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[Krevsin]

I like ASCII. But I also like tilesets, when made well.

[Obsidian Soul]

I actually do o:

My games are more often paused than running real-time, really. You can't maintain proper fortress if you just let it run freely without strict supervision

LOL. Good point. So do I. But you can't deny that not having to 'k' all the time is one less tediousness eliminated Plus given the unforgiving nature of DF, seeing a threat and recognizing it for what it is immediately can make all the difference between a dead dwarf or two who didn't make it to the burrows in time, or a gutted fortress red with blood and innards.

[Lalasa]

Although the colors are a lot brighter in the ASCII, I am unable to tell what any of the dwarves' jobs are with Obsidian's tileset and I had to verify with ASCII what stuff was in it.  I started with ASCII and I understand ASCII and now I can't understand graphical sets.  Not only that but as someone who seems to have a knack for installing anything completely wrong, obtaining said tileset could come at the cost of my fortress.

Besides, I don't guess when it comes to guests on my map.  I use the Units list and I zoom in on them.  I don't need to guess what that letter is on the screen because I hit the pause button and examined it personally.

Tileset salespitching won't work on me.  I'm still going to cling to the original set on the account I figured it out.  And since I figured it out, I don't want to have to relearn it with graphics I don't even like much, considering the onscreen clutter and input overload.

[Obsidian Soul]

Although the colors are a lot brighter in the ASCII, I am unable to tell what any of the dwarves' jobs are with Obsidian's tileset and I had to verify with ASCII what stuff was in it.  I started with ASCII and I understand ASCII and now I can't understand graphical sets.  Not only that but as someone who seems to have a knack for installing anything completely wrong, obtaining said tileset could come at the cost of my fortress.

Besides, I don't guess when it comes to guests on my map.  I use the Units list and I zoom in on them.  I don't need to guess what that letter is on the screen because I hit the pause button and examined it personally.

Tileset salespitching won't work on me.  I'm still going to cling to the original set on the account I figured it out.  And since I figured it out, I don't want to have to relearn it with graphics I don't even like much, considering the onscreen clutter and input overload.

Is this really what people think I'm doing here? "Tileset salespitching"?

Wow.

I'm out.

[Bandreus]

It's fun how ASCII people don't have a problem with ASCII requiring lots of 'getting used to', while they're very quickly pissed at not being able to recognize a few tiles from a tileset which they rarely (if ever) used or actually saw before. Being able to successfully guess at what things are just by looking at a bunch of pixels clearly isn't a feature worth being mentioned, but the sporadic issues a vast minority of tiles having sub-optimal readability clearly is an unforgivable offender.

I love ASCII graphics, but I think other games make a far better use of it than DF. Nothing is wrong with DF itself, but the sheer amount of different things you need to memorize plus the extreme clutter being on screen at any given point in time can make ASCII look like visual noise even for some of those fairly used to the style. I simply find ASCII doesn't lend that well to DF, and it's undeniable most players have a harder time deciphering DF rather than other roguelikes like, say, Brogue or other major titles in the genre.

Luckily enough, using graphics packs is not that hard (especially if you use LNP or tools like that), so it just comes to picking up whatever works best for you.

[Sergarr]

Although the colors are a lot brighter in the ASCII, I am unable to tell what any of the dwarves' jobs are with Obsidian's tileset and I had to verify with ASCII what stuff was in it.  I started with ASCII and I understand ASCII and now I can't understand graphical sets.  Not only that but as someone who seems to have a knack for installing anything completely wrong, obtaining said tileset could come at the cost of my fortress.

Besides, I don't guess when it comes to guests on my map.  I use the Units list and I zoom in on them.  I don't need to guess what that letter is on the screen because I hit the pause button and examined it personally.

Tileset salespitching won't work on me.  I'm still going to cling to the original set on the account I figured it out.  And since I figured it out, I don't want to have to relearn it with graphics I don't even like much, considering the onscreen clutter and input overload.

Is this really what people think I'm doing here? "Tileset salespitching"?

Wow.

I'm out.

Wow, way to rage-quit.

Now I wonder what was in these posts you retconned into oblivion.

[Krevsin]

Although the colors are a lot brighter in the ASCII, I am unable to tell what any of the dwarves' jobs are with Obsidian's tileset and I had to verify with ASCII what stuff was in it.  I started with ASCII and I understand ASCII and now I can't understand graphical sets.  Not only that but as someone who seems to have a knack for installing anything completely wrong, obtaining said tileset could come at the cost of my fortress.

