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[Arx]

Well, personally, I'll play a DF clone when it's as fast to navigate and play as DF but easier to learn, is as deep and detailed as DF but makes that depth and detail clearer, runs faster than DF but doesn't sacrifice anything for it, has prettier graphics than DF but is still as easy to read, is as easy to mod as DF and the devs are as supportive of modding as Tarn, and doesn't cost me a cent.

The problem with DF is that it's a cult game. I doubt you'll be able to hook into the things that make it one without making basically a literal DF clone, but I genuinely wish you success.

Also, this is the official Dwarf Fortress forum. It would show a little bit of respect for the fanbase you're appealing to if you could, y'know post your advert to the right board. There are even two boards this would fit in, three if you count DFGD.

And, going forward, one thing: if you knew your poll was sabotaged, why the hell would you use the results? I strongly suggest you avoid doing so in appeals to other forums.

[Flying Dice]

Yeah. Wow. Just saying, but describing this as a "company forum" just underlines what I was saying, except that it's sounding even less like a well-meaning homage and more like a cynical attempt at a cash-grab. It implies both a total ignorance of the community and a lack of awareness of what DF actually is other than "that one weird dwarf game".

My honest advice is to work on something which is (as mainiac said) achievable, and one which you and your team are personally interested in, rather than one which you think has an existing untapped audience. If I had to name two reasons why DF clones fail, it would be the lack of understanding of the sheer breadth and depth of DF, and a lack of understanding of what people like about it. The most common thread by far in such games is the desire to create a "simplified" version, but time and again those games have failed to capture a meaningful portion of the DF audience--admittedly in part because of a revulsion for lazy copying of ideas, but also because the devs misunderstood why people enjoy DF.

So again: think on games which you and your associates enjoy. Consider why you enjoy them. Develop more concrete ideas for games in the same spirit, then look around to see if the sort of game you're thinking of is already common. If it is, ask whether there's enough room in the market for another one (and if you can do the idea justice); if it isn't, question why it isn't. Is there not really an audience there? Does the original game in the genre or subgenre (as with DF) possess some ineffable qualities which are not easily replicated?

That's the long and short of it. DF has succeeded because Tarn and Zach have made it a labor of love, because it does something that no other game really matches, because of the incredible complexity of it, because of the organic storytelling potential it provides, and because despite longstanding issues and occasionally frustrating experiences it is still genuinely fun. It's not a terrible flaw to not be able to throw together in a couple months what took a driven and rather brilliant person years to assemble, and there are frankly better and more profitable markets to exploit (though DayZ and Minecraft clones aren't among them--the only worthwhile piece to emerge from that mess in a long while is Ark).

tl;dr: Be genuine. Be creative. Take inspiration from games you love, not ideas from games which are popular. If you're a small-time group just about the only thing you can do that'll be worse than being flaky, unproductive, and dismissive is to be cold, distant, and uninvolved. Nobody will care about your game if you don't.

[TheBiggerFish]

Frankly, I think they may be using a translator, but...Yeah.

And, what Flying Dice said.

[Kiskara]

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[TheBiggerFish]

....It sounds more and more like you're trying to do "DF but with more features".
Please, for your team's sanity, listen to Flying Dice, mainiac, and myself and don't.

[SirQuiamus]

@Kisskare
I don't think anyone around here has any objection to making a game that's "sort of like DF-like, but better in certain ways." That's basically what we're eagerly waiting for, but no luck as of yet.

Rimworld is one of the better examples, as FD already pointed out, and another promising case would be Ultima Ratio Regum by Mark R. Johnson. As you can see, URR has a very active and uniformly enthusiastic thread on Bay12 forums, simply because the project exhibits a very substantial amount of work already put into the actual development of the game, not just conceptual art and fluffy daydreaming.

As the previous commenters alread pointed out in no uncertain terms: If you want us to take your DF clone seriously, you really, really need to deliver some actual "development, or it didn't happen."

[Kiskara]

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[Kiskara]

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[~Neri]

Being an artist does not make you socially inept. Being an artist does not give you the option to neglect to learn your target audience. Being an artist does not give you the right to insult your target audience. You're only making things worse for yourself.

[TheBiggerFish]

Being an artist does not make you socially inept. Being an artist does not give you the option to neglect to learn your target audience. Being an artist does not give you the right to insult your target audience. You're only making things worse for yourself.

Yeah...You're digging yourself a deeper hole.

[XXXXYYYY]

Yeah. You're kinda shooting yourself in the foot here. If you're going to post on a forum, at least poke around a little bit - even a week or two would help to stop this kind of catastrophe from occurring. It doesn't matter if you're only the artist - if you're going to ask for ideas, at least get a general gist of who you're asking first.

[Jopax]

You know, I had a big reply typed out and all, but I just don't feel like posting it anymore. Lots of people said it already, no point in me repeating it.

Welcome to the forums, hope you stick around, have fun and good luck with your project, whatever it is.

Over and out.

[Reelya]

Yeah. Wow. Just saying, but describing this as a "company forum" just underlines what I was saying, except that it's sounding even less like a well-meaning homage and more like a cynical attempt at a cash-grab. It implies both a total ignorance of the community and a lack of awareness of what DF actually is other than "that one weird dwarf game".

You know what an artist is ? right ? makes the UI and the graphics. Artists are just that, ignorant of community forums etc. We are good at ... who would have guessed .... art. We try to make dreams come true and have an immense fun in making people happy with our fun. However I find enough forums I am welcome in and where I get a good communication with people.

Artists get approached by many people and have to adapt to many gamestyles, from RPG to shooters, from strategy games to platformers, from coverart to endless runners ....

We are mostly busy to find a good style. Most artists take money for their work, but more often refuse work they don't like or that does not inspire them.

It is true, i am not the type that plays DF and Gnomoria and what not. But I never made art for any game like that and I felt challenged by it and so I decided to accept the challenge.

As an artist this is not the only project I will be working on. The programmers will be fixed on the project. We are more interested in essences that count for people than for details. So burying too deep in single non artistic forums is the death of an artist. However many forums like artists anyway because we are also less political or game oriented. Some people don't mind usnot to be so deeply buried in, because the upside is, we also often do things that make people happy in topics that do not interest really, But we like to feel we made someone happy. To make a image of Balin for example I don't need to be in Tolkien forums. I just need to hear the essence about the character. rom one perso to make that person happy with their individual view of the character or from a group to make a group happy.

After all I said sorry and explained my error, and now come on and admit that I made your day in shooting against me

Wow, you keep planting your foot deeper in your own mouth, and show that you're not even making any attempt to understand who you're talking to, or what this forum/community is about.

This is General Discussion. It's not the place to talk about Dwarf Fortress, for a start. It's specifically the Dwarf Fortress-free zone of the forums. At least half the people on this part of the forums don't even play the game. Look at the titles of other threads in this board. There are no other threads about Dwarf Fortress in ANY of the boards in the bottom half of the forums.

Look, people already suggested that you move this thread to Creative Projects, which is where all the artists here hang out. So complaining that we don't get artists is bullshit. You really have a good passive-aggressive tone going there.

[Kiskara]

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