Gambit on 18/8/2008 at 11:32
Is it text-based because the game is so hardware demanding that it can´t afford graphics without freezing the FPS or is it because of nostalgia ?
Or maybe they made a team of excellent coders but there was no artist with them ?
Chimpy Chompy on 18/8/2008 at 13:22
All that Ascii magically transports me back to playing games on an Amstrad 1512, twenty+ years ago... and frankly it sucked as a gaming platform compared to just about anything else going.
Anyway this looks iotriguing, and I do like to think of myself as a fairly retro guy. But there are plenty of involving and detailed strategy games that are at least a bit easier on the eye. And aesthetics do matter, even if that's not that same thing as cutting edge graphics.
Ulukai on 18/8/2008 at 14:49
I also had a an Amstrad PC 1512 - the nearest I got to graphics was Space Quest 2 in CGA, I seem to recall spending much longer playing some kind of ASCII shootem-up that I got via mail order. On 5.25" floppies.
Koki on 18/8/2008 at 15:40
Quote Posted by Gambit
Is it text-based because the game is so hardware demanding that it can´t afford graphics without freezing the FPS or is it because of nostalgia ?
Or maybe they made a team of excellent coders but there was no artist with them ?
Well, the team is a pair of brothers. One is a coder.
Stitch on 18/8/2008 at 18:21
Quote Posted by Koki
I blame TTLG's artistic freedom when it comes to thread titles.
Yeah, I posted the link not as some sort of Koki correction, for the record, but just because it's a good thread with some great Dwarf Fortress stories.
In theory I should love this game, but when I gave it a try two years ago I was repulsed by the user-hostile nature of the interface.
demagogue on 18/8/2008 at 19:28
I liked it the first time I played it, but it's hard to be motivated to do it again.
For me it wasn't so much the interface, but I was never sure what exactly I was building everything for in the grand scheme of things. That's what made Civilization and Warcraft so re-playable ... It wasn't just building for building's sake, but to out-build the other guy and really use what you build to advance in the game towards some grand goal. Here it's not even clear what "advancing" means.
That's what really needs to be added here to keep you going and a payoff for learning the interface, some more compelling goal than "survive another winter and please some asshole nobles". I mean, it felt good to finally get a working fortress up and running and well defended (really the best part of the game), but then I wanted to really do something with it, and at that point it sort of fizzles.
Edit: By the way, the staircase thing is new to me. In the earlier versions everybody started at the same cliff face, and everything was at one level. Just thinking about handling all that building again gives me some stress...
Edit2: Thinking about it, what it needs is something like the goal in Civilization to build an interplanetary ship ... Some monolithic project that requires a full working fortress years to produce a piece at a time, each piece with its own risks.
Stitch on 19/8/2008 at 16:08
Insanity prevailed and I downloaded this bitch again last night, and I swear to god they've actually made this game less newbie friendly since my last attempt. I'm no stranger to clunky user interfaces--I actually played Republic: the Revolution, for god's sake--but this is ridiculous.
Koki on 21/8/2008 at 15:40
Quote Posted by demagogue
For me it wasn't so much the interface, but I was never sure what exactly I was building everything for in the grand scheme of things.
Well the original goal was pretty much to lose as spectacularily as possible. Since newer version are much easier, it kind of doesn't work anymore.
Malf on 25/8/2008 at 20:58
Gave this another shot today with one of the "Nice" tilesets, and I got a lot further this time.
However, everything's okay until more dwarves appear.
At that point it all gets a bit too much :|
That and the Wiki instructions for making stuff stick to the classic tileset, so you stand no chance of deciphering placements if you're using a custom set.
It seems like it's right up my alley, but at the same time, it's melting my brain.
demagogue on 25/8/2008 at 22:17
Yeah one design issue is that so much of the game is preparing for things that will come later. You have to already be ready when the new dwarves come ... rooms dug, beds placed, food stocked. I didn't know when/if monsters were going to attack so got lax on defense and one goblin decimated my entire fortress!
