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[NW_Kohaku]

I never really played Adventure Mode very much before 0.34.05.  I only gave it a few spins just to see how the whole system worked, but never really did much with it.

To be honest, it rather bored me, as the only thing you could really do was run around and look for things to kill.  Killing things didn't really advance much of a point, so it was basically like any other RPG that involved a grind (with an interface that was basically NetHack minus the whole point of NetHack) without much that made it fun.

Now, with 0.34.05, I had a huge city to explore, so I went out exploring every nook and cranny... and about 9 new bug reports later, I think I've explored everything. 

That's not to say that I've done everything - I still haven't fought a mummy, for example, but I don't particularly feel the need to.  I found and fought against a vampire in a hamlet, but then felt regret.  I mean, the vampire bonecarver was kind of cool and definitely unique.  Now he's dead, and the hamlet is nothing more than random generic hamlet #21319 now.  Well, except for the 3000 human nail amulets lying around in that one house, it's random and generic. 

It's like the game is just a bunch of noise with only a few unique and rare creatures here and there to be different, and the player is the bulldozer of the vast zombie human hoard that goes and destroys the last remaining outliers of individuality to create the zombie utopia where everything is exactly the same.

Sure, I could go exploring, but there's nothing to see I haven't already functionally seen. 

I know there is a LOT left to do on Toady's end.  I can see reams of individual ideas bursting from the seams in the devlog, but none of them seem like they will ever make a compelling adventure on their own.  Sure, I will eventually be able to ride a horse, but why should I care?  Sure, I'll eventually be able to make my own farm, but why would I want to?

The only things that I would want out of a game like this are the ability to really explore and understand the world, and at the glacial pace this game is advancing, it's really not that hard for me to strip down and analyze every aspect of the game going in far faster than they get added.  The other aspect, which keeps me in Fortress Mode, is that I get a greater sense of "ownership" over my creations.  I can build my own story, my own forts, use my own architecture (yay for fractal fortress layouts), and feel like it's "my fort" in a way that the fort has personal meaning to me.  I can't really do that for Whathisbutt McAdventurer #314. 

Sure, I can build my own farm and have neighbors that maybe I'll be able to raise relationship values for, but even then, I doubt they could even reach Harvest Moon levels of being unique characters that I could at least start trying to pretend I care about, and it doesn't really seem like my story in the way that I can build a fortress's story.

So, (and sorry to go on and on about my own reaction) people who have been playing adventure mode for a long, long time, why do you keep playing?

What is it you play for, and what satisfaction do you get when you play?  What goals do you set for yourself, and how do you keep interested?  Why do you play Dwarf Fortress, specifically, and what do you get out of this game (in its Adventure Mode) that you don't get in a game like NetHack or any of the other millions of RPGs out on the market?

[LoneTophat]

I never really played Adventure Mode very much before 0.34.05.  I only gave it a few spins just to see how the whole system worked, but never really did much with it.

To be honest, it rather bored me, as the only thing you could really do was run around and look for things to kill.  Killing things didn't really advance much of a point, so it was basically like any other RPG that involved a grind (with an interface that was basically NetHack minus the whole point of NetHack) without much that made it fun.

Now, with 0.34.05, I had a huge city to explore, so I went out exploring every nook and cranny... and about 9 new bug reports later, I think I've explored everything. 

That's not to say that I've done everything - I still haven't fought a mummy, for example, but I don't particularly feel the need to.  I found and fought against a vampire in a hamlet, but then felt regret.  I mean, the vampire bonecarver was kind of cool and definitely unique.  Now he's dead, and the hamlet is nothing more than random generic hamlet #21319 now.  Well, except for the 3000 human nail amulets lying around in that one house, it's random and generic. 

It's like the game is just a bunch of noise with only a few unique and rare creatures here and there to be different, and the player is the bulldozer of the vast zombie human hoard that goes and destroys the last remaining outliers of individuality to create the zombie utopia where everything is exactly the same.

Sure, I could go exploring, but there's nothing to see I haven't already functionally seen. 

I know there is a LOT left to do on Toady's end.  I can see reams of individual ideas bursting from the seams in the devlog, but none of them seem like they will ever make a compelling adventure on their own.  Sure, I will eventually be able to ride a horse, but why should I care?  Sure, I'll eventually be able to make my own farm, but why would I want to?

