Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Jordrake]

I'm not sure if anyone mentioned this in the three pages I didn't read of the topic, but here's my two cents.

The community would be what it is now if the game were easy to pick up. All of us here are relatively clever, hard working, willing to press on through incredibly hard situations and open minded. This is because to play DF you need to be all of these things. You need to be open minded just to play the game in the first place, you need to be able to press on through your first siege and countless lost forts, you need to be hard working to get anywhere in the game and need to be clever to understand it. If it wasn't for these natural obstacles out community would be the MW forums or the Halo forums, a gibbering mess of twelve year olds screaming in text speak.

You forgot modest

Screw your human concepts of modesty! We aren't bad people just because we acknowledge that we're better than the plebs. And, as a community, we are. Omegastick is right, the difficulty of being a new player acts as a filter, meaning that anyone that becomes a regular part of the community is perseverant,  smart and reasonably skilled.
If there's one thing you can say about the DF community as a whole, it's that they all play DF, and that's something.
I view the learning curve as a river full of piranha. If you make it over, you'll be welcomed into a group full of people all awesome enough to cross. Sure, you could take the piranha out, but it just wouldn't be the same.

[Makbeth]

I'm not sure if anyone mentioned this in the three pages I didn't read of the topic, but here's my two cents.

The community would be what it is now if the game were easy to pick up. All of us here are relatively clever, hard working, willing to press on through incredibly hard situations and open minded. This is because to play DF you need to be all of these things. You need to be open minded just to play the game in the first place, you need to be able to press on through your first siege and countless lost forts, you need to be hard working to get anywhere in the game and need to be clever to understand it. If it wasn't for these natural obstacles out community would be the MW forums or the Halo forums, a gibbering mess of twelve year olds screaming in text speak.

You forgot modest

Screw your human concepts of modesty! We aren't bad people just because we acknowledge that we're better than the plebs. And, as a community, we are. Omegastick is right, the difficulty of being a new player acts as a filter, meaning that anyone that becomes a regular part of the community is perseverant,  smart and reasonably skilled.
If there's one thing you can say about the DF community as a whole, it's that they all play DF, and that's something.
I view the learning curve as a river full of piranha. If you make it over, you'll be welcomed into a group full of people all awesome enough to cross. Sure, you could take the piranha out, but it just wouldn't be the same.

What's a piranha?  Isn't that what the carp eat when they can't get Urist?

[Footkerchief]

Yeah, I get funnies too. I cannot see where someone blame Toady for their own problem. Kohaku, can you kindly link to one particular post that shows it?

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=61013.msg1394269#msg1394269

Yeah, you're overreacting.

[ZebioLizard2]

Yeah, I get funnies too. I cannot see where someone blame Toady for their own problem. Kohaku, can you kindly link to one particular post that shows it?

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=61013.msg1394269#msg1394269

Yeah, you're overreacting.

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=61318.30

Found the actual post, and in the end it seemd more like Kohaku generally started some fires there.

When you come off that cross in your first post to a suggestion, yeah your going to piss someone off, even if they were friendly before. Because its rude, crude, and generally combatitive to start a post in that way.

[NW_Kohaku]

Yeah, I get funnies too. I cannot see where someone blame Toady for their own problem. Kohaku, can you kindly link to one particular post that shows it?

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=61013.msg1394269#msg1394269

Yeah, you're overreacting.

Yeah, I get funnies too. I cannot see where someone blame Toady for their own problem. Kohaku, can you kindly link to one particular post that shows it?

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=61013.msg1394269#msg1394269

Inside is:

Why does it say "*****" instead of "water"?  Both are five characters.

Nowhere in this quote I see any offense to Toady. You are sure you picked right post?

Ah, sorry, I had thought for some reason you had meant to ask where it had all started...

this was a part of it:

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=61318.msg1397738#msg1397738

The other part was in another thread, I believe in the DF Questions forum, which I cannot find anymore... it might have wound up with the entire thing being mass deleted, because even looking through the chain of posts in the personal posts page, there's a hole where those posts should be in the timeline.

Basically, in between posting that "Wait ***** means water" (which I didn't see until fishing for this other thread, and not finding it) and posting the suggestion thread, he went into the DF Discussion Forum talking about this, and I explained what aquifers were... and he went and made the suggestion, anyway.  It was the fact that I had already started explaining it to him in the first place that annoyed me so much in the first post of the suggestions thread, because he misunderstood the explanation, and went off suggesting it half-cocked.

