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[Gazz]

Don't take me wrong - the "geology simulation" in DF is quite awesome.

However, if this is eventually heading towards a releasable game, a lot of players will be dumbfounded by the many different kinds of uhh... rock. =)

Now I work with minerals and oxides daily and don't need a manual to figure out what hematite is used for but that's not part of the typical gamer's skill set.


I propose a global game option:    Geology for Dummies:  on/off

Every material could have not only one display name but two display names. One is the normal (and correct =) name, the other the simplified name.
If no simplified name is given, the material is not used in any way in "dummy mode".

So with this enabled, hematite (the common one) would be displayed as "iron ore".
There would be no "iron ore 2" or "3". Magnetite would have no simplified name assigned and therefore not exist in the game.


This would increase accessability, especially for the new player, who is already swept away by a deluge of features.

[Starver]

Sounds good.  The number of times I've gone (frexample) "Nickel... nickel... Now what rock gives me nickel, again...  Curse that Baron's fetish for Nickel and requirement for a Nickel Hoojamaflip in his dining room!"

Of course, if I haven't actually memorised the relationship in question, I tend to check the 'Z' screen and scroll through the economic rocks page until I find what I want.  (Also when I, frexample, come up against Cinnabar and want to check whether it's economic and thus I can expect to extract mercury from it.  And bauxite' a little teaser in that respect, given that certain nuggets fulfil the supply-side of that mineral's potential product.)

And so I'm ambivalent.  Most of the fun of getting into DF is a discovery process (what is the exact pathway from original materials to a given item (fertiliser, various glasses, various foodstuffs and fibres, etc), what skills do you need to use, and in what workshops with what labours?  (Especially funny ones like crossbowmaking for wooden versions of the weapon but it's different for the metal ones, although you may consider that an inconsistency rather than a wonder to be discovered.)  Go onto the Wiki if you want, to get the tables or descriptions, or navigate back and forth, or work it out yourself.  Also when it comes to working out equivalences across materials (e.g. coffers and chests) that can save yourself the time and effort when you have limited wood or stone at hand.

I remember when I first breached an aquifer (it was actually a rather benign one, being an above-ground one that I burrowed into sideways creating a nice stream, pity that fortress, my first, got slaughtered by invaders due to my inexperience handling the military).  Finding out what went 'wrong' (though arguably it was less wrong than my inability to actually use fields and workshops, and of course the military blunders and mis-use of hastily and irrationally constructed defences) was fun.


Or is the nature of the game (there being oh so many ways to fail) calling out for more explicit help?  Should it be easier now?  As opposed to when it approaches the point sometime hence when it gets out of Alpha and is perhaps even somewhere close to getting out of Beta, when the less analytical hordes are expected to descend upon it?  You mention it as a configurable hint.  Is it the same level as changing water displays to blue height numbers (and visibly different blue for "on the level below")?

Interesting question, and while my heart says we shouldn't spoil the fun (by giving away too many discoveries) my brain says that we ought not to make it too difficult (and by the time you're not inexperienced, it makes no difference either way).  Toady's call, I'd say.

[Levi]

I think I'd rather just have more detailed info when viewing the material with the k key, or a geology section in the help menu.  I don't think we should dumb down the game (its kinda educational), but making things easier to understand with more complete descriptions and such would be nice.

[Gazz]

You mention it as a configurable hint.  Is it the same level as changing water displays to blue height numbers (and visibly different blue for "on the level below")?

No. If the name could change dynamically during the game, you'd have to carry along all different "iron ores" because there might be a prohibition on magnetite but not hematite. "Iron ore" would be affected but not "iron ore".
Same with already built items from one "iron ore" that would mysteriously be different from another "iron ore".
That's a can or worms better left untouched.

The world would be generated with fewer materials and some of these materials having different (simpler) names.

Yes, it's a bit like training wheels.
Reviewers also dig that stuff. A reviewer has very limited time to learn and play the game and if every single rock you encounter requires referring to the manual, the game's score goes down. Tough, but such is life.
Some will see "that geology business" as artificial, fake complexity. An attempt to forcibly educate them might just push them into a fell mood.

