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[IndigoFenix]

I'm sure that some people would find this question strange, but I think it's an interesting glimpse into the way that people view DF in different ways.

I personally see Dwarf Fortress as less a static game and more a creative tool for constructing simulations. Vanilla DF, I feel, is basically a "look at the things you can build with this engine" example.  To play DF without modding is almost like buying a Lego set and only building the things it shows on the box.

Now, I get that actually building a mod on your own is hard work and not everyone's cup of tea, but it seems like some players avoid mods - even minor ones - on principle.  Sometimes I see posts in the Suggestions forum for things that there are already mods designed to fix.  I feel like these little bits of incompleteness are almost intentional - as if the vanilla game is designed to feel incomplete, to encourage players to get their feet wet and realize that the modding aspect of DF is supposed to be a core part of the game's experience.

So I'm wondering how non-modders see modding.  Is it too intimidating?  Does it feel like "cheating"?  Do people prefer the familiarity of the Tolkeinesque setting so that they can relate stories from their game without having to explain what everything is?

With the Steam release coming up, it would be nice to see some features to encourage mods, like, a built-in mod downloading system to spare players the difficulty of opening up the files themselves.  But for that, it's important to know what actually discourages players in the first place.

I'm curious to hear your responses.

[Garfunkel]

I haven't played enough vanilla DF to exhaust it to the point where I would need mods to spice up the experience and there is nothing so wrong about the vanilla DF that I would need mods to fix it.

[Magmacube_tr]

I haven't played enough vanilla DF to exhaust it to the point where I would need mods to spice up the experience and there is nothing so wrong about the vanilla DF that I would need mods to fix it.

Same really. I don't have the incentive just yet.

[anewaname]

When I was learning things like, how to maintain food/drink/clothing needs while not losing the fort to a dozen goblins or a single cavern critter, the "how to do this" tutorials were important, so it was aggravating when the tilesets didn't match.

And I also haven't exhausted what I want to do in vanilla, which is project-related stuff, where a mod doesn't matter.

And, Why would I want to play a fort of anything except dwarfs?

[PlumpHelmetMan]

I mod little things here and there (I wouldn't be caught dead playing in a world where my dragons couldn't fly), but somehow I find extensive revisionist mods tend not to hold my attention for very long. I seem to inevitably gravitate back towards a (more-or-less) vanilla setting: something about this strange yet oh-so-familiar world of cannibal elves, demon-worshiping nightmare goblins, and manic-depressive dwarves keeps calling me back.

Also, like some above have said, I simply haven't exhausted everything vanilla DF has to offer. Who has, really?

[BlueManedHawk]

The problem I have with most mods is their maximalist approach.   Vanilla is already big enough, and like others in this thread, I haven't exhausted it yet.

[klefenz]

The only mods I ever used where Modest Mod to reduce clutter (like all leather being just leather, not [animal name] leather), and some some balance adjustment ones.
Oh, and one that added some nice tame cave animals for the dwarves to keep as pets/cattle instead of normal above ground animals.

I have gone down the rabbit hole of mods on some other games, and the thing is, it just never ends. You always need to add more stuff, then it starts conflicting or overlapping.
In old modded Minecraft you could end up having several types of copper ore from different mods.

[Starver]

I'm in a mixture of the camp for "Vanilla is good enough for me" and the one which has used the occasional mod (adding in the possibility of War Elephants, many, many versions ago) of my own devising, but considers the plethora of other-player-mods available (ditto tilesets) to be an embaressment of riches that I honstly wouldn't know where to start with[1].

I admire the modding, of whatever form. I've certainly dabbled with my own (never to a level I would consider worthwhile to republish, just various impetuous tweaks like those War Elephants that I mentioned), but then settled down to just habitual INIT-file adjustments for (mostly) 'non-mechanical' adjustments of the game. Because the need to add more to the natural game doesn't exceed the (albeit indidually miniscule[2]) effort of trying out all the various alternatives.



[1] Retheme to My Little Pony or Doctor Who? Retile with amazingpictorial images or strange modernist/abstract stuff? Make everything much more like someone's idea of Roundworld chemistry, or far more alchemical?

[2] Even though I have rendered it more effort than I could do, because I've also never used the LNP... Which (apparently!) does quite a lot of the the "built-in mod downloading system" that may or may not be replaced/enhanced by the Steam Workshop/whatever.

