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[Shonai_Dweller]

I hope Dwarf Fortress never introduces such a limiting, idiotic concept as "Armok". How can you strive to produce a simulator that can procedurally generate unique fantasy worlds down to their entire lore, if you're tied down to having a supreme blood lusting being existing somewhere.

I was very pleased to see Toady say that they had grown up a lot since coming up with the name. Especially as he followed up with talk of armies, invasions, stress, torture and ultra-violence. You don't need Armok. At some point you won't need Dwarves or fortresses either and I hope nothing as daft as fan obsession over an ancient title gets in the way of their ambition.

But carry on. The stories are nice, and it keeps people amused.

[George_Chickens]

I hope Dwarf Fortress never introduces such a limiting, idiotic concept as "Armok". How can you strive to produce a simulator that can procedurally generate unique fantasy worlds down to their entire lore, if you're tied down to having a supreme blood lusting being existing somewhere.

I was very pleased to see Toady say that they had grown up a lot since coming up with the name. Especially as he followed up with talk of armies, invasions, stress, torture and ultra-violence. You don't need Armok. At some point you won't need Dwarves or fortresses either and I hope nothing as daft as fan obsession over an ancient title gets in the way of their ambition.

But carry on. The stories are nice, and it keeps people amused.

Uh, what. You seem to be very, very passionate over a title holdout from Slaves to Armok 1. That's pretty weird, dude, nobody has actually suggested replacing anything with a static entity as Armok, not to mention the fact that Toady One would not implement it even if it were recommended. With a title hinting at an omnipresent god, why wouldn't the players claim or assume that they are playing as him?

I haven't even seen these "bloodlust fantasies" you speak of. For the vast majority of the game's existence, I've seen players interpret the title as that they must be playing as Armok (from being an essentially all controlling blood god), or attach "it must have been Armok's will" to events occuring ingame. You get the occasional person attaching or partaking in slaughter for the "will of Armok", but with a title implying an enslaving blood god, why wouldn't they?

[PlumpHelmetMan]

Yeah, I'm also for the "player is Armok" theory. Seems pretty obvious IMO that it was the intended interpretation.

Also I've only ever heard Armok mentioned as a joke. Maybe I just haven't been a part of this community for long enough, but I've never encountered anyone who took the concept seriously. Even Toady's "official" description sounds pretty tongue-in-cheek to me.

[Shonai_Dweller]

I have no problem with the title of the game. What made you think that? It's only when people latch onto the title as absolute proof that their theory is true that bugs me. OK you want to be Armok, that's nice, go ahead. Torture your dwarves or whatever. It's a sandbox. Can be played however you like. That's what makes it great.

[George_Chickens]

I have no problem with the title of the game. What made you think that? It's only when people latch onto the title as absolute proof that their theory is true that bugs me. OK you want to be Armok, that's nice, go ahead. Torture your dwarves or whatever. It's a sandbox. Can be played however you like. That's what makes it great.

Yes, that was my point. I have scarcely ever seen this happen. As a matter of fact, as you phrase it, I have never seen happen. It seems to me, very strongly so, that you are making things up to be angry about, hence why I am confused and weirded out.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Page 2:

Sorry, but that is simply not true! The game title itself is "slaves to armok: god of blood". The fans just elaborated a little bit.

Yep. No-one ever used the title to justify Armok theories as being 'true'. Not here and certainly never over at Reddit.

Anyway, never mind. It's fairly irrelevant and been blown way out of proportion.

[George_Chickens]

You can't just take people wholly out of context to justify your anger, then go "NUH UH, I DON'T WANNA ANYMORE". What was said by Grand Sage is clearly not to "justify" anything, it's in response to your wholly invalid claims that Armok as an entity is just to "justify childish bloodlust". You did not say "Armok doesn't exist in the game, he's just a fan entity due to the title" (which would be pretty ridiculous to argue against, and would probably make the comment an example of someone forcing their theories into the game, because it's true), you said "He's a myth invented by fans to justify juvenile bloodlust fantasies", and he responded in kind with an alternative interpretation of Armok, contradicting this perspective, and stating that it is not solely a fan creation of bloodlust but rather a holdover from older titles and the titular entity of the game its self.

He isn't saying anything rude or abrasive, and he's not putting his hypothesis as the absolute truth of DF. He is responding very calmly and patiently to an abrasive, incorrect claim and you are inserting drama into a neutral statement.

In the interest of the thread, though, it's best to stop and re-rail, lest this snowballs out of control and goes on for 10 pages. I think what makes DF great is its grand open-endedness and the amount of, for lack of a better word, "minigames" or gameplay aspects which are mostly unseen or avoided elsewhere. Sid Meier, I believe, once said, in the context of Covert Action's minigames and shooting mechanic, "it's better to focus on one great game than three acceptable ones". I think DF is a great example of how this isn't always correct, and that multiple converging mechanics can create enormous depth and replayability.

After all, in fort mode alone, DF has elements of city building, resource management, Sims style emotional management, and even grand strategy, to name a few. And it balances them all masterfully.

[Shonai_Dweller]

I said Armok was made up by fans.
I was told I was wrong since the title implies otherwise.
I said, would be a shame for DF if that were true as it seems a silly concept, counter to the aims of the project.
You were weirded out by my ferocious anger.

So, very sorry about that. Yes, I'm wrong. Mistook the comment and dreamt up fan discussions from reddit. Never happened. Move on please.

[Loud Whispers]

How curious

[KittyTac]

I may call Toady if this gets to the scope of the ethics thread.

[Devast]

Toady actually gives a shit about making the game good and not ramming DLC into us.

[PlumpHelmetMan]

My favourite thing about DF is probably just how thoroughly customizable it is, and how it was designed to be just that. Most games require a great deal of effort to mod, and aren't designed with modding ability foremost in the developers' minds. Not so with DF. You can basically shape it into any kind of world you want once you familiarize yourself with the raws, and it will become even more customizable in the future.

[Xyon]

I like how you could take any given game a person plays of this, or a community game, and have completely unique emotions and experiences with different fortresses.  But also the similarities that bind them all together, the same challenges, the same tantrum spirals (yeah those were kinda fun sometimes, at least as a spectator even if not as a direct player), the mistakes that people unknowingly make, and the struggle to fix those mistakes or survive the entire fortress being ruined and needing to rebuild with the survivors in another part of the embark (so many wasted fun with needlessly early retired forts).

And if you want a different experience, a lot of people have made many different mods, and you can learn to mod the game yourself with a little bit of research without needing to learn how to program. But then there's the odd people who have made working calculators in the game, or a working version of space invaders in the game, because they could. You never know what to expect from other players, and its a fun experience.

[scourge728]

I like it because I have fun (and !!FUN!!)

[Llamageddon]

I like it because the sheer ammount of stuff going on creates amazing emergent narrative even if it is mostly just because of the mind boggling ammount and depth of the systems/simulations that are all happening at the same time.

The emergent narrative/gameplay and sense of agency means the game has almost endless replayability.

The second best thing about this game is that it is obviously a labour of love for Toady and Threetoe and they have managed to stay independent of any publisher and make a living almost (or totally?) from donations from the community. It means they are absolute auteurs of their own game. It is their vision and their vision entirely, they can choose take input from the community but at the and of the day they have the final say and control of what goes into their game and I thik more developers should have faith in their own vision instead of crowdsourcing their decisions.

Sorry for some of the fancy terminology, I actually wrote my dissertation on Dwarf Fortress .

Also, I don't think Theetoe gets enough recognition from the community as co-designer. Plus, where would we be without his crayon drawings. Little touches like that also make DF really stand out from the crowd.