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[Geltor]

Nah, it's probably not kids. My money's on smug millennial hipsters.

its always the smug millennial hipsters

[Salmeuk]

DF doesn't make sense to some people. Often they read a particularly awesome anecdote that stretches the reality of the game in order for the narrative to make sense. If they manage to stick through the learning period they find that Dwarf Fortress is not nearly as feature complete as the anecdote belied. DF isn't an absolute recreation of the character- filled material world that we all experience in our day-to-day lives. Things aren't complete, and some things will never be perfect representations. This could bother some people, who might get the impression that this forum is filled with idealistic story-writers who make up half the cool things that go on in the game. Which is pretty far from the truth, since the things we make up all have an inspiration from the game itself. Our dwarves don't make artifacts because it's how the game was coded, but because they've gone crazy and turned inward due to some fey spirit. They don't seek out a stray sock during a goblin siege because of their A.I.'s lack of awareness, but because of their character's penchant for daydreaming. The dwarves don't dive from a waterfall and drown in the stream below because of buggy pathfinding, but because they tripped.


It's not wrong to enjoy DF as a game that you play, but it's much more rewarding to weave your creative thoughts into the decisions you make. I'm certain that when people can't bring themselves to do this they miss out on what makes the game so damn consuming, then end up complaining that DF is "just a bad game." They can't get past the ASCII because they don't get that a character symbol is all you need if you're actively imagining the gamestate. They can't get past the interface because they don't get that it's totally worth the frustration. df remains unique, even considering things like URR, in the way it throws together game playing and narrative building.

[Putnam]

it's not really that far from the truth though

i've spent a lot of my time trying to deal with people who don't actually know what the limits of the game are, but confidently say what they think anyway; the only game that I've seen with as much confident wrongness in the fandom is Undertale, and that's because the game was sorta built around giving off the impression that everything you do is going to be taken into consideration by the game (which that game does well mostly because it's a pretty small game, while DF does it mostly because everything is simulated to enough of a degree that stuff tends to move around when you shake it)

[Halnoth]

Nah, it's probably not kids. My money's on smug millennial hipsters.

So, literally, kids.

You realize some millenials are in their early thirties at this point right?

[Putnam]

I'm reasonably sure i count as a fairly late milennial and i'm 21 years old. So yes, kids, but kids with opinions.

[Bumber]

FPS, Graphics, and UI.

Of these 3 things, I only consider FPS to be something I have an ax to grind about, and I don't consider it to be Toady's fault.

Graphics:
Certain things look too much like other unrelated things. E.g., webs look like gear assemblies look like rough gems, goblins look like geese, and all wild non-garden plants are " regardless of use.

UI:
The cursor constantly resetting position when looking/querying and on the military equipment screen. (DFHack fixed this a long time ago.) Lack of search/sort on many screens. (DFHack again.) Dwarf personal information all crammed on one long page. You can't access a dwarf's labors / inventory without going to their physical location, then can't get back to your place in the units list from there. Similar issue with the stocks screen. You can't go to an item's location from the depot / artifacts screen without setting a follow hotkey. Item inaccessible announcements don't zoom to the item. Can't dump or melt selective items in containers / on dwarves without going to each item's view screen. Inconsistent use of selector keys means you're using arrow keys to scroll the depot list, pressing (v) to view a bin, then switching over to the +/- keys to check what's inside; lather, rinse, repeat. (The bin's contents should be on the depot screen itself, considering you can trade them separately. Depot screen should have the same categories as stockpiles.) Too many items are simply "tools" instead of getting their own category, tallow/fat interwoven under the same category, etc. Animal hair thread goes precisely nowhere. I should probably stop here.

[Dirst]

And in how many games can you weave the hair of a random dead animal into thread?

The UI needs an overhaul, but instilling a norm that unlimited pausing is okay even for experts means that such an overhaul is at least plausible.

[Dorsidwarf]

Itt: Smug elitism from people who should know better.

"Oh look a long time player expressed a worry that DF isn't keeping up with modern computing, they must be an overhyped millennial newbie hipster Kid high on entitlement"

[quekwoambojish]

Itt: Smug elitism from people who should know better.

"Oh look a long time player expressed a worry that DF isn't keeping up with modern computing, they must be an overhyped millennial newbie hipster Kid high on entitlement"

Ehhh, sorry but most of them have been basically brand new to the forums, maybe they have been long time players, but I highly doubt it. These aren't posts about general concern of the direction of game development, or concerns about certain bugs causing issues that have been ignored for a long time...Most of these are about vague claims of how DF is stagnant, doomed, or in other cases a polluted unplayable mess that should be abandoned or replaced by more modernized indie titles.

