Behold ELDERMANOR! of Dwarf Fortress !

[Crossroads Inc.]

Many of us have played the Epic game known as Dwarf Fortress for many an age, first in 2D, then in 3D! But just how far and how big have you gone?

Well, Recently I have finished my first truly Epic Work!
It shall stand for a 1,000 years! Behold the Ziggurat!!!

[Kuja]

Needs a flag.

[Serafina]

Honestly, i never had the nerve to get into this game.

But if i look at these awsome pictures, i think i should give it another try.

[Commander 598]

Wait, it's in 3d now?

[Singer]

I didn't realize it could be in 3d either. It's a separate program called "3dwarf" that takes a map file and renders it in 3d. Haven't had the time to try it yet, but you can find it if you search on Google.

[Tanasinn]

Honestly, i never had the nerve to get into this game.

But if i look at these awsome pictures, i think i should give it another try.

There's a lovely set of tutorials on youtube that will help get you moving. It also helps to have a friend who doesn't mind HURP DURP DURR HURR questions on the game.

Once you get over the first few humps, it's really not bad at all.

[Molyneux]

I didn't realize it could be in 3d either. It's a separate program called "3dwarf" that takes a map file and renders it in 3d. Haven't had the time to try it yet, but you can find it if you search on Google.

That's...pretty damn awesome. I need to get into this game, now.

[Duckie]

You have done well.

GOOD END

[Also I have Dwarf Fortress version-fatigue. I can't play 40d13 and haven't played for almost a year now because the new one has stuff that I'd feel it's incomplete without. Like a solution to the 'game is impossibly easy if you know what you're doing' thing. He's promised recurring invasions from underground and such. Maybe he'll make it a struggle to have enough food again and have tough sieges (where they can do stuff like get through doors or walls with sappers) like 2d for next-next-release.]

Look up Khazad. (google "Khazad" +"Dwarf Fortress"). Download it. Show us inside of fortress in exploded view mode or the like, if you could. Khazad is like 3dwarf, but made of 'holy shit'.

Sadly, 3dwarf and Khazad aren't too good for playing the game but more for a while you have the game paused, so you have to put up with Algebra Vomit World until you get to the point where like me you don't see the things anymore. The other day I wrote 'barrel' instead of 'percent sign' when commenting a program on what the % did.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Dwarf Fortresses overwhelming in 3d rendering...

[White Haven]

Thank you, Duckie, I've got a new Out Of Context Theatre.

[Alan Bolte]

The other day I wrote 'barrel' instead of 'percent sign' when commenting a program on what the % did.

I don't doubt you, and that's amusing, but a barrel is an obelus, or division sign. Percent signs are used for unstored food, screw pumps, maybe something else.

¦
This is a pipe section.

[Duckie]

The other day I wrote 'barrel' instead of 'percent sign' when commenting a program on what the % did.

I don't doubt you, and that's amusing, but a barrel is an obelus, or division sign. Percent signs are used for unstored food, screw pumps, maybe something else.

¦
This is a pipe section.

You know, I was actually right. I wrote "Rations", but when I was making my post, since I hadn't played DF in about a year now, I said "I'm pretty sure that's wrong, and I don't want to look stupid, so I'll just change it to barrel. That sounds righter." *facepalm*

Shows me up for trying to look smart.

[Zixinus]

I'm downloading the tutorial videos again.

The pain of the game is that you'd need the dwarf-wiki built-in to get anything really done well. What's annoying is that there are only the videos that you can actually download, you can't download, say, the official manual.

[Crossroads Inc.]

You CAN get graphic addons for those that can;t take the ASCII set up, here is an Example.

[Duckie]

I'm downloading the tutorial videos again.

The pain of the game is that you'd need the dwarf-wiki built-in to get anything really done well. What's annoying is that there are only the videos that you can actually download, you can't download, say, the official manual.

The official manual is worthless, though. After that one guy's tutorial videos, just have the dwarf wiki open in a window while playing DF in windowed mode and consult when necessary- that's at least how I learned.

[Zixinus]

Thing is that I'm mostly playing off my laptop that does not have an internet connection and the videos are a bit drool. I think that's one of the biggest problems with Dwarf Fortress: the learning curve is right up the ass. Losing is not fun when you invested hours into a game and don't know how to do things right.

[Duckie]

Thing is that I'm mostly playing off my laptop that does not have an internet connection and the videos are a bit drool. I think that's one of the biggest problems with Dwarf Fortress: the learning curve is right up the ass. Losing is not fun when you invested hours into a game and don't know how to do things right.

You had to have gotten an internet connection at some point to play the game- isn't there a way to make a page available offline by saving it to a cache permanently? I seem to have enabled that option with a dictionary I consult regularly, because it works even if my internet connection is out. I just don't know where the button is.

Also, if 'learning curve' and 'losing' are a problem with dwarf fortress then the game might just not be for you.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Although I find the joke about what the entire colony's economy is based on in the 3PS DF cartoon funny and repulsive at the same time. yeah, my dwarves hate the stockpiled vermin, but I can't bring myself to bring cats along knowing what will happen....

---edit---
At least the dogs are going to have a glorious death fighting something much bigger then them....

[Tanasinn]

I find dogs funny to hard-breed, train, and stuff into cages for sieges. Come siege time, I let the goblins cross my traps, open the drawbridge, and allow them to cross the courtyard inside my moat/canal. As they're about, say, a little less than half-way down I've been trying to experiment with releasing all of the dogs via lever and crushing the goblinoid filth between a wall of dorfs and a swarm of vicious hounds.

Closing the drawbridge makes sure they can't retreat.

