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[Iban]

That's actually wrong. The dwarvern economy runs very well with "credit." The need for coins is merely a fabrication. If you don't make them, the system works. If you lock them all away in a "vault," the system works (but they still try and path to these coins, so that takes a toll on your system).

[James.Denholm]

(but they still try and path to these coins, so that takes a toll on your system).

Urist McAccountholder: Is the bank open?
Urist McBanker: No.
Urist McAccountholder: Is the bank open?
Urist McBanker: No.
Urist McAccountholder: Is the bank open?
Urist McBanker: No.

[Joakim]

Sadly, one of the core necessities for the economy is coins, and apparently the minute you make them dwarves spend all their time getting them, putting them in bags, taking them home, putting them in chests, taking them back out, taking them to the store, etc etc etc.

You have to admit that sounds very dwarven though.

[Antioch]

The thing that turns me off the most about DF is that the difficulty decreases as the map progresses, instead of increases. It is awsome to embark in an area full of hippos, but after you turn them all into boots and gloves the difficulty falls. Sieges also don't really add a challange. Of course a lot of this will probably change after the coming release.
I also find it extremely annoying that miners carve out an entire fortress in 3 minutes. I want mining to be an labour intensive task, so I need to use my space logically before beeing able to increase my ammount of workshops, which take no space at all. I would really appreciate it if workshops were 4*4 or 5*5. It would also increase the value of metal. Legendary dwarfes also produce stuff way to fast, with one dwarf producing 100 mugs every minute, I think that the speed of production should only increase slightly with higher skill, but the quality improvement should stay the same. bazaar prices are generally too low, one dabbling stonecrafter can produce enough crafts in a month to buy the entire caravan.

Of course we all talked enough about graphics and interface, but I would like to say that it is really time to improve these parts of the game, in my opinion it was more important then the current underground and combat improvements, as it will REALLY expand the DF player base. Turning it from a game where only us select core of hardcore gamers play it to something that everyone would enjoy.

Perhaps more a suggestion and I know that DF is mostly a sandbox game but scripted mission support would really add another layer of challange to the game. Beeing able to create scripted mission events and objectives, such as gain 1,000,000 fortress worth before year X, produce 200 cat leather socks or survive the scripted attacks for X years in the fort given to you.

[Durin]

That's actually wrong. The dwarvern economy runs very well with "credit." The need for coins is merely a fabrication. If you don't make them, the system works. If you lock them all away in a "vault," the system works (but they still try and path to these coins, so that takes a toll on your system).

Well, I appear to have all the groundwork laid for the economy then, and yet it is still not happening.  So... not sure what to say.  Will have to look more closely at it.  I know all my dwarfs how have their credits showing on their information, but I have not seen anyone yet pissed about not having a room.

Strange strange.

I also have 5 shops that no one will buy.

[Jiri Petru]

Perhaps more a suggestion and I know that DF is mostly a sandbox game but scripted mission support would really add another layer of challange to the game. Beeing able to create scripted mission events and objectives, such as gain 1,000,000 fortress worth before year X, produce 200 cat leather socks or survive the scripted attacks for X years in the fort given to you.

To make it more "immersive", these could be mandates by mountainhomes. You know... the outpost liaison comes, saying: "The King wants you to send him 200 cat leather socks in the next year's caravan. Don't ask why!"

Though I'm quite sure people would hate it.

[Iban]

Antioch, I disagree. My societies all collapse from the inside once outside threats have been eliminated.

[MrWiggles]

I agree that the interface could use a fair amount of streamline, but I see little point in graphic update since the items needing graphics is growing and or changing, a time sink between releases.

[Urist McDepravity]

bazaar prices are generally too low, one dabbling stonecrafter can produce enough crafts in a month to buy the entire caravan.

I believe only correct and DFish way is to simulate world market, with caravans being actual entries traveling around and trying to make profit. So prices would be demand-driven, and mugs soon reaching near-zero value due to overproduction.
Although this approach makes it nessesary to make stuff like mugs be actually useful so someone would need them. And to be breakable, so there always would be some demand.
This is covered by Caravan arc, so its not defect, but just not-finished-yet.

[Antioch]

I agree that the interface could use a fair amount of streamline, but I see little point in graphic update since the items needing graphics is growing and or changing, a time sink between releases.

Toady wouldn't have to create the sprites, only the SUPPORT for sprites, we have enough people on the forums willing to make graphic packs.

[Jiri Petru]

I believe only correct and DFish way is to simulate world market, with caravans being actual entries traveling around and trying to make profit. So prices would be demand-driven, and mugs soon reaching near-zero value due to overproduction.
Although this approach makes it nessesary to make stuff like mugs be actually useful so someone would need them. And to be breakable, so there always would be some demand.
This is covered by Caravan arc, so its not defect, but just not-finished-yet.

Yeah, I can't wait to have Caravan Arc. What joy will it be!
Though I guess the number of things you are able to produce would have to be drastically reduced. Right now, in a single year your fort can produce a supply of steel weapons to keep all the world killing each other indefinitely.

