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[TWM]

Ok, it's day three and I'm absolutely addicted to DF. There goes the remainder of my social life.

That said, I was wondering what other people were finding as downsides to DF? IE, things they dislike.

[JohnLukeG]

It's easy to run out of wild animals.   

Also, dwarves will leave articles of clothing everything and you can't do anything about it but hide them. 

[Squirrelloid]

It's easy to run out of wild animals.   

Also, dwarves will leave articles of clothing everything and you can't do anything about it but hide them. 

Magma.

Burninating the offending litterers optional, but recommended.

[Greiger]

Minting money causes littering issues, the map will eventually run out of fish and/or wildlife no matter how much time you allow for repopulating, loss of friends, loss of social life, worn out keyboards, dreaming in ASCII, anxiety for new versions.

[Sir Finkus]

Well shortly after ridding my embark of rhesus maquacs (annoying critters kept lurking around my entrance scaring dorfs and causing other mischief)  my sister was bitten by one in real life.  Freakish coincidence, or the work of the Blood God?  The world may never know.  Unless of course my brother gets bitten by a camel.

[Name Lips]

Well shortly after ridding my embark of rhesus maquacs (annoying critters kept lurking around my entrance scaring dorfs and causing other mischief)  my sister was bitten by one in real life.  Freakish coincidence, or the work of the Blood God?  The world may never know.  Unless of course my brother gets bitten by a camel.

Hmm.... was she bludgeoning it to death with a crossbow because she was out of bolts? That's when they usually bite, in my experience.

[Mapleleaf]

I've been going to sleep a couple hours (read 0:00 on a workday) later ever since I started playing DF :V

But ofcourse, those few hours of sleep are totally dwarfed (no pun intended <:) by the sheer awesomeness that is DF, and it's -sock throwing, self-drowning in moat, blatantly stupid when it comes to common sense- dwarves.

[TerminatorII]

I find it amazing that people still think that money = litter


we disproved this back in 2d.

you can mint all the coins you'll need before economy and then lock them all up safely behind bars and the dwarves will still buy and sell and have a balance just no stacks of coins.

[Danarca]

I find it amazing that people still think that money = litter


we disproved this back in 2d.

you can mint all the coins you'll need before economy and then lock them all up safely behind bars and the dwarves will still buy and sell and have a balance just no stacks of coins.

They run fine on credits as well, that's what I do
Man, just wait until Toady really goes in depth with the economy... Financial crises >
Urist McSoapmaker has been unhappy lately. He tried to withdraw money from the tax collector, but was denied because of lack of coins. The work was sparse last season. He had a fine drink lately.

[Nintenlord]

Urist McSoapmaker has been unhappy lately. He tried to withdraw money from the tax collector, but was denied because of lack of coins. The work was sparse last season. He had a fine drink lately. He had a fine drink lately. He had a fine drink lately. He had a fine drink lately. He had a fine drink lately. He had a fine drink lately. He had a fine drink lately. He had a fine drink lately. He had a fine drink lately. He had a fine drink lately. He had a fine drink lately. He had a fine drink lately.

Fix'd.
Biggest downside is the problems with fortress armies right now. And economy, naturally.

[Quietust]

you can mint all the coins you'll need before economy and then lock them all up safely behind bars and the dwarves will still buy and sell and have a balance just no stacks of coins.

Urist McMiner cancels Store Owned Item: Item inaccessible. x2914

[Exponent]

I'm a builder.  I like creating things.  Creating buildings, finely crafted communities, cool dynamic systems of production, water, magma, whatever.  I like putting things together in creative ways to solve non-trivial problems.

Dwarf Fortress tantalizes me with so many possibilities of this form, but I've gotten to the point where I feel that the promise that the game offers are superficial.  Biggest problem would be the interface; it completely gets in the way of actually playing the game the way that I would enjoy it most.  In addition, many of the elements of the game break down just at the point where dynamic systems start to get interesting, whether it be the behaviors of dwarves, the behaviors of weapons and traps, the behaviors of water and magma, the behavior of cave-ins, et cetera.

That, and I'm a software engineer who also has a significant interest in game design (and by that I do mean design, specifically, not just generic development), so it gets frustrating that I can't get my hands on any code, to fix up the game in various ways that would make it more enjoyable for myself.  It feels like there are just so many little tweaks that could be made relatively quickly, but they simply aren't a high priority for Tarn, given his unique perspective of the game.  (And I don't want to come across as critical of his choices and priorities; they generally make a lot of sense to me.  I just know that I'd make different choices, e.g., make an interface which is far more transparent than the current one.  And yes, I know all the arguments against doing so; they're good arguments, just not good enough for me; interface is that important.)

So at this stage, I find that playing the game just results in a lot of frustration over what I feel the game could be but isn't.  Which is often what I think about any game that I've gotten to know well enough.  At least this one is obviously still under quite active development, which is why I still hang around the forums and watch the devlog.  But that doesn't make it any less frustrating.  Oh well; I'll deal.

[Danarca]

*sigh* you just made me long so much after the next update... SO many possibilities will open up... The good news are, that since hes putting all the save-compability-breaking elements into a single, giant update, the next couple of updates will come in "rapid" succession!
And even better, its probably coming first  quarter next year! Most definely the first half :p

[Kilo24]

Hmm... let's see.  I am fairly happy with the game and how it's proceeding, but I'll ratchet up the pessimism because the thread calls for it.  Devil's advocate, here we come.

The interface is lacking and fairly unintuitive.

It can be very random with artifacts, which can be a problem.

Adventure mode requires obsessive mindless grinding.

Projectiles of all kinds are very overpowered.

Traps are also overpowered.

Combat incorporates not many tactics despite its complexity.  It's also really hard to control combats substantially in Fortress Mode beyond "I send this squad in."

Both the trading interface and asking the merchants for stuff next time are repetitive and should be streamlined.

Even at its peak, DF's stories will be poor.  Probably not worse than the majority of computer games, but I really fail to see dialogue being done well, for instance.

No viewing of multiple layers, and the minimap is oversized and uninformative.

Mouse support is sketchy.

You can't see much information about a dwarf without individually examining him; you can't, for example, simply glance at several dwarves to see what they're wearing, what's hurt, or what they look like.  (Toady still did a pretty good job with hurt, thirsty or unhappy being displayed.)

You also can't see much about items unless you individually examine each one.

You can only see one creature/object in a tile at a time.

Civilizations aren't that distinct from eachother, and the differences that do exist aren't apparent until after you pick them.

Bauxite is far more valuable than any gem.

The value of items is often either unimportant or a penalty (when migrants come to feast on all of your foodstocks.)

The Toady One has to sleep.  His coding abilities are only superhuman, not divine.

Behold my mad nitpicking skills.  Outside of the interface and story quality complaints, none of these are too substantial.  And the story quality is basically unavoidable without greatly changing the design of the game.  The balance ones are easy to fix with an active developer, and we've got one.

[orbcontrolled]

Doing anything too complicated will drive your FPS into the ground.