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Dwarves - a lot

Dwarves - a little

Dwarves - Never tried them

Gnomes - a lot

Gnomes - a little

Gnomes - Never tried them

Warlocks - a lot

Warlocks - a little

Warlocks - Never tried them

Orcs - a lot

Orcs - a little

Orcs - Never tried them

Kobolds - a lot

Kobolds - a little

Kobolds - Never tried them

[Meph]

See the poll. Further comments are of course welcome, I am just trying to figure out which part of the mod people play the most, and act accordingly.

[CptCrunchy]

I play dorfs and orcs a LOT, I've tried warlocks and bolds and they didn't really fit my style of playing.  Never tried gnomes, I'm not really a complicated machine system kind of guy.

[Arcvasti]

I really like kobolds and warlocks and mostly play them. Orcs are cool too, but I don't play them AS much because they're sort of outdated ATM. Gnomes are neat, but the new scripts and just having a lot of windmills or water reactors lags my computer to hell and back and then some. I don't particularly like MW dwarves. Partly because harder farming means you can't use farming for sustenance, and partly because they're too familiar in a lot of ways.

[Meph]

This is exactly the kind of feedback I was thinking about. Thanks guys, and keep them coming.

Now the only question I have to solve for myself is:
 - Should I work and improve the ones that are most favourite, because more players use them?
 - Or Should I work on the least played parts, because they need the most attention/improvements?

[c0mplex]

For the most part I play dwarves. I'm still trying to move my way up the game's learning curve so dwarves are the race I'm most comfortable with at the moment. Then there are warlocks, which I love to death (appropriately). I admit that while I don't quite have a good handle on them, since they're a bit different in gameplay and management compared to dorfs, I love what they're about conceptually and thematically so I try them often to understand how to use them better now and then, but I do mostly focus on learning core gameplay concepts and management from dwarves.

Then there are gnomes... I like them, I really do, but they're too complicated for me. Trying to understand their buildings and reactions makes my head spin so much that I can't imagine playing them at the moment. Maybe when I'm more familiar with the game's higher concepts, but not now. Basically, I love what gnomes do and what they are but I can't play them for the same reasons.

Orcs and kobolds don't really catch my interest though. Never tried them. I don't think they're bad, just they're not for me.

[snelg]

Only dwarves here.

[Podesta]

This reply kind of also touches the other recent polls...
I play almost exclusively dwarves, and have tried the kobolds back in 2012, but it didn't do much for me back then, maybe because I was too inexperienced back then, even more than now. I haven't tried the last couple versions of MDF, but after seeing a video of the warlocks, I'm sure it's going to change this week, and after reading about the gnomes I'm really interested as well.

I think the main thing that stops people from trying the other races is the lack of more knowledge on how things work, how things differ, which goes hand in hand with my vote for both improvement in the manual and the online presentation. But I think that for only one person to do this is really bad, It's generally a more boring job, that can get even more boring doing a big chunk of it, specially from you, that could be actually improving the mod.

My suggestion would be to move everything to the MDF wiki, and link people directly to there, and thus encouraging them to share their knowledge, or even make it more presentable. Also, to kind of kickstart it, make kind of a 'task-force', making some people initially 'responsible' for each race, so volunteers would write more about the races, including manuals and whatnot.

And lastly, since I already went over the topic mains poll already, just to let my support for the addition of the human race, and say that the prospects 'Humans Ideas post' look absolutely amazing. Also, strongly encouraging the above ground fortress making building a bit faster and mining much slower would be awesome.

An idea, though I'm not sure if possible to be implemented or not, but I'm still going to throw it out, is to also incentive the mining in the form of a big quarry. Mining an subterranean tile would be painfully slow, mining stone marked as 'above ground' would still be much slower, but not as much as the subterranean one. This should lead to super interesting scenarios. I'm have a bunch of other ideas right now, but I should go to the specific thread..

[Meph]

Human Quarry mining is already planned. They get seriously slow underground, or even get panic attacks (Boogeymen) from being underground, which forces the player to strip mine a large area, to stay "aboveground/light".

But the Wiki/appointing people to races doesnt work, the community does not keep up with it as much as I would like. There is a wiki, and the content is not up to date. And I dont have enough experienced modders to just hand them projects and just expect them to do them, because I said so. Its their free time and if someone steps up and volunteers, great... but I cant just say: Arcvasti, you have to do the Kobolds now, No discussion, get back to work.

