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[iceball3]

That's unfortunate, considering how much time a spreadsheet or two can save.

[Schmaven]

While many of these ideas are valid and would improve the accessibility for noobs, as well as make the game better for veterans as well, some of them go a bit too far.  I enjoy Dwarf Fortress because of the detailed complexity that allows for such a vast amount of creative design in each fort.  If that is lost just to make the game more approachable fot noobs, it would make the game less appealing to me.  Too many games already cater to just bringing in new players at the expense of the long term game experience.  Dwarf Fortress already has drawn some serious interest from a lot of people.  Steam would increase that exposure to more people.  But if it takes a turn toward being oversimplified just because some noobs don't like complex games, then the players like me who really appreciate complex games will be less likely to stick around.  Although from what I've seen so far, it does seem unlikely that it will take that turn.

Fixing / improving mechanics that are not working as intended, yet often used by players would be the best way to save the noobs.  Changing how mechanics work, even though they already work fine if you've read the Wiki would be frustrating.

[Putnam]

That's unfortunate, considering how much time a spreadsheet or two can save.

Nono, the point is that they'd rather have something else entirely, like dwarves choosing their own jobs based on what's available.

[PatrikLundell]

@wierd:
- Moving the container (bag) and thus breaking the access to it is different from using bins/barrels that just work like shelves. As far as I understand, each job to take something out of a bin targets a specific item/stack and ought to lock that item up in a job lock, but that shouldn't lock out other items/stacks in the same container from access.
In the bee hive case, the contents of the hive ought to have been locked by the task, not the hive itself (although it doesn't matter in this case, as a hive can't be used for two sequential jobs of its contents).
- Workshops can currently not have wheelbarrows allocated to them. In the case of bars it's logically reasonable to to grab a stack of them (if had DF implemented stacking) or multi haul them (which, again, would require implementation), but boulders are probably single haul items except when you use a mine cart. However, you'd open up a new can of bug worms with this kind of logic, such as food rotting in the kitchen because the cook hauled 10 lavish meal's worth of ingredients, but went to bed after cooking the first one, someone/something cancelling the job, causing the remainder to have to be hauled back to stockpiles (already happens, but would be more frequent of there are multiple piles of material hauled), one workshop hogging all the material of type X for its next 10 job, starving the neighboring workshop of materials for the next immediate job, etc.

[Inarius]

Hi ! I'm very happy this thread exists ! Thanks for this great game. I begun DF in 2012 and i must say that it wasn't so hard, actually (on top of that, I wasn't even so good in english, whereas DF is a lot of writings).
I just knew a site which explained everything I had to do. Step by step. Build X chairs with this button then this button, build X tables, build X beds, build X doors, dig X rooms, etc...all of this in a quiet environment far from goblins

A real tutorial in my opinion is not here to give you everything, but ensure you will succeed in your first game and the following games. You have a "standard beginner seed" where a standard beginner place is chosen for you. Master agriculture, drinking, clothing, bedroom facilities, trading, then fighting, hospital, etc..Etc...Your game won't be very fun, but you will (try to) survive. The fun part will come anyway !

Here are some things.

Fortress mode

-  Army management is awful. I always imagined something like a RPG inventory management on the uniform. A small dwarf with a hole where armors, weapon, helmet, etc... will be. Something easy. Schedules, trainings, all of this is really in bad shape and very hard to master, now.
- Clothing management. It's unfun. Really. Gathering xxsocksxx because McUrist put them away....
- FPS death. Of course there are dwarven atom smashers, population management (i never goes beyond 60) and some other semi-exploits can helps, but still.
- I fear that Toady, by wanting to make the game more reachable, will remove things such as were creatures (it was never a problem for me, the only time i lost because of this was quite fun, actually) and hunger or thirst, instead of fixing the game.
The real thing is that the game can quickly become boring because nothing happens anymore apart from heavy micro-management. So removing events is always a bad move. Simplify the UI and fix bugs, if you want to make the game more friendly !


Adventure mode
- I am often lost in what to do. Of course, i can do "anything", but...well...most of the time "anything" is "nothing". I just wander endlessly, while loosing companions because they were injuried to the hand and will never recover.
I greatly hope that the future releases will improve the situation.

