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[smakemupagus]

But if you tame me, then we shall need each other.
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

Sounds like you're still semi wild 

[Trif]

Toady is pretty good at taming foxes. One of them codes LCS for him.

[MrWiggles]

And bugs are often personal. What you consider game ruining, doesn't bug somone else.

Like, I dont experience any game ruining bugs with the military. I also don't experience any game ruining bugs with the hospital.

[Maltavius]

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?   

If I didn't care about the game I would be here at all, I'm not making demands I'm just trying to understand why Toady is making it so hard on himself. The comment "works for me" is just as helpful as the comment "this is crap" neither does anything productive. I'm trying to come up with solutions for the long run of DF.
If DFHACK solves bugs in the game, why doesn't these fixes get implemented in the final product?

thvaz: would my complaints be more valid if I'd donated 100 USD, 1000 USD? How much would I need to donate for my complaints to be valid?

[Rex_Nex]

You guys are hilarious.  (typical "he do wut he want" post cut)

No one is making demands, they are making suggestions, and if you have a problem with suggestions you can kindly leave those threads alone. Part of the reason these forums exist is for exactly that. No, Toady doesn't have to listen or even care, and that's perfectly fine - that's why it's a suggestion.

[Taffer]

You're not the only one wishing for longer maintance release arcs. That being said, Toady has improved the UI with the bug fix releases in small ways, but not in the grand way that people expect. They're waiting for the bug fixing arcs and ignoring requests to "redo it all". Polishing gameplay is tricky because some of the mechanics are, in a sense, placeholders. It must be frustrating spending a week fixing one major issue only to throw the code away a year later. The hyperbolic claims of an "unplayable" vanilla game that often accompany these threads are likely not helping much.

They've tried to respond to this criticism, especially in regards to the UI a few times already, by explaining where they're coming from and what the challenges are.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

No one is making demands, they are making suggestions, and if you have a problem with suggestions you can kindly leave those threads alone. Part of the reason these forums exist is for exactly that. No, Toady doesn't have to listen or even care, and that's perfectly fine - that's why it's a suggestion.

The hyperbolic claims of an "unplayable" vanilla game that often accompany these threads are likely not helping much.

Though I doubt that'll change your predisposed notions there, Nex.

If DFHACK solves bugs in the game, why doesn't these fixes get implemented in the final product?

If you can't understand where the difficulty in that lies, I doubt you're in any position to claim 'Toady is making things harder for himself.'

[thvaz]

thvaz: would my complaints be more valid if I'd donated 100 USD, 1000 USD? How much would I need to donate for my complaints to be valid?

You are good the way you are, don't donate anything if you don't like the game as it is, if enough people do the same maybe Toady will think about changing his ways. (More probably he will just quit working on the game full time, though.)

[slothen]

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.

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.

Military and hospital are almost completely functional after the latest releases of DF2012, and definitely completely playable, and that's without using DFhack fixes or tweaking the raws.  They were in bad shape in the year or two following DF2010.  I consider long patrol thoughts and overstocking of hospitals with cloth to be pretty minor and more or less completely ignorable.

[Mickey Blue]

I've been playing for a while now (vanilla and various mods over the years) and I can say with 100% certainty that the game in it's vanilla state (yes, without any third party programs) is playable.  Are there a few features that are buggier than they could be? Of course.. However they all work well enough.

I give myself a variety of challenges to make the game more difficult including using solely the military for defense (no walls or traps) and still manage to use them for an effective defense without using any third party programs or the danger room (or any other) exploit. 

Suggesting the game is unplayable, to me, means that either you have an incredibly high standard of what a playable game is, aren't very good at the game, or haven't been playing it very long.


Now, that said, I do agree that I'd prefer more frequently updates with less content than very infrequent updates with lots of content; it would allow for more testing by the community as we go rather than a huge amount dumped on us all at once.  In addition I agree that I would like to see some bugs get ironed out more frequently than they are.  As somebody who likes to use the military and (as a result) the hospital I would like to see both of those work better (even if the claims that they are completely broken are simply not true), as well as various other things.


Lastly, I'm amused at the idea that if you don't personally pay somebody for a product it's somehow inappropriate for you to make suggestions (or, gasp, even complain about it).  I think I get it, from a really basic level; if I give you a free sandwich I don't want to hear that you'd have preferred turkey over ham.  That said part of the implied purpose of us as fans is to help improve the game, we have acted as effectively alpha and beta testers for years now (over a decade in fact if I'm not mistaken) and while of course we should be respectful when talking to anybody if all we did was say "Game is great, keep doing your thang!" we wouldn't be doing much good. 

However, if it makes people with the mentality of "you didn't pay for it! you don't get to complain!" feel better, I have donated before.. That said, it was a donation, I didn't not give it expecting anything (though the drawing was nice).  But I don't think there is anything wrong with commenting on a piece of public art.  In fact, I think by posting the game on the internet and creating a forum toady is implicitly allowing and encouraging these types of conversations.  If he didn't want any feedback (which includes positive and negative) it was a mistake to create a forum for discussion.

[PrimusRibbus]

Lastly, I'm amused at the idea that if you don't personally pay somebody for a product it's somehow inappropriate for you to make suggestions (or, gasp, even complain about it).  I think I get it, from a really basic level; if I give you a free sandwich I don't want to hear that you'd have preferred turkey over ham.  That said part of the implied purpose of us as fans is to help improve the game, we have acted as effectively alpha and beta testers for years now (over a decade in fact if I'm not mistaken) and while of course we should be respectful when talking to anybody if all we did was say "Game is great, keep doing your thang!" we wouldn't be doing much good.

