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[Apolloin]

I think we're in a traffic jam of cross purposes here. Obviously some people here are deep and true fans who take any criticism of DF rather hard. I know what that's like, I sat in front of Masters of Orion 3 for hours and hours and hours trying to convince myself that THIS was fun.

Let's list the pro's and con's.

PRO:
1. Much of value has been added to the game.
2. It's still free!
3. It's still addressing it's mandate - a free flowing, internally realistic and complex simulation.
4. The World Gen is a massive improvement.

NEUTRAL:
1. The release is buggy, but this is to be accepted. Bugs will be chased down and fixed.

CON:
1. The release was delayed far longer than was healthy.
2. Many of the old bugs/issues were not addressed and still exist.
3. Some systems are buggy, this is fine. Other systems (such as the new Military Interface) are just badly designed. You can't fix a badly designed interface with bug fixing.
4. Far more attention was paid to trifling detail than ease of use.

And that's really the situation. The old Military Interface allowed you to drop dorfs into squads, arm them and send them about their business in a very simple fashion. There were issues of control transparency, but the new Military Interface obsfucates nearly ALL of that core functionality beneath a baffling layer of pointless pedantry whilst leaving in those control transparency issues. I want to control what my soldiers are doing NOW, not what they'll be doing next Granite! Adding the Fortress and Royal Guards into that same functionality was equally mistaken - the nice thing about the Guards was that they did their own thing, acting like the white bloodcells of the Dwarven body politic.

If I could breed some terrible Chimera with the gameplay of 40d and the World Gen of 2020, that would be something I'd play in a heartbeat. Meantime we need to seperate our discussions about Bugs and Features. Bugs are something that should quietly be reported to the Dev Team for fixing. Bad Features are something we need to discuss so that we can pass some ideas and inspiration to Toady for consideration - programmers designing the UI is something every game designer goes into hives just thinking about!

[Cardinal]

My take: You are barking at wrong tree.

Wrong thread, dude.

[Diablous]

What a discussion!

My take: You are barking at wrong tree. Some people there presented case as buggy fast release versus slow but more playable release.

Wrong.

DF is so buggy exactly because it was so long after last release. Single programmer can in day create ten times more bugs than he discover. And Toady worked on 0.31 about one and half year. Strata upon strata of bugs... It is wonder DF is playable at all.

If he would decided on shorter release cycle, he would kill two birds with one stone: less bugs and less annoyed (because of long wait) fans. Of course now it is too late, time to deal with results of this decision. I sincerely hope that Today in future will choose wisely mode of release.

TL;DR; meh.

Remember, Toady waited so long because each update if he did it individually, would break save compatibility each time. This would lead to the fans being annoyed because each time there is a new release with stuff from .31, they have to start a brand new fortress. That would be very annoying. Toady waited so long to make things easier on us. Which would you rather have, the current .31, or having to create a brand new world each time Toady releases a new version with one of the updates that came in .31?

[Apolloin]

If you want savegame compatibility then you go back and play an older release. That's what I'm doing right now with my 40d19 forts.

In the long run, this whole dev drive towards the new release has been done in autistic mode. I don't think that's been healthy, in the final analysis.

[Asmodeous]

[OFF TOPIC]

I sat in front of Masters of Orion 3 for hours and hours and hours trying to convince myself that THIS was fun.

...MoO 3 was a lot of fun if you didn't play it like it was MoO2.5 .  It took the micromanagement away and made it macromanagement. It was an empire simulation as compared to a 4X game, putting you in the chair of being an Emperor of a Hegemony that gave the viceroys orders and they operated it to the best of their ability, but putting their own personal needs in as it were.

I thought it was brilliant, but it wasn't MoO2.5, which is what most fans wanted.

[/OFF TOPIC]

[BigD145]

3. Some systems are buggy, this is fine. Other systems (such as the new Military Interface) are just badly designed. You can't fix a badly designed interface with bug fixing.

The military interface is not really any more or less convoluted than the rest of the interface. It is, however, more powerful. I consider this a plus.

[G-Flex]

I just mentioned this in another thread, but what the military interface really needs is more feedback to the user. It would be much easier to figure out (and to figure out when something's just a bug) if you're better told what you're doing wrong, or how to do something right (both are important).

[Safe-Keeper]

You know why the new release is buggy?

Because everyone was screaming at Toady to get it out the door.

They'll get fixed over time. Be grateful you have ANYTHING, you have no idea how much effort went into this game. I'm a programmer, so I have some idea: A massive, massive amount. Think about what you're complaining about. You're getting a game that quite frankly borders on should-not-exist in terms of awesomeness, and you don't even need to pay for it!

Like the guys above said, it's an alpha. It's supposed to be buggy. So instead of getting all mad about it, and laugh at all the bugs. It's a game, have fun. It ain't serious business.

Also,

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This. Minus the rick roll.

[lucusLoC]

toady already said he is not working on interface issues till all core gameplay issues are dealt with. this makes sense since making this release pretty and intuitive will only waste time in the future when thing change and the interface needs to change to reflect that. the current developments are aimed at getting the gameplay mechanics working right and the interface is a quick-and-dirty barely functional bolt-on so that people can use and test the core gameplay. we all know it is annoying and could be designed better, but that is not going to happen until all the core mechanics are finalized. what you are looking at when you fire up df is a proof of concept alpha release, with a proof of concept interface.

i know we all like to treat it like a nearly finished game that just needs some polishing but it is not. it is just starting its development. for proof of this just take a look at the versioning numbers, were not even half way to a 1.0 release. were are at almost a third. interface complaints should only come up if they actual deny the use of a function that is supposed to be tested, not if they make it hard to find. when we get to the presentation arc then interface issues can be discussed in detail. until then we should discus what *additional* things need to be in the interface, not the know issues with things currently in there. those will be addressed at Toady's convenience, or in the presentation arc. if it so happens that the easiest way to make a feature available to test is a horrid interface we should accept that and test the feature, while understanding that the interface is there solely to allow that feature to be tested.

