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[Deathworks]

Hi!

DW - I love this IF, ever play it? http://ifdb.tads.org/viewgame?id=4glrrfh7wrp9zz7b

Nope. I have more stuck to classic things like Theatre (my all time favorite :) :) :) ).

Where you planning on writing something totally from scratch or using one of the available languages, like Inform?

Inform 6.31, definitely. That's the engine that I feel most comfortable with (beats TADS 3 only by a small margin, but still). This way, giving out the source or in other ways getting more people aboard becomes a real option.

But as I said, at the moment, these are just things in my head.

Deathworks

[cephalo]

As far as the UI goes, to me the only problem is with the textual elements. I love the ACSII graphics! That part tells me everything I need to know, in a way that has a very appealing and unique atmosphere. It makes it seem even deeper than it actually is. Stonsense and other visualizers are fun too, but I wouldn't want to play the game that way.

Things fall short when you have to display text in a window that is 28 characters wide! The room that the text takes up greatly limits what's possible with the UI. We're back in the days of DOS with this issue. For example, the database at my workplace has a field for a customer address street name. It's called 'ADBCD' lol. That's because back in the day, you didn't have room for descriptive names for stuff. It was an 'eggheads only' club.

My ideal DF would use the existing character set graphics in a game window panel, with something totally different for everything else. Something with a modern readable font. It could be stylized as long as it's readable.

As a quick fix, I think it would be fairly easy to make a mouseover tooltip system that uses a real font. I'm sure that would have helped me a great deal while I was learning.

[Rainforce]

[...]
Rainforce: Well, I have a lousy track record with lots of unfinished projects. I do have a few ideas for a few famous incidents/bugs to be implemented, so I might at least put together a little something that is good for a few laughs (of course, I am violating the advice of the DM4 by making a piece of interactive fiction based on insider jokes, but that is really the point to it ).

But no promises there, and I don't think I will really bug Toady One about his opinion on this before there is really at least something to show. (I am also pondering making the source code of the interactive fiction available so that people can expand it/improve it as they see fit).

But it's currently just my sand castle in the sky.

Deathworks

well, everyone should know most of the insider jokes already, and even those who don't will do some research and enjoy the newfound knowledge .
you can also inspire (the non-Impaler way) yourself a bit on the board game discussion, much potential there.
and/or make a topic here for critic on the main control and mechanic of your game.
Even with less replay value and stuff it's an abridged version of all the things that happened in the community so far.
make some FUN out of it >___>

[Thief^]

Impaler's 28, untill the thirteenth.

just saying.

I feared that it would be something like that............if you look at it from a certain point of view, <13 would make it a lot more acceptable...

Agreed. I'm only 25, but I'm a professional game-dev of several years experience, but even I wouldn't try to make my own DF. To do what toady has done on his own, let alone thinking he could actually overtake toady in development and make a better DF...

[sweitx]

Impaler's 28, untill the thirteenth.

just saying.

I feared that it would be something like that............if you look at it from a certain point of view, <13 would make it a lot more acceptable...

Agreed. I'm only 25, but I'm a professional game-dev of several years experience, but even I wouldn't try to make my own DF. To do what toady has done on his own, let alone thinking he could actually overtake toady in development and make a better DF...

Trying is one thing, claiming/boasting that you can do it better then someone is another.

[ggeezz]

Impaler's 28, untill the thirteenth.

just saying.

I feared that it would be something like that............if you look at it from a certain point of view, <13 would make it a lot more acceptable...

Agreed. I'm only 25, but I'm a professional game-dev of several years experience, but even I wouldn't try to make my own DF. To do what toady has done on his own, let alone thinking he could actually overtake toady in development and make a better DF...

Yeah, I don't think Toady has anything to worry about from a single developer or even a small team that works part time.  He has too much of a lead.  Nor need he worry about a large developer, since they would never make something like DF.

But we've seen what a small team of paid professionals can do in Torchlight.

So it's conceivable such a team could use DF as inspiration and make something only slightly more mainstream but far more polished (and it's possible it's happening as I type).  However, it's unclear if this would harm Toady since he seems happy to continue development if he gets enough donations to "make it," which only requires a small, but dedicated community.

Still, I think it would be in Toady's best interest to create some APIs to mitigate this risk.

As an aside, I'm wondering if this means Toady has softened toward utilities.  His comments back in 08 (IIRC) led me to believe he didn't fancy things like Stone Sense or Dwarf Therapist (or Khazad) and I wondered what was going to eventually happen.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

As far as the UI goes, to me the only problem is with the textual elements. I love the ACSII graphics! That part tells me everything I need to know, in a way that has a very appealing and unique atmosphere. It makes it seem even deeper than it actually is. Stonsense and other visualizers are fun too, but I wouldn't want to play the game that way.

