Live data from Hacker News

Dwarf Fortress is getting the mother of all magic updates

rockpapershotgun.com

191–200 of 273 posts

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

#191
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.

> minecraft is fun and engaging

It depends, for me it is boring and has pretty dim graphics. I wanted to love it, but it is not fun. It looks like a Sims game, it lacks what e.g. factorio has, that "spark".

DF sounds like it might have that "spark", but I'm afraid to touch it.

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

#192
post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"first month" is really obscuring the decade or beforehand. That's 20 years of development before the premium version launched

So that's 360K/year over 20 years?

And a lot more from subsequent months, but I don't think it's a problem that this wildly successful videogame made its developers decently rich.

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

#193

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.

You made me feel good, looks like we shared those moments. Have a hugh and a beer mate.

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

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is it like when billionaires sell like $10 billion worth of shares? Do you need a special bank account to hold that much?

yes, you can't stick with a 32 bit account any more, needs 64.

When I worked on banking systems for analyzing demand deposit accounts and ledgers we used Snowflake's NUMBER type

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

#195
post #115

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

Try the game again, the performance has improved significantly. One major problem that was affecting most players were the line–of–sight calculations. Every person and animal in the game has an opinion of every other, and can get mood changes simply from seeing people (or animals) that they like or dislike. And that opinion is both based on the history of interactions between them as well as other factors like consan…

So what we're saying here is that personal computers can run open weights models that can literally code earlier versions of Dwarf Fortress all by themselves, but handling lines of sight for a 101st dwarf in a mountain fortress remains past the frontier of computer science. I love this so much.

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

#196
post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So that's 360K/year over 20 years?

And a lot more from subsequent months, but I don't think it's a problem that this wildly successful videogame made its developers decently rich.

Oh I fully agree. I hope Tarn an Zach make millions more and can keep working of their life's work for many years to come.

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

#197
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While individual game developers choose whether to support macOS, the broader phenomenon of developers dropping macOS support is Apple's fault. They either have no interest in being a serious gaming platform, or else they've made catastrophic missteps in their quest to stay relevant for gamers.

I don’t think it has anything to do with their gaming specific capabilities, just their general philosophy matches poorly with the games industry. Apple insist on having their own apis and they don’t maintain compatibility for older software for very long, these 2 facts explain things fine on their own. Game devs don’t want a major support burden, they’re happy to patch here and there but constant dropping of apis or…

[dead]

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

#198
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve never received $7M but a few times I’ve handled large sums (when buying a house and previous startup exit) and it felt so weird to be how completely normal it was. Like just… oh yeah go ahead and write a cheque for six figures. Or do an e-transfer into your chequing account for six figures. It felt like… no there has to be a whole special world for large sums, no?

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.…

It depends on the part of the system you are talking about. Under the covers, many a system will send reports higher up for 5 figure transfers, just for money laundering detection. And there will be all kinds of things blaring for anomaly detection. It's not the same if an account that normally moves large sums, and has been cleared and "explained lol moves a large amount than if it's one making nothing. See, for instance, how Notch's PayPal account was flagged when suddenly the game started to do great sales. So the special attention will vary, and there might be a human involved at some point even if they don't call you.

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

#199
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a documentary about them putting Dwarf Fortress on Steam Tarn talked about how he had to split the $7 million first payment from Steam with his brother and it turned out the easiest way was to just use the bank app.

The noclip documentary series for any other readers who might be interested 1. The Origins of Dwarf Fortress: https://youtu.be/MxV24so-dw8 2. How Dwarf Fortress Evolved over 16 Years of Development: https://youtu.be/PiNeDarPzeI 3. How Dwarf Fortress Coming to Steam Changed Everything: https://youtu.be/TX65XCk2-6U anecdote about the money starts @ 18:40 4. Life After the Success of Dwarf Fortress: https://youtu.be/I5z…

Thanks for this list!

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

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weirdly the ASCII art was what drew me in the most. Once accustomed to it, feels like The Matrix where they're reading the world.

I have the same feeling playing Caves of Qud.

Qud is a gem of a game, same publisher too! I get what you are saying, and it's use of ASCII plus ASCII-like graphics makes the experience a lot friendlier imo.
Post reply on HN