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[Putnam]

No mod as big as Masterwork can be deemed an extension of vanilla. It's not anything wrong with Masterwork, it's just how modding is. It gets too big, you can't called it "vanilla+". Heck, I'm pretty sure Meph only still calls it Masterwork because the name's too entrenched.

[Arbinire]

I'm not all that into Masterwork; it takes a lot of cues from Warhammer, a franchise I'm not personally enamored with, and as a result it kinda breaks away from my own impression of what the world of DF is like.

That said, it has a lot going for it. You can disable all the fluff it comes with, and simply take advantage of the performance improvements. And it's prepackaged with a bunch of graphics sets and the ability to trivially switch between them with a few clicks. Play around and see!

This pretty much.  I enjoyed masterwork for a bit until it took on it's Warhammer leaning.  It still amazes me how obsessed people will get, and how seriously they'll take, what was clearly always meant to be a spoof setting playing off the comedic tropes of D&D.  Especially when the change came over to the Orc Fortress mod too, I like my orcs to be noble savages, not mentally feeble mushroom spawn.

I've tried playing masterwork again, and just find that the Warhammer bent breaks immersion too much for me, and there are already a couple other Warhammer mods anyways.  Masterwork has just gotten way to bloated for my tastes, but am glad Meph released a simplified vanilla version, which I do play a bit since it's easier on my laptop.  When it comes to mods though, Deon's are by far the best, and should be played by any dwarf fortress fan at least one playthrough.

[Mopsy]

I wouldn't call Warhammer (either 40k or Fantasy Battle) a "spoof" setting. Parts of it are very Britishly tongue-in-cheek, but it's still supposed to provide an environment for serious (or semi-serious) plots and drama. It's not Discworld with miniatures. That's no reason for anyone to treat it as IRL serious business, of course.

As for Masterwork, and content mods in general, it just seems like a new paint job to me. No amount of modding can add any dynamic complexity to the world or the gameplay, and that complexity is the primary reason why I care about DF in the first place. How many different types of weapons and rocks and plants and booze and so forth there are makes no difference to me as long as the underlying systems are unchanged.

[Putnam]

As for Masterwork, and content mods in general, it just seems like a new paint job to me. No amount of modding can add any dynamic complexity to the world or the gameplay, and that complexity is the primary reason why I care about DF in the first place. How many different types of weapons and rocks and plants and booze and so forth there are makes no difference to me as long as the underlying systems are unchanged.

I disagree, somewhat. Mods like Rise of the Mushroom Kingdom or Fortbent add new mechanics (Power stars and randomly-but-fairly-systematically-assigned). The interaction system allowed a lot and DFHack adds even more. RotMK impresses me especially because it does what it does without DFHack.

[Meph]

Stimraug, the thread opener: Its free. Have a look, read the manual. Maybe play one fort, maybe not. If you dont like Dwarf Mode, try the Orcs or Kobolds. Then try Genesis, LFR or Corrosion... Then decide yourself what you prefer, vanilla or mods. There is no right or wrong.

Mopsy: You can add new game-mechanics, with and without dfhack. The Biologist or Researcher in the mod are a simple example of the non-dfhack approach, while the Warbeast Kennels or Machine Factory are a dfhack example. These four things do permanent buffs against a specific race, spending time and resources to unlock new workshops, add skills to animals, and spawn completely new creatures from items and materials. None of which is vanilla DF.

In future updates, which will come within a month, invaders can dig into your fort, and the game will have a lighting system forcing you to build light-sources, make torches and candles.

Heck, I'm pretty sure Meph only still calls it Masterwork because the name's too entrenched.

That is correct. It was a private, small Vanilla+ mod in the beginning, to fix some things and allow DF to run on my netbook. I chose Masterwork, because its the ingame name for a well done item. If I would have known that people interpret it as arrogance after I do release it openly, and what problems it brings with forum searches (because masterwork is quite a common word here, outside the mod topics) I would have chosen another name. I tried a few times to name it MDF, like Narhirils Legends of Forlorn Realms is just LFR... but the name Masterwork seems to be here to stay. The mod only really got popular because Lucas_Up gave me the source code of the LNP, and I altered it to alter the mod.

But seriously, this is a question I would like to have answered.  No disrespect to the large number of people who've worked on it, but it breaks adventurer mode, simplifies fortress mode and adds a whole bunch of bugs, and Meph - someone who according to his own posts has ample time and money for travel - has the audacity to call it "Masterwork" and accept donations.

It does break adventure mode. No objections, its a pure RTS mod. It does not, under any circumstances, simplify fort mode. On the contrary, it does add to it, in heaps.

