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[neblime]

well for everyone boycotting steam specifically what about itch.io? as a steam shill myself i dont know what the downsides of itch.io are or what reasons people might have for not wanting to buy it there

[Blind Wolf]

...but not everyone has such a hyper-captalist view of the world. If, as far as you are concerned, everyone should suffer for the sake of money, then I think it's only a matter of time before you gt bitten when the pursuit of money damages something you do care about.

Being deprived of a free computer game is not "suffering".  Not being able to afford healthcare is.  Which is the developers' stated reason for doing this.

Don't be overly literal, that's a poor form of argument.

This is nothing but a prelude to the death of Dwarf Fortress. Every developer who has pulled this has sold out, and before long the free version is missing major features and updates, sometimes delayed by months, sometimes not present at all, and eventually? It stops being updated all together. All of those excited in the moment will, in but a few years, know exactly what I'm talking about when it inevitably comes.

Nah. There are tons of games that use this model - especially roguelikes. ADAM, TOME, Unreal World, etc. DF has been around forever with all sorts of different ways to give them money. This is just yet another way.

Kitfox is a small company that works with small developers. There's no selling out there.

Unreal World has features locked behind payment, and ADOM 2 (did that even come out?) and TOME are meant to be payment exclusive. Not free. As for Kitfox, they are a corporation. Submitting to them is selling out. Never, ever make the mistake of assuming a corporation is your friend, or has any intentions beyond making money.

Overall I approve of this quite heartily, not only because of Tarns financial situation, but because I want to game to be as good as it can be, and for more people to play it.

And not least because you're going to financially profit yourself, I'm sure.

well for everyone boycotting steam specifically what about itch.io? as a steam shill myself i dont know what the downsides of itch.io are or what reasons people might have for not wanting to buy it there

My issue is that the game will become pay-only and be unduly influenced by its publisher. The platform itself is irrelevant.

[neblime]

And not least because you're going to financially profit yourself, I'm sure.

you take a very cynical view on all this blind wolf.. is it not fair that people should profit from good work they do?

[Snaake]

I can't see DF selling a fraction of that unless the interface is comparable. Rimworld is LITERALLY like a combination of DF, DFHack and DTherapist in a single unified interface. I dream of DF being as user friendly.

I couldn't agree more - it's all down to the user interface.

In my opinion, it's the only reason why DF has been relegated to the 'hardcore' gaming sphere, rather than going mainstream. More than that, I feel it'd just take a little (relatively speaking) polish - a bit more unification, mouse support (already in DFHack) and a few tooltips/etc.

I feel it would need DTherapist built in - I find it a bit too obtuse without it. Perhaps it could be a DT 'light' which stops it being quite so spoilery, but it definitely needs a similar interface.

...

I haven't played for a couple/few years, came back to the forums because of this news, but wasn't there a DFHack plugin that basically was a DTherapist-type UI screen, only accessible in-game? Was it discontinued? The option to maintain stocks of products (e.g. if there are less than 10 tunics free in stock, make more) used to only be available with the workflow plugin too, but I vaguely recalled and now checked to see that it was added as a feature in work orders in v0.43. Searching for the name now (but gonna have to go to bed soon), I think it was probably one of Falconne's?

Ok, I think I found it (not Falconne's though I guess?), manipulator, or apparently there's also a newer branch, Cavern Keeper. Something like that would definitely be good to have as a built-in feature in the vanilla game, yes.

Does anyone know what the "V - Visualize" key does in the steam screenshot of the new ui?

Yes. Nothing. Shouldn't be there, move along please.

Kitfox has 8 members, and Tanya has written 2 books together with Tarn. They are friends, this is not EA buying Bay12 or so.

In the long run I'd assume that the free Df version will look better than the steam DF, simply because of the large community of people producing mods, tilesets and utilities. Not sure what that does to the Steam sales though.

Overall I approve of this quite heartily, not only because of Tarns financial situation, but because I want to game to be as good as it can be, and for more people to play it.

I suppose modders could also publish their tilesets on Steam Workshop as well as here?

[Meph]

My issue is that the game will become pay-only and be unduly influenced by its publisher.

