I always wanted to play Dwarf Fortress but its just too much game for me. Check out Castle Story, its going to be good too.
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Give us dwarf fortress with graphics!
I love just ordering lots of digging and watch the dwarfs go about their daily life (and death)
Especially this part sounds much more like Dwarf fortress then Dungeon keeper or any other game:
"The game generates a unique world each time a new level starts, making sure that the player needs to dynamically adapt their strategies and tactics during a session.
As the player advances, the dwarves will level up and gain new skills, progressing from weak dwarflings to near immortal warriors or master craftsmen. There are also rare resources to be found deeper in the earth that grant access to better buildings and equipment. However, the deeper you dig the more dangerous foes you might unleash…"
I love just ordering lots of digging and watch the dwarfs go about their daily life (and death)
Especially this part sounds much more like Dwarf fortress then Dungeon keeper or any other game:
"The game generates a unique world each time a new level starts, making sure that the player needs to dynamically adapt their strategies and tactics during a session.
As the player advances, the dwarves will level up and gain new skills, progressing from weak dwarflings to near immortal warriors or master craftsmen. There are also rare resources to be found deeper in the earth that grant access to better buildings and equipment. However, the deeper you dig the more dangerous foes you might unleash…"
Do not give us this. Dwarf Fortress being copied in a short time span, hastily thrown together with mediocre 3D graphics and 1/100,000th the features is not a great game. Any clone of DF is not a good game. DF is indie greatness and should not be exploited for a quick buck. Moreover, there are graphics packs for 2D tiles for DF, just like most roguelike styled games, and some of those are beautiful. Nothing will ever be made that can match or clone DF in a way that makes it actually buyable. Same goes for Minecraft clones.
I am more excited by the dungeon keeper clone side of this than the hopes for DF ripoffs. Originality is what brings me to Paradox published games, not "How fast can we steal ideas from other people."
This makes no sense. Why would it be less stealing to clone Dungeon keeper then DF??? :S
All progress and games are based on previous ideas taken and improved upon. You may not look at it that way, but the way you put it Dwarf fortress was also "stolen" from previous games, fantasy books/worlds and so on.
It's not like the maker of DF invented dwarfs or their behaviour...
Ideas are free, and they grow when shared and mixed. Regardless of what corporate media industry lawyers may try to tell you.
Since DF was never made in a user friendly way doing just that wouldn't be stealing, it would still be an original game.
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Look up "Evil Genius" if you've not already played it, it's a great game and there's some fan-patches if i remember correctly to improve it.
DF is user friendly, and is certainly original. Using cliches to define a fantasy setting is not the same as making an outright copy of a game, and a downgraded version at that, and calling yourself original.
Yeah. DF is user friendly. It is user friendly like 6 years old running with a scissors on mine field which is bombarded by wing of fully armed Enola Gay ...
Sorry, but I stopped reading after that... Just can't stop laughing
Colombo said:
I agree with the above poster. DF is user friendly like vi is user friendly: great for power users that have already traversed the insanely steep learning curve and learned how to make use of programs that are set up completely differently than mainstream user interfaces.
If a Game of Dwarves turns out to be a DF lite that is user friendly (tutorials, tooltips, etc.) with a greatly enhanced user interface (i.e. not ASCII based) and real graphics to boot, that would be right up my alley. And I imagine right up a lot of other people's alleys.
And we can always dream: those who discover the "dwarf fortress" genre through a Game of Dwarves might just be enticed to go check out its forefather!
There is a great snobbery from those who have done the learning curve for DF (well most - I don't think I'm a snob)
"We've learned it - it's hard [sometimes for no discernable reason or benefit to the player] and if you can't learn it yourself then you don't deserve to play and the game is better off without you"
People like to think they are in part of an exclusive "brains trust" club. And that's very sad.
A game with the depth and scope of DF would be great for all players. 50% of the complexity is fighting with the UI. And an unintuitive UI in 2012 is pretty much inexcusable.
DF gets away with it because it's not sold commercially. But if someone would put a decent UI on it, it would sell like hotcakes. Look at Minecraft - Notch retired 3 weeks after his first game launched....
