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[Scoops Novel]

Idly dreaming about VR as you do, i began thinking about something on a similar time scale: Dwarf Fortress having good UI. This, surprisingly (a little, for ye new people such as myself), was a worrying thought. It's been widely agreed that one of the things that make Dwarf Fortress what it is, chiefly in it's community, is it's perilous barrier of entry. Without it, i worry what this forum, one of the best I've ever been glad to be a (newly-fledged) part of, would become. I am not averse to the forum growing, after all, I'm an recently escaped lunatic, but I'd rather not have its community turn into what many popular games do either. Thankfully, this is rather far down the line, but nevertheless what do you think would happen? And how to counter it?

 In my opinion, even with a better UI dwarf fortress would be an complex and difficult game to learn, but whether it would be enough so is a different question. A random thought that occurred to me was to turn up the realism dials to maximum, and as such deter large swathes of trolls who couldn't be bothered to think about it. I still doubt its effectiveness though. I welcome your musings.

[smakemupagus]

i actually like the main concept of the DF ui, where you type commands basically with syntax (verb, general noun, specific noun).  Sure, it needs refinement, yeah the military screen and the manager could improve.  But big picture, I wish I could interact with people so efficiently.

As for the other stuff, good games tend to have a good community   A lot of forum nastyness comes around when people have a sense of entitlement, whether they rightfully feel entitled because they paid a lot of money, or otherwise.

[i2amroy]

The year XXYY: DF has user friendly graphics.
The year XXYY+1: Civilization crumbles
The year XXYY+2: The sun goes supernova

Alternatively I figure that by the point that DF actually has a user friendly UI the game will be such an in-depth simulation that it will still be an incredibly complex task to learn how to play, or at least survive for any short amount of time. When you need to worry about torches for lighting your caves, the 12 different new randomized night creatures and how to find them all, along with the simple things like food, booze, and surviving against the wild beasts and ravenous hordes of undead, I think it will still weed out a significant portion of new players.

[GoombaGeek]

The game's difficulty is much worse than the UI. Really. The UI is pretty simple as soon as you work out the -/+ scrolling, but actually playing the game is hard. So I'm not worried about a bumrush of idiots who start regularly using these forums for some reason.

[DVNO]

If Dwarf Fortress became so smooth it became user friendly, TodayOne would com to the conclusion his game is no longer a tongue in cheek ironic homage to rougelikes. He would hit 'delete' on the source code, and start from scratch.

[Putnam]

The game's difficulty is much worse than the UI. Really. The UI is pretty simple as soon as you work out the -/+ scrolling, but actually playing the game is hard. So I'm not worried about a bumrush of idiots who start regularly using these forums for some reason.

The game itself is exceedingly easy once you overcome the hurdles of:

1. Farming (obtuse and no in-game documentation; once you learn, it's infinite free food)
2. Brewing (NEVER ENOUGH BARRELS/POTS)
3. Military (Horrible UI).

[misko27]

And the graphics. That turns off loads of people. And, by the time we reach this hypothetical "User-friendly" point, graphics will have advanced to the point where some players just hear that the graphics arent stunningly realistic, and will automatically stop.

[GoombaGeek]

And the graphics. That turns off loads of people. And, by the time we reach this hypothetical "User-friendly" point, graphics will have advanced to the point where some players just hear that the graphics arent stunningly realistic, and will automatically stop.

I love the ASCII graphics. They're responsible for turning me into a gaming recluse.

[Greendogo]

The graphics aren't so bad.  Really, what they are can be reduced to recognizable symbols.  In order to be "better" you then change these "symbols" to hand crafted works of art.

There are also things like dfhack and Stonesense, but for some reason, the logical next step of integrating game controls into Stonesense and feeding them back to the game through dfhack hasn't come to pass yet.  At that point, Stonesense'd DF would be very close to Gnomoria in terms of graphics.  The next logical step would be for the mighty men who make dfhack and stonesense to animate their tiles  based on the states and actions of their in game counter-parts.  And then perhaps Toady could ever so slightly pander to this userbase by giving objects orientations, so that we could say that Urist McCompass is heading due North now, but then he heads East, or that this staircase over here is pointing that-a-way.  Then the game truly is graphical.  The UI could probably already be done through Gt or Gtk+ and communicate to the game through DFhack.

[Meansdarling]

So..., in the far future the game is accessible. Lots of people play DF.

You want plans to keep the forums in nice condition when the hordes descend.

Probably best bet to keep people civil is more(and fair) moderators.
Also very clear rules of civility. (I think we have these?)

It always helps when there is already a forum culture like we have here.
It gives people something to conform to, or structure to build from.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

What will happen when Dwarf fortress becomes user friendly?

what happens to the hordes of useless migrants that come to your fort?

[misko27]

What will happen when Dwarf fortress becomes user friendly?

what happens to the hordes of useless migrants that come to your fort?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

!!!MAGMA!!!?

It still will never happen. The entire game would need to so fundamentally change it woulnd't even be DF.

[i2amroy]

And the graphics. That turns off loads of people. And, by the time we reach this hypothetical "User-friendly" point, graphics will have advanced to the point where some players just hear that the graphics arent stunningly realistic, and will automatically stop.

We already have people doing this now.

[misko27]

And the graphics. That turns off loads of people. And, by the time we reach this hypothetical "User-friendly" point, graphics will have advanced to the point where some players just hear that the graphics arent stunningly realistic, and will automatically stop.

We already have people doing this now.

My point exactly. In a few years, when graphics get even better, DF will seem even worse. Now, if we imagine a future where toady finally makes a good interface, it will be so graphically bad in comparison, the number whp can't get in due to UI will be completly offset by the graphics, And then some.

[reality.auditor]

User friendly DF? Not gonna happen. Hell will freeze first, etc.