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[HiEv]

think about it, what will this add to the game? toady himself made this inquiry, the answer is absolutely nothing, it will be just a boring task that you gonna have to get through for no good reason.

Uh... You might want to actually read though this thread.  There have been plenty of suggestions/explanations about ways it would add to the game.  Dismissing all of them with no explanation is rather unfair.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

think about it, what will this add to the game? toady himself made this inquiry, the answer is absolutely nothing, it will be just a boring task that you gonna have to get through for no good reason.

sabreur put it better than many proponents of rubble, perhaps you should read his post

The people in favor of rubble feel like it adds a lot to the game.  It bothers them that we can currently excavate entire cities without creating so much as a handful of dirt.  They have ideas about earthwork fortifications, semi-fluid mechanics, artificial landslides, and the technical challenge of figuring out where to store the mountains of backfill from megaprojects.  To them, the fun comes from taking a situation that is as real as possible and dealing with it intelligently.  They see the anti-rubble faction and worry that the game will get dumbed-down instead of requiring players to wise up.

[Cellmonk]

think about it, what will this add to the game? toady himself made this inquiry, the answer is absolutely nothing, it will be just a boring task that you gonna have to get through for no good reason.

Its against my better judgement, but I think it might be good to compose a little poorly organized but comprehensive list.

-a price to digging deeper versus shallower.
-balancing, making the dwarven capabilities in digging actually increase as one gets more dwarves/infrastructure.
-a reason to create all sorts of infrastructure, such as lifts and dumping stations and construction tunnels.
-a reason to develop the surface early in the game and face sieges with earthwork etc until industrial capabilities allow for more fortified living. 
-a level of realism
-a level of strategy in sapping/countersapping
-a variety of solutions to the digging problem... not just "train 2-4 legendary miners"

I'm tired and grammatically challenged at this time, for it is 1am. But i think you get the point.

[xeniorn]

The thing you're forgetting is that for many players, the simulation IS the fun. 

Many but not all.

The problem here is that people (on both sides) are taking arguments to false extremes - "I don't want to deal with rubble" becomes "I want the game to be dwarf-flavored legos" and "I want a more realistic simulation" becomes "I hate anything that is accessible and fun".  Neither extreme is true.

The people against rubble feel like it adds little to the game.  From our perspective, it looks like a mindless chore at best.  We worry about the impact of rubble of FPS.  To us, it seems like a form of fake difficulty - a micromanaging task that will punish you if you don't deal with it, but requires no real intelligence or foresight to handle.  We look at the list of features yet to be added and worry that time Toady spends on rubble is time that won't be spent on features we'd like to see added first.  I'll take the army arc over rubble any day.

The people in favor of rubble feel like it adds a lot to the game.  It bothers them that we can currently excavate entire cities without creating so much as a handful of dirt.  They have ideas about earthwork fortifications, semi-fluid mechanics, artificial landslides, and the technical challenge of figuring out where to store the mountains of backfill from megaprojects.  To them, the fun comes from taking a situation that is as real as possible and dealing with it intelligently.  They see the anti-rubble faction and worry that the game will get dumbed-down instead of requiring players to wise up.

I'm against rubble for the reasons I mentioned above - I like realism, but I'd prefer more realism in the form of caravans that actually obey Supply And Demand, the ability to lay siege to the goblins for a change, an economy that actually makes sense, etc.  Rubble seems less like a feature and more like a chore to me.  That being said, I won't ragequit if rubble makes it into the game.  As has been mentioned before, in the worst-case scenario we can always turn it off or mod it out.  I'd just like to see the other stuff Toady is planning get added first.

Well put. Unlike most of the people that aren't pro-rubble posting here, you clearly stated your viewpoint and agrumented it well.

One thing I'd like to say, that certainly goes for me and probably for the majority of other people who commented in this thread and want rubble implemented, is that implementing rubble isn't something that I expect to happen in the next few updates. If I were making a list of new features and fixes sorted by priority, rubble wouldn't be on the top of it. I'd like to see it implemented, eventually. There are some things I think would add more to the game at this point, and also some things that I'd consider to be requirements for rubble to be be implemented smoothly. I won't go into detail right now to keep it short.

I also see this thread as a "testing arena" for rubble, even before its hypothetical implementation. Through debating about it, many bugs, loose ends and unforeseen mistakes can be prevented in the actual implementation, if it ever comes to be.

think about it, what will this add to the game? toady himself made this inquiry, the answer is absolutely nothing, it will be just a boring task that you gonna have to get through for no good reason.

Its against my better judgement, but I think it might be good to compose a little poorly organized but comprehensive list.

-a price to digging deeper versus shallower.
-balancing, making the dwarven capabilities in digging actually increase as one gets more dwarves/infrastructure.
-a reason to create all sorts of infrastructure, such as lifts and dumping stations and construction tunnels.
-a reason to develop the surface early in the game and face sieges with earthwork etc until industrial capabilities allow for more fortified living. 
-a level of realism
-a level of strategy in sapping/countersapping
-a variety of solutions to the digging problem... not just "train 2-4 legendary miners"

I'm tired and grammatically challenged at this time, for it is 1am. But i think you get the point.

It occurred to me this thread could use such a comprehensive list, seeing as most people wouldn't bothera reading through 20 pages of long posts, but I was a bit too lazy to do it. So thanks for doing it.

