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[Hyperion2010]

I think that a lot of the current and future complexity will be reduced once a more robust interface is implemented which will cut out bunches of the useless information we currently have to interface with.  Its sorta like our brains.  The same level of complexity can still be there (and heck maybe even be accessible if so desired) but the interactions with that complexity can be made much simpler and more powerful.  The fact that you can pause means that, in theory, you could go over every sub menu and check the status of things etc.  The current interface makes the VERY hard to do, thus leading to a player forgetting what he was originally going to tweak or check on.  With a more robust interface these things would take much less time (I'm thinking robust like supreme command is for and RTS interface) and be more powerful to boot.

EDIT: this of course must wait until Toady has finished the underlying subsystems to the point where a new interface will be usable for the rest of development, and that, as far as we know, is quite a ways away (though he is improving certain things on the fly when they cause errors which suggests that it is mostly data manipulation and hence something best done at a later date anyway).

[ October 23, 2007: Message edited by: Hyperion2010 ]

[Aargh]

A lot of valid points have been raised and I haven't got anything to add at this moment, but I would want to clarify that I was NOT advocating to 'dumb down' the game. As I said in the first post, I too am eagerly awaiting the next version. And as said before I do believe the new version will be great for most players here, who already have a firm grasp of the game's workings.

What I meant to do was simply start a discussion on the topic of complexity and, as the thread title says, on how much is too much when it comes to future features and the threat of featuritis.

I think the most important point raised several times is one I failed to consider at first, but totally agree with; if the interface evolves at a pace that is in line with the game's complexity, doesn't need to be any problem.

In response to Mechanoid: In a way complexity DOES add to difficulty. Perhaps not for the people who understand the way the game works, but certainly so for new players, especially if the complexity grows faster than the methods of handling that complexity. If you have a dozen easy tasks to do, they might not be so easy when you have to do them all at once, especially if some of those tasks spell certain doom if you do them wrong. For an experienced player it's easy to keep a lot of plans in the back of your head about what you need to do and when, but to a new player it only adds to the confusion. As said before, that isn't so much of a problem when the method of handling that complexity is adequate, so when the interface gets properly revamped the new features will be easier to deal with, but added complexity without proper means to control that complexity DOES increase difficulty. Also a point of advice: Unneccesary CAPS LOCK usage, swearing and 'tl;dr' tags don't exactly make you look intelligent...

[Faces of Mu]

I agree with Aargh, there's been a lot of good comments posted here. I would like to add that my tolerance is pretty high. I spent time reading the Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights manuals for that sake of the game, same going for Elder Scrolls II and III and many others.

I wonder if the type of person who'd like DF is the type of person who'd be willing to read a big manual or refer to it a lot. I would expect a low relationship between liking DF and liking Motocross Rally and whatever. I'm not trying to make judgements about people, just wondering about how it is we DO persist with such a complex-to-play and challenging-to-learn game such as DF?

[Fishersalwaysdie]

As for me I usually read the manual from boredom, rarely to find out how things work.
It's more interesting when you find it out yourself.

[Turgid Bolk]

My first fort actually wasn't too bad, because I read the wiki. I used the "Surviving your first winter" guide, and was able to avoid many early mistakes. (And lemme just rant: the screenshots on the site are horribly misleading. They're examples of really poor fortress design...Toady should warn people!)

I think if Toady made the link to the wiki a little more prominent, fewer people would get frustrated and leave. It's kind of the surrogate tutorial (albeit spoily in places). As long as I have the wiki (and you folks on the forum), no feature is too complex for me.

[Sowelu]

I don't consider the wiki to be a spoiler for my purposes.  I happily dig around in the source code whenever I'm playing an open-source Roguelike.  Half an hour spent on one challenge is usually my tipping point for "go to GameFAQs".

If it wasn't for the wiki and forums, I probably wouldn't have bothered for long.  Guides are very important for helping people get into the game.  "Being short on documentation" is not a challenge that I enjoy, unless it's a cooperative challenge (ie, rebuilding the wiki for the new version will be fun!)

Complexity is empowering.  I like complexity.  It's fun to play with for its own sake...once you know the rules.  But figuring out the rules is a game that not everyone enjoys.

[elipsis]

I don't think the new version is too much, far from it actually. I'd LOVE a more complex option-laden game.  I do think that a tutorial or strong guide that teaches a new player how to make a sustainable fortress will be good. The wiki helped me with that (along with questioning experienced players). but I certainly do not want any dumbing down of the game at all, I've wanted a complex game like this for a damn long time and I'd love it to continue to have more options as it continues to develop.

[Solara]

I agree that the next release will probably be pretty difficult for new players to get into (and 'pretty difficult' is probably an understatement) but don't forget that we've already got an excellent tutorial in the form of the current version.

And okay, that may be a little daunting in and of itself, but further down the line I imagine the new DF with all of its possibilities will be even easier to get the hang of than the one we're playing now, once Toady gets to the point where he can really focus on the interface.

