And this is why, fascinating as it sounds, I'll never play Dwarf Fortress. I already have a job, and I get paid for it not only in satisfaction but also in money. It's awesome that they're able to devote their lives to their artwork, and I like reading about it from time to time, but in the end it's an unappealing value proposition for someone with limited time.
That being said, I'm glad that I donated. I feel that I've gotten my money's worth just from reading about it every few months and knowing that I am supporting indie game developers. Hopefully at some point it will become more user-friendly so I can actually play it. Or maybe I should drop some hobbies...
Does anyone know how long it takes an average new player to get to the point where Dwarf Fortress is more fun than confusing and frustrating?
Or, like me, you just turn off acquifiers in the Lazy Newb Packs launch options. Newbs should probably also turn off invasions.
Finally, a quick hint to help your fort flourish: ALWAYS kill the elf traders. You get all their stuff, and they never invade or get angry. They tend to come back again, actually, bringing you more cloth and food for free!
Yes, they're artists and this is their art, but software rarely -- if ever -- exists in isolation, yet DF acts like it does. You've all these nerds with too much time on their hands building all this ridiculously complicated infrastructure just to play the game in a way that is more comfortable, when instead the DF guys could simply allocate X amount of time and then be done with it. And this isn't a demand that the DF guys make the UI better, just a wish that they would put in a minimal amount of effort so that the community could hook in their own GUI code with a minimum of fuss.
Besides, I write code and debug fussy computer shit all day for work. Games shouldn't require that kind of advanced hackery just to play.
And who cares if they're artists? Neither the artist nor his art are immune to criticism (or, wishfully thinking, critique).
In cinema that sentiment has resulted in some of the most vapid, unwatchable trash ever created. In music this results in experimental, unlistenable noise that never seems to appeal to anyone enough to be self-sustaining. It's like an emotionally repressed teenager crying out, "you don't understand my pain, man! you'll never understand!" We do understand, we've all gone through it, and we've moved on.
If DF's creators want to be avant garde, then fine. But it is a lonely, and possibly pointless path, and again a damn shame, because oh how amazing it would be if it weren't!
Game development, these days, is so focused on hand holding, genre, and accessibility that it is only by truly following ones heart that something unique and new, like Dwarf Fortress, can be created.
Plus, it's still not verion 1.0, so who knows, maybe someday they'll fix the interfaces! But since other things are always in flux, it'd be a premature optimization now, anyway. Those pave the road to Balrogs, or something.
But, as you say, it's their project. They can do with it what they want. I can sit here and critique and wish it were better, and you can defend it, and together we change nothing. I just really want to play a game as inspired as this in a way that doesn't require the kind of devotion and study this game does, because its a friggin videogame and I need to devote my studyin' time to shit that actually matters (to me, touche).
(And besides, I think we human beings have a fetish for complexity that we really could do without)
I call BS
They've already been working on it for a dozen years, so what's another dozen?
Anyway, back to the UI: they can rethink or polish it in the run-up to 1.0; no need to spend too much time on before then.
The original link for this thread is basically a huge list of the things that are not yet implemented.
The rest of that list? Stretch goals. Or the entire vision. What, you think I've never seen that list? It's a big list, and it's stupid because it is so impossibly long. The entire vision is never 1.0...
It prevents everything from having the same esthetic and feel. The graphics of DF is also what makes it unique from the rest.
Treat the experience more like playing with some sort of odd micro-kernel in a VM, with tools for poking and probing it. Approach it like a software development tool, or a Linux server and it becomes a little less daunting, especially as all the letters are on the screen for quick reference, rather than in a man page.
Still, the beauty of Dwarf Fortress IS that it doesn't care about the UI. It's not for you. It's not for anyone other than it's creators. It's for Zach and Tarn. Yes, it's also for the game's fans, but the brothers have always been building the game THEY wanted to play, and doing exactly what they wanted to do. They're not beholden to a schedule, or some massive revamp required in order to make the game more accessible. They're true to their own desires and souls.
They're artists. This is their art. Yes, it is truly impenetrable, but as with almost all art, taking the time to delve deeper is uniquely and spiritually rewarding. Yes, spiritually.