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[LASD]

It's not peace that compels fun, unfortunate or not. It's conflict. We need more conflict.

It's pretty ironic that this version added a lot more conflict to the game... ...in the world gen, which caused the peace ingame. Whereas in the earlier versions the civilizations just got confused when they met each other in world gen, but fought fiercely when the adventurer came aboard.

Adventure mode sadly has to wait for the next version unless the plans change radically, when the wait will be even longer. In the meantime we can start our own personal wars against the non-hostile civilizations.

What do you expect when the Army Arc is being worked on?

That argument is the DF equivalent of saying "because God made it that way".

With the exception that something is going to happen to the thing in question eventually.

[kelderan]

Hey, My platoon of elves still had my back when I went toe to toe with my friend the demon, and I'm sure the goblins in my group wouldn't ignore me if i decided to go ape shit on some elves... No matter how at peace they are.

[Cthulhu]

It's weird, isn't it?  Everyone was talking about how this was going to be an Adventure-Mode centric release, but with the SECRET DWARF-MODE PRESENTS it's proven to be a Dwarf-Mode release!

I love being able to hide stones, and they still pick them up!  Wonderful!

[umiman]

LASD: That's the thing! We can't start our own personal wars! We can start personal crusades but not personal wars. No one else wants to fight anyone sentient without severe amounts of work or regenning.

[slMagnvox]

Nothing about DF gameplay is effectively permanent.  This latest release, from 0.27 to 0.28, modified much of how civilizations interact.  Give it a chance to get tuned up and we can all look forward to being better off than when conflict was just hardcoded.  I miss many things about the old 2d version, access to all minerals, cave river floods, magma river, chasm ambushes .. but none of that stops me from enjoying the current version.

There are always old versions to go back and play if you want a certain gameplay experience.  Otherwise, try playing within the boundaries of current gameplay rather than idly lamenting things were better before.  Cheers!

[Anu Necunoscut]

This release looks very transitional, so the amount of complaining (or maybe the tone of the complaints) seems a bit strange to me.  It's fine to point out the problems that exist, but isn't it clear that the new features will allow a deeper, more "alive" setting for conflict?  The new mechanics for wars won't always be for the world-gen to play with, they're eventually intended for interaction from the player, no?  It doesn't make sense to blame the freshly-laid foundations for not behaving like the fully-completed structure, and I don't think this release provides the complete picture of where the game (or even the Army Arc) is headed.  So why slag off the framework when its potential has yet to be realized?  Would people rather have waited for full implementation of each feature before a new release?  I'm happy to have a transitional release, myself.  In the meantime, we all have the old versions to play with, and the new one to experiment with and explore.

Internet argument disclaimer:  I'm not saying those who complain are "wrong," or that I'm "right."  Also, I'm not asking anyone to shut up about their opinion, I'm just expressing mine.  Cheers.

:-)

[umiman]

slMagnavox: I would. Gladly. If the interface was as good. If someone were to port over a version of the game featuring the interface and control improvements while maintaining the old, 2d-style gameplay, I'd gladly play that instead.

Anu: Why are you preparing an escape route right after stating that? It's like punching a guy in the face then suddenly apologizing and offering him a drink.

Again, your entire argument is a variation of the whole, "this is an alpha" thing and is about as useful in an argument as "because God made it that way". Suppose the government you abide by suddenly decided one day that the internet was illegal and anyone with an internet connection of any sort would be sent to the gulags. Would you protest or would you justify it saying, "it's just a transitional phase"? The thing is that people don't protest for what is or what has happened (if they had any kind of sense - it's impossible to change the past and present). They protest for a future event.

Understand? Sure, now you can evoke the other argumentative style, "but you can't compare Toady One to a <extreme example here>", but then you'd need to learn a lesson in similes. In other words, I'm saying this now so the main beef can be avoided in the future. It's also a nice little pre-emp that allows me to go, "I told you so" in the event when I can say "I told you so".

[Sergius]

So far I've seen no evidence that it's wrong to say that a piece of software is in an incomplete state, when said software is in an incomplete state (the meaning of alpha). Except that you keep telling everyone that it's wrong to say it. It's starting to sound like you don't want to hear any excuses and you want your game to work, now.

[Andir]

slMagnavox: I would. Gladly. If the interface was as good. If someone were to port over a version of the game featuring the interface and control improvements while maintaining the old, 2d-style gameplay, I'd gladly play that instead.

