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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

#371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

This is the crux of the matter, and the solution at some point is to either have people deny themselves "extraordinary care" or have someone else do so.

There's a "motte and bailey" that goes on with healthcare - emergency services like handling broken legs and illness and such is actually relatively cheap; it's the prolonged costs of all the various things we die of that really puts a burden on things.

Sure we spend $5 million now and then to save premie infants, etc, but that's such a small portion of total healthcare spending as to be a rounding error.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/2020-2021/HExpType.pdf breaks some of it down, but not in detail; I suspect that a huge amount of healthcare expenses can be directly tied to obesity and its consequences.

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

#372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the name of profit and efficiency, all slack as been wrung out of our healthcare systems. Systems with no slack are brittle and prone to failure under stressors. As for stressors... gestures broadly .

Profit? Aren’t all of your provincial healthcare systems publicly run and publicly funded? I feel that there are two issues. One is taxes. Canada already has high taxes, which does not pair well with low salaries and a high cost of living that isn’t too far from either the SF Bay Area or even NYC. The second is your confederation’s central government is weak. Your provinces have too much power, and they’re the ones c…

Even a non-profit has people who profit; the doctors get paid, everyone gets paid, and they don't want to not get paid.

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

#373
post #89

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People who want to support Tarn and Zach but don't want to buy the game can "donate" directly: http://www.bay12games.com/support.html

Or who thought they deserve more than their game cost! I just sent them $100 on top of the $30 I spent on the game.

I was lucky enough to contribute back when you still got ascii art rewards (memoralized here: https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/ASCII_art_reward/A-F... ) - and somewhere I have a crayon drawing.

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

#374
post #368

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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!)

> 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. Sounds to me like an opportunity. There may be a demand for a service that reviews indie games and "discovers" (promotes) little-known-but-great ones. It even has an obvious revenue source: allowing advertising by games (so long as advertisements and promoted works are VERY CLEARLY sep…

You just shifted the problem to a different place. Now it is the reviewer who has to get big, and has to be able to meet the expectations of their audience - over a long period. There are tons of reviewer channels on Youtube and Twitch. I don't think becoming a big enough fish as a reviewer is any easier?

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

#375

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With millions you buy health insurance.

Along with several other supporting insurance plans that backstop your health insurance and potential healthcare costs in extreme scenarios, and so on.

I mean, are you referring to long term disability? You can, it depends on what standard of living you want in the case both your legs fall off.

In actual health insurance, there is no longer a coverage cap. So you don't need a backup insurance plan past 5M or somethign anymore.

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

#376

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This game? https://store.steampowered.com/app/588210/HELLION/ Looks like it sold incredibly well and was abandoned by the developers and is no longer for sale. A weird example.

It failed to sell well enough to recoup expenses.

4,000 reviews suggests sales numbers of 400,000, which is huge.

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

#377

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-...

Yeah this is a global offensive by the plutocrats to discredit public health care. It's going on in the UK, in Sweden too. When are people going to wake up and smell the class war?

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

#378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dwarf Fortress is basically uncopyable. Lots of games have tried: RimWorld is a good example. But they end up feeling like shallow imitations, because Dwarf Fortress has been continuously upgraded for 16 years. It's the game that every first year game dev dreams of making, with incredibly deep simulation and a myriad of mechanics to play with, before they realize that it would take decades to build. The Toady One is…

While Dwarf Fortress is incredibly deep simulation, it is also filled with bugs and UI misdesigns, that makes playing it much more frustrating than playing e.g. Rimworld. Also, the simulation is very uneven, some parts are very deep, some very shallow and some completely broken.

The UI revamp in the current Steam version fixes most of the UI misdesigns.

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

#379

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-...

Yeah this is a global offensive by the plutocrats to discredit public health care. It's going on in the UK, in Sweden too. When are people going to wake up and smell the class war?

Is there evidence of this or is it just a feeling?

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

#380
Partner: "What the hell are you playing?"

Me: "Dwarf fortress! It's that game I used to play when I was in college working at the IT helpdesk. They finally added graphics!"

Partner: "I wouldn't exactly call those graphics..."

Me: pulls up copy of DF Classic

Partner: "...I see your point. And this game is fun?"

Me: "Imagine The Sims, if your sims could fight and you can only instruct them to build rather than building it yourself. And then set it in Lord of the Rings."

Partner: "Oooookay. How long have you been playing today?"

Me: looks at clock looks at clock again "Would you be mad if I told you six hours?"

Partner: "...I'm going to leave you to it."

11/10, amazing game. So happy for Tarn and Zach, they deserve every last penny of this.

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