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[Fikilili]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Hoping this thread won't be as shite as the ones I usually do.

I had been thinking for a while that it must be extremely difficult for Tarn to work on DF, or at least plan any kind of update. Now I don't know what composes the majority of the DF playerbase, but considering the possibilities of gameplay and universes that his game propose, the fanbase must extremely varried.

Now, personally, I'm someone who likes DF for the stories it can generate. I love the gameplay to death, but I specifically love DF because of how deep the game is. It isn't just the same with games like Civilization or Any 4x game, or any simulator I can think of. There is no predetermined lore, no predetermined world or basis. Everything has to build from scratch, everything is dynamic, detailed, intriguing and most importantly random. The dynamism of DF makes it the most interesting to dig in, to look for every piece of history you can find. And because DF is essentially a glorified fantasy game of entropy, anything and everything is possible.
I've always been a huge fantasy fan, so of couse DF is kind of a huge game for me. I'm also the kind of person who really wishes to expand upon what can be implemented into the game. So of course I'm the kind of guy who's goes around screaming; "More dragons! More beasts! More fantasy creatures! More races! More cultures! More! More! More!" and who eagerly waits for the Myth and Magic update. So yeah, kind of foolish considering the amount of things there is to fix and also the number of gameplay tweaks to be done.

So yeah, considering that there's probably somebody more or less like me, and that there's also a multitude of people out there craving for DF content, I was thinking that Tarn really has a gargantuesque task ahead of him. And frankly, it's been a long time.
But what about you? What kind of DF player are you? What do you think of all this? What do you think the game should have, or what do you think of Tarn's current development of the game?

[PlumpHelmetMan]

I'm in agreement that the best thing about DF is the emergent narrative potential. Only a select few other games out there even come close to it IMO. And obviously, I can't wait for mythgen development to start (I'm honestly just as excited to follow and keep up with Toady's progress on it as I am to play the finished system).

As excited as I am for more content though, I wouldn't lose sleep if Toady decided he wanted to take a break from DF development at some point in the near future. I think most reasonable fans would agree that he's definitely earned it by now.

[Bumber]

I like the gameplay mechanics. Stuff like minecarts, being able to send out raids, writing books that can shift personal values, and building a camp in adventurer mode. You can mod in more creatures, but only Toady can give us unique abilities that make them stand out, which is why I'm looking forward to procedurally generated magic.

Also hyped for boats and moving fort sections, whenever Toady gets around to that.

[PlumpHelmetMan]

Yeah that's the other thing, even the other games out there that might come close to DF in terms of emergent narrative opportunities still just can't match the sheer depth and verisimilitude of its mechanics.

[Salmeuk]

I'm part of the 'DF is not just a game' crowd, even though I would say you still play it like a game. It has plenty of game-like properties, and failure states and arguably win conditions, but the majority of systems work against creating that pleasant, grindy-but-satisfying experience which is the modern game (designed entirely around the player experience curve, or "happiness units per level", and perhaps not-so-subtly influenced by the potential XXX profits involved in highly rated games).

So many newcomers dive into DF only to realize there is one simple solution to every issue: lock yourself up and forget the rest of the world. Nothing balanced there. So in my mind, every single player who continues to play once they discover this abuseable mechanic is generally seeking something. Maybe they are hoping to write some epic tale, make some amazing and detailed construction, or simple waiting for the game to throw up an interesting piece of generated history and use that as the nucleus of the story. Most importantly, they are no longer playing a game but writing a story, assisted by the wonderful tool that is DF. And it just sorta happens!

DF succeeds by being a poorly balanced mess that completely ignores the player experience. I always felt the MOMA installation was ironic, since Dwarf Fortress would never be found hosted on a stand-up arcade machine, like one might find in the back of a loud and crowded bar. Even the stiff quiet of an art museum would be wrong. The 'game' is best played alone on a rainy Sunday morning, before the sun has burned away the fog, sitting at your moody desk in the comfy chair, with some light music teasing at the edges of your mind as you design and draft and experiment and do all the things that someone writing a story might do. The fog is important.

I will always have mad respect for anyone who tries DF and sticks with it. I am a fatalist, perhaps fanatic, in that DF will remain in a class of its own. The fact it has inspired countless other games I regularly play, each of which expands upon some genuine element found in DF, that's .. astounding.

[Mobbstar]

To me, the best part about DF is what I can only describe as meta-emergent narrative. Bugs and tweaks and new half-baked development arcs that change how stories unfold. Who'd have thought we'd go from systematic mermaid genocide optimisation to the ethics of necromancy? It's a beautiful bouncing around of ideas and efforts, on an ever-bubbling foundation of generated worlds and situations, concatenated into a massive collection of stories that dwarfs even awesome fixup novels such as I Robot.