It's awesome if the game has an "expert mode" where the whole environment is a bit richer with a better suspension of disbelief but it should not be required.
Of course, one or two very good materials (or alloys - whatever) would only be available in "expert mode". Hehehe.
See? There's no harm in nudging players towards a bit of education. =P

This feature could easily extend to other areas as well, limiting the selection of (trade) items or even creatures to a more manageable number.
Call it difficulty levels or whatever. Simply a measure to cut down the games massive complexity to an easier to grasp feature set.
Once the player is comfortable with these features, he plays on "medium" with more options and fun stuff.

I only singled out geology because that's the first completely incomprehensible thing a new player would probably encounter.
If the RAW entry is of a "too high" difficulty level, it is not read but discarded. This thing does not exist in the game in any shape or form.


Jagged Alliance 2 had something like that. A "More Guns" game option .
So instead of having maybe the 3 most common assault rifles in the game, you would also encounter more exotic ones like a Steyr AUG.
Some players simply don't care for extreme complexity in such details. The game plays exactly the same whether you have 3 or 8 different assault rifles.
And it's a single player game. If a feature increases the fun (not dwarven fun!) factor for a group of players without reducing it for everyone else, the game is simply better because of it.

I think I'd rather just have more detailed info when viewing the material with the k key, or a geology section in the help menu.  I don't think we should dumb down the game (its kinda educational), but making things easier to understand with more complete descriptions and such would be nice.

I'm not against better information but that still leaves one more layer of abstraction between the mineral and the smelted metal.

Just because a game is more accessible to the beer and pretzels gamers doesn't mean it's a worse game because of it.
After all, (at least in theory =) the point of a game is to sell as many units as possible. And if Billybob doesn't care to learn any more geology beyond "dirt" and "rock", that should be fine as long as he buys the game and enjoys playing it. =P

[Gazz]

To expand on that idea...

There could be several distinct "complexity" settings like:

Geology:      Easy / More Rocks!
Creatures:   Few / Many / The More The Merrier!
Trade items / furniture:     Few / Many / Embroidered Silk Tea Kettle Covers


These would not be difficulty settings but only affect the game's complexity.
So ferinstance with "few" creatures, there wouldn't be horses and donkeys and llamas and mules... only horses.


In the RAWs, each entry would have potentially several tags like
<Complex_setting_creature> 3
or
<Complex_setting_geology> 1


If a a complexity tag is not stated, the item automatically passes that filter.

Horses don't worry about how the dorfs call their rocks. They just know they're heavy.
So the horse creature would not have a tag of <Complex_setting_geology> at all.


A bit of a problem is that in it's current state, DF is practically nerd-only.
You can't load it up and start playing like with <insert first person shooter>.
If you don't study the Wiki and forum before playing, you're not getting anywhere.
A successful game has to be accessible to uhh... normal people. =P

Of course the nerds (and that includes me =) love nothing more than a huuuge array of toys to tinker with. Nothing wrong with that!
But some (like a lot of people I work with) play games purely for recreation. True beer and pretzels gamers!
DF doesn't have to be "dumbed down" to Pacman level but the game could easily target a larger audience.

[sproingie]

It's a game about Dwarves.  Dwarves know rock.  Get used to it.  Strike the earth!  You can find the purpose of every stone when you look through the stocks.  Or maybe that's the economic stone mod at work.

There are a lot of things about the DF interface that make it less accessable than it could be, but I don't think the plethora of object types has a whole to do with it.  That said, I get a kind of wry amusement at the useless distinction between one-humped camel leather and two-humped camel leather.  And indeed, I wouldn't mind as a selection interface the ability to just select "trade goods" for the currently useless stone doodads my crafters put out or "ore-bearing rocks" and so on.

[Kilo24]

I'd think that most of these problems could be solved if you had a good interface with information at your fingertips.  Being able to highlight the nickel material on the demands, select it, and read the ore types that it was smelted from would solve this without mucking around with imprecise terminology; it would improve the game for everyone, not just simplify the game for a few people.  Doing something similar with creatures (like in their descriptions) would be ideal.

[nenjin]

I'm just here to say: I don't think many DF fans care what does or doesn't fly with the general population. The fact DF caters to our inner nerds is one of the reasons we love it so.

[Impaler[WrG]]

I've got a first year geology education so the layer rocks and minerals are not very hard but I found hard to remember what metal was extracted from each ore when I first started, so I'm assuming most players find it incomprehensible.

