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Yes

26 (13.4%)

No

145 (74.7%)

Maybe

23 (11.9%)

Total Members Voted: 192

[Untrustedlife]

Hahahaha no! Neither Dwarf Fortress nor the community could handle the increased publicity. In the short time I've been on this forums I've seen an awful lot of people whining about other people whining about the game. Could you imagine what it would be like if the game was sitting right there in the public eye?

Like do you have any idea how the game seems to the average outsider? It's like a brick wall trying to break through the awful interface, the tiny muddled visuals (even with texture packs), wrap your head around the textbooks worth of mechanics needed play the game, and to be able to parse the vast amounts of 'grey goo' to find the information you actually need. This game isn't even close to being in a state that is playable to the general public. Let's talk after the 20 years or so I've been told it will take until the game is nearing completion and we finally will get quality of life improvements like balance and a decent UI.

I think the responses in this thread show how out of touch a lot of the DF community is with the average consumer. Dwarf Fortress is a niche in a niche, and I don't think it would be good for anybody to have a flood of angry and confused newbies coming here and kicking over all the tables.

Changing directions. Some people are saying that the content of the game relating to child mutilation would be unacceptable, but come on, do you have any idea about the kind of crap on Steam Greenlight? There is a game called "Shower With Your Dad Simulator 2015, Do You Still Shower With Your Dad"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvUdy7MkTtw
and "Pregnancy With Your Mom Simulator 2016"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=621-q98I7tA
and they are just as disturbing as the titles sound. There is absolutely NO quality control on Steam, I don't think a little text description of a child being catapulted at a giant monster and splattering into a thousand pieces is going to cross any lines here.

Edit: And also Binding of Isaac has been on Steam for years, and that has far more gruesome depictions of atrocities committed upon naked crying children than Dwarf Fortress.

AHAHAHAHAHA... you have never heard of obok meatgod have you. Also "Binding of Issac is worse" can you rip out a 4 year olds heart in binding of Issac, then go on to butcher the child, and eat its liver then beat its mother to death with its skull while slowly pulling off another childs extremities one by one watching them slowly bleed to death as they yell for help while their father is sitting in the corner crying..... ahahaha. Binding of Issac is worse...oh my god. Best laugh of the night.


And thats even on the less violent/perverse side of horrible things you can do...

[Putnam]

can you rip out a 4 year olds heart in binding of Issac

http://bindingofisaacrebirth.gamepedia.com/Isaac's_Heart

then go on to butcher the child

that's the basic plot of the game, yeah

and eat its liver then beat its mother to death with its skull

that's also the basic plot of the game, believe it or not

while slowly pulling off another childs extremities one by one watching them slowly bleed to death as they yell for help while their father is sitting in the corner crying

yes, basically, though it's actually the child crying here

[Drathnoxis]

AHAHAHAHAHA... you have never heard of obok meatgod have you. Also "Binding of Issac is worse" can you rip out a 4 year olds heart in binding of Issac, then go on to butcher the child, and eat its liver then beat its mother to death with its skull while slowly pulling off another childs extremities one by one watching them slowly bleed to death as they yell for help while their father is sitting in the corner crying..... ahahaha. Binding of Issac is worse...oh my god. Best laugh of the night.


And thats even on the less violent/perverse side of horrible things you can do...

Honestly, it's not about what's being depicted, it's how you present it. Sure you can do all that in Dwarf Fortress, but it's entirely a text description, written in a very dry and clinical manner. Binding of Isaac is very deliberately made to revel in it's own gruesomeness. It's entire visual design is about blood, gore, bodily waste, and deformity mixed with a bit of a cutesy stylized, but very child unfriendly, aesthetic.

It's the difference between Tom and Jerry, where Tom might be slammed in a folding chair so hard all his limbs fly off but there's no blood or gore or anything, and South Park, where someone might cut their thumb and run around screaming and spurting blood until people start throwing up and slipping around getting covered in blood and vomit. You're lying to yourself if you think that Dwarf Fortress would get anything higher than a 'T' (at most) if rated by the ESRB. Binding of Isaac has been rated at an 'M' however. There's nothing wrong with a lower rating, though, some of my favourite games are rated 'E'.