[Thisfox]

I can spend hours just reading stuff in Dwarf Fortress. I recently had the new library engraved, and did not specify what the walls should be engraved with. I had them engraved in four section lots, once a month, so that different dwarfs got assigned each time and engraved something they found interesting (Although it turned out that a certain broker had a lot of time on his hands and did his best to keep getting assigned the engraving task). I then sat there with "loo{k}" reading each engraving, marvelling at what has happened in my fort and previous forts and how that has affected the lives and the stories of the dorfs in the fort. I love looking at the images the jewellers decorate the furniture and trade goods with. When I buy ropes, and instruments, and chests, and other things in the trade depot, I love reading about them and what they are decorated with. I love reading about the books.

I also spend hours designing my fortress, getting particular parts dug in particular ways, putting together a huge and elaborate magma forge area, placing bedrooms, having coffins decorated with particular images and people.

At other times, I spend yet more hours lettimg the game play, and just sit following a particular dwarf, a particular animal, or even a particular cup (It was an artifact gemstone goblet, and bright pink) progress around the fortress. Seeing where they go, trying to reason why they go there. Just watching.

I do a lot of things in this game just to roleplay. I love reading about what dorfs have experienced, are interested in, or not, and trying to change those bits of information.

So yeah, this game is incredibly detailed, and I love that aspect. Never seen anything like Dwarf Fortress anywhere else.

[Magmacube_tr]

I am the player that is a perpetual noob. My poor brain just can't grasp the messy inferfaces, and can barely make sense of the environment at all.

Yet I have made it into the first cave layer recently, and even saw some elk birds. Though that took alpt of tries and a dozen flooded forts, not the mention the wildlife attacks, accidental cave-ins and the one time I felt brave and embarked on a savage area. The wiki tutorial is a mess, I tell you. There is just not any place without aquifers, and ones that don't have them are awful places to start. I am still waiting for the Steam release.

I have been spoiling the game for myself for the last 3 years, so I have some ideas on what I can encounter down below.

[Muz]

I just play adventure mode, grab a crow, and grind my dodge skill until superdwarf. I don't know what it is about that, but it's very satisfying.

I'll wait for the graphical release to play fortress mode again, but it's been quite a long wait so far. There's been a lot of changes. I literally bought a guidebook on how to play the game because I don't really have the time to catch up with the wiki. But it's still a lot. And I sort of want to wait until there's a version 1.0.0.

[Benevolent_Jesus]

actually, Shadow Empire has a really deep world generation and it's 4x game.

[IndigoFenix]

I'm a modder. I play each major update as long as I need to understand the new features, and after that I only actually play the game in order to test out my mods.

But within that context, I like the potential for DF to create stories. Sometimes I will spend a good amount of time browsing Legends to see the crazy things that happen in my modded worlds.

I also get a kick out of mixing mods based on different franchises and watching how the civilizations interact. What crazy stuff happens when you throw creatures from Super Mario, Mortal Kombat, Undertale, and Rick and Morty into the same universe? What other game could produce such detailed narratives from such an absurd premise?

[MaxTheFox]

Used to mostly play adventure. Recently switched to fort mode. Currently on a break. I'll probably pick the game back up soon.

[Nautilus]

Mostly I like to do mega constructions. Usually human castles. Then I deal with the mental crises caused by too many 14 hour days is the masons workshop and not enough mugs. Then I train some knights to be legendary warriors and use dfhack to play them in adventure mode and easily slaughter any megabeast I can find until I get bored or suffer an unlucky tragedy. I also like making modded megabeasts to play with in the arena. I added hobgoblins  into my game which are a rare sterile goblin caste that never stops growing and can reach the size of an elephant in about 6000 years. When I scrolled through the list of units I couldn't find any but then I checked the list of artifacts and theeir was 3 artifacts in a row named by hobgoblins who had slain monstrous spiders. The spiders were a semi megabeast I added and had bred 3 or 4 generations. First time I have ever seen a megabeast with parents and children.

[Thunderforge]

I have a dwarf Warhammer army, fully fleshed out with names and history, I’ve read all the discworld books, Felix & Gotrek novels and any other dwarfy book I can find.
Dwarf fortress allows me to watch each little miner, gemcutter and barrel-carver going about their daily business. I can see each little home they’ve built for themselves and the friends they choose.
Books paint with a very broad brush sometimes, and DF allows me to perceive the inner workings of the kingdoms under the mountain!

[Shazial]

I'm the sort of Megalomaniac Fortress builder. I tend to build rapidly expanding fortresses and see how far I can sustain them before succumbing to !!Fun!!, glitches or FPS (the latter tends to happen more often). The average population in my past fortresses have always been 500-700 dwarves (or other humanoids, I'm not picky, as long as they're sentient and can carry out work orders, they become citizens), with the biggest one having had a population closing in on 1500 (pets not included). My fortresses often also grow into huge complexes, and I love to try and set up every industry and try and become as self sufficient as possible. The stories that come out of the accidents, prominent figures, and other things are a huge bonus, but over all I tend to get stuck with all the workflow management and balancing. Often times the fortresses are also just test sites and end up with odd placements and such as I try to learn the finesses of things after spending hours reading the wiki and guides on how to do a random thing X for more efficient material production or automation.