[Duckie]

Due to the ease of play, I've got some houserules like:

A. No crossbow only military, crossbowers must be 50% or less of military, I tend more towards 25% or 33%.
B. Don't rely on traps except if you've got a hillarious idea for one (like, dump water kept warm by being inside the rock out a flume on to enemies in a glacial map and watch as they flashfreeze). No cage trap exploiting at all.
C. Don't feed goblin weapons into weapon traps and use those weapon traps to kill more goblins to take their weapons to put in weapon traps.
D. Don't lock doors against goblins to keep them out.

Hopefully the next update (training, teaching, weapons drilling, alert status, and better features/underground invasions) will help this, although the 'sieges aren't pitiful unless you purposefully let them attack you instead of turtling till they go away' update isn't until after this one.

[Stark]

You can replace all the tilesets you want; the interface is still a pile of shit 'enthusiast' driven muddle. Oh wait, I hear being massively opaque, fiddly and clunky is part of the 'charm'.

Or, they could just implement an actual interface.

[Vendetta]

Or, they could just implement an actual interface.

Pfft. Time spent on an interface that doesn't make flight simulators feel inadequate would take up time required to realistically model the effect of rainfall on fortress flooding or whatever it is Toady is doing now.

[Duckie]

Or, they could just implement an actual interface.

Pfft. Time spent on an interface that doesn't make flight simulators feel inadequate would take up time required to realistically model the effect of rainfall on fortress flooding or whatever it is Toady is doing now.

Well, I won't defend the interface. It's pretty horrible. But there's gameplay issues that need to be solved and for once Toady is actually focusing on related things (although not always, with silly distractions). I'm not going to complain if the gameplay is fixed so that the game becomes non-autopilot to play and then the interface is fixed.

Stuff like how pointy elf ears are and simulating how population genetics work and the like are distractions, but ultimately the new stuff he's making like fixing how injuries work, adding surgery and healing, fixing some of the 'boss' monsters like collossi, potential for underground attackers and [eventually] getting sieges to be non-trivial to defeat (and perhaps also making it so enemies can find and disarm traps, or fixing trap-abuse somehow so that every fortress stops looking like Indiana Jones style temples): that should all go a ways towards actually fixing the meat of the game to where it isn't stuck in 'easy' mode, although I'd like to see farming become a non-trivial exercise too like it used to be.

After all that stuff is done, then I'll switch my vote to 'fix the interface'. As with all fan-run things, it does run into problems like 'game is impenetrable to outsiders, meanwhile 90% of fans are voting 'add wheelbarrows'* ' and shit like that, but for now the improvements are for once mostly worthwhile.

*I shit you not, in light of all the lack of gameplay fixes and interface fixes, a good 50% of all votes are towards 'make mining more complicated' in the transferrable vote thing. It's a good thing he hasn't shown any signs of actually listening to said poll.

[Stark]

Pfft. Time spent on an interface that doesn't make flight simulators feel inadequate would take up time required to realistically model the effect of rainfall on fortress flooding or whatever it is Toady is doing now.

Yeah you're right, hiding your game's features behind the worst interface of the 21st century is TOTALLY okay, because you're <nerd>ing some useless <nerd> shit. What's that? The interface is the most important part of the game? What's that? Idiots add features when the existing game isn't finished??! Oh dear!

The interface isn't just 'bad'; CnC3 has a 'bad' interface. In modern terms, the interface doesn't even exist. It's 1978. It's appalling and inexcusable, moreso since the game is interesting, has sophisticated mechanics and an interesting theme. Nobody gives a shit because it's unplayable.

I hear zero documentation (because idiots just keep hobbying away instead of actually finalising anything) is part of the 'charm' too. Simple task = eighteen keypresses = add moar 'realistic' 'modeling' (ps lookup table) of useless shit!

The game is essentially the poster child for why project management is a growth industry.

[Duckie]

Pfft. Time spent on an interface that doesn't make flight simulators feel inadequate would take up time required to realistically model the effect of rainfall on fortress flooding or whatever it is Toady is doing now.

Yeah you're right, hiding your game's features behind the worst interface of the 21st century is TOTALLY okay, because you're <nerd>ing some useless <nerd> shit. What's that? The interface is the most important part of the game? What's that? Idiots add features when the existing game isn't finished??! Oh dear!

The interface isn't just 'bad'; CnC3 has a 'bad' interface. In modern terms, the interface doesn't even exist. It's 1978. It's appalling and inexcusable, moreso since the game is interesting, has sophisticated mechanics and an interesting theme. Nobody gives a shit because it's unplayable.

I hear zero documentation (because idiots just keep hobbying away instead of actually finalising anything) is part of the 'charm' too. Simple task = eighteen keypresses = add moar 'realistic' 'modeling' (ps lookup table) of useless shit!

The game is essentially the poster child for why project management is a growth industry.

You're right on the fact that the game's interface is horrible and several other facts, but you're complaining that it isn't finalised and that features are being added?

Shit, son, I'm of the opinion you should have a game before you can have an interface to display it. What's the point of having the slickest, shiniest interface if the game itself isn't worth playing? Right now the actual game mechanics need fixing to a certain point, then the interface, then feature bloat that isn't related to the core requirements like 'make it so that sieges actually siege you'.

Further, it's not finished? Holy shit, man. I'll alert the White House Press Corps immediately. How in the world could a free public alpha of a single-man developed game subtitled version 0.28 be unfinished? Especially having a crude interface!

The nerve of that man, developing his game how he wants it instead of how you want it (weren't you just railing against Fans running things every time MOO threads come up? I guess it's really "Stupid Fans- AKA Everyone Who Isn't Stark"). We should boycott his game and refuse to pay him the 0 dollars. I'm asking for a refund.