Anu: Why are you preparing an escape route right after stating that? It's like punching a guy in the face then suddenly apologizing and offering him a drink.

Again, your entire argument is a variation of the whole, "this is an alpha" thing and is about as useful in an argument as "because God made it that way". Suppose the government you abide by suddenly decided one day that the internet was illegal and anyone with an internet connection of any sort would be sent to the gulags. Would you protest or would you justify it saying, "it's just a transitional phase"? The thing is that people don't protest for what is or what has happened (if they had any kind of sense - it's impossible to change the past and present). They protest for a future event.

Understand? Sure, now you can evoke the other argumentative style, "but you can't compare Toady One to a <extreme example here>", but then you'd need to learn a lesson in similes. In other words, I'm saying this now so the main beef can be avoided in the future. It's also a nice little pre-emp that allows me to go, "I told you so" in the event when I can say "I told you so".

I can't tell you how much I agree.  The forum has the mentality that this is Toady's game and he can do what he wants, irregardless of how it breaks former relationships.  They are right, but it's ignorance of the fact that things need done that I (and you apparently) are frustrated about.  It seems like nobody is listening, acting or making suggestions on improvements... because that's the way it is.  Complacency.  Any time you stand up and suggest a change or a modification you are presented with one of a few excuses that keep circulating.  People stick their fingers in their ears, tell you it's not possible (Multiplayer), they think it will somehow break "their" game (breaking from ASCII roots), give the alpha excuse and leave it at that without [agreeing|explaining|acting], or they just plain old berate you for suggesting such a thing.

[Andir]

So far I've seen no evidence that it's wrong to say that a piece of software is in an incomplete state, when said software is in an incomplete state (the meaning of alpha). Except that you keep telling everyone that it's wrong to say it. It's starting to sound like you don't want to hear any excuses and you want your game to work, now.

Except for the fact that I stated above.  People insist that it's broken because of the Alpha state and accept it.  There's no structured method for tracking or suggesting such states and features.  We are all pawns in a game with no control over said game.

"Just do your job and play the game.  Accept it and don't complain."

[Kagus]

Just popping in for my usual unhelpful and flow-breaking comment about something unrelated.

irregardless

Not a word.  I don't care what anyone else says, it's not a word.  I don't even care that Firefox spellchecker doesn't seem to have a problem with it.  Not a word.

[Deathworks]

Hi!

Personally, I have the impression that people in this thread are way too hysteric or rather already on the verge of becoming drama queens. In my experience, such ways of arguing rarely result in any improvement of the situation and only help divide a community.

How about keeping calm about things and taking stock of what the situation is and what can be done about it except for general protest and arguing between various factions.

According to what people here say, one of the many ways of playing and enjoying the game has effectively been deactivated or at least become incredibly hard to achieve.

In my eyes, this has several aspects we should keep in mind:

First of all, this is not the only way to play the game, or even just adventure mode. There are also people who prefer playing classic heroes, or maybe just petty thieves and murderers, or even scholars/historians exploring the land. None of these ways of playing the game has been impaired and some of them have improved over time (I just tried a little bit of adventure mode and I thought it was quite nice to hear the cyclops heap verbal abuse on five of his 120+ kills before bashing my adventurer into an unrecognizable pulp).

So, unlike the sleep bug, this loss does not make an entire game mode unplayable.

However, I agree that diversity is one of the big advantages of DF and that by removing the ability to create conflict due to adventurer action means a loss of diversity (whether it is realistic to demand an attitude similar to having Japan go to war with the US because their G.I.s regularly rape Japanese women in Okinawa, is a completely different debate).

With the thought established that an interesting feature has been lost, we should then turn to what can actually be done about this.

Personally, I think one option would be the history mode I suggested in context of the world gen discussion. If the mechanisms used during world creation were to be applied to a running world for some years, they may pick up the adventurer's actions and take them as the basis of wars (I just checked legends in a world and saw a war that was started because of a theft). It may be a bit more indirect than what was there before, but it does offer the potential for notoriety.

The other development I saw lamented here was the general decline in inter-civilization conflict.

Again, this seems to be a valid point as the number of wars dramatically declines during world generation with stable peace being very likely at the end of generation.

Personally, I think that this is a balance problem. The density of sites in general seems to be relatively low (both for caves and civilizations, although wars are a civilization issue solely). The bug fix for the number of civilizations should enable us to work at least on part of that aspect.