I do have ample time, since I dont have a job. Never had one, besides being an airforce sniper. I do not have ample money. I travel with about 10-20€ as a daily budget. Sometimes as much as 30€ a day. I do not only get donations from Masterwork, which, after 5 months of offering the option of supporting me, accumulates to 160€, but also from outdoor companies, which is more in the range of 13000€ of gear. I expected some criticism about the donations option, but no one ever voiced any complains directly at me. I give ample forum support, got my own wiki-space and forum-space, and spend over 2000h personally working on this mod. Even as an unlearned laborer earning minimum wage in Germany it would be 14000€. Toady gets about 3000-5000 Dollars a month in donations, I get about 40. We both work roughly the same amount of time per day on this, with me taking the occasional break. I dont think that I'm audacious or greedy... I do this as a hobby. For the 10000-15000 players (hard to say for sure, but thats the average monthly download number) I dont need to spend 120h on a manual, which I certainly dont need to understand the mod, or make forum polls and brainstorm threads, if I just wanted this for myself. Honestly I have long stopped playing DF and only mod, because of the community. And completely disregarding any quality rating on any mod, I do have pushed DF modding far ahead of what it was before I made MasterworkDF, I combine and use raws, scripts and ideas like no one else, and then I share them, usually with instructions, so that other modders can benefit from it.

I enjoyed masterwork for a bit until it took on it's Warhammer leaning.  It still amazes me how obsessed people will get, and how seriously they'll take, what was clearly always meant to be a spoof setting playing off the comedic tropes of D&D.  Especially when the change came over to the Orc Fortress mod too, I like my orcs to be noble savages, not mentally feeble mushroom spawn.

I've tried playing masterwork again, and just find that the Warhammer bent breaks immersion too much for me, and there are already a couple other Warhammer mods anyways

Warhammer, or making the mod too Warhammer-ish: I honestly have no idea where that impression comes from. Kobold Mode is 100% self-made, Orc Mode is 100% made by Smakemupagus, any Warhammer influence in that regard is his (and I wouldnt blame him for it, since he has free reign over Orc Mode, I do not interfere) and Dwarf mode has... let me see. Warhammer features? Warpstone, which is not used for anything yet. The humans are imperialistic... but I cant think of anything else. None of the workshops is based on Warhammer, none of the races are based on warhammer, with the exception of the Chaos Dwarves, which again are a creation of Smake. I initially copied the dwarves, made them babysnatcher to allow combat with dwarves, but he improved the evil races by giving them more of their own identity. I am however planning on adding a digging skaven race, which would add a use for warpstone.

Thats 2 things that are clearly taken from Warhammer. There are many other things taken from other games, stories or mythologies, which are not mentioned here. For example the finish speaking Frost Giants, or the the mithril-bearing LotR elves.

It's way too gamey.

About that: Yes, I am a big fan of RTS, like Broodwar and StarcraftII, the older Warcrafts, Total War, and so on. Obviously I try to take the features I like of those and build them into this. DF is already pure simulation, so adding a few strategy-game elements cant transform it into a strategy-game, but will result in some kind of mix. I try to find a balance between real life, things that make sense ingame, balancing and accessability. Especially hard when doing things like Religion (which is completely invented) or Chemistry (which, if based on RL, would be far to complex for the player to learn). Some things I just add for fun.

I am open to suggestions, as anyone knows who frequents the MasterworkDF board, so here is something that does interest me personally: What do you think is wrong with MasterworkDF, or could be made better? (Or, from the other point of view: What is good about it, what is in fact the appeal?)

PS: Putnam:

It's fun to read, though :V

You mean about it, or the raws? ^^

[Putnam]

The raws. Lotsa raws in there.

I expected some criticism about the donations option, but no one ever voiced any complains directly at me.

hehe, when I learned of it all I figured was "welp now I won't be the first" and immediately went to set one up myself

[Arbinire]

@Meph

Sorry if my post came off a bit snarky toward you personally.  What you've done with Dwarf Fortress modding is amazing honestly.  And even the features Smake put it, requires a lot of talent and patience, much more than I have.  I do understand that people love the Warhammer setting, and my frustrations were more a vent at a fanbase I deal with IRL fairly often.  There are a few features though that def borrow from Warhammer(as there are features that borrow from many fantasy settings), which does kill it for me personally though.

I suppose I should direct more of my frustration at Smake though, cause damnit, I liked playing the Orc Fort plugin when it was just focused on the tribal Taiga Orcs.  *shakes fist in Smake's personally direction*

[Meph]

Smake hasn been active for quite a while. But I am sure his daikatana-wielding orcs are not stoopid pod-orcs with weird boyz.

There are a few features though that def borrow from Warhammer

Could you name them?
 - Warpstone
 - Chaosdwarves
 - ?

Putnam: Yeah, I noticed your sig.

