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[Brotato]

how would the game even know that you made a megaprogect? especially when that can be anything from a giant pyramid to a giant hollow statue of dwarf with magma eyes or a city of skyscrapers built in a giant underground cavern. A megaprogect is whatever you want it be.

[Demicus]

I think some megaprojects would increase fortress wealth anyway. I think constructed walls are worth more than loose stone.

[GreatWyrmGold]

how would the game even know that you made a megaprogect? especially when that can be anything from a giant pyramid to a giant hollow statue of dwarf with magma eyes or a city of skyscrapers built in a giant underground cavern. A megaprogect is whatever you want it be.

Which is why, as cool as it would be, it's unlikely to happen (unless you want knock-offs making a dozen dumb, complicated, and wasteful things to try and qualify for the megaproject "bonus").

I think some megaprojects would increase fortress wealth anyway. I think constructed walls are worth more than loose stone.

I mean more so; I just don't know how.

[zwei]

I suppose it could be "small" embark related things: extra budget, raising assignable skill cap a bit, discount on some items, extra dwarf (baby/child), more free beasts on burden ...

Stuff that is bound to region, just something extra for reused worlds with succesfull forts that does not really affect anything.

Of course, it is also a bit pointless.

[Demonsul]

I prefer the idea of non-bonus rewards. The mounting heads of your foes on wooden spears to display idea was pretty awesome, and it's not as 'artificial' as receiving an achievement or random reward item from nowhere. Trophy cases to display your artifacts would be the reward for a successful strange mood, and the reward for a megaproject is pretty obvious; pride in the thing you built. If you don't have any pride in it, it evidently wasn't a good enough megaproject, after all.

[NW_Kohaku]

Oh, and thinking about it, while the initial reaction to this suggestion was pretty blunt about not supporting the idea, I think that maybe you should look up what Extra Credits says on Skinner Boxes for a better-explained reason why people find a "Player Reward" structure based upon doing something they otherwise wouldn't do or find fun in doing to gain achievements might be a bad idea.

[Max White]

The day somebody important starts watching Extra credit will be an amazing day for gaming...

[MiniMacker]

I could see progression achievements. Like getting your first baron or hitting a certain dorf population.

[Particleman]

Nnnnnnnnnnnno. No, no, no no no.

Dear god no. The emptyness of directed goals is game killing. Suddenly you are no longer trying to harvest mermaids because you can, your doing it untill you get a little 'Achivment unlocked' message.

The Xbox achivments are without question the worst feature of that system.

Put it better than I could.

[harborpirate]

Lots of immediate no responses, but one thing to consider:
There are two major reasons that I commonly see why people don't want to try DF; lack of graphics and the fact that the game does not provide any intrinsic goals for the player to strive for.
I think at this point the player population of DF is made up of an overwhelming percentage of internally motivated players, and those that lose interest quickly or never have any interest have a hard time with a game that provides no win state or even a set of goals for the player to reach.

[Max White]

I think that 'survive for the first three years' makes for a great goal fo a new player, especialy if they do not yet understand the effectivness of walling ones self in, and don't know about small things like say, 'Don't trade wood with elves!'

[NW_Kohaku]

There are two major reasons that I commonly see why people don't want to try DF; <snip> the fact that the game does not provide any intrinsic goals for the player to strive for.

Umm... are you sure, because I see that as one of the selling points of these sorts of games. 

The Sims is making more money than God, and it doesn't really have any sort of goal other than "here's your peoples and an empty lot, go have fun".

The reason people don't play this game is that it isn't accessable.  It's not just given a very difficult to learn interface, it's got no tutorial as part of the game itself (yes, there's fan-made ones, but you have to go looking for those), and it overloads new players with information they have no idea how to sort.

Since I'm already linking Extra Credits, I might as well link this, as well: Why there are so many easy games. 

We don't need the game dumbed down, and we don't need Skinner boxes or empty rewards, we just need the game's elements presented to the player in a manner where they can learn the individual components of the game before being asked to perform all of them at once.