However, if it makes people with the mentality of "you didn't pay for it! you don't get to complain!" feel better, I have donated before.. That said, it was a donation, I didn't not give it expecting anything (though the drawing was nice).  But I don't think there is anything wrong with commenting on a piece of public art.  In fact, I think by posting the game on the internet and creating a forum toady is implicitly allowing and encouraging these types of conversations.  If he didn't want any feedback (which includes positive and negative) it was a mistake to create a forum for discussion.

I can't blame the community too much for being hostile to suggestions and critiques; Dwarf Fortress is one of the first video games to receive real outside recognition as a piece of art. In most other mediums critical evaluation of the art piece is not only acceptable, but considered a celebrated and useful function.

I sincerely hope that the community can come to terms with the notion that many of people who are concerned about the long-term maintenance Dwarf Fortress are not asking for handouts, but rather hoping that this game continues growing into a cultural artifact. As a software developer myself, I see lashing out at a dialogue about the long-term stability of the code base as equivalent to shouting down an art restorer for starting a dialogue about the long-term preservation of a painting.

[smakemupagus]

I think most in the community aren't particularly hostile to the concept, it's just that it's been discussed to death.

Obviously, Toady wants feedback, that's why there are these boards, and a Suggestions forum.  The Suggestions forum would be a great place to chime in if you feel strongly about this.  The posted etiquette there is that Toady asks you to search and add to a similar thread when revisiting a common suggestion, rather than starting a new one when possible.

[Mickey Blue]

Yea.. But we've been around for a decade now; every issue has been discussed to death.  And honestly a lot of the backlash is more about the idea that you should never criticize or complain about a free game.  It's the same kind of thing you sometimes see when somebody criticizes an alpha or beta game (without the irony), as if there is a sort of handicap (in the 'golf' sense) that some games get which should make them immune from criticism.

I'm sure there are lots of reasons people react this way, yours being one of them.  Another being frustrated by people (like another in this thread) who feel the game is 'unplayable' which is a dramatic overstatement.  However it is what it is; a great game, with an amazing design, incredible depth, with some notable flaws both in direction and execution. 

I've been playing it on and off for years now and can honestly say it is one of the best if not the best game I've played and certainly I've played it longer than any other game in my collection and it cost me zero dollars (granted I did donate over the years but that was optional).  That, however, does not eliminate it's flaws, of which it has several.

[PrimusRibbus]

I think most in the community aren't particularly hostile to the concept,

Having been lurking around these parts since well before 40d, I unfortunately must disagree. We tend to view ourselves as chronic underdogs, and it has morphed a bit into a sports team mentality. We've certainly improved over the years, though.

it's just that it's been discussed to death.

A fair point.

However, people were declaring this topic "discussed to death" after a 2 page thread while DF was still 2D. Personally, it doesn't seem too unreasonable that a topic such as long-term maintenance of a code base would be revisited as the code and scope of a project matures.

Even if one views the topic at hand to be worn out and unnecessary, declaring that "it works for me" or "you didn't pay for this game" is not an effective way to respond. In fact, I completely advocate "this has been discussed to death" posts over "it works for me posts." If the repeat of a topic is what's grinding peoples' goat, then I think it's in all of our best interest to be direct about it.

Obviously, Toady wants feedback, that's why there are these boards, and a Suggestions forum.  The Suggestions forum would be a great place to chime in if you feel strongly about this.  The posted etiquette there is that Toady asks you to search and add to a similar thread when revisiting a common suggestion, rather than starting a new one when possible.

That's an excellent suggestion. However, I disagree that discussions about code maintenance and project scope should be sequestered to just the suggestions forum; we have a number of experienced software developers on these forums that can add interesting and enlightened perspective to the maintenance of code, and the software development process. Perhaps today that doesn't bear any fruit, but from having worked on a number of publicly scrutinized projects in the past, I've found that it is much better for the long term health of the project to invite this type of discussion than to shout it down.

Another being frustrated by people (like another in this thread) who feel the game is 'unplayable' which is a dramatic overstatement.  However it is what it is; a great game, with an amazing design, incredible depth, with some notable flaws both in direction and execution.

Indeed. The hyperbole of declaring the game unplayable is just as bad as declaring the game infallible. The result, evidenced in this very thread, is a clear "us vs. them" mentality.

[Werdna]

This needs to calm down a bit.  I'm sorry for my part in antagonizing it.

"Well, next time you make me a free sandwich, I want the crust cut off, and what it needs is a slice of cheese, too."  This kinda grates on the ears a bit, these 'suggestions'?

You get use of free forums and an awesome gaming community, and you're using it to make demands?  Get a grip.

Not once did I say suggestions.  I said demands and everything that followed was directly in reference to demands.  The posts I was referring to were laden with "I want" and "It needs".  It was then followed by "unplayable" criticism suggesting if these demand/suggestions weren't met, disaster would follow.  That's the spirit of posts I was referring to.

The difference between suggestions and demands is a matter of tone and interpretation; I saw demands.  Others saw suggestions; fine.  I'm a software developer too, and a beta implies a certain level of bug-fixing.  You fix crashes, blockers, and low-lying fruit; you track everything else.  You don't polish until feature-complete.  We're many features away from the final mile of 'rounds of bug-fixing' that happen before release, and people need to accept it.  'Maintenance' is a word that comes up after a release, not before!

FWIW, I'm sorry Maltavius, my post was overly harsh towards someone that is genuinely trying to help.  The unfairness of asking for polish bug-fixing in a beta was one thing, but the ridiculous 'unplayable' hyperbole is what really amus-enraged me.