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[Putnam]

Also note that Toady is, as far as I know, pretty financially comfortable, except for the occasional health scare (as just happened), and he gets, oh, $12,000 every single time he releases a large update, and it rises every time. It may be $20,000 this time around, even, given that this next update is both the biggest ever and is the second-longest update cycle ever (and may become the longest if it lasts more than another month and two days)

[Sutremaine]

Personally, I wouldn't mind having certain workshop item hotkeys standardized (n builds bins within forge menus, just like at the woodshop) and also change the hotkey that deletes a burrow.  I have facepalmed and #ragequit so many times from trying to (d)esignate my current burrow.  As many know, this deletes it instantly.

You can change that in interface.txt, though apart from a few irreversible things (eg. burrow removal) I leave it alone.

[neblime]

It may be $20,000 this time around, even, given that this next update is both the biggest ever

I wasn't around back in the day but surely bringing in z levels was the biggest update?
Anyway, as for the actual thread;
Sure the UI is a problem (for some people anyway) but I don't think running a kickstarter and paying toady to do it is really a viable solution, first off i'm 99% sure he wouldn't agree to that, (he talked about his feelings about kickstarters and taking money from people for a specific bit of work in general on a df talk, couldn't tell you which) secondly, what if it takes more than a year, or the quality after a year isnt acceptable, and toady doesn't want to continue with ui stuff? (basing that off the fact he isn't doing it of his own accord, so he probably doesn't want to.)
Also, sure, having the ui for 20 years makes all of those 20 years more enjoyable, but doesn't any content?  When the pending update comes won't the next 20 years all be better because of its features too?
UI improvements are no different to any other feature really; some people think it should be #1 priority, others don't, everything toady works on will improve the game experience (unless something goes wrong) and I don't believe the majority of players think that UI improvements are the most pressing or most important thing to add to the game.  Don't ignore the priorities of the obsessive masochistic unemployed DF players.

[reality.auditor]

Sure, Kickstarter will not happen ever, and UI improvements probably will not happen ever. Majority of community and Toady himself clearly and loudly voiced their priorites here. I disagree with these priorites, but that's it. I am in miniority and I will have to put up with fact they prefer to add new, shiny features instead of fixing bugs and making better UI.

But I find excuses for UI rather... lacking. UI is pile of steaming crap, period. You guys (and I for that matter) play despite it, not thanks to it.

"Best" arguments are like "UI is noob friendly, and learning curve of DF is cool anyway" - simultaneously denying and admitting problem with UI. Or people that think "better UI" must mean mouse and few colorful icons. Good grief.

Better UI does NOT mean UI for idiots - it would not be possible with such complicated game like DF anyway. Arguments like this just show elitist nature of people that feel they are better just because they mastered nedlessly atrocious UI in one certain obscure game. Making UI better, simpler, more intuitive (do you see somewhere here "colorful icons" or "mouse"?) would, of course, diminish these "achievments" in fake diffculty. Bah.

[Meph]

To not totally change the topic, but here is something a lot more realistic:

Lxnt is working on a new shader for the graphics.
Baughn would like to add better graphics, and he is the guy who wrote the current ones in the first place, the only outside code ever that toady added to the game.

As it was explained to me, the update they'd be going for would make it possible for third party prorams to completely alter the graphics, a lot more then Stonesense can. It wouldnt fix the UI, but this would be a realistic goal, because they have both done work on it already, and Toady One would probably be more comfortable knowing that it comes from Baughn. That would at least solve the issue people have with graphics.

[Manveru Taurënér]

snip

A Very Easy List To Write Of Things Which Have No Business Still Happening And Should Not For 20 More Years
----------------------------------------------
Getting military to equip correct items
Legendary military dwarves lose all labor preferences
Hassle getting military to actually spar, make low number training squads
Military stuck on individual training
Military waiting forever for demonstrations
Removing pets requires extraordinary means (bridge, lava, etc), why not let squad attack or butcher
Emptying cages, particularly with seeds, is a hassle (special setups, extra effort required to do it well)
Disarming caged enemies is unnecessarily laborious
Wheelbarrows, according to wiki, can usually decrease efficiency
Dwarves dropping some items on impassable tiles
Dwarves blocking their own construction site
Dwarves causing cave ins during roofing, caused by corners and bridges seen as support
Forbidden bolts everywhere
Clothing thrown everywhere
Dwarves misusing room containers
Dwarves misusing furniture already designated for other purposes (sleeping in soldier barracks, hospital beds, other wonderful stuff)
No stockpile option for gypsum plaster
Armor stands only allowing 1 glove and 1 bolt
Citizens dying from justice (should make death sentence an option not an accident).  Even more fun when your hammerers constantly refuse to equip safer weapons.
Stacks of bone or singular bone ignored by mood, even after deconstructing butcher shop or newly butchering livestock
Diplomat chasing mayor who is constantly doing the few labors which cannot be unassigned
Nobles so annoying that they are counterproductive and a lot of players just never promote to one
Metalcrafting can choose material but not mason (need to do SSS - Stupid Stockpile Shenanigans)
Art defacement allowed on masterwork clothing rotting away or bolts leaving fort
Hauling goes for farthest items and places in most distant place in the stockpile
Hospital chest storage ridiculosity
Some grazing animals cannot sustain themselves

The UI would be the quick and easy part, I'm afraid.

