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[Lehawk]

Honestly I think most of these concerns are, while perhaps valid, missing the point. In order to have most of these concerns you need to be familiar with the game. I have friends who adore the story of Boarmurdered and are well acquainted with DF from listening to people talk about it, but whom will never, ever play it due to the absolute lack of an interface. I can get past that. And it says in the start of the thing that...they realize that. But I'd underline that and put some circles around it. I tried showing them screenshots of Mayday's graphics set, and even that didn't help.

There are lots of hair pulling ragequit situations though _only_ because of stupid game moments. In the beginning you only have 7 dwarves. It's hard not to watch them work and do a little micro management. But when that game actually seems to work against you and take 3-5x longer for any task to be completed sometimes you can't help but feel that this game still needs lots of work. At that point, why waste time playing and waiting?

Hauling one seed at a time? Ahhh. Haul 3 seeds individually when a plant is ate or brewed? Ahhhhhhhh.

I'm sure later when you have a dozen dwarves dedicated to hauling, this problem doesn't frustrate as much. But the 1st-2nd year people that give up (like me) have to deal with this everytime they try to play again.

That's the biggest point. The game is too frustrating in the beginning of each fortress when you can watch individual dwarves do their stupid crap over and over again.

New random idea! A notepad-like log so if I save I can remember what I was doing on that save since I may stop playing for a few weeks before returning.

[Zruku]

My major turn-off is the learning curve, the start is very steady, then it begins to get steeper and steeper.

[Johnny Chthonic]

I have been playing this game for around three years, so it's hard for me to remember what was difficult for me at first. I hear a lot of talk about the UI and graphics - I still play with the ASCII graphics, because frankly (ironically), I can't tell what's happening when I use tilesets. The UI is kind of funky and takes some getting used to, but once you get it down it's a great system and quickly becomes second nature. The learning curve is steep, but in the sense that the more you figure out the more you can do, not in the sense that if you don't figure things out you will lose instantly.

I think this game's primary downfall, and one of the reasons it drives many potential players away, is that it is not enough like other games. This is, however, the thing that many players (myself included) like most about it. It takes some getting used to, but the ways in which Toady has deviated from classical video games are what make DF great.

Can you imagine what DF would be like with HP? :<

[Timst]

Could be neat, yes. Maybe in the description screen of the item ? Something like :

+turtle bone bolts [5]+

This is a stack of finely-crafted turtle bone bolts.

Usage :

A bolt is the ammunition of a crossbow.


Maybe with a link to the "crossbow" description, à la wiki.

[jamoecw]

i agree with that, well aside from the link.  if the link went to a DFepedia like xcom style games then sure, otherwise no.

[KaziArmada]

Truthfully, the ASCII was what kept me away as well, despite m looking for games as cool as Xcom

Know what finally got me into this?

Thank Boatmurdered..after reading that I had no choice but to play...And Im glad I did..

[orbcontrolled]

What very nearly drove me away was the grayed-out "maximize" button in the top-right.

I started with the mayday package downloaded from the Complete and Utter Newbie tutorial so I had absolutely no problem with ASCII or learning curve, what I did have though was a 1920x1200 screen that makes the game appear tiny, and the information in the wiki informed me that I had to solve complex math equations and alter sections of the init files in order to change the size of the game screen.

Now that I know what everything is, I can play it at it's default size, but for a while the only solution I could come up with was using ResToy to change my screen resolution while I was playing.

I didn't even want fancy vector graphics or anything, I would have been perfectly happy with the bitmaps being stretched, even MSpaint can do that.

=======
Also on a similar note: I tried out the vanilla non-mayday version of the game recently, and the first thing to turn me off about that was the fact that the 80:25 grid is far too small to see what is going on. And of course if I want to change it, I need to do a bunch of math to find out exactly how wide the window should be, and then change a dozen or so setting in the init to make it all consistent... Why can't the game just take arguments for Font, Grid Size, and Default Window Size, and then just stretch things as necessary to fit the window?

[Timst]

Huh, first, I don't understand why didn't you tried, I don't know, to answer "yes" when the game prompt you to choose between fullscreen and windowed ?

Then if you want to enlarge the grid, you don't have to solve complex equations or change a dozen options, just put your screen size in the "WindowedX / WindowedY" (or fullscreenX / FullscreenY) of your init file, then divide your screen abscissa (X) by 8 and your ordinate (Y) by 12, and put that info in the "grid" or "full grid" settings.

That's 3 options to change and a basic division to accomplish. But maybe I didn't understood something, in which case I'd like to see a screenshot to make it clearer.

[corvvs]

What very nearly drove me away was the grayed-out "maximize" button in the top-right.

I started with the mayday package downloaded from the Complete and Utter Newbie tutorial so I had absolutely no problem with ASCII or learning curve, what I did have though was a 1920x1200 screen that makes the game appear tiny, and the information in the wiki informed me that I had to solve complex math equations and alter sections of the init files in order to change the size of the game screen.

Now that I know what everything is, I can play it at it's default size, but for a while the only solution I could come up with was using ResToy to change my screen resolution while I was playing.

I didn't even want fancy vector graphics or anything, I would have been perfectly happy with the bitmaps being stretched, even MSpaint can do that.

=======
Also on a similar note: I tried out the vanilla non-mayday version of the game recently, and the first thing to turn me off about that was the fact that the 80:25 grid is far too small to see what is going on. And of course if I want to change it, I need to do a bunch of math to find out exactly how wide the window should be, and then change a dozen or so setting in the init to make it all consistent... Why can't the game just take arguments for Font, Grid Size, and Default Window Size, and then just stretch things as necessary to fit the window?

Use the new SDL versions - they zoom in and out with the mouse wheel. (link at top of page under "News")

[jamoecw]

Huh, first, I don't understand why didn't you tried, I don't know, to answer "yes" when the game prompt you to choose between fullscreen and windowed ?

Then if you want to enlarge the grid, you don't have to solve complex equations or change a dozen options, just put your screen size in the "WindowedX / WindowedY" (or fullscreenX / FullscreenY) of your init file, then divide your screen abscissa (X) by 8 and your ordinate (Y) by 12, and put that info in the "grid" or "full grid" settings.

That's 3 options to change and a basic division to accomplish. But maybe I didn't understood something, in which case I'd like to see a screenshot to make it clearer.

i believe he wanted to consult the wiki easily, without using alt-tab, so full screen is out.  i have found that simply doing a mathematical function with more than one number that is over a hundred scares people.  then there is the whole editing a file with code or even suedo code that makes some people nervous.  all in all i do find it silly, but entirely understandable, i highly doubt he is the only one like that.

[Jack A T]

Nothing really turned me off about DF at any point.  I kind of prefer ASCII-based graphics to most current so-called "amazing" graphics.  When I was trying to figure out what the heck I'm supposed to do in fortress mode, I was also having large amounts of fun brutally slaughtering people with their own left arms in adventurer mode.  The interface was only a minor problem.

[Timst]

Hm, if he hadn't any help it will be alright, but there is an entire wiki page about that, with step-by-step instructions and even some examples with the most common resolutions (but I didn't checked if his resolution is in the samples).

[Deandet]

ASCII graphics were ok (and even good) for Adventure mode, but for Dwarf Fortress mode it was really scary.

[Pato2747]

Well, female dorfs with beards is quite a turnoff for me 

[TheDJ17]

Somehow windowed mode takes up the entire screen for me without ever having to mess around.
Full is just plain broke.