Reply With QuoteAnd that's why there's not a lot of crossover between economists and comedians.
The economics joke is that you can't differentiate a non-participant from someone whose needs have not yet been met.
And that's why there's not a lot of crossover between economists and comedians.
Have you heard the one about the marginal utility of credit default swaps?
It's also why I don't invite chequers to parties!Originally Posted by zengonzo
The playable version of DW came out a few years ago. If you missed the window I wouldn't hope for it to ever become playable again. I lost interest with the introduction of left&right gloves/socks/boots. I still check on it every once in a while but it's been getting more detailed instead of more fun. If only I were smart enough to keep that sweet spot version of it, I'd probably still be playing it.
40d was a bit of a sweet spot. But the problem is once you try a new version you can never go back. How can I live without bees and near-invulnerable goblins/forgotten beasts?!
http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/older_versions.html
Very cool, didn't realize this was there. Looks like my sweet spot was somewhere around 22.123.23a.
0.23.130.23a was a popular version too, it's the one that the wiki was originally created for.
STOP EVERYTHING!
Bees?! Can you brew mead now?!
And the farming was pushed back to allowing all farming on soil and irrigation on stone?
Time to strike back the earth, haven't played since 40d.
http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/5...reenshotlv.png
Bottom right image. Is that an actual playable view? As in, is there a non-ass flavored UI that works with those graphics? Because holy hell I could see playing the game if that was the play window and the UI was no longer as useless as a jello dick.
It's not a playable view. You still play in the DF window, but that Stonesense window will show the terrain you're viewing.
As an IRL drinker of mead I find the ingame value of mead (1, lower than the basic dwarf wine from Plump Helmets) outrageously unfair! *shakes fist*
Downloading the LNB, kinda worried I'll mess up my fort after reading some stuff about medical care...
Yeap, but it's never going to happen, because Toady doesn't care what you or anyone else thinks, he's making the game he loves, and we should like totally respect that or something.
I do, man. I respect it. From, like, way over here, far far away from that... thing... he calls a UI.
Seriously, though, is he still at it? Is anyone still actively playing? Ever since Minecraft (and its little buddy Terraria) took over the world, I haven't heard shit about DF.
Edit: OMFG, they created a "Dwarf Therapist" app that looks a lot more like an enterprise database maintenance tool. And still it's more usable than that execrable hardwired curses-based interface Toady is married to. But bay12games.com is still churning away, so good on him. Still pulling in $2-3K/month, evidently.
Last edited by RepoMan; 07-21-2011 at 02:36 PM.
Dwarf Therapist had been around for a long time, actually. To the point where the original author is no longer maintaining it. And yeah, Therapist makes DF look like a spreadsheet, and it's still better than Toady's UI. Back when I was playing, I wouldn't touch a fortress with 20+ Dwarfs without it, because managing job assignments was otherwise too much.
You can't really play w/o Dwarf Therapist after the 2nd or 3rd wave of migrants.
I mean you *can*, but you *can* also gouge your eyes out with a "UX for Dummies" book.
However, this game does have the "Every time you mention Deus Ex, someone reinstalls it" effect on me.
/goes off to download the latest MayGreen build and try to remember how to make it work in OSX.
I'd respect his Vision (tm) a lot more if he cared enough about it to make it a usable UI.
I think he need technical help on that end, he's mentioned that he just doesn't know how to do that stuff. Needs a team of programmer ninjas to rewrite all his code in a nice modular way that lets anyone plug in their own UI.
After all this time, this thread is still full of people whining about the UI? Seriously guys? Look, I realize it's not the most elegant or easy to understand thing in the world. But you've gotta be half retarded not to figure it out. I'm neither the most patient nor the most intelligent person in the world and I had it figured out to the point of having all the hotkeys memorized before he went through and simplified a lot of things some time ago. You're all used to modern games and their hand holding "easy way out" way of doing things. If you want to enjoy DF, you're going to have to put a little work into it. If you're not willing to do that, please find another thread to go troll. Pogo will be there to keep you company.
That's one big defensive rant so I'll break it down;
1st - If the UI never gets a revamp and the game becomes increasingly intricate (seems to be the natural tendency with Tarn) some people will always complain. I actually can't say who is worse, those who complain or those that complain about the complainers... honestly, I've been on both sides and now I stand in the middle: I understand how the clunky interface is unnerving but I'll still play it and have fun. It's like that matrix joke:
2nd - "modern games and their hand holding "easy way out" way of doing things" has nothing to do with a awful UI, which is what people complain about. Unless by modern and easy way out you mean having full mouse support and some bloody dropdown menus, oh the technology! That sounds like someone who still uses Windows 3.1 complaining that Windows 7 is "easy and holds your hand".
3rd - I love DF. I love DF to the point of having contributed more than once and never, ever, feeling like I should be entitled to more.
