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[Cruxador]

ITT: Misogny.

Would you people be hating on this woman as much if she was a man?

This reminds me a bit of the way gaming media in general cites misogyny whenever anyone has anything negative to say about a woman. Women are not magically exempt from criticism by dint of gender, and calling anyone who criticizes a woman a misogynist simply for doing so is sexism of an other sort. The woman did some silly things; it made for good humor even if it didn't construe her as the most intelligent. Would you not be hating on her if she was a man? Based on my experience, I'd say there would be a lot more hate, and a lot more vitriolic, if she'd wrote the exact same article but had been male.

[Salmeuk]

I'd like to think I’m not the problem here. Dwarf Fortress wants to be understood about as much as the average teenager. The more it confuses you, the more accomplished it feels. Perhaps that’s too harsh an assessment. It is possible to tinker, after all.

even though she questions it as "too harsh", I still think the quote is a misrepresentation of the game.

also, I think she was writing for a much different audience than us forumgoers.

and yup the gender has nothing to do with it here.

[Taffer]

I thought it was a humorous article, and portrayed the game in a better light than some of the comments about it would have me believe. Especially in the comments section of the article, I had to confirm that I'd clicked on the correct article's commentary. Judging from the flame war it seemed to have created there, if I were a writer reading through it I'd certainly think twice before giving DF free publicity.

[smirk]

I thought it was a humorous article, and portrayed the game in a better light than some of the comments about it would have me believe. Especially in the comments section of the article, I had to confirm that I'd clicked on the correct article's commentary. Judging from the flame war it seemed to have created there, if I were a writer reading through it I'd certainly think twice before giving DF free publicity.

Indeed, that kinda thing does tend to discourage. Which is why one should never read the comments. Unless you're looking for a very different type of humor, I suppose, but that's neither here nor there.


And of course gender is important! Pronouns are not a thing to be taken lightly. The singular "they" would've sounded too impersonal, and I'm not about to touch that "zhe/zhir" shite. That stuff's just an excuse to use the 'cool' letters. Kids these days.

[air805ronin]

Can I admit to something?  I'd heard of Dwarf Fortress a few times but never bothered looking into it.  Then I read this Ars Technica article.  I was amused, downloaded the game, and tried playing following the wiki to get things together.  I got my fortress to the point I had about 70 dwarves and suddenly a fellow who had a strange mood went berserk and began killing people.  He only killed about 3 before I realized I needed a militia, formed one, and they punched him to death.  It was too late.  I had failed to set up a corpse stockpile, and miasma messed my whole life, sending the survivors into what I know now is called a tantrum spiral. I gave into ending that fortress and starting over.

My next few failed horribly.  I had about 10 hours in the game.  I found some other written guides and on my latest fortress I have gone strongly, keeping stocks of food and plenty of goods to trade for things I'm lacking (both areas I'd lacked greatly before).  Preparing carefully turned out be very important for my success.

So my main point is, I wouldn't be here except for the fact I read that article.  If you really think it was that negative I have to tell you that I think you're wrong.  Having just begun myself, this game has a steep learning curve even WITH tons of reference material.  Trying to do what the author did is no doubt ill advised but there is a lot of humor to it.  There is even more humor the more I learn.

I'm converted, I can't put the game down now matter how much blood gets splattered on the walls or how many longbeards slowly starve to death.

[umiman]

There's no such thing as bad press, as people would say.

[WaffleEggnog]

If this had happened to a huge game with millions playing it, it might have been more of a big deal. I bet 99% of the people that read that article, other than us, had never heard of Dwarf Fortress. Even if they hate it, now they know about it.

When your community is this small, the more people that know about it, the better.

[Big Bear]

Having just begun myself, this game has a steep learning curve even WITH tons of reference material. 

Yes, this is the only game I've ever used a video tutorial for.

I like this description of the Dwarf Fortress learning curve, from a review of the game Space Station 13 on The Game Effect webpage:

" [Space Station 13 has] a learning curve that closely resembles a road approaching a brick wall. While this is preferable to similar games like Dwarf Fortress, in which the wall is actively attempting to harm the user, it still makes for a frustrating new player experience."

We must be masochists. 

[flabort]

" [Space Station 13 has] a learning curve that closely resembles a road approaching a brick wall. While this is preferable to similar games like Dwarf Fortress, in which the wall is actively attempting to harm the user, it still makes for a frustrating new player experience."

We must be masochists. 

Can I haz Siggy?

[Big Bear]

" [Space Station 13 has] a learning curve that closely resembles a road approaching a brick wall. While this is preferable to similar games like Dwarf Fortress, in which the wall is actively attempting to harm the user, it still makes for a frustrating new player experience."

We must be masochists. 

Can I haz Siggy?

Sure Flabort! Although the original line from the review isn't mine.. But I doubt the writer will notice, as I don't think he comes here.. He seems scared of DF. 

[flabort]

The masochists part is the important one.

[DNK]

As much as I do think it's irresponsible to write a review on this game without ever using Dwarf Therapist, a graphic set, and the wiki for reference (which even Toady has confessed to needing), she raises valid points on the UI and starting difficulty.

