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[Maltavius]

I'm I the only one wishing for regular monthly maintenance releases with none or very small number of features?

There are so many small bugs that need fixing, Tarn has stated the code needs cleaning up and maybe (I hate to bring this up) split things in to different threads so that DF can benefit from multi-core processors. I'd like a year of like 6 semi-monthly releases that has only bug/system fixing releases and then maybe one release with some new features.

[Footkerchief]

After the upcoming release, there will be more releases aimed at fixing both old and new bugs.  There probably won't be as many as you want.

[Nyan Thousand]

Well, after every major release Toady spends some time fixing bugs. Then he works on another major release.

I don't think he wants to release something half-assed, so that's why he doesn't try to release monthly. He could do that, sure. We'd even get some form of whatever major features he's planning on, but chances are it's either very broken or he doesn't really want us to see it until it's to some standard. Which is okay, I guess.

[PrimusRibbus]

Well, after every major release Toady spends some time fixing bugs. Then he works on another major release.

I don't think he wants to release something half-assed, so that's why he doesn't try to release monthly. He could do that, sure. We'd even get some form of whatever major features he's planning on, but chances are it's either very broken or he doesn't really want us to see it until it's to some standard. Which is okay, I guess.

Absolutely. However, lingering bugs are becoming a major issue; I know a number of people that have been waiting literally for years for military/hospital bug fixes before playing again.

I think the OP is concerned about a common problem that damages many software projects: It's fun to add features, so sometimes features outpace bugfixes resulting in bloat and bugs that are magnitudes harder to fix later on.

DF is Toady's baby and he can make the game however he wants, but from a player's perspective I don't think it's unreasonable to be concerned about scope, code maintenance, and bug fixes on a codebase so large and old.

[Maltavius]

Well, after every major release Toady spends some time fixing bugs. Then he works on another major release.

I don't think he wants to release something half-assed, so that's why he doesn't try to release monthly. He could do that, sure. We'd even get some form of whatever major features he's planning on, but chances are it's either very broken or he doesn't really want us to see it until it's to some standard. Which is okay, I guess.

Absolutely. However, lingering bugs are becoming a major issue; I know a number of people that have been waiting literally for years for military/hospital bug fixes before playing again.

I think the OP is concerned about a common problem that damages many software projects: It's fun to add features, so sometimes features outpace bugfixes resulting in bloat and bugs that are magnitudes harder to fix later on.

This!

I know he does one-three releases which fixes bugs that came up in the previous release, but mostly it's just bugs or breakage from adding new features that gets fixed. Older problems are just forgotten or added to the "loosing is fun" mantra.

DF is Toady's baby and he can make the game however he wants, but from a player's perspective I don't think it's unreasonable to be concerned about scope, code maintenance, and bug fixes on a codebase so large and old.

I know it's "boring" with doing maintenance, but he really need to do it now before he adds even more stuff into the game. Tarn is just pushing the problems ahead and making the mountain of problems bigger for the future.

Don't get me wrong, I love this game.

[mnjiman]

I think Toady's prospective is that if he did try to get rid of all the major bugs and cleaned up the majority of old code so it ran faster, it would take as much time as it would for another major content release. The issue here of course, is that as long as the game is functioning (again, through his eyes), why should he take that much time to work on old bugs if they don't ruin the game?

Of course this view is extremely flawed as the bugs and old game code are simply going to continue to pile higher and higher. It doesn't need to be a super huge project to complete, but it also doesn't need to be something to be ignored out right.

IMO, he should focus more on code fixing then on the game more often then he does. Everything is going to clutter so hard one day on his door step, it will be overwhelming for him to deal with (which is likely the case right now.)

[MrWiggles]

And every time this conversation is brought up, we're assuming knowledge that we don't have. That these 'bugs that just happen to bug you more' can just be 'simply' fixed. They might be expression due to multiple place holder information interaction with each other, and its not worth the time to fix these placeholders with more placeholders.

I'm always reminded of the cheese. Cheese Makers for a long while we're just a crap thing to get in immigrant waves, as there was only one animal that made cheese. And the community, as a whole just saw adding in Cheese and Milking as this long hanging fruit. The milkable animals had tags that said they could be milked, the underlying code need for it just didnt exist.

