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[Andir]

The only reason I do this in-game activity is for the game to perform better, in a strange twist.

I wouldn't call it strange to maintain...  If you don't take care of it all the time, it will catch up to you and it will be worse.  Unfortunately, DF has a lot of maintenance that has to be performed on long running maps.  As you keep adding more processes, more maintenance needs to be done.

[Buttery_Mess]

Probably the biggest turn off is the fact that it takes ten hours to learn how to play the game, even basically. The interface is entirely unintuitive. With most games these days it's fairly obvious how you're supposed to play.

As long as a person is committed to learning how to play, this isn't a problem. The problem I'd imagine is that most people run DF for the first time, decide it's crap, then never try it again, because they didn't know that they had to spend hours learning to play in the first place.

More thorough tutorials would help, but it's hard to make a tutorial because there is no right way to play the game. I think that the main problem is that you get too many dwarfs showing up through immigration. It's a mad panic to get the fort set up for eighty dwarfs, at which time you'll get sieges and nobles. You have to do everything at once. It would be better if dwarfs only turned up when you needed them for a certain job. That would allow people to focus on accomodation first, then food source, then trade goods industry, then a metal industry, without having to panic and trying to set everything up at once. That way, new players would be able to focus on figuring out one thing at a time.

[Andir]

Tutorials are also "fail" because of the beta state of the game.  If you made a tutorial on how to get started with the old military and the plump helmet farming it would be out of date today.  They'd have to be constantly updated and you end up with the DFWiki instead of a tutorial.

[Telgin]

Since I started playing the game fairly recently, I suppose I can comment on my experiences.

The ASCII graphics weren't a turn off for me.  In a way I actually prefer it since it makes the game almost like reading a book.  The rest of the interface was a bit of a hurdle to overcome, but didn't put me off for long.

The learning curve was quite steep.  The biggest problem I encountered here is the unbelievable amount of misinformation about the game that you can find if you go looking.  Older versions and urban legends make it difficult to know for sure what you're doing is right.  A built in tutorial or more comprehensive help system might be the way to go here.

A good example of what I mean here is that literally within 10 minutes of me playing the game for the first time, the first message it told me was "The billy goat (tame) has suffocated!"

I was completely mystified.  I now know that this was because I pastured two goats in too small of a pasture and my nanny goat killed him, but I'm sure such a confusing scenario wouldn't encourage most people to keep playing.

The FPS death problem wasn't that big of a turn off for me.  It isn't something a new player is likely to encounter soon, and so I learned to love the game before I ran into it.

[medley]

My biggest issue is the endless lists. spotting a dwarf in a 220 dwarf list takes a painfull amout of energy and time. The same with stocks, or buildings, stockpile settings... Its all too draining. Most of this could be easily fixed by a couple of more filters or being able to "sort by..." name, profession, migration wave, or simply being able to search by tiping like when managing job orders.

Another simple thing is the fact that I need to go to magmawiki for every new thing I run into. "you have struck [new rock]" id love to have an option that said "this is used for this and that". Its not fun when I have to make a 20 minute research to find out the difference between a vertical bar and a grate.

The other thing is when you cant figure out why in gods name are some dwarves doing something... like deciding to take a stroll in the park when i restrict them to a burrow in the middle of a siege. but i guess this stuff is more complicated and affected by the randmomness of the game

[MrWiggles]

And then when you're looking at the stock screen, the lag that can happen when going over item list with lots of items in it. Its such as large deal, that I take that into account when I'm looking over the list.

[zwei]

And then when you're looking at the stock screen, the lag that can happen when going over item list with lots of items in it. Its such as large deal, that I take that into account when I'm looking over the list.

Especially when you want to look at your metal bars ... as there is stone list right in front of it.

[Iton Ibrukrithzam]

I'd say the biggest barriers to entry are:

A) The Learning Curve.  Some well-advertised tutorials would go a long way.  Yeah, they have to be updated when the game updates(well, depending on the update, I think), but with updates as far apart as they are, that isn't so bad.  Heck, Toady and Three-Toe could probably hold a tutorial contest, winner gets a picture or three-toe story(same as financial contributors) and people would do it.

B) The ASCII graphics.  They hold a certain old school charm, and I get that 3d is out of the question.  But there are some people, like myself, for whom ASCII only causes headaches.  Without a graphic pack, I probably wouldn't have started.  Several good packs exist, it's just a matter of letting people know about them. 

