4 ms·

Ditto. I know it's his creation and he has the right to do what he likes with it, but it's such a damn missed opportunity. A game as complex and detailed as DF

Ditto. I know it's his creation and he has the right to do what he likes with it, but it's such a damn missed opportunity. A game as complex and detailed as DF cries out for a vibrant coding/modding community.

RugnirViking 10y ago
on the topic of modding, its incredible what people have done with simply -memory hacking- the game! literally editing memory to insert mods after the game has begun. it has a limited scope due to the inherent risks but some of the work is incredible
wolfgke 10y ago
Why don't all these people who cry for DF being open source and claim that it would create such a vibrant coding/modding community start to create their own game (with a similar spirit as DF) under open source conditions of their choice?
- douche 10y ago
  Because they aren't capable. It's far easier to bitch and moan than actually do something,
- Razengan 10y ago
  I've always wanted to start one, only in side-view instead of top-down, but I'm too lazy and it would take a long time to come close to DF's depth. I'm thinking of more of a Lemmings-style game with DF mechanics and terrain deformation..
- PhasmaFelis 10y ago
  Because you don't need to be a master chef to tell if a meal needs more salt. "Never criticize anything unless you could personally could do it better" is a ridiculous notion mainly proposed by oversensitive creators. Also because it's annoying and wasteful to have to recreate years of effort from scratch because the people who've done it before won't share. Which is, y'know, the entire point of open source.
  - wolfgke 10y ago
    > Because you don't need to be a master chef to tell if a meal needs more salt. "Never criticize anything unless you could personally could do it better" is a ridiculous notion mainly proposed by oversensitive creators. The people who want to add their own additions better understand what the source code does. So this argument does not apply here. > Also because it's annoying and wasteful to have to recreate years of effort from scratch because the people who've done it before won't share. The original creators also had to invest the time. Where do the open source fans take the justification from that if they want something similar, but under their preferred license, they should not have to invest a similar amount of time?
- mos_basik 10y ago
  I'm not aware of any OSS DF alternatives, but it seems like every year or so I hear about new games hitting Steam that seem (to me) to have clearly been designed by someone thinking "Let's see if I can make DF but with better graphics and ergonomics." Naturally they don't approach DF's depth, given how long Toady's been iterating. I don't hold that against them, but it seems like DF has the market cornered on sheer number of internal knobs to twist. Here are the main ones, I think (there are many others): 2014: gnomoria - http://gnomoria.com/ http://gnomoria.com/ 2015: prison architect - https://www.introversion.co.uk/prisonarchitect/pc.html https://www.introversion.co.uk/prisonarchitect/pc.html 2016: rimworld - https://rimworldgame.com/ https://rimworldgame.com/ 2017: stonehearth (alpha?) - http://www.stonehearth.net/ http://www.stonehearth.net/ None of these are open source, ofc, and my expectations for how long they receive updates is not high. Toady built his rep over decades. Aside: on the topic of hilariously complex, long lived, more or less open source games written on top of ridiculously poorly architected code with a tiny rabid fanbase - Space Station 13 deserves a mention. I'm confident that I've seen no other game like SS13 in my life. I can't even start to explain it. Please check out this high-level review of it if you're curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLAHBexJxrE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLAHBexJxrE
JetSetWilly 10y ago
I am not so sure - I sometimes wonder if the problem with a "platform" that many people love and use, but very few can contribute to well, is that when completely open sourced it inevitably comes bogged down in politics and overcome by "deletionists" or similar - people who don't or can't contribute to the project but see themselves as guardians of it and hamper the efforts of others. Of course there's wikipedia as an example, but in open source gaming I feel that Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup went the same way, with new releases tending to remove features in the aim of some ideological balancing "purity" regardless of it being actually fun or not. Therefore perhaps Dwarf Fortress will fare better with only very few passionate people working on it with impressive productivity. If it went fully open, I bet before long there's be a mission statement, a "DF way", statement of principles to which nobody can ever live up to, and then before you know it nobody can be bothered to fight to get a patch accepted (and forking brings its own maintenance hassles).
- detaro 10y ago
  I didn't read the wish for open-sourcing it as a wish for it to become a community project, or even just a project that accepts any outside contributions.
  - wolfgke 10y ago
    What do you want from the source code then?
    - logfromblammo 10y ago
      Hit-by-a-bus insurance, basically.
    - detaro 10y ago
      I haven't played much DF, but from what I remember there are quite a few tools around it, which already hook relatively deep into the game, either by simulating keypresses (I think) or reading/writing game memory. Development of those probably would profit from easier access to game internals. There is "academic" interest in "how was this built". Even a project not normally accepting contributions can do this on special occasions if it wants (If I'm not mistaken, several features in Minecraft build upon mods made by fans. Of course, Minecraft is also closed-source, but it is relatively easy to get good decompilations since it is written in Java. You might argue that the existence of tools around DF proves that source access is not necessary for improvements to it?) For other games, I've often had a question along the lines of "I wonder how gameplay would change if ...". Sometimes that's solvable with a debugger and/or disassembler, but code would make it a lot easier. (With commercial games there is also the aspect of "can I share hacks/experiments like this", which admittedly isn't directly related to source access or a game being fully Open Source, and likely not an issue in the case of DF) Other posters mention the long term issue of game development surviving its creator, but of course that doesn't require source publication now. In general, I'd say it would be wrong to pressure a game creator in any way to open source their work, but I understand why people like games being open.