[Manveru Taurënér]

I just thought of another reason for rubble that I don't think was ever brought up. With the improved sieges coming up not too far off hopefully, having rubble would help making enemy diggers more interesting and easier to counter. Logically they would have to have someone carry all the dug out earth and rock out of the tunnel (making them vulnerable to crossbows/catapults etc), but with current mechanics this wouldn't work. It would also help with filling up their tunnels afterwards without having to build actuall walls the entire length of it (which I think was mentioned here somewhere).

To me personally mining is the biggest pet peeve in the game atm so I don't really want this whole thing to be put on hold and forgotten for too long :<

[ThtblovesDF]

This thread is silly and the only argument you make here that couldn't also be made for the current system is that it's closer to reality, which we get enough from 24/7

[Askot Bokbondeler]

This comment is silly and the only argument i make here that couldn't also be made for the proposed system is that the current system is further from reality, which we get enough from any other computer game

[Manveru Taurënér]

This thread is silly and the only argument you make here that couldn't also be made for the current system is that it's closer to reality, which we get enough from 24/7

A huge part of DF is its (within reason) realistic mechanics, and I for one just cannot turn a blind eye to something so blatantly unrealistic as magically disappearing rock when mining. I really don't get all the people that seem to imply realism isn't worth anything, there are a lot of games out there that don't involve much realism and focus primarily on the game features just being simple and fun. DF isn't one of those games :>

(and yes, there's a limit to the amount of realism you can cram in before it just gets annoying, but there are loads of ways to make this happen without that ending up being the case)

[hermes]

This thread is silly and the only argument you make here that couldn't also be made for the current system is that it's closer to reality, which we get enough from 24/7

A huge part of DF is its (within reason) realistic mechanics, and I for one just cannot turn a blind eye to something so blatantly unrealistic as magically disappearing rock when mining. I really don't get all the people that seem to imply realism isn't worth anything, there are a lot of games out there that don't involve much realism and focus primarily on the game features just being simple and fun. DF isn't one of those games :>

(and yes, there's a limit to the amount of realism you can cram in before it just gets annoying, but there are loads of ways to make this happen without that ending up being the case)

まあー、what you say isn't wrong in general, but it is a misrepresentation of DF.  You seem to assume that the raison d'etre for DF is as a simlulator of reality, or even a fantasy reality, when it is clearly, in many respects, not - and on a certain level, not meant to be.

There is no sex, faeces, bad language, earthquakes, cancer, knives and forks, tools for farming, logical power transmission mechanism, realistic topology - on the micro or macro scale, and so on and so on.  All of which could be argued for inclusion as they are connected to existing features and thus subject to inclusion under the "simulation" mandate.

Trite examples aside, I think Toady has mentioned many times now, and most recently in the forward to the Getting Started with DF book, that DF is meant to be a fantasy story generator.  When you look at the game from this perspective, it's easier to see why certain potential features might be written out, perhaps temporarily, because they have little potential impact on the stories that will be generated.

ThtblovesDF and I, and the silent majority I guess, are not particularly enamoured with the idea of rubble because when the Fellowship were traveling through Moria we never stopped to ponder where the dwarves stashed all the scree because there was a freakin' Balrog whipping at their heels.

[Manveru Taurënér]

I don't mean that the simulation is the sole purpose of the game, but it is undisputably a huge part of it. I guess there's simply no way around the fact that some of us (me included) mainly see all the fun, exciting and innovative things we could do with rubble, whereas others mainly see the boring management and clutter part of it :<

(also, out of your examples, at least more logical power transmission mechanisms and realistic topology are planned for some far off future, and parts of the others may/will probably also find their way inside to some extent, so you can't really use all that as an argument against realism just because the game isn't that far along yet ^^)

[The Bard]

Ugh. Rubble AND digging invaders. Two horrible tastes, together to the first time

[Manveru Taurënér]

Ugh. Rubble AND digging invaders. Two horrible tastes, together to the first time

Well, at least that part will be toggleable, so shouldn't be any reason for anyone to worry really
From the updated dev page:
"Ability to dig (optionally, default on)"

[hermes]

I don't mean that the simulation is the sole purpose of the game, but it is undisputably a huge part of it. I guess there's simply no way around the fact that some of us (me included) mainly see all the fun, exciting and innovative things we could do with rubble, whereas others mainly see the boring management and clutter part of it :<

OK, I can understand that, but when you say simulation is a large part of the game, what I think Toady has in mind is that the simulation aspects of the game end up rewarding you with surprising and coherent and exciting stories.  They are a means to that end, not an end in themselves.  Some players, like yourself, can enjoy simulation in and of itself, which is great, but it seems highly unlikely that Toady is going to go all hardcore on the simulation just to make it "realistic", right?

As I said, realism is already totally out of the window because that is not the driving philosophy of the game.  The game is as realistic as it is because that provides a context within which logically believable stories can take seed and sprout.  It makes sense to make certain parts of the game realistic, because it pays its own weight in gold in terms of the stories you get back.

When Toady commented on rubble he said he couldn't see how to make it a net positive, implying he could see some merit to it.  But in the grand scheme of things, there must be a million far more exciting things you'd prefer to manage than rubble.  How about fort taverns?  Markets?  Regional fayres?     These are on the way!