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[einstein9073]

Is it just me, or is this thread reeking with blind hate against... a ... person who is expressing his own opinion ...

Yes. It is. The OP logged in to a board of fanatics and criticized their messiah. He then got flamed.

Toady One has made the choice to prioritize his fun in programming over the quality of his project. This makes me sad, but isn't something I can change.

[Urist Imiknorris]

So far I am impressed with Toady's dedication and speed of his work. Many projects maintained by several people actually progress slower than DF.

Hermit forts get great FPS.

[Hyndis]

This is Toady's project, and he wants to keep it his project.

The more people he recruits in the less control he has over the project. Death by committee is a common fate for a project.

Too many cooks in the kitchen, that sort of thing.

[lowbart]

I think we should turn this into a one-dorf fortress thread. I'm starting one now.

[Christes]

If someone here has not read Eiba's One dwarf against the world, READ IT NOW

[Jordrake]

This thread (For it's actual original purpose) seems pointless to me. The OP thinks Toady should employ more people to help the development move along quicker and smoother. Fair enough. He can think that. Toady has stated before that he works alone and that that won't change. Thus, the OP voicing his opinion is just thinking out loud. It'd be like saying, "Wouldn't it be nifty if Microsoft started charging nothing for their products?". Yeah, it's a nice thought and it'd definitely be convenient, but Microsoft has made it abundantly clear that they want money.
As I have now firmly established why continuing to comment on the thread's original idea is moot, I shall discuss the merits of having the option to embark with one dwarf and have no migrants.
It has been noted in the past that frame-rate is one of the major problems with Dwarf Fortress, particularly when you've got dozens of the little scamps puttering around looking for their beds/booze/babies. This is why I'd like to have just the one dwarf. Just me, him and the wide open embark area. I'd build him a little bedroom first, then have him start a farm. Once he's sown the seeds, I'll order him to construct a dining room for himself, so that when the vegetables of his labours come to fruition, he'll have a nice place to relax and eat. He might get lonely, but there'd be plenty of merchants coming and going to make friends with. It wouldn't really be a Fortress. More of a Dwarf House. And in that house he'd live, my little dwarf, working, relaxing and living happily. And of course, as a weekend sideline, building my magma-fountain in the image of a dragon.
Now I really want a one-dwarf fortress.

[Mason11987]

As I have now firmly established why continuing to comment on the thread's original idea is moot, I shall discuss the merits of having the option to embark with one dwarf and have no migrants.
It has been noted in the past that frame-rate is one of the major problems with Dwarf Fortress, particularly when you've got dozens of the little scamps puttering around looking for their beds/booze/babies. This is why I'd like to have just the one dwarf. Just me, him and the wide open embark area. I'd build him a little bedroom first, then have him start a farm. Once he's sown the seeds, I'll order him to construct a dining room for himself, so that when the vegetables of his labours come to fruition, he'll have a nice place to relax and eat. He might get lonely, but there'd be plenty of merchants coming and going to make friends with. It wouldn't really be a Fortress. More of a Dwarf House. And in that house he'd live, my little dwarf, working, relaxing and living happily. And of course, as a weekend sideline, building my magma-fountain in the image of a dragon.
Now I really want a one-dwarf fortress.

One thing about a single dwarf fortress is that you have to deal with the inevitable migrants who will want to steal your mugs, eat your food, and sleep in your bed.

Thankfully DF2010 has made this a lot easier.  Here you have two good options.

Fast and convenient - Build a large bridge (not retracting), set up a lever to it and leave that in your Dwarf House.  When migrants show up, lift the bridge and set up a burrow underneath, then assign all of the new migrants underneath then CRUNCH!

Slow and profitable - Set up a large enclosed room with a locked door, when the migrants show up, set up a burrow and assign them all to it.  Lock the door, and wait.  When they're all dead, pick up their stuff and sell it to the next trade caravan!

[Urist Imiknorris]

You can do that with six of your starting seven too.

[Christes]

As I have now firmly established why continuing to comment on the thread's original idea is moot, I shall discuss the merits of having the option to embark with one dwarf and have no migrants.
It has been noted in the past that frame-rate is one of the major problems with Dwarf Fortress, particularly when you've got dozens of the little scamps puttering around looking for their beds/booze/babies. This is why I'd like to have just the one dwarf. Just me, him and the wide open embark area. I'd build him a little bedroom first, then have him start a farm. Once he's sown the seeds, I'll order him to construct a dining room for himself, so that when the vegetables of his labours come to fruition, he'll have a nice place to relax and eat. He might get lonely, but there'd be plenty of merchants coming and going to make friends with. It wouldn't really be a Fortress. More of a Dwarf House. And in that house he'd live, my little dwarf, working, relaxing and living happily. And of course, as a weekend sideline, building my magma-fountain in the image of a dragon.
Now I really want a one-dwarf fortress.

One thing about a single dwarf fortress is that you have to deal with the inevitable migrants who will want to steal your mugs, eat your food, and sleep in your bed.

