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[nopretentious]

The ability to unlock game content, when done well, is one of my favorite things about a lot of games.

A DF version of this already exists in that certain things become available as nobles start to show up. I'm thinking it might be worth considering some more formal unlockable content.

For example, its been mentioned that future DF releases might include several different playable modes. Why not have the current two modes as the only ones available when a new world is generated and then as a player reaches certain landmark events with their fortress other of the modes become unlocked. Say there is a battle mode to simulate warfare. This mode might become unlocked only after the dwarves in fortress mode are able to actually form armies.

Other unlockable content might be goods or skills (or races or animals or building types or weapon types.. and so on) that once unlocked in a world would be available at the start of future games in that same world. My thought is that this might simulate the technology levels of different eras a player passes through during their various games in a given world.

My last point on this is that unlockables give players another measure of what they've accomplished with their game and does so in a fun and meaningful way. I see this complimenting in-game legends in that regard. The unlockables need not be over-powered, but they could add complexity or even simply variety that an experienced player would appreciate more than a novice.  

Cheers, all.

[Eagleon]

Eh. I'm of the mind that "unlockable content" is a gimmick to keep your attention longer on games you'd otherwise toss aside after seeing all it's had to offer. Dwarf Fortress isn't like that - you could know everything about the game, and you can still enjoy yourself. Like chess, only with short people that can catch on fire like rags soaked in tar, and lots of booze.

Like chess.

No offense meant. If you want, you could consider the whole dev plan as your unlockable content.   There's lots more to come, and even stuff Toady is keeping hidden.

[Captain Mayday]

Personally, I really dislike unlockable content. I don't like being forced to play parts of a game when I just want to play with all the content.

[slMagnvox]

Excellent examples of "unlockable" content that already exists in DF, not as unlockables, but just the natural result of the dynamic between the persistent world, the dwarf fortress and adventure modes.

Digging a fortress too deep and fighting the demon you unleashed in adventure mode.

Becoming wildly famous in adventure mode and retiring in the capitol.  Your next fort, the human civilization about to siege you for vanishing too many of their merchants is co-ruled by your adventurer.

Discovering the details of all those crazy engravings your dwarves sketched in the rock when you revisit as an adventurer.

Getting gruesomely killed in adventure mode, rolling a new character and getting a quest to kill whatever it was that gruesomely killed your last guy

Reclaiming a fort that had been overrun with goblins.

And the best one yet?  Eagleon already mentioned it, the dev plan for DF ... which not only will bring new releases with sweet content, but more sweet content means more world interaction and naturally occuring unlockables.

[ June 08, 2007: Message edited by: slMagnvox ]

[MindSnap]

I too think that unlockables should not be built in, but rather occur natuarally. If I have to reinstall DF I don't want to have to unlock stuff all over again. Just knowing how to play should unlock those things.

[Zereth]

quote:Originally posted by MindSnap:
<STRONG>I too think that unlockables should not be built in, but rather occur natuarally. If I have to reinstall DF I don't want to have to unlock stuff all over again. Just knowing how to play should unlock those things.</STRONG>

Some things might need to be "unlockable" within a world, though. If there's no magical acadamey to train new mages, you can't just jump stright into the (hypothetical) Wizard Tower mode, you need to take an adventurer and hunt down somebody to apprentice to, then when he does he can go found his own little tower somewhere and start his own research, attract apprentices, expand, attract people who want to sell food and such to your staff,  and if you don't keep turning people away after a while you _have_ a magical acadamey.

Or, of course, once could pop up during world generation, in which case you can jump right into Wizard Tower mode. Which is nice, but I've occasionally run into worlds where not a single human civilization had access to iron, so no iron gear for my adventurer. Same sort of thing.

[mickel]

Unlockable content for the mere sake of having unlockable content (like unlockable tracks in racing games, for example) is one of those things that'll make me throw a game out.

I agree with all the previous posters in that "unlockable content" appears quite naturally in Dwarf Fortress, with the nobles system, etc.

[qwertyuiopas]

There is already unlockable content in the help files. It hides the parts you don't need.
Good unlockable content would be a shortcut or new name or menu, or unlock as soon as you can use it, possibly unlocked by a random worldgen event.
The best unlockables have a reason to be unlockable. Such as the noble system already in place.

[Mechanoid]

code:

U  U N   N       L     OOO   CCC  K   K
U  U NN  N       L    O   O C   C K  K
U  U N N N       L    O   O C     KKK
U  U N N N  ---  L    O   O C     K K
U  U N  NN       L    O   O C   C K  K
 UU  N   N       LLLL  OOO   CCC  K   K
                / /
      --------/-/--------
            / /
  --------/-/--------
        / /
TTTTT EEEE  CCC  H  H       TTTTT RRRR  EEEE EEEE
  T   E    C   C H  H         T   R   R E    E
  T   EEE  C     HHHH         T   R  R  EEE  EEE
  T   E    C     H  H  ---    T   RRR   E    E
  T   E    C   C H  H         T   R  R  E    E
  T   EEEE  CCC  H  H         T   R   R EEEE EEEE

