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[Phreak]

Please Toady we need to know what you are doing, or what your up to so we know you haven't just disappeared on us! Really I'm scared by not seeing any updates for more then a week, which happens alot. So i suggest making a Twitter account and every now and then post what bugs/features your up to. Maybe even a Tumblr account? This is the right thread as its improving the Dwarf Fortress experience for everyone. Also for those that don't like twitter or tumblr don't post too much of a negative, troll post that don't help anyone, just add suggestions for what you think would be better or if you don't like the idea at all then just ignore this topic as no one is forcing you to look at it. I'm sure we would like to know what your fixing/adding at the moment, even if it doesn't seem that important at the time. I really love your work in Dwarf Fortress and Ive been playing for years before i joined the forum i would just like to know more of what your doing. Maybe ThreeToe can make one too and post what hes doing as i really like his interesting stories. I don't even have a twitter account as i don't have thousands of adoring fans like you do 

- From the heart of a Bay 12er who has learnt many things from Dwarf Fortress over the years, even if Toady One doesn't see this topic...

[devek]

You're not serious are you?

[Mckee]

Surely toady should be using his time wisely. Creating a twitter or blog and keeping it regularly updated is taking time away from improving the game. Since he tends to update only when decent number of changes have been made (E.g. after a week of bug fixing) any small updates via twitter are probably going to be rather trivial.

(Not even going into why its a bad idea to say 'Also for those that don't like twitter or tumblr don't post too much of a negative, troll post that don't help anyone, just add suggestions for what you think would be better or if you don't like the idea at all then just ignore this topic as no one is forcing you to look at it.')

[Phreak]

Maybe lol but yeah Ive been looking for years on the download section often checking several times a day(when im not doing other things) and i kind of get disappointing when there is nothing new for weeks at a time. But more on the intelligent side: It will get Toady a chance to talk to members more easily and far quicker then the forums as well as post information quicker. Ive been seeing alot of indie games use tumblr and twitter with massively good results and great feedback from users, and no im not an idiot who just wants him on twitter to say "oh hai toady wht r u doin?" and ask stupid questions. Its a better way to post quick info on what feature/bug hes working on. You know of Notch? creator of minecraft, which is inspired by DF. He uses twitter almost every day, though he sometimes gets maybe too personal? He posts useful info for users, like hes almost done the next update, or that it will be very buggy etc. He is much better off with twitter and users give him quick ideas and thoughts on what they think can improve it, he also does it to keep in quick contact with his team when hes at home or something. He is one of many examples i know of.
[edit:] im not saying it should be regularly updated, just every now and then(every couple days or something, it only takes a minute). Yeah but i know alot of people dont like twitter...or Facebook for that matter(neither do i...)

[devek]

Or you could hold your horses and check the dev blog, listen to DF talk, or check the threads where Toady specifically tells us what he is working on.

[Mckee]

Yeah, I really don't think this kind of quick fire updating suits DF. Or the way toady seems to operate. Honestly, the forums here are very alive and well, so even if toady isnt updating us on stuff, there is almost always some new bit of !!SCIENCE!! or mod, or debate about important DF stuff.

[Phreak]

DF talks are fairly rare to be honest, and only has the answers the the questions asked by the interviewers. The threads i think are not very informative at all, though the change log in the bug-tracker is fairly useful. But eh this is merely a suggestion. Dev blog, if you mean in the download section, as i said is not updated as much as it could be...though maybe your right and i should wait, as it does make it better to be surprised by how much he has done when hes finished then him tell us what hes doing every day. Maybe I'm just used to alot of information being poured in by Notch and other developers like him. Yeah i know what you mean Mckee but mods can ruin the fun of games as well as tilesets. And you have to wait after each update for mods to be fixed, or do it yourself if you can. I know the countless discussions of how mods ruin games of alot of games forums but they can be good utilitys that make it possible to make a fort: like DF Therapist and DFhack for some people, ive used DFhack a few times myself and used Therapist alot in the last 6 months...And Mike Maydays tileset is great lol

[devek]

If you were following the resources I listed above, you WOULD know what is going on though.

If your confused that major features take more than 2 days to implement, perhaps you should take a programming class hehe.

[Phreak]

Oh hahaha...i am a programmer myself and a university's bachelors degree... But i have read them, and I'm not confused :p maybe you should of read what i typed a bit slower? Not the first post thats kind of crap lol i guess i was bored and a bit too impulsive

[Darkweave]

Please check the available resources before you post:

http://bay12games.com/dwarves/

Updates no more than five days apart for the last Armok-only-knows how many weeks. I think that's more than regular enough.

[devek]

Oh hahaha...i am a programmer myself and a university's bachelors degree... But i have read them, and I'm not confused :p maybe you should of read what i typed a bit slower? Not the first post thats kind of crap lol i guess i was bored and a bit too impulsive

So what are you asking for example? Toady to make a post when poop is coming out?

[Mckee]

I mean really, I know it can be a bit of a shame when you're sat here with time to kill and keep revisiting the website, hoping to see something new, but having toady start a twitter or something isnt going to change that. Any quickfire updates would largly be trivial and not worth the time taken to type them. As for my talk about mods, that was merely to highlight how much goes on on these forums. I don't use any mods, but every so often, if I'm bored and there are no decent vanilla topics (rare), I'll just hop over to take a little look at what other people are doing.

[Phreak]

Err...have you noticed that its 7 days since last update not 5 days :p . But yeah the past couple months has been having some quick updates, a couple a day on some occasions but they are just describing in more detail the same things. I have been an active checker of it over 3 years and alot of them have had weeks and weeks of gaps, i can give examples of when toady has been sick and we didn't know for almost a whole month, or the  massive gaps between game updates but they don't really matter. Lol i know people get WAY too personal in Twitter sometimes, i obviously don't want toady to be like that. Yeah I look at how much work goes into mods, or the lack of work, but that's because I'm a programmer it comes naturally :p

[Mckee]

I think the point most of us are making is, it doesnt appear to be worth the trade off in time or energy. Neither does it seem to suit toady's habits, from my perspective. I think suggestions need to be realistic, and as you've said, he doesnt like updating too frequently, so how would you go about changing that? And whilst yes, the idea behind this meta suggestion seems nice, it doesn't really add up very well.

[Darkweave]

Err...have you noticed that its 7 days since last update not 5 days :p . But yeah the past couple months has been having some quick updates, a couple a day on some occasions but they are just describing in more detail the same things. I have been an active checker of it over 3 years and alot of them have had weeks and weeks of gaps, i can give examples of when toady has been sick and we didn't know for almost a whole month, or the  massive gaps between game updates but they don't really matter. Lol i know people get WAY too personal in Twitter sometimes, i obviously don't want toady to be like that. Yeah I look at how much work goes into mods, or the lack of work, but that's because I'm a programmer it comes naturally :p

Okay so I didn't check today's date which makes it six days since the last update. It doesn't really matter anyway, the point is that it's updated often enough for you to know what he's working on so I really don't get what more you want.