I agree Dwarf Fortress is quite hard to learn and the UI plays a large part of that as it's completely keyboard based and requires a lot of upfront effort to learn, but once you do you become much faster than you would otherwise (much like text editors).

People often complain about Dwarf Fortress's graphics in the same vain and breath as the UI, but I think these are parts of the charm and instead of being weaknesses they are leveraged as strengths.

For instance, the lack of fidelity of the game allows any new character to be added in 2 seconds, yet Rimworld needs a considerable amount of time and effort developing each texture. To an extent I think the 'horrible' user experience cannot be divorced from Dwarf Fortress. Losing is fun, after all.

I think what you consider a 'horrible' user experience cannot be divorced from what we know as Dwarf Fortress today. Losing is fun after all. I love Rimworld and Dwarf Fortress, but they occupy different spaces within a similar genre in my mind.

It's not so much that it's keyboard controlled (that's great for the reasons you mention) or that it's hard (that's ultimately part of its charm). It's that the interface is inconsistent with itself. A great example (from when I last spent any comsiderable time with it) is that different menus use different controls and mechanisms for selecting a menu item. Some have you type a single character, while others have you scroll through them with varying pairs of keys for no obvious reason. It's a natural result of organic growth and IMO outweighed by a great game, but the cognitive load of using the interface definitely isn't its charm for me.

Then you need to create a task with a specific type of gem to encrust, again the task will delete if that gem type is unavailable.

Finally the encruster will select an item in your fortress at random to encrust with that type of gem.

So if you want to cut semiprecious stones, queue a task for cut gemstone, worth ¤1 to ¤5. It would also be nice if you could specify the type of cut, since the game engine already randomly produces cabochons and baguettes and cushions and such.

The encrusting randomness can be controlled by locking the jeweler in a room with only one encrustable item, but I shouldn't have to. If I want a masterwork silver hammer encrusted with small jade cabochons, I want to be able to specify that.

Also, building multi-part instruments is just insane.

For instance, the lack of fidelity of the game allows any new character to be added in 2 seconds

I get this and actually completely agree. I loved MUD's back in the day because they could be so much more complex and detailed because they didn't have to worry about graphics and whatnot. Rimworld and such also can do a lot more than fancy 3D games for the exact same reasons, so there's definitely a spectrum.

But having said that, I still find the DF UX to be almost unapproachable. It could be low fidelity for the reasons you mention without being quite so hard to learn and internalise, but I get the impression that its just not a priority for the dev at all. Oh well, its their choice, but I feel a bit sad that I'm missing out on an otherwise amazing game.

I am the same way. If I wanted to struggle with difficult tasks, I would work. I realize this puts me more in the "casual gamer" category.

Get past your dislike of the UI and you'll discover a game so rich it will outlast any other.

Ideally the game should be easy to learn the basics, but hard to master. The UI hinders this significantly.

And you play using a nice physical goban, the UX is really hard to beat.

I mean I came at the game from a long history of playing Roguelikes, so the ASCII graphics weren't an immediate turnoff, but figuring out how to do anything is just plain daunting.

Also, there is a big difference between most Roguelikes and DF on the graphics front. In Rogue you start in a small room with just yourself and maybe a treasure or a monster. New monster icons are introduced slowly so you can learn them at a reasonable pace. In Dwarf Fortress you are apparently expected to learn dozens of symbols right from the start in addition to figuring out what keybinds do what and trying to figure out what you are supposed to be doing or if the fact that there are dozens of different kinds of rocks is important yet or not.

If there was ever a game crying out for a hand holding tutorial it is Dwarf Fortress.

I honestly kinda stopped playing after military gui is changed. The new system is unplayable. New conversation system is also very frustrating in adventure mode.

I just wish the game will be open source at some point and the things will be improved.

What I'm still waiting for is the game that comes after Dwarf Fortress, the game which is appropriately engineered for performance and is thereby able to be even more ambitious. We've seen a ton of less ambitious DF clones, but nothing on the other end so far.

This is only true for tiny developers. If you have dedicated artists then you aren't gated in this way as you work in parallel.

At this point we are conflating too many topics to really talk clearly. Simplest response would be "you should plan to spend years developing if you want to and if you do you need a budget and a way to fill that budget". See early release games as one example, expansions are an older one.