A lot of that isn't really UI related but actually bugs, and bugs do get worked at after each release, both new and old. Some other stuff in there are placeholders until we get to the actual thing in some future update, and as such will be fixed when the full system gets worked on (justice, animal feeding, nobles having uses to counterbalance their annoyance). Also, and a lot of people tend to forget this fact, Toady hasn't ever said that the UI will remain completely unchanged until all the rest is done.  He is regularly making small fixes to the UI when he feels like it (easier squad assignment, different tabs for the creature screen etc), he just isn't going to redo the whole thing properly until the game has all its basic features implemented already.

As for the kickstarter idea, from what I've read and seen of Toady I doubt he'd ever agree to any such incentive tbh. He isn't really all that concerned with money as long as he has enough to get by (and his donations have been growing steadily the past few years anyway). Also, the way I see it, since this is a project that has another 20 years at least to go until it's done, it's much more important that Toady can remain happy with what he's doing.

(might be worth noting if it's not obvious that I'm also one of those that don't really mind the UI in its current state, is workable albeit sometimes a nuisance)

[WanderingKid]

I personally would love to see an end to end overhaul of the entire military.  Bugs, UI, the works.  Of all my UI gripes that's probably where I can rant for a few days.  Hopefully Toady decides that's a worthy endeavour in the near future.

The main screen interface is annoying and horribly non-newbie friendly but functional once you know where things are. 

[Putnam]

It may be $20,000 this time around, even, given that this next update is both the biggest ever

I wasn't around back in the day but surely bringing in z levels was the biggest update?

The game already had a Z-level; the main issue was that fort mode didn't support it and neither did liquids. Of course, caverns and stuff had to be rewritten for it, yeah, and those were fairly big, but I'd say that this update is most definitely the biggest update ever. Note that the Z-level update bumped up the version number by 4; this next version is set to do similarly, if not more. This update has enough in it for me to regard the current version as a pre-alpha and the new one as an alpha. It actually includes the core feature of Dwarf Fortress; not a core features, the core feature: affecting the world with your actions and having the world react.

[neblime]

The game already had a Z-level; the main issue was that fort mode didn't support it and neither did liquids.

Not really sure what you mean, do you mean if you played adventure mode there were z levels?  (If so how the hell did that work when you get to an abandoned fort?)
back on topic,

A lot of that isn't really UI related but actually bugs, and bugs do get worked at after each release, both new and old.

I agree with this.  bug fixing does happen, albeit fairly slowly, once again its a matter of priorities, and there are enough people who just want new features and bug fixing on the side.  (or few enough that want bug fixes to not influence toady).  This is the main problem with the kickstarter idea, it's not a matter of money it's a matter of priorities.

[Putnam]

The game already had a Z-level; the main issue was that fort mode didn't support it and neither did liquids.

Not really sure what you mean, do you mean if you played adventure mode there were z levels?  (If so how the hell did that work when you get to an abandoned fort?)

Yes. Abandoned forts would have fake Z-levels placed by having ramps at certain spots in the fortress that, when gone down, would rotate the map randomly and only show you that fake Z-level. Other sites had actual Z-levels. Quietust even wrote a DFHack plugin that allows you to add Z-levels to your fort.

[EvilBob22]

I personally would love to see an end to end overhaul of the entire military.  Bugs, UI, the works.  Of all my UI gripes that's probably where I can rant for a few days.  Hopefully Toady decides that's a worthy endeavour in the near future.

The main screen interface is annoying and horribly non-newbie friendly but functional once you know where things are.

Today's military screen is astronomically better than the previous version.  I can remember sometimes accidentally creating a squad within a squad, or creating a squad within a squad within a squad, or dismissing entire squads when just trying to move dwarves from one squad to another.  Check out the 40d version of the military page on the wiki.  You'll see the word "frustrating" a lot, and that was too true.  I only wish it had screenshots too.

My two dwarfbucks on the UI: yes, it is bad, but you get used to it.  Fixing it would be nice, but would require almost constant overhaul going forward, so it should be done later.  In fact, I believe the extra "cost" of the constant overhaul would delay future development, and bring the total time out to 35+ years, not the 31 years as Leonidus suggested.  (Although I do congratulate the attempt to find a reasonable way to improve things for everyone, both players and Toady.)

Of course the entire discussion is really moot, because, as stated multiple times, Toady will never go for it.

[neblime]

Yes. Abandoned forts would have fake Z-levels placed by having ramps at certain spots in the fortress that, when gone down, would rotate the map randomly and only show you that fake Z-level. Other sites had actual Z-levels. Quietust even wrote a DFHack plugin that allows you to add Z-levels to your fort.

wow that sounds very very strange..

[Thormgrim]

I've been playing DF for a while now (a year?  maybe two?  where did the time go?) and I periodically quit the game specifically because the interface becomes so damned onerous.  I have also spent quite a few nights laying in bed and wondering if there's a better way to bring this thing up a notch.

I recognize that Toady is a unique guy and likes to work alone and as an isolated island and I've known guys like that (in an earlier life I was a games developer... made games for 8 years and released several commercial titles back in the 90s).  I think the best option would be the one on the voting forum... if Toady were to leave reasonable hooks in the game so that people could bolt on outside interfaces and graphics until they're satisfied. 

Then you could run your own kickstarter (or whatever) to build the slickest interface you wanted to and still leave Toady alone, which is what he seems to want more than anything.

That's my $0.00 (not even two cents, really).

[coldmonkey]

Sig'd.

[misko27]

I do wish Toady would sticky, just one, of these threads. There was that one, way back when, which actually had two Toady responses in it, that would be a good one.

Also, I would dispute the location of this one. It should be in DF General. Most of these threads go there. Adventure mode is still a thing you know, I play it myself sometimes. It's a decent mode, if a little lacking in content (in comparison); that's what the current update is for.