Qt3 Games Podcast: Jon Rowe and Dwarf Fortress

Jon Rowe is six foot four. Dwarves are short. This podcast unites them! Listen as we discuss Dwarf Fortress. Also, be sure to place your bets for how long it will take Jon to move to Los Angeles…

Are you suggesting he’d ever consider leaving Wisconsin?

Oh yes! A dwarf fortress podcast?! Excellent Jon!

Jon did a great job selling me on Dwarf Fortress. And not just because his voice is so sexy!

By the way, my apologies to the excellent Christian McKay from Me and Orson Welles for confusing him with whoever this dude is.

-Tom

Links:
Boatmurdered
Bronzemurder
Oilfurnace

Umm…

me… singing… blues/rock

Most of my experience is in pre/post classical vocal stuff… but I did this with my friend.

By the way, Tom, would you consider posting the topics of the upcoming podcasts? I know it’d whet my anticipation! Or would you rather keep it a surprise?

None of the topics are set at this point. It’s pretty much a matter of what the guest wants to pick when his turn comes up.

  -Tom

Jon, you lost me when you revealed that Dwarf Fortress is an ASCII game. You should have left off that reveal until the end. Now I’m in the part of the podcast where you’re describing all this cool stuff, and I can’t even pay attention anymore because all I’m picturing are stupid little ASCII characters.

It reminds me of the time, back in 1999, when acquaintances of mine built up Rogue and Nethack in my head. “Oh, it’s just like Diablo. It’s just as addictive”. So I installed them, eager to see what the games were like without modern fancy graphics and sounds, and was so bitterly disappointed. That’s the day that I discovered that despite thinking (at the time) that gameplay is what matters most, graphics and music shouldn’t get the shaft when discussing games. Gameplay has its place, but graphics and especially sound effects and music really really matter to me.

Tilesets help out… but I can totally understand.

Great podcast!

I’ve been looking for an excuse to play this game, but there always seems to be something more … graphically pleasing to play. But next week I’m travelling for work and all I’ll have with me is my crappy work laptop. Looks like now is my chance!

As an Ex-Wisconsinite who misses the dear homeland at every turn - I’m looking forward to listening to this, not only for the talk of dorfs dwarves dwarfs dwarven dwarfkind.

When you say that the UI “isn’t that bad”, I was a bit surprised. The way I would put it is that the UI is absolutely the worst I have ever had substantial experience with. There may be worse UIs out there, but if they exist I either haven’t encountered them or they’ve deterred me within a few minutes of going on to discover their full badness. Because the DF UI is attached to such an excellent game, I’ve pushed myself much further with it than I would have otherwise. But it deserves its reputation for being “unfriendly”.

(BTW, I really don’t mean this as a complaint, just an observation: Tarn is entitled to spend his energies how he pleases and I’ve never regretted my donation to Bay 12.)

The graphics I’m fine with, but I grew up on ASCII-based roguelikes. :)

I would agree that the DF interface “isn’t that bad”. It’s really quite simple once you get used to it. I can perform most actions without even having to LOOK at the interface anymore.

Well, tastes differ, I guess. But tell me, can you think of a game that (a) has a notably worse interface than DF and that (b) you’ve spent more than a couple of hours playing?

zork ;)

Are you saying Zork has a poor interface? Because, dude.

Jon made a good case for DF, I think.

I thought Tom’s surprise when Jon said there are potentially 100s of dwarves in a fortress was funny.

Has Calistas updated his tutorial to be compatible with the newest iterations of DF? Seems that farming and a couple of things have changed in a big way.

Coincidentally, I actually picked up Dwarf Fortress for the first time about a week ago. My experience has mostly been a steady vacillation between awe and intimidation. I’d get a measure of accomplishment when I first started to think I understood mining, but then the carpet was kind of pulled out from under me when I found out about mining in 3D.

Or more recently I felt good about channeling water/magma, but now I’m sorta dreading having to learn how to pump it and figuring out how to really manage stuff like pressure. It can be intimidating trying to figure out all these systems, but on the other hand it emboldens you once you figure it out and allows you to be that much more versatile with your fortress(es).

Those are two examples, but this kind of thing seems to happen to me a lot in DF. It’s not so bad though since I mostly just take them as they come to me. I haven’t really had to deal with enemies yet so there’s still that whole facet of the game I haven’t delved into. So far my first fortress ground to a halt by a catsplosion of all things because I was too much of a softy to butcher kittens. Not any more. My new fortress has a butcher station and I’m not afraid to use it. I also made a special vault just to lock those coveted shells in although in the newest version finding them hasn’t been a problem (whew).

As to how I got into DF (for anyone wanting to try DF out): I used this tutorial which I assume is the Calistas one (although the only name I see on it is TinyPirate, so I don’t know). I also skimmed through some of captnduck’s DF YouTube Tutorials and also his DF2010 videos to get a sense for some of the changes from the old tutorial version and the later iterations. As well as a ton of DFwiki and google searches.

Couple more links:
Lazy Newb Pack – Wish I knew about this a few days ago when I decided it was time to upgrade past the old version included in the tutorial.
Bravemule – Another AAR that I just found in the Qt3 DF thread. Has graphics and 3D screenshots from Stonesense. Currently ongoing.

Oh man that Lazy Newb Pack looks awesome.

19 months.