[Max White]

The day somebody important starts watching Extra credit will be an amazing day for gaming...

[harborpirate]

There are two major reasons that I commonly see why people don't want to try DF; <snip> the fact that the game does not provide any intrinsic goals for the player to strive for.

Umm... are you sure, because I see that as one of the selling points of these sorts of games. 

Yes, I'm sure. Its something I've heard quite a number of times now. Some people don't like to set their own goals, they either want the game to provide them with some kind of goal framework to start from or to provide some kind of conditions upon which they can "win".

The fact that DF is a sandbox game IS a selling point for it, no question. But you have to add "for a certain kind of gamer" to that to really be accurate. Some people have no idea what to do when faced with a pure sandbox game.

Look, I don't want the game "dumbed down". I'm not even necessarily arguing in favor of adding any sort of goals to the game. I'm just throwing the apparently CRAZY idea out there that maybe we shouldn't dismiss it out-of-hand.

There are a number of players out there who refuse to even try DF simply because the game doesn't offer them a way to win or even know if they're doing well. You may not identify with them or understand them at all, but trust me, they exist.

I think cutting off the conversation with "No I hate this", instead of discussing ways in which some reasonable goals for players that want them is counterproductive. Perhaps we can find ways in which goals could be established within the game without intruding on its sandbox nature, and maybe even conjecture what some of those goals should be. Those seem like they might be useful things to throw around if we want DF to continue to reach a wider audience.

[NW_Kohaku]

I think part of the problem with that is that you're trying to literally make it a game for everyone, which just won't happen.  This game is already so many different things for so many different people that it's fairly unweildy to keep the playerbase together as it is.  (Look at the arguments between whether the game should go towards steampunk or magical dwarves. Or graphics vs. ascii.  Or bearded females vs. non-bearded females.)

The adventurer mode and the fortress mode are pretty separate entities which draw separate people to play it, and adventurer is only finally getting some much-needed attention recently.  (And I still won't play it until there's more to do besides killing things.)

In order to make the game a great game for a decent-sized chunk of the population, you have to stick to some sort of formula that really will bring people in, and make that portion be the best it can be.  If you try to make a game a Street Fighter/Final Fantasy/X-Wing Vs. Tie Fighter/X-Com/Thief/Halo all at the same time, you're never going to be able to do anything well for trying to do everything at once.

Now, to get back to why "directed goals" are a bad idea... Trophy/Achievement unlocks are things which just encourage players to do things they don't like simply for the measely reward of an icon being put in color in a menu that only they will ever care about.  Almost nobody actually goes for the platinum trophy, because nobody will stick with a game long enough to get it.  They want to play the game long enough to have fun, then move on when they're sick of it.

If the only way you can think of to entice a player to play Dwarf Fortress is to give him a sticker for playing, then he's probably not going to enjoy Dwarf Fortress very much, since it will just be a chore standing between him and what he really wants, a sticker, not having fun playing a game. 

If you want to have "directed goals", then perhaps you should be trying to think about ways to create alternate game modes, or have some sort of directed goal that could be put into the game itself that wouldn't impair the sandbox lover's fun.  Toady is already talking about making fortresses that have specific missions directing them from the start.  That's a directed goal that is rolled up in gameplay. 

Alternately, you could try getting in some tutorial mode, since that would make this whole argument I've been making go along one continuous, cohesive narrative, and setting clearing some set, arbitrary tasks that incrimentally teach the player certain skills necessary for building and maintaining a fortress.

Beyond that, really, fuck 'em.  You can't ask a game about simulating aerial dogfights to have a turn-based mode so that it appeals to a broader audience because not everyone likes airplanes.  You play a game about dogfighting in airplanes because you like simulated airplane dogfights.  If you don't like airplanes, then you just walk past that game in the aisle, and there's really no problem with that.  There's enough games out in the market that DF doesn't have to be every game at once.