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[Afterburner]

For years, I have watched the gaming industry as a whole focus more and more on style and less and less on substance.  Games have gotten shorter while the graphics have gotten shinier.  Gameplay is rarely innovative anymore, despite the breathless proclamations on the backs of the boxes.  More and more, games seem very clearly targeted at a demographic to which I don't belong.

Dwarf Fortress, by contrast, is a triumph of substance over style.  It is very much aimed at a niche group of gamers.  It neither seeks nor values mass appeal.  It is a game where the creator has decided that shiny graphical bells and whistles are less important than the actual game.  The gameplay is innovative, and feature-rich.  It has given us Boatmurdered.  It has recently given us Bronzemurder.  It has given us literally thousands of hours of enjoyment, both in our own games and in reading about the games of others. 

So whenever I see someone say that DF needs to change its graphics and/or its UI to make the game "playable", I enjoy a brief moment of schadenfreude.  I always want to reply with something along the lines of "Suck it up you shallow twits!  If you need shiny graphics to play a game, then Dwarf Fortress isn't made for you.  You're not the target demographic.  You can just stand over there on the sidelines and watch the rest of us have fun.  Bwahahah!"

I never actually respond that way, of course, since that would be rude.  But I always think it.

Mind you, I am not saying that the graphics and the UI are perfect and should never be improved.  I use Mayday's d0rf and creature graphics and Spreggo's tileset, for example.  I am, however, saying that the game is perfectly playable with its current graphics (especially with the addition of tilesets and graphical sets) and its current interface, and it clearly does not need to be changed just to suit the whims of a demographic that is already well-catered-to by the market.

[Nexii Malthus]

I enjoy the schadenfreude a lot. But I understand that a lot of people tend to misunderstand the potential application of 3D graphics and a different UI arrangement as well. Just take a look at the incredible images brought with 3D Visualizers that evoke emotions, when the creator can see their own hard work in a different dimension.

DF doesn't need to change it graphics, the way ASCII is being used is sublime and innovative for abstracting the depth of detail. There is and always be room for expansion, but using it as an excuse to insult the game before even trying it is not cool.

[HungryHobo]

Personally I think it would be nice if the mayday graphics pack was linked from the main site: it does make it easier to see what things are.

The low-graphics thing has a very real purpose.
Many many games spend a huge part of their budget on
1: the art for any new enemy/feature/etc
2: they have to be able to display things you can do.

So you spend 6 months doing the art for a few dozen enemies along with making them move sensibly etc but now you want to add a few more..... huh... days, weeks months of adding more graphics, trying to make them look just right...
And you can forget things like being able to lose a single toe or break an arm since then you have to spend months trying to figure out how that monster you just got walking decently would walk with a broken toe, a missing tail or with a necrotic leg.... when you get into that kind of crap you start having to spend weeks or months on every single enemy....

meanwhile toady has built the engine, finished basic wounds, started on personal relationships and weapons and people are already playing the game while you haven't even finished the art.
In the same time it takes you to figure out 1 more enemy he's added hundreds with the hardest art related choice being Hmmm... do I use a "P" for that guy or an "R"...

And as for adding new features.... well

[Acanthus117]

Hehe, the schadenfreude is delicious. I mean, the ASCII lets me imagine what I think an elf/goblin/dwarf/crundle/elkbird/Plump helmet man look like, and let me focus on killing the bastards more than going WTF and the odd character design. Srsly.

[GRead]

So whenever I see someone say that DF needs to change its graphics and/or its UI to make the game "playable", I enjoy a brief moment of schadenfreude.  I always want to reply with something along the lines of "Suck it up you shallow twits!  If you need shiny graphics to play a game, then Dwarf Fortress isn't made for you.  You're not the target demographic.  You can just stand over there on the sidelines and watch the rest of us have fun.  Bwahahah!"

Is this sentiment really so common? I think I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen 'DF *Needs* to change its graphics!' on these forums. The number of times I've seen someone talk down towards this invisible demographic, however...

Also

For years, I have watched the gaming industry as a whole focus more and more on style and less and less on substance.  Games have gotten shorter while the graphics have gotten shinier.  Gameplay is rarely innovative anymore, despite the breathless proclamations on the backs of the boxes.  More and more, games seem very clearly targeted at a demographic to which I don't belong.

If I may be so bold, this is simply not true. Well, maybe not the last bit, demographics have indeed shifted. But we've always had terrible games. We had terrible games before there were more than 16 colors, we had terrible games before 3-D, and we'll continue to have terrible games after we're all linked to the VR mindnet. Innovation has always and will always be scarce. As for the length of games, they have actually gotten longer as time goes on, not shorter. Graphics, for the most part, are unrelated to this. We still get good games, and no game that would otherwise have been good was spoiled by good graphics.