RugnirViking 10y ago

on the topic of modding, its incredible what people have done with simply -memory hacking- the game! literally editing memory to insert mods after the game has begun. it has a limited scope due to the inherent risks but some of the work is incredible

wolfgke 10y ago

Why don't all these people who cry for DF being open source and claim that it would create such a vibrant coding/modding community start to create their own game (with a similar spirit as DF) under open source conditions of their choice?

douche 10y ago
Because they aren't capable. It's far easier to bitch and moan than actually do something,
Razengan 10y ago
I've always wanted to start one, only in side-view instead of top-down, but I'm too lazy and it would take a long time to come close to DF's depth. I'm thinking of more of a Lemmings-style game with DF mechanics and terrain deformation..
PhasmaFelis 10y ago
Because you don't need to be a master chef to tell if a meal needs more salt. "Never criticize anything unless you could personally could do it better" is a ridiculous notion mainly proposed by oversensitive creators. Also because it's annoying and wasteful to have to recreate years of effort from scratch because the people who've done it before won't share. Which is, y'know, the entire point of open source.
- wolfgke 10y ago
  > Because you don't need to be a master chef to tell if a meal needs more salt. "Never criticize anything unless you could personally could do it better" is a ridiculous notion mainly proposed by oversensitive creators. The people who want to add their own additions better understand what the source code does. So this argument does not apply here. > Also because it's annoying and wasteful to have to recreate years of effort from scratch because the people who've done it before won't share. The original creators also had to invest the time. Where do the open source fans take the justification from that if they want something similar, but under their preferred license, they should not have to invest a similar amount of time?
mos_basik 10y ago
I'm not aware of any OSS DF alternatives, but it seems like every year or so I hear about new games hitting Steam that seem (to me) to have clearly been designed by someone thinking "Let's see if I can make DF but with better graphics and ergonomics." Naturally they don't approach DF's depth, given how long Toady's been iterating. I don't hold that against them, but it seems like DF has the market cornered on sheer number of internal knobs to twist. Here are the main ones, I think (there are many others): 2014: gnomoria - http://gnomoria.com/ http://gnomoria.com/ 2015: prison architect - https://www.introversion.co.uk/prisonarchitect/pc.html https://www.introversion.co.uk/prisonarchitect/pc.html 2016: rimworld - https://rimworldgame.com/ https://rimworldgame.com/ 2017: stonehearth (alpha?) - http://www.stonehearth.net/ http://www.stonehearth.net/ None of these are open source, ofc, and my expectations for how long they receive updates is not high. Toady built his rep over decades. Aside: on the topic of hilariously complex, long lived, more or less open source games written on top of ridiculously poorly architected code with a tiny rabid fanbase - Space Station 13 deserves a mention. I'm confident that I've seen no other game like SS13 in my life. I can't even start to explain it. Please check out this high-level review of it if you're curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLAHBexJxrE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLAHBexJxrE

JetSetWilly 10y ago

I am not so sure - I sometimes wonder if the problem with a "platform" that many people love and use, but very few can contribute to well, is that when completely open sourced it inevitably comes bogged down in politics and overcome by "deletionists" or similar - people who don't or can't contribute to the project but see themselves as guardians of it and hamper the efforts of others. Of course there's wikipedia as an example, but in open source gaming I feel that Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup went the same way, with new releases tending to remove features in the aim of some ideological balancing "purity" regardless of it being actually fun or not. Therefore perhaps Dwarf Fortress will fare better with only very few passionate people working on it with impressive productivity. If it went fully open, I bet before long there's be a mission statement, a "DF way", statement of principles to which nobody can ever live up to, and then before you know it nobody can be bothered to fight to get a patch accepted (and forking brings its own maintenance hassles).

detaro 10y ago
I didn't read the wish for open-sourcing it as a wish for it to become a community project, or even just a project that accepts any outside contributions.
- wolfgke 10y ago
  What do you want from the source code then?
  - logfromblammo 10y ago
    Hit-by-a-bus insurance, basically.
  - detaro 10y ago
    I haven't played much DF, but from what I remember there are quite a few tools around it, which already hook relatively deep into the game, either by simulating keypresses (I think) or reading/writing game memory. Development of those probably would profit from easier access to game internals. There is "academic" interest in "how was this built". Even a project not normally accepting contributions can do this on special occasions if it wants (If I'm not mistaken, several features in Minecraft build upon mods made by fans. Of course, Minecraft is also closed-source, but it is relatively easy to get good decompilations since it is written in Java. You might argue that the existence of tools around DF proves that source access is not necessary for improvements to it?) For other games, I've often had a question along the lines of "I wonder how gameplay would change if ...". Sometimes that's solvable with a debugger and/or disassembler, but code would make it a lot easier. (With commercial games there is also the aspect of "can I share hacks/experiments like this", which admittedly isn't directly related to source access or a game being fully Open Source, and likely not an issue in the case of DF) Other posters mention the long term issue of game development surviving its creator, but of course that doesn't require source publication now. In general, I'd say it would be wrong to pressure a game creator in any way to open source their work, but I understand why people like games being open.