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[Dariush]

I agree with OP. New players may build one, two, maybe five forts before they stumble into HFS, while ALL players will be constantly harassed by need to spoiler all mention of demons. Also, the knowledge that this spoiler is tied with adamantine is SPOILER IN ITSELF, thus seeing that article about adamantine in dfwiki is marked as spoiler will spoiler the newbie by itself. I read about demons on the wiki before I uncovered HFS and was rather happy that I didn't risk digging into it and screwing up my best fort, which for some people new to DF may lead to ragequit. DF is not a multi-thousand-page long piece of epic fantasy where learning that main hero dies in the end will f*ck the whole experience up - the demons are as integral part of DF as the list of hotkeys, and it's impossible to fully enjoy the game without knowing about it's deeper secrets.

[Vaftrudner]

I agree with OP. New players may build one, two, maybe five forts before they stumble into HFS, while ALL players will be constantly harassed by need to spoiler all mention of demons. Also, the knowledge that this spoiler is tied with adamantine is SPOILER IN ITSELF, thus seeing that article about adamantine in dfwiki is marked as spoiler will spoiler the newbie by itself. I read about demons on the wiki before I uncovered HFS and was rather happy that I didn't risk digging into it and screwing up my best fort, which for some people new to DF may lead to ragequit. DF is not a multi-thousand-page long piece of epic fantasy where learning that main hero dies in the end will f*ck the whole experience up - the demons are as integral part of DF as the list of hotkeys, and it's impossible to fully enjoy the game without knowing about it's deeper secrets.

But you're just projecting your own tastes on other players. One can also argue that losing is an integral part of DF, which I would agree with. But it's subjective, and to keep it subjective one has to give new players a choice. You don't want your fort to crumble - fair enough, you read the spoilers to know what could cause it. I don't mind - I don't read them. That's not a valid reason for taking away spoilers. And yes, knowing that adamantine is tied to a spoiler is a spoiler in itself, but that's no reason to spoil even more. Any player who knows about the wiki is likely to look up adamantine when they come across it, that can't be avoided. But minimizing the easily accessible information gives people like me a more fun experience. To people like me, exploring and finding stuff on our own is fully enjoying the game, while reading about stuff before we experience them ourselves is just a disappointment. And finally, I just can't grasp how it's a harassment to replace the word "demon" with "HFS".

[Rose]

I just think calling them clowns makes them more terrifying.

[Moonshine Fox]

I hung out on the forums before I breached the HFS, and I managed to do it unspoiled only last year. It was one of the most awesome things that has happened to me in computer games. When I struck adamantine, I looked it up on the wiki, and it was great because it told me the properties of adamantine and then had a big spoiler alert, so I knew something odd was likely to happen but not what. New players come all the time, and it's only fair to give them a shot at that experience. It's not like it takes any effort to write SPOILER instead of DEMONS.

THIS. Best post.

[LemonFrosted]

@Vaftrudner - then everything is a potential spoiler, from your first caravan to caverns, to magma, to moods, artifacts, and, well, everything.

My point is that it's only a "spoiler" because some people want it to be SUPAR SEKRET because, well, frankly they place an inordinate value on shock. The status of demons as "spoiler material" is essentially arbitrary. It's no more or less shocking, really, than your first siege and the moment of mass anticipation is gone. That moment was back in March when everyone who was already familiar with 40d was salivating over finding all the new little things in the new version.

At this point a newcomer is only going to know something is a spoiler because other people are telling them they're supposed to think it's a spoiler. It's not a book, the reveal doesn't have self-evident weight in the same way the killer's identity does, and in the flow of the game it's just as "there" as ambushes and irritable wildlife. I'm not saying the spoilering was and always is bad, but I think the moment is kinda long gone now that there's multiple projects per day working on colonizing hell. Seriously, some days the front page just looks like *spoiler* project *spoiler* *spoiler.*

And, at the end of the day, even knowing there's demons down there still isn't going to do much to dampen the pants-wetting terror from the dialogue box that pops up because the presentation is what makes it so good, not the raw surprise.