One possible solution is to simply simplify the names from their scientific mineral names to old Germanic or middle English names for these ores, or if necessary to just invent names.  I've done some moding to add new Ore minerals and I've used names like "Grey Copper Ore" for Tetrahedrite and "Red Copper Ore" for Cuprite, these are both easy to identify and remember but also tell you the primary metal that the ore yields.  A number of minerals have the term "Glance"  such as "Copper Glance" for Chalcocite which appears to mean the ore is a Sulfide mineral (presumably people recognized a common sulfur smell when smelting these Ores but their was no deeper understanding of Sulfide minerals).

I'm just here to say: I don't think many DF fans care what does or doesn't fly with the general population. The fact DF caters to our inner nerds is one of the reasons we love it so.

It's this kind of elitism that I absolutely hate about the people who play this game

[G-Flex]

I personally think it's not a big deal at all to have minerals with different names as long as the information concerning what it's good for is actually given to the player.

If I see a rock with a new name, and can actually check its color, physical properties, uses, etc. trivially, then I don't care that I've never heard of it before. In fact, this was the case with me and DF, except that I had to use the wiki, which probably shouldn't be necessary.


I just don't think dumbing the system down like crazy is a very good idea when the only purpose is to eliminate a perceived layer of abstraction. In fact, layers of abstractions are GOOD when things actually have different physical properties: It's not like hematite and magnetite are always going to be the same thing, so they should have different names.

Besides, to me, it would completely screw up the flavor of the game to cut the list of available rocks in 1/4 just because a lot of them aren't useful, especially since, in the future, more of them will become useful, and the physical properties may easily differ anyhow.

One possible solution is to simply simplify the names from their scientific mineral names to old Germanic or middle English names for these ores, or if necessary to just invent names.  I've done some moding to add new Ore minerals and I've used names like "Grey Copper for Tetrahedrite" and "Red Copper for Cuprite", these are both easy to identify and remember but also tell you the primary metal that the ore yields.

Not a bad idea, but classical/historical names are often already used. See: Pitchblende, cinnabar, orpiment, gypsum, hematite, etc. in many/most cases, the historical or common name for something isn't any more clarifying than the scientific one.


Again, I simply don't think this is a problem as long as players can see what the properties of a mineral are at any given point in time.

[Impaler[WrG]]

Again, I simply don't think this is a problem as long as players can see what the properties of a mineral are at any given point in time.

I completely agree this is a must no matter what the names are, being able to bring up some kind of info on a rock, mineral or ore has to be available in the Interface.  Easy to remember names just help the player quickly internalize what they get from the info page so they can stop referring to it more quickly.

[nenjin]

It's this kind of elitism that I absolutely hate about the people who play this game

I really don't think it's elitism. It's just refreshing to have a game that doesn't apologize for what it attempts to be, and it would make me sad to see DF go that route. Some keep wanting DF to take on a mass market appeal, and it's a) just not the game's time for that, and b) it'd detract from some of things many love, right now.

And when DF is actually "complete", the names ect... are actually going to be important. I'd rather have learned that cinnabar is radioactive in real life, rather than read it off a screen as "radioactive red-stone."

The more things that make DF unique, the better as a game it is. Its own brand of realism, right down to the name, is just another part of that. I've had my Geo 101 course...but I never really stopped to worry about the geology until I knew the game well enough to be willing to look for more info.

The only stumbling blocks I've found with regards to geology aren't directly related to it. Things like, Bauxite not being clearly labeled as really, really important. The same with flux stones.

There isn't a need to hunt down specific minerals and ores beyond that though, unless you really just want something made out of a certain material. If you're playing DF at that level already...it shouldn't hurt to learn the science with it as you go along.

I dunno, Toady talks a lot about enjoying teaching people things in DF, whether it's a smidgen of real life sciences, or something he's abstracted. That's something very, very few games claim to do and that even fewer do well. I'm not so much of a fan that I say people need to learn in ASCII...but I think everyone should definitely need to learn the science behind the game.

[Gazz]

It's this kind of elitism that I absolutely hate about the people who play this game

I am probably as elitist bastard as you can get (at times, at least =) but it would be a disservice to the game to insist that is must be accessible only to elite nerds.