The only things that I would want out of a game like this are the ability to really explore and understand the world, and at the glacial pace this game is advancing, it's really not that hard for me to strip down and analyze every aspect of the game going in far faster than they get added.  The other aspect, which keeps me in Fortress Mode, is that I get a greater sense of "ownership" over my creations.  I can build my own story, my own forts, use my own architecture (yay for fractal fortress layouts), and feel like it's "my fort" in a way that the fort has personal meaning to me.  I can't really do that for Whathisbutt McAdventurer #314. 

Sure, I can build my own farm and have neighbors that maybe I'll be able to raise relationship values for, but even then, I doubt they could even reach Harvest Moon levels of being unique characters that I could at least start trying to pretend I care about, and it doesn't really seem like my story in the way that I can build a fortress's story.

So, (and sorry to go on and on about my own reaction) people who have been playing adventure mode for a long, long time, why do you keep playing?

What is it you play for, and what satisfaction do you get when you play?  What goals do you set for yourself, and how do you keep interested?  Why do you play Dwarf Fortress, specifically, and what do you get out of this game (in its Adventure Mode) that you don't get in a game like NetHack or any of the other millions of RPGs out on the market?

No other game has such a randomized environment that is different every time. Same with history, enemies, and civilizations. I never lose my sense of curiosity when I explore. Then there's you truly unique combat system that hasn't been replicated in any big name game in existence. It's unique.

The main reason why I personally tire of Adventure Mode is because I can't explore Elven Retreats, Dark Fortresses, or Mountainhomes.

[Flying Dice]

Cocaine. Boredom + it is something that doesn't proceed in realtime, so I can play during the boring/irrelevant/tangental parts of lectures and alt-tab back to my notes without pausing.

[NW_Kohaku]

No other game has such a randomized environment that is different every time. Same with history, enemies, and civilizations. I never lose my sense of curiosity when I explore. Then there's you truly unique combat system that hasn't been replicated in any big name game in existence. It's unique.

The main reason why I personally tire of Adventure Mode is because I can't explore Elven Retreats, Dark Fortresses, or Mountainhomes.

Agh! It was tl;dr the first time, don't quote it!

At least the other procedural city types will be there eventually... and I really hope we'll see some sort of way in which we can raw-modify the layout of cities.  (I put together a suggestion thread somewhere on how to raw-create landmarks and housing and share them through mods.)

Still, I keep remembering how I played The Sims - I would do things like use a program that let me create custom art pieces, download images of real-life iconic artworks, set up an art collector family, and decorate their house like it was an art museum, and then never bother to run the actual "life" of the people there, because the stupid "game" portion of the game was never as interesting to me as the crafting of the "dollhouse". 

If you can find the randomly generated worlds to be exciting, well, I guess it's more power to you, but I just can't seem to find it as fun to explore when I know in my heart that every place I go is going to be the exact same map as I've seen a hundred times before.  It was part of the idea I wanted to have about "landmarks" that could be unique that would make the game seem more special when you actually found some things that really did stand out, and weren't just randomly generated grey goop.

Cocaine. Boredom + it is something that doesn't proceed in realtime, so I can play during the boring/irrelevant/tangental parts of lectures and alt-tab back to my notes without pausing.

That's actually one of my main reasons for game boy advance RPGs...

In fact, I played Etrian Odyssey in the time while waiting for Puzzle Pirates to have a new bandit ship appear while I was doing the major long-haul voyages. 

Still, I have to ask... what are you building up to?  What goals do you set?  Is there something you are trying to achieve when you play?

[Lexyvil]

I like roleplaying with this mode, and the combat (Shift+a) is addicting. Having the choice to cut off your opponent's  tail, or slash off their arms has never been so epic. Adventure Mode also gives great ideas for storytelling, just as much as Fortress Mode.

The addition of campfires makes it more realistic with how you need to melt Ice or Snow to drink water during winter. Despite the lack of variety in quests, such as "Go Kill X", I can only hope for more things to do, like let's say a treasure hunting type of quests or NPC escorting missions. That would make Adventuring more fun~

The new Vampirsm feature is nice too.

[Absentia]

I don't do a ton of adventure mode, but when I do it's for the simple joy of performing some impromptu dentistry on the goblin I'm strangling to death.

[NW_Kohaku]

Ah, I dug up the old thread - http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=63054.0

You'll have to blow off the dust a little. 

I still would prefer the notion of having a more regimented layout for the inside of a house rather than having random furniture thrown around at random, and occasionally having the chest in a store "overwrite" a normal piece of furniture.

