Dwarf Fortress!

[Narvius]

Part of the difficulty of the game is forcing your dwarves to do what you want

[Svladd Cjelik]

I found the controls too daunting to learn. It looks like a very high quality game so it's my loss I suppose. I would totally play it if I could just talk out loud to the dwarves and they just did what I wanted. Hey you, go fetch water, and you over there, guard the perimeter and shoot any wildlife you see for dinner, and I want you over there, yeah you in the green shirt, get to making ale.

There are some good tutorial videos in Youtube! I highly recommend you give it one more try!

[Garrie]

Part of the difficulty of the game is forcing your dwarves to do what you want

It's a bit of a zen moment when you work out: it doesn't matter who makes the foo as long as you have enough foo.

Which is what the job manager screen is all about:

Construct (foo) (number)

There are some good tutorial videos in Youtube! I highly recommend you give it one more try!

What i couldn't get over is how many of the you-tube videos were about how to cheat at the embark screen!

[Garrie]

It's a bit of a zen moment when you work out: it doesn't matter who makes the foo as long as you have enough foo.

Which is what the job manager screen is all about:

Construct (foo) (number)


What i couldn't get over is how many of the you-tube videos were about how to cheat at the embark screen!

I just thought... the moment in DF when you realise "who cares which dwarf makes the foo" is just like the moment in Angband when you work out the way to win is to
1. buy lantern
2. go >
3. Kill Morgoth

not
1. buy lantern
2. go >
3. Find stuff
4. Kill random monsters
5. Kill Morgoth

[Narvius]

Isn't it...
1. Go to General Store
2. Buy Lantern
3. Kill Morgoth
? ^.^

[pav]

Well General Store no longer carries lanterns, so it's a bit obsolete.

[Garrie]

Well General Store no longer carries lanterns, so it's a bit obsolete.

yeah well the main point is grip, fang, pullroarer... even anonymous cave orcs... aren't on the "to-do" list. They are just distractions.

[Arendil]

Ugh. After few hours I'll say this is game is a total crap. Sorry folks for harsh worlds, but I really want those hours back.

I'm not interested in quasi-RTS main mode at all, so I tried Adventure mode.

It seems that author(s) really wanted as confusing UI as possible. Main challenges I noticed so far are: picking up items, and why they are automatically equipped, dropping items, putting items into containers, and why it is not possible even with a backpack, reading readme, understanding inventory and why I can't interact with most of it - what with those green items and weird names?, finding enemies, and why they always win, melee using picked up coins, idiotic combat detail - you pull your enemy's fourth toe - ROFL, drastic lag on a high-end computer, figuring your stats, and why most of them are permanently hidden, shopkeepers found inside shops that don't sell anything, and just say to meet them at their shops, completely unreadable ASCII mode, look mode that doesn't give any info at all, lack of any help files.
That's just for starters...

Time needed to create a world is irrelevant for me.
I'm not going to spent few months finding answers for the above. This mode is a complete mistake, and waste of time. Maybe *if* they finally create at least beta version.
Deleted from hard drive. Less headache. Good riddance.

[RogerN]

I'm not interested in quasi-RTS main mode at all, so I tried Adventure mode.

Adventure mode is more of an afterthought than a complete game in itself. It's so you can wander around your abandoned fortresses, explore the world, etc... If you're not interested in the main Fortress mode at all then I'm not surprised that you didn't enjoy Adventure mode.

Some of the enemies in Adventure mode are just plain impossible unless you get extremely lucky or bring a large group of other adventurers with you. The Giant Cave Spider, in particular, is a nasty foe which can kill even a Legendary adventurer 9 times out of 10. That's just the way it is.

Most of the fun is found in Fortress mode. The greatest joys are thinking of elaborate new traps for killing goblin invaders. If you're not interested in this war-like SimCity style game then Dwarf Fortress probably isn't for you.

[Jude]

Adventure mode at this point is barely functional. Dwarf Mode is what the game is all about.

[bio_hazard]

A few points about DF-

Its still in Alpha, so there are reasons it isn't totally polished.

While it is a free game, the authors would prefer to think of it as shareware. they make quite a bit of money off of donations, and afaik this is pretty much their job. If I understand correctly, they are most worried about "forks" in the code if popular variants or utilities pop up, and then having to keep everyone happy by making sure these things he didn't write are still supported when the code is updated.

It is a really crazy convoluted game (and getting even crazier as new concepts are brought in, such as properties of different body layers, etc that are on tap for ). Definitely a learning curve. There's definitely frustration that the interface isn't easier and that this doesn't seem to be a priority.

There are some new youtube videos by Captain Duck that seem like they are useful, and also the Wiki, including tutorials, are a must.

There are also pre-generated worlds you can download if you don't want to spend the time in world generation.

[Yoshiro Kamamura]

Indeed, dwarf fortress is an incredible game.

I registered here just to post a message about how I can't understand people playing old games like Angband when they can play the amazing Dwarf Fortress!

[Therem Harth]

Different types of games. Being able to play World of Warcraft (MMORPG), for instance, doesn't mean you have to stop playing the original Warcraft (RTS).

(Though in all likelihood you will, seeing how much time WoW seems to suck up.)

[cinereaste]

. . . I can't understand people playing old games like Angband when they can play the amazing Dwarf Fortress!

Seriously? What does age have to do with whether a game is worth playing?

I can't understand people playing old games like chess when they can play the amazing Frogger.

[Bandobras]

DF has learn-by-(ab)using skills. For some people it's a showstopper, with all due respect for this totally amazing game. Also, you can't change this, because you can't make variants. Also, the level of micromanagement is arbitrarily set up, no macros, no UI for styles of play different from the default.

Did I already complain you can't make variants?