Sorry to Necro, but I am done reading threads. I've read this thread and the links there-of, and this one seems to be the best to reply to. I am really curious as to why these AMAZING suggestions are not in the game. Referring to some of Toady's posts, he seems to have several reasonable concerns. However, none of his concerns restrict one potential option. I'm going to "reply" to his post
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=21806.msg237594#msg237594as if it were an anti-GUI overhaul post, in order to conclude what we, as a community, should do.
1: ...And right now, I have no idea what would happen...
>Well sure. Life is uncertain. However, what danger does helping the community improve a game have? I mean, on the same token doing nothing carries an unknown risk.
2: If more than half the player base comes in off a third party interface
>Proof that helping GUI will double your player base
3: The pressure on me to work directly with them to get the interface out at the same time as the game itself would likely be immense and disruptive, given what little evidence we have from broken utilities.
>That assumes you are capable of speeding up the process. That merely means whatever method we use must be so fast that having The Toady One help won't speed it up one second.
4: First, I don't want to work with other people.
>Easy to implement.
5: If I didn't support it directly, but it was there, I'd still likely make more money, but I'd be unhappy.
>Why? Assuming no one says a word about GUI not being ready etc., where is your happiness lost? Does The Toady One really want to be the Sole Developer of Dwarf Fortress so badly, that'd he would accept making Dwarf Fortress worse than it could be, even if he gets all the credit and money anyways?
6: Given what I've seen here and there, it seems like a full third party interface might develop even without my involvement
>My goal
OK, so how do we come up with a way to improve the interface where The Toady One can't possibly help speed up, where The Toady One doesn't dedicate any time towards improving it, and where the players never complain about no interface updates???
Open Source. We find someone who The Toady One approves of as being respectable enough to safeguard his secrets open up the source code, and decipher everything. Probably multiple people, if they are to do this as a hobby. Those people first run through an old copy of Dwarf Fortress and locate all GUI elements. Then, they create an mod that edits Dwarf Fortress to have an API port to access the GUI. This is the hardest part. Next, The Toady One occasionally logs his changes, maybe on a weekly basis, and uploads them without commentary to the various respectable editors. Those editors, at this point, will be skilled enough at reading The Toady One's code, that even The Toady One couldn't help explain it to them. They merely locate changes to GUI and modify their mod that allows access to an API port. Finally, someone else creates ANOTHER mod using this API mod to overhaul the GUI. They can then work directly with the respectable people to proactively come up with new versions to match game updates.
The Toady One assumes one risk. The respectable people he lets look at his code for GUI elements aren't respectable.
The Toady One must work with the players on one thing. Occasionally backup his data to an external location, and select respectable people, probably from the forums, who he trusts. If he doesn't back up his work, he should. If he doesn't trust anyone, there is really nothing we can do... or is there?
Is Dwarf Fortress ALREADY open source(as in, open up the game file and edit away)? If so, ignore everything I said about The Toady one assuming any risks or doing anything, he already assumed said risks and did such actions, now we get to edit.
If not, does The Toady One already trust anyone enough to let them do this? Secondarily, would they be willing to do this?
Personally, I doubt The Toady One codes in the enigma, and so long as he codes in a language machines can understand, we community members can probably crack it. Once we have the code cracked, and available, finding the GUI elements could take about a month, maybe, and developing the API porting software maybe another month. Developing one of these options of GUI initially for the old variant of Dwarf Fortress might take a week... Following that, it may take some time to catch up to the latest version.
Yes its a stupid amount of work, but think of it this way. What if this 3rd party GUI overhaul makes Dwarf Fortress pull another Minecraft? Imagine The Toady One's delight at seeing his creation go viral... (Well, The Toady One ALREADY inspired Minecraft and tons of other games, so... he may be indifferent...)