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[Max White]

Nah, we only rabidly defend DF.

A zealot is us!

[Tilla]

Here is a little thing that has been pointed out to me on the blog: http://sourceforge.net/projects/manicdigger/. I wonder what your opinion is about that project. I must confess that my first instinct would be to say that it is a Minecraft clone. Screenshots certainly point to the same kind of game, even the graphical style is similar. And of course the description of the project. I did not try it or read anything about it so I won't express an actual opinion until I look into it further.

The main reason I don't have a problem with it is that we know where they stand already on license: it's open source, public domain code and already does some things more effectively than MC. You still haven't decided on what manner of release (if any!) for your code which is your call, but I thought I'd point out that difference.
 
FortressCraft makes me RAEG though:  http://www.destructoid.com/xbox-live-indie-fortresscraft-looks-familiar-194871.phtml

[GTM]

Minecraft clones are probably fair game- Notch already made his millions and he seems ready to move on to the next product while continuing to monetize on small MC updates until the revenue stream dries up.  His copycats should probably be ashamed of themselves for just how little their games deviate from the original, but that's more worthy of pity than ire.

DF clones strike a nerve with me because I've always thought that X% of the donations come from people who are genuinely interested in how the whole DF project turns out and Y% are just in it for fortress mode as-is (but with FPS/interface updates).  DF clones threaten to steal that Y%.  Not knowing the numbers, it's impossible to know what impact that would have, but I have a knee-jerk "F- you" attitude toward anyone who would draw revenues away from my favorite game.

The alternative, of course, is that those people and projects stir up more interest in the genre as a whole and add more revenue than they "steal" - which is good for everyone. 

[Kogut]

But to make better DF clone than DF it is needed to spend years. That is why DF is not open source.

[Max White]

From the looks of this , fortresscraft looks like a very blatent MC clone, but with some extra features planned. Rather underhanded, as Notch seels the source code, not just the game, and says that you can do what you want with the source code once you purchase it, and make a profit from it, just not resell the unmodded game. So they could have modded the crap out of MC and still sold there game, but gave some credit to the ideas guy.

[DwarvesH]

The thing that kind of bothers me here is the price: 1$. This seems like an underhanded bait. Look how cheap it is. Get a taste of it. We'll add future features. We promise. Once we got you hooked that is! I am not judging them and saying they won't add new features, but I would have preferred a larger price. This seems a lot like selling a demo. Or a make a initial profit now approach. But one could argue that this is the better solution. You get your money worth right now. But with Minecraft, all those people bought an alpha. If they think that they did not get enough of a bang out of their buck (I think Minecraft and its price is OK), they have no guarantee of what the future brings. But with this, you get your dollar's worth upfront. If they add new features, you can buy them for one more dollar, again knowing what you pay for and getting it right now. I think it is the difference between paying for something concrete and paying for a potential.

[Andir]

The thing that kind of bothers me here is the price: 1$. This seems like an underhanded bait. Look how cheap it is. Get a taste of it. We'll add future features. We promise. Once we got you hooked that is! I am not judging them and saying they won't add new features, but I would have preferred a larger price. This seems a lot like selling a demo. Or a make a initial profit now approach. But one could argue that this is the better solution. You get your money worth right now. But with Minecraft, all those people bought an alpha. If they think that they did not get enough of a bang out of their buck (I think Minecraft and its price is OK), they have no guarantee of what the future brings. But with this, you get your dollar's worth upfront. If they add new features, you can buy them for one more dollar, again knowing what you pay for and getting it right now. I think it is the difference between paying for something concrete and paying for a potential.

Actually, I thought Minecraft was rather expensive for what it was... but it was put together well so I had no problem buying it.

Also, I can pretty much guarantee that Fortresscraft is not a blatant rip.  Minecraft is Java, Fortresscraft, I imagine, is in C# (probably XNA.)  While you could probably get the code and just port it yourself, there's other games out there that you could port (one is even open source.)

[Tilla]

Nobody's saying they stole the code from MC, just that they wholesale stole every aspect of the game - there is NOTHING in their game that isn't already in MC except for some bloom on the water and such

[Andir]

Nobody's saying they stole the code from MC, just that they wholesale stole every aspect of the game - there is NOTHING in their game that isn't already in MC except for some bloom on the water and such

Thought I read that he's not doing survival mode... which is pretty much the only thing I do.

http://getsatisfaction.com/fortresscraft/topics/so_what_will_you_do_when_mojang_sues_you?utm_medium=widget&utm_source=widget_fortresscraft

[Ethicalfive]

Hey, just stumbled apon this 'clone' from over on the stonesense thread.

There is no procedurely generated world in this game. I think this singular reason sets DF and DwarvesH apart. I see a villiage/fortress simulator, but not a world one.

I really love DF. However, I freaking hate it's interface. Everyone i've ever recommended DF to has outright rejected playing it is because of the interface (and these are hardcore ASCII roguelike players to boot!)

So I say this competition is a good thing. Maybe toady will get inspired by DwarvesH's stunning interface enough to finally get around to implement something worthy of his masterpiece. If not, DwarvesH should be welcome to earn money from users that are not even going to bother playing DF in the first place. If you don't accomodate the users, they'll go elsewhere. Hell, i'll donate to DwarvesH if it's any good(im an avid DF donator BTW, as should everyone else on this forum).

One thing that should be changed in dwarvesH ASAP though is the names of objects and plants. That's going to annoy alot of DF players. I think an evening on plugging in your own names would do the project alot of good and personally I think it'd be alot of fun.

*note* Please lets not start a debate about the merits of DF not supporting a half decent interface yet. I've read all the reasons before. Theres plenty of threads on the subject and i've read most of them, so not really anything new can be added by by getting into one of those debates again.

[Darvi]

[Angel Of Death]

Has this been released yet?

[Ethicalfive]

LOL! Whoops, totally didn't notice the last posts date (comming in from a link on the stonesense thread)

Has this been released yet?

Nah, but the blog is still being updated and the program still being tinkered with.

[Criptfeind]

I would like to state for the record that DF's interface is very intuitive compared to nethack's.

[Darvi]

I would like to state for the record that DF's interface is very intuitive compared to nethack's.

Seconded.