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[Andir]

... for a modern game takes up an inordinately disproportionate amount of time and money.

I always found this a funny statement when referring to Software development because in 99% of all cases, Time is Money.  Now, if you were to buy a third party solution then it's a different matter, but for all intents and purposes, programming time and money are one in the same.   

[Neruz]

... for a modern game takes up an inordinately disproportionate amount of time and money.

I always found this a funny statement when referring to Software development because in 99% of all cases, Time is Money.  Now, if you were to buy a third party solution then it's a different matter, but for all intents and purposes, programming time and money are one in the same.   

Technically yes, but the translation of time into money is a bit iffy; time isn't worth much at the start of the project, but is worth a huge amount at the end of the project. So it's usually easier to just keep a money budget and a time budget and reference them seperately rather than trying to translate it all into money.

[bloodnok]

Nethack occasionally spawns gnome lords with wands of death/lightning/magic missile.

I'm not sure I would hold up NetHack as a perfect example of well-designed balance in a roguelike game, but... nethack.alt.org lists a 29-game winning streak, a 25-game winning streak, and a 23-game winning streak. The actual number of unavoidable deaths in NetHack is extremely small, much smaller than the casual player supposes is the case.

Also, hm. I think a roguelike can't avoid the occasional unfair death without becoming either too easy or too repetitive. But that doesn't make it a good idea to write in a game mechanic that causes unavoidable deaths without any benefits, and "any monster can potentially oneshot you in combat" is such a mechanic.

I'm referring to the way rivers downstream from waterfalls have incorrectly high pressure and the water doesn't behave as you expect.

I haven't noticed that before - how is it incorrect?

It's a lot easier to set up a test case in Fortress mode, but briefly, water taken from the river below a waterfall can seek a z-level higher than the river, and this can cause unexpected flooding.

What I'm trying to say is that that could be done without simulating the entire world.

To some extent, but what would be the point of taking away the world sim?

I'm not saying "take it away", but I am saying it represents a lot of "jam tomorrow" work that hasn't really changed the (fortress mode) game we play now, because an embark site _is_ a pocket dimension. If you were trying to improve fortress mode starting from a game without the world simulator, you probably wouldn't write the world simulator first.

Also I'm saying it shouldn't be allowed to compromise the game we play now, and to a degree, the exercise where one furtles around with Site Finder to find a site with lots of interesting features is not really a very helpful one.

And to me, deciduous trees growing in a desert at the rim of an active volcano just so I can have glass and beds and infinite fuel without having to trade for anything outside of my 3x3 embark area -- and having that be the common state of affairs! I can walk 6 miles up the road and see the exact same setup!

Well, again, it doesn't have to be the common state of affairs, because an embark site only wants to be dollied up at the point you actually embark. The rest of the world could stay as it is, because it's only relevant to adventurer mode.

"3x3" embark site is an interesting point. The current state of DF actively encourages you to take a large embark site in order to encompass more biomes... in a game notorious for crippling CPU demands. Here's a radical proposal; throw any idea of the "real" scale out the window, and shrink each embark tile to the desired size, so I can lay out a 12x12 embark area and use CPU for a 3x3, with each embark tile occupying 1/16 of the space it does now. That's an example of the kind of thing I'm talking about - recognise that once you have embarked the rest of the world is reduced to a few numbers, and don't compromise the play value of the embark site for the sake of the "real" state of the rest of the world.

It would be nice if dwarves recognized that being on fire is a bad thing. I'm definitely not arguing against bug fixes.

And if fire acted like fire, not some slow-acting contagion! The trouble is, development effort is limited; the more wrinkles that are added, the less chance there is fire ever works.

Hospitals treatment and surgery don't change the gameplay interestingly?

I think you misunderstood me. I _like_ the idea of hospitals and dwarves with medical skills. It seems entirely appropriate to extend the medical care simulation beyond the current, rather unsatisfying one. I just don't think it needs to be done by simulating individual stitches!

Already fixed in the next version. There are now more attributes, split into mental and physical categories, and certain tasks exercise only certain attributes.

So I gather, but really, how long has it been like that?

Another oddity is what materials can construct what. Stone (but not metal, oddly) can be used to make mechanisms, which not only are completely modular (can be used for any purpose) but can exert action at any distance. However, it is impossible to construct a bed from the stuff!

... sure, the demand for wood doesn't hurt the game, but in practice the demand for inflammables is going to send you out in search of wood. The bed thing is just arbitary.

[Neruz]

It's a lot easier to set up a test case in Fortress mode, but briefly, water taken from the river below a waterfall can seek a z-level higher than the river, and this can cause unexpected flooding.

Shouldn't be able to unless you block the river, as once the water has risen to the level of the river it will preferentially path off the edge of the map where the river exits rather than to a higher level.



Also, bloodnok, you appear to have forgotten that DF is an alpha. Alot of your arguments make sense in the current context of the game, but will cause major problems later on. Not simulating the entirity of the world for example, makes sense at the moment because the fortress mode is a 'pocket dimension', but once the army arc is implimented that will no longer be the case, at which point the game suddenly does need to simulate the entire world.

If, however, you have previously not been simulating the entire world, you need to add all that simulation code in, and you need the fortress mode to suddenly start using that code. Effectively, you need to rewrite the game from scratch.


The vast majority of DF's features are either incomplete, or foundations for future features. DF is a work in progress, not a finished product, which is why there are lots of placeholders and bits and pieces that don't make sense yet, but will make sense in the context of the final product.