The game doesn't need to be so challenging to start out on, and it doesn't need a 90-degree cliff face of a difficulty curve. Without changing any core elements, it could be much more user/newbie friendly. Once you get the basics, it's actually a super easy game, with difficulty that ramps up to the sky, but with the player in almost total control of the actual difficulty through playstyle. But if you're new, it's hard to find that control.

An official (game-linked-to) starting tutorial would be great. Something that demonstrated how easy it is to find a good, easy start; make an impregnable fortress (which is quite easy to do in the first season); get basic resources; and set up a basic fort with the basic industries required for survival and smithing. This tutorial would also need to explain all the common potential pitfalls and mistakes and dangers, like "digging too deep", not protecting from accidental release of cave monsters, berserk dwarves (moodiness), etc. The tutorial also needs to explain the importance and use of outside utilities/reference. Not everything needs to be explained; once a player understands how to build a multi-step industry for weaponsmithing, he can be told to look up what the rest do on the wiki himself. But just something the game directly links to that goes over all these basics would take that learning curve and drop it by at least 1/3rd, if not 1/2. I understand there are tutorials out there already, but the concept of an official one that's packaged in-game as an HTML file or .doc or whatever and updated with each new release is vital for this game.

And, yeah, the way to interact with the game is miserable. This whole "I'm going to keep adding features so no reason to redo it now" approach seems sensible, until you realize the game's got 10-20 years of further development, and the current UI is so stretched and convoluted already that it really is "hating user-friendliness" to continue to expand and further complicate it indefinitely. Yes, I understand the UI about 95% of the way, and know where just about every command is, but it's still a PITA and has needed an overhaul for years. This may just require more outside utilities to do, but then a good amount just comes from the core game itself being excessively dense and hence tiring to deal with through the UI (50 types of deer liver all displayed without a quick way to scroll through or filter them type things).

I'm always excited for new additions, and the current development has me more excited than usual, but a redone UI is damn near the top of my must-have list. That and multi-core support. Both of these need to be overhauled much sooner than a 0.8-ish beta release.

[Elriond]

All i can say is wow. A lot of you seem to be getting rubbed the wrong way from the article. I personally had heard of the game but never gave it any thought until i read that article. In fact, it's the only reason i decided to give the game a shot. I found it highly amusing, and agree with most of the points made.

She went into the game planning NOT to use any material for spoilers/etc and just wanted to play it and see how it went. That's a perfectly normal way to want to play a game. I found it ridiculously complicated at first until i got the hang of things by either watching the initial captnduck vids and keeping the wiki on hand for questions. But i expected that after having read the article as well, so rather than being turned off from the game I found it highly enjoyable. As for anyone who read the comments, don't. It's that simple.

Now i'm going back to watching my first possessed dwarf, who has taken over my clothier's shop for some apparent reason. Not to worry though, i'm pretty sure my dwarves will be starving soon anyway. I just had 36 new migrants show up, tripling my population out of nowhere with barely any food supplies left. I really hope nobody comes to attack me now and make it worse. I don't even have a squad set yet.

[Bavette]

I believe what she says, even with coy and sarcastic sympathy, is true to the core. I myself had some terrible times before I first heard the Dorfenkall. Now my eyes shimmer with visions of gold and socks, adamantine and ruin. That happens to all Dwarf Fortress players, right? We get blown away for some time. We all do. A month, a week, a year. But the Dorfenkall is louder and stronger, it pulls as back in and bind us together, like a dark siren song we can nigh resist.

We hardly remember, however, how was our first leave. By boredom, frustration or miscellanea we leave, we all do at some point. We stop hearing about Dwarf Fortress, some of us even stop caring. Yet many of us return. Contact with DF, I think, is highly contagious. It spreads a disease that infects the soul. It symptoms are myriad, it's names are many, but we all hear it within. That's the Dorfenkall; we leave, some of us forever, some never leave, but most of us will always come back. Every DF player can tell from the look in someone's eyes if they are or not Dwarf Fortress players. There is a glint of gold, long forgotten monsters and puke encrusted beards inside that person's eyes that we can relate to. We all have it! Because doesn't matter if you are playing it now, or tomorrow, or a year from now - we can't escape it anymore - we are enthralled to Armok.

Miss Cassey sounded a little bit crazier by the end there. One might even say that she was Greedy and Stubborn. I believe that more than anything else resumes what Dwarf Fortress players are all about. I really believe Miss Cassey will come back to thicken our ranks, officially - as a new review or her site - or by her personal pleasure, it doesn't really matter. The second taste is always definitive.

[Ruhn]

@Big Bear: Great Quote.  I've investigated (but never played) SS13 and this seems like an accurate comparison.

I agree with the last few posts.  Having a starter fort on the main menu screen (where a new player can poke around a self-sustaining fort that's a few years old and see an example of what they need to do) could be an easy solution to help new players.  This newbie region + fort probably adds 10MB to the installer, but I don't think it would be a problem.  Maybe even have a separate download link.  Anyone have a way to suggest this for a DF Talk #21 topic?  I don't come to this part of the forum very often to know how.


For any interested, we are now voting for the best DF Community "10 hour fort": http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=123408.0