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Dwarf Fortress is coming to Steam with graphics

polygon.com

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Re: Dwarf Fortress is coming to Steam with graphics

#101

Post by stcredzero »

twic wrote: post #94
stcredzero wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2) They are putting on steam largely because of the USA's shit healthcare system I know both sides of this. Obamacare was truly a boon to me when I was an "independent consultant." We in the USA need to value our liberty. But if you want people to value liberty, you first have to keep them safe from Kafkaesque nightmares which involve their bodies not working correctly and not getting fixed. Basically, it works just…

I don't understand what you've written at all. Are you in favour of the US healthcare system, or against it?

I don't understand what you've written at all. Are you in favour of the US healthcare system, or against it?

There's this thing called "nuance."

In very general terms, I'm for personal liberty and autonomy. However, I also recognize that people don't care about that, when they are hungry or fear bankruptcy and illness. [1]

The US healthcare system is broken, in that large numbers of people are left in a state of risking bankruptcy and illness. For me, the path forward would involve a safety net for such people, while minimizing encroachment on personal freedom. Not sure what that would look like.

[1] - A stable society must provide a minimum across society, based on perception of relative status. Otherwise, people are wired up to cause chaos. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3XYHPAwBzE

Re: Dwarf Fortress is coming to Steam with graphics

#102

Post by jredwards »

apk-d wrote: post #65
rjbwork wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love RimWorld, and have hundreds of hours in it, but I'd say it's really more like Babby's First DF game than truly comparable to DF. It just doesn't have the depth, or capability to present a deep challenge forever. It also takes place in a single layer, whereas DF has gobs of layers.

I actually really enjoy the way RimWorld's gameplay is simpler and more focused. Feels more like a game you actually get to play and less like a simulation you feel compelled to tweak every few hundred ticks. Obviously, you're not going to get "infinite hours of gameplay" out of it the way you can with DF, but it can be a fun ride for hundreds of hours.

RimWorld has a giant and engaged modding community. I know many people with multiple thousands of hours in the game.

There's also a very active subreddit at r/RimWorld

Re: Dwarf Fortress is coming to Steam with graphics

#103

Post by jredwards »

chobeat wrote: post #86
avereveard wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how so? the production chain is almost as deep. the damage model it's close in detail, and it's not terribly broken (whips anyone?) which should count as far as features go. you can actually caravan, explore people and exterminate faction without being restricted into adventure mode. and when you ask a neighbor for something in the caravan, you get what you asked. weather and climate is much more prominent, including…

the problem with rimworld is that there's too much micro and that the amount of emergent behavior is extremely limited compared to DF. There's no freedom to create and there's no serendipity. There's randomness but it's not nearly the same thing. Rimworld took DF and removed all the innovative elements to fit it into a more traditional base building game. Then yes, if you restrict yourself to some very specific eleme…

The huge range of mods available for RimWorld allow you to address both of these things to whatever level you see fit. I find RimWorld shifts back and forth between a lot of micromanagement and a lot of passive automation depending upon how advanced your colony is and how dire your current set of circumstances is (e.g. I tend to do a lot of microing early on, and after the colony is established I only really have to micro during specific tense situations, like heavy raids).

Re: Dwarf Fortress is coming to Steam with graphics

#104

Post by stcredzero »

gameswithgo wrote: post #97
twic wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand what you've written at all. Are you in favour of the US healthcare system, or against it?

I can tell that he is against but the rest of it was completely opaque to me

I can tell that he is against

Not exactly. (Or maybe not necessarily.) I could picture a system I'd like that would look a lot like the system we have right now. I'm not expert enough to know how that would work.

but the rest of it was completely opaque to me

Are you part of the societal cohort comprised of left-leaning upper class people in tech and media? Are you part of the societal cohort comprised of lower middle class people working in tech and media? Are you from a different part of society? That would be useful information for writing a clarification. Exactly what part was opaque to you?

Re: Dwarf Fortress is coming to Steam with graphics

#105

Post by zrobotics »

danielbarla wrote: post #75
umvi wrote: post #35

One thing that amazes me about Dwarf Fortress is that the creator(s) don't use version control[1] (as of 2014, things may have changed): "I don't use version control -- I didn't like the feeling of having the code get committed into a black box thingy with no immediate upside." I can't fathom how you can manage the complexity of a game like DF without a VCS. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1avszc/im_tarn_a…

Honestly, for personal projects where I'm the sole developer, I only use git nominally. I mean, it's there, and sure, I commit; but it's not like I'm spawning feature branches or anything like that. It's a rather linear set of commits, functionally almost equivalent to having a zip of the source every now and then. I'm sure many people are the same.

