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[herpderp]

I'm just gonna throw this out here

Maybe the reason everyone defends the ASCII interface is simply because they've grown so familiar with it. You love this game, and the ASCII has been such a constant that it's a big part of the game's personality, so naturally you want to defend it, and you come up with reasons that it's good - namely that it allows the player to use his or her imagination. And don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with all of that. Using your imagination is good and all. But it think it's going too far to say that the ASCII actually makes the game BETTER. Or that the only way to allow freedom of imagination is to have next to nothing in terms of visuals. There is nothing wrong with making a stone look like a stone, a barrel look like a barrel, and so on. The graphic tilesets still leave plenty to the imagination.

[Footkerchief]

Maybe the reason everyone defends the ASCII interface is simply because they've grown so familiar with it.

I would really hesitate to make a generalization as strong as "everyone."  That's certainly a reason for some ASCII supporters, but you're basically asking to get flamed by others who don't like being strawmanned.  (note to everyone else: this isn't an invitation to flame him/her)

[Sliver Barb]

What if J.R.R. Tolkien had co-written The Silmarillion and LOTR with several other people and allowed linguists and historians to contribute to his works? Would it have been finished faster? Almost certainly. Would it have been as good as it is now? No.

[shadowform]

In the next patch, you'll be able to kill a kitten, make its teeth into jewelry, cook its eyes into stew, make its skin into a hat, dye it blue, and command your most elite soldier to wear it into battle.

These are only the features coming up in the next release.

Now consider that the game is STILL nowhere near being finished.

[darkflagrance]

What if J.R.R. Tolkien had co-written The Silmarillion and LOTR with several other people and allowed linguists and historians to contribute to his works? Would it have been finished? Almost certainly. Would it have been as good as it is now? No.

Fixed that for you. Tolkien's works were not finished at time of death; his son edited and published his remaining essays, including the Silmarillion.

Which is also potentially a worry regarding Dwarf Fortress.

As for graphics, I'm all for them, but there are limitations to them - I haven't been able to find a graphics set that allows me to determine the occupations of dwarves at a glance as well as ASCII color coding, among other things.
Also, with regards to game infrastructure, graphics increase the time that developing or modding take to be finished, and they are something I would willingly sacrifice as much as possible of for the benefit of gameplay (of course allowing that some graphics are necessary for gameplay to be possible).

[Winterbrass]

The thing about having graphics is that if you have them, they must be done well. If DF had early-PlayStation-era barely-3D graphics, this would displease both the ASCII purists as well as the WoWtards.

As for me, I'm perfectly content with having graphics configurable by the player and/or being visualised in other programs (maydaymax.png and StoneSense ftw).

There are so many better things that Toady can be worrying about, and that statement won't change for a few years, I think.

Those who are not capable of passing the graphics do not have what it takes to pass the cliff of a learning curve and are not worthy of df!

Whether satirical or serious, I agree with this message. It's not about 'I'm smart enough to play this game', it's about 'you're too dumb to play this game'. Sure, I could teach you, but taking the time to teach detracts from the time that I could be spending burning elves with magma.

[Rose]

Stonesense, proving that good DF graphics don't need to be 3D since October, 2009

[Asmodeous]

The thing about having graphics is that if you have them, they must be done well. If DF had early-PlayStation-era barely-3D graphics, this would displease both the ASCII purists as well as the WoWtards.

I don't fully agree with this. The Stonesense mod that he posted is a good example of that (AND COMPLETELY AWESOME). Mayday's tileset also makes for a great example of that as well. The early-PS/Nintendo era graphics give you the same love you get from ASCII, but it's a little easier for players to grasp what exactly is going on.

However:

As for me, I'm perfectly content with having graphics configurable by the player and/or being visualised in other programs (maydaymax.png and StoneSense ftw).

THIS is key, regardless of what is done. The best work-around toady could do, imo, since self-installers are few and far between and doing it manually is a good way to make DF look like a pile of dwarf vomit, having an in-game option to select available tilesets (and therefore a subfolder of "tilesets" that you can save them all into), or something along those lines, would be excellent.



As an aside, I would like to see Toady take someone on to pour over the code and improve the optimization, possibly assist with making it Multi-core aware. Not doing any actual development towards the actual game (leave that to Toady!), but helping him make performance improvements so that Toady can focus on adding in the new stuff, and the other chap can focus on improving performance.

Just my take, I would think that would be beneficial AND not make Toady be concerned about his vision being weakened by another head in there adding subsets to the game that he doesn't feel are appropriate.

[Asmodeous]

Those who are not capable of passing the graphics do not have what it takes to pass the cliff of a learning curve and are not worthy of df!

Whether satirical or serious, I agree with this message. It's not about 'I'm smart enough to play this game', it's about 'you're too dumb to play this game'. Sure, I could teach you, but taking the time to teach detracts from the time that I could be spending burning elves with magma.

Forgot to mention: This is just plain nonsense. I know a number of people that played the game, loved it, understood it, did great in it, but couldn't stand the ASCII and so put it down and never picked it up again, even most of the tilesets didn't impress them. They like a good, deep, intelligent game, but they like the game to be PRETTY in some way, too.

The "If you can't get the graphics then you're not going to get the game" is the response that I've seen in many games of the ilk (and of older games in general) that people say when they have nowhere else to go with someone's complaint about how it looks.