[ZebioLizard2]

Because he needed to understand that it meant aquifer, then he realized it might be a better choice to have the interface be more specific and actually suggest it being ~Aquifer~ rather then ~~~~~?

Suggestions can be made regardless of your own personal creedo on things.

[NW_Kohaku]

So it's a flaw in the game when you don't bother to understand something?

That is the exact problem I was talking about earlier - when you don't understand the game, it must be unintuitive (because obviously, everyone thinks the way I do, and anything intuitive to me is intuitive to everyone), and therefore, the game must be changed to accomidate my one hiccup in learning the game?

[ZebioLizard2]

It's a flaw in the game to have to go out to a website online in order to actually learn any major details.

What if I had downloaded dwarf fortress one day, but I had no internet connection? There would be no forums, no wiki, no nothing except the sweat of my brow, and you wouldn't have had your *Three day Wiki learnin* to understand it either.

And I never said it was unintuitive, It's more an issue with newer players and gaining them some small ground into getting into the game.

How do you learn anything at all for this game? Oh THE WIKI, or THE FORUMS. I like many people don't have fulltime access to the internet at times, I can't suddenly head onto the wiki to learn what *Steel* requires.

I do already know all this stuff myself due to all this, but generally, I like actually thinking of newer players, rather then my own selfish desires first.

[Cruxador]

So it's a flaw in the game when you don't bother to understand something?

That is the exact problem I was talking about earlier - when you don't understand the game, it must be unintuitive (because obviously, everyone thinks the way I do, and anything intuitive to me is intuitive to everyone), and therefore, the game must be changed to accomidate my one hiccup in learning the game?

Um, what? That the hiccup occurred indicates that the game could be more accessible. A symbol is legitimately less intuitive than just using a word to the vast majority of people. The change suggested is very simple - merely edit one string. It is an entirely legitimate suggestion, and implementing it would detract nothing, while making the game easier to understand.

[NW_Kohaku]

Let me (selfishly) respond to that with a quote from someone else:

I was able to play SimFarm quite effectively known jack sheet about farming.

Without a tutorial or manual?

Without a wiki.

Manual?  Tutorial?  Wiki?  This was fsking SimFarm.  The manual was about as helpful as Dwarf Fortress's and there was no wiki.  I learned it all over the course of years.

I don't know about you, but the first thing I did when I saw DF2010 was open up the raws, and try to figure out how everything worked.  I started experimenting on everything I could measure, so that I could figure out how the rules worked.  I've essentially never stopped trying to run experiments to figure out how the game works. 

Maybe you disagree with "Losing is Fun", but "Learning is Fun" can certainly be the tagline, as well.  They're pretty much the same thing, anyway, as losing is only fun when you learn something new.

[NW_Kohaku]

So it's a flaw in the game when you don't bother to understand something?

That is the exact problem I was talking about earlier - when you don't understand the game, it must be unintuitive (because obviously, everyone thinks the way I do, and anything intuitive to me is intuitive to everyone), and therefore, the game must be changed to accomidate my one hiccup in learning the game?

Um, what? That the hiccup occurred indicates that the game could be more accessible. A symbol is legitimately less intuitive than just using a word to the vast majority of people. The change suggested is very simple - merely edit one string. It is an entirely legitimate suggestion, and implementing it would detract nothing, while making the game easier to understand.

It's not that it was difficult to understand - it's that he didn't try to understand before he demanded it changed.  He simply ran off half-cocked trying to change something without bothering to understand before he wanted it changed.  He didn't even know what it was he was asking for.  THAT'S why I was upset. 

Before you go declaring something is broken, you have to know how it should work in the first place.

[ZebioLizard2]

So it's a flaw in the game when you don't bother to understand something?

That is the exact problem I was talking about earlier - when you don't understand the game, it must be unintuitive (because obviously, everyone thinks the way I do, and anything intuitive to me is intuitive to everyone), and therefore, the game must be changed to accomidate my one hiccup in learning the game?

Um, what? That the hiccup occurred indicates that the game could be more accessible. A symbol is legitimately less intuitive than just using a word to the vast majority of people. The change suggested is very simple - merely edit one string. It is an entirely legitimate suggestion, and implementing it would detract nothing, while making the game easier to understand.

It's not that it was difficult to understand - it's that he didn't try to understand before he demanded it changed.  He simply ran off half-cocked trying to change something without bothering to understand before he wanted it changed.  He didn't even know what it was he was asking for.  THAT'S why I was upset. 

Before you go declaring something is broken, you have to know how it should work in the first place.

And later he amended it once he learned, which made it a better suggestion. "Learning is Fun" hm?

