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[Sutremaine]

Do you 'k' every g in the map every 30 seconds or so to make sure you aren't being ambushed?

I know I'm not being ambushed because of the lack of pause, recentre, and "An ambush! Curse them!" announcement. Before that point, the ambushers are invisible, so it doesn't matter how they're represented.

For the wombat / wolf issue, you only need to k once for each. Wombats are brown and wolves are grey.

[Bludulukus]

I like tilesets.

[Monk321654]

The ASCII leaves more to the imagination, in my opinion. It's more enjoyable...

[Lalasa]

Sorry for being so late, but I will admit I stuck a little jab at Obsidian... I wasn't trying to downgrade his tileset, which looks very appealing, but I did think he tried too hard to prove complete tileset superiority with only one example... (which happened to be his as well).

So I apologize for making you upset Obsidian.  It's a good set.  There's no way I would have the patience or skill to make something close to that, so I have no right to downgrade it in any way.

I'm still too used to ASCII to change to any graphical set.  I'm adverse to change, especially ones so large to a game so sensitive.  Now that I'm used to ASCII, it is tilesets that are difficult to read.  And somehow when I look at the letters and markings, I see my world as it is and not just symbols.  So I'm happy with the way I view my fort.

[Ora_the_Owlish]

I originally learned Dwarf Fortress with a tileset. Armok bless you ASCII-learners, but I found the nonsquare tiles to be incredibly distracting (plus I experienced surpluses of microcline AND yellow sand *shudder*). Now that I know what I'm doing some...oh, thirty percent of the time (and know how to change colors), I'm making forays into ASCII. Tilesets help me cut down on "processing overload" and, at a glance, make my fortress feel more...tangible, I suppose. It looks like a fortress full of small hairy drunks. ASCII still confuses me sometimes, but I can appreciate the sense of immersion it brings. With experience, ASCII might seem more compelling, but I still fail to see as one being superior to the other. I guess what I'd like to ask is this...are folks seriously trying to argue which is superior, or is that just a side-effect of a collective love of the game dorfy sadism?

Oh! On a related note, can someone recommend a good starter ASCII set? I've seen plenty of options on the wiki and a few honorable mentions on this thread, but experience trumps both. Right now I'm using Taffer because it came with Masterwork, but I'm totally open to suggestion.

[Obsidian Soul]

Sorry for being so late, but I will admit I stuck a little jab at Obsidian... I wasn't trying to downgrade his tileset, which looks very appealing, but I did think he tried too hard to prove complete tileset superiority with only one example... (which happened to be his as well).

So I apologize for making you upset Obsidian.  It's a good set.  There's no way I would have the patience or skill to make something close to that, so I have no right to downgrade it in any way.

I'm still too used to ASCII to change to any graphical set.  I'm adverse to change, especially ones so large to a game so sensitive.  Now that I'm used to ASCII, it is tilesets that are difficult to read.  And somehow when I look at the letters and markings, I see my world as it is and not just symbols.  So I'm happy with the way I view my fort.

Thank you. I apologize for my little tantrum as well. And yes, I do regret using my own tileset as an example, that did look kind of self-promotional (I assure you it's not, but it would have been weirder if I used another set for an example).

But again, I must clarify, I wasn't claiming that graphics sets are superior, a point I repeatedly mentioned. I was merely responding to the claims that ascii were *less* confusing than graphics sets. Even the OP acknowledges that ascii takes more time to learn and is the most common reason for scaring new players off. Ascii has its own advantages, but "less confusing" simply isn't one of them.

That said, I think it's best if I stay away from this topic. I'm not exactly a fan of flame wars (unless it involves levers and magma and elves).

[Obsidian Soul]

So something like this flame war? (Look on the last comments)

LOL elf hell. Glorious evil!

[lue]

I also prefer ASCII to tilesets, simply because I came to it after playing quite a bit of Nethack and Angband, and never had a problem adjusting to DF. (I was actually surprised to hear music coming from this rougelike-looking game when I first turned it on.) I haven't even changed to square ASCII, the rectangular squares don't seem to bother me too much (though I do have to create them by counting the tiles instead of "that looks square").

I actually wouldn't mind trying a graphical tileset, but all the screenshots I've seen of them show commas and periods in text turning into lightly colored squares, which is something I'd rather not have. If DF made a difference between game world characters and written text characters, that'd be great! I also don't think I'd be fine with changing just the creature graphics.

On the point of colors, I've never had a problem with any of those "blinding" colors. I like building things in microcline in particular and wish it would appear above the cavern levels on more of my embarks . The only problem color for me is the dark blue, which is impossible to read on a black background. Might go adjusting that soon, now that I think about it.

Also, not to put a finer point on things, but none of us are using ASCII. We're using CP-437.

[Krevsin]

Like a bisexual during one of his nights out, I can go either way. I like ASCII for the beauty in its simplicity, but I also like a good tileset every now and then. Provided they are not a mess of barely distinguishable tiles and sprites that blend into one another so well I can't see what's what.

I also like ASCII tilesets, like Jolly Bastion (gotta love Jolly Bastion) or Shizzle, because they make the game so much prettier while keeping the simplicity of ASCII.

[0cu]

Over the last weeks, I have really tried hard to get used to some graphic sets, even Obsidian. It didn't go well though. With ASCII, I can tell with one glance at my fort what is going on there. Graphic sets make my forts always look messy and I really hate the text glitches. If someone has the name "Órul Urist", it is shown with a lever and I think this is the most negative aspect of graphic sets. Besides, the color schemes don't have that much of an impact for graphic sets as they do for ASCII sets. I don't need to know which dwarf has which profession, because half of my fort is an hauling force and I don't care about their profession anyway. If I'm looking for someone, I use DFHack's search functions ingame.

I like ASCII sets with custom tiles for different races though, so I use taffer's.

[Russell.s]

Personally I like Jolly Bastion for it's warm colours and smiling dwarves, but usually use a tileset called Ravings. It's basically ASCII but square and with diagonal walls:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Sutremaine]

If someone has the name "Órul Urist", it is shown with a lever and I think this is the most negative aspect of graphic sets.

You can replace the accented letters in the various languages by changing what's in the translation file for each language.

[Bobnova]

I learned on ASCII, I've played many ASCII games as well (including, but not limited to, a few thousand hours of Medievia before it had a tileset). Despite that I find the ASCII in DF to be amazingly difficult to pick things out in. Goblins are the example that drove me towards tilesets. I find it much easier to pick out a bunch of goblins in armor with whips or bows on a green field than I do to pick out a bunch of grey 'g' characters on a field of , and .
While I understand the draw of playing the game in its "pure" form (none of you "playing it as its meant to be played" people have mods, right? ), I spend far too much time trying to actually find the goblins when announced than I do combating them. It's frustrating.
I'd really like to play it in ASCII, and I've tried a number of times, but it's too much of a distracting headache to me compared to the ease of figuring out what's what in Ironhand.


As for Obsidian vs ASCII-People, he was quite polite and logical. The same cannot be said for all those arguing with him.

[npnth]

I actually prefer ASCII for aesthetic reason, but the killer feature for me is the TEXT display mode so that I can run DF on my desktop at home over ssh during meetings.