Besides, I don't guess when it comes to guests on my map.  I use the Units list and I zoom in on them.  I don't need to guess what that letter is on the screen because I hit the pause button and examined it personally.

Tileset salespitching won't work on me.  I'm still going to cling to the original set on the account I figured it out.  And since I figured it out, I don't want to have to relearn it with graphics I don't even like much, considering the onscreen clutter and input overload.

Is this really what people think I'm doing here? "Tileset salespitching"?

Wow.

I'm out.

You've just erased your every post in this thread, some of which contained quite good arguments as to why tilesets are good.

Instead of trying to defend yourself, you ragequitted, taking all your toys with you.

You, my dear sir, are what is commonly reffered to as: Butthurt.

[Obsidian Soul]

Wow, way to rage-quit.

Now I wonder what was in these posts you retconned into oblivion.

"Tileset salespitching", obviously.

You've just erased your every post in this thread, some of which contained quite good arguments as to why tilesets are good.

Instead of trying to defend yourself, you ragequitted, taking all your toys with you.

You, my dear sir, are what is commonly reffered to as: Butthurt.

I've never pushed my set at anyone, ever, nor have I ever claimed it's better than anyone else's. I even spent a fair amount of my time last month to fix the wiki and add more ascii-based tilesets and graphics sets that weren't there before. So to be accused of self-aggrandizement after all that is incredibly insulting.

I removed them because I realized this really was yet another self-masturbatory "Purists vs. Noobs" snobbery thread. Nothing I post here will really change any of the opinions of the ascii diehards anyway (and your further insults only prove that). It only opens up my hard work to ridicule, and I'd really rather not subject myself to that, thank you very much.

And there. Enjoy. I've restored the individual posts. Not that you'll find anything of value in them, of course.

[Lich180]

Lets not argue over who killed who what tileset is better, or easier, or whatever. its all personal opinions, preferences, and likes that someone else may not agree with totally. Not worth getting all up in a frenzy over.

Besides, tilesets take time to make and even more time to make them look good (which there are many excellent ones i've tried and learned to play on) and ASCII has a sparse beauty of its own.

[Halfling]

Well now that we are here

• Some people feel ASCII is superior for personal reasons
• Others feel tilesets are superior for personal reasons
• Some try to argue their point
• Then some people take this personally as an assault on their way of life and/or have suffered the travesty of art defacement lately.

Whatever. Chill. Look at a fine door or something.

Hypothetically, if you had a tileset that looks like ASCII for the most common objects, but gives extended creatures new colors and letters, say, from latin extended, specifically differentiating creatures which now have the same letter and similar color, then wouldn't that set be strictly superior to ASCII? Seeing as it contains more information. You could even style the letters to sometimes refer to the creature name like in vanilla ASCII. The only counterargument that immediately comes to mind is that "it is harder to learn" or "it is harder to read", but that seems vacuous because with those creatures you mostly have not "learned" and are not "reading" anything specific if the creature tile is the same and you have to look.

[malimbar04]

I first learned on ASCII, and my first experience was a long list of WTF. I didn't get the whole idea of ramps and slices of the terrain at first, so whenever the terrain "changed", IE I went up a level, I got really lost. But Then I had watched a tutorial on youtube (captainducks IIRC), and started to really get into it.

That cliff of learning was amazing though. I absolutely loved it, and I probably wouldn't have gotten into the game if someone thought they were easing me into it with a graphics set. Those things throw me off more than help.

Plus I'm a purist, and regularly get rid of any 3rd party apps. My problem, most people don't care, but I'll scoff before I install things like masterwork, and I'll rarely use DFHack (even though it has several commands I find very useful), and Dwarf Therapist is a brand new thing I'll probably stop using (it makes things less personal).

[BoredVirulence]

I prefer ASCII. Its also what I learned with. And I originally learned ASCII because I wanted to play vanilla. I will admit, originally I chose ASCII partly because I wanted the "pure" experience. I don't still think that way, I see points to both. Graphic sets can be pretty, although I see many with horrid color schemes, Obsidian's looks fairly nice. However, I might enjoy seeing barrels and hallways, the dwarves in all tilesets pain me on a personal level. Yes I do use 'v' to distinguish goblins from geese. Yes, 'g''s and '&''s don't look to menacing. But I always use 'v' and read the description, and when I do that the characters then come to life.

