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[khearn]

To paraphrase the OP:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[tolkafox]

IMO, these threads questioning Toady's decision are becoming monotonous and are as pointless as the 'DF vs. Minecraft' threads.

I'm sorry, I didn't laugh at all reading any of your posts. I just sighed with mild annoyance.
Ok, maybe that last one got me

[Michael]

Plenty of games update less frequently than DF.  There's nothing to whine about there.

Although Toady's release practices annoy in a different way.  The release I want, with vital interface fixes (such as ways to configure sane hauling without abusing "dump"), will likely be years or never to come.  Since he's so obsessed with silly things like nightcreatures instead.  His wanted features will likely make the micromanagement problems worse.

For example, in the blog he's talking about delaying reporting of deaths in order to give vampires a fighting chance of escaping player-mediated justice. That means punishing players for not single stepping the game in order to keep a watchful eye on each worker....


As an aside, people were talking about Elder Scrolls upthread.  They might be interested in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D31rhjKHytg

At least DF admits it designs dungeons by throwing darts at a board....

[thvaz]

For example, in the blog he's talking about delaying reporting of deaths in order to give vampires a fighting chance of escaping player-mediated justice. That means punishing players for not single stepping the game in order to keep a watchful eye on each worker.....

That means avoiding knowing exactly which dwarf is the murder, not punishing the player.

[Michael]

That means avoiding knowing exactly which dwarf is the murder, not punishing the player.

Toady can't hide the fact that a dwarf just died from an obsessively-attentive single-stepping player.  The victim would no longer be working.

If the murderer is not stealthed, he will be the closest visible dwarf to the victim.  (If two or more dwarves are close to the victim, then there would have been at least one friendly to witness the act.)  If he is stealthed, the player can just check off all the dwarves he can see, and accuse the missing one.

By delaying the death announcement until after the murderer can lose himself among the other dwarves, Toady can protect him from non-obsessive players.  But this punishes those players by preventing them from acting early, forcing them to suffer the attacks longer.

[Willfor]

There is a certain kind of player -- one who has read a good deal or notes for future development and loves where they are going, or one who just loves when interesting things happen -- that don't count it as a punishment at all, but as a joy. You only see it as a punishment because of your play style.

[thvaz]

There is a certain kind of player -- one who has read a good deal or notes for future development and loves where they are going, or one who just loves when interesting things happen -- that don't count it as a punishment at all, but as a joy. You only see it as a punishment because of your play style.

That of an obsessively-attentive single-stepping player. It's the player's fault, not Toady's.

[Kilroy the Grand]

I think vampires will be interesting, I'm the kind of guy that will designate a few layers to be mined, and then I'll do something else for a few minutes.

[Michael]

That of an obsessively-attentive single-stepping player. It's the player's fault, not Toady's.

It's more complicated than that.  Basically, most players have both an OASSP side and a casual side.  The murder-mystery stuff pushes the sides further apart, by giving the stepper side a solid reason never to let go of pause.

It's bad enough that the present UI doesn't let you set "stop and pause" on many relevant game events -- such as stocks reaching a low level or a cage trap triggering.  The vampire murder mysteries would make the UI go beyond simple obtuseness and into deliberate treachery.

[YetAnotherStupidDorf]

Who cares about obsessions? I see bigger problem with it - bug obfuscation potential. Oh, so much.

[Michael]

I've started a suggestions thread with a possible solution to the murder-mystery problem, "Privacy".

On another note, any comments on the video I linked upthread regarding Elder Scrolls?

[tolkafox]

I've started a suggestions thread with a possible solution to the murder-mystery problem, "Privacy".

On another note, any comments on the video I linked upthread regarding Elder Scrolls?

Having played all those games, I have no clue what it was talking about. One time I jumped into a triangle of rocks and couldn't move, but the game saves every time I sneeze so it wasn't a big setback.

I think everyone is getting obsessively nit-picky on a feature that they haven't had a chance to try out yet. Honestly, I think this is leaning towards Toady not telling anybody anything so they don't have a reason to complain until the next update rather than try to keep them up to date on what he's doing. Some of you are just outright bashing the game, and I ask of thee: Are you sure this game is for you? I have no problems with the UI. It's not Mac's idiot-proof interface, but I solidly believe that anyone with an iota of patience and a high school diploma can memorize it in two weeks top. Oh, and you do know you can create your own custom bindings, right? If something doesn't look right to you or a key isn't in the right place for you don't wait for Toady to fix it, everything you need to fix it yourself outside of motivation is right there.

Seriously, does someone need to go watch GITS?

[Neonivek]

hahaha, that was pretty funny. But in all fairness, most of Faulkners most respected works were written when he was pretty poor/unknown and need money badly. So, success doesn't always dictate respect.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: everybody give Toady money?

Oddly enough I was checking out the thread to write a PM to the person I quoted, for damage control, only to find out it was you and you liked the post. Phew.

[Kogut]

@IWANTRELESENOW!

from devlog:

I'm going to move on to the final town cleaning now. There's quite a bit of it, touching upon town building generation errors, market testing, optimization, sewer placement problems, weird tower placement, rivers in town doing strange things and not having bridges, strangeness on the town travel map, etc.

[Michael]

I think everyone is getting obsessively nit-picky on a feature that they haven't had a chance to try out yet.

Murder mysteries are just one example of such an unwanted feature.  Another major one, already done, is sprawl.  Toady was really proud of it, but gamewise it was a step backwards.  Now worlds take longer to gen, but are effectively smaller since so much space is unavailable to the player.  It's not as bad as it was before the default worldgen parameters were re-tuned, but it's still not an improvement.

Oh, and you do know you can create your own custom bindings, right? If something doesn't look right to you or a key isn't in the right place for you don't wait for Toady to fix it, everything you need to fix it yourself outside of motivation is right there.

I don't think that will help with the annoyances I have with the UI.  I'd need something more like a scripting language.

Can keybinding set things up so that dwarves will initially stock crafts in bins next to the crafts workshop, but move bins to a larger pile near the trade depot if and only if they are full, all without ever moving single craft items to the depot or moving anything out of the depot pile to the workshop pile?

Can it let me set a sane policy somewhere between the extremes of "dwarves gather refuse from outside" and "dwarves ignore refuse from outside"?