"User friendly"
Depends on your definition.
But for games made in the last 15 years, DF is one of the most unfriendly to learn (and I know it inside out) Two different sets of movement keys for the maps (cursor and number pad) several ways to activate a menu option (all specific "enter" here "x" there - you have to know the right one for the right circumstance)
Sure - going back to the days of making DOS batch files just to get a game to install then DF might be seen as friendly - but in comparison to games from the last 17 years..no it really isn't. Sometimes it's just plain obtuse. But if you play for tens of hours you forget that, but that doesn't change the learning curve.
"Towns" has about 80% of the depth of DF. "Haven and Hearth" though slightly different is pretty good as well. "Salem - The Crafting RPG" out later this year will get a look also.
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Oh, absolutely. I don't want to come down too hard on DF, because the project as a whole is one with objectives that I can really sympathise with, personally, and it's a great example to study for ideas (albeit, in some cases, ideas of 'what not to do'.)
I mean, to give an example of what I'm talking about, there was an extensive thread on the DF forums on the subject of improving farming mechanics that basically talked about implementing a full-fledged ecosystem simulation, which I found absolutely fascinating. (This is kind of why I'm hoping Toady One will eventually open-source the damn thing, partly so that ideas like this can actually be implemented, and partly because there've been some suggestions that DF may be nearing critical mass.)
I call that accessible not user friendly. For me, a user friendly game provide enough information for you to know what you do, why you can't do it, how you can do that.
For that matter the menu is quite good. If you know what you want to do, there is a pretty high chance that if it exists you'll find it quick.
But as you stated, you have to know what key activate what (I changed like 80 key in order to find it nice).
If I take Towns (I tried right after I saw people speaking of it), it's accessible but not user friendly at all (I hope and guess it's only because it's a alpha/beta).
Knowing the basics (from DF) and looking at a video, I started to make a carpentry and so... then I decided that I would need a farm... I found the building and was unable to know the reason why I couldn't put it anywhere (that made me quit the game right away). I didn't get why I have to put tools in workshop exept that it's needed to create stuff, but why create a carpenter workshop if it only enable placing tools and keeping in mind that without adding them, the workshop is useless...
I call that not user friendly.
I've played DF since 06, and the UI we have now is light years beyond the original. People who cry about graphics or UI's are not enjoying the game, but the visuals. I cannot have faith in a gaming community that wants superior graphics over gameplay.
Thats an utterly ridiculous statement, if it were true people would be equally satisfied looking at a screenshot or trailer to actually playing a game. The problem with the total lack of graphics and an interface thats as difficult to navigate as a cannoe in a hurricaine isn't that it's not particularly pretty it's that it doesn't effectively convey information.
It's as if you were suddenly handed a book in Old English instead of modern English, sure its possible to understand and learn it, but only after a great deal of time and effort. And that time and effort is understandly not something a lot of people will put up with from their entertainment.
It's as if you were suddenly handed a book in Old English instead of modern English, sure its possible to understand and learn it, but only after a great deal of time and effort. And that time and effort is understandly not something a lot of people will put up with from their entertainment.
So you think the UI is great? Or are you saying that when you enjoy a game you have to turn your eyes away from what is bad?
It is not about graphics, it's about interface. A game can have an ugly but well made and responsive interface. Dwarf Fortress interface is the main single problem of the whole game and what really would benefit most the game if it was revamped. Just go to bay12 forum and ask around if the interface is good. I doubt someone will agree with you. It's not about being beautiful or ugly, it's about being extremely counter-intuitive. Enjoyed the game a lot, but I recognize the UI is the worst part. In 2006 is was even worse, but that doesn't make it great now. We are in 2012 and you can't even use a mouse on almost the whole game. Nobody is talking about something superior than anything. Or are you trying to say that a game that is not as complex as DF can't be good?
It is not about graphics, it's about interface. A game can have an ugly but well made and responsive interface. Dwarf Fortress interface is the main single problem of the whole game and what really would benefit most the game if it was revamped. Just go to bay12 forum and ask around if the interface is good. I doubt someone will agree with you. It's not about being beautiful or ugly, it's about being extremely counter-intuitive. Enjoyed the game a lot, but I recognize the UI is the worst part. In 2006 is was even worse, but that doesn't make it great now. We are in 2012 and you can't even use a mouse on almost the whole game. Nobody is talking about something superior than anything. Or are you trying to say that a game that is not as complex as DF can't be good?