And thats what I really love about ASCII, its ambiguity. Its like the difference between reading a book and watching a movie. And as much as i love watching fight scenes with plenty of good CG, somehow the ambiguity in books to picture it however makes it better sometimes. And that feeling is strongest in DF, because I don't know what a pig tail looks like, nor how grand the dining room is. I rely on the dwarves to tell me something is a masterwork, and my imagination's inability to picture it has a subtle beautify all of its own.

So yes, originally I was biased. Now I appreciate some things about each. And lets be honest, stockpiles always look like crap, although I like the beauty of my differently colored rock pots in ASCII. But, in my opinion, nothing captures the beauty of ambiguity quite like ASCII. But then again, fights like this existed long before DF in the books vs movie wars, and will continue to be raged long into the future.

[AutomataKittay]

Seeing people squabble over ASCII tileset and graphic tileset is a bit amusing to me

I'm pretty much a purist, not out of some high moral reason, but out of laziness. I prefer ASCII because it came with DF, and it's a habit for me now. I don't really like most graphic sets' cluttered feel, but I can say the same for ASCII being too simplified.

Either way, I can figure things out by context, it's one thing ASCII seem to do a lot better for me with it's relative simplicity. And for whomever was trying to argue by snapshot appearance, those are pretty horrible arguments since a lot of those can be figured out by context and is equally an issue in more graphic tilesets.

I mean, who even bother trying to pick out a specific dwarf while they're swarming around, that's unitlist business. And if goblins are around, there sure ain't gonna be guineafowls standing around. Those examples only really matters if it's a fortress being shown to others, such as communal or succession games and people talks enough to give good idea of what's going on.

Sorry for rambling, but for someone like me, ASCII is just easier to work with at an glance and already there, graphic sets are okay to look at but too cluttery-feeling for me.

[DS]

I've never pushed my set at anyone, ever, nor have I ever claimed it's better than anyone else's. I even spent a fair amount of my time last month to fix the wiki and add more ascii-based tilesets and graphics sets that weren't there before. So to be accused of self-aggrandizement after all that is incredibly insulting.

I removed them because I realized this really was yet another self-masturbatory "Purists vs. Noobs" snobbery thread. Nothing I post here will really change any of the opinions of the ascii diehards anyway (and your further insults only prove that). It only opens up my hard work to ridicule, and I'd really rather not subject myself to that, thank you very much.

Alright. The vast majority of posts in this thread from people who prefer ASCII as opposed to tilesets have been respectful and reasonable. The very first post after you put up a picture of your tileset was a compliment of your hard work. While I understand that you may be upset due to a handful of posts that were directed at you, it is not ok to slather blanket judgements over everyone else in the thread because they prefer one way of playing the game over another. The "Purists vs. Noobs" arguments happen often enough as it is, and are literally the most frustrating thing about this forum for me. So, please, let's keep this civil.

The idea of graphical tilesets being easier to decipher "at a glance" is interesting to me. Not because I doubt it - it seems reasonable enough - but having learned to play DF using the ASCII, I have no trouble determining what is going on at any point in time when viewing the game without a tileset. Hell, I spend most of the game paused, managing many different aspects of the fortress at once, so using "v" or "k" to determine what a specific tile is does not especially bother me. In fact, I've never before considered how much time I actually spend in the game just going through looking at different things. I don't suppose that this would change, however, if I was using a graphical tileset, as the reason I spend so much time viewing individual tiles/creatures is to take in the detail of the scene, and not the shallow breadth. That is, I like going through and looking at individual dwarves, or creatures, or piles of spatter, or accumulated work orders at individual workshops, or the contents of bins... that is truly independent of tilesets.

[escondida]

Having come to df from roguelikes, I'm definitely a fan of the ASCII. It's pretty awesome how much work has gone into making the various tilesets (many of which are *very* pretty), but I don't have quite the same instinctual understanding of images taken with them.

I will say, though, that as a nethack player it took me a little while to overcome habituated responses to certain characters: "No, you fool, stay away from that `c'! It'll turn you to stone!" or just after embarking "Oh, great, (W)raiths" (water buffalo and wraiths are even both dark grey, for bonus points).