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[612DwarfAvenue]

I can only imagine what new kind of weaponry Dorfperture Labs will develop on the new release. I keep thinking of skeletal vampire zombie necromancer forgotten beast migrants with nuke breath.

No.

Nukes with skeletal vampire zombie necromancer forgotten beast migrant breath.

[xordae]

It's in our best interest that he continues to have fun while developing the game. Doing what other people want instead of what you want is a joykill. And compared to adding new features, bugfixing is pretty tedious and should not completely take over a planned development cycle.

Don't forget what happened around March either. He really fixed the hell out of the game so that we could enjoy a relatively polished long term release while he started on all the new stuff. It's not like we were hung out to dry.

Despite all that, I don't agree with his vision for the game a 100%. Most people probably don't, but that's not a big deal.

[Oliolli]

I know it wasn't about this but...

Toady can't add too muchstuff, 'cuz too much stuff doesn't exist. By (ork) logic, he can't even add enuff stuff. If he added enough stuff, it would be just under "Too much stuff". As "Too much stuff in Dwarf Fortress" is a logical contradiction, it is clearly impossible to add enough stuff.

Borrowed from the Ork logic on the matter of why one must always try to get More Dakka.

[Neonivek]

To be truthful when I was refering to Toady's fridge I wasn't refering to Soda... I was refering to food.

Also one reason Toady's tangents don't bug me is because these arn't stuff he is pulling out of thin air to squeeze into his game... but rather things planned long in advance that he is giving tidbits of now rather then the YEARS upon YEARS it would take to even get a glimpse of.

[yarr]

What? It's 8 month already? Wtf happened...

[Mike Mayday]

I wouldn't mind adding superfluous content if the basic stuff wasn't in such a poor state. (I mean sieges, management, AI etc.)

[Neonivek]

I wouldn't mind adding superfluous content if the basic stuff wasn't in such a poor state. (I mean sieges, management, AI etc.)

It is rather aggrivating that many of the other DF fans actually find nothing wrong with that. Check the TVtropes page on, for example, handling military where it is treated as an absolute improvement.

[FearfulJesuit]

Guys, you're missing the point.

I very occasionally suggest things that I think might be interesting. But I don't demand them. I simply front ideas, because Toady has a suggestions forum set up.

This isn't a commercial computer game. It's art. Art you can interact with, art you can download, but art nonetheless. Because of that, we are not Toady's muse, nor should we try to be. We are watching a man sculpting, from the marble of his mind, the greatest computer game ever made. We watch, we throw some cash in the donations box, we appreciate, but...I do not criticize, except for obvious bugs, because it is not my game. I can't complain about what I didn't paid for, in this case.

[King DZA]

Guys, you're missing the point.

I very occasionally suggest things that I think might be interesting. But I don't demand them. I simply front ideas, because Toady has a suggestions forum set up.

This isn't a commercial computer game. It's art. Art you can interact with, art you can download, but art nonetheless. Because of that, we are not Toady's muse, nor should we try to be. We are watching a man sculpting, from the marble of his mind, the greatest computer game ever made. We watch, we throw some cash in the donations box, we appreciate, but...I do not criticize, except for obvious bugs, because it is not my game. I can't complain about what I didn't paid for, in this case.

That doesn't mean we can't give him a tap on the back every now and then and go, "you know, what would make this sculpture look really cool is..."

A little outside input(probably)never hurt anybody.

[Mike Mayday]

I do not criticize, except for obvious bugs, because it is not my game.

Constructive criticism is NEVER a bad thing.

[thvaz]

I do not criticize, except for obvious bugs, because it is not my game.

Constructive criticism is NEVER a bad thing.

"Such a poor state" isn't constructive criticism, it is pointless whining. 31.25 is the more stable and bug-free version DF ever had.

[Mike Mayday]

I do not criticize, except for obvious bugs, because it is not my game.

Constructive criticism is NEVER a bad thing.

"Such a poor state" isn't constructive criticism, it is pointless whining. 31.25 is the more stable and bug-free version DF ever had.

Oh, of course this was not criticism. That's for the suggestions forum.
But it's unpleasant that you call a statement of opinion "pointless whining". It would make no sense to provide that criticism HERE and it makes a lot of sense to post one's (negative or positive) opinion in a thread where the OP is asking for opinions.
And stability and buglessness (whoops, new word) are only one of many elements of a game.

[KoboldWarmonger]

It's in our best interest that he continues to have fun while developing the game. Doing what other people want instead of what you want is a joykill. And compared to adding new features, bugfixing is pretty tedious and should not completely take over a planned development cycle.

THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT POINT.

I wouldn't mind adding superfluous content if the basic stuff wasn't in such a poor state. (I mean sieges, management, AI etc.)

Also mostly true. While the game is "playable", several basic mechanics are in a terribly broken state (e.g. clothes and dwarf posessions) and I'm sure Toady is aware. While a its beautiful game I personally imagine the guts of dwarf fortress to be a massive convoluted clusterfuck, a deep fortress in its own way. Games are big and terrifying lumps of code and Toady doesn't have the luxury of being formally schooled in managing them. If you've never coded before it's a bit difficult to imagine how frustrating it can be at times. Simple things like forgetting a curly bracket somewhere can have subtle and troubling effects (if it compiles). More complicated flaws can take several days or weeks of work before you have any tangible reward for your efforts. It's much more fun to add another monster, and as I said above, the most important thing for us and for our benevolent overlord is that he continues to have fun doing what he does.

Another issue is that many of the bugs live in mechanics which are slated for eventual replacement anyway. Its even more difficult to motivate yourself to fix something if you know you're going to be ripping that whole section out later and rewrite it.

All that said, I definitely think there's room for improvement in the development cycle. More frequent releases including fewer individual features mean that the community (a valuable resource!) has more time to test individual features and update the bugtracker. We're going to find a lot of shit in the new release despite our toad's heroic efforts, and it could be very demoralizing for him to have to deal with all that at once before he can go on to new things.

tl;dr writing games is hard and if you have a personal problem with Toady for taking too long you're a dick. However, I do think it would be better for the game if he practiced getting things out the door in smaller chunks.

[Mike Mayday]

I actually find the frequency of release dates completely irrelevant. I would gladly lay off DF for YEARS if I knew that it would mean getting a better game in the end. This game is in alpha and every smart player accepts this.
As an alternative, partially working and heavily bugged releases just for testing a specific part? Sure, I'd gladly help this way.

What I DO dislike and fear (more and more these days) is that the whole project could fail because of the current methods. Just as Armok 1 was discontinued because it was bogged down with graphics development, so is DF getting bogged down with details while the CORE gameplay sees relatively little development. I've already stopped caring about any work on improving the interface- I realize that it's not a fun thing to code. I also realize that it's fun to take a break from the big stuff and work on details.

Yes, I DO believe the CORE/DETAIL ratio is dangerously low. Is that being a dick? It is a statement of my opinion on Toady's methods and my fear for the project BECAUSE I believe in the man and believe in his work. I'm not saying "hey man, give me what I want right now". And even if I were, then hey, my avatar is a smarmy goblin SO GIMME A BREAK! (better yet, gimme TWO BREAKS!).

[Mickey Blue]

It is rather aggrivating that many of the other DF fans actually find nothing wrong with that. Check the TVtropes page on, for example, handling military where it is treated as an absolute improvement.

While DF has plenty of issues, and there are many things I'd prefer Toady work on rather then things he may be working on (but that's just my opinion, and motivated strongly by the fact I don't care for Adventure Mode), I personally have no problem with the state of the game now and I actually like the new military (doesn't mean it couldn't be better, just that I think its way better than it was).