Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Bricks]

Hmm, I've never seen it stated that DF goblins are supposed to have descended from elves.  I'd rather they were their own species.  Their cultures are so vastly different anyway.  Good/bad dichotomies based on race is pretty far out the window, looking at Threetoe's stories.  I'd swear that the dwarves are the bad guys at least half the time they show up.

[gtmattz]

Thinking that DF can run 'just fine on any computer, its just ASCII, cmon..'

Thinking I could just try out the game and see what its like and go back to my life as normal...

[Soadreqm]

Hmm, I've never seen it stated that DF goblins are supposed to have descended from elves.  I'd rather they were their own species.  Their cultures are so vastly different anyway.  Good/bad dichotomies based on race is pretty far out the window, looking at Threetoe's stories.  I'd swear that the dwarves are the bad guys at least half the time they show up.

It's not stated anywhere in the game. Like so many other things in game lore, Toady One has passingly mentioned while talking about something else. I don't think they're actually DESCENDED from elves; more like twisted and corrupted from elves in some magical way.

And goblins are "evil", in that they have the [EVIL] tag. They also consider things like murder and imprisonment to be a personal matter, to be handled between the parties concerned; if you kill someone, clearly he was weaker and deserved to die. And they consider torture acceptable for purposes of interrogation, punishment and recreation. Of course, since the goblin sieges are more or less hard-coded for now, this has little effect on the game.

[abculatter_2]

This is completely unrelated, but I feel I have to post this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oviraptor

This link made me do a Google image search, which made me find this awesome site: (click the gallery button) http://csotonyi.com/


Also, this topic has revealed an even greater depth to DF's races then I've ever known before.

[Untelligent]

Assuming that the goblins are green. Toady's goblins are actually grey-skinned. The default color of goblinkind in DF is grey, and in the original Slaves to Armok goblins were also grey.

[quinnr]

I thought Elves and Dwarves could coexist peacefully at first.

This.

Then I realized that they were bringing me things made of wood. DROWN YOU HYPOCRITES!

[Satarus]

Building walls from the "wrong" side and getting your dwarf stuck.

[The Eviscerator of Gods]

Good lands are safe and unicorns are nice.

[Pathos]

Hmm, I've never seen it stated that DF goblins are supposed to have descended from elves.  I'd rather they were their own species.  Their cultures are so vastly different anyway.  Good/bad dichotomies based on race is pretty far out the window, looking at Threetoe's stories.  I'd swear that the dwarves are the bad guys at least half the time they show up.

Read some of ThreeToe's stories. =p

[Ari]

not realizing ramps can be one way...

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

That it is a bad game because of ASCII.
Worst mistake ever.

[spokehedz]

1. as said by Maggarg, that you need pretty graphics to have fun. while i do use a graphical tileset, i am referring to the fact that to most people--if it isn't 3D then it isn't fun.

2. the game is hard. it is not, they just try and do too much too quickly and they can't handle it. you do not need to have a magma smelter at the beginning of the game, nor do you need 15 stills.

3. the menu structure makes no sense. it does, but only once you play for a couple of hours and your mind actually starts to think that bridges start with the letter G.

4. that you cannot embark on anywhere but 'peaceful' or 'serene' and live for more than 30 seconds. i have embarked on sinister and terrifying and have had really good luck with them. sure, the first couple of seasons are kind of rough as you dig to survive the first wave of zombie deer... but after that, there's nothing too different about the savagery.

5. that the goddamn elves are nice. ugh... i hate it when i see someone new trading with the elves. what, you can't grow more than enough pigtail to make a million dwarfbucks worth of cloth?

6. complaining about the limited amount of points on the starting screen, OR complaining when they get cheesemakers when they just start...

eh... that's enough for now.

[Noble Digger]

The elves are the primitive one. They don't work metal, they don't work stone, they don't even have a roof over their heads unless they've been conquered by another species.

I would argue that the elves are in fact advanced to a point where they no longer feel the need to burden themselves with iron and stone and buildings, instead living peacefully among the trees and using natural materials. Lifelong exposure to heavy metals is a part of why we Humans age, anyhoo!

I WOULD argue that, but only in peace time can you afford to forego effectiveness in exchange for fanciful notions of natural beauty. That's why there are so many Elven slaves :3

[Noble Digger]

I'd say the main difficulty is that Dwarf Fortress is a fairly colorful and fun-looking game, a lot of younger and inexperienced video game players are attracted by the fun stories of Boatmurdered and the draw of its simcity-like freedom. DF is a game that can require patience, analytical and critical thinking, spatial awareness, a good memory that can keep track of lots of tiny details, and more. Maybe in 5 years of playing other, perhaps simpler games, they would indeed enjoy DF. But DF is not an instant gratification type of game and the younger and less experienced people are, the more instant gratification is what they're after. So their big mistake is playing DF at all, and then going on to take it lightly and then getting angry or discouraged when their half-assed approach to playing it leaves them staring at Your Fortress Has Crumbled to Its End over and over. Sound fairly close?

Learning all the complex intricacies of how the various buildings, mechanisms, and other tile-pictures interact with each other took me a long time, at least a year of regular play. I still have trouble with pumps and gear assemblies sometimes. I went through stages where I was only good at a particular set of DF skills. I read the wiki a lot. I looked at other peoples' fortresses. I tried again and again, and eventually a lot of the forts failed due to large mistakes. But some I did well with and retired peacefully and overall I learned as I kept playing. I don't recall ever coming to the forums here and complaining that my failures were BECAUSE THE GAME IS TOO HARD. Or that it should be made easier. If anything, information should be easier to come by. I've never attempted to use the help functions in DF because the Wiki is superior for finding what you need to know, but if all the different help screens could be accessed from relevant locations and provided good, illustrated examples of how and why you might use various buildings and their associated orders, it might trick a few of these newer players into focusing on raising their skill instead of asking the game to be toned down. It really isn't a "hard" game, there are no real-time skills involved. It just requires strong awareness of wtf you're doing to be consistent...

[Aequor]

Thinking coins would be a good idea, and then wondering why work has stopped. Oh, and thinking the game was hard, it really isn't after you get the hang of it and learn. It's just like Noble Digger said above, you can't just do things half-assed and expect the fort to build itself, dwarves are too stupid for that and will chase a !!Pig tail sock!! being dragged away by a burning rhesus macaque rather than get food they need.