And when we did get milkable animals, it came with an entirely new system that encompasses far more things then just milkable animals.

We really don't have the foresight or intimate knowledge to really know what it would take to fix these bugs, or why many of them are being expressed in the first place.

Bug fixes happen. Every release, beside the /very/ first one contains a score or more of bug fixes.

[DG]

Yeah, as MrW says, I think Toady ignores bugs if he has in mind a future change/addition that will encompase the fix anyway. I'm reminded of how long cats complained about not having hands.

[fricy]

Absolutely. However, lingering bugs are becoming a major issue; I know a number of people that have been waiting literally for years for military/hospital bug fixes before playing again.

I think the OP is concerned about a common problem that damages many software projects: It's fun to add features, so sometimes features outpace bugfixes resulting in bloat and bugs that are magnitudes harder to fix later on.

DF is Toady's baby and he can make the game however he wants, but from a player's perspective I don't think it's unreasonable to be concerned about scope, code maintenance, and bug fixes on a codebase so large and old.

THIS!

I understand the reasoning behind not fixing all the bugs, but some kind of solution is BADLY needed. Vanilla DF2012 is unplayable on its own. For eg.: the military is untrainable in the official release. They take forever to equip themselves, and even if you manage to get them to train they soon go unhappy. (and quite possibly on a berserker rage...) You either need to use the danger room exploit, or DFhack - and none of these are obvious solutions to a noob who just found the game. It took for me the 5th fort to train a decent army, and I'm not a stranger to the wiki. Then I started playing the Masterworks mod which have the fixes included default, and I was quite literally shocked that the game mechanics actually worked...
It's almost a year since the latest release, these bugs are well known and documented, but still part of the code. And don't get me started on the UI... I love this game, but...oh my god...

Final words and my 2cents: If Toady wants 100% control over the codebase, that's his choice, but then he needs to work on a tighter release cycle and iron out at least the gamebreaker bugs. The other solution is that the DFhack plugins/fixes need to be officially distributed as a part of the game. (Which are ok on windows, but need wine on linux or mac, bringing their own problems along...)
I see no other way that doesn't threaten the future of this GAME.

[Lich180]

Vanilla DF2012 is unplayable on its own. For eg.: the military is untrainable in the official release. They take forever to equip themselves, and even if you manage to get them to train they soon go unhappy. (and quite possibly on a berserker rage...) You either need to use the danger room exploit, or DFhack -snip-

It's almost a year since the latest release, these bugs are well known and documented, but still part of the code. And don't get me started on the UI...

-snip-

Final words and my 2cents: If Toady wants 100% control over the codebase, that's his choice, but then he needs to work on a tighter release cycle and iron out at least the gamebreaker bugs. The other solution is that the DFhack plugins/fixes need to be officially distributed as a part of the game. (Which are ok on windows, but need wine on linux or mac, bringing their own problems along...)

Now, I haven't been around nearly as long as some of the other members here, but as someone who exclusively plays vanilla I can say that vanilla military dwarves do NOT take forever to equip, do NOT take forever to train, and you do NOT need a danger room. I just bring a teacher/armor/weapon user at embark, make his gear first, then activate him. He grabs his gear, trains, spars with a buddy, and they both hit legendary in weapon skills in a year or so. My current fort has nothing but legendary dwarves in the militia, all they do is spar. Sure its confusing to get them to actually spar, but all you do is set their schedule to train with 2 dwarves.

The bugs aren't really noticeable to me, but I've been working around them when I can, and avoiding them if possible. I don't have a problem with hospitals (no containers in the hospital, just stockpiles) and I haven't noticed any more serious ones yet, unless you count the appraiser migrants being flagged as traders and blocking migrants coming in, but thats not even horrible and game-breaking.

