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[sockless]

Not the first time is has been suggested. Toady has specifically said no, that's no.
By no he means that he will not do it, no matter how many people want him to do so, it's his game and if he wants to make an API he will, but not before then.

Anyone can reverse engineer DF if they want to, it's not that hard to be honest, we have all the gameplay pretty down pat and nicely documented on the wiki. But no-one can be bothered.

Toady doesn't want anyone else working on the game either. At all, from what I hear.

It's his game, and he doesn't want to make a better UI, it's rather low on his list of things. The game is in alpha, remember, so it will get done eventually.

The current interface is fine anyway, even if I think that Toady should start moving away from being entirely text based, since it isn't really. e.g. use a map made of pixels for the new maps, instead of trying to make it all test base, since it's actually tileset based.

[Nivim]

but what WOULD be interesting is if the opening screen had a link to the wiki or somewhere else that had EASILY downloadable graphics packs for the game so people could easily change the graphics around and knew it was available.

It might not be mentioned in the opening screen, but the Lazy Newb Pack has already been made just for lazy people, and keeps being expanded.

Edit: Oh, and here's the mod/utility list.

[612DwarfAvenue]

It's ultimately Toady's game, and it's up to him if he wants to release an API.

Personally, i'm fine with the UI as it is. It takes time to learn it, but whatever, it takes time to learn to drive as well. Just slug through it, and enjoy the awesomeness at the top of the learning cliff.

[xRDVx]

More importantly, he also stated that he first wants to add all he's going to add to THEN fix the UI. It wouldn't make sense to add this feature, fix UI, add another feature, modify UI again so the new feature is there, and so on. I know there are probably workarounds so that's a rather easy and quick task, but if my memory serves me correctly, he said that he would after he finished adding elements to it.

And while he *could* get more developers, that also means he would either a) tell / wait for the developer to learn the coding style so whatever the hired dev does is consistent and easily maintainable by toady (as in, like he would have written it) b) he would have to deal with other people also working on the project, and that could prove harmful to development speed. You just can't make this crazy modification if you're working with other people -- you have to inform them about it and make sure whatever they are doing is not / will not be affected by that crazy modification.

PS: I'm sure I might have said something silly, so excuses on that, but: We're fine for now, after all we're on 0.3 (not even half to 1.0) so GUI improvements can come later.

[Nivim]

PS: I'm sure I might have said something silly, so excuses on that, but: We're fine for now, after all we're on 0.3 (not even half to 1.0) so GUI improvements can come later.

On that note, here's how the new version numbers work, so it's possible that UI could be handled after or before version 1, depending on what definitions for core goals make more sense.