[Dariush]

@Vaftrudner - then everything is a potential spoiler, from your first caravan to caverns, to magma, to moods, artifacts, and, well, everything.

My point is that it's only a "spoiler" because some people want it to be SUPAR SEKRET because, well, frankly they place an inordinate value on shock. The status of demons as "spoiler material" is essentially arbitrary. It's no more or less shocking, really, than your first siege and the moment of mass anticipation is gone. That moment was back in March when everyone who was already familiar with 40d was salivating over finding all the new little things in the new version.

At this point a newcomer is only going to know something is a spoiler because other people are telling them they're supposed to think it's a spoiler. It's not a book, the reveal doesn't have self-evident weight in the same way the killer's identity does, and in the flow of the game it's just as "there" as ambushes and irritable wildlife. I'm not saying the spoilering was and always is bad, but I think the moment is kinda long gone now that there's multiple projects per day working on colonizing hell. Seriously, some days the front page just looks like *spoiler* project *spoiler* *spoiler.*

And, at the end of the day, even knowing there's demons down there still isn't going to do much to dampen the pants-wetting terror from the dialogue box that pops up because the presentation is what makes it so good, not the raw surprise.

So, you basically rephrased what I said. Let's just hope that other people will understand that as well...

[Xzalander]

And, at the end of the day, even knowing there's demons down there still isn't going to do much to dampen the pants-wetting terror from the dialogue box that pops up because the presentation is what makes it so good, not the raw surprise.

End of.

[They Got Leader]

Honestly, I find that the whole spoilers thing was more tradition than anything. When I first started playing DF, I dodged the spoilers section until I hit adamantine and proceeded to have my fort be molested by !!clowns!!. Its almost like a right of passage. You survived this far, you've done this well, you have been hopelessly murdered by demons, welcome to the club.

[Vaftrudner]

@Vaftrudner - then everything is a potential spoiler, from your first caravan to caverns, to magma, to moods, artifacts, and, well, everything.

My point is that it's only a "spoiler" because some people want it to be SUPAR SEKRET because, well, frankly they place an inordinate value on shock. The status of demons as "spoiler material" is essentially arbitrary. It's no more or less shocking, really, than your first siege and the moment of mass anticipation is gone. That moment was back in March when everyone who was already familiar with 40d was salivating over finding all the new little things in the new version.

At this point a newcomer is only going to know something is a spoiler because other people are telling them they're supposed to think it's a spoiler. It's not a book, the reveal doesn't have self-evident weight in the same way the killer's identity does, and in the flow of the game it's just as "there" as ambushes and irritable wildlife. I'm not saying the spoilering was and always is bad, but I think the moment is kinda long gone now that there's multiple projects per day working on colonizing hell. Seriously, some days the front page just looks like *spoiler* project *spoiler* *spoiler.*

And, at the end of the day, even knowing there's demons down there still isn't going to do much to dampen the pants-wetting terror from the dialogue box that pops up because the presentation is what makes it so good, not the raw surprise.

I agree that HFS has changed now that they're so accessible, but to me, there's still a major difference. Caravans, sieges and moods are integral parts of the game, caverns are almost inevitable on your first embark and magma is quite frankly too useful to not be discussed with newbies. The HFS however fill no purpose, it's an isolated part of the game that does not enhance anything outside it.

Shock value is not useless, and there's a world of difference between discoveries. I didn't know about sieges until I had my first one, I thought that there were just ambushes. It was a great surprise, but nothing compared to when the first demons started pouring out. My mouth was hanging open, few games have ever had that effect on me. Discovering hell when I started playing DF 2010 in July was an enormous surprise to me too, even though I knew that there were demons. Just the awesomeness of a hell below made everything pale in comparison, and I'm glad that I didn't read the spoilers about the new DF version before I started playing. The presentation is good, but the raw surprise added to it immensely for me. And I'm not unique. There are many people who like to be shocked and surprised.