But the game is still free and the publisher doesn't tell Toady what to do. (?)

I suppose modders could also publish their tilesets on Steam Workshop as well as here?

Yes. It's entirely possible to make, for example a 16x16 tileset based on Phoebus or Spacefox (as long as you have their permission) and use it.

[neblime]

just wanna point out vanilla does have some mouse support without dfhack, you can use it for designations and probably other things im not aware of

[Putnam]

Unreal World has features locked behind payment, and ADOM 2 (did that even come out?) and TOME are meant to be payment exclusive. Not free.

Nice, lying to prove your point. What good faith this argument is in.

Okay, saying it's a lie is bad faith. Then again, not bothering to do even basic research is also not good faith, so.

[Blind Wolf]

And not least because you're going to financially profit yourself, I'm sure.

you take a very cynical view on all this blind wolf.. is it not fair that people should profit from good work they do?

It's born of experience more than anything.

Unreal World has features locked behind payment, and ADOM 2 (did that even come out?) and TOME are meant to be payment exclusive. Not free.

Nice, lying to prove your point. What good faith this argument is in.

Okay, saying it's a lie is bad faith. Then again, not bothering to do even basic research is also not good faith, so.

My mistake with TOME. I wasn't aware there was a free version. And yet looking at it, it still gives extra features to buyers, which fits my point regardless.

[Putnam]

Yeah, two bonus features, item vault and possessor. Dwarf Fortress has two bonus features too, graphics and music.

[Blind Wolf]

Yeah, two bonus features, item vault and possessor. Dwarf Fortress has two bonus features too, graphics and music.

Those have an actual gameplay effect, which is a major negative for me. I don't personally care about graphics or music, but I think it will inevitably be more than that.

My issue is that the game will become pay-only and be unduly influenced by its publisher.

But the game is still free and the publisher doesn't tell Toady what to do. (?)

I missed this. My argument is that Dwarf Fortress will be like all other games with such a model where the free version eventually stops being updated or is deprived of gameplay features. I think it incredibly naive to think this will be the one exception. Oh, and just because Kitfox doesn't OWN the game doesn't mean they're not in a position to influence it. Not every influence is made at the ended of the loaded barrel of a paycheck.

[Meph]

I'm always optimistic. Also born from experience. Lets just agree to disagree.

[balrogkernel]

been following dwarf fortress since the early 2000s and being an ascii only player, not really into the graphics.  the 3d effect of walls i see both sides of the indent and the rise at the same time.  it may be interesting to see if steam workshop modding has new mods on top of the mods that are already here.  this is kinda like unreal world being on steam, but i think there's a difference, it's pretty clear that there's always going to be a free version of dwarf fortress available.  certainly bay12 remains the hub for dwarf fortress so it's probably more likely that players will go to this site, modding is strong here and the DF wiki is a very useful tool and often references the forums.  i think it just means that there's more activity at bay12

[Putnam]

the one exception

not counting all the others that have been mentioned because they don't fit the criteria in some arbitrary way, right?

forgot to mention KeeperRL

[Criperum]

How about gruesome true dwarven steam achievements? Like 100 dwarves went insane in one fortress. 1000 goblins slaughtered by kittens. And so on?

[Shonai_Dweller]

And not least because you're going to financially profit yourself, I'm sure.

you take a very cynical view on all this blind wolf.. is it not fair that people should profit from good work they do?

It's born of experience more than anything.

Unreal World has features locked behind payment, and ADOM 2 (did that even come out?) and TOME are meant to be payment exclusive. Not free.

Nice, lying to prove your point. What good faith this argument is in.

Okay, saying it's a lie is bad faith. Then again, not bothering to do even basic research is also not good faith, so.

My mistake with TOME. I wasn't aware there was a free version. And yet looking at it, it still gives extra features to buyers, which fits my point regardless.

Still waiting for the Unreal World "locked feature" list.
I'm not calling you a liar. But...it seems pretty difficult to find any information that Unreal World 3.52 on Steam is different to Unreal World 3.52 on the homepage (released 3 weeks later).

Achievements don't count.