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[ArcaneBoozery]

I didn't find anything on this using the search option, but I was wondering if anyone besides me wanted a real time option for Adventure Mode, as opposed to turn based. I am not against turn based in general, and some games I've really enjoyed over the years were turn based (like Vulture's Eye (graphical NetHack), Alpha Centauri, Age of Wonders, etc) but I really feel like turn based doesn't do a complex game like Dwarf Fortress justice. Hear me out. one of the things I (and probably many others) really enjoy about the Dwarf Fortress mode of DF is watching all the hustle and bustle of hundreds of dwarves running around and interacting with each other and their environment like a busy ant farm. I miss that in Adventure Mode. Theoretically, there is just as much stuff going on there (or planned to do so), busy cities teeming with elves, men, and dwarves, vampire and necromancer cults, wildlife, but turn based mode doesn't really represent that well, because everything seems static until you do something, and then its only dynamic for one step, until you do something again. I would just love to stop somewhere, and watch stuff happen without necessarily doing anything, or clicking anything.  A game like NetHack, which probably inspired DF's adventure mode somewhat, is fairly simple at heart, everything is random, there are no deep underlying simulations, so it's not like anyone would want to stop in the 14th level of the dungeon and observe ogres interacting with each other. But in DF, it's a completely different story. Also, real time adventure mode would mesh better, I think, with the real time dwarf mode. So anyone else feel that way?

[Putnam]

Armok 1 had a real-time option, too. Just going to throw that out there.

[EmperorJon]

There's so much to do with pressing the right keys to select stuff and such. Imagine real time combat? *AAAAAAARG-Dead.*

Now a button to 'skip turn' continually, like wait/sleep but without coming out of the game, could be cool.

[Catastrophic lolcats]

Holy crap neglect of paragraphs!
I suppose a real time rts/rpg mixture mix be interesting here. Click a guy, click a bad guy, your guy chosses all his moves and such himself.

Could see a lot of use in Fortress Mode and bring a lot more tactics into the game.

[Starver]

Now a button to 'skip turn' continually, like wait/sleep but without coming out of the game, could be cool.

A "Do this[1] until not possible/disturbed" key, perhaps?  Nethack variants generally have a "walk this way until bumping into a wall/door/encountering a creature".  Whether "until a creature appears on the map" is also a valid reason to disengage cruise-control could be either argued about or allowed as a config/settable option.  There'd also be a key for player-halting, so you can be trudging over the landscape and if the player (thus character) notices the river/settlement/camp ahead it goes back to turn-based before running straight into the place being headed for and coming out of this automatic mode when right next to the impassible feature or implacable enemy.


i.e. I don't think true real-time is advantageous, at least until and unless you get the opportunity to go into "Bullet Time" and lose the real-time nature when there's Something To Be Done^TM that requires actual micromanagement.


Ninja-reply:(Hope my paragraphs are Ok, Catlolcats!  I occasionally make them long, but I use them!

Anyway, removing the micromanagement is also an option, after all, you don't get any control at all like that in Fortress Mode when it comes to your guys actually being engaged in combat, so perhaps it's within theme.

But I think a lot of people playing a character in Adventure Mode would miss the whole issue of being able to grab specific limbs with their own specific limbs and twist them while poking elsewhere with some weapon or other...)




[1] For now, the first thing I can only imagine directional walking (and standing in one place and waiting for something to happen).  Grabbing a stone and throwing/knapping it is very much a multi-command thing (and a cheaty-cheat-cheat one at that, especially if you automate it in any way that you don't suffer the consequences of continuing blithely ignoring interuptions).  Although striking a particularly tough. but immobile, enemy might be covered by this, if it can be made to fit within the "repeat a single action while nothing else changes" paradigm.

[Catastrophic lolcats]

Hope my paragraphs are Ok, Catlolcats!  I occasionally make them long, but I use them!

That's all I ask. 

But I think a lot of people playing a character in Adventure Mode would miss the whole issue of being able to grab specific limbs with their own specific limbs and twist them while poking elsewhere with some weapon or other...)

Yes that is a major feature of adventure mode but it does get a bit boring when theres a couple of weak baddies like crundles trying to kill you. Sometimes I want the easy soultion of telling my charactor to just go "bat shit insane" for a couple seconds and finish off those annoying little guys.

[Putnam]

But I think a lot of people playing a character in Adventure Mode would miss the whole issue of being able to grab specific limbs with their own specific limbs and twist them while poking elsewhere with some weapon or other...)

Yes that is a major feature of adventure mode but it does get a bit boring when theres a couple of weak baddies like crundles trying to kill you. Sometimes I want the easy soultion of telling my charactor to just go "bat shit insane" for a couple seconds and finish off those annoying little guys.

Well, you do have that option; move into them repeatedly.

[Catastrophic lolcats]

Thats hardly watching my guy going batshit insane on some crundles. It pushing a key 'till they go away. it feels a bit anticlimatic, especially  if you're not watching the text.

[Wimopy]

I like the idea of using a button to do something until something, seems to work mighty well in IVAN (Iter Vehemens ad Necem, another rogue-like).
A wait for "X" turns/hours button, that would stop spinning if a conversation/hostile/special event appeared.
Also, somewhat related to this, a "retire for X years" option that would continue the simulation at world gen with your character would be nice, but that is quite irrelevant and probably already suggested, sorry for bringing it up. (I'm probably gonna lose my beer biscuits for that)

A totally real time adventure mode wouldn't work, just too many things going on around you. Especially with faster enemies nearby, you'd just see an D or P rush by your screen, if it doesn't rip you to shreds. (Yes, I meant Dragon, going for a hunt but not noticing you)

[ArcaneBoozery]

Thanks for the replies guys, good stuff. How about something like the first 2 Fallouts (haven't played the third), real time with turn based combat? Then you could still have your highly detailed combat, with individual grabbing of limbs and boogers and bludgeoning things with the former and latter, but the world would have a nice natural flow outside of combat. Ideally, I am a fan of full real time stuff in this case, but if that is impossible or too difficult to do, that kind of a hybrid system would certainly take care of my biggest worry.

Holy crap neglect of paragraphs!

Meh, I hate two sentence paragraphs, and there wasn't that much stuff in the original post.