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[jei]

All still unfixed. There are dozens of other significant bugs which Toady apparently thinks are less important than adding new features to the game. To name a few:

* Foreign units lose their position when they leave the map, resulting in a new liaison every year and Human law-givers only visiting your fortress once in their entire life
* Artifacts made from bone have no decorations at all
* Dwarves are never given crutches when they need them, leaving them in the hospital forever
* The Outpost Liaison won't appoint (or promote) a baron unless the entire meeting is delayed until the caravan has left the map
* There are no immigrant nobles - dungeon master, tax collector, and hammerer never show up and cannot be appointed.
* Elves don't have diplomats, so they can't impose tree cutting quotas (they were only able to do so in 0.31.12 and earlier due to another bug which has since been fixed)
* Some military data seemingly is not initialized, so saving one fort and loading another can result in crashes or bogus squads/orders
* Dwarves in surgery on a table are treated as requiring rescue
* Glass has uninitialized sharpness, making it useless for trap weapons
* Human and dwarven merchants never bring wagons
* Dwarves with worn out clothes will claim new clothes but will never actually put them on
* Magma heats up creatures way too slowly, often causing them to bleed to death or drown instead of burning up

I agree, why can't Toady fix what is there before moving on? I would MUCH prefer bug fixes to new features. Even mediocre cooks know to tidy up as you go along...

I second that. Not fixing outstanding bugs is going to make people stop testing and reporting them altogether.

Maybe they'll play the buggy game, but what use is reporting bugs to them now?

Now everyone needs to go over 16 versions' worth of bugs to see if they should report the one that isn't fixed yet that they find, just to see if it has been reported yet. And still, it's not going to get fixed even if they report it, based on all the previous versions' bugs not being fixed.

I know I'm not bothering to report a single bug anymore.

IMHO, a lot of the bugs and problems look to me like they're induced due to sleep deprivation while programming without taking a good long break from it. It also looks like 2 old bugs reappear for every one that is fixed, which to me talks of bad programming, overworking and stress. Fresh insight would be a good thing for the project, whether hired consultancy help or voluntary work.

I also agree with the open source project. MySQL is a good example of open source commercial success. No reason why DF couldn't be one too.

[xellas84]

I'd like to see Toady try to recruit some more help from skilled coders, but at this point I could definitely understand if he doesn't trust ANYONE near his code, at least not without a 20 page legally binding contract.

And Jei, I've been on the forums for less than 2 weeks and I've already got you pegged as an incessant complainer.  They've fixed the BIGGEST thing I've seen you complaining about, namely the dwarfs endlessly duplicating blood splatters.  Heck, I've got it set up now so that my dwarves have almost no blood on them anymore because the fortress forces them to bathe and all the areas around it are paved or smoothed.  But instead of saying that Toady did something good with that, you are now asking him to give away his bread and butter for free to whoever wants to rip it off.   We've already seen what will happen from the Kazaad incident.  Open sourcing something you intend to make money off of someday is a bad idea, because GPL or not, people will steal your ideas and chunks of your code either way. 

All said, I'd prefer bugfixes to new features, but I'm not so arrogant as to demand he hand over his code cause it isn't being done fast enough.

[doctorspoof]

I'd like to see Toady try to recruit some more help from skilled coders, but at this point I could definitely understand if he doesn't trust ANYONE near his code, at least not without a 20 page legally binding contract.

And Jei, I've been on the forums for less than 2 weeks and I've already got you pegged as an incessant complainer.  They've fixed the BIGGEST thing I've seen you complaining about, namely the dwarfs endlessly duplicating blood splatters.  Heck, I've got it set up now so that my dwarves have almost no blood on them anymore because the fortress forces them to bathe and all the areas around it are paved or smoothed.  But instead of saying that Toady did something good with that, you are now asking him to give away his bread and butter for free to whoever wants to rip it off.   We've already seen what will happen from the Kazaad incident.  Open sourcing something you intend to make money off of someday is a bad idea, because GPL or not, people will steal your ideas and chunks of your code either way. 

All said, I'd prefer bugfixes to new features, but I'm not so arrogant as to demand he hand over his code cause it isn't being done fast enough.