Of course it's arbitrary to say that hell is the greatest surprise in DF and one that shouldn't be revealed, but its isolation from other game features, sheer magnitude and its shock value to the people who enjoy it seem like good enough arguments to me. One could of course claim that people who want to be surprised should stay away from the forums and the wiki, but this game is so complex that they are necessary for a new player. These are the reasons to keep the SPOILERs to me. I can't say that tradition is enough, people who care about tradition can keep it up, but I'm more interested in keeping surprises for those who may enjoy them, even if they are few and rare. But I'm curious what the reason would be for taking the spoiler warnings away. We who know what they mean understand what the thread is about, and with a spoiler warning in the title I think it's fair to discuss freely in the thread, so essentially it's just a few words in the title that we understand anyway.

[Darkmere]

I was afraid I was the only person who got annoyed by it. Frankly, I would have been very angry had I gotten into the game and popped open the clown can without foreknowledge and seen my whole fort get splattered for lulz. Every other challenge the game throws at you can be overcome with a bit of planning and dwarven ingenuity, but out-engineering the endgame and giving yourself a way to stave tantrum spirals afterwards goes above and beyond the norm, to the point that I would have seen it as a rocks-fall-you-die vindictiveness if I hadn't known.

Also, while some people might enjoy the surprise, there are others who may be off-put by the community attitude of trying to keep a massive secret from the new guy that's still working out the finer points of machinery or irrigation.

That said, I think the wiki attitude is fine, let people know they are ruining a surprise and choose to carry on or not. As others have stated, Adamantine works so differently from everything else newbies will end up looking at the wiki article anyway, so it's a bit self-defeating, but the option is still there.

[Vaftrudner]

Yeah, like I implied, knowing that there's something massive connected to adamantine is not the same thing as knowing that there's a hell below, it's just knowing that there is something left to discover which can be exhilarating in itself. If you're the kind of person who don't want your fort to crumble, you're probably going to read what it is just to be sure. If you're not, you should have the option to save the surprise. My fort got completely crushed the first time I reached HFS, but I was so awestruck I just loved it.

[Moonshine Fox]

I was afraid I was the only person who got annoyed by it. Frankly, I would have been very angry had I gotten into the game and popped open the clown can without foreknowledge and seen my whole fort get splattered for lulz. Every other challenge the game throws at you can be overcome with a bit of planning and dwarven ingenuity, but out-engineering the endgame and giving yourself a way to stave tantrum spirals afterwards goes above and beyond the norm, to the point that I would have seen it as a rocks-fall-you-die vindictiveness if I hadn't known.

Also, while some people might enjoy the surprise, there are others who may be off-put by the community attitude of trying to keep a massive secret from the new guy that's still working out the finer points of machinery or irrigation.

That said, I think the wiki attitude is fine, let people know they are ruining a surprise and choose to carry on or not. As others have stated, Adamantine works so differently from everything else newbies will end up looking at the wiki article anyway, so it's a bit self-defeating, but the option is still there.

Then again...that's why it's called "Spoilers". Noone is keeping anything from the new guy. If he wants to read, he can read.

[lanceleoghauni]

I'd always imagined it as a sort of running gag. It's kind of like spoilering that

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Jesus Dies in the bible.

which has already been mentioned.

I find it amusing, and the terms are a lot of fun.

[MaDeR Levap]

I think that custom of masking adamantine and demons from Hell as "bluemetal" (lately popular variant, before was "clownite") and "clowns"/"clown car" (old meme, in fact almost exclusively used aside from bland "HFS") is just for fun, not for any serious try to hide spoilers. Also lately I seen some methods from SCP Foundation for (pseudo)censoring data.

And for these retardedfunny memes about clowns in context of DF, YMMV.

[Urist Imiknorris]

I am personally fond of [DATA EXPUNGED].