Of course this topic went way off topic in general..

Let me (selfishly) respond to that with a quote from someone else:

I was able to play SimFarm quite effectively known jack sheet about farming.

Without a tutorial or manual?

Without a wiki.

Manual?  Tutorial?  Wiki?  This was fsking SimFarm.  The manual was about as helpful as Dwarf Fortress's and there was no wiki.  I learned it all over the course of years.

I don't know about you, but the first thing I did when I saw DF2010 was open up the raws, and try to figure out how everything worked.  I started experimenting on everything I could measure, so that I could figure out how the rules worked.  I've essentially never stopped trying to run experiments to figure out how the game works. 

Maybe you disagree with "Losing is Fun", but "Learning is Fun" can certainly be the tagline, as well.  They're pretty much the same thing, anyway, as losing is only fun when you learn something new.

SimFarm had 7 tutorials ingame, with a 140 PAGE MANUAL that explained various things, I learned from reading them how to play that game.

Sim earth however..Would have been a better example, that thing had Jack for examples, but it wasn't actually meant to be a game, more of an actual life simulator. So its not even related to this by context.

[NW_Kohaku]

And later he amended it once he learned, which made it a better suggestion. "Learning is Fun" hm?

If people, after knowing how the game works, want to keep pushing that, then they can go ahead.

SimFarm had 7 tutorials ingame, with a 140 PAGE MANUAL that explained various things, I learned from reading them how to play that game.

Sim earth however..Would have been a better example, that thing had Jack for examples, but it wasn't actually meant to be a game, more of an actual life simulator. So its not even related to this by context.

Well, I can't speak to SimFarm, that was just what I was quotting. 

I do remember SimEarth, though.  I bought the Super Nintendo version when I was fairly young, and had absolutely no idea what I was doing.  (But managed to blunder my way towards the game's objectives by trial-and-error, anyway.)  It was only when I took some middle/highschool biology classes years later that I could start to understand why I had to do what I had done.

[Grimlocke]

It's a flaw in the game to have to go out to a website online in order to actually learn any major details.

What if I had downloaded dwarf fortress one day, but I had no internet connection? There would be no forums, no wiki, no nothing except the sweat of my brow, and you wouldn't have had your *Three day Wiki learnin* to understand it either.

Am I the only seeing a problem with your logic here?

And I never said it was unintuitive, It's more an issue with newer players and gaining them some small ground into getting into the game.

How do you learn anything at all for this game? Oh THE WIKI, or THE FORUMS. I like many people don't have fulltime access to the internet at times, I can't suddenly head onto the wiki to learn what *Steel* requires.

I do already know all this stuff myself due to all this, but generally, I like actually thinking of newer players, rather then my own selfish desires first.

Silly comment aside and about the post as a whole, you dedicated a whole post to pointing out a flaw in an unfinished game and sounding offended about it. Silly. Like loudly complaining about a half-built house not having quite as much wallpaper as you like.

Realy now, its nowhere near finished and they got better things to do then fix your minor complaint. Its going to be there evntualy, but if you plan on using it as it is now, expect some discomfort.

[ZebioLizard2]

Of course..Generally everything could be solved by an interface update, but that won't come till later.

Generally while I understand your complexity issues, the fact of the matter is that your rather "Rude" when trying to push a point, a bit pushy overall when it comes to things, prone to attacking posters as well as other things.

If you push yourself onto people like that, you generally come off as thoughtless to everything but your own idea's, and it makes people want to be combative with you since your personally attacking them, and spitting on their idea's without really much care.

I want complexity within DF too, I want things harder and hard to do, but I want them "Explained" within the context as well. So that new people can learn and grow within the forum and community as well. And if enough people are accidentally pushed away, toady loses income, has to get a job, and updates for DF begin to dwindle.

Am I the only seeing a problem with your logic here?

You've never downloaded something to play later on? Or lived in an area where the internet connection drops faster then a sudden gunshot?

Silly comment aside and about the post as a whole, you dedicated a whole post to pointing out a flaw in an unfinished game and sounding offended about it. Silly. Like loudly complaining about a half-built house not having quite as much wallpaper as you like.

Realy now, its nowhere near finished and they got better things to do then fix your minor complaint. Its going to be there evntualy, but if you plan on using it as it is now, expect some discomfort

Rude, argumentative, and with a bit spiteful posting. Exactly what this post is rather about.

Since the suggestion was made for a future version in mind, it's more along the lines of "Please, add this to the framework later on"

Since y'know, it's a Suggestion?