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[Dwarfotaur]

I've got a good understanding of nearly all of DF (other than Minecarts) and have played DF for many years. I enjoy showing people screenshots/mayhem so I thought maybe recording the whole process would be a good idea.

However, there are a lot of Dwarf Fortress LPs already online and some never get more than 100 views. So I guess I'm asking you guys what you'd like to see or even if you think it's not worth it.

I'm looking for ideas on what to actually do in DF and how to act/talk (funny/quirky/making jokes or should it be more serious/informative/descriptive). I do have my own ideas but I'm interested in seeing what would be popular.

I'm British so my accent may score me some free views.

[pisskop]

Build up instead of down.  I.E. living quarters and kitchen, dining meeting are in tower, and only storage, industrialized workshops are in the dank basement.

[Dwarfotaur]

You mean build above the surface with constructed walls?

It does work but it takes 4x as long to accomplish anything I've found.

[GoombaGeek]

Use absolutely massive amounts of fast-forwarding, cutting and editing. Eliminate all the paused footage, speed it up 2x, make it quick and watchable (because Dwarf Fortress is very, very boring to watch at normal speed if you aren't emotionally invested in actually playing it). Record the sound later. Be the easy reading version of DF.

[Kilroy the Grand]

I'm British so my accent may score me some free views.

At least you know your strengths.

[Dwarfotaur]

Use absolutely massive amounts of fast-forwarding, cutting and editing. Eliminate all the paused footage, speed it up 2x, make it quick and watchable (because Dwarf Fortress is very, very boring to watch at normal speed if you aren't emotionally invested in actually playing it). Record the sound later. Be the easy reading version of DF.

I actually like this idea. I was thinking something similar because coming across a 20 part LP where episodes are an hour long and episode 3 they're still setting up stockpiles can be quite... Boring and uninviting.

[AutomataKittay]

I don't watch LP videos of DF, but I agree that you should cut out ( or speed up ) anything slow and boring. Ideally you could also teach how to do above-ground working, since I barely see anyone talk about it

Maybe a themed LP, like farming town one?

( Can't comment about your voice, being deaf, but I bet you'll have a market for it! )

[Morrigi]

I'd suggest building a fortress with a roughly equal amount of space above and below ground. Balance like that is even harder to come by than pure aboveground forts. And yes, cut out the boring bits but it'd be nice to have a general summary of what happened offscreen when you start again.

[pivole]

I'd like to see a playing in which generation is skipped, and the standard tileset is used.
And maybe in a tundra. Next to a goblin tower.

[Dwarfotaur]

I have currently recorded about three hours of:

- The result of my custom worldgen (NOT the worldgen itself, there's no point boring people with that).
- Me searching the map for a good embark.

- Customising my Dwarves/items to embark.

- Embarking in a Terrifying/Joyous Wilds, with soil, flux, shallow and deep metals.

- Building ABOVE the ground (like making a village).
- Dying within the first year due to zombies.

- Reclaiming and focusing on defence, making a moat for example.
- Building a very basic tomb.
- Almost dying within the first year due to FLYING zombies.
- Finishing the FIRST (yes it's taken two in game years to build a single building) tavern that I have dubbed, "The Mended Drum".


I can easily speed up/skip most of the boring footage and just talk over how to survive such an embark and build above ground. What to look for, what to bring, first things to do, etc. With a bit of humour/oddities thrown in (funny combat logs, strange behaviour, 'fun', accidents (I've already had a massive beer explosion).

Though I haven't actually done that well... Normally my Terrifying embarks aren't very Terrifying, this is the first reanimating biome I've seen since they were added.

So if people are interested in seeing a sped-up, to the point but instructive commentary on how to 'survive' above ground in a terrifying reanimating zombie embark then let me know as I have material for a first episode. I plan to cut the three hours gameplay down to about... 15-20mins tops.

[pisskop]

I would like to see your joyously terrifying embarks.  I imagine the tavernkeeper of "The Seam of the World" telling stories of how this zombie used to be a patron, or how he told that one not to go, or who makes macabre jokes like "you'll come back, even in death!"

Ahh if only the economy was functional, than you could make a squad ofpeasants who dispatch zombies for coin...

[RenoFox]

Protip I've learned from community forts: For viewing pleasure, build as much as possible horizontally. Tall towers and deep mines require many levels, but having picturesque main areas to show give the best views of fortress structure and happenings.