Things fall short when you have to display text in a window that is 28 characters wide! The room that the text takes up greatly limits what's possible with the UI. We're back in the days of DOS with this issue. For example, the database at my workplace has a field for a customer address street name. It's called 'ADBCD' lol. That's because back in the day, you didn't have room for descriptive names for stuff. It was an 'eggheads only' club.

Yeah, I actually prefer the ASCII graphics over any graphics set I've tried to date, simply because it's more reliably accurate/informative. The problem is the menus, submenus, etc.; there's a reason dwarf therapist exists, and it's probably only a short while before a similar tool gets developed as a substitute interface for the new military.  All the utilities I use are basically UI improvements (even things like Quickfort).

[orbcontrolled]

The problem with hard-coding behaviour, and what Impaler may be missing judging from what's been said earlier, is that while you may be able to make a more efficient game by simplifying the calculations, you're going to lose a lot of the character. The procedural story-telling aspect.

Yeah, and I wasn't advocating any of the stuff I mentioned, I'm just saying that appealing to a lower common denominator can be a very powerful strategy, and is something that we should be concerned about.

[sweitx]

Still, I think it would be in Toady's best interest to create some APIs to mitigate this risk.

As an aside, I'm wondering if this means Toady has softened toward utilities.  His comments back in 08 (IIRC) led me to believe he didn't fancy things like Stone Sense or Dwarf Therapist (or Khazad) and I wondered what was going to eventually happen.

The difficult issue with API is that in DF, APIs has a high chance of changing.  Even if you don't offer guarantees with the stability of the API, people may/will still become attached to it.

[ggeezz]

Still, I think it would be in Toady's best interest to create some APIs to mitigate this risk.

As an aside, I'm wondering if this means Toady has softened toward utilities.  His comments back in 08 (IIRC) led me to believe he didn't fancy things like Stone Sense or Dwarf Therapist (or Khazad) and I wondered what was going to eventually happen.

The difficult issue with API is that in DF, APIs has a high chance of changing.  Even if you don't offer guarantees with the stability of the API, people may/will still become attached to it.

First, it's possible to create an API (for DF) where most of it has a very low chance of changing and if it does change it's probably because it's no long applicable, so there's no reason to be attached to it.

Second, people are already attached to Dwarf Therapist et al, and an API would make them far less brittle.

[Footkerchief]

First, it's possible to create an API (for DF) where most of it has a very low chance of changing and if it does change it's probably because it's no long applicable, so there's no reason to be attached to it.

Second, people are already attached to Dwarf Therapist et al, and an API would make them far less brittle.

Anyway, yes, this has been suggested before and Toady has made a couple direct responses.  Any supporters of the idea should definitely read these:

Spoiler: response (click to show/hide)

Somebody reported a post in this thread...  it didn't really matter which one.  A bit of chilling would be good.  There are a few people that have failed to chill.  There are quite a few statements here I'd respond to in person myself, and some very sharply, but internet discussions are more fragile and more prone to derailment.  So I'll try to stick to what seems to be the core of the matter.

Which for me (and granted, I'm picking a recent post -- I've read the thread, but don't remember when this came up first in this thread) is along the lines of what Jamuk said.  I'm being asked to assume risk.  I don't accept assessments of the risk as extraordinarily slight -- I've seen no sound basis for those assessments here.  I also don't think the currently proposed licensing/obfuscation method of putting the cat back into the bag would work -- with a principal downside being that it requires me to turn into an asshole who, after initially sanctioning the process, breaks everything that people have been working on.  Publishing an API and then trying to reel it back in just seems completely unworkable and irresponsible to me.  So the point is to assess risk upfront and then make a decision I can live with.

And right now, I have no idea what would happen.  This isn't the same as leaving my math job or adding the Z coordinate.  The first was a decision I had to make personally for my quality of life, and the second was a calculated risk which I didn't really have strong misgivings about (though some people are still pro-2D version, I think I can get most of them what they want over time in terms of gameplay difficulty, etc., though it'll never feel like it's quite on that rail again most likely).  Do I accept that third parties could improve the interface?  Of course.  Do I think I could do better than a third party myself, even over time?  No, not at all, though I can certainly improve on what I've got now to a large degree even without external input (which I, of course, love to receive).  So, initially, there's some attraction to the third party interface idea.