All this is to say that the content of Dwarf Fortress is in no way a barrier to getting on Steam Greenlight.

[Putnam]

i can see DF getting M, really, there is a lot of reasonably depicted blood

Scribblenauts got E10+ IIRC despite a description of attaching meat to a baby so a lion may eat it, though

[Drathnoxis]

i can see DF getting M, really, there is a lot of reasonably depicted blood

Scribblenauts got E10+ IIRC despite a description of attaching meat to a baby so a lion may eat it, though

Yeah, there's blood, and vomit too, but it's just red and green squares on the ground(I think. I use texture packs.) You would have to be the most sensitive person in the world to find it disturbing. I've seen more graphic depictions of gore made in MS Paint in half a minute.

Bear in mind that Destroy All Humans(PS2) was rated T, and in that game you had an anal probe gun that would make people run around crapping their pants until their head explodes and you collect their brain, and also a disintegration gun that would make their skin burn away, leaving their skeleton which would crumble into dust.

Edit: I'm not saying that Dwarf Fortress is a game for kids. It's a mature game, for sure, but it's mature in the same way that doing your taxes is mature. It's mature because it's too complicated for kids to have the patience or comprehension to learn, not because a kid would get traumatized and have nightmares from playing it.

[Untrustedlife]

i can see DF getting M, really, there is a lot of reasonably depicted blood

Scribblenauts got E10+ IIRC despite a description of attaching meat to a baby so a lion may eat it, though

Yeah, there's blood, and vomit too, but it's just red and green squares on the ground(I think. I use texture packs.) You would have to be the most sensitive person in the world to find it disturbing. I've seen more graphic depictions of gore made in MS Paint in half a minute.

Bear in mind that Destroy All Humans(PS2) was rated T, and in that game you had an anal probe gun that would make people run around crapping their pants until their head explodes and you collect their brain, and also a disintegration gun that would make their skin burn away, leaving their skeleton which would crumble into dust.

Edit: I'm not saying that Dwarf Fortress is a game for kids. It's a mature game, for sure, but it's mature in the same way that doing your taxes is mature. It's mature because it's too complicated for kids to have the patience or comprehension to learn, not because a kid would get traumatized and have nightmares from playing it.

Blood in df is depicted as red squares ~ and double tildes and red colored (every single other symbol, to depict that its covered in blood) (without tilesets)  of course examining things gives you a better idea. and you can walk up to it and spread blood from walking in it and you can drink from pools of blood and vomit Aswell. And it gets all over you and you can wash up in rivers and watch the blood flow down the river. (And dispose of bodies by throwing them in rivers as a way to get away with murder), and their blood will splatter up against walls and rocks they run into while in the river) ) ) Df is the deepest simulation game ever made, yes it's violent. Especially in adventure mode.

And those comparisons to binding of Isaac are lackluster to say the least and yes kids cry in df aswell and I'm sorry but binding of Isaac is less violent, even though df doesn't have "standard graphics" it's still way more violent in what it is depicting.
The fact that you are even trying to argue that binding of Isaac is more violent shows to me that you don't understand df as well as you think. No you can't slowly rip the extremities (I'm talking fingers toes nose ears and even pulling out teath 1 by one while the child cries and bleeds to death and you don't even need to stop there) in binding of Isaac.violence in df is over the top and excessive once you actually understand what's going on. Sure people won't get it all the time but it's still a very very violent game.
You can do some very nasty horrifying things in df that you cant do in any other videogame.


And I have played both games. btw.

[quekwoambojish]

Binding of Isaac is a poor comparison. You are not DOING anything wrong to the child, you ARE the child.

I haven't played shower with your dad or pregnancy with your mom simulator. I'm going to guess that that games exists because they have exploited loopholes in the rating system, and the game's existence is somewhat a parody of that system. (Oh well xyz is banned from being on steam, but no one said anything about showering with your dad, let's make a game about it!)