Sigh.
Unlocks = Reward for time played, nothing spent other then time
Tech Tree = Consumption of resources for serial /parallel /branching advancement

Nobles = Tech Tree
Artifacts = Tech Tree
Demon fights = TECH TREE
Having prices slashed by 50% after 10 fortresses = Unlock

Also, DF doesn't seem like the kind of game to give rewards for time played.
If anything, DF is a game that punishes you for playing excessively. Why?
- The longer you play, the more nobles you have. More nobles may mean more capable functions, but your population may be physically crippled from their demands... Hardly a "reward for time played" as unlockables go. [Again, the nobles are consuming resources and are a natural part of the gameplay. They are not "unlocked" through time played; they are obtained by meeting requirements, and form a inverted tree of advancement (with a large base, and narrow top) which is also know as a tech tree.]
- Copper Blazes. It ran out of ore that could be mined, and the goblin seiges escalate continually in size and frequency; eventually everyone will seige you.
- When civs are in, everything you start with may come from that civ; you can drain that civ's resources and crush it.

Like trying to complete the adamanitum man challenge in ADOM, the more time you spend playing the game, the more it will ultimately contribute to your downfall. Unlockables... Are like giving you a amulet of life saving every 50th adventurer... They fuck over the game's vibe by breaking the reality it establishes. DF assumes nothing, so why should the 10th or 100th fortress established be any different then the last one [outside of the resources you sucked away from the last 99?] What makes this time so special that you get a 10% point discount?
0 sense.

[ July 22, 2007: Message edited by: Mechanoid ]

[Haedrian]

quote:
My last point on this is that unlockables give players another measure of what they've accomplished with their game and does so in a fun and meaningful way.

Dwarf fort doesn't have a 'win'*, and the accomplishment is just for your own.

If you successfully deal with your elephant problem, thats a personal accomplishment. If you build a super defensive system and the first siege that the fortress sustains takes ages to clean the enemy blood off the walls, thats a personal accomplishment. If your fortress looks beautiful, thats an accomplishment.

I might not appriciate the accomplishments other people do, perhaps I deem that spamming the area with traps is 'cheating'. This makes the 'accomplishments' impossible to gauge.

*The too deep isn't really a win is it? Its an endgame, I wouldn't want to too deep my fave forts...

[Draco18s]

quote:Originally posted by Mechanoid:
<STRONG>Like trying to complete the adamanitum man challenge in ADOM, the more time you spend playing the game, the more it will ultimately contribute to your downfall.</STRONG>

That's more appropriate of the Eternium Man game.
Adamantium Man is easier than Iron Man in reality.  Eternium Man is impossible (takes place in the Small Mountain Cave where the monsters' exp is double that of the player's.  Always.)
Note:
For those who don't understand: www.adom.de   <-- The Game http://www.angelfire.com/nc/atrium/   <-- The Metal Man Challenges

[irmo]

quote:Originally posted by Draco18s:
<STRONG>

That's more appropriate of the Eternium Man game.
Adamantium Man is easier than Iron Man in reality.  Eternium Man is impossible (takes place in the Small Mountain Cave where the monsters' exp is double that of the player's.  Always.)</STRONG>

Eternium Man isn't impossible, it's been beaten.  The tactics used for this (scary and abusive as hell, but technically valid) include:

- A Room of Infinite Gremlins.
- Redesigning much of the cave using mining and a wand of door creation.
- Turning random dropped rings into rings of wishing.
- Wishing for ancient chaos wyrms.
- Firing wands of far slaying at point-blank range in a confined space.

[Kholint]

I think that unlockable content* would conflict with the essentially sand-box feel of Dwarf Fortress.

Ultimately it's about the player, though. Some people have the patience to sit through games before getting stuff. Other people find it annoying and intrusive; especially those who are casual gamers, and possibly play to relax after work (not having the time to play as much as others).

What the OP seems to be describing is basically what we already have, though? You can't brew alcohol if you don't have a brewery, and there's no feasible way to 'unlock' brewing until you have reliable farming. I'd call that the natural progression of a game, not "unlockable content" as such. But now we're just debating definitions of words...

*in the SSMB-sense of the word- e.g., after 500 hours of gameplay, unlock Luigi as a playable character.

[ July 23, 2007: Message edited by: Kholint ]

[Mechanoid]

quote:Originally posted by Draco18s:
That's more appropriate of the Eternium Man game.

That's the one i wanted.

quote:Originally posted by irmo:
Eternium Man isn't impossible, it's been beaten. The tactics used for this [are scary and abusive as hell]

Dwarf Fortress also has it's scary and abusive features; A huge outdoor channel (that's about equal to a lake) that gets flooded with water/magma killing all the seiging goblins. It'll also probably be possible in the next version, as well...

But in a legit way, it's doubtful that a fortress can last forever in the next version. Even more so when the whole goblin civ attempts to kick your ass when civs and armies are in.

[axus]

Probably less likely to kill goblins with a big pool, since water floods so slowly (at least according to the videos).  Or maybe they'll just take longer to drown ;p