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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

#261

Post by Dylan16807 »

satvikpendem wrote: post #258
schm0 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of players have fun with the game, regardless of your personal opinions on the "on-boarding experience". I think you want this game to be something it's not. It's not a casual game for casual gamers. It's a game whose mantra is literally "losing is fun". It's esoteric menus and attention to detail are the result of decades of work by a couple of guys that just wanted to make the game they and their fans wanted…

I play Dwarf Fortress quite a bit. It does not stop me seeing the flaws in it. It is not perfect so I'm not sure why people act like it is, they're just coping that it doesn't have a good onboarding experience and once Tarn adds it (as he's always been doing), suddenly gamers will act as if that's what was missing all this time. It's a sense of hypocrisy I've not seen elsewhere.

> It does not stop me seeing the flaws in it. It is not perfect so I'm not sure why people act like it is

You're being way too dismissive of people that think the onboarding is reasonable. They can disagree with that without being blinded and thinking the game is flawless.

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

#262

Post by Dylan16807 »

Our_Benefactors wrote: post #14
Catloafdev wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, the game is difficult to get into, it's not for everyone. The game is great, though. You are in the "I have no idea what's going on" phase.

It’s the games job to create an on ramp to understanding. It’s not mine to spend 200 hours grasping every concept before I can play “the real game”, that’s just shitty game design.

If you have a steady food supply and you can hold off a military attack you're playing "the real game". A handful of hours can get you there, and you'll be learning plenty fast.

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

#263

Post by [deleted] »

ShinyLeftPad wrote: post #259
no_multitudes wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This DFHack command just toggles the 'enable keyboard cursor' feature. The issue is that the new keyboard cursor only works under specific scenarios, like designating digging sites. I don't think there's a way to use the keyboard cursor for everything like in 0.47. (I agree with your broader point that it's not reasonable to be angry at Bay12 for dropping this feature.)

I think it is fair for die hard fans to be annoyed if they paid to support and that way triggered a timeline where devs drop features they like in favor of friendliness to noobs. When economics kicks in, there's more money to be made from noobs. Also it's not either or. If it is paid or free it's irrelevant. For example even if you pay, the seller doesn't owe you anything than what you paid for. And by contrast with…

[deleted]

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

#264

Post by boomlinde »

satvikpendem wrote: post #257
boomlinde wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember the "onboarding experience" essentially being losing over and over again and learning from my mistakes, getting a little further or trying a new approach altogether on each new attempt. Maybe it's an acquired taste but by the time I started playing Dwarf Fortress, I was not only already used to that, but thoroughly enjoying it as a core mechanic of games like Rogue, NetHack and Ancient Domains of Mystery.…

Some games are not fun to anyone, that is what I'm talking about for fun in generality. Games must be fun for someone , at least some number of people, to be called a good game. Some games get there with a good onboarding and some do it despite that as I said.

Sure, maybe someone may enjoy Dwarf Fortress despite that, but as I recalled from my own experience, it wasn't despite it that I enjoyed getting into Dwarf Fortress, but in large part because of it.

So are you wrong in saying generally that it's "despite its terrible onboarding, not because of it", or am I coping by lying? Mind you, Dwarf Fortress is preceded by a whole genre of more traditional Rogue-like games that made losing hundreds or thousands of times for a lack of knowledge of the games' systems before you figured them out a fundamental part of their appeal, so I'm not exactly alone in this.

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

#265

Post by rmunn »

taneq wrote: post #206
rmunn wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure there is special handling for large sums... but six figures isn't it. Businesses routinely write checks for half a million dollars, two million dollars... it's perfectly normal to see such amounts within the banking world. There might be some extra scrutiny on the back end that you don't see, but since it's well within the realm of normal operations that the bank sees happen every day, it's nothing special.…

As a ‘normal’ person it sure feels weird sending (or receiving) a purchase order or invoice for six figures though.

Oh, sure. What's normal for the bank sure isn't normal for most individuals. I see that someone misread my comment to the point of writing a presumably-angry message that got flagged (so I'm only guessing what it contained), so I wanted to clarify: that sure isn't the daily, or weekly, experience for most people. It's just the bank that sees such sums all the time.

And someone else correctly pointed out that there might indeed be extra scrutiny on such transactions, at a level you might not always see, e.g. when Notch suddenly started receiving tons of money from Minecraft sales, PayPal flagged the account for special attention. But then they figured out it was legitimate, and allowed the money to go through. Personally, having been on the receiving end of credit card fraud (which I caught early enough that the bank refunded me the two fraudulent transactions, a total of $300), I'm glad that "this looks funny" gets flagged. It causes me more inconvenience than it has saved me money: every time I try to buy airline tickets back home (I live and work overseas) it's a large enough transaction that it gets flagged, and I have to call the bank and say "Yes, that large purchase on (airline) is legit, please let it through next time when I try again". But it saves me from being on the hook for $2,500 if someone were to get hold of my CC number again.

