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[Deathworks]

Hi!

I am with the ASCII crowd, but I do not mind if others play the game with graphics tiles, sprites, 3D polygons, or whatever, as long as there is still an option to have (fake) ASCII. I have seen a few tilesets, and I always found them to be more confusing than anything else. Besides, with just the letters there on the screen, I am forced to use my imagination to see that herd of elephants my newbie adventurer should probably leave alone. And I don't mind 'l'ooking at things in adventure mode, since there are the detailed descriptions that tell me the general looks of the creature, whether it is fat or slim, which hair color, eye color and whatnot it has.

Actually, I got so used to the old ASCII version, that I have a stretched version of the standard tileset (height doubled), which I always use as the latest versions do not seem to stretch the tiles anymore. I tried to play with square tiles, but it simply seemed wrong to me. But once I got my stretched tiles again, I felt at home.

In the end, humans are weird critters, and just as what we do in DF differs a lot, I guess the way we want to have it presented also differs - so no need for fighting :) :) :) :)

Yours,
Deathworks

[DarkWolfXV]

ASCII is best. Tilesets and stuff are stupid for me and seem wrong way to play game. Toady gave us ASCII, we should play it that way.

[Sus]

While there are some pretty neat tilesets out there, I think I still prefer the (not-)ASCII. After all, it's the reference implementation (almost) everybody is familiar with and pretty easy to interpret with some practice. Some tilesets have monsters that are just as unidentifiable as the mysterious g or, even worse, look like terrain, and some have a bit too "chibi" feel to them.

[RedKing]

It's kind of odd...in the pre-tileset days, I played in ASCII but always turned off the "grass texture" (commas and apostrophes) so that everything was periods, because it was too visually confusing.

Then I got into using the Dystopian Rhetoric tileset for quite some time. After the 2010 release, I couldn't be bothered to set up a tileset again, and just starting playing with native ASCII again. Now I use ASCII exclusively, and don't even turn off the grass.

I don't even use visualizers like Stonesense, although I probably should at least take a look just after embark, so I can plan my fort better to account for terrain.

[NW_Kohaku]

It's kind of odd...in the pre-tileset days, I played in ASCII but always turned off the "grass texture" (commas and apostrophes) so that everything was periods, because it was too visually confusing.

Yeah, part of my problem is that the ASCII/437 stuff is too visually confusing, when you have a g or a l, or even something like the ⌠ or ♣ amidst all the .',"⌠'l⌠.♣',

If you were just sweeping your eyes over it while scrolling along, could you find Waldo the masked lovebird man?

Visual aesthetics aside, at least you can tell a graphic tile is different from its neighbors at a glance.

It's like everyone assumes the only options for graphical tilesets are Phoebus and Ironhand, but really, you can make graphical tilesets that are still as abstract as the original code 437, but cleaner and more visually distinct.

[dizzyelk]

I have been playing with the faux-ASCII default interface for years now.  I'm so used to it I can't tell what I'm looking at when someone shows me a screenshot taken with a graphical tileset.

Ha! Me, too. I'll have to stare at the screen for a while to figure it out. I especially hate it when its someone posting how to do something that I want to do.

[Vanaheimer]

So instead of a quick glance telling me "Oh turds my brewer is right next to that snake man and about to die" I have to sit there and wait for all of that to click. It's a small delay, but a few seconds is life and not all dwarves are expendable.

That's your problem with not being able to deal with ASCII/not knowing ASCII then, not a general problem with ASCII.

No, it actually *is* an issue with the ACSII. It isn't capable of giving me the information I need at a quick glance. Even you, an ASCII fan, could not tell me with just a glance at a character what it is.

My tileset can.

[Deathworks]

Hi!

While I still consider the ASCII vs. graphics issue one of preference and personal taste, I want to point out to you, Vanaheimer, that your example seems rather unlikely:

1. Dwarves usually flee from visible potential hostiles
2. This will create an announcement mentioning the hostile
3. That announcement can be used to center the map on the approximate location of the hostile.
4. Since when were you able to respond to anything in real time in dwarf mode? As far as I know, you designate areas, tell them to build things and maybe give them military orders - but things only happen when and if the dwarves decide to actually do them. So, a dwarf next to a hostile is dead meat no matter what you do.

Anyhow, this is an endless debate that has been done before. Each side has proponents who really love their way of doing things, meaning that both ways of playing the game are possible and usable, depending on your personality etc. So, I really suggest to go for a live-and-let-live attitude rather than an endless mine-is-better-than-yours-on-an-absolute-scale.

Yours,
Deathworks

[Slackratchet]

I play with the default graphics. I found its just easier to get to know what it comes with and use that instead of upgrading every new version and waiting for a the graphic set I was using to update.

[Tarran]

No, it actually *is* an issue with the ACSII. It isn't capable of giving me the information I need at a quick glance. Even you, an ASCII fan, could not tell me with just a glance at a character what it is.

Perhaps because you didn't place the location of the character in question.

Besides, that's completely unrelated to what you said. You said that you had to pause for a few seconds to realize your dwarves are in danger. That's unrelated to knowing what profession the darn dwarf is or what kind of creature the s is.

My tileset can.

I detect favoritism.

[Chagen46]

As for the "Not enough ASCII" problem, I still say that Toady should look at the International Phonetic Alphabet and uses some of its letters for tiles. He already does use a few, like /ç/

/ɥ β ʌ ɯ ɛ ɟ ŋ ɲ ʃ ʒ ɕ ʑ ʎ ø ɜ ɾ ɫ ɐ ɤ/

Boom, those could probably be useful for something.

[dizzyelk]

As for the "Not enough ASCII" problem, I still say that Toady should look at the International Phonetic Alphabet and uses some of its letters for tiles. He already does use a few, like /ç/

/ɥ β ʌ ɯ ɛ ɟ ŋ ɲ ʃ ʒ ɕ ʑ ʎ ø ɜ ɾ ɫ ɐ ɤ/

Boom, those could probably be useful for something.

some of those are already used, I see some leather and some thread

[NW_Kohaku]

Clearly Toady needs unicode.  Let's see some arabic or those crazy complicated Chinese hanzi characters.

We'll basically never run out of unique characters to use for creatures, then.

[Deathworks]

Hi!

Clearly Toady needs unicode.  Let's see some arabic or those crazy complicated Chinese hanzi characters.

We'll basically never run out of unique characters to use for creatures, then.

Mmmhhhh,
猫猫猫猫猫猫
looking good :) :) :) :) :)

Yours,
Deathworks

[NW_Kohaku]

猫猫猫猫猫猫
looking good

Clearly, this represents six side-by-side wheelbarrows, as indicated by the right half of the icon.  The left half indicates they are carrying babies with hats in these wheelbarrows.

Presumably, they are lining up to dump them into the baby furnaces.