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[Zoal]

Toady, please. I'm dying to play DF. I've been wanting to play for years now. Please hear me. The only thing I need to play DF is separate tileset images for each object. I can't play without that. There must be something wrong with me, cause seeing "BUCKETS" in my dwarves names makes me exit DF immediately. Maybe I am kind of autistic. It's just the way my brain works. I'm really sorry to be different. I can't process the game, it's too hard for me to think about it with shared tiles and objects not being unique. I know it's hard to understand how somebody couldn't handle shared tiles. But my mind doesn't work that way, they have to be separate. I guess you could say I have trouble associating separate things with a memory of those things, unless the thing is represented by its own unique picture. It has to do with the way my brain compartmentalizes associations. I can make perfect associations as long as each object has a different icon. I CANNOT remember what workshops are, because they use the same tiles as other things. It's really all about memory. I just get confused in DF. When the objects are represented with their own tiles, it makes sense to me instantly. That's why I can understand the creatures. But I cannot remember a workshop or a trap or anything else no matter how hard I try. I have tried many times. And being unable to remember them turns DF into a stressful experience, then I exit rather than have fun. I've never managed to create a fortress cause I run into the same memory problems every time.

[Ozyton]

You could try using one of the currently existing tilesets. DFG (Mayday's) is one of the most popular one, I believe. It helps, but it's not quite what you want.

Apparently graphics support is rather high on the wanted features list, so perhaps Toady will be implementing it soon. We'll have to wait (longer) and see.

One problem I see with having -too- many different graphical.. things on screen at the same time is it would make it even more confusing or cluttered...

[3]

You could try using one of the currently existing tilesets. DFG (Mayday's) is one of the most popular one, I believe.

He's likely already using it. That's where this issue comes in.

One problem I see with having -too- many different graphical.. things on screen at the same time is it would make it even more confusing or cluttered...

How would anything become more confusing? You'll still be using the same tile system as before, so there'll still be the same amount of activity onscreen, just more diversity.

[Derakon]

I take it that not using a tileset isn't an option for some reason? You'd get proper text that way.

[Foehamster]

Edit the language raw files and remove the non-Roman characters.  That way you won't have any û ì â and the like in names.

[Pilsu]

It needs to be done eventually anyway. Proper graphics support without glitches like this probably wouldn't just be a placeholder but concrete progress

[Derakon]

Foehamster: that won't fix e.g. capital 'O's in the text looking like freestanding walls.

[Footkerchief]

Toady knows this is important for the game, which is why it's a Core dev item, meaning it's guaranteed to completed for version 1:

# Core50, TILESET SUPPORT, (Future): Allow graphical tiles to be used for all game objects.

"Full graphics support" is also #7 on Eternal Suggestion Voting, and Toady is planning to work on the top 10 ESV items after the upcoming release, so this'll probably get implemented in the near future.  If you'd searched, you'd have found that this topic has already been discussed over and over.

e: oh, I should have looked at your username.  For everyone else's reference, this is the "Bare Minimum" guy, and apparently he just wants to rehash that thread.  Don't get suckered into believing he wants to have a real discussion.

Seriously, Zoal, complaining isn't going to get it implemented any faster.  You already know that the appropriate (and most productive) place for expressing your feature priorities is Eternal Suggestion Voting.  It's on the way, but if you have to post about it, please at least try to bring something new to the discussion.

[QuakeIV]

MY interpretation of what hes trying to say is not that its too diverse, tile wise, but that the way his brain is set up, he cant really interpret one tile or sybol meaning multiple things. Such as what he mentioned, having buckets (and levers) in your dwarves names are really confusing for him, and its too stressing for him to figure it out, the way it is right now.

Ultimately what he seems to want is to have the game display text, on a totally different tileset, and for each object in the game to get its own icon, so that he wont have trouble trying to contextually derive meaning from redundantly appearing icons.

[3]

Ultimately what he seems to want is to have the game display text, on a totally different tileset, and for each object in the game to get its own icon, so that he wont have trouble trying to contextually derive meaning from redundantly appearing icons.

...and that is exactly what the dev item, ESV entry, and previous discussions Footkerchief linked to involve, among other things.

[Footkerchief]

Ultimately what he seems to want is to have the game display text, on a totally different tileset, and for each object in the game to get its own icon, so that he wont have trouble trying to contextually derive meaning from redundantly appearing icons.