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

#266

Post by flohofwoe »

Shitty-kitty wrote: post #163
flohofwoe wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If game devs want to reuse their Vulkan code on Apple device, they can use MoltenVk or the more recent KosmicKrisp. > Optimization and bug hunting makes supporting multiple graphics api's a pain. The problems usually lurk in the graphics drivers, and not in the 3D API layer (e.g. optimization and bug hunting isn't much difference even when your code only supports a single API, and especially Vulkan drivers from diffe…

When a game glitches because of a driver bug, its the game developer that gets the bug reports (and the heat) and often has to isolate the problem to convince the gpu driver-team to fix it. You may note that I specifically said "PC game developers" Your whole but consoles argument, completely misses the mark.

> When a game glitches because of a driver bug, its the game developer that gets the bug reports (and the heat) and often has to isolate the problem to convince the gpu driver-team to fix it.

Exactly, and having a Vulkan-only codebase won't make that problem go away. And IME it's much more likely to encounter vendor-specific driver issues on Windows Vulkan drivers than for D3D drivers.

Vulkan drivers on Linux are in a much better shape because they are centralized under the MESA project (except NVIDIA's drivers, which also have significant behaviour differences to the MESA drivers, at least in the window system glue).

> You may note that I specifically said "PC game developers" Your whole but consoles argument, completely misses the mark.

Why should a game developer support the tiny Mac market, but ignore the much bigger game console market though? From a business perspective, Mac support simply doesn't make sense, it's too much hassle for too little return (and the hassle isn't about the different 3D API, Metal is actually one of the best parts of the whole Apple developer ecosystem).

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

#267

Post by joemi »

Our_Benefactors wrote: post #22
joemi wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minecraft was very fun and was selling like hotcakes when it had "no tutorial to speak of, no on-ramps for new players". Even nowadays there's no tutorial as far as I know and much of how to play is left to discovery. The achievements tree is a bit of a guide, just by telling you some of the things that are possible, but it sure doesn't tell you how to do anything. I think having an official tutorial or an on-ramp fo…

Unlike dwarf fortress, minecraft is fun and engaging from minute zero, and exposes its systems to you naturally over time. Terrible comparison.

Even though I'm a big fan of the game and have been playing it for over a decade now, "fun and engaging from minute zero" is not how I'd describe it. I've seen a number of people (both kids and adults) become frustrated with it almost immediately, and that's with someone experienced nearby to answer questions and let them know what they can do. Without such guidance, they'd definitely have quit and never played it again.

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

#268

Post by joemi »

7bit wrote: post #59
joemi wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minecraft was very fun and was selling like hotcakes when it had "no tutorial to speak of, no on-ramps for new players". Even nowadays there's no tutorial as far as I know and much of how to play is left to discovery. The achievements tree is a bit of a guide, just by telling you some of the things that are possible, but it sure doesn't tell you how to do anything. I think having an official tutorial or an on-ramp fo…

You cannot be serious! That comparison is a joke. There's worlds between the complexity of Minecraft and DF.

Regardless of the difference in complexity, I think the fact that it became the bestselling videogame of all time despite the fact that it essentially "has no tutorial to speak of, no on-ramps for new players" makes it a valid example for showing why tutorials and on-ramps for new players are not as important as the comment I replied to made it sound.

If you disagree, I'd like to hear your thoughts on where you think the threshold in complexity is when games should start including a tutorial and/or on-ramps for new players.

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

#269

Post by joemi »

7bit wrote: post #85
S-E-P wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you suggest someone make a good tutorial for DF that doesn't leave the player exhausted by the time they start a new game? That's my core complaint w/ strategy games. By the time I'm done with the tutorial i have to do other things only to forget everything I learned the next time I get to sit down with it. At best "hints" or a glossary/help menu is the best way imo.

Why you ask me that?

Because this is a discussion about tutorials and on-ramps to new players, and their necessity in games, specifically in Dwarf Fortress.

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

#270

Post by Shitty-kitty »

flohofwoe wrote: post #266
Shitty-kitty wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When a game glitches because of a driver bug, its the game developer that gets the bug reports (and the heat) and often has to isolate the problem to convince the gpu driver-team to fix it. You may note that I specifically said "PC game developers" Your whole but consoles argument, completely misses the mark.

> When a game glitches because of a driver bug, its the game developer that gets the bug reports (and the heat) and often has to isolate the problem to convince the gpu driver-team to fix it. Exactly, and having a Vulkan-only codebase won't make that problem go away. And IME it's much more likely to encounter vendor-specific driver issues on Windows Vulkan drivers than for D3D drivers. Vulkan drivers on Linux are in…

The drivers for D3D and Vulkan are separate, so supporting both opens you up to a whole new slew of bugs.

Mesa is largely an Umbrella. While some of the code is shared by in large, AMD works on radv, intel works on vulkan-intel and of course Nvidia work's on its own proprietary driver rather then very limited NVK.

Many games are first released on PC and only ported if they get big enough. So there are no considerations for cross-platform support in the original development.

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