I tried the newb pack not too long ago... the experience was too clunky for me. The graphics packs are nice but they always feel incomplete... and even when I had this nice visualization (in a separate window...) it would frequently crashed and I really wished taht I could interact with the game with it.
Yes, they're artists and this is their art, but software rarely -- if ever -- exists in isolation, yet DF acts like it does. You've all these nerds with too much time on their hands building all this ridiculously complicated infrastructure just to play the game in a way that is more comfortable, when instead the DF guys could simply allocate X amount of time and then be done with it. And this isn't a demand that the DF guys make the UI better, just a wish that they would put in a minimal amount of effort so that the community could hook in their own GUI code with a minimum of fuss.
Besides, I write code and debug fussy computer shit all day for work. Games shouldn't require that kind of advanced hackery just to play.
And who cares if they're artists? Neither the artist nor his art are immune to criticism (or, wishfully thinking, critique).
Well, that's something I think the Adams brothers consider to be work. They aren't into doing work. They're into doing the fun stuff. Maybe that's immature and not to the liking of the audience, but once again, the whole point is that they don't care about the user. Frankly, that's a good thing, kinda like a film maker not caring about the mainstream audience, or making an accessible film. Like Harmony Korine...
And how is that mode of expression anything higher than selfish indulgence?
In cinema that sentiment has resulted in some of the most vapid, unwatchable trash ever created. In music this results in experimental, unlistenable noise that never seems to appeal to anyone enough to be self-sustaining. It's like an emotionally repressed teenager crying out, "you don't understand my pain, man! you'll never understand!" We do understand, we've all gone through it, and we've moved on.
If DF's creators want to be avant garde, then fine. But it is a lonely, and possibly pointless path, and again a damn shame, because oh how amazing it would be if it weren't!
It is ABSOLUTELY selfish indulgence. And plenty of people love every bit of it. Just because you find these sorts of things devoid of meaning does not mean they are meaningless to others.
Game development, these days, is so focused on hand holding, genre, and accessibility that it is only by truly following ones heart that something unique and new, like Dwarf Fortress, can be created.
Plus, it's still not verion 1.0, so who knows, maybe someday they'll fix the interfaces! But since other things are always in flux, it'd be a premature optimization now, anyway. Those pave the road to Balrogs, or something.
The game is over a dozen years old and from what I have experienced seems relatively complete. Sure, it's not 1.0, but at this point it is not hard to envision a functional ncurses-like interface built around the concepts that DF's current UI establishes, to say nothing of more exotic (or modern) alternatives.
But, as you say, it's their project. They can do with it what they want. I can sit here and critique and wish it were better, and you can defend it, and together we change nothing. I just really want to play a game as inspired as this in a way that doesn't require the kind of devotion and study this game does, because its a friggin videogame and I need to devote my studyin' time to shit that actually matters (to me, touche).
(And besides, I think we human beings have a fetish for complexity that we really could do without)
The version numbering scheme for DF is based on a percentage of desired features that have been implemented. The most recently-released version of DF is 0.43.04. It's not even half-way done!
So, guys create a ton of work for themselves and post up a public tracker. They scope the game to be WAAAY larger than what it could reasonably be, but this scoping allows its creators to put up this multi-generational progress bar that slowly-but-surely inches to completion, and in the process eke out a meager living. The elation, when that progress bar does move, is borderline orgasmic.
Complete for a game, that is. All the pieces are there, the interactive feedback loop is in place, and one can currently get lost in it for hundreds of hours, should they so choose. That is a complete game to me.
The rest of that list? Stretch goals. Or the entire vision. What, you think I've never seen that list? It's a big list, and it's stupid because it is so impossibly long. The entire vision is never 1.0...
I wouldn't generalize that any deviant, avant garde self indulgent artistic work that doesn't care about its audience and doesn't care about maintaining some conformity is necessarily "unwatchable" or "unlistenable" trash.
I personally think that sometimes it's not such a pointless path, and helps push the boundaries of art, of what is accepted, and is essential in bringing new ideas forward.
It prevents everything from having the same esthetic and feel. The graphics of DF is also what makes it unique from the rest.
Yes, they're artists and this is their art, but software rarely -- if ever -- exists in isolation, yet DF acts like it does. You've all these nerds with too much time on their hands building all this ridiculously complicated infrastructure just to play the game in a way that is more comfortable, when instead the DF guys could simply allocate X amount of time and then be done with it. And this isn't a demand that the DF guys make the UI better, just a wish that they would put in a minimal amount of effort so that the community could hook in their own GUI code with a minimum of fuss.
Besides, I write code and debug fussy computer shit all day for work. Games shouldn't require that kind of advanced hackery just to play.
And who cares if they're artists? Neither the artist nor his art are immune to criticism (or, wishfully thinking, critique).