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[Deteramot]

One of the things that has always kept me from being a serious DF player (besides having a computer with both feet in the grave) is the tendency for me to have no idea where to go after I embark. Even with the help of the wiki and the fora, I still find myself utterly lost when it comes to making a real, working fortress. And I'm certain we've all been there, and done that, and possibly some of us have the t-shirt.

So it occurred to me that a great way to start someone very new to the game would be a built-in reclaim. Instead of starting from scratch and having no idea where to go, a new player could reclaim an outpost lost to the dwarfs during world gen. Maybe with varying degrees of difficulty, or maybe just entirely random. The pre-made fortresses could have basic infrastructure and industry set-up, which a new player could easily get working from a cold start.

So, that's my basic idea. I am accepting of criticism, so... feel free to tear me apart.

[Talanic]

I think this might do well for the Lazy Newb Pack, but getting the game to procedurally generate a reclaim site, while seeming like a cool idea to me, will probably be a low priority. 

[JasonMel]

Just as another data point, I didn't have any trouble picking a location to start digging. If you need more room for something, dig it out. If things need to be rearranged, break them down and rearrange them. I knew going in that my first fort wasn't going to be ideal. Half the fun for me is figuring out improvements for next time, and doing modifications to the current design.

Although, maybe it helped that I didn't know there was a z-axis when I started.

[Dsarker]

Another idea that might work is a kind of raw based tutorial.

[Ghills]

I'm not sure I understand. Are you confused about what order to start industries in or how to layout a fortress?

They're both pretty site-specific questions. I think what might work for more people is a guide to fort design principles.  There are tutorials out there that go through the basics of what to set up and in what order.  Try http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=31928.0 for a pretty good guide to setting up your first fort. It includes general fort design principles. There was a thread not too long ago about what embark strategies people used, that contained a lot of information about what kind of forts people were building and how to get a fort running.

I may try to gin up a compilation of fort design principles. It'd be useful for my own forts, if nothing else.

[Stromko]

Don't you mean The Mountains of Madness? We do have forgotten beasts you know, I'm pretty sure we even have cave penguins, and don't get me started on castes and engravings ... (Man someone with time on their hands really needs to make a Mythos mod.)

Anywho, I'm not sure about the reclaim because working the military system can be awfully complicated and with a normal reclaim you'd have to deal with exploring and reclaiming everything with said military. I could see a special reclaim being useful if it got rid of monsters occupying the site, and didn't scatter items randomly all over the place, nor require unforbidding everything. That's a lot to deal with for a new player.

I think this idea has merit, but it works fine as a community sponsored effort. People can host regions with an abandoned fort site that gives new players a location suited for an online tutorial of some kind, and since whoever making the tutorial knows the site is well-suited to the tasks ahead, they can have the new player do the digging and industry setup themselves. That way, they actually learn how to do these things themselves.

Then again, if Toady is already going to someday code in world-gen Dwarven sites that actually make sense as working forts, or at least bring back their civ sites and have them sometimes be abandoned or ruined, perhaps we can someday have the option of reclaiming lost world-gen Dwarven forts. They might not make sense as tutorials, but when there's a real economy happening with worldgen sites this might mean they would give an example of actual functional fortresses. At least, once you swept out the rats / zombies / whatever.

[Dsarker]

Don't you mean The Mountains of Madness? We do have forgotten beasts you know, I'm pretty sure we even have cave penguins, and don't get me started on castes and engravings ... (Man someone with time on their hands really needs to make a Mythos mod.)

Anywho, I'm not sure about the reclaim because working the military system can be awfully complicated and with a normal reclaim you'd have to deal with exploring and reclaiming everything with said military. I could see a special reclaim being useful if it got rid of monsters occupying the site, and didn't scatter items randomly all over the place, nor require unforbidding everything. That's a lot to deal with for a new player.

I think this idea has merit, but it works fine as a community sponsored effort. People can host regions with an abandoned fort site that gives new players a location suited for an online tutorial of some kind, and since whoever making the tutorial knows the site is well-suited to the tasks ahead, they can have the new player do the digging and industry setup themselves. That way, they actually learn how to do these things themselves.

Then again, if Toady is already going to someday code in world-gen Dwarven sites that actually make sense as working forts, or at least bring back their civ sites and have them sometimes be abandoned or ruined, perhaps we can someday have the option of reclaiming lost world-gen Dwarven forts. They might not make sense as tutorials, but when there's a real economy happening with worldgen sites this might mean they would give an example of actual functional fortresses. At least, once you swept out the rats / zombies / whatever.

Just to correct you, the reclaim option now is a standard dorf mode.

[Tharwen]

Maybe there could be a simple fortress hardcoded into the download files with no world to go with it, and some basic instructions to guide a player around the controls.

Obviously that would be quite a lot of work, but it would at least ease new players in somewhat.

[antymattar]

Tutorial island? Anyone?

[greenskye]

What I like most about this idea is using the reclaim system for a tutorial. No matter what the tutorial ends up being, I like the story-like tie in of reclaiming a lost fortress. I do like the idea of reclaiming computer made fortress as well, though I have doubts that these could make a good tutorial.

