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[alpha]

After the recent release of the native linux version of df 50.10, I have decided that it's time to return and play it some more.

It has been a long break for me (stopped playing around 44.10, in 2018) but I was very excited...

So I've downloaded the new release ... only to find out that the game has apparently become unplayable?

I have always played DF exclusively with a keyboard, no mouse use whatsoever. It is one of the few games that allows such luxury and it was one of the best features. But apparently this is not the case anymore.

The first problem that I have encountered was being unable to navigate the menu with keyboard. "No problem" I thought, "surely I am just unfamiliar with the new interface, it can't possibly be that there are no hotkeys, I'll just find them later".

So I proceeded to the world generation with a mouse click ...

... only to find out that worldgen menu has no keyboard controls either?

"Okay" I thought. "Maybe this new menu is unfinished and they will add proper controls later. But SURELY the game itself can be played with a keyboard as usual?"

Fast forward to the actual game, to my absolute horror I learn that I am forced to use a mouse in every menu of the game, and that the pleasant experience of keyboard-only game is gone.

I don't know if it is intentional or just a work in progress, but please implement a way to have keyboard-only controls for the game, the current state is a huge user experience degradation, and (for me) completely unplayable.

[PatrikLundell]

In June last year it was announced keyboard support was going to be dropped. That resulted in a backlash (I was one of the complainers) and a subsequent reversal of that decision in July of the same year, but the damage had already been done to the UI up to that point. In the latest(?) report on what's going to be worked on, re-implementation/restoration of keyboard support was included. However, there is no schedule or particular order, but it should be done before going into the big wait (which is about 5 years overdue by now, due to the Villains derail which itself was derailed by the Premium tangent).

I would either keep looking with half an eye for it to be fixed, or shelve DF for another year and then check back.

Note that you're in for a relearning of the key bindings, as they're going to be remapped to be consistent (same set of keys for movement in all places, for instance), and to be more logical (rather than the accumulation of 15 years of finding a free key to use for a new functionality). Also reshuffling is being done in menus to split and merge existing logic, so some of the old things are replaced by a different organization.

[alpha]

Thanks, it's good to know that this mess is getting fixed. I'll keep an eye on the changelogs I guess.

[Thisfox]

Oh no.

Bought the game back when it came out on Steam, and subsequently got an upgrade on my mac that can't play DF. I've been waiting patiently for the Mac version, and only logging in sometimes to check that it was still coming. Thought the Linux version might do it. I hate to think that I'll have to buy and somehow use a mouse or something. Why would anyone want to play it off the keyboard? How terrible. Hopefully someone will come up with a solution before my wait for a Mac version is over.

[sodafoutain]

Oh no.

Bought the game back when it came out on Steam, and subsequently got an upgrade on my mac that can't play DF. I've been waiting patiently for the Mac version, and only logging in sometimes to check that it was still coming. Thought the Linux version might do it. I hate to think that I'll have to buy and somehow use a mouse or something. Why would anyone want to play it off the keyboard? How terrible. Hopefully someone will come up with a solution before my wait for a Mac version is over.

If you've got an M1 mac, your wait might be a little bit. I won't pretend to know much about the backend code for DF, or cross-compilation from normal x86-64 AMD asm, but I've heard it's not easy. You might be better off trying to see if you can get a cheapo x86 laptop and put Linux on it if you're deadset on using zsh. (BASH is still better ;-))

It has been a long break for me (stopped playing around 44.10, in 2018) but I was very excited...

So I've downloaded the new release ... only to find out that the game has apparently become unplayable?

I have always played DF exclusively with a keyboard, no mouse use whatsoever. It is one of the few games that allows such luxury and it was one of the best features. But apparently this is not the case anymore.

The last version before premium, which still has full keyboard support, is still free from the website. I've been playing that until the changes in premium make me wanna switch. (Map rewrite soon, please!)