TLDR: the interface is a testing interface only, it is not the final interface. don't expect it to be fixed until the game is ready to be polished up.

[Safe-Keeper]

Once again I'm struck by how big the gap between developers and players really is .

[Shadowlord]

I... don't think you can compare DF to MOO3. MOO3 was terrible and made you want to cry at what could have been. DF in its current state, despite having a bunch of bugs, some of which are quite hilarious (hot water melting dwarves, fish, and anything else organic?), is certainly not terrible.

[therahedwig]

Yes, there are a lot of bugs, yes there are feedback problems and other design problems(which, by proffesional game designers are also considered bugs, because they are a flaw in the system).

But on the other hand, it is a recent version of a game that is in alpha(Yes, alpha, a game is not in beta till ALL the planned features are there).

I think that the main problem with the OP's post is not whether he's complaining about bugs in an alpha release, but rather that he's doing it in the wrong place, OR that he is complaining about something that is akin to complaining about how it's dark at night.

See, the majority of the posters already know that this version would have trillions of bugs and will take at least a couple of months before it's truly playable, next to that it was known to most that the 40d features(Most graphical features) wouldn't be in this version yet, because the 40d release is handled by someone else.

Combined with the fact that people want to defend Toady and are sometimes really incompetent in setting up their arguments('don't complain, it's free!' just isn't a good argument, no matter how you look at it) and pedantic people wanting to correct them partially because they are just being picky and partially because they don't want DF to turn into an inaccessible game because everyone can only go "Toady's awesome, your just too stupid to understand how awesome DF is, accessibility be damned!!!", you just get huge threads.

I think we should have an 'Whatsup'-thread somewhere, like interesting stuff on the forums, so that newbies won't have to write huge letters saying that they are severely disappointed with the newest release of DF.

[Phmcw]

To sum up:

1)this is an alpha, so bug are plentiful and normal. They are being fixed.
2)this is an alpha, it is normal that the way you play it change a bit in each release. Also what is a downgrade for some person is an upgrade for some other.
3)The new interface is easier, especially for the military. Create a squad, kill order, uncreate squad. This is how to draft civilian. So I really don't get it. All other problem are bug.
4)interface too complicated : The interface rewrite have no interest until all major order topic are created. We don't even know what the final game will be about : how much freedom will the dwarfs have, shall we control them trough existing dwarfs...
And the game is playable. Interface help will be available in the wiki soon.
5)We don't want toady to feel bad about what he read in the forum by welcoming him everyday with random rant. Sue us.

[Apolloin]

Phmcw, I'll address your post point by point if I may.

1a. Terms like Alpha and Beta really have no business being used with Dwarf Fortress. They are technical terms used within the professional games industry to describe phases of development that span a few months each. Dwarf Fortress is in a perpetual state of what we call PRODUCTION - that is the stage at which major gameplay mechanics are functionally incomplete or in test. Dwarf Fortress has been at this stage for longer than most professional games are in development - I really think we need a whole new paradigm to describe this kind of Indie release. In my mind Dwarf Fortress is much more akin to the construction of the Aztec city of Machu Pichu than it is to the development of, say, Civilisation IV.

1b. Bugs are a fact of life. Toady does a pretty good job of hoovering up most bugs and he is commendably dedicated to removing them.

2a. This is not an Alpha, see above.

2b. Change is the one constant in life. It is to be expected, even awaited eagerly. However, there is a definite process of evolution to a product. First something lacks power and functionality. Secondly it is upgraded in power and functionality, but becomes unstable and overly complex. Thirdly it is refined and retains its power and functionality whilst becoming more stable and simpler. Then the cycle begins again. All I'm saying is that we're obviously at Stage Two with the Military Interface - at present it is wobbly and wonky and some of the 'upgrades' were about as necessary as wheels on a fish.

3a. No. It is more powerful, but to say that it is easy is to mistake the ability to do new things for the ability to perform existing functionality simply.

3b. In the old DF you could form a squad and equip it and change it's alert state on a single menu. THAT is simple. You could then deploy any number of active squads to discrete locations using the X menu and a single button press.

4. The concept of a 'final game' is fallacious. So long as we're willing to pay Toady enough money he will happily spend the rest of his life working on Dwarf Fortress - this game is so huge and freeform that developing it is like painting the Golden Gate bridge. That said, all we can really focus on is how playable the version we can download TODAY is and what changes are planned for the next version (which will hopefully be released on a shorter timescale than 1.5 years).

5a. There's nothing random about my ranting.

5b. Toady is a big boy and doesn't need a posse of internet agents moderating the thoughts of his fans. Yes, I use the word fan to describe myself too - I've donated multiple times to the project and spent WAY too much time playing it.

[Kza]

Excusing every problem with the game as "it's an alpha" doesn't excuse the bugs. They have to be fixed eventually, and the forum and the bug tracker are here for a reason.

Implying they won't ever be fixed and that it being an IN DEVELOPMENT version means it should be bugless

Just play the older versions if you truely are encountering that many problems. As an in-development game (i'm avoiding the term alpha for a reason, you are definately correct, Apollonin), it DOES have issues. Toady has already released TWO bugfix versions in quick succession, and I doubt any bugs that still persist will last another month.

It's not a bug, it's a feature.
It's half the fun-- who doesn't like acid-rain melting dwarves?
Play 40d. It's bugless, still has entries on the wiki (40d:Article Name), and has the old militant system.