14 ms·

> They are putting on steam largely because of the USA's shit healthcare system "after Zach's latest cancer scare, we determined that with my healthcare plan's

by tkiley 8y ago

> They are putting on steam largely because of the USA's shit healthcare system "after Zach's latest cancer scare, we determined that with my healthcare plan's copay etc., I'd be wiped out if I had to undergo the same procedures . . " I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it totally sucks. On the other hand, I suspect that as as consequence of this crappy pressure, Dwarf Fortress will reach a substantially wider audience and bring joy to a greater number of people. I'll be interested to see how Tarn looks back on this moment in, say, five years.

conistonwater 8y ago
> bring joy Yeah, right. I bet you'll see it in productivity statistics instead. It's as bad as Factorio.
- gotocake 8y ago
  Every friend I’ve turned onto either game was basically lost for months, then returned to the world like a shipwrecked survivor. It was all long beards and uncut hair, wild eyes and impossible tales. These games are so good they should come with rehab.
  - 0_gravitas 8y ago
    They do call it Cracktorio for a reason
    - Haga 8y ago
      Just one more line and then I will quit, go clean and choose real life.
      - 0_gravitas 8y ago
        Just one more belt*. In earnest, I owe a lot to factorio, I started playing it towards the beginning of my programming career, and I was in a rough way, I could solve all the little toy problems my professors would throw at me, but the second there was anything big, I fell apart. The fact of the matter is I was always doing everything in main, I had never really used functions for anything, I thought they were useless/extra work! And I eventually just had a moment playing factorio, looking at someone else's blueprint , and how neat and self contained it was, and how it had its organized and clear inputs and outputs... and it all just clicked. I'm much better at structuring my projects now and have very much become more function-centric in my work (I am actually currently falling for the clojure meme pretty heavily atm).
  - keithnz 8y ago
    and the 17 release is out which changes a number of things so I'm playing it again and working out new designs while also thinking to myself "oh no.... oh no.... why am I up at 2am, I have work tomorrow, ok, bed time, right after I just finish this off....3am"
  - Macuyiko 8y ago
    I wish these games would still have that effect on me. I mean, I can totally see it happening back when I was 20-25 years old. When I try to start factorio, df, rimworld today, I can see the systems, I can feel the ocd style appeal and feedback loops grabbing me, until I realize after one hour that 1) this is just the same as work, 2) someone else has already optimized the crap out of this, better then I'd ever have time for and 3) I might be better off doing real work instead, lest I feel guilty. I then uninstall the game, never to return. It's pretty dreary as ultimately all games end up as thinly veiled optimization or grinding boxes that can be tuned, if you only put in the effort. Recent triple a focus on grinding, addictive elements and microtransactions have made this worse. I've been thinking a lot about finding a genre or mechanic that would still "work", but I find it sad that I cannot get the long term enjoyment without worry anymore from games as I could years ago.
    - taneq 8y ago
      > 1) this is just the same as work This is how I feel about Factorio along with basically every Zachtronics game ever. I want to get into it but I could literally get paid for doing the same thing. I guess I'm just lucky to be able to do work that I love (or conversely to be built such that I enjoy things that are useful.)
    - eropple 8y ago
      I tend to feel that way about Factorio, but I strongly don't about Dwarf Fortress (or Rimworld). Both of those games are story generators. It's about the things thrown at you and the ways you cope--or don't, which is also fun--with the unexpected while building something you think is cool. Dwarf Fortress in particular doesn't care about optimization (either of code or of your play). Build what you want. Figure out what you think is cool and do it. There are, literally, no goals other than the ones in your head.
    - Namrog84 8y ago