This is from Feb 2016, are the updates you're talking about more recent?

[0]http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=156319.0

That's the point of it, and I think it attracts all sorts of interesting comments and exploration, like the massive study on the impacts of various types of arrows and bolts on subjects.

Name me anything that is perfect without flaws and still useful? Water is great to drink yet it gets you wet and drowns you if you breath it. Fire is lovely and warm and cooks our food but burns and melts our flesh if we play in it. Lids keep felt tip pens wet, and choke our children. Fish are pretty and taste nice but occasionally swallow fisherdwarves. The internet is great and connects us but causes divide by mixing people who were better separated. Light is fantastic, but I can't sleep if I can see any. Tea is just perfect, but it mAkEs Me ShaKe toO mUcH aNd ThaT caN be a ProbleM.

> Water is great to drink yet it gets you wet and drowns you if you breath it.

If we're going to carry this analogy to Dwarf Fortress, if water was DF, it would be great to drink unless you happened to drink it from an aqueduct that carried it more than 20 miles. It would also make you spontaneously explode if your cat also drank from the same container, and you would be able to demand that your landlord replace your front door with one made of water and would go berserk when he didn't comply.

Not fucking remembering how to engrave gemstones because the key combination is unlike anything else, or how to put down a butcher table, or how to to set up a training rotation for my military? That's just shitty design.

Is there a VI interface?

Edit: I still have to stop myself from re-downloading dwarf fortress about once per week because there is so much left to explore. I just barely scratched the surface of power stations and automated rail systems. You could spend thousands of hours just designing traps to kill goblins. The fun is in the complexity. Perhaps you just did not get deep enough into the game. Now I have to talk myself out of downloading DF again. The sheer maniacal glee of knocking a dozen goblins off a narrow path (use a rail car attached to a pressure plate) into a pit and filling it with lava after spending hours setting it up just can't be described.

I find the DF UI, while minimal, to be great. Everything can be done on keyboard shortcuts... its more challenging initially, really easy as soon as it clicks... then the idea of doing it all with a mouse seems crazy

IIRC (foggy memory, several years since I last played) there are several ways to move through lists, depending on which list you are. Military was a chaos. People recommend an external application for better review of your dwarves, as the main interface is clunky.

It's a great game, but the UI could be much better.

RimWorld is great, but it just feels so much more sparse than DF - you only have a handful of folks. Graphics are nice (and the Prison Architect style is nice as well) and the way to assign orders is much needed (identical to a DF community add-on), but when it comes to Building Your Thang, it's just not a bustling community working against the odds.

It's interesting that so many things are based off what DF lacks (basic graphics, ui-friendliness) but don't implement the heart of DF (complexity), which is admittedly hard and was built up in DF over the course of years.

* Not to say I dislike RimWorld, in fact it is my favour dwarflike.

I play, know the bindings etc, but the UI has enormous problems with consistency.

The older interface like the jewlery encrusting and labor assignent work in a completely different way than the less old interfaces like military management and hospitals, which are yet again inconsistem with the latest interfaces like libraries and taverns

Some room get built on the room menu, oter in the zone menu, both can have either modern or old menus to manage assignment and roles and while the whole thing is workable is far from being great, good, easy or even likeable.

Dwarf Fortress is an amazing game with an incredible engine, but its UI is notoriously terrible, and IMHO deservedly so. But then, I've never managed to last very long, so perhaps there's something wrong with me.

That said, the great thing about the UI is that once you've learned it you can discard it. If you know the commands you need, you can hide the 'commands' area to give you more information on the current gamestate.

FWIW, DF is absolutely fantastic at doing what it's designed to do. It's primarily a story generator not a game, which is partly why interactivity is almost an afterthought

Do you use Dwarf Therapist?

You search for it, and the main page for Dwarf Fortress is on a "bay12games" domain rather than its own. No one knows "Bay12Games", and it's been 10+ years since Dwarf Fortress was first released. The guy running this should get over it, and admit that the only reason he's got some sort of fame is because of a single game. He should focus on that, not "Bay 12 Games". That company doesn't even have its own Wiki page.