[GreatWyrmGold]

I'd say the biggest barriers to entry are:

A) The Learning Curve.  Some well-advertised tutorials would go a long way.  Yeah, they have to be updated when the game updates(well, depending on the update, I think), but with updates as far apart as they are, that isn't so bad.  Heck, Toady and Three-Toe could probably hold a tutorial contest, winner gets a picture or three-toe story(same as financial contributors) and people would do it.

B) The ASCII graphics.  They hold a certain old school charm, and I get that 3d is out of the question.  But there are some people, like myself, for whom ASCII only causes headaches.  Without a graphic pack, I probably wouldn't have started.  Several good packs exist, it's just a matter of letting people know about them. 

A. The required "You elf!" type of comment.
B. Have you looked up, say, the Lazy Noob pack or the wiki entry? They'll help noobs, especially lazy ones, especially the first one.
C. Look up graphics packs. Or stay with, and learn. That's what I did, and now the only problems I have are occasionally mistaking a groundhog for a pikegoblin or something like that that's easily remedied by the k and/or v key.

Frankly, to any problem there is a simple, fun, Fun, and/or dwarfy solution that works well.
Sieges? Multiple--

[Mickey Blue]

Channeling the newbie in me would say:

1) The UI: Its ridiculous, don't get me wrong once you get used to it you can speed through things quickly with hot keys but its a lot to get used to in an already complex game.

2) The graphics: These days I only use ASCII (or rather a tileset that is ASCII but squares it) but when I started it was like looking at a garble of random symbols and letters.  Considering the already mentioned complex UI and the complexity of the game itself (didn't get farming right in your first year.. You probably died) it was hard to deal with.

My current things that bug me:

1) FPS of course: Granted these days I play the game on what may as well be considered 'hard mode'* and frequently die before FPS ever becomes a significant issue (plus I keep my base-FPS locked at 60, I Find that makes the game flow better for me and thus I won't notice any change in FPS until it slows enough to drop below that) however knowing that trying to make a long lasting fort is a lost cause does suck.

2) As others mentioned, the lists.  While I've gotten over the UI the lists of things can be a pain to sort through.  Names get cut off if they are too long, they are often not in any particular order, you cannot sort them or filter them or search them (with a few exceptions like in the managers table).  There is so much I'd change with that (it would be nice, for example, if you could have a 'favorites' section where you could select specific things to be able to view quickly, like "drinks, food, wood, metal" or whatever so I don't have to check all the different sections when I want to know how much stock I have.  That said alphabetizing the lists or better yet allowing you to filter or sort them would be good too, kind of like you can in the manager window (again).

3) More minor but not being able to choose specific materials to make certain things out of, like making a door or a floodgate out of a specific material without having to jump through hoops. You can do this with some things (like armor/weapons) I just wish you could do it with everything.  I know its in the works though so that's good. 


I am aware that the "FPS" issue runs deep, but to me (knowing nothing about programming) it wouldn't be that hard to take care of the other two and honestly that really were the only two notable things I could come up with.  None of the above really put me off the game, but if I could pick two (realistic) things to change it would be the latter two.

[Shadowlord]

The military. It used to be easy to put dwarves in the military, make squads, and move them around, and toggle their military-status on and off. Now it's overcomplicated and too much hassle.

The infinite enemies who attack over and over and over and over until you finally lose, or until you wall yourself in and never come out again. The only way to stop them is to generate a world where they do not exist, or to use an adventurer or adventurers to wipe out their civilizations.

Unkillable forgotten beasts. Do these still appear or are they all HP based now? I quit playing while these were around, but they were only one of the reasons, and it's mainly the military and infinite enemies that are keeping me from coming back.

The inability to use wagons for caravans anymore (unless you build on an existing road?).

[Squidpalace]

The infinite enemies who attack over and over and over and over until you finally lose, or until you wall yourself in and never come out again. The only way to stop them is to generate a world where they do not exist, or to use an adventurer or adventurers to wipe out their civilizations.

Or set invaders to NO in the init. lol

[Iton Ibrukrithzam]

I'd say the biggest barriers to entry are:

A) The Learning Curve.  Some well-advertised tutorials would go a long way.  Yeah, they have to be updated when the game updates(well, depending on the update, I think), but with updates as far apart as they are, that isn't so bad.  Heck, Toady and Three-Toe could probably hold a tutorial contest, winner gets a picture or three-toe story(same as financial contributors) and people would do it.

