Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[skezixx]

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/195148/dwarf_fortress_in_2013.php

[weenog]

I think DF will be around forever, somewhat like NetHack.  Even when it's finished (if ever), there will be a diehard collection of players that can't ever stop.  Sooner or later they'll get the code released to them, and they'll keep it going.

Heh, hadn't even read the article yet, I see Toady mentioned NetHack too.  I guess it is a good comparison.

[skezixx]

I would like to think that  it has the cult following of nethack or dungeon crawl stone soup guess we will see in time

[weenog]

I play both.  There are others.

[skyte100]

Forever. Even if they, for whatever reason, stopped development, hackers and modders would get a hold of the hard code and it would survive through them.

[Button]

I mostly concur with "forever", but I don't think it's inevitable. For example, if one of the Adamses incurred an expensive medical condition, and had to license off Dwarf Fortress to pay for it.

As long as it stays indie, it will live forever. If a corporation ever obtains the rights for it, it will be dead within ten years.

[Ace_Warbringer]

I mostly concur with "forever", but I don't think it's inevitable. For example, if one of the Adamses incurred an expensive medical condition, and had to license off Dwarf Fortress to pay for it.

As long as it stays indie, it will live forever. If a corporation ever obtains the rights for it, it will be dead within ten years.

Less if that happens, a lot of appeal would be gone for me if DF went mainstream. though I cant talk for anybody else

[Urist MacNoob]

I mostly concur with "forever", but I don't think it's inevitable. For example, if one of the Adamses incurred an expensive medical condition, and had to license off Dwarf Fortress to pay for it.

As long as it stays indie, it will live forever. If a corporation ever obtains the rights for it, it will be dead within ten years.

Less if that happens, a lot of appeal would be gone for me if DF went mainstream. though I cant talk for anybody else

Why? No harm in DF gaining popularity. It doesn't make the game inherently worse, and if you're worried about the fantastic community taking damage, chances are the would-be damage-rs wouldn't survive the learning curve.

[Mentalpatient87]

I don't think they're worried about DF being too popular, making them lose status or just peace and quiet. I think the worry is that DF is still a bit harcore and graphic for the mainstream audience, and definitely way too complex. Any major developer would most likely strip out certain "freedoms" due to censorship (bye bye Dwarven Day Cares) and simplify everything for mass appeal.

"Quadrapeds made of ice? What is a civet and why is it made of vomit and shooting webs? Our art department can't animate all these things for the cutscenes by next month! Let's just stick with dragons. Dragons are hot right now, right?"

"We can't get a T rating with minecart traps that liquify children! That's horrible (for business)... Better make them damage proof. Wouldn't want our players losing their forts because everybody dies, would we?"

That kind of crap.

[Merendel]

I agree with mental.  The issue isnt so much the popularity boost damageing the community.  I shudder to think of the abomination that would result if EA ever got its grubby little hands on the rights to DF.  The game would morph into something with flashy graphics with the gameplay depth of a teaspoon.  The game as we know it would probably survive but it would end up forking off from whatever "Official" version came out and would probably be plagued with copyright lawsuits.

[wierd]

Indeed. My eugenics research project alone would net the game an M or worse rating.

"You mean the player can.... pit zombies in a hole, and throw in LIVE children!? Just to remove them from the genepool!? That's obscene! If the fundies ever found out, we'd be up to our ears in protest signs!"

Nope. I like the unrepentent slaughter that is possible with this game, and the degree to which it attempts to accurately simulate the game world. 

Invincible children? Clearly, those studios have a difficult time dealing with the concept of "willful suspension of disbelief".  Kid + speeding minecart == hamburger.  Anything else only serves to break the belivability of the game.

Seriously, placating to screaming rabble rousers who want to tell other people how to live their lives is a major reason why the world is so screwed up right now. (Don't mean to derail, but look at all the absurdity and brewhahah over gay marriages, abortions, gay people in the military, etc. Same exact people who complain about kids being gibbed in video games, and about "all that violence!")

The real world isn't gumdrops and sunshine, and I don't want my games forced that way to suit the magical thinking of others, that want to insist that it should be.

*meh*.

(Sorry for rant.)

[Urist McDwarfFortress]

I think the worry is that DF is still a bit harcore and graphic for the mainstream audience

Thats the first time I've ever heard someone refer to DF as "graphic!" 

[wierd]

How else would you describe--


The bronze collosus strikes Ducim Spearthunders with its right fist, sending Ducim Spearthunders flying!

Ducim Spearthunders has collided with an obstacle!
Ducim Spearthunders has eploded into gore!
*The axedwarf Ducim Spearthunders has been struck down!*

As anything other than graphic carnage?

[Deepblade]

For as long as humanity, and our ability to hold virtual data, exists Dwarf Fortress shall exist. If one of the Adam boys ever got so sick they had to sell DF to some big company to afford the cost the entire DF community would rally together to help pay for whatever procedure was required, possibly with a Kickstarter.

If EA got DF and wanted to change it to appeal to a wider audience, It'd be The Sims: Dwarf Fortress. You'd have to go online to be able to play and the basic game consists of digging out a fortress and 7 dwarves. No item creation, no combat, no FUN. All those things are 99 cent addons you buy. Artifacts would be a 2.99 addon. If you want hospitals that's 1.99. etc,etc

Thats the first time I've ever heard someone refer to DF as "graphic!" 

Nothing is more graphical than a person's imagination, which is the graphics card that DF uses.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

As long as there are people to play the game, it will last...unless it becomes sentient and takes over the world, eventually inciting a revolution to destroy it, eventually leading to the response to attempt to destroy all copies of DF in existence from fear of it happening again.  One copy would survive and after a series of events would trying to gain retribution and wind up sending the world to the last ice age via a self sacrifice, killing a multitude of the population of the planet.  Or something.