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>. But at this point, DF has a relationship to modern games much like a literary classic does to other books: it will help you understand where a lot of stuff i

• lmm 12y ago
  Yeah. DF owes a lot to nethack (interface, interaction of lots of elements, code quality), which has much more claim to be a classic (it's been popular for decades, and is still fun). DF captured a certain kind of imagination but it belongs to a long tradition of detailed modelling of civilizations in games.
• falcolas 12y ago
  They are stating that just as concepts and themes from classic books resurface in more modern books, gameplay concepts and themes from DF can be found in modern videogames. That isn't to say DF does not contain themes from previous videogames, or that it is the progenitor for modern games; just an influence.
  • hurin 12y ago
    The article is quite explicitly calling it a classic it doesn't actually mention any predecessors that it inherits from (I haven't played DwarfFortress, but reading about it suggests to me, games such as Ultima, Moria, Angband).
    • falcolas 12y ago
      We consider many of Shakespeare's works to be classics, but he pulled a lot of his themes and ideologies from the Bible, the Illiad and the Odyssey. One does not need to be first to be a classic.
      • hurin 12y ago
        Actually Shakespeare also pulled many of his themes from other writers very much closer to him in history (and he was criticized for it in his time actually), but as it remains those writers i.e. Christopher Marlowe are not well known and Shakespeare is (but it is essential to this that merely reusing-retelling-retheming of classical aspects is not enough for this, many others besides Shakespeare did this in those days, as many films, and tv-series do it now).
    • darkmighty 12y ago
      To give an idea of how revolutionary DF is, I'd say it's just as close to The Sims and Minecraft as it is to Angband.
      • Kurtz79 12y ago
        It is revolutionary because its scale and breadth, the way it integrates so many moving parts and procedural generation. But "inspirational" it's not: procedural generation has been used in games since the dawn of times (the 80s!), and same goes for huge sandbox games (Elite), economic/military simulations (civilization, sim city, star control), etc... if anything, DF it was insipired by some of these games, and merged their gameplay into something unique. In a way, it´s depressing (although understandable) how AAA titles in the last 20 years have focused on graphical improvements and standardized gameplay, instead of exploring new territory. The recent resurgence (and commercial success) of indies it's the best thing to have happened to gaming in some time.