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Yes and it makes me sad

81 (39.7%)

Yes and it makes me mad/angry/frusrated

29 (14.2%)

Yes and it's okay because there are other versions now

94 (46.1%)

Total Members Voted: 204

[Thundercraft]

You can switch back to the old ways by changing "[TRUETYPE:YES]" to "[TRUETYPE:NO]" inside init.txt. The easiest way to do this:
Click "Init File Editor" button, scroll down the LEFT box, find [TRUETYPE:YES], change it, and SAVE.

Frankly, with all the other options in your spiffy GUI, I'm surprised that it lacks a button to turn TRUETYPE on and off. 

[LucasUP]

It almost did, I had the idea to do so at some point. It may appear at some point.

[Oglokoog]

(flame removed)

[TolyK]

what. the. hell?
 

[Oglokoog]

I was just feeling generally angry at nothing in particular; this thread just seemed to be the perfect place to vent my frustrations.

(I do actually mean it, though, and have wanted to say something to that effect for a long time)

[TolyK]

being angry doesn't give you the license to just go attack whatever/whoever you wish.
please be more respectful to the people who made this (ahem... me and Lucas, mostly Lucas though) and to the people who use this  (me and newcomers, mostly newcomers).

how were you introduced to DF? would this have helped you get in?
do you manually assign jobs on the random dwarf with populations upward of 50? how about changin graphics? init modding and screwing it up?
just because you "don't like it" doesn't mean it's bad and shouldn't be used. that's about the same attitude as saying his iPhone looks wierd and so it's a piece of shit.

what is crud for you may be a gem to others:

Spoiler: Read This (click to show/hide)

I have to say, I'm someone who doesn't really use all the graphics packs or whatnot, but generally speaking, I have a lot of custom init options I like. 

For one, I can't play without using 5 and 0 as "up (z-axis)" and "down (z-axis)", respectively.  The idea that the numpad is used for directional control in every direction but vertical, and those keys require repositioning your hand across the keyboard is just absurd in my mind. 

I also have a personal custom tileset, a personal preference on things like the brightness of the colors, and a few other odd things that take messing with raws or init options to put in. Because I have to spend so much time messing with these things, I generally find it easier to put up with bugs than update my game version except every 4 versions or so. 

I find the graphical interface you guys put on this to be very useful and intuitive and I commend you on it. 

I would ask something, however, to maybe make it more useful to still lazy, but less newb players:  Make some sort of way to import settings from a previous version of the game into the new version of the game, without having to just copy-paste the init files over, that the init files warn us not to do by just copy-pasting.

Someone who doesn't even use graphics finds this helpful. NOT someone who I would call "lazy" or "stupid" or even a part of the

"terrible casual gamers who can't be bothered to spend five minutes figuring stuff out by themselves and need to have everything spoon-fed to them by people who could instead be doing something actually productive with their time"

...

Ive been a long time watcher of dwarf fortress but always had troubles starting it.

I just wanted to say thank you for this. Since i discovered it a week ago, i haven't slept much and DF is all i think of now, lol.

It reminds me on how i was back in the 80's when playing uMoria on my friends dad's computer. This has been one of the few things that has let my mind at ease over the last year when i gave up my life to be a caretaker for my mother, and only family member left, who found out she had bone cancer and only a few years to life.

A big thanks to you, bay12 and all the others modders out there.

a guy who got into and terribly addicted through this

...

Saying what you said is insulting EVERYONE who made any graphics pack, "hacking" tool, and helpful tutorial. It's also insulting EVERYONE who downloaded this. But mostly, it's insulting yourself.
...
I vented my rage out on this thread too.

you fail ... at life. Have a good day."
Just my two cents.

[Thundercraft]

As I see it, (most) anything to get more potential fans started with Dwarf Fortress is a good thing. More fans = (in theory) more donations and constructive feedback to improve DF. And you have to agree that, compared with other games, DF can be terribly intimidating and frustrating to new players. It's so complex and the learning curve so steep that it can be frightening.

