[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.