The addition of campfires makes it more realistic with how you need to melt Ice or Snow to drink water during winter. Despite the lack of variety in quests, such as "Go Kill X", I can only hope for more things to do, like let's say a treasure hunting type of quests or NPC escorting missions. That would make Adventuring more fun~

The thing is, if you play games like Mount and Blade, they give you a wide, wide variety of things to do... but at the same time, there's really only one thing that you can really say is your overarching goal, and that is to personally kick so much ass that you can carve out your own personal kingdom and conquer the whole map.

Sure, you can be a trader, or a bandit-hunter, or a mercenary, but nothing in the game feels like you're actually working your way up to something quite like "One day, I will be King/Queen!"

The adventurer roles seem like collections of good ideas, but without some sort of overarching goal to aspire to, they only seem like individual ideas with no particular narrative attached to them.

When I went into the dungeon under a keep to fight some bandits, I found the bandit leader sitting in a giant pile of literally thousands of pieces of loot sitting in the second room, and lost my entire party (except for one guy who had to become a legendary kicker after losing both arms in this fight)  fighting him... and then found myself not really any further along in the game after having killed him off.  (Well, except for having all sorts of neat steel armor, now, since the whole point in hiring those guys was to get some steel shields and gauntlets, which I was still missing... suckers!)

Still, it feels like, once I have some armor, I've achieved the only real long-term goal I had for my character, aside from the grinding bits (set "throw dirt at wall" to repeat for 3000 loops, feed character and sleep, then repeat).

[Lexyvil]

Forgot to mention, Adventure Mode also supported me getting over the complexity of Fortress Mode, before knowing what the hell I was doing at the time. It helped getting used to the ASCII interface.

[Flying Dice]

Cocaine. Boredom + it is something that doesn't proceed in realtime, so I can play during the boring/irrelevant/tangental parts of lectures and alt-tab back to my notes without pausing.

That's actually one of my main reasons for game boy advance RPGs...

In fact, I played Etrian Odyssey in the time while waiting for Puzzle Pirates to have a new bandit ship appear while I was doing the major long-haul voyages. 

Still, I have to ask... what are you building up to?  What goals do you set?  Is there something you are trying to achieve when you play?

Honestly, it depends. Sometimes I try to do the traditional 'hero' thing and kill everything that isn't sentient and nonevil. Sometimes I do wilderness survival, where I don't take anything from towns or forts. Sometimes I go for the ultimate goal of omnicide and a massive kill list. Sometimes I jump into the underground and survive for as long as I can.

[Captain Crazy]

I see where OP is coming from, even though Adventure is my favorite mode. I play adventure mode because I make an impact in the history of the world. Eg. I killed the cyclops by hucking dingo teeth at it until it exploded (er, over dramatization), or I murdered Sir Bucketspit the Elder Swingset the Slime monkey brute with a particularly dense section of garden hose.

I wish cities were less boring, yes. I'd love to see house have actual rooms (sitting room, bedrooms) and for less citizens to be crammed into a little house. I'd like to see woodworkers able to sell their crafts without being a merchant, and have workers own housing that reflects their profession (i.e metalsmith has a workshop w/ anvil and furnace, woodworker has a carpenter's workshop, soldier has a training dummy). I'd love to see each civ have a distinct site style, and explorable mountainhomes and tree-sanctuaries and goblin murdercastles.

It would be neat for other random encounters, too. Traveling merchants with rare goods, or roving bands of evil slavers to kill. Mounts would be cool, too.

[Lexyvil]

Aaaah. The Potential of this mode amazes me.                    <~~ Why I prefer that mode over Fortress.

[nenjin]

For me it's the narrative and the fact some of that narrative evolves as you play. In my last world, one of my adventurers died in the dungeon. Much later, on a newer, better adventure, the killer bandit came out of the dungeon and started "terrorizing the city" so I had to hunt him down. That's pretty cool. It'll be even cooler when I really leave my mark on the world, and turn a thriving city into a ghost town, or something.

I'm currently building a fortress in my new world, to serve as the base of operations for all future adventurers. And rather than trying to do it all on one character, I'll break each one up into different things, like a knight, a vampire, a were-something, a necro, a husk. Maybe I'll retire them somewhere and recruit them into a fortress later.

Having not been a big adventure fan until now, I feel like I can finally get deep into it and do all the things I've read about others doing. That'll kill 6 months, at least, until we get civ cities back, and medical treatment.