However, reflecting on the position I'd be in, there are things not to like about it.  How many threads were there about broken utilities when this version came out?  If more than half the player base comes in off a third party interface (and given how much the current interface sucks, and how much it is a source of first time downloaders dropping the game, this is not only imaginable, it is very, very likely), how would it be if it broke at each release?  There's no way to mitigate that without my direct involvement -- imagine a release down the line where you can suddenly move dwarven armies around on the world map, with a tactical view and various options.  That interface can't write itself, and it wouldn't be a quick patch, though certainly dedicated people, assuming that about whoever is maintaining the front-end at that time, can pull things together rapidly.  The pressure on me to work directly with them to get the interface out at the same time as the game itself would likely be immense and disruptive, given what little evidence we have from broken utilities.  That's not to say that I often get requests to work with utility writers (other than from the writers themselves, who I generally accommodate), but this would be at a different order of magnitude.

So what's the exact risk there then?  First, I don't want to work with other people.  So, assuming I don't do that, there's now a constant amount of pressure on me and a general disruption in the forums.  The latter could be mitigated with some announcements/guidelines, etc., but the pressure wouldn't go away.  Monetarily, it's impossible to say what on earth would happen, but if I supported the third party interface directly pre-release, I'd likely make more money, but I'd be unhappy.  If I didn't support it directly, but it was there, I'd still likely make more money, but I'd be unhappy.  That's not to say that I don't want to grow the audience and allow more people play the game, but I want to do it in a way with which I feel satisfied, even if that ends up being slower or just plain worse than a hypothetical third party alternative.  If someone, as a potential donor, thinks that's unreasonably selfish, that person shouldn't send me any more money than he or she thinks I've deserved for his or her enjoyment, just like everybody else.  Despite my dedication to this project, I'm unwilling to sacrifice my enjoyment of working on it for anything, including its quality or even its future release if it comes down to that.  That should be plainly obvious.  I'm not a slave.  Of course I do some things I don't like working on, with the interface and more.  I fulfill requests for features I'm not going to use myself.  However, again, the current proposal is of a different order of magnitude, with the potential of ruining it for me, and the end result is completely uncertain.

Given what I've seen here and there, it seems like a full third party interface might develop even without my involvement (rather than the various utilities we have now), but in that case, despite the same issues that might come up, at least it won't be a situation of my own creation that I feel a strong obligation to deal with, although the pressure would still be there.

Incidentally, in the proposed model, I still don't think I'd be able to bring code back in to the core project -- the first Kobold Quest port attempt showed that people bringing in code don't necessarily check or care about the licenses of the code they are swiping, and I can't assume that responsibility for them (it has stuff from Wine which shouldn't have been there).  Problems come up here with tilesets and so on too -- I know there've been a few cases where a contributor used somebody else's art and then it was put in a game, causing some legal trouble, though I don't have them at my immediate disposal.

I may have missed a lot, both problems I'm not thinking of and ways to handle them, since this gets complicated and is, due to lack of information, somewhat unspecified, but that's what I've got right now.

Spoiler: followup (click to show/hide)

I tried hard to put myself in your shoes and see things from your point of view, but apparently I failed to understand one thing (correct me if I'm wrong): the general atmosphere of the forums and feedback you receive from players is an integral part of your happiness. I was imagining that you could just let the mess settle down by itself after every release, but since I am not this forum's moderator, I can't really tell how it feels to have a big mess of threads about stuff not working.

It generally sucks to have a bunch of people complaining that things don't work, especially when there's something I can do about, that is, work with the interface modders more closely, having in this scenario sanctioned third party interfaces and released a public API.  It's the pressure that would make me unhappy.  It's good when the forum people are happy, but that wasn't what I was getting at so much.

When you speak of pressure, are you picturing direct pressure? I have a hard time imagining people screaming at you on the forums, except maybe for the occasional moron that can be ignored. Wouldn't people rather be putting pressure on the third-party developers to update their interface ASAP? But maybe you'd feel pressure nevertheless because you dislike seeing that people cannot play the game.

There would be direct pressure on me to work with third party developers -- this isn't about screaming.  This thread itself is direct pressure to work with third party developers (or at least get the ball rolling).  That isn't to say I disagree about you posting it.  I'm simply stating what it is, and I think that yes, there'd be a lot more of this, a lot more I'd have to reply to, and a lot of...  pressure.  Additionally, I'm not just talking about external pressure, in fact, principally not -- having created the situation, I would feel some obligation to make it run as smoothly as possible, and I would rapidly become irritated by this, because it's some of my least favorite kinds of work.