- Quest management and "events" management is really what repels me most. The fact that i killed a dragon cannot be the same than crossing the paths of 2 batmen 3 days ago, among 27 pages of other minor events. Endlessly scrolling to find something interesting to say is boring. Well, anyway, the reaction is most of the time the same "it was inevitable.
- Companions are stupid, particularly in their item managements . Bandits are also stupid most of the time, but well...As above, i hope next release will greatly improve the situation.

All in all, i share the same worry than other people : the game is very far from an acceptable state for a release, a lot (an awful lot) of things need to be improved or fixed. But development is in a sort of permanent headlong rush. I understand this, i'm much more pleasurable to create than to fix. I'm still enjoying the game because i'm used to all of this nonsense and i found my pleasure in other parts of the game. But still...if you really want to make the game playable for noobs, there are a LOT of things to do ! Good luck !

[wierd]

@wierd:
- Moving the container (bag) and thus breaking the access to it is different from using bins/barrels that just work like shelves. As far as I understand, each job to take something out of a bin targets a specific item/stack and ought to lock that item up in a job lock, but that shouldn't lock out other items/stacks in the same container from access.
In the bee hive case, the contents of the hive ought to have been locked by the task, not the hive itself (although it doesn't matter in this case, as a hive can't be used for two sequential jobs of its contents).
- Workshops can currently not have wheelbarrows allocated to them. In the case of bars it's logically reasonable to to grab a stack of them (if had DF implemented stacking) or multi haul them (which, again, would require implementation), but boulders are probably single haul items except when you use a mine cart. However, you'd open up a new can of bug worms with this kind of logic, such as food rotting in the kitchen because the cook hauled 10 lavish meal's worth of ingredients, but went to bed after cooking the first one, someone/something cancelling the job, causing the remainder to have to be hauled back to stockpiles (already happens, but would be more frequent of there are multiple piles of material hauled), one workshop hogging all the material of type X for its next 10 job, starving the neighboring workshop of materials for the next immediate job, etc.

This is true-- Wheelbarrows are not assignable to a workshop. (but they should be.)

Boulders not being multi-haul (or in container), is mostly due to their weight (along with boulder being a class that does not get put into containers normally, but they DO get put in wheelbarrows when used by stone stockpiles, and in minecarts when used with haul orders). Using a wheelbarrow to multihaul them makes plausible sense, if coupled with the "Seriously, it's the strongest dwarf assigned to this job that does the hauling, because boulders are heavy. Duh" mechanic. 

The "Dump in chunk" mechanic is literally that.  An arbitrarily sized square area with the target work site centered inside it. Any valid/pathable floor tile inside that area is a valid drop site for the hauled contents.  They are unceremoniously sat there, and then unmoved until locked for a task. (Either because it is in the way, or it becomes empty, or no jobs need its contents anymore.)

Stacks of seeds were always a dumb idea, IMO.  A sack does not contain stacks of seeds. It *IS* the stack of seeds. Thus, each planting job should lock individual seeds inside the sack dropped at the work chunk. That way 20 dwarves can all rifle the bag at the same time, walk out with their seed, and do their planting job.  Since the bag is in the work area chunk, pathing time is minimal. Planting jobs would go substantially faster.

In the kitchen scenario you postulate, each item brought to the kitchen is not locked for task until that task operation is triggered;  it is not "One megatask for 500 luxurious meals", it is "500 individual meal prep jobs are queued in the manager-- grab 500 sets of ingredients, and store them in the workshop's inventory. Lock each set of ingredients for each actual run of 1 task."  That way the workshop acts like a quantum stockpile, and nearby workshops (which will be in the work area chunk) can target those ingredients.  If the condition of "out of ingredients!" happens, the hauler election is redone, and more ingredients are hauled. The first kitchen in that chunk to hit the job parser gets to be the target and center of the work chunk, and will be where the goods are dropped.  If Urist McHardWorker decides that he is just too thirsty/sleepy/hungry/hasn'tworshiped/needsentertainment/whatever-- to complete his production run, it does not pose a significant problem, because the goods are not really locked for task; they have been quantum stockpiled.  Big difference.