Just use a world where the dwarves got wiped out in worldgen.  You might get 1 migrant wave, but that's it.

[Beeskee]

Would DF benefit from additional coders, bug testers (moreso than just reporting bugs on the bug tracker) and etc?  Possibly, up to a certain point. "Too many cooks spoil the soup" is one expression. DF seems to be a deeply personal thing to Toady, one that he cares enough about to put in full-time hours on. If I was in his position I would be concerned about taking on additional help too.  But chances are, some parts of the code are pretty standard, things like pathfinding could probably be shared to trusted friends and improved upon that way.  Graphics code has already been shared out, and greatly improved. So he's taking steps toward that, maybe slower than we'd like but in the end it's not our decision. The most we can do is offer encouragement or discouragement.


After trying a nanofort I'm thinking about doing a hermit nanofort. Or maybe a "starting 7" nanofort.

[Organum]

Actually, there's a "challenge" that exists that has the whole point be surviving with one dwarf. It's called the hermit challenge. I haven't done it yet but I'm sure it's really cool.

[nbonaparte]

I tried this a while ago (I did use SPEED:0 to make it a little more bearable). I lost after she fell into a hole while carrying an axe instead of a pick...

[Kilo24]

Is it just me, or is this thread reeking with blind hate against, by first impression, a reasonable and polite person who is expressing his own opinion on the process of development. The critique in the first post was reasonably argumented and Makbeth himself, as allegedly (it is the internet afterall) having worked as a software tester, is to some extent familiar with the process of game development. I'm not saying I approve or support his/your ideas, but I hardly think they should be called "moaning and bitching" or something to be disgusted about. This has made me somewhat sad.

This is a sentiment I agree with.

It's also rather insulting to deliberately change the topic of a thread without the approval of the OP.  The "New Topic" button is there and costs only a few electrons to click.

Even if it is incredibly unlikely that this discussion will change Toady's mind, some people are interested in discussing it.  It's not another thread consisting of one uncapitalized sentence saying "plz multithread toady," it's a solid, informed case for something that Toady disagrees with; the bared hostility present in this thread is a rather juvenile response.

I would also like to point out the OpenGL collaboration between Baughn and Toady as showing that the solid line between one core programmer doing everything and a team of programmers doing everything is not a distinct one, and it's something that's already happened that falls within the purview of the thread.  With that, I see the claim that this thread has no purpose as being invalid.  Even if the OP is wrong, there is enough material to discuss the topic.

Personally, I think that with the advanced state of the game's intricate developments and resultant code complexity, bringing someone completely new onto the project would be prohibitively expensive to get him up to spec in understanding the code.  His brother might be someone who'd be better equipped for it, given his lengthy exposure to designing the project, but I personally can't say whether or not he'd want to. 

Singling out distinct bits of the game (like the output code with Baughn, or other interface bits, menus or tutorials) for people to help with would probably work better and retain most of Toady's control over the code - his major fear with bringing other people into it.  I'd personally favor this approach, but it does have its drawbacks as we saw when Toady halted gameplay bug-fixing a few weeks (IIRC) to integrate the new code that Baughn had created.  If he had, say 3-4 such collaborations, it might have been a few more months before the military and hospital would actually work and we could make marksdwarves that would actually shoot their crossbows.

Ultimately, it is up to Toady.  But I still respect him as someone mature enough to take criticism - hence the existence of the Suggestions forum and the "What Turns You Off About DF?" thread - and an informed opinion is always worth hearing.  Please knock off the insults, guys (mainly KrunkSplein).

[alway]

As has been stated on the site for Infinity (space MMO, 1 dude w/ a day job developing it), depending on unpaid volunteers to get code which works well with what exists only ends up with said volunteers disappearing to go do things which are more important in their lives. Contributions of ideas, models, or other non-code assets works relatively well, but with code everything must work perfectly and it requires all members of the team to know exactly how everything else works. If this doesn't happen, tons of time will end up getting wasted just making the code not explode due to lack of knowledge of one another's workings. Throw in donation money and you just muddy the waters even further (ex: I did work too, why does he get all the money?).

Or as stated earlier, nano-forts get higher fps.

Also remember, DF is in a constant state of pre-alpha testing. We are the testers.

The hermit challenge I find to be quite intriguing. The hardest parts are the initial dropoff and the long "On Break" periods in it. The dropoff must be done carefully, since when dwarves arrive they are usually at least acquainted with the other 6. So not only must you dig out and move in the supplies you will need before offing their buddies, but you must ensure their buddies die at a slow enough pace as to avoid tantrums/insanity in The Chosen One. I find digging a hole for them with doors to lock em in til they dehydrate/starve works well; after one death, you can unlock it and let the others forage for vermin to kill them all off over the course of several years. Once they are gone, you likely won't have many problems with The Chosen One, and as a bonus they may not even be affected by tragedy by the end.

[basp]

Thanks for the sane words alway. A beautiful piece of software is just like a painting or a piece of music, you cannot just slap a bunch of resources on it to get it done quicker.