5 ms·

I am a DF obsessive. Many thousands of hours spent playing the game over the past 12 years, it is my favorite game by far. I've also had numerous abortive attem

by lom888 4y ago

I am a DF obsessive. Many thousands of hours spent playing the game over the past 12 years, it is my favorite game by far. I've also had numerous abortive attempts to learn how to code. It humbles me to think that people find the UI so difficult to use that they'd sooner spend time coding another one.

bombcar 4y ago
This is the problem - those who can code usually end up learning DF "well enough" and many of those who complain about the UI wouldn't even play it with another UI. I personally never really found the UI that big of a hindrance; it's like learning Lotus 1-2-3 shortcuts. This "sell it on steam with a GUI" is actually brilliant, because lots of people will buy it and some will play - but it gives those who like the idea but don't actually want to play an excuse to give Tarn money.
- R0b0t1 4y ago
  I think he should sell it but open source it enough to allow mods or an engine rewrite. I think capturing his creative output w.r.t. game inclusions could still make him some money. The game is kinda gimped because he doesn't know how to multithread it.
  - burnished 4y ago
    Links to blog posts or analysis? It seems like it's pretty compute heavy, not sure threading could help?
    - bombcar 4y ago
      The single biggest CPU usage in DF is the pathfinding algorithms, and making those multithreaded is complicated. Tarn himself has admitted he doesn't know how to do it well, and has left it for a later enhancement. Other aspects of DF are now technically multithreaded if I recall correctly, but that's for sound and graphics and stuff that doesn't really remove the pathfinding processing. Lots of the newer features like burrows, etc, are to allow the player to help the pathfinding algorithms.
      - R0b0t1 4y ago
        There are modern entity component system frameworks (tendency for these to be written in new languages, but there's ones for C/C++/whatever) that would allow this to be multithreaded quite well. He just doesn't want to put in the time to learn them for some reason.
- crooked-v 4y ago
  > and many of those who complain about the UI wouldn't even play it with another UI I feel like that's a stretch. Just look at how many people play Rimworld, which has a fundamentally similar concept but much, much easier to understand UI/UX.
  - burnished 4y ago
    I think it probably applies (almost) just as well to RimWorld. I suspect every game has way more buyers than dedicated players.
deleted 4y ago
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by lom888 4y ago

bombcar 4y ago

This is the problem - those who can code usually end up learning DF "well enough" and many of those who complain about the UI wouldn't even play it with another UI. I personally never really found the UI that big of a hindrance; it's like learning Lotus 1-2-3 shortcuts. This "sell it on steam with a GUI" is actually brilliant, because lots of people will buy it and some will play - but it gives those who like the idea but don't actually want to play an excuse to give Tarn money.

R0b0t1 4y ago
I think he should sell it but open source it enough to allow mods or an engine rewrite. I think capturing his creative output w.r.t. game inclusions could still make him some money. The game is kinda gimped because he doesn't know how to multithread it.
- burnished 4y ago
  Links to blog posts or analysis? It seems like it's pretty compute heavy, not sure threading could help?
  - bombcar 4y ago
    The single biggest CPU usage in DF is the pathfinding algorithms, and making those multithreaded is complicated. Tarn himself has admitted he doesn't know how to do it well, and has left it for a later enhancement. Other aspects of DF are now technically multithreaded if I recall correctly, but that's for sound and graphics and stuff that doesn't really remove the pathfinding processing. Lots of the newer features like burrows, etc, are to allow the player to help the pathfinding algorithms.
    - R0b0t1 4y ago
      There are modern entity component system frameworks (tendency for these to be written in new languages, but there's ones for C/C++/whatever) that would allow this to be multithreaded quite well. He just doesn't want to put in the time to learn them for some reason.
crooked-v 4y ago
> and many of those who complain about the UI wouldn't even play it with another UI I feel like that's a stretch. Just look at how many people play Rimworld, which has a fundamentally similar concept but much, much easier to understand UI/UX.
- burnished 4y ago
  I think it probably applies (almost) just as well to RimWorld. I suspect every game has way more buyers than dedicated players.

deleted 4y ago

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