Yes! Yes! Keep up the protests! Glad to see this at last! People finally realizing that the road we're treading is the road that is actually leading away from gameplay and into the realms of simulation. If this keeps up, very soon we wouldn't be *playing* Dwarf Fortress adventurer. We'd just read about it and watch the game play itself.
About this post.. I agree, some of the challenge has left DF, but don't give up! Toady is working on it. Read the main site and you'll see that these things are being worked on and Toady IS listening. I also agree that this game is much more boring without conflict and high tension. I also don't want to live in a DF world where everyone is at peace, how boring! I want them to be scrambling to break down my walls at the earliest instance of aggression. I want evil to mean EVIL. I want squads of enemies that are smart enough to make me worry. I want thieves crawling around looking for a way inside - no dumb thieves! I want it all and then some!
In reference to
"People finally realizing that the road we're treading is the road that is actually leading away from gameplay and into the realms of simulation.".....
I for one would like to have more explanation for why goblins are bad or why such and such must be killed. I think the direction towards a simulation is a wise move because it'll allow toady to have a wide breadth of diversity in the world. We're talking about a world, right?
You have to realize that a world can be just like a game, if the circumstances are right. Also remember that for some people, conquering the world is not fun. For some people they'd rather make a trading settlement, and for them that is fun. Others would like to be a relatively small time vagrant. What is fun, especially in a non-linear world like DF, can vary widely. I think this is what we're seeing already - people are defining what the game is by setting up the circumstances they prefer - either by doing this in-game or through the code. Before, in previous versions, everything was basically preset - the linear progression from the surface and down. Random encounters with mobs were hardcoded and there was very little exaplanation for anything. The only real goal of the game was to survive the onsalught, and to dig deep and wide.
In a few years the doubters, like you, will be thankfull that this path was chosen. By then there'll be the kind of diversity you now only dream of - although I doubt it'll be appreciated, it'll likely be quickly taken for granted. That kind of diversity is hard to find elsewhere in other rpgs because people make it by hand - manually. Everything from the landscape (which is totally random in df) to the factions to the major events to the quests to the wars to the times of peace and so on - is all painfully written/constructed bit by bit by a band of developers. It can take years to build ONE world of the size we see in df. Here, it'll be done automatically by the program, and it'll be infinitely more detailed than what we're used to. IF, and that is a big IF, it succeeds, it'll have done something that few have ever accomplished and doing it all in one game.
Just remember, the legendary events of the past in a DF game are only data, but once we see how they interconnect, it becomes a story. The random landscape is also just bits of data, but once you see it and become familiar with it, it's almost like a satillite view of earth - surreal. The rare rise of a formidable giant with just the right amount of characteristics to fit our preferances is a random, complicated mixture of competing forces, but when we come into contact with that giant after having learned all about it, it's much more than just random numbers and algorithms. Most people can admit this; that at some point during playing, a random combination of elements DID appeal to you in some kind of intimate way. Just like the dwarves in dwarf-mode, they're just bits of code and random influences, but once you become familiar with the data that represents them, they come to life! Almost like pets - we imagine them feeling and thinking many of the same things we do. That may or may not be the case. No matter, all that matters is the filter we have inside our mind - it tells us what is and isn't real. If it tells us that the pet is displaying behaviour that is familiar to us, it's all the same. This will be what happens in DF.
What happens may not always be what we want to happen - we might not want the goblins to be at peace with us. The world may not always revolve around us as though we were some kind of great, wise hero, but with enough luck and foresight we can influence the world and shape it to our desires. Want to make war with the goblins?? Then become a powerfull, well respected member of your society. Once you've acheived those ends, setup a combination of circumstances wherein your hated goblin foes can become a national enemy. Otherwise, you'll be hated for your views or a hated murderer trying to convince the king that slaying goblins is in his best interest - you'll be thrown in jail! That will be a hard sell without some kind of weighty leverage! Your other choice is to simply become your own man and slay them heedlessly, having denied your own civ to construct your own. So.. We'll have to learn how to work with the game world to, in effect, manifest exactly what it's we want - unless we're lucky enough to be blessed with a world where goblins murder and enslave our children, where death is around every corner and.. where people worship us and give us all their moneys!
I like that. I'm sick of all the scripted crap in other game worlds. It's like a 50 thousand pound gorilla on your back. This is like fresh air to me. Maybe not to you, and I doubt I've changed your mind.
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Topic: Adventure mode substantially less menacing (post 23a) (Read 3498 times)