Zombie: Thanks for the second post; I can honestly say I felt your first post did come off as a bit derisive, mainly for the following parts:
No problem. It was not my intent to be derisive, but I think crankiness and an absurd amount of classwork has been getting to me. I've been kind of terse lately.
No one's problem but mine!
I don't understand this problem. If you design something where you channel your dwarves to death, that is your fault. Do not blame a design change.
Here, it sounds like your saying that people just need to learn how to use channeling when a) one of the major improvements people cite is that channeling doesn't require any forethought, just designate and go, and b) the new channeling, in some situations, will result in a dead dwarf no matter what you do.
Well, I sort of was saying that... But I admit I am a bit ignorant as to what situations will kill dwarves no matter what as I've never encountered one of them. I trust that others are making valid points here, though. There is some room, however, for people to just be complaining to jump on the bandwagon. People that think there's no way to save that dwarf, when there is. You know, a sort of offhanded blaming of the new system just because they can. I'm not saying this is even a majority, just a mere possibility.
Those of you digging up archaic methods to somehow create a channel without having gradated sides, you are silly people.
So, when people use the realism argument to support new channeling, other people are silly for suggesting real methods to make a channel, which can be abstracted as part of the process?
No, just that everyone is silly as the process is abstracted anyway. Bringing up real methods into a process that has been accepted to be abstracted seems kind of silly. I mean, even though I think digging should be slightly less abstracted... Or that there's more room for realism... I don't think it needs to be that kind of 1 for 1 realism. Then again, I'm not exactly sure what I was on about. I can be a mystery at times!
With stubby arms and a pick, it's a marvel dwarves can dig holes big enough for elves to even walk in, let alone channeling a hole big enough to dump the damn treehuggers in without their heads sticking out.[/b]
This didn't come off as derisive, I'm just making a counterpoint: In the raws, dwarves and elves are both BODY_SIZE:60000, so they aren't THAT different size-wise. And just as an aside here, the description for dwarves states they are fond of industry. So why can't they find an industrious way to aid their digging?
That's what I think is the solution. Industry. Dwarves need more tools and ways to do things so both sides are happy. Elves are supposed to be really tall, though. I thought body size was just an abstraction for how fat they could get or something. I mean, if you have a 60000 size body and are 7 feet tall, you're considerably slimmer than a 4 foot 60000 size dwarf. My point was that Dwarves are short and, proportionally, their arms would be shorter than their height. Having a short reach really doesn't mean much, though, admittedly.
I agree that the vote is poorly worded, but ironically, I'm in favor of restoring the old channeling functionality (which is NOT to say get rid of the functionality AND ease of designation that the new channeling provides) but didn't want to vote because I felt both options in favor of only 1 type of channeling came off as childish. Granted, the first moreso than the second. The third, I couldn't even tell what the point of it was; calling two things "the best" didn't make sense to me and didn't suggest to me "give us both".
I am with you here. I think it should have been more simply worded to avoid bias. A simple: 1) I like new channeling 2) I like old channeling 3) I like both 4) I don't like either 5) I don't care would have sufficed. The odd language and calling things "best" needlessly complicates things.
Nobles make unreasonable demands, channeling now leaves logical ramps... Oh, I get what this is about... You're all just mad because you can't crush the ramps under bridges for constantly mandating the production of clownite backscratchers when you haven't even found any clownite yet.
Likening people (who want the functionality of old channels restored) to nobles is a real quick way to insult them.
Actually, this was fully intended as sarcasm and tomfoolery. I don't think I was actually likening anyone to a noble, really. I was more drawing a parallel to how people feel that channeling leaving ramps is unreasonable and that it would make a lot of people happy if they could just crush the ramps under bridges. The thing here is some people feel ramps = unreasonable. What do we do with unreasonable things? BRIDGE SMASH! I admit, it could have been worded better an I invited trouble by not using a [sarcasm] tag or something.
Channeling as it is now just needs some forethought if you want rampless channels.
Again, this wasn't derisive, just making a comment: No, you have to redesign your channels. Most of the people who want clean channels probably do put a lot of forethought into the design of their fortress, and are annoyed that now they have to "ruin" their designs to fix the channels (and you can't dismiss the opinions of a group of people just because they are obsessed with the layout of their forts. A lot of people put a lot of work into making their fortress "perfect", these are people who would leave native platinum in the wall because mining it out would mess up the design, and building fortresses "perfectly" is how they have fun. They have every right to voice their opinion on a change that ruins the fun for them.
I am one of those people and, honestly, I am sympathetic. I just don't think it requires so much hullabaloo. But, as has been pointed out, there wasn't as much hullabaloo as I initially thought. I think that there IS a mid-ground that will make everyone happy, possibly by requiring tools for certain commands. I think old channeling should come back, we should be able to dig downward and upward ramps (just like stairs, except you only need to do it once) and old channeling should require some sort of cool new dwarven digging tool. Dwarves should need an assortment of tools, anyway, and I'd love to see my engineers need wrenches and crap like that. Miners could use an assortment of digging tools (and rope!) to get things done in an abstract way without necessarily breaking realism.
While I am used to
my way of doing things, I often forget that others have developed their own equally awesome ways of doing things, which is perfectly wonderful.
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Topic: POLL: New Channeling: Super Awesome or Super Dumb? (Read 51834 times)