Some of us have tried to get our friends started in DF, but have previously failed for the above reasons.

Anyway, there are some aspects of the Lazy Newb Pack which might appeal to DF fans who are not Newbs, but who might find the convenience of everything packaged together to be appealing. Newb or not, some of us are just a bit lazy.

Finally, if you've never tried the latest (7.0) version, you are missing out. The new GUI by LucasUP and TolyK is simply awesome! It's very convenient to be able to change INIT settings, swap graphics options, and launch utilities from a single panel - all from mouse clicks. IMO, this GUI is so nice that it should be offered as a separate download for players who've moved beyond the Lazy Newb Pack and who play modded versions.

[NW_Kohaku]

It's very convenient to be able to change INIT settings, swap graphics options, and launch utilities from a single panel - all from mouse clicks.

Well, isn't this what I was asking about? 

I'm used to DF, don't really want to use the graphical sets that come with the "lazy newb pack" (although trying this out is the first time I ever experienced them... and my first thought is Ironhand would look nice, but first I'm going through all of the tilesets and blowing the vertical up by at least 50% because this game is just too tiny at 16x16 pixels per tile), but what I want is the ability to transfer over INIT file settings, or at least make fairly quick and painless INIT changes like keyboard bindings that can transfer over from version to version.  (Feeding in a control scheme from a previous version.)

I'd be very interested if this GUI could be expanded to a "Lazy update" or "lazy INIT changes" type of function?

[TolyK]

hmmm... i'll put it on the to-do list. (talking about the "lazy updater")

[TolyK]

IMO, this GUI is so nice that it should be offered as a separate download for players who've moved beyond the Lazy Newb Pack and who play modded versions.

Just a note here: I'm working on a modloader that will allow (even multiple!) mods to be easily loaded into and out of DF. (the catch is that it will require a bit different of a format... but I'll post that when I'm done. it's kinda hard due to needing to merge and unmerge raws...)

[Oglokoog]

More fans = (in theory) more donations and constructive feedback to improve DF.

In theory, maybe. But the fact is that with an increasing number of fans, the amount of donations and feedback rises slowly and linearly while the number of idiots and trolls increases exponentially. The total number of useful posts and other similarly nice things would be larger, but the ratio between useful and retarded posts would plummet. Look at the community surrounding any game with a large amount of fans and tell me that it is anywhere as nice, helpful and creative as this one. This difference is, however, not caused purely by DF having less fans, but (at least in part) by it being somewhat hard to get into, resulting in the people that do get into it being generally "better", which basically keeps the aforementioned nice:retarded ratio mostly the same.
Yes, this reeks of elitism and I understand that many people are offended by it. But the fact still stands - the easier you make it for new (and lazy) players to get into DF, the worse the community will be and I, for one, am not looking forward to the time when the forum is going to be flooded by topics such as OMG PLZ TOADY NERF AXES!!!!111!1! and DF-themed rage comics.
Do you know Armok (the user, not the actual god)? What you're doing is eventually going to fill this forum with Armoks. Thousands and thousands of them. Try to think about that when you release a new version.

(I do use a custom tileset (a square version of the default tileset, screenvomit is ew), custom init options and Dwarf Therapist)

[TolyK]

with that logic...
... nah lets not go into flamewars.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I've only noticed smart people get on these forums. There is no link to these forums in the game, only smart people invite other smart people, this still doesn't make DF easier to understand (look at? yes. play? yes. understand mechanics? hell no, that's what the game is for!) and so:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Plus we already have "GUI NAO!" topics. And yes I know Armok.

[NW_Kohaku]

The total number of useful posts and other similarly nice things would be larger, but the ratio between useful and retarded posts would plummet. Look at the community surrounding any game with a large amount of fans and tell me that it is anywhere as nice, helpful and creative as this one.

You might want to look up the concept of Eternal September...

The thing is, look back over the forums some time... we've had plenty of really bizzare things posted in these forums.  The worst of which got their posters banned.  What happens, however, is that a forum or group tends to have its own social norms.  People who don't conform to the norms are pressured to conform, and if they don't, they just leave. 

