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[du3lingdragon]

Imma go out on a limb here and say Assassins creed was awesome. It was easy, it knew it, and it was visceral as hell. Further you dont know if it will be removed permanently and even if it is, would it matter? is the game any different. If anything it adds to the heightened sense of the unknown, the final fronteir. If we kenw what was out in the universe i could tell you no one would be interested.

[Makbeth]

Imma go out on a limb here and say Assassins creed was awesome. It was easy, it knew it, and it was visceral as hell. Further you dont know if it will be removed permanently and even if it is, would it matter? is the game any different. If anything it adds to the heightened sense of the unknown, the final fronteir. If we kenw what was out in the universe i could tell you no one would be interested.

Umm, what?

...

Now that I'm done facepalming:

We do have an idea of what's out in the universe, and we're still interested.  We've found hundreds of planets.  What do you think astronomers have been doing all this time?  Knowing that there's planets out there just makes us want to get out there more.

Yes, the game is different.  Yes, it matters to me and others.  No, I don't know if it will be removed permanently, that's why I'm posting here so that Toady might know that I, and others, want it back.  We didn't know if the Arsenal Dwarf was a permanent addition either, but we spoke quite loudly that we certainly hoped it wasn't.  I'd like to think that that had something to do with the AD's subsequent removal.

So you liked Assassin's Creed.  I'm happy for you.  So do I, but I can't play it without noticing big giant holes in the game.  I won't go into the details because that was never meant to be the major point of this thread.  It was a comparison I tried to use to illustrate how pointless and backwards the removal of rock layers was.  I should have known better because I've been on this thread for nearly a year and certain people on this community love to miss the point by latching onto inconsequential parts of arguments.

[NW_Kohaku]

I wonder what people would say if only the surface geology were visible.

Or, perhaps, geology would be known within the bounds of your civilization (and perhaps other friendly civs), and you could extend the area of known geology by scouting it as an adventurer.  Obviously it wouldn't be local tile by local tile, maybe just per biome or even region tile.  Once you set foot in a biome or region tile, the whole biome or region tile is considered to be surveyed.

That... would be badass.  Actual geological surveys in a game!  And it would be more of an incentive for the fortress mode players to play adventure mode more often.  Of course, I'm not sure how many others that would appeal to.  Probably just me.

*sigh* if so much of the game weren't hardcoded...  What a foundation DF would be for a modding community, if it were as pliable as Unreal or Neverwinter Nights or even Civilization.  If I had access to the world generation code, that would probably be the thing that finally motivated me to really learn to write code instead of just transplanting and splicing it, just so I could make a realistic geology mod.

Yes, when .19 first came out, someone mentioned something about having Adventurers able to survey territory and sell the information to civilizations, as an expansion of the "Adventurer Role: Explorer", and I went and tried to talk about expanding that into how players can embark.

Of course, it's slightly problematic when players can switch civilizations that they "come from" at a tab from the embark screen, but it isn't a totally deal-breaking limitation.  (Especially if civilizations, especially dwarf civilizations, are willing to trade knowledge of the world as a trade good, so that multiple civilizations know the same things.)

[Ethicalfive]

...
Also I doubt that dwarves have geological maps of the whole world, even ones just showing the surface mineral layer.

Underground metals and aquifers seem far less plausable for your dwarvdom to know about than surface geology. As NW_Kohaku mentioned, it was most likely a change for the site finder to function better. Metal scarcity seems seperate to the lack of details on choosing an embark.

The new changes killed off the geologist part of the game for me, but then, I guess most people comming into the game don't care for geology. I really liked choosing what stone to build my fort out of, not at all about locating all the best metals. (though I did like to find stone that'd give me saphires and other nice gems )

[Makbeth]

I've gotten fairly used to it by now and found countermeasures.  About the only thing it really seems to be missing is an indication of volcanism, so I set the volcano count to 400 and used their presence to identify extrusive layers.  Also removed all the non-flux sed rocks from the raws.  If one is creative enough, there are usually ways to break the game that counter the manner in which Toady occasionally breaks it.

