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[Loud Whispers]

Nothing would have changed.

-It wouldn't have been done by Adams 1&2. Blam, different game.

[LordBaal]

Then a more valid question is, what if Dwarf Fortress where on the "base" of the industry, along with Pong, Pacman and Mario Bros for example.

[Dorftrottel]

Even when the 1987 computers were able to run the game, there's still something that might have killed df before it was even halfway born: The lack of internet.
No internet means no wiki, no forum, no beta-testing, no feedback, no bug reports. All these are, in my opinion, absolutely crucial for the success of dwarf fortress. Even the programming alone would have been much more difficult, when all you have is a printed book about c++ and hardly any access to code libraries.
Combine this factors with commercial interest and df might have suffered a fate much similar to Battlecruiser 3000 AD, a game that was, in its original vision, groundbreaking for the time of its initial development.
I don't want to compare the genius of toady with the questionable skills of Derek Smart, but i like to ask myself how Battlecruiser might have been if it had been developed under similar circumstances as df.

[Silicoid]

If dwarf fortress was started in 1987 it would probably be "finished" and Toady would be working on his next project: procedurally-generated internet .

[Finn]

Title.
If the game so complex came out in the golden age of gaming (*assuming that was the time*), would it have a greater impact on the gaming industry? (at this point it's a pun)

Let's just assume that PC from that era could run it somewhat reliably, k?

Games were more complicated back then (to the limits of the machines that ran them), that's why it was the golden age of computer gaming.  Civilization, Rail Road Tycoon, Sim City, Empire were all large, complex and challenging.

Games today suffer from economics or the "Hollywood Effect".  They are very expensive to produce, therefore they must be a hit, therefore they must stick to a popular formula.  Innovation is winnowed out.

[Phmcw]

Innovation is pretty good right now, just not in blockbusters (It never was). And DF use 100% of a modern computer processing power so your question is as relevant as "what if Crisis came out in 1987"?

[SquatchHammer]

I (for one not being alive then) would see it as the grandfather of the fantasy world games. The reason being that you create a whole world on you're whim and do what ever you like. Nothing like Elder *cough* um that glitchy game from that one company (dont want to get sued over saying it) or their attempts to steal use a Post apocalyptic Name to make another Beta game. Lets really be honest things like DF and similar games would be going strong and the Hollywood style of games would not be the standard.

Hmmm... I'm sure EA would have found a way to ruin roguelikes.

Buy now, extra tile packs.

Only 15.99 to see the difference between a bunny and a bear.

Get it now, the Dwarf Fortress 2 Mega Deal! Get Dwarf Fortress 2 and the Goblin Goodness, Minotaur Madness, Fantastical Creatures, Dark Monsters, Orc City and Katy Perry's Sweat Treats expansion packs for only $299.95!

Only if Katy Perry is four feet tall and has a beard.

Dwarf Fortress would probably of been heralded as a pinnacle of gaming graphics.

And it technically went from "What if Df was released in 1987" to "EA and their god damn DLC" to "Complaining about Valve" to "Talking about how badly we derailed" in less then a page.

Now it goes from "What if DF was released in 1987" to EA and their GODDAMN DLC'S" to "Complaining about Valve" to "Talking about how badly we derailed" to what if a bad singer was a Dwarf.

Bay 12 where Threads are Derailed and Discussions lead to WTF Soul Potato?!

[oven_baked]

DF would now be in Beta.

[weenog]

Guys, NetHack came out in 1987, it's a far better game than most of the trash out there (even today), and look at how much influence it's had outside of its own particular niche.

DF circa 1987 wouldn't revolutionize much of anything.  Simple hop and bop button bashing games would still have taken the forefront and we'd still have pretty much the same options and quality we do now.  The most likely problem is simply that not enough people have the patience nor the ambition to want to learn something as arcane as NH or DF, especially not for mere entertainment purposes.  That keeps those games unprofitable and ugly to the games industry.  Them getting onto the scene early wouldn't change the way people are.

[penguinofhonor]

Considering the golden era of video games is universally defined as "whenever I was a teenager first starting to take games seriously" and that time for me was around 2007, you're off by 20 years.

I'd say if DF was released in 2007 it would be pretty much identical to what it was four or five months ago, which happens to be what it is now. The next release would be a little further off, though.

[jellsprout]

Now it goes from "What if DF was released in 1987" to EA and their GODDAMN DLC'S" to "Complaining about Valve" to "Talking about how badly we derailed" to what if a bad singer was a Dwarf.

Bay 12 where Threads are Derailed and Discussions lead to WTF Soul Potato?!

Considering how many small and successful companies from the late 80s or 90s got taken over by EA and subsequently driven into the ground, the first two statements are pretty much identical.

[LordBaal]

Okay, another scenario then, where do you see dwarf fortress in 5, 10 or 20 years?

[Loud Whispers]

Okay, another scenario then, where do you see dwarf fortress in 5, 10 or 20 years?

Attend party

[Miuramir]

no but seriously, in 1987 the only real way to distribute games in 1987 was retail.
we would have to buy df my friends

Depending on your age, either you've not done your research, or your memory is failing.  That was in the heyday of shareware; huge quantities of software were written, distributed on floppies in magazines and sent through the mail by subscription clubs, and downloadable from BBSs.  Some simply asked for a postcard if you found it useful or fun; most asked for a small donation (usually $5 to $25).  Some authors sent you back a code; sometimes this simply turned off the "please donate" prompt, sometimes it unlocked advanced features. 