Eternal September only happens when enough people to form their own distinct cliques powerful and numerous enough to rival the old cliques form, and reinforce their own social norms.

Graphics have been around for years.  This lazy newb pack has been around for quite a while, too.  There hasn't been a massive flood of people who completely dominate the forums with "retarded posts" that irrecoverably damages the forums yet, and why would incrimental updates to this utility suddenly do so now? 

If anything, the clique of players who just don't like ASCII has already come and taken up residence, and complaining about putting that genie back in its bottle is already far too little too late.  I doubt DF could even have survived as a pure ASCII game, as a game with only one type of user, as a game that was purposefully trying to limit its userbase by making sure that certain types of users were just plain uninvited for fear of the "riffraff" they would bring with them.

DF, by its very nature, has invited people with very disparate views on how the game can be enjoyed - there are storytellers, military players, and megaproject builders, and there are people who enjoy graphics and want to see a move to a fully graphic interface, and people who live in their retro world of ASCII.  It's already happened, and I don't think people who are storytellers are "retarded" to post their stories.

[LucasUP]

@Oglokoog
The more fans, the more trolls and idiots: Yes, but proportionally. How would you argue otherwise? Are you really trying to make the argument that Dwarf Fortress should not have more fans period?. (You're not, but what I mean is its unfortunately a fact of increasing population that annoying kinds of people come with it)

Do you really want to keep Dwarf Fortress as some kind of Mensa IQ test to prevent people from joining the community, at the expense of enjoyment by its existing and future fans?

We've had this argument before Oglokoog. And as much as you complain about potential increase of idiots, trolls and drama, you seem to be doing the most of it at the moment. You aren't saying constructive things.

The argument that only "good" people could possibly play and enjoy DF is silly. It certainly requires a level of intelligence and patience, but nothing extraordinary. I know of 11-14 year olds who were able to grasp and enjoy DF without the aid of LNP.

The Lazy Newb Pack does not make the actual game of Dwarf Fortress that much easier. It simply makes some tedious (not really hard) set-up processes quicker. I made it because I was tired of the annoyance of starting up from a fresh download several times on difference computers. I originally just made a zip file of a good startup and programs. I decided to share it on the internet. It took off from there, now much more complex, but still with the same ideas in mind.

While you violently try to protect the future of the community, you are at the same time doing it a disservice by taking out your anger in a unproductive way. I don't mean that I think you should have kept your opinions to yourself, I mean that you are expressing them in a poor way.

[Thundercraft]

Look at the community surrounding any game with a large amount of fans and tell me that it is anywhere as nice, helpful and creative as this one.

I have participated on forums for other games. And while (as a whole) I have found this community to be friendly and above par, I've not found the other forums to be all that bad. But then, I do tend to be attracted to the more geeky and less popular games that take more effort than usual to learn and get into.

This difference is, however, not caused purely by DF having less fans, but (at least in part) by it being somewhat hard to get into, resulting in the people that do get into it being generally "better", which basically keeps the aforementioned nice:retarded ratio mostly the same.

All this Lazy Newb Pack does is combine some of the more useful utilities and some default game settings geared toward newbies into a convenient package that is easy to install, customize, & start. It takes a lot of the headaches out of installation and customization. (And by doing so, it takes a lot of the frustration and intimidation out of trying out this game, so newbies can see whether or not DF is for them.) But it does almost nothing to teach newbies how to play the game. For that they still have to read the in-game help and the wiki, watch video tutorials and/or search this forum.

Your arguments seem baseless because, even when newbies use the Lazy Newb Pack, the learning curve is still very steep and it is still very much geared toward intelligent gamers with patience and at least above average maturity. DF is not like WoW where you have a lot of prepubescent children because the game is easy to learn and play. The level of detail and complexity is insane when compared to other games. And I have a strong suspicion that, no matter how much of the game is changed by Toady One and various mods between now and a 1.0 release, it will still be that way.

PS: And, yes, your last post did reek of elitism.