Given the nature of this forum, I should probably state that it's just my opinion that 31.19+ embark screen is broken, and that the break probably only affects my playstyle.  The embark screen used to be helpful in accomplishing what I wanted in a short amount of time, and now it fails that task completely.  In terms of what I try to do with the embark screen, the interface is broken.  If it works for you, fine, you don't need to say it works for you as if that somehow fixes it for me.

I wonder if I should just put a disclaimer that I know it's an alpha, I know it's Toady's project, etc. in my sig to save time.  Sometimes you can't even suggest that a part of DF could be better than it is, let alone that a feature is broken, without drawing the ire of the users who've taken it upon themselves to defend Toady's honor.

[hermes]

Whilst I don't have the same problem as you, Makbeth, (actually I love the new embark screens) I can appreciate that some features might seem annoying (eg. the bogeymen don't sit right with me, can I never wander alone at night just because of them??).

However, following a number of games and developers (like Bioware, grrr!), I take considerable consolation in the dedication and artistic spirit of Toady.  He has always shown a sound awareness of the different types of DF fans and what they want out of the game, and he has always tried to accommodate everyone (listen to DF talk)... and done so very successfully IMO.  It would be better to appreciate that balance, than take a more self centred POV...

I've gotten fairly used to it by now and found countermeasures.  About the only thing it really seems to be missing is an indication of volcanism, so I set the volcano count to 400 and used their presence to identify extrusive layers.  Also removed all the non-flux sed rocks from the raws.  If one is creative enough, there are usually ways to break the game that counter the manner in which Toady occasionally breaks it.

Given the nature of this forum, I should probably state that it's just my opinion that 31.19+ embark screen is broken, and that the break probably only affects my playstyle.  The embark screen used to be helpful in accomplishing what I wanted in a short amount of time, and now it fails that task completely.  In terms of what I try to do with the embark screen, the interface is broken.  If it works for you, fine, you don't need to say it works for you as if that somehow fixes it for me.

I wonder if I should just put a disclaimer that I know it's an alpha, I know it's Toady's project, etc. in my sig to save time.  Sometimes you can't even suggest that a part of DF could be better than it is, let alone that a feature is broken, without drawing the ire of the users who've taken it upon themselves to defend Toady's honor.

Register your complaint on the suggestions forum, then move on; criticising the modus operandi of DF design isn't likely to gain much sympathy here.  Whilst I would fully endorse a whining campaign on an EA or Activision forum (to get popular support and/or start a flame war for the lolz) the DF forums are much more civilized.

To avoid any further disappointment too, whilst DF happens to be a good sandbox game, it is, primarily and by design, a fantasy/RPG game so I think you should fairly expect certain omniscient/omnipotent features to be sidelined or hidden in the future.

[GreatWyrmGold]

The biggest difference between this game and Assasin's Creed (which I agree about btw) is that Dwarf Fortress wasn't subject to alot of hype and promises before it was released.  That's what made AC seem so cool then be such a disappointment.  Whereas DF is being released to you AS IT IS BEING CREATED.

That said, I like the new embark method.  I get all tingly when I embark now, wondering if I'm going to get something good...

or if it's just Microcline a-freaking-gain.

I like microcline. And olivine. Those are my favorite colors of rock, and frankly if it's rock, it's rock, and all of my volcano embarks had plenty of magma-safe alunite.
Despite my "rock is rock" statement, though, I would like to know a bit about areas I'm embarking on. Both out of vague intrest, and to see if sand/no aquifers are in areas I want to make glass in/anywhere. Yes, it's part of the !!Fun!!, but sometimes (or usually; I still feel like a beginner for the most part) I want to start with fun and work up to !!Fun!! when my dwarf population reaches a high enough level.

[Sutremaine]

Sometimes you can't even suggest that a part of DF could be better than it is, let alone that a feature is broken, without drawing the ire of the users who've taken it upon themselves to defend Toady's honor.

Whilst I would fully endorse a whining campaign on an EA or Activision forum (to get popular support and/or start a flame war for the lolz) the DF forums are much more civilized.

Heh.