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[Flying Mage]

Hi guys.

First of all, sorry for my lame English. I’ll try to make my point in a few words  

I am total newby in DF and first day I see the project was last thursday. But now I am a big fan and future of DF is one of priority points of my interest. Also, this question probably was risen many times before, but I can’t find answers yet. So, why… WHY not to try to make a parallel work course for graphic-engine and mouse-oriented interface development? The game has so unbelievable great potential and hopefully big future, but last days I was trying to set my friends up for DF and only few shows interest. And even fewer actually feel the magic of the game after all. Why so? I think answer is obvious. Not enough skill of imagination and fantasy. But this people in majority and they are good people too   And extremely ascetic view and very unfriendly interface will scare them over and over. I can understand if authors don’t care about this (after all “This is not a job”). But if you are care – make some moves in this direction. If you are so swamped in code – find another people, who will make your game look better.

Respect.
And good luck.

[Koji]

There are other games like Dwarf Fortress (called Roguelikes) that got a lot more popular when graphics were introduced. Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is a good example.

The main reason there is no graphical support yet is that the game is not done yet, and Toady doesn't want to focus on designing a graphical interface when he could be working on civilizations and roads and war and stuff.

[Kyselina]

Actually, seen the road maps? These worlds look soooooo nice. If we coudl get that in DF..... I dislike the mountains though.

[Flying Mage]

Toady is the author?
Then of course somebody else must be focused on designing a graphical interface.
I can’t believe there is no such man.
This works almost completely separated one from another and can run parallel.

[Akroma]

frankly, I don't think we need such a interface, grafics support, or anything else that makes DF more "mainstream accesible"

DF is one of those games that only appeals to a small hardcore userbase, with lots of creativity and fantasy. As a result, the DF fanbase is one of the best game fanbases I have ever seen.

And I surely don't mind when some 13 year olds say DF is shit and then return to play Halo 3.

[Willfor]

I'm pretty sure Toady's bank account disagrees, which is why he will likely be working on the presentation of the game once army arc is finished. Personally, I just hope some support for ASCII remains afterwords, because that is my preferred graphics, but I wouldn't disagree to having a few improvements to the interface.

Also, I'm pretty sure the 13 year olds who go back to Halo 3 won't be missed by anyone. They probably wouldn't play anyway, considering the graphics they desire, if applied to DF, would melt their computers into a pile of slag.

[I3erent]

"DF is one of those games that only appeals to a small hardcore userbase, with lots of creativity and fantasy. As a result, the DF fanbase is one of the best game fanbases I have ever seen."

Its appeal is spreading, and I have nothing against 13 year olds ho play halo, I was a 13 year old playing double dragon....

[Bullion]

Currently i think the only way you can get graphics in using something like Dystopian rhetoric's tileset.

[valcon]

I was playing Monkey Island at 13 on my amiga 500

The interface is what it is and it's one of those things you have to get used to.  Tweaking it before major elements of the game are even started could cause MAJOR problems, so, while I agree that the interface could use a bit of a friendly touch, I think it needs to wait until maybe the game moves out of alpha and into beta or longer.

[dreiche2]

All of this has happened before and all of it will happen again

All of this has happened before and all of it will happen again

All of this has happened before and all of it will happen again

...

[thvaz]

Flying Mage - Where are you from?

DF is developed by a 2-man team. Toady One(Tarn Adams) and his brother (Zach Adams), and Toady is the sole programmer.

He said he maybe would work on graphics support (only in the support - the comunity would provide the graphics, as it already provided with creature tilesets) and in the interface, after the current arc in development.

[ March 22, 2008: Message edited by: thvaz ]

[Bricktop]

Toady is planning to make the game more accesible, but he has explained that at the moment he is reluctant to work on the interface as any work he does will most likely need to get ripped out and re-done at the next update.

[Flying Mage]

2thvaz, I am from Russia.
2all, also I am 27y old and my friends about the same age, so no 13y-old-halo-boys here. But the main point is EVERYBODY, despite the age, like friendly interface and nice colorful graphics on the screen. In my 13s I was playing on ZX-SPECTRUM and seen a lot good 2- and 8-color games in tiny resolution. But now we have everything for making them look as good as we want.

1. Make base game screen full at vertical.
2. If main screen is square, space on the right side remains for menus. With small fonts this space can contain a lot (on wide screens even more).
3. Total mouse-control in game and menu (letter-commands from keyboard must stay as well).
4. One game-cell can be not 16x16p but 32x32p (32-bit color of course). Even on 1024x768 res it will be 24x24 cells on screen. (On 1600x1200 it will be 37x37 which is very good).
5. And with 32x32p truecolor cells we can make beautiful, perfectly detailed tile-sets and fully animated characters. (Maybe even zoom out x2-x4 for wide view).
6. Workshops can be as whole unique 96x96 picture. It’s still 3x3 game-cells, but not 3x3 tiles.
7. This must be enough for now. Actually this is more, than anyone can expect, but it will be nice to see something like this. Somehow. Sometime...

[Vengeful Donut]

There is a presentation arc in the dev schedule, but it isn't being done now.
Also, there is only one programmer. It it his work. You can't make him share.
With these two facts combined, the only thing left is to wait until the presentation arc.

[gimli]

I totally agree with the OP. Either way you must be very patient, because this wont happen anytime soon. [sadly]
Ah well, we will have the ARMY ARC completed on the summer at least, cant wait for that.

[ March 23, 2008: Message edited by: gimli ]