But secondly, it is probably related to the philosophical sphere and how likely they are to cause conflict. Instead of using a primitive tag system of GOOD vs. EVIL, it seems more reasonable to strengthen the incompatibility between religions. Just look at real world earth - thousands of people have been killed in conflicts between the various sects of Christianity alone and even the current narrowing of the differences is actually just an unloved reaction to the perceived outside thread of secularism.

Finally, concerning the alpha state of the game, the following should be kept in mind:

These forums here have been created by Toady for people to comment and make suggestions which he looks through and may implement if they seem interesting and feasible to him. So, discussing what is good and what is bad about the game as it is at the moment is indeed what these forums are about, and if there is something you consider bad, you should say so here.

However, it is also true that Toady is basically offering this splendid game to us for free. We are not forced to donate. We have no right to force anything on Toady and if anything, we owe him respect and thanks. This does not contradict pointing out flaws in the current version of the game, but you should be aware of this situation and choose your words accordingly. Toady is not our slave or employe, so we should not make it look as if we were pushing him around.

Well, these are my thoughts on the issue, and I hope that people can return to a constructive discussion on how the game could be improved rather than calling each other names.

Deathworks

[slMagnvox]

Hah.  Every release brings change.  There are lots of threads about how this new release breaks some gameplay.  Nevermind adventure mode alone, the way civilizations all interact has gone all kinds of bizarre.  Goblins arriving as merchants and elves going all bloodlusty.  The magic that is Bay12 means we'll have a new episode next month.  Don't call me complacent for accepting that this game is the work of a single entity, because it is.  And suggesting that Toady doesn't listen to our feedback or ignores suggestions is absurd.  Never the less, he is steering this ship and it can only visit one port at a time.  So next time, I suggest you ask politely for a more favourable destination rather than moaning and groaning how much you hate where we've arrived this month.

As I see it, this is not The End of the army arc.  Tomorrow's release should give us more clues where we are heading, but I certainly hope some time next month is spent refining civilization interactions and tuning up worldgen and megabeast survivablility.

In the meanwhile, I'm going to have fun in Fort mode repelling some elf sieges and trading with the kobolds.

[umiman]

And everytime Deathworks steps in, his odd imbalance between juvenile appearance and scientific method brings me to pause. Making me wonder why I'm arguing with proxy egos.

Anyway, Andir, while I like your support, I'm actually right now campaigning for a return to one version ago with this version's additions... kinda. Actually, all I want is to be able to recruit people in adventurer and have them fight with me against other civs, which they refuse to do right now without way too much additional work. So, technically, I'm your enemy.

But it is an illusion to think that we hold no power sway over Toady One:

I don't have a list of what I've said these many months, but I think I said that I would be focusing on it next if I was hurting for donations, and I also said during the Bay 12 get-together in April that I might be doing parts of it (like expandable views and tile support for items/terrain) as a sort of humanitarian action even if the donations are fine.  Although I'm still treading water more or less on donations, I'm not yet hurting, meaning that I haven't liquidated the meager funds I saved while working the math job.  The current idea is to work in some of the things that need to be done as I'm working on other things, at an unspecified ratio.

We're basically shareholders, and he is the CEO. Except his aim isn't profit maximization, just dividends. Unless he's being modest and is actually swimming in a cash vault while enjoying greenback cigars.

[Reasonableman]

I don't understand where all this drama is coming from. Nobody wants all the conflict drained out of the game. But we aren't complaining about it because what Toady has done with the latest release is tear down much of the old, placeholder framework for civilization interaction, so that world generation would use the same basic processes that will be used in-game to create conflicts. I mean, all you have to do is read the Future of the Fortress thingy:

Release 1: World gen army arc stuff.

Bug-fixes etc. associated to Release 1, followed by revision of the following plan.

Release 2: Wars between civilizations, life cycle actions like birth/old age deaths and ruler succession throughout the world will occur during regular play involving fleshed-out units rather than simple historical figures. Battles can occur while an adventurer is present, even if the adventurer can't explicitly take sides.

See? The first bit (what we just got ahold of) is just the worldgen bit. And to get it to tie into non-worldgen conflicts, lots of placeholding junk with simple if->then reactions had to be pulled out. The next release will start the process of rebuilding this framework with a much more fleshed-out and malleable system than the one that existed previously.

Still, your point isn't without validity: it is our job, as beta (or, well, alpha) testers, to point out flaws. However, we must also be careful to avoid unnecessarily taking up Toady's precious time discussing issues that have already been anticipated or settled.