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Dwarf Fortress Creator Explains Its Complexity and Origins [video]

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Re: Dwarf Fortress Creator Explains Its Complexity and Origins [video]

#81

Post by imtringued »

opportune wrote: post #61
Trasmatta wrote: post #24

I would love to be able to read the Dwarf Fortress source someday. I know Tarn considers Dwarf Fortress to be his life's work, so it would be amazing if he decided to release the source someday -- even if that's 10, 20, 30 years from now.

He has said multiple times that he will release the source if he dies, so long as foul play is not suspected in his death. I think for him it's more about being able to "own" dwarf fortress. If he open sourced it, large teams of people might be able to develop it much faster than he could, and if he doesn't really want to manage an open source project, that might end up in him losing control/maintaining a less popula…

Why not manage the project like Cataclysm DDA? Let people write mods. If they are good enough just merge them into the main code base.

Re: Dwarf Fortress Creator Explains Its Complexity and Origins [video]

#82

Post by yvdriess »

kagbor wrote: post #78
opportune wrote: post #62

I have been playing dwarf fortress for about 7-8 years. If anybody has any questions feel free to ask me. I think the difficulty of learning the game is overstated: if you follow a tutorial, use a graphics pack, and use dwarf therapist (dwarf therapist is a must, most experienced players also use this because it's just a better UI) I think you can get the hang of the game in a few hours of play time. Probably the big…

So I have to install 2 third-party tools and follow 2+ third-party tutorials/guides for a few hours before I can potentially start enjoying the game. Doesn't sound overstated at all...

You can just play the base game as is. The Lazy Newb Pack is simply a launcher where you can checkbox the third party graphics and tool options.

Re: Dwarf Fortress Creator Explains Its Complexity and Origins [video]

#83

Post by opportune »

kagbor wrote: post #78
opportune wrote: post #62

I have been playing dwarf fortress for about 7-8 years. If anybody has any questions feel free to ask me. I think the difficulty of learning the game is overstated: if you follow a tutorial, use a graphics pack, and use dwarf therapist (dwarf therapist is a must, most experienced players also use this because it's just a better UI) I think you can get the hang of the game in a few hours of play time. Probably the big…

So I have to install 2 third-party tools and follow 2+ third-party tutorials/guides for a few hours before I can potentially start enjoying the game. Doesn't sound overstated at all...

It's only a few hours. That's how long it takes to learn many games.

Re: Dwarf Fortress Creator Explains Its Complexity and Origins [video]

#84

Post by opportune »

tetris11 wrote: post #75
opportune wrote: post #62

I have been playing dwarf fortress for about 7-8 years. If anybody has any questions feel free to ask me. I think the difficulty of learning the game is overstated: if you follow a tutorial, use a graphics pack, and use dwarf therapist (dwarf therapist is a must, most experienced players also use this because it's just a better UI) I think you can get the hang of the game in a few hours of play time. Probably the big…

I found that you get used to the ascii after a while. Now I dont even see the code, just blonde, brunette, redhead, quantum stockpile...

Yeah, once you get accustomed to the tilesets for a bit it becomes trivial to switch to ascii. But I think it's nice to learn using the tileset because it's usually pretty clear what something is.

Re: Dwarf Fortress Creator Explains Its Complexity and Origins [video]

#85

Post by csunbird »

opportune wrote: post #84
tetris11 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found that you get used to the ascii after a while. Now I dont even see the code, just blonde, brunette, redhead, quantum stockpile...

Yeah, once you get accustomed to the tilesets for a bit it becomes trivial to switch to ascii. But I think it's nice to learn using the tileset because it's usually pretty clear what something is.

I think the joke went flying over your head.

Edit: It is a Matrix reference, where Neo asks Tank if he can understand what is going on by just looking at the green characters whizzing in the screen. He answers "You get used to it after a while. ... For example, I see blondes, brunettes, redheads ... "

Edit 2: I guess I remembered it wrong, it was Cypher!

