[datruth29]

Dwarf Fortress is an example of how a great idea can be held back by a horrible user experience. The UI is a nightmare, and the performance worsens as the game gets bigger.

I've recently started playing Rim World, which is essentially a Dwarf Fortress light. I'm enjoying it way more than I enjoyed Dwarf Fortress despite being a less complex (relatively speaking) game because it offers a FAR superior interface and presents it's mechanics in a friendlier way.

[Sevrene]

Honestly I feel the opposite.

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.

[boomlinde]

I don't think that the criticism is that easily dismissible.

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.

[wmil]

The jeweller's workshop UI is a weird disaster. You need to specify specific a task to cut a specific type of gem. You can make it repeat, but the task will erase if that gem type is unavailable.

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.

[logfromblammo]

There should really be an option to handle gemstones by value rather than mineral type, which would require (and exercise) the appraisal skill.

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.

[0xffff2]

Once you have a manager though, you can set up jobs that are highly configurable and repeatable. Learning the job system really took my DF productivity to the next level.

[lobf]

dfhack has an automatic jeweler script now.

[AnthonBerg]

The criticism is not being dismissed. It is simply an opposing and simultaneous viewpoint.

[dkersten]

The problem for me is... I love simulation games (love Rimworld and Prison Architect for example) but the Dwarf Fortress learning curve is too much for me. I've attempted a number of times and learning it just was not fun for me at all. I want to enjoy good simulation games, but I don't have enough free time to force myself to play something that I don't enjoy until the point where I've learned it enough to enjoy it.

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.

[Paul-ish]

> I want to enjoy good simulation games, but I don't have enough free time to force myself to play something that I don't enjoy until the point where I've learned it enough to enjoy it.

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.

[hexane360]

You might enjoy Stardew Valley then.

[imdsm]

I agree. I've played DF for probably about a decade now, and the UI isn't an issue. I know every keybind so I don't really need to go searching for it. Yes, to begin with, it is a bit of a struggle, but the wiki (http://dwarffortresswiki.org/) is probably the best game wiki out there.

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

[elementalest]

But thats just the thing. Its hard to get past the UI. You really have to be dedicated to get over the steep learning curve of both the game mechanics and the UI. For new players its often just too much effort for a game.

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

[MichalSternik]

Well, my game recommendation may seem out of place, but if you look for building&fighting strategy game that is very easy to learn and awfully hard to master, try GO (baduk/weiqi/igo).

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

[jandrese]

I've wanted to love Dwarf Fortress, but the fans sometimes come across like Stockholm Syndrome victims when you mention the UI and UX.

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.

[mikekchar]

This is one of the reasons why Youtube video tutorials of DF are hugely popular. I think there are probably even a lot of people who really enjoy watching them for the game play, but don't want to invest the effort in learning how to play for themselves.

[shultays]

People make tools that reads memory of DF to create better GUIs. Compare dwarf therapist to standard gui of DF to assigning jobs, it is just horrible.

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.

[pault]

I want so badly for dwarf fortress to just be an API to the simulator and let the community build the user interface and view layer. That would make my life complete. And also completely unproductive.

[TillE]

That only solves half the problem, though. There's still the issue that it's a single-threaded game which allocates and accesses memory randomly on the heap. So there will always be a limit on how large and complex the game world can be.

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.

[Natsu]

I have to think that anything more ambitious than DF would either take a crazy genius with lots of free time or a large team. Possibly both.

[Guvante]

> 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.

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.

[qznc]

If you pay artists, development is expensive. There is pressure to sell and to break even. Is there any game which is developed continuously for years and pays artists?

[Guvante]

Certainly there are a number of AAA games that fit that description.

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.

[Sacho]

I agree about the UI, but the performance degradation is still a significant issue.

[eropple]

If you haven't played Dwarf Fortress recently, the performance seems to have improved nontrivially in recent releases. I was out of the game for a couple years and came back to a big jump in perf when I've got a lot of dwarves.

[Trundle]

I'm reading a play through story posted elsewhere in this thread[0] and inbetween instalments by the OP there are plenty of comments by people talking about how their ability to play the game is constrained by fps.

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

[imdsm]

Kill cats before they adopt a dwarf. Clean up old clothes with dfhack, and stop making dams!