[lethosor]

If you've got an M1 mac, your wait might be a little bit. I won't pretend to know much about the backend code for DF, or cross-compilation from normal x86-64 AMD asm, but I've heard it's not easy. You might be better off trying to see if you can get a cheapo x86 laptop and put Linux on it if you're deadset on using zsh. (BASH is still better ;-))

DF is written in C++. I would be shocked if there was anything architecture-specific that prevented it from compiling to ARM64. DF used to have PowerPC Mac builds, back in the day. Getting DF to compile under GCC and/or Clang would be necessary, but that has already been done for Linux. The only other thing that comes to my mind is that a sufficiently-new version of macOS would be needed to target ARM64, and with that, likely new hardware. Bay12 is aware of this, although I don't know how far along they are in the purchasing process.

[Showbiz]

I miss the old keyboard controls as well. Is there a chance for a mod to solve this?

[graw-_@]

I thought I was going crazy. I haven't played dwarf fortress for a couple years now. i seen there was a new version out, 50.11, so I downloaded it and the new menu stuff wasn't bad but then it got into the game. The ui is just a bunch of meaningless icons that gives no information. I spent like 10 minutes trying to figure out how to change elevation. I'm still not sure exactly if I got it right but I think it's using the scroll wheel, I'm playing on a laptop with no mouse so that means two finger scrolling on a touchpad to change levels.It's pretty unplayable like this. It makes me sad. I was excited to play it again and was even thinking of buying it to get the graphic set but not now. The new controls and ui are awful they really do make the game not great to play. Oh well guess I'll go check out what cdda's up to these days and check out df in another year or two.

[crazyabe]

Oh well guess I'll go check out what cdda's up to these days and check out df in another year or two.

eh Last I checked, CDDA was trying to commit suicide by excessive realism and needless changes to add complexity to things that were already complex- removal of 'fun' for the sake of "balance", and other general worthless bullshittery that just makes it less enjoyable to play.

[Bumber]

I spent like 10 minutes trying to figure out how to change elevation. I'm still not sure exactly if I got it right but I think it's using the scroll wheel, I'm playing on a laptop with no mouse so that means two finger scrolling on a touchpad to change levels.

This is still in the keybindings settings as "Move view/cursor up (z)" and "Move view/cursor down (z)". I've got them set to e/c, but I don't remember the default. Probably q/e?

[lethosor]

c and e are the defaults.

[graw-_@]

Oh well guess I'll go check out what cdda's up to these days and check out df in another year or two.

eh Last I checked, CDDA was trying to commit suicide by excessive realism and needless changes to add complexity to things that were already complex- removal of 'fun' for the sake of "balance", and other general worthless bullshittery that just makes it less enjoyable to play.

I'm not sure so far I haven't gotten too far into my first play through of the latest experimental. The container thing seems slightly less annoying so far. The last time I played was right as those were implemented and they made managing inventory really tedious. It seems to be a bit less tedious so far. But, the biggest thing is, so far, it's still pretty much the same game as last time I played it. The ui is mostly the same, the controls are the same, an entire game mode wasn't missing, I can sit down after a couple of years of not playing and start playing without any hassle.

I spent like 10 minutes trying to figure out how to change elevation. I'm still not sure exactly if I got it right but I think it's using the scroll wheel, I'm playing on a laptop with no mouse so that means two finger scrolling on a touchpad to change levels.

This is still in the keybindings settings as "Move view/cursor up (z)" and "Move view/cursor down (z)". I've got them set to e/c, but I don't remember the default. Probably q/e?

I'll take another look. Also, is it still possible to use ascii tilesets in the latest version? Even the folder structure's changed completely.

[Bumber]

Also, is it still possible to use ascii tilesets in the latest version?

I think you can use a 640x300 tileset if you put it in data/art/ and modify the line "[BASIC_FONT:curses_640x300.png]" in data/init/init_default.txt.

Other sizes aren't possible, since that would mess up text alignment.

[Ziusudra]

It might mess up text alignment to change the text font when using premium graphics, but I'm using my old 15×15 "ASCII" tileset on Classic 50.11 just fine. I did replace all the font options in init_default.txt.