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[Nihilich]

For those that haven't played it, 23a is the version that Boatmurdered was played in.

To me, personally, I think i prefer 23a. Modern DF has a lot of graphics, but it also has a lot of bloat ... and deprecated systems. 23a at least feels like a cohesively designed game, and most of all, I think it best captures the "fantasy" element of DF through its entirely unsurpassed use of scripted events and flavor elements - things like bodyguards following the tax collector, the king's mandates to dig farther into the mountain, the popups about seasonal flooding - migrants arriving with your first anvil, pouring magma into the chasm, frogmen spawning from wells - the notice of "the cries of the fortress you abandoned are no longer able to be heard" when you scroll too far off screen - i even think useless nobles were a good game element. it added a lot to the RP. I understand why the economy had to be removed, but all the same I liked it and the useless dungeon master as well.

What do you think? Do you prefer this version to that old version?

[Telgin]

I started with 0.31.25 so I can't fairly answer, but I understand where you're coming from to an extent.  Plus, reading Boatmurdered is what got me into DF in the first place.

The older 2D versions seem like they probably were more cohesive and fit the concept of playing a challenging game until you inevitably lost, but I'm more drawn to sim games so I think I prefer the direction the game has gone even if it has arguably grown and changed significantly from the original vision of the game.

[Salmeuk]

you've inspired me.. think i might try streaming 23a. after all it was the version that seized my youthful imagination and forever attached me to this wonderful game

honestly, totally agree...

the river flooding is a completely forgotten mechanic that added so much danger to new players. farming is and has been a completely contained process since we lost the need for seasonal water management. you can see in old fortresses how players would create elaborate room setups to contain the water flow, and prevent dwarves from opening the door during said floods.

i forgot about migrants bringing anvils...

there is something to be said about how the animals had less fear of dwarves, or at least, large predators were truly aggressive. while the modern version interprets animals in a more or less naturalistic way (more afraid of us than we are of them), this has reduced that elephantine terror of realizing that cute little fox left the map, opening up a slot for a grizzly bear or elephant herd or whatever to run in an attack your woodcutters

anyways. its clear that 23a was never meant to be the full game, you know? The vision was always much much larger. you see this brilliant glimmer of genius in this early version kind of like a half-completed sketch by a great renaissance painter. incomplete but beautiful

in some ways the need for a mimetic representation of an earth-similar world is a detriment to the fantasy of it all. but the argument could also be made that this makes the appearance of a weredonkey all the more enthralling.

frogmen spawning from wells

exactly. it seems as though DF has walked away from these gameified elements, yet it somehow retains the alluring and legendary status as 'most difficult / complex / steep learning curve' game. despite so many of the actually dangerous or challenging features no longer existing

here is a curious thought experiment: what if 23a was given the 'premium' treatment? you know, updated graphics, new UI (with keyboard inputs this time...), bugs removed and maybe a few nice features like building walls and a balanced economy.

I think it would be radically successful

[mikekchar]

I could not play any version without the manager and workloads :-)  By far my favorite part of the game.

[Nopenope]

Basically all the 'gamey' elements have been plucked one by one "to be reintroduced in a later release" (that is, 15 years later) until one gets this kinda giant simulation thingy where most elements don't really do anything in actual, concrete gameplay terms. It's even reflected in the way development is done - 90% is invisible simulation stuff and 10% is spent making these effects visible in the game and even then it's only halfway done, as an afterthought.

[Nihilich]

Thanks for the thoughtful reply salmeuk, especially liked how you walked the fine line and managed not to criticize either of them, haha. I think you are mostly right and agree with you.

Look forward to your streaming. I'd play it myself, but as someone mentioned elsewhere, it kind of tends to crash, haha.

[Quietust]

If you do decide to stream the game, I'd recommend stopping over at my user page on the DF Wiki for a handful of binary patches to apply - there's at least one crash bug which can afflict long-running fortresses, but there are a handful of other annoying bugs I've managed to fix (and a few minor improvements).

If you're feeling especially adventurous, there's also a version of DFHack (forked from version 0.34-ish) which works with 23a and provides a bunch of interface improvements.

[Urist Mchateselves]

The terror and difficulty of the olden days will probably come back once the siege update and the myth and magic update roll in.

[Starver]

I never actually played 23a.

My account here was registered betwixt the (0.28...)39f and 40a releases, but not sure how long before this I actually started playing. It was a year and a half since 23a's time but 11 months since Z levels and everything else I cut my teeth on.

And, so saying, I rather liked many of the '40d' major release features. Some annoyances (e.g. the economy) I could happily continue to not have to trouble with. Other features (the hard-bottom to the world, while possibly having no chasms, underground rivers, spires, etc, depending upon embark footprint) I actually made good use of by digging out from the surface almost down to bedrock, which has progressed to habitually redefining the inter-cavern gaps to be larger (to give me enough uninterupted rock-column for my various dorfy purposes).

I've never really messed with minecarts, as an example of later additions. I tend to avoid/mitigate were-creature and necromancer issues as best I can. Other 'new' stuff I have embraced. Yet I have still not so far actually dabbled with the Steam Graphics version (I keep promising myself I will; and it's not for any philosophical objections, just "maybe later"ism with various other priorities/distractions getting in the way).


So, which do I prefer between 23a and v50.x? Dunno. My whole DF career technically spreads across almost the entire span between these two markers... And many a happy hour spent waiting upon a worldgen being completed perfecting and tuning my gameplay for the various latest versions I've had to get used to!

[Garfunkel]

I did play 23 a little bit but the vast majority of time has been on the later versions and currently I'm very happily sticking with the Premium .50 version. I do agree that 23 probably was the most "gamified" version of DF and I have to admit that I have tried to recreate at least the starting position, ie straight up cliff wall to dig into, with very little success sadly. But as others pointed out, there have been plenty of new features introduced since then and I much prefer the vast simness and near endless possibilities of construction in the modern DF over the 'solve a puzzle to win until you miss one thing and die' style of the old.