I'm not arguing against DF mind you, it's an amazing game and one I enjoy immensely. I don't even use a graphics pack, just a 12x12 tileset (herrbdogs) I'm just a little tired of hearing about how graphics are ruining gaming.

[Acanthus117]

I also have to agree with GRead. Just cause it ain't like DF, that en't mean it be bad, yo.

[Jude]

The graphics don't need to change (especially since there are user made graphics and tilesets) but the interface sure as hell does at some point. Even though I've gotten pretty fluent with it, there are still a ton of things that aggravate the hell out of me, like not being able to issue orders to make an object out of a certain material, or get a rundown of dwarf labors where I can edit them en masse.

[thvaz]

There are still good games with good graphics out there. Like Toady said recently in an interview, there are games with better physics than DF will ever have.

But to me, DF is like a dream-game. No other game has the appeal DF has to me.

I'm not blind to its problems though. I agree the interface is a torture device.

[Thief^]

My main complaint is with the controls.
e.g. while on the unit list, pressing "v" takes you to the screen you'd press 'z' to get to from the 'v' tool, or you'd press 'enter' to get to from the 'k' tool. On top of that, pressing 'c' takes you to the 'v' view of the unit. It would make much more sense for it to be 'v' instead of 'c', and 'z' instead of 'v'.
Another e.g.: you use 'k' to look at/inside barrels, but can't use it to look at items which have been built (just see a generic door etc), nor can you look inside buildings with it (for some reason, there is an entirely separate tool for this).

I've got used to it, but it's still completely nonsensical.

[Greiger]

Dwarf Fortress is an awesome game for it's depth.  Where else can a community argue about the existence, length, or thickness of a female dwarf's beard?  Or for that matter modify your own version to have that one tiny insignificant detail exactly how you want it?

And while I do understand when folks say that the graphics and UI could be improved, the current ASCII graphics have their own advantage.

Modding.  I have very little artistic talent.  My little stonesense edit avatar is by far the best looking thing I have ever created.  And it probably took me 10 times as long to make as somebody with even basic experience in sprite art.  But I could make creatures in raws all day.  If I had to create a model or a basic sprite for everything I probably wouldn't have bothered.  That's the main issue that holds me back from other games, if I want to create something, I'm going to have to either draw it or model it.  I tried making a creature once in Armok 1, it didn't work out at all because I had to model the thing.  Here I can just designate it as a little 'D' And call it a day. 

P.S. That's also why I use Curses 800x600 instead of a graphics set, I can't draw a tile for anything, so I just use ASCII for everything.  Nothing looks out of place.

[Spreggo]

Hey I didn't know anyone used my tileset

[Intelligent Shade of Blue]

Modding.  I have very little artistic talent.  My little stonesense edit avatar is by far the best looking thing I have ever created.  And it probably took me 10 times as long to make as somebody with even basic experience in sprite art.  But I could make creatures in raws all day.  If I had to create a model or a basic sprite for everything I probably wouldn't have bothered.  That's the main issue that holds me back from other games, if I want to create something, I'm going to have to either draw it or model it.  I tried making a creature once in Armok 1, it didn't work out at all because I had to model the thing.

QFT. The lack of art makes modding a lot more fun, especially for a completely art-impaired bum such as myself. In other games, I'd always have to borrow other people's models for my little personal mods. I find DF great because it utilizes a similar sort of imaginary visualization that games like MUDs & table-top RPGs use - give the player a keen description and they see what they want to see.

[Afterburner]

Is this sentiment really so common? I think I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen 'DF *Needs* to change its graphics!' on these forums.

This isn't the only forum I frequent where DF is discussed. 

And yes, it's common outside of this forum.  People who are already in THIS forum with any regularity are obviously going to be people who can at least tolerate the graphics and the AI.  They wouldn't have much to talk about here otherwise.

[Acanthus117]

-snip-

QFT. -snip-

I have to agree with these guys. Until I learn to make good pixel art for my mods, they'll stay as letters and weird shapes.

[Wirevix]

Even though I'm not too bad at pixel art (hardly a master, but I can mostly make it look like something recognizable), I also enjoy being able to just designate an ASCII character to the critters I mod.  Because even being able to do an image, I've modded enough critters that I would have to do hundreds of images (if I wanted to include all the baby & undead forms, which I would).  It would just be insane if I had to do that every time I created a new critter, and it would end up mostly being recolors because who wants to spend the time to figure out how to make distinguishable new images for seventeen different types of Western dragon?

As it is I don't even use custom tilesets, because all the pictures I've seen they inevitably end up with a symbol in a weird place because the same character is used for multiple structures.  Once heavier graphic support comes in in the Presentation Arc, I'll probably pick up something once I'm sure the symbol for a gem and the symbol for a lump of ore, despite being the same in ASCII, will look different in tiles.