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Dwarf Fortress is getting the mother of all magic updates

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Re: Dwarf Fortress is getting the mother of all magic updates

#141

Post by AngryData »

Our_Benefactors wrote: post #23
deadbunny wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it the games job to handhold you?

Because it’s not a complete or compelling experience if the systems aren’t naturally exposed and taught over time in a progressive manner. This has been a cornerstone of good game design for over 30 years.

I wouldn't consider that a universal feature. It can certainly help, especially if you are aiming for a generalized audience, but not every game needs to be either intended for or accessible to every person.

I would use Crusader Kings as an example, it doesn't even seem like a game at first, you have no idea what is going on, and large swaths of options and features may take dozens of hours to stumble across. But yet it is still a great game with many fans and players.

Re: Dwarf Fortress is getting the mother of all magic updates

#142

Post by db48x »

lyu07282 wrote: post #102

They can make a simulation of magic based on the fabric of a procedural universe work, but even they failed to make a simulation of economics work. Fantasy magic makes more sense than modern economic theory.

It’s not that economics is hard to understand, it’s that it requires the participants to reason about their actions.

First problem was the coins. To buy something the dwarves had to haul the coins to the seller, one at a time of course. And then when given change they had to haul the change back to their room. One at a time. And the merchant had to haul their new coins, one at a time, to their room. But that was an easy problem compared to the real difficulty.

The other problem was balancing incomes with expenses. Everything was just assigned arbitrary numbers, and those numbers were fixed. So in one player’s fort they were building a huge mega construction out of glass blocks and so the glassmakers become wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice simply because so many glass blocks needed to be created. But the weaponsmith was only ever asked to create ten battleaxes for the single squad of military dwarves so he went broke. After all, everyone had to rent a room and eat. Prices need to depend on scarcity and the need to eat as much as on the labor needed to create an individual item. The weaponsmith might have earned more income for a sword than the glassmaker did for a glass block, but that didn’t help him in the long run.

Re: Dwarf Fortress is getting the mother of all magic updates

#143

Post by AngryData »

aplummer wrote: post #118

This thread really inspired me to never release anything for free for decades.

Why? Dwarf Fortress only exists because it was given away for free for decades, bringing in tens of thousands of dollars in donations, and eventually leading to a fandom popular enough to bring others onboard with the project to produce a GUI and paid steam release version.

If something you build brings in a lot of critique, it is likely something of great value. Because something that doesn't have value won't bring much critique at all.

Re: Dwarf Fortress is getting the mother of all magic updates

#144

Post by totetsu »

It’s 2011, you’re laying awake after midnight and can’t quite seem to switch off. You put on the latest episode of DFTalk and listen to Toadie1 and Rainseeker talking about their road map for the magic release but first they’ll have to do night creatures and armies and a completely redo the whole world gen, and you gently fall asleep to Tarn’s classic guitar melody.

Re: Dwarf Fortress is getting the mother of all magic updates

#145

Post by AngryData »

gverrilla wrote: post #103

I was passionate about this game (gui version), until my fps dropped to 1 (unplayable) and I found no fix.

I haven't played since the GUI release, but in the past you definitely had to set a fortress population limit to prevent FPS death.

Also, assuming DFhack still exists, you can try using it to clean up the messes and splatter which can bring it down a decent amount.

Fortress design may also have an impact on FPS from pathfinding according to some, but I had limited success in improving FPS through more optimized pathfinding designs, and the number of entities on the map still seemed like the biggest factor.

Re: Dwarf Fortress is getting the mother of all magic updates

#146

Post by bananaboy »

AngryData wrote: post #126
db48x wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you are asking for is completely unreasonable. There’s no way that one programmer can maintain two completely separate UIs. Keep in mind that they could not simply “add graphics” to the existing interface, they had to write a completely new one that was not based around fixed–size character cells.

Wasn't the graphical interface 95% outsourced to others? And originally the graphic version was suppose to be layered on top and leave the underlying version of the game barely touched from the player's side. It was even touted as an excuse at the time to fix some of the keyboard shortcuts that were inconsistent among different submenus, and certainly not to eliminate or supersede keyboard interfaces.

The art was outsourced to pretty much one artist. Zach and Tarn implemented it.

Re: Dwarf Fortress is getting the mother of all magic updates

#148

Post by baq »

hamdingers wrote: post #55
bigyabai wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The game runs fine in Proton, including with dfhack. You can probably get it working on your Mac with a tiny bit of Crossover/Wine/GPTK tweaking.

That's missing the point. There were official native MacOS builds and now there aren't. Can't be too mad about it though, it was free back then too.

People stopped releasing Linux builds, too, since proton+win32 works better on average

Re: Dwarf Fortress is getting the mother of all magic updates

#149

Post by klrefg »

flurb wrote: post #38

I'm still pissed about the fact that they essentially gave the finger to everyone who has been long-term supporters - when they added the G to their UI, they essentially scrapped the old. In favor of a mouse-driven design, they dropped the old, keyboard-driven UI. Long-term supporters, in this case, means people paying, and not insubstantial amounts either - before they partnered with Kitfox, they used to publish how…

It wasn’t “tens of thousands a month” outside of some exceptional months. IIRC usually it was in the single digits which is not fantastic for a two people in the US

Re: Dwarf Fortress is getting the mother of all magic updates

#150

Post by foo12bar »

ShinyLeftPad wrote: post #140
poulpy123 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They chose to have social security over a keyboard only interface for a game they continue to publish for free.

It's sold for $30 now. The old version is free but that's not updated anymore apparently. When he asked whether long time supporters would want to pay $30 bucks for the game I don't think that was implied? Seems fair to be annoyed.

The free version is still being updated. Both the free version and the paid version are on v53.16:

https://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/ https://steamdb.info/app/975370/history/

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