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[slyeye]

          A great addition to fortress mode would be to change the viewing angle. Currently the game is restricted to a view with South at the bottom of the screen and North at the top, but with the ability to change the camera angle one would be able to have East on the bottom and West on the top or vice versa. I for one know that my selection of fortress locations tends to be determined by the placement of terrain, a wall of mountain on the top of the screen for example, and if I were able to change my view the pool of locations would be broadened considerably. Furthermore, to avoid disorientation, perhaps a small compass rose could be added to the mini-map window. I'm not sure how feasible this would be to implement, but the concept itself seems rather simple and would be very useful.

[Gullydwarf]

I think this would be a nice addition to our GUI if there was such a thing as depth in the graphics. For the reason you propose I really don't see the point in spending valuable dev time on it. Why do you specifically want the rock face to be north. Doesn't it have the same affect if the rockface is facing east?
I know it looks different but it's not a gameplay issue, right?

[slyeye]

I'm not proposing the idea for a change in game play, the reasons are purely aesthetic. Many people like to arrange their fortress in a specific way simply for how it looks and this tool would allow them to use more embark locations. I'm really not sure how much dev time this would entail, but I was listening to Dwarf Fortress Talk 16 and Toady mentioned that there was already some code for changing perspective that was created for a different reason so perhaps that could be re-purposed. I am willing to admit, however, that I may have wildly misunderstood what Toady was referring to when that was mentioned.

[squeakyReaper]

I have a thing for making my forts have a grand "southern" entrance. This makes some embarks not work for me due to river placement. If I could rotate my view so that I could avoid the river while still "facing" down, I'd like it.

[antymattar]

Not dwarfy. I would rather prefer to rotate the world.

[612DwarfAvenue]

I don't really see how this would be useful, but that's just me.

[King DZA]

Not very useful gameplay wise, but definitely something I'd probably use often for construction, or nice change of perspective. If it's something Toady threw into one of the releases, I certainly wouldn't mind it. I do love my aesthetics, after all.

[dwarfhoplite]

I really like it. I dont think it would too much work to put this in either. This would give some variation to especially old boring forts

[Iton Ibrukrithzam]

I would definitely appreciate such a feature.  I do the "entrance must face south" thing, too, and I already have way too many exacting specifications on my embark sites.

[Aerval]

From my point of view, the whole View on the Fortress needs a rewrite. I for myself would like to have a surface view (view from top to all z-levels viewable from the sky/for example for military interactions in mountainous areas) and for building large structures a view from the x and the y axis (from the side and not from top)
But I guess thats one of the things that belong for Toady in the Interface category, where making it more complex leads to more things to think of in the further development process.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I don't see why we need this, so unless it's easy, I don't think Toady should waste his time on it until he has time to waste.

[Di]

Not dwarfy. I would rather prefer to rotate the world.

For some reason, I believe it'll be easier to code, you'd just need to wait till it rewrites map when you change direction.

[Artanis00]

Not dwarfy. I would rather prefer to rotate the world.

For some reason, I believe it'll be easier to code, you'd just need to wait till it rewrites map when you change direction.

Probably doable, too. DFHack?

[Funburns]

Some food for thought: What if it was possible to rotate the display smoothly in any direction? I have no idea whether or not it would be easy to code with the graphics system the way it is now; it probably wouldn't be easy at all. It's certainly not terribly important, but it would be a very shiny feature, even in DF's full ASCII glory.

To help imagine what that would be like, think of a card with a symbol on it. That card would be a single tile on the map. If you keep that card facing towards you and move it around, it would continue to display the contents of that square regardless of the position it's in. A screen full of map squares would be a table of cards which you could turn and move around not only in the X-Y plane, but also into Z, to make the display of that single slice of the world look more like a landscape. Thus the ASCII map could be rendered in either an orthographic or a perspective projection at any angle desired.

Having this extra method of manipulating the map would make visualizing what your fortress looks like a more vivid experience, I'd say. I'd still prefer Toady works on what he wants instead of adding silly interface ideas, but it's interesting to think about.

[King DZA]

Some food for thought: What if it was possible to rotate the display smoothly in any direction? I have no idea whether or not it would be easy to code with the graphics system the way it is now; it probably wouldn't be easy at all. It's certainly not terribly important, but it would be a very shiny feature, even in DF's full ASCII glory.

To help imagine what that would be like, think of a card with a symbol on it. That card would be a single tile on the map. If you keep that card facing towards you and move it around, it would continue to display the contents of that square regardless of the position it's in. A screen full of map squares would be a table of cards which you could turn and move around not only in the X-Y plane, but also into Z, to make the display of that single slice of the world look more like a landscape. Thus the ASCII map could be rendered in either an orthographic or a perspective projection at any angle desired.

Having this extra method of manipulating the map would make visualizing what your fortress looks like a more vivid experience, I'd say. I'd still prefer Toady works on what he wants instead of adding silly interface ideas, but it's interesting to think about.

I would very much like to see this implemented one day. It would make observing things like battles and megaprojects far more fascinating.