This is also why professional game devs don't release their alpha builds to the general public; they do exactly the same thing, they just don't show you, so you never know about all the strange mismatched dog-ends that hung around for two-thirds of the dev cycle until they were finished.

[bloodnok]

It's a lot easier to set up a test case in Fortress mode, but briefly, water taken from the river below a waterfall can seek a z-level higher than the river, and this can cause unexpected flooding.

Shouldn't be able to unless you block the river

http://dwarf.lendemaindeveille.com/index.php/Waterfall

Also, bloodnok, you appear to have forgotten that DF is an alpha.

No, and I think I've discussed the "jam tomorrow" position about eight thousand times already.

[Neruz]

It's a lot easier to set up a test case in Fortress mode, but briefly, water taken from the river below a waterfall can seek a z-level higher than the river, and this can cause unexpected flooding.

Shouldn't be able to unless you block the river

http://dwarf.lendemaindeveille.com/index.php/Waterfall

I know the Wiki says that, but i've never actually seen it happen. Yes, water at the bottom of the waterfall retains the pressure it had at the top of the waterfall, but because the edge of the map counts as a valid location for water to path to it will never flood higher than the river, as any water higher than the river will path off the map first.

If you block the river, then it will flood, which is entirely what you would expect to happen.

No, and I think I've discussed the "jam tomorrow" position about eight thousand times already.

You've discussed it, which shows you are aware that DF is an alpha, but apparantly you still fail to understand that DF is an alpha.

Most of the work Toady has done so far that doesn't make sense had to be done at this stage as it would be almost impossible to do at a later stage.

[bloodnok]

You've discussed it, which shows you are aware that DF is an alpha, but apparantly you still fail to understand that DF is an alpha.

And I was just thinking how nice it was to get this far into a discussion on a Web forum without anyone being patronising for no readily apparent reason, too. Spare me it.

[Neruz]

I'm not being patronising, as far as i can tell you don't seem to understand what i mean when i say that if the world simulation was not already implimented, it would now be too late to impliment it.

I could be wrong and you could just be obtuse, but i like to assume ignorance rather than malevolance unless i have reason to suspect otherwise.

[nickbii]

I apologize if I missed something, but I can only read so many off-topic highly technical posts about multi-threading, optimization, etc. before my head explodes. I'm actually surprised I got as far as page 22 before giving up.

I have to second the folks who say the big turn-off to this game is how complex the economy is. Just think of all the steps you need to do to turn iron into steel.

If you want typical gamers to play a game this complex you're gonna need much better in-game help. I liked the idea of merging most of the information keys, and displaying a one-sentence explanation of what each thing is used for.  A tutorial is probably called for as well.

Better graphics would also be good. Telling gnomes from goblins should be a lot easier.

One major reason I stopped playing DF the first time I tried it was that I had trouble getting my broker to trade. When I was a newbie I'd screw up my initial embark, desperately need something (usually booze or food), and watch my broker do irrelevant things for weeks while his buddies literally starved to death. There are fun ways to lose. This is not one of them.

Now that I've played awhile I know to turn off his labors, and then repeatedly draft/un-draft him until he does his dang job.

Nick

[Neruz]

Actually the steel problem could be solved by adding a new reaction (that i myself added aaages ago), "Make Steel from Ore". It takes 2 Iron Ore, 2 Flux, 2 Coke and creates 2 Steel. Ideally you'd have it so this reaction took 4x as long as a normal reaction so as not to save time, but that's not possible atm, which makes it a bit cheaty, but it's better than the whole 'smelt iron, smelt another iron, smelt pig iron, smelt steel' process you need to go through atm.

[Typoman]

Actually the steel problem could be solved by adding a new reaction (that i myself added aaages ago), "Make Steel from Ore". It takes 2 Iron Ore, 2 Flux, 2 Coke and creates 2 Steel. Ideally you'd have it so this reaction took 4x as long as a normal reaction so as not to save time, but that's not possible atm, which makes it a bit cheaty, but it's better than the whole 'smelt iron, smelt another iron, smelt pig iron, smelt steel' process you need to go through atm.

especially since a similar thing has been done at the ashery. or whatever it is that makes lye. (i haver never used lye or anything like that so i am not 100% sure of the workshop)

[Neruz]

Potash, you technically take Ashes, turn them into Lye, and then turn the Lye into Potash, but the Ashery allows you to skip the Lye stage.

--EDIT--

Also, apparantly Pearlash should actually be called Pearl Ash. Interesting.

[Typoman]

That's the one.

[Neonivek]

Guys, I know there are no official rules or anything. However.

When responding to people you need to pick your battles. If someone has complaints about the game you should leave them be. If that complaint however is because of something they overlooked and more importantly by telling them this they could seek more enjoyment out of the game, then you could respond.

For example
Fake Person: "I think Dwarf Fortress is entirely unoriginal and it is horrible. Toady doesn't even improve the gameplay. I think this game should die off because it is horrible"
-Leave him alone.
Fake Person 2: "I dislike Dwarf Fortress there isn't even a way to make weapons and the lack a tutorial is just terrible"
-Now this is something you could respond to. You could inform them that there is a Wiki.

It isn't your job to judge people so any response should be purely informative in nature. Just keeping things civil since the point of this thread is to see what people are complaining about, shooting them down because they said something you don't agree with is the antithesis of this thread.

[Andir]

Most of the work Toady has done so far that doesn't make sense had to be done at this stage as it would be almost impossible to do at a later stage.

Just curious... but what were you referring to?