I think DF will always have a steep learning curve, only I don't really see a problem with that. DF is basically in a genre of its own - people either like micromanaging a fortress full of tiny insane dwarves on an unstoppable march to destruction or they don't. If they do like it, chances are they'll be patient enough to learn the basics and realize that the amazing complexity and the line of flooded, burning, bloody fortresses they leave in their wake as they try to figure out the advanced stuff is a big part of the appeal, and if they don't like it, simplifying things and cutting down the player's choices won't change the basic concept. In the end these players still won't be happy and the people who liked it the way it was will be unhappy too. (And that's not even touching on the way the guy who's, you know, actually making the game would feel...)

[Fedor]

One thing that's got me worried about the new version is speed.  New features usually means more CPU load.

My computer's not the hottest thing anymore, but it IS a 2.2 GHz pentium 4 with a gig of ram, running WinXP with bells and whistles stripped out.  This setup is just barely capable of running a 170-dwarf fort, and that's with temperature and weather off, no non-pet animals outside a cage, and care taken not to ask for too much detailing at once.

It's not going to take very much more load to reduce me to a second-class fortress-builder, limited to small projects only...  

[gimli]

I agree with the OP, however I think that this whole "problem" can be linked to the horrible ASCII based "graphics design" and the very bad interface. If those would be improved [for example players could make proper tilesets, if there would be support for it], it would be more simple to play a more comlex game even.
Right now with this ASCII mess, new players are basically scared away, and since the new version will be even more complex.....I doubt that DF will have too much new players.

[ October 27, 2007: Message edited by: gimli ]

[greatleapforward]

Dwarf Fortress follows a roguelike design philosophy, so anything other than ASCII just wouldn't be right. It's not about being pretty, it's about fitting a certain style. If other people want to mod in tiles then that’s nothing to do with me, but I’d strongly dislike Toady to spend 10 seconds on graphics that he could have spent on deepening the world. Nobody who's short-sighted enough to be scared off by ASCII would enjoy Dwarf Fortress anyway.

[gimli]

quote:Originally posted by greatleapforward:
<STRONG>Dwarf Fortress follows a roguelike design philosophy, so anything other than ASCII just wouldn't be right. It's not about being pretty, it's about fitting a certain style. If other people want to mod in tiles then that’s nothing to do with me, but I’d strongly dislike Toady to spend 10 seconds on graphics that he could have spent on deepening the world. Nobody who's short-sighted enough to be scared off by ASCII would enjoy Dwarf Fortress anyway.</STRONG>

You are very subjective. Toady dont have to do any graphics, just give the users the ability to mod all parts of the game graphically.

[Zemat]

quote:Originally posted by Faces of Mu:
<STRONG>I wonder if the type of person who'd like DF is the type of person who'd be willing to read a big manual or refer to it a lot.</STRONG>

I hate big manuals. I never read anything except when it's a huge necessity. I try to learn everything by trial and error and I love figuring out things by myself. I do touch textbooks or manuals only for the basic things that get you started or when I hit a big stump. That said, the DF wiki is somewhat of a necessity. Otherwise I would have never figured out how to build farmlands. I started creating them on the outside using channels believing I could farm inside them (they look more like real farmlands). But the new version makes everything more intuitive it seems.

 

quote:Originally posted by greatleapforward:
<STRONG>Dwarf Fortress follows a roguelike design philosophy, so anything other than ASCII just wouldn't be right. It's not about being pretty, it's about fitting a certain style.</STRONG>

That's not true. Roguelikes don't need ASCII graphics to be roguelike or fit the "style". Even nethack has addons to give it 3d graphics and they doesn't detract from gameplay or enjoyability. I actually play nethack with tile based graphics. The reason most roguelikes start out with ASCII graphics it's because they don't focus on graphics, but gameplay. And elaborate graphics slowdown game development and could even hinder playability. But once the playability is there, there's no point in preventing the game from looking good.

In fact, I argue that the ASCII graphics do hinder the gameplay capabilities of a roguelike in some regards (and DF is the prime example) because it puts a severe limit on movement and the space occupied by objects. Right know there's a big discussion in how to represent changes in altitude in DF and a lot of people want rock walls to be less think than a cell. Also there's the problem that theres a very low limit on how many things you can represent with ASCII and colors. You reach a point were the player is forced to 'look' with the cursor over objects to distinguish them. When you have to do that often then it detracts from gameplay. Those are some reasons why the roguelike I'm currently working on is tilebased from the get go.

[ October 27, 2007: Message edited by: Zemat ]

[greatleapforward]

I don’t think Nethack is a good comparison, seeing as it’s open source. Toady has a limited amount of time and implementing 3rd party tile sets would, from what I gather, involve a significant amount of work. Functionality over form is the aesthetic that drives roguelikes, in opposition to pretty much every other genre, and the further away from that a roguelike gets the less coherent it becomes. I know about the discussions of how to convey Z-axis information, and that is a sensible reason for moving away from pure ASCII because it directly affects playability.  However, I can’t envisage tile set graphics that fit Dwarf Fortress’s incredible detail or its black-comedy grimness.

[Turgid Bolk]

Tilesets are already implemented for many things, in fact DF uses tiles to display it's ASCII characters. Many user-made tilesets are available already at the wiki: http://www.dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Tilesets

The next feature that many want is individual tiles for each distinct item (currently tiles are used for many things, for instance bins and floodgates both use X). That would take some work. But currently many people prefer custom tilesets instead of the ASCII symbols.