[Lord Shonus]

The price would just drop becuase the merchant's wouldn't be able to sell any more.

[Darkphyre]

Hmm... Well this looks like a good post to end my lurking career with..

First off I want to say that I've only been playing for a few months and haven’t come close to playing around with every feature yet (in fact, I usually start a new fortress around the fourth year no matter how I'm doing) so there's likely a good bit I can't comment on.

1. The ascii graphics were one of the largest obstacles for me to overcome. I don’t have any particular dislike for ascii/text-mode games but until you get used to what every character is supposed to represent it's extremely confusing. Including a tileset/graphics pack with the game, even as just an option, would help a ton here.

2.  There is a severe lack of highly visible documentation outside of the wiki. It's great that there's a link to the wiki in the game's "hi, this is an alpha release" screen before you start playing, but it's really just not visible enough (maybe move it to the title screen and put it in a highly visible color or something). Also, tabbing out of the game or looking at another monitor every time you need to look something up (which is often when you start) causes a sort of mental disconnect from the game, never a good thing.

3. Tons of items, no in-game -useful- description (especially when embarking). "Potash? What the heck is potash..." *insert wiki search here* "Oh, its fertilizer.". That was essentially my thought process for most of my first few gaming sessions. The ability to get some basic information on items, especially when embarking, would go a long way towards relieving some confusion.

4. Menu's - There's only really two menu's in game that I have issue with, so I'll just look at those.

Unit Menu - Putting it bluntly, it's clunky and barely usable.  Hitting "u" brings up the list of units on the map, easy enough. Now scroll through the list to find the unit... then hit appropriate key for next menu... then appropriate key again... depending on the option you have to then scroll through more options... etc etc. This is an issue which becomes even worse as the game progresses and more units show up.

Splitting into sub-menu's for player units, animals, hostiles, deceased, etc would help reduce the clutter, full mouse support for point&click selection would help as well.

Trade Depot Menu - Again, clunky and barely usable. Only through using bins/bags is this even remotely functional. The sheer number of items that you (or at least, I) have to trade after the first year or so is huge. And yet we have to select each individual item (or bin of items) to be moved to the depot. And then we have to go through yet another list of undwarfly length to select them again to offer them for trade...and THEN a third list to see if the traders brought anything of value.

Splitting the screen of available goods to be moved to the depot into categories was a good start, but this really needs to be cleaned up further. I actually timed myself a few nights ago, it took me 12 minutes just to select all the goods I wanted to trade... that’s a LOT of key presses!

5. Difficulty - I guess this is something being addressed in the upcoming version, but I'll mention it anyway. The game is simply too easy. Yes, there are many ways to lose your fortress; Sieges, floods, magma, tantrum spirals, hunger/thirst, dragon's looking for a quick snack... But none of these seems to present any real threat at the moment.

 -Sieges are easily neutralized by a single locked wooden door (seriously, 40 goblins and not one thought to bring a battering ram or something?).
 -Flooding and Magma incidents only really occur through poor planning on the player's behalf (do they give out Darwin awards for dwarf fortress?).
 -Again, Hunger/thirst is easily avoided by either acquiring food on your own through the available skills or simply trading for it (1000+ food for 12 minutes of pushing + then enter!).
 -The only megabeast I've had experience with so far is the dragon, but it died fairly easily to a small group of trained wrestlers (dwarven clothesline of doom!).
 -This leaves tantrum spirals, which (for me) seem to be the most problematic. Last map a kobold snuck off with a scepter I crafted, which made someone's wife miserable... then she fell in a chasm, which made the husband miserable... so he drowned himself, which made his friends miserable, who threw tantrums which... well, you get the idea...

Now, I'm not really complaining about my having lost the fort to a tantrum spiral (it was -epic- to watch), but it just seems odd to me that a kobold thief stealing a scepter (that I was going to trade away anyway) is more dangerous than a goblin army.


Overall this game is full of win of dwarfiness, but there's a bunch of rough spots left. Can't wait to see the next version :O

[Iban]

1. Nothing really to be done about the ASCII since all the tilesets are terrible.
2. The wiki itself is pretty consuming. The "YOUR FIRST FORTRESS" guide made me not want to play. I try to pitch in with the dumbing down of articles (my specialty).
3. potash is fertilizer wat? I thought it was fuel. This is why I only use magma forges.
4. Agreed entirely.
5. Dwarf Fortress needs a L4D-styled "Armork" director that gets really pissed off and sends you a legion of titans if you're doing too well.

[Caledonian]

The fact that resources are so limited - and acquisition of resources through trade is extremely difficult.  I don't mind a huge chunk of stone being required to make a wall, or even a stone chair.  But when a giant heap of marble produces only one stone earring, then the game's simplification has been taken too far.

It's too expensive, resource-wise, to train certain skills, but skills increase so rapidly that people can be come masters of their craft after less than a year.

I dislike losing access to resources because of lack of skill (example:  mining), and I dislike that certain tasks are completed so quickly (most especially:  mining).