Re: Dwarf Fortress Creator Explains Its Complexity and Origins [video]

#86

Post by opportune »

csunbird wrote: post #85
opportune wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, once you get accustomed to the tilesets for a bit it becomes trivial to switch to ascii. But I think it's nice to learn using the tileset because it's usually pretty clear what something is.

I think the joke went flying over your head. Edit: It is a Matrix reference, where Neo asks Tank if he can understand what is going on by just looking at the green characters whizzing in the screen. He answers "You get used to it after a while. ... For example, I see blondes, brunettes, redheads ... " Edit 2: I guess I remembered it wrong, it was Cypher!

I figured it was a half-joke half-serious comment so I responded to the serious part

Re: Dwarf Fortress Creator Explains Its Complexity and Origins [video]

#87

Post by chongli »

rhn_mk1 wrote: post #53
chongli wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Caves of Qud [1] is a fantastic roguelike with procedurally generated backstory, quests, towns, etc. If you like the classic Fallout games (1 & 2) and you enjoy roguelikes with a lot of weird stuff, I think you’d get a kick out of CoQ. The game has incredible atmosphere that gives you this feeling like you’re exploring a real, living, breathing world. There’s a lot of depth to the gameplay as well, with deep characte…

I tried Caves of Qud, but after dying a dozen times due to botched combat, I can't get into it. The way I played I got more of a NetHack in an open world setting vibe, rather than a sandboxy exploration of a generated world. I'm not sure what I was doing wrong. Was I focusing on battle too much? Is it even avoidable when the plains are full of monsters, and goals are placed on the other side of the plains?

CoQ has a steep learning curve with the combat. There are some things to learn that are really not obvious. Building a new character is a complicated process and it's easy to mess up and make a character that seriously struggles in the early game. It took me about a hundred hours of play before I got a quasi-win (reached the end of the quest line as they've written it so far).

You can play characters which avoid combat to a large extent, in quite a few different ways. You can get so good at talking to people that you can get some extremely powerful allies to do all the fighting for you. You can also tinker up some really powerful automated turrets that will clear enemies no problem, and use force fields to protect yourself from attack. You can also avoid combat to a considerable extent by picking up some wilderness lore.

Having said all that, combat is a major part of the game, just as it is in most roguelikes.

Re: Dwarf Fortress Creator Explains Its Complexity and Origins [video]

#88

Post by Alekhine »

csunbird wrote: post #85
opportune wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, once you get accustomed to the tilesets for a bit it becomes trivial to switch to ascii. But I think it's nice to learn using the tileset because it's usually pretty clear what something is.

I think the joke went flying over your head. Edit: It is a Matrix reference, where Neo asks Tank if he can understand what is going on by just looking at the green characters whizzing in the screen. He answers "You get used to it after a while. ... For example, I see blondes, brunettes, redheads ... " Edit 2: I guess I remembered it wrong, it was Cypher!

Small nitpick, it was Cipher, not Tank.

Re: Dwarf Fortress Creator Explains Its Complexity and Origins [video]

#90

Post by imtringued »

rhn_mk1 wrote: post #54
genocidicbunny wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if it was written with a single thread in mind (which it most likely has been) naively 'multi-threading' it will likely not help do much except increase the number of bugs. Too many independent but intertwined systems communicating with each other. Making DF use multiple cores efficiently would be amazing, but I have serious doubts its viable in the short-ish term without a significant rewrite. The most you're li…

Isn't (a large part of) DF basically a huge cellular automaton? That problem is already solved for multiple threads.

Just because something uses a grid doesn't mean it's a cellular automaton. You can probably write DF as a cellular automaton but that's probably not what happened.

If dwarfs have x,y coordinates that mark their position and the coordinates are changed when they move then it would not be a cellular automaton.

A cellular automaton would take a cell and look at surrounding cells to see if there is a dwarf that wants to move to the currently processed cell and switch the current cell to a new dwarf cell. The dwarf cell would see that the dwarf can successfully move and delete the dwarf cell.

Which method do you think is DF using?

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