And as to the release schedule, its one guy and his brother, and only one of them really codes anything and implements it into the game. DFHack is useful, and does contain fixes, but its really not essential to the playability of the game in my opinion. I'm content to play with what I have, and wait on yearly releases and wonder what kind of possibilities exist within the new updates rather than demand fresh new content that is crap every month or so. That is one reason why I've almost totally stopped playing other games, crappy new content meant to siphon my money out of my pocket (I'm looking at you, EA, Activision, etc etc)

[Maltavius]

I don't want new content every month, I want less content and more bugfixing.

I often hear that Toady doesn't want to share his source for fear of loosing control and for the fact that it's to ugly to share... Well something needs to be done, he need to clean up his code so that he can share bits and pieces of it with people he trust so that they can help him fix things OR clean it up so that it's not such a huge hassle for him to clean it up by himself.

Pathing and TrueType need to be upgraded to work better and everywhere.

• Dwarves should't consider a stone one Z-level away to be closer than a stone to steps away on the same z-level for example.
  
• Dwarves shouldn't dig out the ground from under them unless it's the only option.
• They shouldn't dig out the ground from under other dwarves either unless it's the only option.
• They shouldn't build walls/floodgates from a spot that they can't move from.
• The Militia commander shouldn't prioritize fetching water while under goblin siege. (even though it's "fun")

The GUI needs separating from the main game so someone who has the time to fix it will. Toady has said he won't fix the GUI until the game is done, by that time It'll be 2020 and we'll have 64-core processors and none will be able to run DF because it's still in a single thread...

• Trading interface needs to be updated.
• All lists need to be generalized and controlled by the same keys, no more UP/DOWN or +/- only UP/DOWN or only +/-
• Generally all list should be made to be of dynamic length, taking up as much screen space as is available.
• The item description would fit on the view item screen if TrueType was implemented for descriptions.
• Dwarf descriptions (Z-Enter) should also be true-typed to save space and be formated nicer, right now it's a huge wall of text.

All of this could be separated from the game-code and produced by the community or by someone special that Toady trusts.
It would help a lot towards making the game "easier" to understand and manage.

[i2amroy]

I often hear that Toady doesn't want to share his source for fear of loosing control and for the fact that it's to ugly to share... Well something needs to be done, he need to clean up his code so that he can share bits and pieces of it with people he trust so that they can help him fix things OR clean it up so that it's not such a huge hassle for him to clean it up by himself.

An important note: Toady's main goal in making this game is not the pleasing of the player base. Toady is making this game the way he wants to because he has made the game into his life's work; we just get to come along for the ride. Yes, he fixes bugs in the game for us and occasionally takes direction from us on the order to implement things, but his main goal is to make the game exactly the way he wants to. It's because of that that Toady codes everything, because he wants to ensure that his life's work goes exactly the way that he wants it to be, not because of the fact that it's ugly or difficult to understand.

And a second note, but many of the larger bugs (such as hospital problems or military bugs) can be fixed through binary patches with DFHack, which is one of the factors that Toady uses to decide which bugs are the most important to fix. And seriously, we're looking at anywhere from 3-6 months of rather often releases bugfixing after this next release. Don't worry, things will get patched.

[fricy]

An important note: Toady's main goal in making this game is not the pleasing of the player base. Toady is making this game the way he wants to because he has made the game into his life's work; we just get to come along for the ride.

“I am looking for friends. What does that mean -- tame?"

"It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. "It means to establish ties."

"To establish ties?"

"Just that," said the fox. "To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world....”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

[Werdna]

You guys are hilarious.  It's not your game.  It's not your code.  You did not pay one red cent for it.  You get to leech hours and hours of gameplay, for free.  You get use of free forums and an awesome gaming community, and you're using it to make demands?  Get a grip.  Toady does not have to listen.  To quote Jon Stewart, he's not your little monkey.    And we're not some cuddly fox - there are hundreds of us, all with different ideas of where this game can go.  Only one idea matters - his. 

And unplayable?   Seriously?   

[thvaz]

If you aren't happy with the game, don't donate (though I guess most complainers never donated). In the end, Toady looks to please the fanbase because he needs the donations, but unfortunately for the haters, he is not very ambitious - if the donations provides what he needs to keep coding it will be enough. And there are a lot of people who are happy enough with the game as it is.