One thing I'd like to point out, though, is that you seem to think that a single interface, "The front-end", would come out of third-party development. Even though that's possible, open-source usually seems to bring diversity (look at the number of linux distros), especially in a single-player game where people don't have to use compatible clients, so they can play together. So I think we'd likely see an improved ascii client, a 2d tiles client, an isometric client, a 3d client, and maybe several of each one. In my view it would distribute the uproar, so that at least not everybody would be complaining about the same thing  . But I don't know if you see that as a relief.
[emphasis added]

He he, of course not.  It's worse actually -- more parties to work with.

Lastly, I may have a good way of mitigating the breakage of third-party clients at every release, without requiring your direct involvement. Assuming that you develop your own open-source interface at the same time as your closed-source server, you would likely publish your interface changes to a public SVN server. You would probably do it incrementally, at the rate of one or several commits a day - akin to backing up your work whenever you've made a step. In that case, you can bet that enthusiastic developers will watch those changes keenly, to see what's going on with the interface. This means that third-party client makers will already know that moving "dwarven armies around on the world map, with a tactical view and various options" is coming for the next version (from your very detailed dev notes), so they'll have time to plan which kind of interface they want to provide for that. And since they'll see the necessary code changes evolve gradually, because you'll always need an up-to-date interface for bugfixing, they'll be able to follow closely your development. They might have to adapt to your last minute changes, but otherwise I believe that the days of bugfixing prior to release could be enough for some of them to finalize their clients on time.
Now of course, you have to feel comfortable with that way of working.

Yeah, this somewhat mitigates breakage with those third parties that are active and approaching the situation with some dedication, but the trade-off of working with my day-to-day changes under that sort of scrutiny is definitely a minus for me, and I don't think it could really happen in a vacuum without questions about changes and so on, or without me feeling like I have to provide some sort of documentation as I add things.  I don't know if that sounds like quibbling, but I can't easily overstate how much I hate managing code or collaborating on code or anything along those lines.

Additionally, I think breakages would still happen, especially when staff leave projects hanging (work obligations, got tired of it, vacations, etc.), and it wouldn't change the fundamental situation I'm imagining, although in the case of project abandonment or delays with staffing, where there isn't pressure to work with the (missing) people in question, it's more the pressure to incorporate changes back into the base API, which as I stated in my previous long post, I wouldn't be able to do without potential legal problems.


I don't mean to write as if I'm sure about any of this, but once I drop this bomb in my project, I can see every day becoming "oh man, what a goddamn hassle" instead of what I've got now, which has less of that.  Again, I think the OP is justified in starting this thread, so I'm not raising that as an issue, but I've also spent some hours in here, reading posts and composing these replies.  That stuff just starts to magnify, and I'll either end up ignoring people I don't feel like I should be ignoring, or not ignoring people to the detriment of the core game itself and my own well-being.

What I would like to hear from Toady is what kind of graphics he has in mind for when he gets to the interface overhaul. That way we could at least prepare some sprites ahead of time and have nearly complete graphics sets as soon as the version with the new interface comes out. I personally waste a lot of my free time doodling in GIMP, so I might as well do something useful.

Depending on the stage of the interface overhaul, ultimately I'm going to be support 2D tilesets (probably in dimensions of multiples of 4 because I'm lazy with image file headers).  So if you want to draw up some 32x32s or something, you won't be wasting your time, I think.  It should be fairly straightforward to support single z-slice isometric stuff as well, once I get that going, since I'd just have to change the print locations and print order, though transparency decisions are probably annoying, and it's slightly more annoying to get multilayer isometric stuff going, since people are going to want various options about display there, so I don't really have a clear opinion on the future of isometric.  The support for a resizeable viewport/window is definite, but nothing has been decided on layering there (for instance, critters walking over grass tiles, that kind of thing -- people will want more and more out of this system, such as inventory and wound displays, and I'm not sure where lines will be drawn, or where it will bog down, anyway).

Also some earlier stuff:

Spoiler: part 1 (click to show/hide)

This has come up before, but I don't remember if I've actually entered into a discussion on it.  As it stands, without knowing much about it, my issues are as follows:

It seems like I'd have to publish all my class definitions to make this practical.  I don't anything about reverse engineering, but it doesn't seem far from opening up the source at that point.

The class definitions would also not document and otherwise support themselves, and there would be pressure on me to do so, which is not a one-time cost.

In fact, if a third party front-end becomes popular, I think I'd be forced into relationship or even a state of dependence on the third party that I'm not comfortable with.  And I don't think we can just gloss over version compatibility.  Ignoring it or handling it before releases -- either approach has ramifications for me.

Certainly players would benefit from having third party front-ends.  They'd benefit from open source and third party back-ends too.  If it means cutting myself out of my own game, I'm not going to support it.