[oldmansutton]

Seeds:  It may not be as realistic, but from a game play standpoint, it would make far more sense for dwarves to just grab a single seed (from bag, kitchen, etc), and walk to the nearest bag/plot/stockpile, and place it.  This way the holding bag or whatever only gets moved to/from depot or when changing stockpiles, and you have less interruptions.

I play now with quantum stockpiles with bins/barrels set to 0, and the seeds get placed into the pile individually outside of barrels, which alleviates a lot of this nonsense. 

It definitely is more intuitive to a new player to expect items in bins/bags/barrels to be carried TO those, rather than vice versa (resulting in interruptions).

It's taken over a decade to realize I need a seeds only quantum stockpile at the kitchen, feeding into a seeds only quantum stockpile near the fields, and not to use barrels..

Same for just about everything and bins.  Really counter-intuitive.

[PatrikLundell]

@Wierd:
- I still maintain that multiple stones probably are too heavy for a wheel barrow (a stone is heavy: If I read the wiki correctly they have a volume of 100000 cm3, and would range in weight from just below 100 kg [ice] up to somewhere a little below 2000 kg for gold [with slade being an outlier], and would be problematic with mine carts as well, from a realism perspective. Of course, realism doesn't cap critters' abilities to carry extremely heavy items [FB corpses, for instance, as well as anvils carried away by keas, or mine carts full of stones], so maybe realism can be bypassed here).
- Bags: We're on the same page regarding bags. I agree a stack of seeds wouldn't serve any purpose as you've got bags. It WOULD be useful with stacks of goblin teeth, blocks, etc., but all kinds of issues have to be dealt with if you try to implement stacking, and now is not the time.
- If you don't lock piles of items hauled to kitchen (or other processing locations), there's nothing blocking the items to be targeted for stockpile storage (quite possible from where it was hauled by the workshop worker), and if you've got competing workshops there's no reason why the competitor wouldn't try to move the complete pile to his workshop to built up a stock to work on there. Regardless, this kind of added logic probably requires too much work both to implement and to trouble shoot/bug fix to be reasonable in the Premium release time frame.

[Bumber]

If I read the wiki correctly they have a volume of 100000 cm3

That would be 10m x 10m x 10m. Sounds a tad too big.

[Criperum]

From myself (when i was a noob):
 - Unpredictable stupid death of stating dwarfes because they like to climb trees
 - Instafreezing
 - Dorfs cannot build walls diagonally (but can move)
 - Difference between stairs
 - Peacefull regions are not peacefull (hello werebeasts)
 - Inability to conviniently assign dorfs jobs without external tool
 - Inability to understand dorfen deep personality because of wall of text.
Also asked some people in russain comunity:
 - Overdetalized and unrealistic wrestling in adventure mode (atack with enemy's four left toe with your eight upper tooth)
 - Have to constantly swith between different workshops producing same items (common UI would be nice)
 - Default workshop behaviour when the task is completely canceled if something goes wrong (not only workshops but jobs in general)
 - army equipment problems
 - strange mood
 - it takes too long to start playing (generating the world, embarking, hathering things) quick start option would be nice
 - the embarking screen (especially levels and bioms) is a total mistery for noobs
 - not obvious that the game is PAUSED

[Nameless Archon]

Moving the game from "given away for donations" to "sold in a storefront" comes with some significant expectations that do not attach to a freeware product. I understand that the developer doesn't like long sessions fixing bugs. Neither do I. Unfortunately, if they're not fixed when and where possible then they only metastasize, and I want to see the game succeed, not get panned hard as it rolls out the door. I know not every bug will be a good candidate, but there are some real nasty ones that vets never really question any longer, because that's how long they've been around!

I honestly feel this is a really really important thing to recognise...

Actually... going to agree, much as I don't want to.  Having been involved in many early access Steam releases, the newcomers are often shockingly brutal in their reviews.  DayZ comes to mind, and that was only 5-6 years.

I get the argument that 'fixing bugs now will just cause them to be rebroken when we add more stuff' but honestly? more often than not things are just broken worse as time goes on.

