The article itself does a terrific job of disabusing this very notion. ASCII art isn't a problem. I've played a lot of Angband and haven't really ever been bo

The article itself does a terrific job of disabusing this very notion. ASCII art isn't a problem. I've played a lot of Angband and haven't really ever been bothered by the graphics. Yet Angband frustrates me far less than DF does. The problem is an illogical and inconsistent interface. Discoverability is next to nil, and the stockpile example in the article is a wonderful example of inconsistency. This seems to be the result of iterative development that adds features while seldom overhauling the UI. I don't know much about DF version history in any kind of detail, but I'd bet that the stockpile UI made some sense when it was initially implemented, and likely much simpler. Maybe it was just toggling back then. I would hate to see DF get a mouse-based interface, but there are huge gains that could be made with the UI.