Remember, there's a difference between people who want a mindless, eye-candy rich game like Unreal Tournament or Quake, and those who want a deep, involved game that just so happens to also have an attractive presentation, like (for its era) The 7th Guest, (also for its era) Myst, Gothic, Mount and Blade, Civilization4, or countless others.

[sproingie]

Nonrepresentational graphics simply have a lower bar to entry.  Toady's free to code combat styles with holds, throws, and eviscerations, and all he has to do is make the tiles blink and paint a few surrounding ones red.  That he has tiles for gibs is bonus, but it's otherwise pretty nicely abstracted out.  Using characters for graphics isn't common to all tilesets, but it's a pretty decent way to convey information.  People look for pretty fortresses on the full screen, not pretty tiles individually.

I for one won't draw lines and stand in one camp or another.  I like flashy slickly produced eye candy games too, and I'm totally unapologetic about it.  DF as a matter of necessity simply cannot be such a game, and even if you threw a hundred million dollars at giving it modern 3d-rendered graphics and animations, you not only couldn't realize the vision of the game (read the arcs in the dev pages -- they're ambitious to say the least) you probably couldn't even satisfactorily implement the game as it is now.

Toady is the man who Peter Molyneux wishes he was.

This.

[Shaostoul]

I believe personally that if this game was to go and get developed by more than just Toady it would quite possibly take a turn for the worse. I think the graphics are perfectly fine. You get to imagine what your idea of what a (insert creature here) looks like. I think the 3D visualizer and the isometric programs are cool, but the ASCII is more appealing. Also, I think that if Toady had more people develop the game certain aspects would be changed, especially if a large crowd started demanding certain things and started to rush things. I think his work on DF is inspirational (being part of a game developement company) on the path to take when making something new. I know this game has a few years on it, but it's technically not released, it's just in testing. For all the work that has gone into the game, I think it'd be a bad idea to include anyone else, possibly because they just don't have the creativity or imagination of Toady.

[Footkerchief]

Nonrepresentational graphics simply have a lower bar to entry.

For developers, yes.  For players it's the exact opposite, and while some people think it's good to keep the fanbase small and hardcore (I'm not saying you do), Toady and Threetoe do want more people playing.

Nonrepresentational graphics simply have a lower bar to entry.  Toady's free to code combat styles with holds, throws, and eviscerations, and all he has to do is make the tiles blink and paint a few surrounding ones red.  That he has tiles for gibs is bonus, but it's otherwise pretty nicely abstracted out.
[...]
I for one won't draw lines and stand in one camp or another.  I like flashy slickly produced eye candy games too, and I'm totally unapologetic about it.  DF as a matter of necessity simply cannot be such a game, and even if you threw a hundred million dollars at giving it modern 3d-rendered graphics and animations, you not only couldn't realize the vision of the game (read the arcs in the dev pages -- they're ambitious to say the least) you probably couldn't even satisfactorily implement the game as it is now.

I think you ARE drawing too hard a line between "nonrepresentational graphics" and "modern 3D-rendered graphics and animations."  There's a large middle ground between these extremes -- Stonesense is making a huge impression.

People look for pretty fortresses on the full screen, not pretty tiles individually.

Which people?  Certainly not all of them.  I'd question whether even a majority would express that preference.

[KillerClowns]

Actually, understanding the nonrepresentational graphics seems to be, in my experience teaching others the way of Dwarf Fortress, the least of the hurdles.  The real problem I had, and others have, is more the startling array of options, and the almost completely unhelpful interface.  "OK, I have a million buttons... WTF do I do with them?"  The first part of the process is more memorization than actual learning, and establishing relationships that are not clearly drawn out within the game.  (The Dwarf Fortress Wiki is wonderful for simplifying that.)

[sproingie]

People look for pretty fortresses on the full screen, not pretty tiles individually.

Which people?  Certainly not all of them.  I'd question whether even a majority would express that preference.

The people using those tilesets.  The letter 'c' isn't much to look at, but zoomed out I can still see the catsplosion I just unleashed on some goblin invaders to distract them while my marksdwarves fill them full of bolts.  Pretty carnage.

Stonesense is very nice, and I'd love to see it become the standard interface.  I just don't agree that the game is "unplayable" without it.  Personally I think the input side of the UI is one of the bigger stumbling blocks (there's like what, three cursor movement schemes and I don't know how many different view modes, each with their own object selection behavior)

I hate ugly games that preach "gameplay is king" then offer an experience as deep as paint.  DF has the depth that it's the only game other than nethack itself that gets away with it (and I tired of nethack a while ago, because it's so _tedious_ to actually survive what with all the gem-writing/kicking, wand-writing, and always with the starvation).

I don't think it's a strict dichotomy, I just think whether or not the graphics are appealing is not even the most influental factor in the playability of this ludicrously complex game.  I do think the game should be distributed with better tilesets tho.

[Poojawa]

In the next patch, you'll be able to kill a kitten, make its teeth into jewelry, cook its eyes into stew, make its skin into a hat, dye it blue, and command your most elite soldier to wear it into battle.

On that note as well as why it would be BAD to have commericial involvement is the ESRB rating would be forced. It would immediately be mandated that the export of Dwarf Fortress be labled as AO for the amount of, well, awesome.

I can also attest to the whole 'Heard about it from a friend, downloaded it because it was free, small, and such' story, as well as the whole 'What the fuck is going on here?!' confusion before putting it down, then picking it back up again with the Wiki and forums as help.

I think it's exteremely impressive of the amount of donations Toady receives. Seriously guys (and gals), that is awesome.