I also don't know anything about scripting, and it's tough for me to say whether time spent learning a scripting language, implementing scripts and supporting third party front-ends is better spent adding modestly to the interface myself.

Spoiler: part 2 (click to show/hide)

"You break everything, we fix it, it's all good."

I don't think it's that simple.  Even the utilities that people use cause some grief when they are broken -- it would be far worse for a popular front-end.  If the majority of the player base has to wait after each release for third party fixes to a broken front-end that may or may not even happen, it puts a lot of pressure on me to resolve the issue by working more closely with the third party, a completely unknown entity that happens to maintain the front-end most people use.  It would be difficult for me to retain my independence once in that position.

I think somebody mentioned in an email discussion I had that in that case I should just incorporate some of the more popular aspects of third party interfaces back into the main release in order to avoid forming that kind of tie and to avoid serious bumps in playability for front-end users after each release, but I don't know the legal ramifications of that, and my first impression is that I'd be setting myself up for trouble, though some major publishers seem to do this without issue from what little I know about it.

I can vaguely see how something could be set up to automatically prepare a lot of this now, but it still seems like the functions etc. that are created would need to be documented to be useful, especially if the front-end needs to be patched quickly.  If variables are removed or changed around, it seems like the incompatibility for front-ends relying on a previous version of the automatically generated system could be pretty severe.

[DFPongo]

Thanks for the summary,
I imagine that this event has probably reaffirmed Toadys preference for working alone. As someone who really struggles with the interface of DF, I am encouraged to read Toadys consideration on the options. The thought that if we pay Toady, he will never fix the GUI is amazing, and makes me wonder what idiot sticks resourcing plan (don't bother telling me to be polite) for his grand endeavor is? I read a thread about Kazza a while back and laughed and gave it no more thought.

For me, I love indy games that reflect the vision of the dev.  I have paid Toady a little money, it is well spent for the enjoyment I have had(who remembers the frustrations?) I suspect I will send more when the worth balance scale tips again. Having been a developer my self, part of the allure of the game is the process. If Toady could do this, could I? kind of thing.

What is that fools vision? A notion conceived in arrogance is unlikely to evolve to grace. He may make something, but I doubt it.
This has been an interesting thread.
Pongo

[cephalo]

Yeah, thanks for the summary of Toady's thoughts on this, it's an interesting read.

I don't think I agree that creating an interface API will open a pandora's box. I think it would be not terribly difficult to expose an API while just keeping the interface you normally have, and then forget about the API outside of major bug fixes. You deal with the possible dependancies, headaches and pressure by simply ignoring it. I've seen other games do this and then the community just does what it does with what they are given, and the game company doesn't even get involved for the most part. It's unmet expectations that create unrest, if you set the bar kinda lowish nobody will complain. If you say you're going to maintain the API above all else you'll have the world on your shoulders.

UI stuff is grunt work. It's a bad use of Toady's time I think. Would he not be happier to just focus mainly on the game mechanics? Learning how to expose an API might seem somewhat daunting however, given the vastness of what DF still hopes to accomplish. It's an investment, but I think the risk is low, and has a good chance of ultimately increasing Toady's satisfaction.

DF is really a popular game now. I just wrote a utility that had 150 downloads on the first day! I wonder if Toady really wants that kind of success, because from now on their will be more and more people leaning on him with requests. You have to learn to switch it off and not hold yourself responsible for the needs of the world.

[MrWiggles]

I think you missed the spirit Toady issue with a UI API.

Yes, he could ignore, Toady is stating that he couldn't. He says he would feel compelled to do something about, and the effort and commit he would have to do, if he did agree to some sort of third part UI API.

[G-Flex]

One problem with third-party user interfaces is that damn near everyone would wind up using them. Even if a decent API is used, things would break between versions, leading to (sometimes large) gaps in time between a new version of DF being released and the third-party UIs catching up.

This is very annoying for the community, at least.

Consider the current situation with tilesets, Dwarf Therapist, Reveal, and so on. For a surprisingly long time after the release of 0.31.01, people were flooding the IRC channel fairly regularly with questions about whether or not this-or-that tileset still worked, if there was a Mayday pack out yet, if Dwarf Therapist worked for it yet, and claiming that they wouldn't even play the game until there was.

In other words, there's some inherent instability in having people rely on third-party software that needs to be updated regularly. It winds up being frustrating for the players, and frustrating for the community in general.

To that end, I think the best solution is for the game itself to have a decent user interface at some point. I agree that the new military controls are the straw lead weight breaking the camel's back at the moment. I don't think a perfectly sustainable long-term solution is necessarily the best or most urgent thing to do right now, but things need to be workable and remain that way.