[Snaake]

Don't really have a stake, but was going to cite Skaven, but then you mentioned that yourself

Damn, no taiga orcs? I was just reading the orcish quickstart over on the dfwiki/masterwork section, seemed cool, would've been more original. Kinda bummed if it's more Warhammer-ey now (a franchise that I'm fine and have had a lot of fun with, but still). I suppose there's always the chance of grabbing the taiga orc version and updating that... (not necessarily by you or Smake, even) a great thing about modding, that!

[Werdna]

I am greatly thankful to both Deon and Meph for their mods, which have greatly extended my enjoyment of DF.  I have sunk many enjoyable hours into Toady's wonderful game, thanks to his and their work.

I don't give a dwarf's sock what 'purists' think of what or how I play - and neither should you, OP.

[Dyret]

I don't give a dwarf's sock what 'purists' think of what or how I play - and neither should you, OP.

I think it has more to do with feeling bad about choosing someone else's vision over Toady's than being afraid of the strawmen. There's really no reason to, though, he made the game moddable for a reason.

[hermes]

I am greatly thankful to both Deon and Meph for their mods, which have greatly extended my enjoyment of DF.  I have sunk many enjoyable hours into Toady's wonderful game, thanks to his and their work.

I don't give a dwarf's sock what 'purists' think of what or how I play - and neither should you, OP.

Just for the record, my point about not playing MW has nothing to do with purism or whatever, and is mostly due to the "mod" being basically broken.  I find it ironic (because of the name), strange (because it has been in development for so long) and vaguely insulting (because of the professed love for the original game) that it should break DF in so many ways.  The error threads are full of reports of broken utilities, raws and features.

The amount of time and energy Meph puts into this is astonishing, and praiseworthy.   Because of its prominence/promotion, perhaps, MW also brings in some new players and gives them something fresh, which is great.  I also think the way it seems to push DF to its limits is interesting and probably of some technical use to Toady in showing what DF can and/or may do in the future.  But I feel that Meph should focus less on this...

I do have ample time, since I dont have a job. Never had one,  - snip -

... and more on feature locking and polishing.

[Meph]

I would agree, if this was my job, but its my hobby. If someone pays me a salary, and people pay to download a program, and it has bugs, thats unacceptable. But a free mod which I do for fun? If I wanted to I could just say: Yep, I'll delete it today and I will sue anyone who uses my content from this day forth.

Its my project. People are free to play it, and with the manual and the UI I put a lot of effort into it to make it playable for the community.

Besides, how is the mod broken? Yes, I get tons of bugreports, because a release is how I test features. I asked the community: "Would you like slow releases that are stable, or fast releases and I abuse you as guinea pigs", which is word for word how I formulated that question. People voted for "fast and untested" releases. There is also the issue with the UI and tilesets. I have 4 sets of raws and 150 or so buttons that alter them. Thats... several tens of thousands of combinations, which I cant test. I always test the default setting, and thats it. For all the other bug reports I require user feedback. So new features might have some issues for 1 version, and are fixed in the 2nd version, which again introduces new features for testing. Rinse and Repeat. Thats why you see so many bug-reports. But broken? No way. The mod has ~350 buildings and ~6500 reactions. So even if 1 building is broken in one tileset, or one reaction doesnt work because there is a typo in the reagents... both together is still ~0,1% of the mod.

[Arbinire]

@meph

you've covered the few that I was thinking of off the top of my head, but not exactly sure why you are so defensive about people pointing out that you do borrow from Warhammer(specifically).  You've stated in several threads that you were a fan of the franchise, and have made no secret of it, and have even admitted in several other threads that it was a big influence on how you wanted to set up your mod.  And I even conceded that you borrowed from many other fantasy settings as well.  I wasn't attacking you personally nor did I really exagerate the amount of influence Warhammer had on your mod.  I was just voicing my personal opinion on the matter, I don't like Warhammer, and when I see things from the setting pop up, it breaks MY personal immersion and desire to play.

But if you must push the issue, like you've pointed out, you have warpstone, skaven, chaos dwarves, the orcs(which you can argue on smake's behalf untill you are blue in the face, but when the manual introduction includes the ever infamous 'Waaaaagh!' and in adventure mode naming professions Cutta, Choppa, etc...it speaks for itself).  I'm sure there are many others, even if not directly named after Warhammer entities, but I don't have the time nor the desire to pick through your mod and be a nitpicky dbag just to prove that a "few" Warhammer references and influences exist.  Again like I said before, what you have done IS amazing and isn't something I can do myself.

[Meph]

I do like Warhammer, as I do like many other things. But I never felt like there is a lot of it in the mod. There are the Chaos Dwarves (Skaven are a concept, they are not in the mod, I just want to add them ) but the Chaos Dwarves are 1 of 35 races. And Orcs... well, yeah, Smake, but even regardless of that, there are no DF Orcs. There is no guideline to make them like vanilla DF, because no vanilla DF Orcs exist.

Warpstone, true. That has been in the mod from the first release. Its just too good as an obstacle for miners to ignore.