Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[irmo]

Of course, we have another dimension to use here: Color. When you have different, similar creatures (like all the damn gibbons), color is useful, especially if color support moves beyond the 16-color palette in the future. I might make a suggestion thread regarding how best to handle that in the near future.

I'd rather see color used to distinguish classes of things with very different behavior (for example wild animals, domestic animals, neutral sentients, hostile sentients...) than as just another axis for making creatures with similar names look different. There's no reason all the damn gibbons need visually distinct symbols.*

I could see that as an in-game option, though: a "true color" mode that tries to show every creature in the predominant color that it actually is, using 24-bit color and based on the creature's description and what it's wearing and everything (so your squad of guys in red cloaks can actually be red), and then various "false color" modes: color by profession (what we have now), by faction, by health status, by current job, etc. Like the map modes in Europa Universalis, if anyone's played that.

* In fact I'd say there's no reason all the damn gibbons need to be in the game, but I don't feel like pressing the issue right now.

[onarum]

I really don't care about the default graphics, I prefer seeing little figures of what I'm supposed to be, what I'm supposed to be fighting or where I'm supposed to be instead of a bunch of random characters, even if that's static.

I mean I just cannot see how a static @ that won't change no matter what happens in battle is better than a static figure of a man holding a sword and a shield that won't change no matter what happens... and for what is worth the sprite for your character does change depending on your skill level and profession, well at least with phoebus it does.

That said I don't have anything against keeping the default graphics the way they are for those that appreciate them and still have to install tilesets separately, if he could makethe process of installing a graphics set more straight forward it would be enough already, like if you could drop a compacted archive containing all the graphics on a folder and then simply enable it ingame.

[zwei]

I mean I just cannot see how a static @ that won't change no matter what happens in battle is better than a static figure of a man holding a sword and a shield that won't change no matter what happens...

Problem he is that @ can also be diplomat, or berserking dwarf or...

Basically, in order for tiles to continue being usefull, distinctive and whatever people in favor of ascii say, they need to be expanded. To different character sets.

But when you are expanding to charsets and cherrypicking new symbols for berserker, adventurer and diplomat, what about ... you know ... actually creating apropriate symbols.

New ones.

It does not have to be man holding sword and shiled but rather distinctive "adventurer" symbol.

[TheMasterTurtle]

It would take Toady MORE time to develop the game, ASCII based games are simpler then sprite based ones. ASCII also leaves it completely up to the imagination which I find fun and most tile sets do a poor job of representation anywho.

I always play full ASCII and I can understand it better than any tile set.

[G-Flex]

I really don't care about the default graphics, I prefer seeing little figures of what I'm supposed to be, what I'm supposed to be fighting or where I'm supposed to be instead of a bunch of random characters, even if that's static.

I mean I just cannot see how a static @ that won't change no matter what happens in battle is better than a static figure of a man holding a sword and a shield that won't change no matter what happens... and for what is worth the sprite for your character does change depending on your skill level and profession, well at least with phoebus it does.

Have you read the arguments on both sides? I feel like I and some others have already pretty much responded to that.

That said I don't have anything against keeping the default graphics the way they are for those that appreciate them and still have to install tilesets separately, if he could makethe process of installing a graphics set more straight forward it would be enough already, like if you could drop a compacted archive containing all the graphics on a folder and then simply enable it ingame.

There are definitely some ways that tileset installation could be made easier. For instance, in order to change tileset assignments (to use, say, unused tiles in the font), tilesets currently have to change the game's raws. This creates problems because the game's object files need to be distributed as well, and changing between tilesets is problematic. Ideally, this should not be the case, and tilesets should be able to override the raw assignments rather than replace them.

Of course, we have another dimension to use here: Color. When you have different, similar creatures (like all the damn gibbons), color is useful, especially if color support moves beyond the 16-color palette in the future. I might make a suggestion thread regarding how best to handle that in the near future.

I'd rather see color used to distinguish classes of things with very different behavior (for example wild animals, domestic animals, neutral sentients, hostile sentients...) than as just another axis for making creatures with similar names look different. There's no reason all the damn gibbons need visually distinct symbols.*

That's a fair point, but I think the gibbons are something of an extreme example. There are other examples, like the different feline or canine creatures.

It's not really an easy thing to solve. There are many different axes that can be represented, like species, caste, status (the things you just mentioned), whether it's trained as a war or hunting animal (which I kind of solve in my own stupid way in my digraph creatures program), whether it's a zombie or a skeleton or a ghost or what, etc. We don't really have nearly as many visual axes to work with as we have to represent mechanics-wise.

I could see that as an in-game option, though: a "true color" mode that tries to show every creature in the predominant color that it actually is, using 24-bit color and based on the creature's description and what it's wearing and everything (so your squad of guys in red cloaks can actually be red), and then various "false color" modes: color by profession (what we have now), by faction, by health status, by current job, etc. Like the map modes in Europa Universalis, if anyone's played that.