Dwarf fortress would need to find an equivalent loophole to excuse it's violence, "oh THESE human children I've dismembered, strangled and gelded with their own underwear?...No no everyone calm down, they're not normal human children, they're Nazi human children!"

[Max™]

I was trying to make a tougher dorf using my tougher dragon materials, and figured I'd make them fireproof too. I put in the "set all material melting/boiling points" stuff too, not knowing that it would make my sweat and tears hot enough to incinerate my surroundings.

After fixing that I noticed I forgot spit but left it in as a good-bad bug because I can spit on people and set them on fire now.

I pulled off the successful overthrow of an occupation by spitting on the administrator and letting him burn to death while everyone stood around talking about how horrific it was, then once there was nothing but a pile of elf grease and singed clothing, everyone left and went outside of town. Talking with the lady I appointed afterwards revealed that the occupation had indeed been given up on.

I spat on someone and set them on fire and let them climb around in a panic trying to get away from their own burning flesh while everyone watched.

I've gone up to a site and been told there is no room for me as a hearthperson so I found one outside and set fires around them before igniting the ground under them and then stood there and watched them burn to death.

You want horrifying and you talk about stuff like snipping off facial features?

Nah, I can laugh about the horrible stuff I've done like that with my girlfriend, who doesn't play (yet... one day... oh  yes) but knows a lot about the game from me playing.

I don't even bring up the burning people to death stuff because I know she is freaked out by that sort of thing, understandably.


Now remember this: I've been deliberately avoiding the use of this molten spit power in an evil fashion, using it on fleeing bandits, necromancers, attacking zombies, or for assassinations.

I choose not to go around burning kids and then traveling away to leave them horribly scarred, but it would be easy to do, and nobody would even get mad at me about it.

No, just because it is a text based description that doesn't mean it is less violent or horrific.

[Drathnoxis]

Blood in df is depicted as red squares ~ and double tildes and red colored (every single other symbol, to depict that its covered in blood) (without tilesets)  of course examining things gives you a better idea. and you can walk up to it and spread blood from walking in it and you can drink from pools of blood and vomit Aswell. And it gets all over you and you can wash up in rivers and watch the blood flow down the river. (And dispose of bodies by throwing them in rivers as a way to get away with murder), and their blood will splatter up against walls and rocks they run into while in the river) ) ) Df is the deepest simulation game ever made, yes it's violent. Especially in adventure mode.

And those comparisons to binding of Isaac are lackluster to say the least and yes kids cry in df aswell and I'm sorry but binding of Isaac is less violent, even though df doesn't have "standard graphics" it's still way more violent in what it is depicting.
The fact that you are even trying to argue that binding of Isaac is more violent shows to me that you don't understand df as well as you think. No you can't slowly rip the extremities (I'm talking fingers toes nose ears and even pulling out teath 1 by one while the child cries and bleeds to death and you don't even need to stop there) in binding of Isaac.violence in df is over the top and excessive once you actually understand what's going on. Sure people won't get it all the time but it's still a very very violent game.
You can do some very nasty horrifying things in df that you cant do in any other videogame.


And I have played both games. btw.

I'm not saying it's less "violent" but that the presentation is much less disturbing than Binding of Isaac due to the fact it is presented in a non visual style and the clinical nature of it's writing.

No, just because it is a text based description that doesn't mean it is less violent or horrific.

Yeah, it really does. The ability for text to disturb is limited by your imagination. It is much, much more difficult to read a description and imagine something in as much detail as can be visually represented.
Let's take the face melting scene from Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark as an example
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2ZpsbGr7s8
I find this scene very disturbing, and unpleasant to watch. It's not up to me and my imagination to work to make it as disturbing as possible, it is what it is.

Now let's take a description from Dwarf Fortress. This was the most gruesome I could find on Google
http://i.imgur.com/2ahvC.png
It's possible you could read this and take the time to conjure up an image as gruesome as the scene above, but it's entirely up to you. It's just as possible you will read the description without imagining much about any of it. I don't know about you, but I can certainly read something without conjuring up a picture of it in my mind's eye. And honestly, I can't even read though 3 lines of this stuff without my eyes glazing over, because it's not written in a remotely readable manner, nor is it written to be particularly gruesome.