[nitus]

To be honest, I've never fully understood why people think DF has such a steep learning curve. When you get down to it, fortress basics are no more complex than similar games like Dungeon Keeper or Stronghold 2. In all such games, as in DF, you build different workshops and buildings to produce different goods or effects. You build walls and traps, etc. I believe this confusion is entirely a result of people psyching themselves out due to the text-based interface. I can think of a number of graphical games that have more build options, and tech trees to boot, that nobody complains are confusing to learn.

The only significant difference is that those games have graphics and icon-based menus, while DF is text. Does having to select a bowyer through a text menu make it somehow more complex and confusing than selecting a bowyer with a mouse click on an icon?

Apparently for some people it does.


I think the difficulty with a "tutorial fortress" is twofold:

  1> fortress layout and specialty is highly variable and depends entirely on a given player's style. There's no one right way to build a fortress.

  2> simply looking at a pre-existing fortress won't teach you what anything does, particularily when it comes to designs that exist to keep dwarves happier. I fail to understand how seeing a mason's shop, for example, is going to tell you anything that you couldn't have figured out by simply reading the name, "mason's shop."

If you want to look at existing maps, they can be downloaded. And there's always the map archive. The bet way to get better at any game is simply to play it.
 
The only way a tutorial mode would be useful would be if it had a series of objectives, like most tutorials in games, wherein completing various tasks leads you on the path to a successful start, perhaps culminating in a siege.

Edit: in-game dwarfopedia would help immensely, although at the moment the game develops too rapidly for that to be terribly purposeful. The wiki is a newb's best friend.

[Ghills]

  1> fortress layout and specialty is highly variable and depends entirely on a given player's style. There's no one right way to build a fortress.

  2> simply looking at a pre-existing fortress won't teach you what anything does, particularily when it comes to designs that exist to keep dwarves happier. I fail to understand how seeing a mason's shop, for example, is going to tell you anything that you couldn't have figured out by simply reading the name, "mason's shop."

Not seeing a mason's shop, but having notes around pointing out how the stockpiles are laid out vis a vis the shop, explaining quantum dumping, discussing industry groupings, etc. That kind of thing would be useful, and having a fort that comes with notes explaining basic principles (ex: Wide hallways are good!) would help a lot of players ease into things, I think. The principles of designing a fortress for high FPS/cool hallways/what-have-you aren't always very intuitive.

Players are certainly free to choose what they want to do, but first they have to know what kinds of tools are appropriate for their goal.

[nenjin]

Repeated failure is the best teacher in DF.

It took me....about 7 embarks that didn't immediately get scrapped before I hit that magical "I get it" set up.

So just embark. And re-embark. And embark again. Put down stuff, even if you don't understand what it does. When you encounter your failures, go to the wiki, read what's actual going on, and re-embark armed with your new knowledge.

It's not that the learning curve of DF is so steep. There are just a lot of moving parts, and many of those parts are fundamental to a long-term game. Rules like, why you build 3 tile wide corridors, how fast x dwarves go through y resources, how much food you need as a buffer to get your own food/booze economy started, the most efficient way for YOU to start producing.....these are all things acquired over dozens of games of DF. I played maybe 1 or 2 embarks and then I exhaustively read the wiki. And it still took several embarks beyond that before I fully tried everything out, like smithing, a real military, pumps, flood gates and river channeling.

DF is the kind of game where you have to be an active learner. Most games try to make teaching as smooth, painless and brainless as possible. You don't have to pay attention to learn how to play most games, you just have to be able to read conveniently placed prompts and scripted tutorials. In DF, to really get the game you always have to actively be searching for causes and effects on your own, testing, trying things without knowing how they work and then observing them....and as always, falling back immediately on the wiki and player base knowledge. Doing that.....DF isn't hard to figure out. It just takes time and actual dedication.

[cameron1124]

maybe you visit the tutorial fortress as an adventurer and there is a guide that follows you around to tell you the basics. example: " Oh these hallways are way too tight for a proper dwarf, yet another mistake this overseer made." " the stockpiles are too far away from the workshop area! you dont want the dwarfs to tire themselves just to get the materials they need." and he would go along pointing out the mistakes of the previous overseer. Then the second part is you reclaim the fortress with the guide as a noble helping you to get started. I think it would not only help people know the mechanics of the game it would also help them avoid common mistakes.

[greenskye]

I don't really believe that DF is all that complex. I think others have said it before, but the game is a learning cliff not because it's hard, but because it throws everything at you at once. The new player is expected to learn 5 or 6 different industries almost simultaneously to get a "successful" embark going.

This, combined with not only a text based UI (which is scary for many people), but an inconsistant text based UI, all hit the newb at once. This has the effect of overwhelming new players who might have really enjoyed the game if they were given a little more hand holding. Games shouldn't expect you to be an expert from the beginning.

Many of these problems could be solved by slowing the progression of the game down (fewer migrants, more time to start a military, etc.) This could be toggled so that veterans could have a "quick start" game where sieges and stuff come in quicker.