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After 20 years the Dwarf Fortress devs have to get used to being millionaires

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Re: After 20 years the Dwarf Fortress devs have to get used to being millionaires

#351

Post by komali2 »

chaostheory wrote: post #277
komali2 wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People keep telling us this but we feel it's overblown. When you listen to western media they make it seem like an invasion is just around the corner, whereas over here the relationship with the PRC is little changed. Nobody can know for sure but you can never know if a huge earthquake will hit San Francisco, better not live there. Or if the subway will flood in new York city, better not live there. Or if Berlin will…

I’ve been watching news in Asia, including from Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, and the Philippines. It’s not overblown. If I were to guess, people are prone to normalcy bias even when the probability for an invasion is getting higher and higher. The further China’s social order degrades, the higher the chances of an invasion.

> I’ve been watching news in Asia, including from Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, and the Philippines.

It should be obvious, but so have I. What are you seeing in your news that makes you think you know more than I that there's not only a higher risk of PLA invasion, but that said risk is at all measurable in any meaningful way?

> The further China’s social order degrades, the higher the chances of an invasion.

By what basis? Try my logic: the further the PRC's social order degrades, the less support Xi will have for a foreign war. What happened back in Russia when they invaded Ukraine? Protests. Does the CPC want more protests right now?

It's moot. Think about it: if you are so certain that there will be an invasion, then you likely would acknowledge that our intelligence services are even more certain. If your certainty is so high, their certainty would be, well, probably at 100% in the next year, right? If they knew that, would they not completely mobilize our army, activate our standing militia? The PLA would know that we know, and wouldn't the invasion simply happen tomorrow?

I say this because I ask you to recognize the inherent uncertainty at all, and that the statistical probability of a PLA invasion is dependent upon human whim and global politics. If you can't tell me which way a stock is going to go confidently enough to bet your entire savings on it, there's no way you can reasonably guess whether Taiwan is livable based on risk of invasion.

I mean, if you're telling me you wouldn't live in Taiwan because you'd be afraid of an invasion, I definitely don't want to hear that you've been in a car any time in the last year, because if you're that concerned about the PLA invading Taiwan, there's no WAY you would risk the objectively, measurably higher likelihood of getting in a car accident from a drunk driver.

But don't take my word for it: in the words of a huge portion of the staff of the US state department stationed here in Taiwan (we had a dinner party recently (I have no authority to quote them on this so you know, don't run to the press)): the US State Department is skittish to a fault. If they haven't pulled staff, they don't consider invasion a realistic probability.

Re: After 20 years the Dwarf Fortress devs have to get used to being millionaires

#354

Post by sophacles »

ElijahLynn wrote: post #111
sophacles wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another long-time linux user here: During the pandemic I finally decided to get a little bit more into gaming and figured I'll try it on linux to see if it'll work and if nothing else, the technical challenge would be fun. Fortunately I like games after all, because there wasn't any real challenge to getting things working the wine/proton folks have done A LOT to make this stuff just work. I play overwatch and other…

I still haven't looked this up yet, so is Wine now Proton? Can you share the history here?

I'm glad others have answered because I didn't know (and to my point above, it's good enough that i don't have to know!)

Re: After 20 years the Dwarf Fortress devs have to get used to being millionaires

#355

Post by tibbydudeza »

flippinburgers wrote: post #353
tibbydudeza wrote: post #12

I hope they can handle this unlike Notch (Minecraft) - reckoned becoming a billionaire overnight ruined his life.

Unnecessary tangent.

And we are all thankful that Minecraft team is now in the safe hands of Microsoft and not Notch - it seems he was always an arsehole but it was overlooked and also forgiven because of his most wonderful creation.

Kind reminds me of Tesla and it's CEO - starry eyed you can be but he revealed himself to be a racist homophobe.

Re: After 20 years the Dwarf Fortress devs have to get used to being millionaires

#356

Post by rexreed »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #334
brundolf wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The flipside is that it's a lottery. Steam is overflowing with new indie games every day, and many very good ones die in obscurity. You really have to get lucky and go viral But yeah, the entry fee for that lottery is at a historic low, which is still great (especially for hobby devs who don't care about the rest!)

