The crappy comments from Impaler seem to be along the lines of, if you keep giving Toady money he won't fix the UI, which does seem to be an accurate statement but terribly mean-spirited.
its not that, its just that the UI takes a much lesser priority than actually getting the game working. once the game is working then the UI can be tweaked around that.
its basicly the blizzard approach of "When its done".
I keep seeing this argument, and it does have validity. A fully finished UI would be impossible to do. But I do think that Toady could still improve the UI in a modular fashion and also test out new UI design ideas while doing other bits of the game as well. Figuring out what works well with the game's interface is a pretty important step, and a lot of that could be done now with minimal wasted work (and it would make the game much more attractive to newcomers and a good bit to old standbys.)
I do see 40d# as a good step in this regard, and as evidence as to what further interface optimization could do. But they don't affect the game's playability that much aside from FPS increases.
That being said, this project does hinge around Toady's motivation, and he's the best judge of that. I am happy with the way things are going - not perfectly, but I'm confident it'll get done or at least get very far in its unique goals. If he prefers to wait until more elements are in the game to redesign the UI, I respect that. Thanks again, Toady, for making this game (even though I tend to criticize it pretty heavily.)
About DF clones... that's pretty ludicrous. I think it'll take at least a year or two to get the core DF Fortress mode experience in a non-randomly generated setting, and, as the game's systems become more and more integrated with eachother, that number will skyrocket as the experience becomes richer. Multiple programmers could help, but not as much as they would in most games; so many of the systems are interwoven, unconventional and finicky enough that a lot more effort than par would be spent in understanding the code the other guy wrote. These problems are compounded with the potential of having the community you're leeching off of hating your guts, as well.
As for the Blizzard mention, the UI (and ease of play) is much more a priority in their games than Toady's even in Blizzard's beta. Not the same boat at all. Toady's more interested in creating something new while keeping it moderately playable while everything else is crammed in. Toady's approach is very good for adding in lots of stuff as he needs to do, but it's a large price to pay when people want to have fun with the game they're playing right now (not to mention its problems attracting in new players.) Blizzard pops out its betas with a lot of polish and most of the core ideas already in place. The comparison doesn't make sense when referencing either the UI or the very different development philosophies (and Toady simply can't use Blizzard's, as his funding is dependent on how much players *currently* enjoy his game.)
Author
Topic: Note on some utilities (Read 53689 times)