[patmcguire]

The other big one is making sure dwarves don't path to complicated places, or animals don't path at all. Needing to know about how the game is written to make it useable is not great, though.

[intended]

That's actually a good point - I like that I can figure more about the game by looking how it's made.

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.

[imdsm]

I think it's part of the package.

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.

[pavel_lishin]

We're not asking for perfection.

> 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.

[a3n]

> 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).

Is there a VI interface?

[stcredzero]

"In the same vein"

[pault]

I have played both, and while I got bored of RW as soon as I got to the siege stage, I had to force myself to stop playing DF even though I still had about a dozen ideas for lava traps. YMMV.

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.

[gagege]

To be fair, RimWorld is a much newer game than DF. It hasn't had nearly as much time to add features.

[jmcdiesel]

Perspective?

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

[JaumeGreen]

The problem is not keyboard vs mouse.

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.

[vacri]

Oh, the agony of the military system. It has a learning curve all of its own.

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.

[imdsm]

Utilities is part of the game ecosystem though. Dwarf Therapist is great, but after 30 dwarfs it becomes better to enable autolabor. To be fair, I'd like to see RimWorld* manage 200+ pawns.

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

[LoSboccacc]

Gonna call this for the elitist bullshit it is.

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.

[zeveb]

It's not either the traditional DF UI or a mouse-driven interface: other alternatives would be an improved keyboard-driven interface or an interface which uses both the keyboard and the mouse well (yes, I'm aware that technically DF does have some mouse interacton: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Mouse_control).

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.

[GrantSolar]

The UX is a hurdle. There are inconsistencies and the last time I played, third-party utilities were pretty much mandatory in order to manage your dwarves effectively.

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

[chongli]

I find the DF UI, while minimal, to be great.

Do you use Dwarf Therapist?

[imdsm]

I think I need one.

[zo1]

It's not even the UI, or the graphics. It's the fact that the game exists in some sort of "hobby" or forum limbo. That is why it's not more popular, and simply exists in a perpetual status of some sort of "geeky" reverence.

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.

[imdsm]

> No one knows "Bay12Games"

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.

[zo1]

">> 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."

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.

[mikekchar]

And yet the guy makes a comfortable living on what he does have, despite the fact that it is 100% donation driven. For me, one of the most interesting things about DF is that virtually everything is done "wrong" and it is a massive success. How many fingers do I need to count the number of people making a living off their programming art project?

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.

[stagbeetle]

> 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".

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.

[intended]

Dwarf fortress is a great idea made possible by the winnowing effect of its UI.

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.

[andrewclunn]

This. The UI is the final step. Right now it's about experimentation and determining the ideal game mechanics. The obtuseness means that the most obsessive and hard core are your play testers. This is a bad UI as part of good game design for what the current goals for dwarf fortress are.

[civilian]

As far as I understood, the UI is there to stay. The creator wrote his own game engine that is optimized for printing ascii to a screen-- it's not architected in a way that can plug-and-play with a different renderer.

[pck]

Cogmind is an interesting example of pure ASCII holding itself to a very high UI standard.

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

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

[anchpop]

I would absolutely love if DF looked that good at some point! You're definitely right that just because it's ASCII doesn't mean it can't be visually appealing

[dri_ft]

I think I agree. I'm up for complex keyboard interfaces and simple, ASCII-ish graphics - I play a lot of roguelikes - but something about Dwarf Fortress's interface still rubs me the wrong way. I do want graphics to be pretty, even if they're simple, and I do want controls to be elegant, even if they're keyboard-based.

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.

[eduren]

I agree in a lot of cases. It's actually really interesting to watch development because you can see him incorporate less obtuse patterns in the new interfaces as the game has progressed. Some of the most headache inducing parts are the oldest and (from how he's described it) more brittle.

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

[KirinDave]

I don't want to disparage Rimworld, it's great.

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.

[erikb]

Agreed. And at its current development I wouldn't be surprised if Rim World would reach just as much complexity as DF, of course always lacking a few years behind (more than a decade to begin with). But as you said, due to a better interface it's probably in the leading position.

[singularity2001]

it took an hour here just to get a half-ways readable font. after a while the game was completely destroyed by constant notifications. so I couldn't agree more with the horrible user experience.