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[ToxicFrog]

Nethack provides an 'Explore Mode' option, which allows you to play without fear of death, at the cost of not getting an entry on the high score list. Thus, if you're a newbie, or just want to fool around, or need to test something, you can enter explore mode and do it safely.

I would love to see something similar for Dwarf Fortress; a mode where your dwarves won't starve, or go berserk, or otherwise send your carefully-laid plans collapsing in ruin. Sometimes you just want to spend a few hours designing intricate networks of waterworks (or lavaworks), or spelling out your name on the map in precious gems, or the like, but it's hard to do that when you have to worry about keeping the dwarves alive.
Since DF doesn't have a high score list, I'm not sure what the tradeoff would be (or if there should even be one). Perhaps you shouldn't be able to enter Explore Mode in worlds already occupied by non-EM fortresses or adventurers, so as not to have an unfair advantage over them? But I don't know how multiple fortresses and adventurers interact in the same world anyways, or even if they can.

(The original impetus for this suggestion was that I had a nifty plan for waterworks interwoven with the halls of my main base, but before I could implement it the hunters started revolting, blood on the walls, dwarves fashioning crude helmets from the bones of their neighbors, and then someone activated the self-destruct system.)

[Maurog]

I would hate to see something like this implemented.

Losing is fun!

[ToxicFrog]

It's not like someone would be holding a gun to your head and forcing you to play in explore mode.

And yes, if I didn't find this game still fun when I lose, I wouldn't still be playing it. But sometimes I want to play around with certain aspects of the game, and win or lose on those alone, without worrying that some other aspect is going to suddenly blow up and bring everything down in flaming ruin.

It's a pity it's not open source or I could just submit a patch.  

[Capntastic]

Dwarf Fort, while being awesome, isn't nearly as loaded with complex situations like Nethack is, and thus there's no real need for anything similar to explore mode yet.

You can learn everything through normal playing as it is, unlike Nethack where everything's crazy random with cockatrices and demon princes and wands of wishing and stuff to play around with.

[Aquillion]

...well, fortress mode really does have that kind of complexity...  but I just don't think this would work.  What exactly are we talking about here?  You can't easily bring a fortress back to life when it 'dies' the way you can with a player character.

[flap]

Actually, there is a reclaim mode : You can go back to your abandonned fortress with 7 armed dwarfs.

It is up to you to restart everything. But the infrastructure will already be there.

[Capntastic]

quote:Originally posted by flap:
<STRONG>Actually, there is a reclaim mode : You can go back to your abandonned fortress with 7 armed dwarfs.

It is up to you to restart everything. But the infrastructure will already be there.</STRONG>

Exactly.   Reclaim mode is a fun way to have a second try without making the game completely without challenge.

[Capntastic]

quote:Originally posted by Aquillion:
<STRONG>...well, fortress mode really does have that kind of complexity...</STRONG>

Not at all; DF is more complex in a lot of ways, but the challenging aspects are NOTHING like Nethack style-wise, which has a lot of high-tension "there's only one way to survive this encounter with a certain enemy and you will die in two turns if you don't know." situations.  Food Poisoning?  You die in one turn unless you have a a certain item or divine assistance.  

Nethack is fast and loose with dispensing death, whilst DF's Fortress Mode is a slow and steady march towards annhilitation.  And that's why I love it.

[ToxicFrog]

I have actually given some thought to implementing this, and it wouldn't be a simple ressurection switch like in Nethack. Instead I see it as a set of behaviours that you can toggle: whether dwarves get hungry, thirsty, tantrum, or berserk, whether dangerous creatures will spawn, and so forth. So you end up with a rather different game depending on which ones you disable; for example, turning off all them of gives you a fairly risk-free sandbox game, turning off just food/drink/happiness gives you a more RTS-style game where you have to defend the fortress from outside threats without needing to worry about the morale of your dwarves, and turning off hostiles gives you a game that's all about setting up a stable society and food production...
And none of them should be terribly hard to implement.

Reclaim Mode is very much not the same thing, although at the moment it's looking like the only way I'm going to finish my waterworking experiments.

[Arcanum]

quote:Originally posted by ToxicFrog:
<STRONG>Since DF doesn't have a high score list, I'm not sure what the tradeoff would be (or if there should even be one).</STRONG>

The fortress doesn't have an impact on the world.  Once you're done, it just evaporates as if it never existed.  The location it was built on is still pristine, none of the legends that were created get entered in the list of legends, etc.

[Maurog]

For an excellent game like Dwarf Fortress, even the option for 'Explore Mode' would reduce the game's coolness. In fact, if the lack of such mode scares away people who are inclined to spell out their name on the map in precious gems and the like, it's for the best, really.

[Aquillion]

quote:Originally posted by Maurog:
<STRONG>For an excellent game like Dwarf Fortress, even the option for 'Explore Mode' would reduce the game's coolness. In fact, if the lack of such mode scares away people who are inclined to spell out their name on the map in precious gems and the like, it's for the best, really.</STRONG>

I do have to point out that it never seems to have scared anyone away from Nethack.

[ToxicFrog]

@Arcanum: well then, it's not a problem.

@Maurog: why? If you don't want to play in Explore Mode, just don't. You're acting as though the addition of this feature would somehow retroactively destroy all other gameplay modes, forever demolishing Dwarf Fortress and casting people who want the most difficult challenges out into the cold, desolate wilderness, to die bereft of any games that can measure up to their standards of complexity[1].
As any player of Nethack can tell you, this is not the case. A reasonable argument would be that it will take time away from working on the rest of the game, which is true, but nothing says this has to implemented this instant, and while I obviously can't confirm by reading the source I can't imagine these changes taking long at all. And if it were open source this would be a complete nonissue.

[1] Yes, I am exaggerating for effect.

[Arcanum]

quote:Originally posted by ToxicFrog:
<STRONG>@Arcanum: well then, it's not a problem.
</STRONG>

Ooops, sorry, I wasn't clear.  What I meant was, in wouldn't/shouldn't in explore mode.  I believe it does in normal mode.

[ToxicFrog]

Oh, oops. In that case, yes, your proposal would be an effective solution.
Mine (explore mode games can only share the world with other explore mode games) is less elegant, but probably easier to implement, so it might make a useful stopgap on the way to yours.