locations so that people who actually like to play sandbox can get a safe place to play.

[Sukasa]

Well, for example I like to challenge myself to build advanced mechanical systems, like for example systems that just produce obscene amounts of power. (current project), and next I'll..  uh...  Hm.  Well, I'll figure out something  

[Grek]

I would also like more things in the ground to dig up. Lost tombs? Cave systems full of undead lizards?

[gimli]

Yeah I agree. No endgame content can be painful over time. The old version also had this problem btw. Killing demons was also boring after a period.
We gotta wait for the next release to have some real fun. Armies gonna change the endgame for sure.