The hardest part for me is taking risks and losing lives. A carefully run fortress with traps and contigency plans is much less interesting to watch than one with insane, scarred dwarves.

[GoombaGeek]

Yeah, vertical projects only look nice on-screen if you're using a 3D visualizer, but that's something else entirely. A multilevel project usually has a lot of connections, and to understand those, you need to see each level multiple times. When I see an engineering schematic on the wiki, my mind follows the ups and downs and I look up and down and up again and you can't predict which path your viewers will take. Interactive maps you can watch at your own speed are fine, and so are screenshots, but in a video, time is no longer actively controlled by your viewers. It's all up to you, and when something takes some effort to comprehend, you'll always end up tearing them away too soon or lingering for too long, and everyone's different so it's just really hard to work out timing.

For instance, here's the introductory picture (and text) to Boatmurdered. This was designed to give non-DF players an understanding of the game in one image, and from the number of players who say their first DF experience was Boatmurdered, it worked pretty well:

Spoiler: Somewhat large image (click to show/hide)

1: This section with the '=' symbols marks a stockpile. It's where dwarves store various crafts, barrels (not pictured...denoted by a % with a yellow background), and food.

2: This symbol represents a cage for trapping creatures. You'll see these a lot.

3: This is a pile of rocks which come from digging away the mountain. You'll see them all over. They can be crafted into all manner of useful items.

4: The matrix looking green crap is the ground. On the inside, to the right of box 10, you'll see the symbols are white, instead. Smoothed stone floors in the fort are represented by + symbols. Some people use a variegated tileset, which results in what you see here. Others will have ground that displays as all periods. You eventually get used to both and can easily pick out what is where on any map.

5: Dwarves are shown as these guys here, or as smiley faces. Different colors indicate different professions. These guys are all military recruits, charging off stupidly to their deaths.

6: The E is an elephant. They murder dwarves in wonderful fashion. Get used to them. Above and below him, the brackets are discarded armor or clothing. The grey blocks to his right represent exposed walls of un-mined rock. The blocks with the cross on them represent stone doors. The small 2's that fill the room behind the two doors are the bones of animals or dwarves.

7: The ^ symbol denotes a trap. The parallel lines below the traps represent a smoothed wall. Below these lines, you see the grey wall of the bone room, which is not smoothed. Different colored symbols in grey rock walls just represent types of exposed mineral, gems, or ore veins.

8: This is a pile of dead dwarves, an Elephant, and a cloud of Miasma. Those are the three most prevalent features in Boatmurdered. Miasma is the purple blotch that shows up when corpses begin to rot. It makes your dwarves angry, which usually leads to hilarity.

9: The two green asterisks are gems. These have been mined out of a wall, already; and are awaiting storage.

10: These are siege engines. In this case, two ballistas aimed at the hallway with all the dead dwarves.

11: The black spaces with symbols like these are areas of the mountain that have yet to be mined.

That's eleven points, and you're expected to go back and forth and look at the image until you know what corresponds to what. In a video, you can't do that. You're going along with whatever the video-recorder-guy wants you to look at. That's why editing is a good idea: give an overview of the fortress, show what's new, show how it connects to the rest, make it so that anyone who hasn't been playing the fortress for its entire lifetime (everyone but you) knows exactly how it's laid out.

A video fortress should be pretty simple at a glance, basically. This will limit the things you can do. Just try to have fun and always remember that your viewers are relying on you to show them what you've done. That sounds so simple, but an astonishing amount of fanworks expect us to know exactly what their creators are thinking. Try not to be like this:

EPISODE 1
Here is the beginning of the fortress. This is the dining room.
END

EPISODE 2
Check out Udil, he got lost with Hammergirder and with this adorable kitten. Ha! And now, check out the new glass table at the top of the observatory!
END

This is more prevalent in fanfics, but there is nothing more irritating than feeling like you've missed an episode and have been left behind because a key detail was inadvertently edited out.

[Nostril actor]

Really your fort sounds exciting enough that I would watch either version, however if you want it to be accessible and a good learning tool, the 15-30 min range is probably wise.

[TheZoomZoll]

What would I like to see?
Amusing stuff and possibly viewer interaction.



Nothing matches up to a (naked) armless dwarf child going berserk attacking swordsmen.