Over the short haul, I'd agree. If you've got a system that you're implementing in a month, or even six to twelve months, then hold off - fix it later!

When obvious 'encounter this on day 1' bugs linger for a decade because someone might add a system that impacts it in another decade or two, then the time has come to put a bandaid on that sucking chest wound before the patient dies waiting for medical care. Holding off on fixes for the release of systems which may not even be initially implemented for half a decade or more, in a product you are offering in a commercial storefront with published user product reviews is not going to work out as you are perhaps envisioning.

My biggest fear with a paid version of df is that people are going to go 'there's an adventure mode and a fort mode, neither work correctly and are riddled with bugs, the ui is a mess, and the game expects you to like this.' and while many of us, myself included, are going to buy it when it's launched, your average person isn't going to put up with things that we the faithful do.

I will go one further. When it comes to Steam, if you hit the basement of "Mostly Negative" reviews, then it's a reasonable assumption that sales of your game will not see the light of day. Generally, people don't even open the store pages of games that get panned like this, unless they're looking for EXACTLY that game, or someone recommends they try something terrible "for a laugh".

That's not the impression I want people to get about Dwarf Fortress.

I am concerned that this is the road we're on, though.

Because at least in the steam universe, there are lots of games made by one person that work as intended. That argument won't work when you put it out for people to buy.

It will work fine.... as long as you are heedless of the impending consequences. A game launch is like assassinating a king: You only get to try it once, and if you don't succeed, the consequences will likely be profound. I am crossimg my fingers that my worries are misplaced, but I do not think that they are, at this late date.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Let's not forget that people already know what Dwarf Fortress is. It's not a new game. It has a reputation. Increased sales comes from people being able to easily get hold of it, not because it's a new shiny thing with good reviews they've never heard of.

The deal is, pay $20 and you get to install Dwarf Fortress with graphics and music hassle free. You even get to try the mods easily. Whether enough people think that's worth doing is the gamble, but nobody's going to be, "OMG, I bought Dwarf Fortress and it was Dwarf Fortress!".

Now if Kitfox try to trick people into thinking it's a new game, it's a somehow "complete" version of Dwarf Fortress, it's not really got decades of development left, the free version doesn't exist, etc, etc, then sure, backlash.

[Nameless Archon]

Let's not forget that people already know what Dwarf Fortress is. It's not a new game.

To you? To me? Sure! To the people who visit /r/dwarffortress or bay12? Sure! To people who swap memes about Dwarf Fortress? Absolutely!

There's a notable problem with that viewpoint: There are probably a hundred potential low-information buyers on Steam for every 'you' or 'me'. It's their negative reviews I'm trying to stave off, not yours or mine. The only reason my family young-ones know what Dwarf Fortress is, is if they've heard me discussing it. The same would be just as true for Moria, Angband or even Nethack - despite these games in some cases perhaps being older, or even more widely known! It might not be a new game in the absolute sense, but I strongly dispute that this will protect its reputation from legions of limited-information buyers who think that it is because it's a fresh launch on Steam.

You can continue to make arguments about whether this launch-for-premium-features is fundamentally changing the relationship with the consumer or not. I'm not here to wade into that particular semantic argument - I stated my belief previously, and I still don't find the assertions to the contrary personally convincing.

It might not be a "new game", but "New on Steam" is definitely going to be "new in the eyes of consumers".

Caveat venditor.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Well, it's up to Kitfox really. They can easily convince people that "everyone" knows the "classic" game Dwarf Fortress, now released on Steam. That's just marketing.
Or they can lie, throw it out as a new game and get poor reviews when people discover they were tricked into paying for an old, free, under development game.

Current Steam page is leaning toward the former version of fortunately.  Anyway, back to not scaring away noobs discussion. Sorry for derailing.

[Putnam]

If I read the wiki correctly they have a volume of 100000 cm3

That would be 10m x 10m x 10m. Sounds a tad too big.

10m x 10m x 10m would be 1000000000 cm^3, not 100000. 10m is 1000 cm, 1000^3 cm^3 is 1 billion cm^3