Even for small personal projects, for me the real killer feature is commit messages. Otherwise, it's almost impossible to remember which numbered folder has the change I want, and looking through commit messages is often a good way to get back up to speed on a project I haven't touched in a while.

Re: Dwarf Fortress is coming to Steam with graphics

#106

Post by stcredzero »

fzeroracer wrote: post #29
aresant wrote: post #9

Three points of interest: 1) Full developer announcement on their Patreon page -> https://www.patreon.com/posts/25343688 2) They are putting on steam largely because of the USA's shit healthcare system "after Zach's latest cancer scare, we determined that with my healthcare plan's copay etc., I'd be wiped out if I had to undergo the same procedures . . " 3) Cool to see that they are going to use graphics built by two…

It's such a disaster to see people so severely affected by the healthcare system in America. If you haven't been keeping track, there's been a similar issue with SomethingAwful's Lowtax, who is deep in debt as a result of some of the medical issues he's going through. It's enough to certainly make me consider working in a different country. I wonder if there would be any possibilities of the Dwarf Fortress developers…

This webcomic speaks directly to this issue.

http://smbc-comics.com/comic/healthcare

Re: Dwarf Fortress is coming to Steam with graphics

#107

Post by soneca »

gmfawcett wrote: post #67
soneca wrote: post #40

I always read about Dwarf Fortress in HN and it always interested me. But some elements, like the ASCII art, always seemed to me as entry barriers purposefully built to maintain a protected subculture that I had no interest in being part of. I just wanted to try out a good game. So this comes as good news to me, I'll probably give it a try now with the tile graphics.

You've been able to play DF with tile graphics for many years. Check out the "Lazy Newb Pack": http://dwarffortresswiki.org/Utility:Lazy_Newb_Pack

First time I heard of it, thanks!

Re: Dwarf Fortress is coming to Steam with graphics

#108

Post by LyndsySimon »

danielbarla wrote: post #75
umvi wrote: post #35

One thing that amazes me about Dwarf Fortress is that the creator(s) don't use version control[1] (as of 2014, things may have changed): "I don't use version control -- I didn't like the feeling of having the code get committed into a black box thingy with no immediate upside." I can't fathom how you can manage the complexity of a game like DF without a VCS. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1avszc/im_tarn_a…

Honestly, for personal projects where I'm the sole developer, I only use git nominally. I mean, it's there, and sure, I commit; but it's not like I'm spawning feature branches or anything like that. It's a rather linear set of commits, functionally almost equivalent to having a zip of the source every now and then. I'm sure many people are the same.

Sort of.

I've used git for so long and so deeply that it's ingrained in the way I think about code - I break things into atomic commits, and regularly traverse and edit the commits in the feature branch that I'm working on. That doesn't change when I'm working solo, nor do my commit message style rules. I find it very useful to be able to investigate the history of a piece of code, even as it moves across multiple files, and figure out what happened and why.

That said, when I'm working on a team I generally don't care how many concurrent branches are being worked on - it's not a problem at all if the threaded view is n levels deep. When I'm working alone I tend to have a linear (single threaded) history, with tags for each release or deploy.

Re: Dwarf Fortress is coming to Steam with graphics

#109

Post by billfruit »

joshstrange wrote: post #12

I've never been able to get into DF but I would suggest people check out RimWorld. I've heard it described as "Dwarf Fortress is Rimworld for people who hate fun" [0] and people often draw parallels between the two [1]. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/RimWorld/comments/7dm7j8/how_does_r... [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/RimWorld/comments/6xeie3/coming_ove...

Also (since RimWorld has been mentioned) Prison Architect, may also have some similar qualities, like complex intertwined systems, and emergent events like prison riots, etc.

Re: Dwarf Fortress is coming to Steam with graphics

#110

Post by bradford »

soneca wrote: post #107
gmfawcett wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've been able to play DF with tile graphics for many years. Check out the "Lazy Newb Pack": http://dwarffortresswiki.org/Utility:Lazy_Newb_Pack

First time I heard of it, thanks!

the lazy newb pack is great! I can't play dwarf fortress without it, but even with it the game has a steep learning curve.
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