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[Sir Pseudonymous]

This strikes me as a jab at Notch.

Not Notch! How will his fragile ego ever survive a lighthearted joke about the current state of development that he'll never read?!?!

[forsaken1111]

No, sadly. At the moment it's just bugfixes and then fixing bugs made by those bugfixes and then breaking the entire game then fixing that and etc.

But he's got an office now!!1

This strikes me as a jab at Notch. At which point I must point at Dwarf Fortress development. EVERYTHING makes new bugs, including fixing old bugs. The development cycle at this stage is rife with them, and there really is no way to avoid them other than complete development blackout. No alpha game to try out, no playable test versions, just a development blog and a few screenshots. Amazing how much less shit Notch would have to go through if he treated the players worse.

Dwarf Fortress doesn't charge for this stage of its development either, so has no obligation to provide these things.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

No, sadly. At the moment it's just bugfixes and then fixing bugs made by those bugfixes and then breaking the entire game then fixing that and etc.

But he's got an office now!!1

This strikes me as a jab at Notch. At which point I must point at Dwarf Fortress development. EVERYTHING makes new bugs, including fixing old bugs. The development cycle at this stage is rife with them, and there really is no way to avoid them other than complete development blackout. No alpha game to try out, no playable test versions, just a development blog and a few screenshots. Amazing how much less shit Notch would have to go through if he treated the players worse.

Dwarf Fortress doesn't charge for this stage of its development either, so has no obligation to provide these things.

Dwarf Fortress doesn't charge because Toady doesn't want to charge. DF already has several games worth of content and development poured into it, and Toady could very well start charging for it any day if he desired to. But he seems content with basing the project on donations alone (which still pulls in thousands of dollars every single month). Toady could be much richer than Notch if he started charging for DF.

[breadbocks]

Please, just end the argument now. There are people who are willing to pay half-price for an incomplete product in good faith that they made a good deal for when it finishes, and there are those who would like to avoid the risk in putting good faith in something. It is obvious who is who.

[Evergod41]

You need not fight over what is not your life.

[forsaken1111]

Why do people jump my shit when I bring this up? I wasn't saying Minecraft should be free or Dwarf Fortress should charge. I was saying that BECAUSE toady does not charge, he has no obligation to provide the things Duke 2.0 was mentioning.

[lordnincompoop]

No, sadly. At the moment it's just bugfixes and then fixing bugs made by those bugfixes and then breaking the entire game then fixing that and etc.

But he's got an office now!!1

This strikes me as a jab at Notch. At which point I must point at Dwarf Fortress development. EVERYTHING makes new bugs, including fixing old bugs. The development cycle at this stage is rife with them, and there really is no way to avoid them other than complete development blackout. No alpha game to try out, no playable test versions, just a development blog and a few screenshots. Amazing how much less shit Notch would have to go through if he treated the players worse.

Dwarf Fortress doesn't charge for this stage of its development either, so has no obligation to provide these things.

Dwarf Fortress doesn't charge because Toady doesn't want to charge. DF already has several games worth of content and development poured into it, and Toady could very well start charging for it any day if he desired to. But he seems content with basing the project on donations alone (which still pulls in thousands of dollars every single month). Toady could be much richer than Notch if he started charging for DF.

I doubt it; DF, although a very good and fun game, has only niche or almost-niche value as of now (what with its ASCII graphics and user-unfriendliness) and thus would pull in rather less. The market is also becoming more and more focused on visuals, so DF's chances of fiscal success lessen every month.

[Saint]

Have Secret Friday updates begun again yet?

When ep3 releases.

[Aqizzar]

I doubt it; DF, although a very good and fun game, has only niche or almost-niche value as of now (what with its ASCII graphics and user-unfriendliness) and thus would pull in rather less. The market is also becoming more and more focused on visuals, so DF's chances of fiscal success lessen every month.

You say this in a thread about... Minecraft... which made, what, a hundred thousand US$ since survival launched?  More?  There's markets for everything.  That said, I do think the Dwarf Fortress player-base would shrink if charged money, or rather, it would stay the same size but through pirated copies, since there's no real opportunity for validation.  It's considerably more niche than... pretty much any other game I can think of, if only for the gigantic learning curve for the idiosyncratic payoff.  But hey, it's all a moot point, now isn't it?

[forsaken1111]

It's true, the minecraft visuals aren't exactly a step up from DF.

[Thexor]

I doubt it; DF, although a very good and fun game, has only niche or almost-niche value as of now (what with its ASCII graphics and user-unfriendliness) and thus would pull in rather less. The market is also becoming more and more focused on visuals, so DF's chances of fiscal success lessen every month.

You say this in a thread about... Minecraft... which made, what, a hundred thousand US$ since survival launched?  More?  There's markets for everything.  That said, I do think the Dwarf Fortress player-base would shrink if charged money, or rather, it would stay the same size but through pirated copies, since there's no real opportunity for validation.  It's considerably more niche than... pretty much any other game I can think of, if only for the gigantic learning curve for the idiosyncratic payoff.  But hey, it's all a moot point, now isn't it?

Just wanted to point out... "a hundred thousand US$ since survival launched" is a tad off. According to the stats, Minecraft sold 5700 copies (at over $13 a pop, after exchange rates) yesterday. Sadly I don't remember how many copies had sold pre-Survival, but given how Minecraft surged in popularity I'd guess probably ~400,000 of those 661,000 sales, at least, were post-survival - that's ~$5.29 million US. "A hundred thousand" indeed. 

[Aqizzar]

Sadly I don't remember how many copies had sold pre-Survival, but given how Minecraft surged in popularity I'd guess probably ~400,000 of those 661,000 sales, at least, were post-survival - that's ~$5.29 million US. "A hundred thousand" indeed. 

I forgot a zero or two - I stopped paying attention to Minecraft's stupid sales numbers back in the summer.

I think the most important lesson here is: advertising, advertising, advertising.  When you have several gaming mags and major sites, and the frontpage of one of the most popular multiplayer-FPS's, all plastering your game across their webspace for free with nothing but glowing praise, what was until just recently a relatively simple (aside from the memory scale) Java app can make millions.  Make friends in high places.

[Duke 2.0]

 My point with my post was that the only reason there is any crap given is that you get to play the game while it's in development. And this is the reason people are acting like idiots over the game. Notch himself doesn't care that much about idiots complaining about their self-entitled crap, but every Friday some retard suddenly demands an update like they deserve it for pre-paying for the complete product. And how all that idiocy would be gone if Notch just didn't let us play the development version.

[head]

81.230.92.160

Mr.Head's playground filled with awesome stuff and too many creepers.


You can create flying airships and airplanes and boats and ship
Working block doors with any block.
Town's with land owning.
Stargates!

[dwarfguy2]

WHAT.