+1 to you good sir.
DF is Toady's thing, let him do what he wants with it.
And be grateful that he's letting you play such an amazing game for free.

[BigJake]

Aye, well said.

[Falc]

While I certainly agree that the code is currently Toady's to do with as he pleases, I do honestly believe that an open source approach would grant better results, faster.

Look at all the tools people have been creating, for free, in their own time, to interact with DF in different ways and to fix the issues they found with the game. Imagine what we could have if the guy behind Stonesense and Toady would be able to work together on a single code base...

The most difficult obstacle for an open-source project to overcome, the one thing that makes or breaks success, is a community. And DF already has one! And a pretty good and tight one at that, because we're all here because we like DF and that's not such an easy thing to do, all things considered. So we have quite a bit of an 'in-crowd' thing going.

Sure, small outlying elements may try to 'steal' the code. Good luck to them, survival rate for forks is what, 1 in a thousand? After all, such a fork can only survive if it creates its own community, but for that it has to fish in the exact same pool as its parent and all the fish in there will already know who's the original and who's the wannabe. Khazad hasn't seen any development in 235 days now, looks dead to me.

And you don't even have to open source everything. Toady could very well keep the geological engine separate and closed source. Heck, that sounds to me like the sort of software a savvy developper could make money with, licensing it to just a handful of larger companies. The market for specialised software is very different than the one populated by whiny gamer fanbois.

[Sowelu]

Open source games are terrible.

terrible.

[KaguroDraven]

How did a Topic about bugs turn into a bunch of people screaming for open source? In just 4 pages?

[Lord Darkstar]

It's really simple.  Toady doesn't want to.  Since it's his game, that's the end of the argument.  I really don't understand why this keeps getting brought up.

People confuse "Freeware" for "Open source freeware" and don't understand the difference. I blame the open source evangelists for that, since most claim everything would be better if it was open sourced. 99 out of 100 times, it is the exact opposite.

Open source games suck so bad because open source is free for any hack to mess with. Games need to conform to a vision. Otherwise they turn into tasteless paste.

Open source TOOLS work because the TOOL will have an implied vision--- "Do this job and any needed related tasks". Whether the tool is graphics image editor, or a database. There's a basic design vision that doesn't go away. But game? How fast would an open source DF be forked? For instance--- Elven forests homes. Then there's the adventure mode. How fast would it be for DF fans and roguelike community to grab a few different open source roguelikes and just toss them into the code base? The DF community would SHATTER due to the all the incompatibilities and forking and people pursue a flavor they prefer.

Odds are, 90% or more of the fan donations to Toady would stop. He'd have to stop coding full time on DF, and go get a real job. And DF would then die. Who is going to pay Toady to install DF flavor X to install the game on their box? Who is going to pay Toady for support on DF flavor X for the months they play it? Who is going to pay Toady to teach them how to use/play DF flavor X? Most open source companies make their money off support contracts, installation, and teaching. Please pay attention to the money side. Large companies like Oracle provide open source products to get you using their stuff, and then they can persuade you to upgrade to their larger, commercial products to meet your needs. Large companies like IBM do open source to provide the base level of services that their commercial products RUN ON. Exactly where in the proven business models for open source would Toady and DF fall? None of them. So how is Toady going to keep working on DF if it is open sourced? Is he going to BSD it and allow people to play for free and see the source, but if they want to make changes or even their own mod branch, they have to pay him? I don't see the modders out there being behind THAT effort--- and DF isn't big enough to support modders in that fashion (ie, they pay a license, and they then sell their mods to get the money back from licensing DF) at this time.

It is one thing to beg for Toady to add a few bug killers to his team. And he has a TEAM--- as he has his brother, the OpenGL people, and several of the tool makers for DF, as he works with them, directly in the case of DFHack library, or indirectly. So this isn't a one-man band that has the heart of a great open-source tool. It is a unpaid game company living off the charity of its fans, with a great community of fans and tool makers surrounding it.

[Ubiq]

The open source argument is one that I'm staying away from. Far as the bugs go, well, most of them aren't a critical issue, but it seems to be taking one step back for each step forward to keep adding new features when several of the old ones either don't work at all (crystal glass goods are one example) or require a work-around. The Noble situation is a particular nuisance since your Expedition Leader deciding to take a break to go eat or drink can easily lead to your entire fort being pushed back an entire year or more.