      I have this same problem. In factorio for example. Either I use other people's efficient designs that are more optimal and then I feel like I'm just copy pasting and not playing. Or I end up wanting to write a program or design things that can produce the optimal designs. All of which involve not actually playing the game but playing excel spreadsheet or programming dynamic programming algorithms. I like games that allow min maxing a lot. But they need to be in such a way that there is more to the game and less copyable stuff. So that I can enjoy and play the game.
  - pault 8y ago
    I picked up DF a few years ago, and shortly after my girlfriend left for a two week trip. I had a bunch of stuff I was supposed to do around the house while she was gone, but I ended up going completely nocturnal and spent the entire two weeks in bed with my laptop. I didn't shower or brush my teeth and I only stopped playing long enough to pick up some takeout once or twice per day. I never finished any of the work I was supposed to do, but I did build a fortress on the side of a volcano with a gravity fed network of lava-powered forges, a defensive labyrinth leading to the front gate with a series of automated lava traps, and a dwarven atom smasher to catch any enemies that made it past the lava. I was working on a powered rail network when I lost most of my population to a series of riots and blood feuds triggered by a shortage of clean socks. Every once in a while I get tempted to start playing again, but then I remember the look on my girlfriend's face when she came home and found me sitting in a pile of empty pizza boxes wearing nothing but underwear that I hadn't washed in two weeks.
    - hota_mazi 8y ago
      Sure, but did you show her your fortress?
      - ahje 8y ago
        Related: My wife's hooked on watching me play DF as long as there's a tileset enabled. This is a god-send! :D
  - simonebrunozzi 8y ago
    Reminds me of the lost days of Master of Orion 2 or Master of Magic. 20+ years ago. Still great games even today.
  - Mirioron 8y ago
    >These games are so good they should come with rehab. What if we instead use the games as rehab?
- crooked-v 8y ago
  I've started to get the same feeling from Factory Town. Conveyor belts and elaborate production chains, but this time in 3D!
rexpop 8y ago
Hey, look at it this way: Capitalism in healthcare does drive a better consumer experience!
- swfsql 8y ago
  Except it's shitty for the lack of capitalism. How Government Solved the Health Care Crisis - Animation https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fFoXyFmmGBQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fFoXyFmmGBQ
  - seleniumBubbles 8y ago
    That’s an amazing video, thanks for sharing. And the comments are actually useful – there’s a pinned link to a New York Times article published in 1910 which explains the argument at the time for cartelizing the industry.
  - dibujante 8y ago
    Oof, can you really do an apples-to-apples comparison to healthcare in 1910 (before antibiotics) and healthcare today, though? If healthcare in 1910 cost $1 and a doctor poked you in the chest and said "You've got consumption; get your affairs in order." and healthcare in 2010 cost $1000 and a doctor poked you in the chest and said "You've got tuberculosis; take these antibiotics and you will probably live.", I don't think you can say healthcare got 1000x worse.
    - swfsql 8y ago
      As the video stated, we will never know how lodge practice would have developed.
      - dibujante 8y ago
        Right. We don't know. The video isn't wrong but it sure isn't right. Its arguments are speculative only.
    - seleniumBubbles 8y ago
_cs2017_ 8y ago
> On the one hand, it totally sucks Do you mean it sucks because you prefer the game to be supported only by donations? If so, why? Or did you mean something else?
- taeric 8y ago
  I think it was that the statement that a "cancer scare" can "completely wipe out" someone that should be doing absolutely fine. That is not a working system. Choosing to put it on Steam, or not, is completely orthogonal to that. At least, it should be.
Pristina 8y ago
I will keep this in my monetisation handbook. "If I had cancer I would be wiped out which is why XYZ is no longer free. thx for your support"
- hobofan 8y ago
  But the non-pretty version of Dwarf Fortress is still free and will continue to be free. If that weren't the case there would probably be quite some backlash from the community.
Haga 8y ago
It will be the same story all over. It seems to fail at first and the devs are bored by the additional bureaucratic work. Then a wild weasel in suit appears..

