Fortunatos, you're making me expand on my thoughts. Thanks
Dwarf Fortress, as you've noted, is about work. It's about Diligence and Industry (Greed and Jealousy as well), even so far as to note it in the main screen. Right now we have a fully playable game, one that keeps to those ideals admirably. And it is, at this point, totally about survival.
At the same time, I can't help but see the game as a progression. I may extrapolate too much, but based on the dev notes and the inclusion of an economy, there is a lot more to what DF is going to be than the labor of seven dwarves carving into a mountain (or building a tower with a few surrounding forests). Those dwarves are not unimportant, nor is their labor, but it should be stressed that they are a -beginning- rather than the whole and sum of what we play. When I make a suggestion along the lines of including electricity or steam power, it is with a view towards future rewards, ones that must be worked for and earned with sweat and blood (oh so much blood). I would hate to start out with an automaton. I would hate to start out with a wizard who could cast anything more powerful than a cantrip (and would prefer not to start with one at all). I want to -earn- those things by using the strength of my dwarves directed as they are by my wit and cunning. If it takes me ten, even twenty years to attract even the lowliest of wizards, I would be happy. Similarly, if it took me that long to develop electricity, I would be satisfied. Becuase I had earned it. In my current game, I am building a twenty level high (and probably ten level deep) tower with an elaborate irrigation and defense system. I would be disappointed if I finished it in a year. As it stands, I've been having to fight off wild animals and procure food while I construct it which has slowed the progress substantially. And I am loving every minute of it, even if my water-pumping tower is only six stories high with no liveable space yet. I love it because I am earning every step of it. And when I'm done, I'll have something I can feel accomplished with. Something I can point to and say 'You see that? That tower took fifteen years and the lives of fifty dwarves to complete. Isn't it freakin' impressive?'.
Much in the same way that the economy is a step forward, so too should the advancement of an industry, whether it be magical or mechanical in nature. I, personally, don't want to struggle to survive with 200 dwarves. I think, at that point, there should be a certain level of self-management (or, the option for self-management) as a reward for having gotten even that far. Sieges are, I believe, a nod towards this next step of interaction, as the level of conflict has increased from 'dwarf vs. wilderness' to 'dwarves vs another society'. The economy, when it's tweaked and working as it should, will probably be another step in that direction. And, once we've got the economy going where else do we go? Is that it? Do we stagnate at that level without hope of progressing to something else? I don't see Toady leaving us there. His vision seems to be so much more detailed than that.
That said, and this is probably the most important part of what I have to say, I don't want to tell you how to play your game. If you want to make it 'My Dwarves versus the Wild: Survival Match', then you should be given every right and option to make that happen. I think the fact that we have the option to turn off things we don't like in the init file rather shows that Toady is of the same mind. He is giving us options. If you don't want to play with an economy, you don't have to. And your experience shouldn't be trivialized by not doing so. Similarly, if you don't want to play as a magical society, or as a technological society, or as one that has any higher-level industries at all, you shouldn't be forced to at all. There are going to be things you miss out on. You might not see automatons if you don't construct them (and have the industrial framework to support them). You might not be able to blast goblins into tiny chunks with a wave of a hand if you don't have one of your dwarves delve into the arcane (and supply him with the necessary reagents/scrolls/books/whatever). But you should always have the choice between doing so and not.
When I say 'automatons would be really neat!' I'm not saying 'Everyone should have to play with automatons because I think they are really neat!'. When I note that earlier societies have used electricity or steam power, I'm not saying 'Make this game more sci-fi!', I'm noting that these technologies are -feasible- for the time period that most fantasy seems to represent. I still want to farm. I still want to mine. I may have different ideas about how to do it later in the game than you do (or anyone else does), but at the heart of it I still want to play -this- game. And, as that holds true, I have no desire to try and change this game or try to shift Toady's idea of it to something it isn't already(or, perhaps, to something it wasn't intended to be) just to suit my ideals. My hope is that, instead, that my suggestions help flesh out the idea he's already got. That they provide more options, more things to do, a more expansive and interesting world. And if they don't mesh, that's fine too.
There are some things I'd like to speak to in your post specifically, which I do below.
quote:
A wizard showing up is currently on par to a demon or a dragon; how are they supposed to be impressive when fireball-slingers and levitators are as common as bookkeepers? How does a civilization with industrial power *not* become a world-spanning industrial civilization? Let's keep the game on a relateable level.
It's a question of balance. Of work vs. reward. If supporting a fireball slinging wizard takes the work of twenty dwarves, they won't be common. At most, if you devoted your entire fortress to -just- that, you could have maybe 5-8 and still survive (wizards need to eat too). And there is no guarantee that they are going to be slinging fire-balls right off the bat. Or that if they can, that those spells are going to be worthy a damn (they might just be really impressive, flashy smoke-bombs at a low skill). As for civilizations with industrial capability becoming world-spanning, they don't because of a couple reasons. a: Typical fantasy dwarves are notoriously xenophobic. They don't want you or your land. b: There are other dwarves out there with the same technology. It's the equivalent to M.A.D. c: Just because the elves don't have steam powered machines doesn't mean they are going to lay down and let the wood-hungry dwarves chop down their precious trees. Humans breed faster and (again, typically in fantasy worlds) tend to be more aggressive. There are reasonable balances that can exist, if you give the subject enough thought. Just as there are, I imagine, plenty of doomsday scenarios that you could think up.
quote:
I'd like to see magic and a wider variety of inventions, but in mundane ways. DF gives off a more classic fantasy and myth vibe to me, where wild creatures and places are simply 'magical' for being strange and fey folk's magic lies in their innate grasp on craft skills and finding powerful/valuable metals like aluminum or steel. Anyone remember the last time a setting considered steel to be magical? Or when the most feared beast in all the realm was an elephant (seriously, angry elephants are iconic to DF, but that's for another thread)? They're both impressive things in the world, but our modern life has made them boring and mundane.
I can agree that the 'mundane but magical because it is fearful or uncommon' feel is rare in games. I like it, and I like experiencing it. But does magic automatically trivialize that? If magic is hard to find, difficult to use, and unreliable, does that take away the fear from seeing a pack of E's stumble towards your main gate? I don't think it does. It just gives you another means to deal with them, just as a stout wall with fortifications and siege engines behind it grants you a fairly solid means to deal with them as well. And in all likelihood, magic would require more support than the standard siege engine. And technology most definitely would. Magic doesn't have to be the same kind or of the same frequency that you see in D&D or WoW. It's up to Toady to make sure it fits without hurting the game world. I think we can trust him with that. Yesss. Trust in the Toad.
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If building conducters out of bars of nickel, copper, and a pot of warer is chosen as a good way to electrify floor traps, sure. If Toady wants dwarves to build their own iron men, let him find a non-trivial way of doing it. But Arcanum and Shadowrun are not the games I'm playing here.
We are so on the same page here.
Sorry for the length
Tl;dr - Play your game, I play mine. But I'd like to be rewarded for hard work beyond that which is currently coded into the game. I'd like to reach higher goals.
[ November 05, 2007: Message edited by: Sheez ]
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Topic: Electricity (Read 8881 times)