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[Chagen46]

I've noticed that even seasoned players of this game will say "Yeah, the graphics suck, but it's good once you get used to it" or something like that. It's like the ASCII is looked upon as a blight upon an otherwise good game.

What gives, people? The ASCII is one of my favorite things about DF. There's just something so charming about the letters and and incredibly minimalist look of it all (and this is coming from a person who is a flat-out "Graphics whore", as some so uncouthly call us). I couldn't imagine DF without it. Hell, I couldn't imagine any roguelike without it. I never ever liked graphics sets (I think they look utterly stupid).

So is anyone else perfectly happy with the visual aspects of DF as it is now?

[Splint]

I am. I honestly have trouble with graphics/tilesets cause I'm zoomed so far out by that it quite frankly pisses me off. Not that I have anything against tilesets, they just.... Make my eyes bleed sometimes. Which is odd considering ASCII should be doing that, not sprites.

[Twiggie]

o/

never could get used to a tileset...

[i2amroy]

Always used ASCII through the learning process to the present day. Never bothered with a tile set and never really plan to.

[RedWick]

I also like ASCII, but I grew up playing rogue-likes, so I long ago got used to reading the characters.

[Cruxador]

You're not the only one who likes it, but it's a minority view.

[daftfad]

ASCII is much more efficient for interpreting tiles. Graphical tilesets are for nonserious roguelike players, which is fine, especially for a nonserious sandboxy game like DF.

[NW_Kohaku]

ASCII is much more efficient for interpreting tiles. Graphical tilesets are for nonserious roguelike players, which is fine, especially for a nonserious sandboxy game like DF.

Actually, false.

I played with ASCII up until there started to be so many more animals.  Now, you have a single letter, such as "s" representing dozens of completely different kinds of creatures, from satyrs to sharks to snakes to skunks, that having a picture is actually much more efficient at simply determining what a creature is.

You can tell not just what general "class" of job a creature has, but you can immediately identify specific jobs, as well, since your beekeepers will actually be in beekeeper outfits, rather than simply being a brown generic farmer-type unit.

Furthermore, you should check out what Stonesense has been experimenting with lately - they base their graphics off of memory-hacking and have a fully custom way of displaying information, so they are capable of now doing things like displaying what a dwarf is actually wearing with different .pngs, as well as coloring them based upon what dyes the clothing has. 

Hypothetically, they will also be able to display what tasks a dwarf is accomplishing or what dwarf status is through the same instant-recognition icons that ASCII is simply incapable of displaying. 

ASCII is a barrier to the amount of information that can be conveyed to the player in a single screen's worth of information, as there are only 256 possible uses of any given tile, and there are already fairly limited numbers of tiles on the screen already.

[Geb]

I used to really hate the default tiles back when they used to be rectangular. Ever since they became square by default, I've been happier with that than any tileset.

There are too many odd little cases where a sybol is used in more than one way, and a tileset only manages to fit the one most common use. Those annoy me more than the creature tiles can make up for.

[Scarpa]

ASCII is much more efficient for interpreting tiles. Graphical tilesets are for nonserious roguelike players, which is fine, especially for a nonserious sandboxy game like DF.

Actually, false.

I played with ASCII up until there started to be so many more animals.  Now, you have a single letter, such as "s" representing dozens of completely different kinds of creatures, from satyrs to sharks to snakes to skunks, that having a picture is actually much more efficient at simply determining what a creature is.

You can tell not just what general "class" of job a creature has, but you can immediately identify specific jobs, as well, since your beekeepers will actually be in beekeeper outfits, rather than simply being a brown generic farmer-type unit.

This is a nice idea in theory but it's still very difficult for me to discern the details on a sprite. Also, while there's a number of possible interpretations of a single character on screen, context often limits it to very few in actuality..

Besides all that I think it's a waste to use more than 16^2 pixels per tile. I like seeing more of my embark at once.

[Livonya]

I would have played with ASCII when I was younger with no problem.

But it causes too much eye strain now.

So I either play with tilesets or I can't really play at all.

The funny thing is that people sometimes act like those that like/use tilesets are "graphics whores" which is hysterical considering that people that want modern looking games wouldn't see a whole lot of difference between the ASCII and the tilesets.  It is almost a joke to call the tilesets graphics. 

People should play it however they want, of course.

I am just glad that tilesets are an option as I can't play for more than an hour in ASCII mode before my eyes start to hurt.

[wanzerm23]

ASCII is much more efficient for interpreting tiles. Graphical tilesets are for nonserious roguelike players, which is fine, especially for a nonserious sandboxy game like DF.

Actually, false.

I played with ASCII up until there started to be so many more animals.  Now, you have a single letter, such as "s" representing dozens of completely different kinds of creatures, from satyrs to sharks to snakes to skunks, that having a picture is actually much more efficient at simply determining what a creature is.

You can tell not just what general "class" of job a creature has, but you can immediately identify specific jobs, as well, since your beekeepers will actually be in beekeeper outfits, rather than simply being a brown generic farmer-type unit.

Furthermore, you should check out what Stonesense has been experimenting with lately - they base their graphics off of memory-hacking and have a fully custom way of displaying information, so they are capable of now doing things like displaying what a dwarf is actually wearing with different .pngs, as well as coloring them based upon what dyes the clothing has. 

Hypothetically, they will also be able to display what tasks a dwarf is accomplishing or what dwarf status is through the same instant-recognition icons that ASCII is simply incapable of displaying. 

ASCII is a barrier to the amount of information that can be conveyed to the player in a single screen's worth of information, as there are only 256 possible uses of any given tile, and there are already fairly limited numbers of tiles on the screen already.

Well said.  I play with both ASCII and a tile set (different computers) and I find I have to use the "k" command much less with a tile set.  It's really up to personal preference, and I don't feel handicapped when playing the ASCII, though.

[expwnent]

I use a tileset, but it's just square ASCII with a nicer font. I like the feel of it better than a tileset. Plus it gives me practice understanding other people's screenshots.

[superstepa]

I love acsii in roguelike games but I can't stand unicode in DF.
Its just too cluttered (many creatures share symbols) and non-standard ascii symbols are ugly

[zilpin]

What?!
Why in the world are you playing in ASCII ?  It's horrible!

The rest of us have the good sense to play in IBM Code Page 437 !

Burn the heretic!
Otherwise, someone may come and cram Latin-1 down your throat!

437 FOREVER ! 437 FOREVER ! 437 FOREVER !