B) The ASCII graphics.  They hold a certain old school charm, and I get that 3d is out of the question.  But there are some people, like myself, for whom ASCII only causes headaches.  Without a graphic pack, I probably wouldn't have started.  Several good packs exist, it's just a matter of letting people know about them. 

A. The required "You elf!" type of comment.
B. Have you looked up, say, the Lazy Noob pack or the wiki entry? They'll help noobs, especially lazy ones, especially the first one.
C. Look up graphics packs. Or stay with, and learn. That's what I did, and now the only problems I have are occasionally mistaking a groundhog for a pikegoblin or something like that that's easily remedied by the k and/or v key.

Frankly, to any problem there is a simple, fun, Fun, and/or dwarfy solution that works well.
Sieges? Multiple--

A. Hey, I play the game now.  It was a tough learning curve, and my DF history is riddled with fort deaths as I learned each thing, though.  I enjoyed it, personally, it can be fun to watch all Fun break loose, but not everyone enjoys losing because they couldn't figure out how to get farms working.

B&C. I have, actually.  These utilities continue to help me to this day.  I wasn't listing "Reasons I totally don't play DF, but still lurk the boards" I was listing things that made it harder for me to get into it and things I've seen be hard on friends as I try to get them into it.

[Mickey Blue]

The military. It used to be easy to put dwarves in the military, make squads, and move them around, and toggle their military-status on and off. Now it's overcomplicated and too much hassle.

I know the military is a big issue for lots of people but (and if you haven't played in a while as you indicate below) its pretty good now IMO.  I use the military as my only line of defense (no walls, no traps, etc) and I find it far nicer to be able to have different squads with different specific equipment, etc.  Much nicer (though to be fair more complex) than the previous version.

The infinite enemies who attack over and over and over and over until you finally lose, or until you wall yourself in and never come out again. The only way to stop them is to generate a world where they do not exist, or to use an adventurer or adventurers to wipe out their civilizations.

If you mean sieges you can turn those off in the raws, if you mean just general monsters I guess I must not notice them as much.  Though I do play with huge amounts of enemies so to each their own.

Unkillable forgotten beasts. Do these still appear or are they all HP based now? I quit playing while these were around, but they were only one of the reasons, and it's mainly the military and infinite enemies that are keeping me from coming back.

Those are, so far as I know, gone.  There are still very powerful ones (but then that's the point) but I'm pretty sure the invincible ones (usually made of some mineral) are gone.  Really my beef with FBs are the super weak ones. I hate all the epicness of one showing up then some random dwarf punches it and it dies (usually the 'blob' ones, if anything you'd imagine they'd be harder cause they would be able to reform but it seems to treat them as a bubble that can be popped).

The inability to use wagons for caravans anymore (unless you build on an existing road?).

Not sure what exactly you mean by this one, there are still caravans and yes there are no wagons but I've never noticed a major issue as a result.  Again though, to each their own.

[Shadowlord]

If you mean sieges you can turn those off in the raws, if you mean just general monsters I guess I must not notice them as much.  Though I do play with huge amounts of enemies so to each their own.

The problem with that was that it disabled all enemies entering the map, including kobolds, dragons, hydras, colossi, etc, although I don't know if it affects underground critters.

Unkillable forgotten beasts. Do these still appear or are they all HP based now? I quit playing while these were around, but they were only one of the reasons, and it's mainly the military and infinite enemies that are keeping me from coming back.

Those are, so far as I know, gone.  There are still very powerful ones (but then that's the point) but I'm pretty sure the invincible ones (usually made of some mineral) are gone.  Really my beef with FBs are the super weak ones. I hate all the epicness of one showing up then some random dwarf punches it and it dies (usually the 'blob' ones, if anything you'd imagine they'd be harder cause they would be able to reform but it seems to treat them as a bubble that can be popped).

Good to hear.

The inability to use wagons for caravans anymore (unless you build on an existing road?).

Not sure what exactly you mean by this one, there are still caravans and yes there are no wagons but I've never noticed a major issue as a result.  Again though, to each their own.

Potential trade per year is way down due to the lack of wagons. That isn't a major problem for me, though the inability to have cities connect roads to you was an issue for certain other people.

The RSI-inducing trade interface was an annoyance to me, to the point that I mostly stopped trading and started colonizing sites that had everything I needed.