by tkiley 8y ago

conistonwater 8y ago

> bring joy Yeah, right. I bet you'll see it in productivity statistics instead. It's as bad as Factorio.

gotocake 8y ago
Every friend I’ve turned onto either game was basically lost for months, then returned to the world like a shipwrecked survivor. It was all long beards and uncut hair, wild eyes and impossible tales. These games are so good they should come with rehab.
- 0_gravitas 8y ago
  They do call it Cracktorio for a reason
  - Haga 8y ago
    Just one more line and then I will quit, go clean and choose real life.
    - 0_gravitas 8y ago
      Just one more belt*. In earnest, I owe a lot to factorio, I started playing it towards the beginning of my programming career, and I was in a rough way, I could solve all the little toy problems my professors would throw at me, but the second there was anything big, I fell apart. The fact of the matter is I was always doing everything in main, I had never really used functions for anything, I thought they were useless/extra work! And I eventually just had a moment playing factorio, looking at someone else's blueprint , and how neat and self contained it was, and how it had its organized and clear inputs and outputs... and it all just clicked. I'm much better at structuring my projects now and have very much become more function-centric in my work (I am actually currently falling for the clojure meme pretty heavily atm).
- keithnz 8y ago
  and the 17 release is out which changes a number of things so I'm playing it again and working out new designs while also thinking to myself "oh no.... oh no.... why am I up at 2am, I have work tomorrow, ok, bed time, right after I just finish this off....3am"
- Macuyiko 8y ago
  I wish these games would still have that effect on me. I mean, I can totally see it happening back when I was 20-25 years old. When I try to start factorio, df, rimworld today, I can see the systems, I can feel the ocd style appeal and feedback loops grabbing me, until I realize after one hour that 1) this is just the same as work, 2) someone else has already optimized the crap out of this, better then I'd ever have time for and 3) I might be better off doing real work instead, lest I feel guilty. I then uninstall the game, never to return. It's pretty dreary as ultimately all games end up as thinly veiled optimization or grinding boxes that can be tuned, if you only put in the effort. Recent triple a focus on grinding, addictive elements and microtransactions have made this worse. I've been thinking a lot about finding a genre or mechanic that would still "work", but I find it sad that I cannot get the long term enjoyment without worry anymore from games as I could years ago.
  - taneq 8y ago
    > 1) this is just the same as work This is how I feel about Factorio along with basically every Zachtronics game ever. I want to get into it but I could literally get paid for doing the same thing. I guess I'm just lucky to be able to do work that I love (or conversely to be built such that I enjoy things that are useful.)
  - eropple 8y ago
    I tend to feel that way about Factorio, but I strongly don't about Dwarf Fortress (or Rimworld). Both of those games are story generators. It's about the things thrown at you and the ways you cope--or don't, which is also fun--with the unexpected while building something you think is cool. Dwarf Fortress in particular doesn't care about optimization (either of code or of your play). Build what you want. Figure out what you think is cool and do it. There are, literally, no goals other than the ones in your head.
  - Namrog84 8y ago
    I have this same problem. In factorio for example. Either I use other people's efficient designs that are more optimal and then I feel like I'm just copy pasting and not playing. Or I end up wanting to write a program or design things that can produce the optimal designs. All of which involve not actually playing the game but playing excel spreadsheet or programming dynamic programming algorithms. I like games that allow min maxing a lot. But they need to be in such a way that there is more to the game and less copyable stuff. So that I can enjoy and play the game.
- pault 8y ago
  I picked up DF a few years ago, and shortly after my girlfriend left for a two week trip. I had a bunch of stuff I was supposed to do around the house while she was gone, but I ended up going completely nocturnal and spent the entire two weeks in bed with my laptop. I didn't shower or brush my teeth and I only stopped playing long enough to pick up some takeout once or twice per day. I never finished any of the work I was supposed to do, but I did build a fortress on the side of a volcano with a gravity fed network of lava-powered forges, a defensive labyrinth leading to the front gate with a series of automated lava traps, and a dwarven atom smasher to catch any enemies that made it past the lava. I was working on a powered rail network when I lost most of my population to a series of riots and blood feuds triggered by a shortage of clean socks. Every once in a while I get tempted to start playing again, but then I remember the look on my girlfriend's face when she came home and found me sitting in a pile of empty pizza boxes wearing nothing but underwear that I hadn't washed in two weeks.
  - hota_mazi 8y ago
    Sure, but did you show her your fortress?
    - ahje 8y ago
      Related: My wife's hooked on watching me play DF as long as there's a tileset enabled. This is a god-send! :D
- simonebrunozzi 8y ago
  Reminds me of the lost days of Master of Orion 2 or Master of Magic. 20+ years ago. Still great games even today.
- Mirioron 8y ago
  >These games are so good they should come with rehab. What if we instead use the games as rehab?
crooked-v 8y ago
I've started to get the same feeling from Factory Town. Conveyor belts and elaborate production chains, but this time in 3D!

rexpop 8y ago

Hey, look at it this way: Capitalism in healthcare does drive a better consumer experience!

swfsql 8y ago
Except it's shitty for the lack of capitalism. How Government Solved the Health Care Crisis - Animation https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fFoXyFmmGBQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fFoXyFmmGBQ
- seleniumBubbles 8y ago
  That’s an amazing video, thanks for sharing. And the comments are actually useful – there’s a pinned link to a New York Times article published in 1910 which explains the argument at the time for cartelizing the industry.
- dibujante 8y ago
  Oof, can you really do an apples-to-apples comparison to healthcare in 1910 (before antibiotics) and healthcare today, though? If healthcare in 1910 cost $1 and a doctor poked you in the chest and said "You've got consumption; get your affairs in order." and healthcare in 2010 cost $1000 and a doctor poked you in the chest and said "You've got tuberculosis; take these antibiotics and you will probably live.", I don't think you can say healthcare got 1000x worse.
  - swfsql 8y ago
    As the video stated, we will never know how lodge practice would have developed.
    - dibujante 8y ago
      Right. We don't know. The video isn't wrong but it sure isn't right. Its arguments are speculative only.
  - seleniumBubbles 8y ago

_cs2017_ 8y ago

> On the one hand, it totally sucks Do you mean it sucks because you prefer the game to be supported only by donations? If so, why? Or did you mean something else?

taeric 8y ago
I think it was that the statement that a "cancer scare" can "completely wipe out" someone that should be doing absolutely fine. That is not a working system. Choosing to put it on Steam, or not, is completely orthogonal to that. At least, it should be.

Pristina 8y ago

I will keep this in my monetisation handbook. "If I had cancer I would be wiped out which is why XYZ is no longer free. thx for your support"

hobofan 8y ago
But the non-pretty version of Dwarf Fortress is still free and will continue to be free. If that weren't the case there would probably be quite some backlash from the community.

Haga 8y ago

It will be the same story all over. It seems to fail at first and the devs are bored by the additional bureaucratic work. Then a wild weasel in suit appears..