Yes, this has also been discussed to death.  By Toady himself, even:

1.  Presentation Arc will add proper graphical support also? What I mean is: separate text and all game objects, so players could be able to mod in graphics for everything in the game. Is it not possible at the moment correct? [I havent been playing for quite a long time, beacause DF is more of a sandbox mode game now, perhaps it will change once the army arc is completed].
2. Also I have a question about colors. How many colors are supported by DF now? AFAIK only a couple of colors were supported in the past, so in that case the presentation arc might bring 16bit colors?
3. What updgrades can we expect to have in the interface? Right now its very stone age style.
4. Can we expect to have full mouse support?

1 - Yes, graphics support for items, terrain and so on, and it's not possible at the moment to attain a separation from the text for anything aside from creatures.

2 - DF uses 24bit color (32 if you count alpha, which is supported by what's there, but not used), but you can only get at that through the creature bmps right now (though you can specify the core 16 colors in the init up to 24bit).  As more support is added, we'll figure out what we want to use the alpha channel for (smoke, miasma etc.).

3 - For the whole presentation arc?  Whatever people complain about the most.  The more specific people are the better.  There are many prior posts/emails on the matter that are fairly specific, though oftentimes the solutions presented aren't really practical (or solutions aren't even considered).  In addition, the more specific the solutions get, the more nailed down the game itself has to be (and it isn't), so there's a bit of a problem, though clearly a robust framework can handle most of what's thrown at it (but not everything, especially as new features oversaturate the current screen real estate, requiring a revision).

4 - Sure.  You can already use the mouse on many of the new screens, but the main screen isn't one of them of course (aside from designations).  Again, the more specific people are the better, keeping in mind the overall context.  I find some of the suggestions about real-time hover sort of impractical, for example, since the critters move on a grid and there are lots of them.

[Zoal]

e: oh, I should have looked at your username.  For everyone else's reference, this is the "Bare Minimum" guy, and apparently he just wants to rehash that thread.  Don't get suckered into believing he wants to have a real discussion.

Seriously, Zoal, complaining isn't going to get it implemented any faster.  You already know that the appropriate (and most productive) place for expressing your feature priorities is Eternal Suggestion Voting.  It's on the way, but if you have to post about it, please at least try to bring something new to the discussion.

Footkerchief,

Try to have some compassion. Yes, I did post all the way back in November 2008 about this same issue, and I've been wanting to play DF *this entire time* and have never been able to play. If you looked at my post history, you will see that the only thing I've ever posted about over a span of years now is multiple requests for tileset object graphics. Yes it's true, that's just me, and I'm sorry for being that way, but that's what I am. I can't think about any other feature in DF besides that, because none of the other features even matter to me if I get confused by the tiles and can't play DF in the first place to experience all of the other features.

And I'm not a guy, I'm a girl. Maybe being able to distinguish "Workshop type A" from "Workshop type B" is a guy thing... But I'm unable to remember it without pictures.

[Footkerchief]

And I'm not a guy, I'm a girl.

My bad.

Maybe being able to distinguish "Workshop type A" from "Workshop type B" is a guy thing... But I'm unable to remember it without pictures.

I can't really distinguish them either.  Most players probably can't, except for a couple distinctive workshops.  For now, you can learn to remember where you built each workshop, or 'q' over them.  Most players, including me, spend a lot of time q-ing and k-ing and v-ing.  I think you're overestimating the uniqueness of your situation.

Do you believe what I said about how this won't get it implemented any faster?  If so, what do you want to accomplish with this thread?

[QuakeIV]

Footkerchief, i think you have officially classified yourself as an asshole.

[G-Flex]

If you looked at my post history, you will see that the only thing I've ever posted about over a span of years now is multiple requests for tileset object graphics. Yes it's true, that's just me, and I'm sorry for being that way, but that's what I am. I can't think about any other feature in DF besides that, because none of the other features even matter to me if I get confused by the tiles and can't play DF in the first place to experience all of the other features.

A single person requesting the same thing over and over and over won't make it more likely.


Also, Toady can't do everything at once; the current release schedule got pushed back to a rather high degree, and introducing graphical rewrites wouldn't be the best idea to tack onto that, unless you want ANOTHER month or two added on to the 16 months (or however many) we've already had since the last release.

Like Footkerchief said, tileset support is on the dev list and is very high on the Eternal Suggestions list, which Toady will be looking at soon after this release. It would be nice if you could take a look at this stuff before reiterating the same stuff you've said before, but since you also managed to post this in the wrong forum, I'm not sure I should have expected as much.