I think it would look very visually noisy and possibly annoying to have different members of a species different colors based on what they're wearing or the color of their skin/fur, but I suppose people might like it.

[onarum]

Have you read the arguments on both sides? I feel like I and some others have already pretty much responded to that.

I must confess I just read the OP and then proceeded to reply ;P

But anyway bottomline is I think that Toady should not work on a default graphical implementation because then he would definitely go insane, the programming is enough already, especially for just 1 guy, if he could just flesh out the tileset usage, making it a bit more flexible both for makers and users that would be more than enough for the long run, of course we would always depend on the good will of people like Phoebus or Ironhand to keep updating them.

I really wanted to be ok with the default look, but I just find graphical tilesets leaps and bounds more pleasing to the eye, and imo a whole lot of imagination is still applied regardless of how the game looks.

[G-Flex]

But anyway bottomline is I think that Toady should not work on a default graphical implementation because then he would definitely go insane, the programming is enough already, especially for just 1 guy, if he could just flesh out the tileset usage, making it a bit more flexible both for makers and users that would be more than enough for the long run, of course we would always depend on the good will of people like Phoebus or Ironhand to keep updating them.

Better support for tilesets (whether they're text-based or something else) and color would not be a terribly challenging thing, as far as I could guess. The only real trouble I could see is retaining real-text display mode, but there are probably ways around that as well. Well, that and cleaning up what is likely a fair bit of old code that wouldn't play well with the changes.

[Kaleb702 Games]

My view is that Toady should only make it easier to implement a tile-set, not leave-out full ASCII or implement anything other than ASCII in the game design. Better support for a tile-set, not an existing tile-set. That way, if you want square ASCII, there you go. If you want a different font, there you go. And it still helps the people who want tiles.

[bombzero]

anybody arguing for an increase in graphics complexity must have about 24 GB of ram and the most expensive gpu in the world.

thats an exaggeration obviously but my point is that dwarf fortress is hard as hell on some peoples computers as is.
if you start adding more detail they wont even be able to play it. i saw similar things happen with Minecraft and many other
games as well. (none worth naming just free to play games and stuff). if you dont like the current look. get a tileset. if
you don't like a lack of overall graphics complexity drag DF into your recycle bin and go back to playing some corporate
piece of crap like call of duty. (also if you have a problem with that opinion... i dont care.) i dont know about you guys
but i think alot of crappy graphics games are FAAAARRR better than alot of newer games.

i full well agree with the OP but the title may need a change to be more clear on his stance on the matter.

[onarum]

anybody arguing for an increase in graphics complexity must have about 24 GB of ram and the most expensive gpu in the world.

I don't want to start another discussion with this, but the main reason why the game is so taxing on most computers is because it doesn't work with multiple threads, RAM and GPUs are not really the issue here, he could totally add a lil bit more graphical capabilities (meaning improving tileset usage and flexibility) without sacrificing performance, I really don't think anyone expects DF to ever be fully polygonal or anything like that.

[G-Flex]

I don't want to start another discussion with this, but the main reason why the game is so taxing on most computers is because it doesn't work with multiple threads

It's a lot more than that. For instance, the game doesn't scale well because of how it handles its data (hence lag from too many items/jobs/designations), and probably a number of inefficient algorithms. It's more complicated than the program not being multithreaded.



But yeah, I don't think anyone right now is arguing for graphical changes that would be any more taxing on the computer to any significant degree.

[Malarauko]

I like that with ASCII you're not really trying to make the graphics impressive. Its almost like you've got something functional and thats all you need. I think the risk is with sprite graphics you're always trying to make it look good and that can take a lot of effort. Its not to say I don't think that putting effort into the game is a good thing but if you fall short the results can be awful. Saying that I think there are some outstanding graphics packs out there that show what you can do with a little (or a lot) of time and effort. I wouldn't mind as long as Bay doesn't compromise on improving the mechanics of the game because for me thats the real dev focus for DF.

[Wimopy]

Personally, when I started, I found the graphics quite complicated to understand, but once you get used to them, they actually tell you many things.
And about the thirsty/drowsy/tired etc. things... You DO have flashing notifications in AM, I guess it could be interpreted into DF (or is it already?) but then again, things happen very fast there, so unless you forgot to build a well or something and you closed the entrance, it would probably just last 3 seconds.

Full Graphics would slow the game down A LOT.. Sprites wouldn't but then again, check the graphics sets. They already do almost the exact same job you'd like from a few sprites, except showing equipment. I agree graphics like

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

IVAN's

(this can be considered advertising) are nice, as it shows everything you equip, but it doesn't have enough items/NPCs to even come near 1/10th of DF.

Just stick to the graphical packs if you don't like the current 'ASCII' graphics, but implementing real graphics is

• Out of the question for Toady.
• Most people don't support it.
• Would take too damn long.

[Tharwen]

The advantage of text tiles is that they make absolutely no claim to visually represent the objects they're placed over, leaving it all up to the player. The graphical tilesets make a half-hearted effort to show them and end up misdirecting the imagination to some extent.