If I wanted to play a game like Dwarf Fortress I would simply play it in my head, I really don't need the infrastructure and rules that the program creates. However, playing something in the head is not the same as playing a game with good graphics.
I have just recently heard about the game via the coverage of Paradox Con and decided to see what was in the forums... I am not surprised to set this thread right at the top.
It's hard not to make the immediate comparisons to Dwarf Fortress. The developers gave themselves quite a challenge by overlapping with DF on many levels. I can imagine some frustration on their part and can sympathize to an extent. It is quite similar to Terraria, which overlaps with Minecraft to a comical extent. As such, many people simply write it off as a clone. To be fair, it does share quite a bit but there is enough different and interesting about it to make it worthwhile to play one, the other, or both, and not have it feel like a clone.
The comparisons will be made no matter how much it might seem like Dungeon Keeper, no matter how much it might be different, better, or unrelated. By having "dwarf" in the title and making it a dwarf management game, the immediately obvious superficial similarities will always draw comments about DF.
This is really just the beginning - in my opinion Dwarves are the new Zombies. For years it has been zombies zombies zombies, to the point where we are adding zombies to every game genre imaginable. I imagine that we will see many more Dwarf/Mining/Digging/Construction games in the future. (And I'm looking forward to it!)
As an aside, I love Dwarf Fortress and all the idiosyncrasies of its quirky interface and lack of immediate help. I don't mind checking a wiki, I don't mind having to look things up, and I don't mind the complexity and sometimes counter-intuitive end results. There's room in this world for all types of games, and there are plenty more user-friendly games out there. But I would be very sad if we didn't have games like DF around to take up that little sliver at the far end of the bell curve. I also enjoy ASCII-only roguelikes, so perhaps I am just a glutton for punishment.
It's hard not to make the immediate comparisons to Dwarf Fortress. The developers gave themselves quite a challenge by overlapping with DF on many levels. I can imagine some frustration on their part and can sympathize to an extent. It is quite similar to Terraria, which overlaps with Minecraft to a comical extent. As such, many people simply write it off as a clone. To be fair, it does share quite a bit but there is enough different and interesting about it to make it worthwhile to play one, the other, or both, and not have it feel like a clone.
The comparisons will be made no matter how much it might seem like Dungeon Keeper, no matter how much it might be different, better, or unrelated. By having "dwarf" in the title and making it a dwarf management game, the immediately obvious superficial similarities will always draw comments about DF.
This is really just the beginning - in my opinion Dwarves are the new Zombies. For years it has been zombies zombies zombies, to the point where we are adding zombies to every game genre imaginable. I imagine that we will see many more Dwarf/Mining/Digging/Construction games in the future. (And I'm looking forward to it!)
As an aside, I love Dwarf Fortress and all the idiosyncrasies of its quirky interface and lack of immediate help. I don't mind checking a wiki, I don't mind having to look things up, and I don't mind the complexity and sometimes counter-intuitive end results. There's room in this world for all types of games, and there are plenty more user-friendly games out there. But I would be very sad if we didn't have games like DF around to take up that little sliver at the far end of the bell curve. I also enjoy ASCII-only roguelikes, so perhaps I am just a glutton for punishment.
The thing I would worry about, is the early comparisons to other well known games, this gets games into a really bad spot. So I hope that the developers squash that kind of talk right off the bat. We saw what happened to the game Dungeons because they overstepped their boundaries with reporting the game as a spiritual sucessor to DK. And once people started talking how it was going to be... bla bla bla, and the developers and publishers just let the talk going on, using the old noodle, or "any publicity is good publicity" which is not really true when it comes to games.
Looking forward to more information about the game before I want to do any comparisons that would lead me to desire the game more, so that I don't get let down again.
Looking forward to more information about the game before I want to do any comparisons that would lead me to desire the game more, so that I don't get let down again.