Even when the 1987 computers were able to run the game, there's still something that might have killed df before it was even halfway born: The lack of internet.
No internet means no wiki, no forum, no beta-testing, no feedback, no bug reports.

Are you forgetting BBSs?  That was right around when I was staying up to the middle of the night, when the long-distance toll charges were lowest, to dial into a BBS halfway across the continent to participate in a beta-test forum.  The early '80s were when modem technology had finally gotten cheap enough for ordinary college students to have them, and the first large-scale "bazaar" development methods began to take off.  The heyday of Genie, the rapid spread of Usenet, BBSs springing up everywhere like mushrooms after a rain...  the world's networks, by then already largely joined into what you could legitimately call the Internet, were a tremendously useful (and fun!) tool for years before the twin whammies of the World Wide Web and Eternal September, both in the early '90s, changed the landscape dramatically. 

1987!DF

If I had to guess, 1987!DF would take advantage of the still fairly new 1.44 MB 3.5" floppy, in combination with procedural techniques, to produce a groundbreaking game described in the mags as "Fantasy gaming's answer to Elite and Starflight".  Play on dual-floppy machines would have been technically possible, but a hard disk would be needed for practical play; for many players DF would have been the first "killer app" to cause them to finally save up for a hard disk. 

Generation of tiny worlds with ~100 year history and 2x2 embarks would be free (and about all you could play on a dual-floppy machine anyway).  Players who sent a donation to 1987!Toady would receive a personalized unlock code that branded their copy with their name; unlocked adventure mode, legends mode, and larger / older worlds for those with hard drives; and qualified you for "premium" membership on the DF BBS. 

The development of Nethack would have had considerably more cross-polination with DF; we'd probably have seen someone attempt to write a translator hack that would allow transfer of level designs.  Nethack and Angband variants featuring an "overworld" or "world map" and more elaborate economies would have become popular much sooner. 

Then, crucially, in 1989 when SimCity became a runaway success and Maxis was a terribly cool company that was flushed with cash and looking to take things to the next level, there would have been an obvious call to make.  The first release of SimEarth wouldn't have looked that different; but the Fantastic Worlds expansion co-authored by Bay 12 brought the series into public prominence, and sparked generations of young programmers to delve into fractal and procedural design. 

We all know where that leads; 20 years later, I'd not be writing this post from a Mars colony if it hadn't been for that first 3.5" floppy packed with potential.  It's funny how Interplanetary Usenet causes you to drop back to asynchronous newsgroup posting just like the old days, though    (If it weren't for the time-lag to chat with their friends across the solar system, I suspect many kids wouldn't bother to drop out of VR these days... and how many of them really understand what makes all those realistic landscapes possible?)

[Avelon]

*snip*

This post menaces with spikes of Awesome.

Also, I think Miuramir is the closest to correct - DF would have been considered easier to get into in 1987 than it is today because PC gamers in the late 80's were, simply put, more hardcore. The modern PC gamer is little better than a console gamer, and PC games are intentionally watered down to make cross-platforming easy. Hell, many modern PC games have the XBox 360 controller built-in with native support. I've even seen games displaying 360 controller buttons (keyboard shortcut in parenthesis) by default.

But look at any of the AD&D PC games for DOS (which, funnily enough, were ported from PC to NES frequently) - if you don't have an instruction manual, you don't know WTF you're doing. Excessively complex games have always been around - and some of them have been wildly popular. As a more modern example, take the Shin Megami Tensei RPG series by Atlus. If you are coming from Final Fantasy as a background these games are ridiculously complicated, with convoluted stories.

In 1987, DF would have been well received and featured in several magazines, but probably criticized for its lack of moral structure. In 1987, there WERE no 'ambiguous alignment' games. Those few that let you take on an adversarial role were very clear in expressing that you were bad. DF would probably receive a lot of criticism for how depraved some of the possibilities are. As Miuramir said, Roguelikes would take a line from DF, and procedure world generation for randomized gameplay would be more prominent in multiple genres, most notably strategy and RPG games, and probably shooters as well.

The medium itself however would demand that DF be a 'finished product' - that is to say, once it was released, that's IT. On to the next project. Because of this, DF itself would not have reached its 3D stage and would, in fact, be the 2D digger that set the stage for Boatmurdered and other classics.

If 2DF did extremely well, Toady might have received a contract to write StA3: Dwarf Fortress II, or have been offered several lucrative positions as a programmer for a game designer.

Projecting this into the world of today, assuming 2DF is a hit...

There would be a much stronger focus on replayability in video games. Platformers and puzzle games were the first pioneers, and both of them use static levels that can be 'mastered' with time. Ever seen a Mario 1 speed run? It's actually ridiculously short. Linear games would by necessity have to tell a better story or be longer to reasonably expect to charge the same amount as an infinitely replayable game.

There would very likely be an entire genre of 'build' games a la Sim City. Sandboxes, early iterations of build & deploy (C&C/Warcraft/Starcraft), and actual management sims putting you in charge of settlements, with or without a goal.

Procedural generation as a technology would be advanced compared to what it is now. While we know it is possible to create a game which is for all intents and purposes a Final Fantasy title but constructed out of the aether every time you hit New Game with different characters, locations, motives, goals, etc. it is just not FEASIBLE. It would take more man hours to make a competitive RPG utilizing that system and debug it than is profitable; however, if this is the basis from which most RPGs spring up, rather than Dragon Warrior, such a game might well be on the shelves of Wal Mart today.