Bumber and cochramd's concern have legitimate backing in the sense that these are longstanding issues that can be easily fixed with little effort on Toadys part. I'll say though, most of the issues you both have mentioned will eventually be solved in a UI/general item functionality and farming overhaul (though I do agree a general item cleanup overhaul has been much needed)...I understand these issues may have been around for a while, but I thought undead and sieges were perma doomed a while ago (which really did make me question game direction especially for how long sieges were gone for), and they finally got fixed 'for the most part' (we can still use better sieges but it's undoubtably better than before). Now all I'm waiting for is bogeymen.

Sorry to say this but I think food and basic item functionality will have a blind eyed turned to them again with the Myth Generator upcoming, but I'm pretty confident theyl not outright condemn the games development process until they are solved.

[BlackBronze]

LONG LIVE DWARF FORTRESS!

[pikachu17]

I was raised with old Atari games, so for me vanilla dwarf fortress is a smorgasbord of graphics and playability

[Livingdeath]

FPS death is a legitimate concern.  I have an i7-4660 @ 3.4 ghz.  Perhaps not the fastest thing on the market anymore, but far from a relic.  It hits FPS death on a 4*4 embark about 5 years in even when I take all sorts of preventative measures like using DFHack to clean things, building the fort in a specific way to avoid pathing issues, avoiding caverns and trees etc.

It then becomes a balancing issue on how much I want to give up (so no electric power plants, mist makers, pressure plate systems, large scale invasions, necro towers, more than 120 dwarves etc) each one of which is guarenteed to drop fps by like 5fps and honestly when all of that becomes a concern some of the charm is lost.

Previous versions did not have the active world, but the fps was about 2-3 times better, which made a pretty big difference b/c I could actually enjoy my fortress sieges as well as a full scale fully functioning uber fort with large scale industry.  The point is that progress is being made, but particularly for fortress mode some of the actual bread and butter stuff is harder to enjoy.

[Putnam]

The active world has nothing to do with FPS death, as FPS death is dependent on fortress age while world activity is almost entirely independent from the fortress altorgether.

FPS death, based on my experience so far, is almost surely something--and it might even be only one thing, quite likely even!--not cleaning up enough over the course of a fortress. Maybe there's some O(n²) algorithm that operates over every one of those somethings in the fortress. That wouldn't be too noticeable at first, but it would ramp pretty horribly later, bringing FPS to its knees in a rather swift fashion.

you know maybe some profiling would be best

[A Thing]

The active world has nothing to do with FPS death, as FPS death is dependent on fortress age while world activity is almost entirely independent from the fortress altorgether.

Is this really something people still think is causing FPS drops? I haven't been as active (well if you count lurking without an account for 2-3 years as active) in the DF boards for a bit now, but I guess we can add that in with multi-threading, and mouse based UI as a new forum constant that will always get another thread, but never really go anywhere new.

The Dwarf Fortress community has definitely grown, but in all honesty it's hard to say whether the doomsaying has increased or not since it tends to be pretty forgettable. That being said I doubt there is some sort of eeeeviillll inter-national conspiracy to make Toady's will to live or eat or make the dwarfmans falter. And if there is, well Toady seems to enjoy making the game, I guess he could possibly make more money doing other things but considering the fact he didn't give up during the 40.xx release cycle I doubt he would give up now.

So just maintain your chill composure and lay back because we (I am anyway) are in it for the long haul.

[Robsoie]

Pathfinding can even fps-kill a fortress with only a few dwarves if a creature/dwarf become stuck, so i guess pathfinding may be one of the problems still leading to a fortress fps death too.

Anyways, some tricks that help to push the fps death a bit further without removing all the actual fun.
-atom smash everything you don't need
-play on 3x3 maps or lower to limit the pathfinding calculations
-use the quantum stockpile exploit so the dwarves will not have to calculate path all over your otherwise numerous stockpiles after a fortress decade.
-be aware of locked doors problems with creatures that can hit very badly performance
-use wall (not doors) to block corridors and mining zones that have become useless to your fortress, pathfinding will say thanks.
-cut all trees, trees are evil (while logs are good) dwarves can climb on them but never get down from them and if they get a mood, goodbye fps, floors will prevent trees regrowing, so you can control the insane tree invasions you get after a few years