There should be no harm done to nerdish feelings as long as the option to play with full details on still exists. To insist that non-nerds must not be allowed to enjoy the game is petty.
Not everyone enjoys learning about a game. Some just want to play. Call them stupid or small-minded, it doesn't matter. People do in fact buy games as entertainment to be consumed. As horrible as that may sound...


What I'm proposing are merely means to flatten the learning curve without destroying the game.
The system and all game mechanics would be fully present but the amount of information kept lower.

Learning is a process. Instantly learning everything about the game does not work.
Learning the framework of the game without having to fight a myriad of options or technical terms... works better.

Toady likes teaching? Then he knows that.

Oh, there will be refinements and further materials to learn about later. No problem with that after a new dwarf got his feet on the ground and can put up a basic fortress.
And it doesn't really matter if you can only produce granite steins instead of granite steins / ball pens / paper weights / cup holders / cutlery / tooth picks.
Simply fewer things to keep track of while learning the ropes.

And you can motivate people for wanting to learn more if you give them better things and materials if they play with the more complex options.
It's a lot easier to teach someone when he's seeing that things work. A simple fort - little more than a hut with an earthen berm around it. Why not?
Successes build motivation. Build the desire to build better things. Eventually there is just no way around the "complex" options that offer the really good stuff.

It's how one uses a learning curve.
A learning cliff is just stupid.


But I'll post a picture of myself for drawing horns on and putting on your dartboards if you wish. =P

[Kilo24]

Just to be clear, though, I don't really understand which ores are significant myself despite having played for a few years.  The resources that a metal industry requires tend to scare me from relying on it.

I dunno, Toady talks a lot about enjoying teaching people things in DF, whether it's a smidgen of real life sciences, or something he's abstracted. That's something very, very few games claim to do and that even fewer do well. I'm not so much of a fan that I say people need to learn in ASCII...but I think everyone should definitely need to learn the science behind the game.

I'd hesitate in saying that they *need* to learn it, because I think that anything that raises the bare-minimum learning curve of DF should be implemented very tepidly.  I wouldn't want players to be absolutely forced to learn, say, a complicated farming system to simply survive.  But higher complexity on less necessary things, like smelting metal, is a good thing as long as the complexity is mimetic of reality and not too overkill.

With the complexity tags, I'm worried about 1. the workload of going back and classifying each and every object into supertypes, while inventing new generic fictional things for each item to be folded into and 2. the fact that a world generated with those will be useless to someone who wants to progress to the actual terminology (they'll need to completely restart.)  There are also minor balance issues with dwarf preferences, and that, especially as the game gets further developed, you'll be eliminating more and more actual functionality from it (because materials will only get more important as time goes on.)

Here's one idea.  Let's say that all the iron ores have (iron ore) after their name, and every other type of ore have something similar (and each type of good have their type after it.)  This would solve the OP's issue and still let the player learn the properties of rocks if they want to.  If that could be something changeable in the init file, it wouldn't need to annoy any veteran players as well.  It might clutter up the interface a bit, but that doesn't seem like it would do so enough to be a significant problem.

[G-Flex]

You don't need to be an "elite nerd". Every one of us here has learned to play the game even without any official documentation or in-game explanations for anything, and I think those are the key issues.

I don't think the player having a choice between granite and gabbro is a problem, as long as the player can easily make note of the differences and if they actually matter.


There's also the fact that DF doesn't have to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. Nothing does. The thought that something has to is rather fallacious and only works from the standpoint of marketing, and DF isn't even a commercial product.


You're right to say that instantly learning everything doesn't work, but you don't have to, not even now. You don't jump-start every single dwarven industry at once, nor do you have to care about material differences that much in the beginning. You can do most basic tasks while completely ignoring the names of the minerals you're coming across, for instance. There's a natural progression of how involved and complex the game gets, and it need not strike you all at once. You don't need to set up smelting operations right away, or smithing, or tailoring, or most other things, for that matter. The biggest problem is just that new players don't know where to start (which can be solved with better documentation, tutorials, and in-game feedback) and don't know what things are when they look at them, which is a big problem since having a myriad of options available to you is far worse when you don't know what any of them do.

What I'm saying is: I think there are clear ways to mitigate the learning curve/accessibility issue before resorting to such drastic measures as what you're describing.