Onward!
Further comments:
All animals can't be butchered. What's worse, some wild animals that can't be tamed can't be butchered either, and thus they end up eternally existing in your traps and/or cages. If and when most of even small animals can yield something useful, trapping would also become a food source.
-bug: There's some kind of a bug with the traps. Some of my animals (blue jay, small lizard, red squirrel IIRC) are shown as "ready for butcher" before I move the selector closer to them, but change to "not tame" once the selector is next to them. The change happens before those spesific animals are selected, and all of them change at once. Also, I sold one of them - I sold a trap, and the squirrel was shown as "being traded", and vanished with the trap.
It'd help a lot if the "XYZ needed" message that is given when a task is canceled would read "x, y, z and å needed". It is confusing when I e.g. try to make a copper chest, have just two copper bars and am only given "copper bar needed" as a message.
My dwarves have trouble with beer and barrels. Spesifically, they put things on barrels quicker than I can make new empty ones, and thus my brewer is unable to brew anything before he is interrupted by another dwarf stealing his barrel. Similarly, meat next to traps is left there when a dwarf goes to eat, then brought back to the food storage, etc. Not that important, but it's one of the reasons slowing things down. Most of my dwarves just move things around instead of doing imoprtant stuff.
Hunter just outside his mountain home, and his own room inside, sleeps in the ground. He was returning from a hunting trip. If it isn't already implemented, it'd be very nice if there was "want" and "need" spesifications for things like drink and food. When a dwarf "wants" food, he'll do that after finishing his job. He only stops his current job when he "needs" food.
Single ammo that is outdoors should just disappear. I don't want my dwarves going all the way to the west side of the wilderness to get a lone crossbow bolt back, especially when they don't even get the deer corpse the merceless huntress left there when he spotted new prey.
Filling a waterskin should probably take less time. It seems that all my dwarves with a waterskin have to stop filling them to get a drink, then start again, then stop to eat, then start again...
- bug: Sometimes the dwarves suspend construction when e.g. an architect is not available. However, either before the suspension, or after it, I changed the orders so that there ARE architect dwarves. The suspension was never removed, and I couldn't remove it myself. I canceled the build order, then re-issued it, and the building was completed without further hassle.
- bug? : For my Finnish keyboard mapping, help doesn't come up from ? , but from *. That isn't numpad multiplier, but a button next to the enter/newline, lower of the two buttons right to the left of it, with lowercase ' and uppercase *.
I'd like to comment on something Master Toady the First said earlier:
quote:
The grab-multiple-items stuff is reasonable annoying to program, but, yeah, the hunter could keep track of items they brought into the woods, and try not to leave without them -- since they don't have to scan open ground for these that's easier.
Couldn't the hunter just collect and ammo, (throwable weapons?) and eatable corpses he sees, and bring them home with him? Missiles can be lost in the wild, and aren't that important - but it'd be nice if the hunters seemed to care a bit about their equipment.
The graphics are untolerable, but uniquely endearing. I just glimpsed at what the world of dwarves would look like with VARIED_GROUND_TILES off, and it's just too common, too ADOM, too normal roguelike that's more simplistic and doesn't need to care about grass because the ground is just for walking. At the same time, after that brief glimpse to a world where I could see the trees, where I could see the plant bushes, where I could make out the items on the cavern floor because the ground wasn't so confusing itself... I'm not sure I can bare to play the game with the VGT on! Esthetics is one of the hardest parts you'll have to overcome as a game developer, and it's thrice as hard when you're trying to make an ASCII game where the ground is sometimes rocky, sometimes green, sometimes lush, sometimes barren, sometimes stone, sometimes mud... I'm no expert either, but I quess it'd be better to start from simple. If you can tell me how I can change the tiles used for spesific ground types, I can test this out myself, but here's what I think would be fine until you have time to flesh it out:
generally:
all non-important plants are _´_ or _´`_ of two different greens
unworked stone floors would be: _,._ or just _._ of the color of the stone
mud would be: _~,_ or just _,_ of brown
bush: fine as-is
trees: fine as-is, because long symbols are rare elsewhere! Great idea!
sapling: probably fine as-is
water and murky water: fine as-is
rock walls: they are VERY, very good even now! No need to change them! I especially like the fact that I can see mining process!
[ August 14, 2006: Message edited by: Janne Joensuu ]
EDIT:
Second-level interior decorating already needs work. I'm pretty sure walls and floor of one room share some of the symbols - that's very, very confusing. With just few detailed tiles here and there, it looks awesome though! I mean, a dwarven head, a £ and few other random symbols on the four squares next to a well - it was beautiful! Also, when talking about detailing - it should be possible to detail Supports. Their graphics should change into O, the same as for Pillars. Pillars look better than supports.
[ August 14, 2006: Message edited by: Janne Joensuu ]