That said, I love DF and I hate to see it left behind other games like MInecraft and Terraria, games which have such a small scope of "things you can do" but do have a pretty darn good interface and are easy to get into AND ARE MAKING LOADS OF MONEY HATS while DF lingers on behind, a game which is the opposite: loads and loads of content and intricate detail (lol dwarf nervous system lol) and a primitive and clunky UI which you have to "learn" to use before you can actually enjoy the game.
Now, should I just leave because this was a troll post or did that make any sense?
Are you trolling me bro? I mean, this reads like what I'd say if I wanted to piss someone off by taking such a ridiculously obtuse stance that no one would believe it.
And your response is still to break down how everyone who hates the UI has to be a retarded monkey? Really?
Which is why you sound just as silly defending it now as you did dozens of times before. "Working" at being able to finally play a game is retarded.
Yes sir, Mr. Thread Owner. Nice little poke at Pogo there, it's a pretty good attempt to try to not make yourself sound like some elitist DF Defender.If you're not willing to do that, please find another thread to go troll. Pogo will be there to keep you company.
Last edited by Pogo; 07-21-2011 at 03:25 PM.
Tell this to the people that spend days reading D&D books. Or hours setting up a game of Risk or some other complicated board game. Just because it's not for you doesn't make it wrong. Which is my entire point. If you don't like it, fine. But go find something else to play instead of flailing around like an infant until Toady does what you want. I'm poking fun specifically at you because now you're doing the exact same thing in the Minecraft thread. Notch isn't doing what Pogo wants so now it's onto personal attacks and preaching the gospel against this game that dared to go against the will of Pogo!
Have you suffered some brain damage? I suppose you think a UI would be perfectly appropriate if players were forced to answer a skill testing question before clicking on each button? I've yet to ever see a game where the UI could not be improved in some way. The UI is the membrane between the player and the game and as such it needs to be as transparent and penetrable as possible no matter the complexity of the game mechanics or who the target audience is. Good UIs take this a step further and actively aid the player.
I can say with 100% honesty that the DF UI imposes absolutely no barriers to my ability to play the game. I barely even glance over at it. I know all the hotkeys and I've become familiar with the handful of different "modes" that it uses. Playing DF has become like typing to me at this point. My fingers know which button to press before I even have to think about it. If a non rocket scientist like myself can get to that level with DF, what's your excuse?
Again you completely misconstrue the core argument. It's not that "it's not for me," it's that it's a core part of the game and Toady just continues to build upon his awful UI system. Me not liking it has little to do with me and more to do with how unintuitive and complicated it is. The funny thing is that it's completely fixable and yet people still defend it because hey, everyone who doesn't like it probably just doesn't get it.
This makes no sense... and really shows how colored your interpretation of what I say is. I've always suggested things I would love for Minecraft to do, or criticized his decisions to work on kind of dumb things that added little to nothing to the gameplay.I'm poking fun specifically at you because now you're doing the exact same thing in the Minecraft thread. Notch isn't doing what Pogo wants so now it's onto personal attacks and preaching the gospel against this game that dared to go against the will of Pogo!
Why is not having/wanting to invest the time to learn an obscure interface so you can play a video game not a good excuse? Instead of learning the DF UI, you probably could have put a big dent in that rocket science degree.
I've played the hell out of DF, to the point where I'd memorized various common key sequences. I did all sorts of crap like specialized my stockpiles. I can still recognize that the UI is absolutely awful, even for a game with almost no mouse support. If I'd encountered DF back in the early 80's, when mice for PCs were still a novelty, it would still win awards for bad design. It's inconsistent - what keys scroll vary depending on which menu you're in - and incredibly clumsy, not the least of which is case-sensitive hotkeys. Back in the day we decried spaghetti code, but DF is chock-full of spaghetti UI design. Of course you can learn it, and I certainly did, but that doesn't make the UI any less bad.
Beyond the horrible keystrokes, the game is very, very bad at presenting information. Dwarf Therapist is notable not mainly for letting you assign jobs much more easily than the game, but for presenting you with a clear summary of which dwarfs have which skills, and which jobs they're currently doing. This is a one-dwarf-at-a-time task in the game, and requires a lot of keystrokes to perform tasks that Therapist does with a single mouse click.
The UI does get worse as the game development goes on. Case in point, the military interface. Lots of DF veterans on the Bay 12 boards had a lot of difficulty understanding it, and even after you do know all its nooks and crannies, it's very hard to use. It's a another example of where I found Dwarf Therapist invaluable, because the only thing you can see about a Dwarf when assigning them to a squad is their name. I'd figure out who I wanted in each squad in Therapist, assign them a custom name so I could remember who they were, and then hunt them down in-game to assign them to squads. I also used custom titles because the game cheerily lets you assign dwarfs to a squad even though they're already in or even commanding another squad.
It's not just the learning curve, seriously.
I never used Dwarf Therapist. Only at the very beginning of the game did I ever have to worry about which dwarf was doing what. Every so often I'd notice that a job wasn't being done; I would figure out what task needed enabling and pick someone to do it. That was always enough. I always welcomed migrants, unlike most players, which probably made a lot of difference in the success of this approach. My fortresses were almost all successful. FWIW.
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