[Fikilili]

Well, to be fair, a lot of them seem to come with their own intricate lore, which to me sounds like something DF shouldn't do. So if I were to pick mods, I think I'd use mods that are vanilla-like. When it comes to magic mods however, I would be interested if it weren't for the fact that some of them just sound sooooo... Unmystical. They all have this weird sciencey-vibe. And when they use "elements", they get way overboard with stuff like "light", "shadow", "hell", "angel" or some other stuff that definetely aren't elements. I'd rather just wait for Tarn to finally get on the Myth and Magic update, so that we get more intricate lore and a magic system that is a lot more in line with the spirit of the game; weird, intricate, and !!FUN!!

For race mods, and I must say that I am the kind of guy who thinks there just aren't enough races... I think the variants being proposed sound too alien for my own taste, or just not interesting. Plus modders have a tendency to give them starwarsey names, and the actual differences between are so minuscule that I don't even see the point of doing such variants. I hope I don't sound as a bastard, because I really respect the work of modders. They do more than me when it comes to contributing anything to DF. But I'll be honest and say that I don't see the point of adding "sea-elves" if the only difference they have with other elves is that they are sea-weed huggers. Might aswell give elves the choice of praising any aspect of nature they want.
Also, sometimes in race mods, you go from "Elves with pointier ears and masters of magic" to "15ft tall swamp-people with spikey shells, demon wings, four arms, sixteen eyes, a tail with a fire-breathing mouth and they're called the Nhgiksfialy". I know everybody has its own little quirky ideas for that sort of things, but... Yeah, not my cup of tea.

For anything else, guns, more boozes, plants, or furniture... Yeah I'm not against that. I just think I already got a lot to take care of in vanilla DF. So we'll see.

[FantasticDorf]

I respect the original game vision as being gamey enough of a game to hold its own or even just a tech-demo for all the essentials of the modding experience if you want to step back and look at DF as a mod mainframe. I usually make suggestions or mantis report, because there are always ends that can be tighter* in the vein of mods when they bug me enough i go out of my way to make a sub-folder and fix them, but most of them are out of sight for vanilla which has enough content anyway.

• Like properly ordering 'propensity' so animals don't overpopulate sites, any sort of "in universe" fix to the experience, like beakdogs & unicorns being [PET] was a important one that got in a update so they can bring them back from raids, and one i always recommend; in understanding the under the hood logic so tokens work correctly such as when trying to retrieve natural materials like glumprong wood for goblin wood shields or tributable/pillage/theived items (with no sapling bearing seed material, they arent harvested and thus the token is defunct for no other kind of evil wood).

I always run the vanilla through first when a new release is dropped, playtest it, then work on porting improvements/ad-hoc fixes, then pre-set "mod" settings of my own content.

[Salmeuk]

or even just a tech-demo for all the essentials of the modding experience if you want to step back and look at DF as a mod mainframe.

this seems like the mature way to handle this, since the game itself is practically begging for you to dig around in the files. Modding DF is quite easy, but it seems difficult to make a genuinely cohesive mod that fits the vanilla universe. I never got along with masterwork or other overhauls for this reason. but ultimately, DF is really asking for creative people to come together and make entirely new creatures, civilizations, objects and stories. its fine if you don't want that however.

another thing, it is difficult to quickly get a feel for the changes that many mods introduce, for instance if a new siege race is added, it might be 5 years before the player encounters that race, if at all. This makes it tough to judge whether you want to invest time into a game, only to find out the attacking race is OP, or crashes to desktop, or some such nonsense.

I think the steam release will open up a new era of modding. Absolutely. But, so too will the percentage of half-finished / broken mods rise.

[Nopenope]

While most of the game behavior has mediocre documentation, it's still better than that of mod specific behavior which is almost nonexistent. Not having proper documentation makes the game much more frustrating to deal with when you inevitably encounter bugs and random inexplicable behavior.

[eerr]

The balance and character of mods always feels off to me.
Most games are made with an intended balance and coherence that most mods don't replicate.

So like... what am would I do with a cheat mod? makes the game less fun.
Cosmetics? I'm not into graphics usually.
Gameplay? I prefer vanilla gameplay.

There's also the aspect of many mods not handling all the glitches. Text will be text is good, but it can't cover everything.
New races? They're usually not completely handled, and have much more weirdness to them.
New ores? I like the balance of vanilla, it has charm, everything exists for a reason, even the random loot in chests.

Modded minecraft graphs on numbers and arbitrary voxels, when the regular crafting stations work just fine.
I don't need alchemy or high-tech automation, I want challenges.

Some people stick with the mods they start with, but I usually use the base game if I can.

[BlueManedHawk]

In old modded Minecraft you could end up having several types of copper ore from different mods.

I've heard some postulate that this is part of the reason that Mojang officially added it.

[Egan_BW]

In old modded Minecraft you could end up having several types of copper ore from different mods.

I've heard some postulate that this is part of the reason that Mojang officially added it.