I don't think that opinion is so much an unpopular anymore, but remember that it's kinda like building the exterior paneling of the car before you design and build the engine and systems. The surface means little without the substance beneath... and as the internal workings change, you probably have to change or even completely rebuild the exterior to accommodate. For a 1-man development team, this is a significant chunk of time being saved... and at this point ASCII has become more a design choice and a statement about game design than anything else.
agree and disagree. most of that is excuses at this point, its not impossible to have a graphic interface and still change the mechanics of the game as it grows. In fact, someone please explain how displaying ascii characters is any less restrictive that displaying graphics as far as game mechanics go?
For example, our latest update, how would a graphical engine restricted the adding of vampires and werewolves, etc? You need to display something either way, be it a ascii character or a graphic, whats the rel difference? The community is verygood at coming up with graphics as we already know.
Anyway, I think all these games such as goblin camp, towns, this one and the many others are more of a statement about Toady's poor UI and refusal to listen to his audience who has requested a graphical UI and even gone to AMAZING legths to represent their world in graphics such as Stonesense. These developers are saying, well if He wont do it, I will because obviously people want it. In a sense, Toady not delivering what many people ask for is kinda like a big middle finger, seeing as how he does also take money for his game.
*this time he really prepares for rotten fruits and vegetables to be slung at him*