[NW_Kohaku]

I wish cities were less boring, yes. I'd love to see house have actual rooms (sitting room, bedrooms) and for less citizens to be crammed into a little house. I'd like to see woodworkers able to sell their crafts without being a merchant, and have workers own housing that reflects their profession (i.e metalsmith has a workshop w/ anvil and furnace, woodworker has a carpenter's workshop, soldier has a training dummy). I'd love to see each civ have a distinct site style, and explorable mountainhomes and tree-sanctuaries and goblin murdercastles.

It would be neat for other random encounters, too. Traveling merchants with rare goods, or roving bands of evil slavers to kill. Mounts would be cool, too.

Aaaah. The Potential of this mode amazes me.                    <~~ Why I prefer that mode over Fortress.

Yeah, I can get excited over some of the things in the devlog, certainly.  The thing is, I'm not sure I will be able to stay excited when I actually get them.

I mean, consider the bees in fortress mode.  There are a few people who were really looking forward to those bees, but when people actually got them, especially after about a month of work on Toady's part, there were several angry threads about how much time he spent on bees. 

I'd like to believe that the game will one day hit a point where I can basically just start up a random conversation with a random peasant at the market buying fruit, follow him/her home,  watch them cut it up and make dinner for their children, see the husband/wife come home from working at the quarry, starting up some conversations, and building a lifelong friendship where I can track how tall the eldest children have become over the years, and have different relationships with characters of different personalities that actually have serious meaningfulness, and aren't just cookie-cutter pre-generated responses.  I want to have some sort of totally procedural Harvest Moon or Sims experience in between NetHack experiences in between Romance of the Three Kingdoms experiences where I can just set up a homestead, eventually attract other characters to live nearby, and eventually have a spouse and children and neighbors with a specific relationship to my character or decide to found my own kingdom.

I just can't get myself to believe that day will ever come.

Every time we get something, the procedural nature just spits out more indistinguishable gray goop that seems to have no direction or meaning other than to generate more data.

(MAN, I'm being a serious downer...)

[Lexyvil]

Yeah, I can get excited over some of the things in the devlog, certainly.  The thing is, I'm not sure I will be able to stay excited when I actually get them.

I mean, consider the bees in fortress mode.  There are a few people who were really looking forward to those bees, but when people actually got them, especially after about a month of work on Toady's part, there were several angry threads.

Sadly there are still bugs on the Bee matter. My beekeeping dwarves just endlessly stays idle in the outskirts until I cancel their task of gathering bees.

[Deadly Lamarr]

I'd like to believe that the game will one day hit a point where I can basically just start up a random conversation with a random peasant at the market buying fruit, follow him/her home,  watch them cut it up and make dinner for their children, see the husband/wife come home from working at the quarry, starting up some conversations, and building a lifelong friendship where I can track how tall the eldest children have become over the years, and have different relationships with characters of different personalities that actually have serious meaningfulness, and aren't just cookie-cutter pre-generated responses.  I want to have some sort of totally procedural Harvest Moon or Sims experience in between NetHack experiences in between Romance of the Three Kingdoms experiences where I can just set up a homestead, eventually attract other characters to live nearby, and eventually have a spouse and children and neighbors with a specific relationship to my character or decide to found my own kingdom.

I just can't get myself to believe that day will ever come.

Every time we get something, the procedural nature just spits out more indistinguishable gray goop that seems to have no direction or meaning other than to generate more data.

(MAN, I'm being a serious downer...)

I would love it if Adventure Mode became a fraction of what you would like for it to become. I would be pleased even with distinctly imperfect simulationism, provided my imagination could fill in the gaps. Just finding ways to integrate Adventure Mode and Fort Mode would be exciting; I think rumrusher's done some stuff which could be considered proof-of-concept with DFHack. Pretty definitely it'll be years before Adventure Mode becomes really impressive, but I've got hope it'll be worth the wait.

In the meantime, I keep coming back for essentially the same reason as nenjin. It's a chance to directly interact with the various worlds: more directly, at least. There's a lot of appeal in the stories people construct, and I like giving meaning to what I have my characters do with my own stories. Though honestly, I've probably spent more time reading other people's stories than generating my own. I do get bored eventually, but I will keep coming back when the mood takes me (or new features are added).

Hey, as long as Toady's working on it, there will be reasons for me to come back.