Binding of Isaac is a poor comparison. You are not DOING anything wrong to the child, you ARE the child.

I haven't played shower with your dad or pregnancy with your mom simulator. I'm going to guess that that games exists because they have exploited loopholes in the rating system, and the game's existence is somewhat a parody of that system. (Oh well xyz is banned from being on steam, but no one said anything about showering with your dad, let's make a game about it!)

Dwarf fortress would need to find an equivalent loophole to excuse it's violence, "oh THESE human children I've dismembered, strangled and gelded with their own underwear?...No no everyone calm down, they're not normal human children, they're Nazi human children!"

Rating system? That would imply there were actual people doing oversight on the kinds of games that are released on Steam Greenlight. If your game isn't porn or absolutely and horrendously crossing the line, Valve doesn't give a crap what is in it. I can't even tell where the line is it's so far out, I mean "Pregnancy With Your Mom Simulator 2016!" Blood soaked babies, falling out of your naked mom's vagina! What the heck?

Steam Greenlight and Early Access are flooded with asset flips, broken and unplayable messes, and cynical cash grabs designed to trick people out of their money. There is no quality control, and honestly, it could only make Dwarf Fortress a worse game just to be associated with that platform.

[Admiral Obvious]

I say it could work to have it put through the Greenlight cycle homestly.

The fact that people blame other products for their absolute crap business practices, and quality is completely justified, however, Greenlight has also provides some great opportunities for games to actually get the proper attention they need.

I'm proud to have helped a few of the Greenlight games I now own, and I'm also deeply regretting some of the products I helped to Greenlight too.

One potential issue here, although it's a minor one, is that the developer needs to make a $100 deposit just to get started with the Greenlight cycle. Considering this game is free as well just seems like a bad idea. Greenlight usually works for F2P games that have some sort of cash shop at this point, almost never completely free games.

As much as I'd like to see DF featured on steam, and I voted yes, for that purpose, I just don't see it as a feasible, nor good idea. I just don't see how this game would work if it was Greenlighted, but if it were to be directly released on steam under the Early Access program, I would definitely be happy to see that.

[NorkasAradel]

The only reason you'd try to get your game on steam is either publicity, or dat steam economy dosh.
Both are things Dwarf Fortress doesn't need.

[WordsandChaos]

No. It'd make no sense. DF is an ongoing project and it wouldn't really work with how steam operates anyway. it'd go into greenlight and stay there eternally.  It literally defeats the purpose of greenlight. Especially as Toady isn't charging for it.

[Miuramir]

The nominal purpose / intent of Steam Greenlight is to give small dev companies an opportunity to raise some cost partway through the dev process, directly from the eventual users, rather than having to sell out to some sort of giant (cough, rhymes with EA) to provide funds to get it out the door.  Ideally it's for games that are in early beta, or at least late alpha, but with a clearly defined path forward, who need an injection of funds and publicity to make the final push to 1.0. 

This is a bad fit for DF on several levels.  DF's development roadmap is vague and littered with pitfalls and dragons; the expected timeline is far longer than Steam would be happy with; and it would encourage a host of people who don't understand multi-year timelines to get angry that they didn't have what they thought they were paying for. 

The patronage model in general seems to be the best fit for DF; old-school direct, and via Patreon.  You're funding the continued production of an artistic endeavor that you may not benefit much from or see completed in your lifetime, but is worth doing on fundamental philosophical grounds; "the world would be a better place if this existed". 

[Mathalor]

No one seems to be bringing this up, so again I'll mention it.

I'm pretty sure EVERY legal distributor of video games has to obey particular regulations for the country it distributes to. Steam cannot legally sell a game where there is potential mutilation of children.

I grabbed deus ex off steam and can kill children in that game.  If there actually is a law in a country that says anything like this, I'm sure steam can forbid downloads from that region.  And I'd be surprised if there was.

[Putnam]

Fallout and Fallout 2 both allow it.