Then the page itself. Looks like it's made in the early 2000's and hasn't been updated since. I just, I don't even know where to start with this one.

Then the actual download for the game: "df_43_05_win.zip". No installer, no MSI, nothing. I opened it just now, and couldn't find any sort of "Instructions" file or manual, either. Not to mention that all the "nicely packaged" versions of Dwarf Fortress exist in random forum threads.

Really? You can find some of us here. Length > 0. http://www.bay12games.com/champions.html

> The guy running this should get over it, and admit that the only reason he's got some sort of fame is because of a single game.

And if you don't mind me being so blunt, what is your reason? I don't know of zo1.

> Then the page itself. Looks like it's made in the early 2000's and hasn't been updated since. I just, I don't even know where to start with this one.

Some of us remember the internet back when it looked like this. Some of us miss the internet when it looked like this. For this reason, many of us like the website to look _just like this_.

> Then the actual download for the game: "df_43_05_win.zip". No installer, no MSI, nothing. I opened it just now, and couldn't find any sort of "Instructions" file or manual, either. Not to mention that all the "nicely packaged" versions of Dwarf Fortress exist in random forum threads.

Now, I'm going to do something rare and separate from the usual jovial friendliness associated with the community to give make a very stark statement: if you can't figure out how to run the game, you probably shouldn't play it.

Now, returning to a more friendly disposition, I think you need to chill out a bit, stop picking everything apart so much, and start enjoying things for what they are.

I was a tad bit to harsh for polite conversation; but I have no idea why the creator couldn't let a community helper just fix things up a bit. Give it some love, so to speak, like it seems he does to the game itself.

>"Really? You can find some of us here. Length > 0. http://www.bay12games.com/champions.html*"

Sure, length of the amount of "champions" is approx 2100. Bay12Games is still a pretty unknown game company. But everyone knows Dwarf Fortress, so my point still stands. In case you glossed over it: It was a bit of hyperbole.

>"Now, I'm going to do something rare and separate from the usual jovial friendliness associated with the community to give make a very stark statement: if you can't figure out how to run the game, you probably shouldn't play it.*"

It's not that it's difficult to get into, it's that the whole presentation of the game and how it is presented to the user are completely unpalatable. Even before the user gets to see the game UI on his own machine.

Am I saying that your community needs to cater to me, make the game easier, etc? No.

I'm not trying to pick it apart, just adding my point about what sort of disservice the surrounding presentation of this game is doing to it.

Could all these things be done better? Absolutely. However, he has found a way to prioritise the things that are required to make him successful. I look at that priority list and think it's insane, but you will note that I don't receive my salary from kind hearted people who appreciate my quirky way of doing things. I get paid to do as I'm told.

It's pretty easy to think "I could do it better". WRT to DF, there are so many places you can criticise, that it's not funny. But, TBH, I don't think I could do it better, no matter how crazy I think his way of doing things is.

AFAIK, that's all he's doing right now.

Also, Liberal Crime Squad is entertaining too and I know there's a few communities around it.

I've found that this particular game has found its niche because of what it is.

The point of the creator is this: the game isnt even past pre-alpha. Lots of things will change, which a UI will only bog down.

So for example rimworld is still currently 2d. (will possibly change), but that a big change

DF plans to change the full world gen and design in the next arc - its a reasonable view.

Here is a quick animated gif with a few examples of interactions:

http://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/gsg-content/uploads/2014/1...

The default tiles are ugly - unnecessarily ugly - and the keyboard controls don't seem great. (Like a sibling to this comment says, consistency has a lot to do with it, and not having to move your hands far around the keyboard is nice.) Then again, I admit I haven't spent that much time with it.

So I do find the interface offputting, but it's not because I want a flashy, dumbed-down one. And it's a bit frustrating whenever I see criticism of the Dwarf Fortress interface dismissed in those terms.

I frankly don't blame the guy for wanting to keep it closed source.

But the game pales in comparison to the beauty and replayability of Dwarf Fortress. I've been playing DF for 5 years and I still feel like a novice. Toss in modding and the game goes even further.

I understand your point of view, but I'm sad that amazing and well-designed games like Nethack and Dwarf Fortress don't get a fair shake because they're fixed width tile games. DF is a simulation game of stunning proportions.