But I plan a few steps to make the other races more interesting. Dwarf Mode has always been a kind of modders playground and EVERYTHING has been added to them. Maybe its time to take stuff away, and split it up into new races. For example, if the humans are heavily trade-based, I would take away the trader-workshops from dwarves. If people like them, they can play humans. And dwarf mode becomes less cluttered. And both races become more unique, because they have different abilities.

PS: Podesta, you want to volunteer? Step up, take a race?

[Neri]

I honestly prefer to play Warlocks and Orcs, over the other races. Dwarves just seem ... cluttered. As you said Meph, maybe taking a few things out would be an advantage. Gnomes I enjoyed, but I simply seem to play them like dwarves, except with Machinery I never get around to automating. I just equip them with the lightning gun and have these tiny buggers blast anything that moves. Amuses me, but not particularly advanced, play-wise.

Kobolds I am playing for the second time currently, was not really a fan the first time around, but this time I'm taking my time, and starting to enjoy them. damned DogLizards.

Warlocks, while being a favourite, do need something to help them survive a bit. otherwise its simply a battle against attrition, for a few valuable members, and after a while it grows old. Not sure getting more is the answer, unlike what most of the forum seems to think, but I can't think of a decent alternative.

Orcs, I love the feel of. big guys, swinging jagged spears and welded mithril daikatanas (at differing points) and puny snagas firing high tension bows... and scalps. love it.

Dwarves have everything, and that seems to be my main issue. They can do anything, better than most. They are the all-rounder, alcoholic and magma fascinated, but still, awesome. just not my preferred race to play.

[Szarrukin]

Warlocks are my favourite race - I don't have to manage over 100, mostly useless, dorfs, only two-three warlocks and about dozen ghouls/skeletons. Also, free blocks/furniture! On the other side, only early-game stretegy known to me is "wall up and wait", flails and scourges really sucks, and of course, bajilion of bugs...

Orcs - not bad, used to be my "above-ground-fortress" choice before Warlocks era. Now, compared to Warlocks, Gnomes or even highly modded Dwarfs, they're kinda boring. They need something exclusive - maybe some "Waaaaaaaagh!!! stuff" like warcries, hummie-skin banners with aura effects, that kind of enhancement

Kobolds - never tried, to be honest.

Gnomes - meh. All this sophisticated machines sounds like a lot of micromanagement - I don't have enough patience for this. I've always preferred to train few Legendary warriors and beat the sh*t out of this Goblin scum over creating big, fancy, uberminecart-based traps


Also, I'm REALLY excited about Swarm.

[Meph]

The Swarm is far away. But certainly both interesting to play, as well as interesting to create.

[Podesta]

Last derail...
Absolutely couldn't agree more that the dwarfs should kind of lose some of their stuff, passing it to different races.
And the volunteer I meant more about the wiki stuff.
And haha, that's how you effectively corner someone . But that's what I'm talking about. I'll genuinely try to pick a race, learn about it, and try to write a few pages on the wiki, at least for the time I'm still at home, because I also love traveling around, and I'm off to Russia in month, and only coming back next year. Kudos for you btw.

[SIGVARDR]

I'd prefer seeing the dwarves stay as the "have everything playground", so to speak. They are the unchallenged stars of DF after all, and most people trying out masterwork will simply not bother with the other races. With the amount of options dwarves have, it really accentuates the gameplay masterwork adds and improves upon and gives that first impression of quality. Besides that, nothing they have really stands out as un-natural.

Have played the orcs second-most to dwarves. There in a good place overall, especially considering the tweaks that have already been discussed/ are being implemented for them.

The warlocks come third in playtime but only due to there newness. Amazing job making a civilization that plays by completely different rules. For any players who stay with masterwork, it's the next step after the dwarves in showing just how far you can take DF modding.

[Meph]

Yeah, its weird. Gnomes are the most interesting with the tech, but people find them too hard to learn it seems. Warlocks are the second most played race, because they are so very different... and I dont know if Humans will be popular. Obviously they would be easy to learn, because they are closer to "normal", but than again people have been rooting for the completely different Insect race as well.

But I do have to clean up the dwarves a bit at least. Otherwise adding new content is a near impossibility.

[Azuraal]

Now the only question I have to solve for myself is:
 - Should I work and improve the ones that are most favourite, because more players use them?
 - Or Should I work on the least played parts, because they need the most attention/improvements?

I think you should concentrate on most favourite races. I like/dislike race based on general idea, not how well polished it is.