
Dwarf Fortress creator Tarn Adams on simulating most complex magic system ever - danso
http://www.pcgamer.com/dwarf-fortress-creator-tarn-adams-talks-about-simulating-the-most-complex-magic-system-ever/
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xaa
I do wonder whether the future of gaming will eventually move towards a model
like DF, ADOM, WoW, DOTA 2, EVE etc, whereby instead of completely new games
every year that generally just feature updated graphics, we will instead see a
few games in each genre becoming more and more fleshed out over the course of
years or even decades.

Really, there are not a whole lot of different game genres when you get down
to it. If one had a good RTS engine, for example, you could build a WWII
simulator or a sci-fi setting on top of it with only a few mods plus new unit
models. And from a player's standpoint, there is something amazing about
playing a game that has been developed for decades like DF or ADOM, because it
is so much deeper, more detailed, and well-balanced than the average new game.
And has less bugs. I think this thinking is behind what must be a massive
effort to reskin Morrowwind. The increase in modding's popularity is another
indicator of this trend.

Of course I doubt new games will entirely cease to be made. There are
certainly genres that haven't been discovered yet. But it seems that the bulk
of player-time is moving gradually towards games like this IMO.

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Qwertious
"I do wonder whether the future of gaming will eventually move towards a model
like DF, ADOM, WoW, DOTA 2, EVE etc, whereby instead of completely new games
every year that generally just feature updated graphics, we will instead see a
few games in each genre becoming more and more fleshed out over the course of
years or even decades."

You're assuming people want more complex games, but (note my complete lack of
sources) history has shown that people move towards _less_ complex games over
time. Dwarf Fortress will never go mainstream, because not everyone wants a
complex game. A lot of people like games that they can wind down with, that
_don 't_ need thinking for.

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xaa
There are two factors at play here. First, if you track an individual gamer
over time, I think they generally will gradually prefer increasingly complex
games. Not necessarily "complex" in the sense of difficulty, but in the sense
of depth; as sibling suggests, deeper worlds with more things to explore, etc,
even if that exploration is not thinking-intensive.

But at the same time, the market for games has expanded greatly due to in-
browser games, smartphone games, etc. Those people are "introductory/casual
gamers". Some of them will remain casual, some of them will stop gaming
entirely, but I think of those who continue gaming, many of them will come to
want something more.

So, in short, the existence of lots of really shallow games largely reflects
an expanded market IMO rather than some inherent shallowness of humanity. I
share your cynicism in the sense that there are some who will never move
beyond FarmVille, and that is sad, but I cannot imagine what mechanism would
drive, or what evidence would support, the average _individual_ gamer
preferring less complex games over time.

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ebrenes
> _but I cannot imagine what mechanism would drive, or what evidence would
> support, the average individual gamer preferring less complex games over
> time._

Lack of time is a strong driver for some gamers opting towards simpler games,
or at least games whose complexity does not translate into requiring
additional time for mastery/understanding. In my circle of gaming friends, as
our available time is under greater pressure we've purposely moved away from
games that require significant investment of time to those that perhaps retain
some complexity but reward a casual time investment.

Another factor I've seen that affects is the demand of contiguous blocks of
time to game properly. Some games do not permit breaking up game sessions
arbitrarily, so while one might have ample leisure time, there might be
multiple interruptions in between which make playing certain games impossible
or a burden.

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ethbro
_> In my circle of gaming friends, as our available time is under greater
pressure we've purposely moved away from games that require significant
investment of time_

The last game I seriously played was EVE. I remember I moved to that and stuck
with it for a while because I made a decision that I would only play games
where I enjoyed _playing_ the game (as opposed to not enjoying play but what
the designers rewarded me with as a result).

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erikb
How do you play eve in a relaxing way without putting much time into learning
and developing complex excel sheets?

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robocaptain
This game and it's creator(s) never cease to amaze me. Looking forward to all
of the new "fun" this will create.

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meddlepal
I really wish DF was OSS. My great fear for this game is the developer dies
and we lose an amazing piece of tech with him.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
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.

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wolfgke
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?

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PhasmaFelis
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.

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wolfgke
> 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?

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Rudism
As someone who is aware of DF but never played it, I am curious about how the
game actually works.

I am roughly aware that it is a very complex simulation that exists under an
ASCII art and menu presentation, but it's not clear at all to me how gameplay
actually works. Does the game more or less "play" itself and allow you to
nudge things in different directions to observe the outcome, or are you
responsible for micro-managing all of your dwarves' lives?

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BEEdwards
Two basic modes, Fortress and Adventure.

Fortress is a base management sim, you don't directly control anything, you
issue orders and then drwarves take those orders and do them in their own
time.

Adventure mode is a rougelike with in a deep world.

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erikb
And as mentioned in the article there's Legendary mode which is basically a
magnifying glass for the results of the world generator. Apperently people use
it just to see what happened during world generation, maybe even using the
results as inspiration for other media like pen&paper RPGs.

So there is the option for the ant farmer as well.

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db48x
Having world-gen create a unique magic system for each game sounds like it'll
be a lot of fun.

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logfromblammo
I am now imagining a system based on live penguin sacrifice that can animate
metal statues into war-trained metal golems, regrow lost limbs, turn quartzite
into gabbro, charm otherwise useless elves into making shoes, and accelerate
minecarts to lightspeed.

The DF world-gen and procedural generator invents some seriously weird stuff.

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RugnirViking
okay. As a long time DF player, If it is anything like that it will be
wonderful!

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dagenleg
Wow! The creator really knows what he is talking about.

