That proves to me that it's not so much people complaining about the minutiae as it is people complaining that: "Things I want to see aren't being worked on and the minutiae is getting in the way of that."
I'm man enough to admit that this is true for me.
All the descriptive paragraphs and hair and fur color and all that stuff... I'll never see it. I can't remember the last time I looked at the description of a dwarf, or anything else. I just don't really care about it. I also have absolutely no interest in the wounds system. The exact character of how a dwarf is wounded is unlikely to interest me. I don't care if his arm is broken or his liver is lacerated or whatever; once you get more than a couple dozen dwarfs, that becomes a level of micro-management that I will never involve myself in. The dwarf will go sleep for twelve months or die or whatever and I'll never know why, or really care. I also don't really understand how any sane people who manages more than the starting seven dwarves could possibly involve themselves and be interested in the descriptions, wound details, etc. of every dwarf. (Obviously, I only play fortress mode. I never really got into adventurer mode, which is where I think a lot of this stuff is going to really shine. Heck, maybe if it becomes developed enough, I will eventually get intrigued by that mode.) Despite what I say above, I make absolutely no value judgments about what Toady has been working on, and I'm still very interested to see it. I think it will be very gratifying to many people, and I look forward to "my turn" with respect to the stuff that I enjoy about DF.
Okay, it's understandable that not everyone cares about some of the upcoming features...to be honest I never thought that I will see a post like this on the DF forum. You never check the description of the dwarves? You don't care about the injuries of your dwarves?..as I see basically you do not even care about the dwarves themselves... I suppose you are only looking at DF from a pure strategical perspective, correct? Little details are not so important to you.
So what is what you care about exactly? What upcoming features are important to you?
I take some mild interest in the first seven dwarves but, again, once you get dozens of dwarves there is absolutely no way I'm going to keep more than a small handful of them distinct in my mind. (On
other forums I've seen DF discussed, by the way, this is a fairly standard viewpoint. Or, at least, isn't treated as blasphemy.) I know that lots of people make special rooms for all of their dwarves, concentrating on what they like and don't like, but personally I don't find that
sort of micro-management very entertaining. The thing I find most enjoyable about DF is the tremendous amount of creativity it allows. I love devising death traps, new and more efficient obsidian farms, fountains, etc. I guess I'm just as confused as you are: you
do check the descriptions of all your dwarves? I mean, it was kind of cool once or twice or ten times, but "kind of cool" about sums it up for me. But that's another amazing thing about DF--entirely different people can still find entirely different things to love about it.
I am looking forward to changes to the military structure. As it stands I don't find sieges to be as fun as some players do, and honestly dealing with battles just sort of irritates me. I see this changing dramatically with improved handling of the military system.