I call bullshit on you reading my post. I said that the fanbase for Toady is less important than it is for a major commercial company as Toady is far less interested in the bottom line.
Dwarf Fortress most certainly is an aberration. It's an exceedingly complex one and a half man roguelike game. All the standard game design models say that DF should have died by now, and indeed in 99% of the time it would. The original Armok being a good example, DF has managed to cheat the odds.
And finally, DF is a Roguelike, Roguelikes have small fanbases, compare the DF fanbase (which numbers maybe a thousand at most, and more like a few hundred) to the fanbase of a mainstream game, which will often number in the ten thousands, or, in the case of a certain MMO, over 11 million.
Finally, the fact that it has a steep learning curve for a good reason does not in any way change the fact that it has a steep learning curve.
1) He has interest in maintaining and
growing fanbase. It it whole point of this thread, get list of items that slutters banbse growth. Toady is one man "Commercial Company" (hint: he needs new fans because older ones eventually get bored, go away and stop donating, which will likely end up in dead project)
2) As said, it is not roguelike. It has ascii graphics and can be played as one in one mode but that is fairly minor part of whole game (that, from what i have read, people are not really that interested in compared to dwarf mode.), it does not bring new players, it does not keep em playing, it is nothing special anyway, and it is not what development is about.
It is simcity without graphics, not a roguelike.
And as far as game design, goes, well, bs call again
. It is sandbox sim. It does not play by "standart design rules" rules; little story:
Developer of Elite (a open world space sim) was being rejected left and right by publishers. Why? Because his game lacked score display and player did not have "three lives". By all conventional wisdom of game design of that time, it was unplayable game that lacked most important features. It was destined to die. Err, no, it was destined to be played for 25+ years, to have numerous clones,to define whole genre and end up with mmo adaptation to boot.
Sandboxes break tons of rules for game are supposed to be players. That is because there is only one rule: Is game fun to play? That is all that matters.
DF did not manage to cheat odds, it simply works and is of popular genre. And it is genre that has huge audience, because at heart it is Sims in fantasy settings. Sims sold 100 000 000 copies, btw. Success of DF is pretty much guaranteed, really.
Last: game does not have steep curve for good reasons. It has steep curve for bad reasons (lack of time to fix it) or no reasons at all. There is no "good" reason to have steep learning curve.
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Topic: What turns you off about DF? (Read 314258 times)