Lottery implies its entirely luck based. When in reality, you have a great deal of control. Marketing IS something you can control. Sure, some streamer randomly picking up your game is beyond your control. But you can certainly create conditions that would make it easier for your game to be picked up by a streamer (build relationships with journos, streamers; get paid marketing, etc.) Calling it a lottery is a disser…

Here's what I learned in life that's applicable to many areas, this being one:

Not sucking isn't enough. Even being "Great" isn't enough. And even being "amazing" just isn't good enough to be successful. You need people to notice and care and help you and carry you to success. Mediocrity with a lot of public and positive reinforcement beats quiet greatness. Truly great things die every day from lack of attention and the willingness / motivation of others to help you carry that greatness forward. No greatness succeeds on its own, despite how great it might truly be.

Re: After 20 years the Dwarf Fortress devs have to get used to being millionaires

#357

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

adamnemecek wrote: post #197
brundolf wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The flipside is that it's a lottery. Steam is overflowing with new indie games every day, and many very good ones die in obscurity. You really have to get lucky and go viral But yeah, the entry fee for that lottery is at a historic low, which is still great (especially for hobby devs who don't care about the rest!)

Is it though? Show me a good Steam game that isn't selling well.

I've seen many. Wuppo didn't sell well until it was called out by an algorithm as the most underrated game on Steam or something like that. Of course, "good" is very subjective. I personally don't think the most popular games are any good.

Re: After 20 years the Dwarf Fortress devs have to get used to being millionaires

#358

Post by lairv »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #338
todfox wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After four years working on my retro game nearly full time, and several launches, I still don't understand marketing enough to understand what to do differently. A lot of the advice out there is something like: "create a community" or "go join several communities" or "get to know other indie devs on Twitter". To me, this simply feels fake. I don't really participate in any online communities. I spend enough time in f…

Here's the harsh truth: unless you're well connected, the only way to get visibility on social media is to pay someone. This can mean: - Paying the platform (the easiest and most scalable, but also the most expensive and arguably least effective) - Paying an influencer for an explicitly labeled sponsored content (effective, but depends a lot on your target demographic) - Paying a popular account to share your content…

Is the third one legal ? I thought influencers had to make it clear whether they are sponsored or not

Re: After 20 years the Dwarf Fortress devs have to get used to being millionaires

#359

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

aschearer wrote: post #236
todfox wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After four years working on my retro game nearly full time, and several launches, I still don't understand marketing enough to understand what to do differently. A lot of the advice out there is something like: "create a community" or "go join several communities" or "get to know other indie devs on Twitter". To me, this simply feels fake. I don't really participate in any online communities. I spend enough time in f…

Assuming the game is "Hazmat Hijinks: Total Meltdown" on Steam. Here's some tough love: The video takes way too long to get to gameplay. Screenshots do a poor job explaining what the mechanic is. I've read the capsule image, watched some of the trailer, looked at several of the screenshots and still can't tell you what the gameplay loop is. Sort of a top down puzzle thing? With a "match the color" mechanic? The art i…

> I've read the capsule image, watched some of the trailer, looked at several of the screenshots and still can't tell you what the gameplay loop is.

Interesting. I think I sussed out the gameplay loop almost immediately because it resembles Chip's Challenge[0]. Maybe that's misleading, but to anyone who grew up in that era I'd think that's what would immediately come to mind.

> The art is not good enough by a mile.

Disagree. It could be a little better, but it is appropriate for what it is aping and plenty readable. Many many games have done well on art of about this quality or worse.

> no one cares how many hours of gameplay

I do, and so do a lot of people if How Long to Beat is anything to go by. In my case though 40hrs is too many and would be a negative.

[0] I later saw that it called this out in the video, during a part I skipped because, as you said, it takes too long to get to the gameplay.

Re: After 20 years the Dwarf Fortress devs have to get used to being millionaires

#360

Post by PeterisP »

pantalaimon wrote: post #150
chaostheory wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada, like the US, has its own health care crisis. Wait times for medical care seem surreal. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/amp/canada/british-columbia/... https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/ottawa-paramedics-...

Is this a global issue now? Same in Germany.

I think the global problem is that medicine has improved so much that, unlike a hundred years ago, it's impossible to provide the full extent of modern medicine (which is huge!) to everyone, so some form of rationing/filtering is inevitable and necessary.

You can do the rationing through market forces, where people who can't afford it get less care; you can do the rationing through some other allocation system (e.g. priority systems, or long queues, or lottery, or committee allocation) which in effect still mean that not all people get everything.

If you want to say "In our society, everyone gets healthcare" then you have do define "healthcare" narrowly, which includes some services but not everything technically possible - I mean, if we have services that take more than a man-month of labor for each month of prolonged life (and there are some) then that's not possible to provide for everyone always even from a purely mathematical standpoint.

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