[xellas84]

The open source argument is one that I'm staying away from. Far as the bugs go, well, most of them aren't a critical issue, but it seems to be taking one step back for each step forward to keep adding new features when several of the old ones either don't work at all (crystal glass goods are one example) or require a work-around. The Noble situation is a particular nuisance since your Expedition Leader deciding to take a break to go eat or drink can easily lead to your entire fort being pushed back an entire year or more.

Quite frankly, eat/drink/onbreak aren't bugs.  Those are intended, in order to cultivate the feel that this isn't SimCity.  You can't just rightclick Urist McLeader and tell him "I don't care how hungry you are, DO YOUR JOB" and expect him to comply, because you aren't in direct control of the dwarves.  Which is sort of the point, and half the fun (and Fun) of DF.

[Lord Darkstar]

The open source argument is one that I'm staying away from. Far as the bugs go, well, most of them aren't a critical issue, but it seems to be taking one step back for each step forward to keep adding new features when several of the old ones either don't work at all (crystal glass goods are one example) or require a work-around. The Noble situation is a particular nuisance since your Expedition Leader deciding to take a break to go eat or drink can easily lead to your entire fort being pushed back an entire year or more.

You mean, like how soap was useless until Healthcare was put into the game? Or how we couldn't milk most livestock that is used for milk? Yeah, crystal glass goods will be welcome whenever Toady gets around to it. Other people would use different approaches, but I see how much progress Toady is making in his life's work project, and when I don't see visable changes, I understand that "under the hood changes" are going on.

I don't see how your Expedition Leader taking a break to eat, drink or sleep would ever push you back a year. Unless he's also your broker and you wanted/needed to trade before the merchants leave. That is the ONLY place that breaks/interruptions will consistantly hurt you. Which is why most brokers have no other task, and sometimes you have to either swap brokers or allow anyone to trade. Oddly enough, you will still have the price info even if the "anyone" doesn't have appraisal skill, if the broker with such a skilled showed up to trade at any point or other conditions have been met enabling you to do a full trade.

[Scaraban]

...what a thread...

[xellas84]

...what a thread...

... says the useful contributor...


Back on topic, I see the 'stare into space with a bucket' problem still isn't fixed, but it's easy enough to get around provided you peek into your hospital once every, oh, say 1 month?  The ones I'm eager to see are a bit smarter management of the stone list (Exponential increases in stones do NOT play nicely with the memory) and an improvement on pathfinding, as I like playing with 200 dorfs at something larger than single digit framerates.

Still, good to see the 'endless dorf blood tracking' problem has been squashed, as that was a popular gripe point.

[Darkmere]

The mayor getting interruption is referencing the bug that you must forcibly delay meeting with trade liasons or you'll never get a baron. It's easier to just lock the mayor up with food and booze stocks in his quarters, then open the door after traders leave, but that still amounts to having to play around something that worked before and doesn't now.

OT: I think mild grumblings are to be expected on occasion, especially with a project of this scope and nature. Demanding someone yield up years of work because (any individual player) isn't satisfied is kinda silly though. Go count how many open-source games are finished and workable. How many of those have the depth of DF?

[xellas84]

The mayor getting interruption is referencing the bug that you must forcibly delay meeting with trade liasons or you'll never get a baron. It's easier to just lock the mayor up with food and booze stocks in his quarters, then open the door after traders leave, but that still amounts to having to play around something that worked before and doesn't now.

OT: I think mild grumblings are to be expected on occasion, especially with a project of this scope and nature. Demanding someone yield up years of work because (any individual player) isn't satisfied is kinda silly though. Go count how many open-source games are finished and workable. How many of those have the depth of DF?

Ahh, my apologies for the earlier snark then, it was misunderstood.

As for your point... I agree that's a weird glitch, but if I had to pick, I'd rather get Dungeon Masters fixed so that they arrive again.

Toady has put together something astounding here, but it's definitely not without flaws.  I'd say he needs to use some of the donation money to hire some bug fixers (Along with a small sum to get a lawyer to write a nice, airtight contract up).  That way the bugfixers can work on the bugs and he can continue his creative ambitions.