Mate one of the biggest features are missing from the base game and needs to be re-coded and you know that DF has a small development team. I wouldn't be surprised if it took 2 years to properly add in all the features for adventure mode before they started working on Fortress again.

But hey atleast we got some new features, Chosen sounds pretty cool from todays update.

OP also completely ignores that porting Fortress Mode took years, and adventure mode players waited (mostly) patiently while this was happening, and for the next year or two before they finally got their prefered game mode ported to steam. Have a little patience. It's not like significant updates before 0.50 took years at a time... oh, wait.

The result of releasing with only fort mode before focusing on porting adventure mode means that we got to play earlier, but also that there would be a relatively lengthy time spent without fort mode getting much after launch (and we currently are in that period).

About the player count, it is how dwarf fortress had been for a long time, people play for a bit, then go do other things for a few years and come back.
The slow development cycle of this game can seem weird to newcomers but there were many periods of even several years without updates at all, and some of the updates did focus heavily on adventure mode as well.

I'm just looking to do the following:

- Select a tile type and place multiple instances of that tile type without having to reselect the type every time something is placed
- Have the task erasure system not be so convoluted (eg cancel build stairs)
- Menu sorting and filters (no real need to see what can't currently be made)

Of the more complex requests that could greatly benefit the game:

- Item sorting and better utilization of stockpiles
- Force the use of closest material to build area when selecting "Closest Material" during construction
- Better burrow functionality that doesn't make my dwarves go insane
- Not having to use "Build Dirt Road" to force my dwarves to clean vomit/blood in outside areas


Now I'm sure that some of these are either fixed through an adjustment of gameplay or mod, but there is no doubt that some of these things in the base game would really do wonders for replayability. I don't feel up to the task of battling the menu system every time I want to establish a base. Yes, managers. Yes, QSP. I do understand those takes. Let's get a little bit of good quality of life into the game so I can show this game off to my friends.

There's a little toggle switch when placing construction or buildings for "continue building" that means you don't gotta reselect each time.

But yeah, while I do agree that quality of life should be a priority (my personal list starts with several long term bugs) I also recognize that this is a game that's been built over the course of 20 years and development's going to be slow but ongoing. Let 'em finish adventure mode, and then hopefully they'll fix some things before getting tooo distracted with the magic system ^^'

I really respect the effort modders put in to make things more playable in the meantime.

The latest updates to fortress mode have been good. Better portraits, unretire fixes, multithreading+optimizations,

and as far as I can tell the new adv mode content can be accessed in fortress mode by plopping your fortress ON TOP OF the new sites/dungeons LOLOLOLOL

EVERYTHING gets added then forgotten. The entire game is built on that. Temples and prayer don't work right, barracks don't get used to store equipment properly, the criminal system allows for objects to be stolen (of course) but still lack a proper way to resolve the event, siege weapons which can only be fired on 1 z-level, I could go on and on. Nothing gets added, tested fleshed out and finished. NOTHING. Most will never be revisited and there will always be some excuse as to why or the real carrot and stick they've used on fans for years....a new exciting feature or system to string the project along. Myth and Magic, Tarn showed a prototype like almost a decade ago and still nothing. Carrot and stick. Updated graphics, carrot and stick. "Update and fix" for adventure mode, which it just isn't. Its just making what was on the old version available to the steam version. Another Carrot and Stick. It'll string along to retirement, or when they decide they don't need the money anymore. Fan boys can carry bullshitters far.

Its just a shame the coding was done nonsensically so its near impossible for modders to fix.

If Rimworld ever successfully implements a proper Z level, I'd probably never play DF again.

That said, I've dumped over 100 hours since Hurricane Helene into DF and don't regret it at all.

Originally posted by Dcethe:

Mate one of the biggest features are missing from the base game and needs to be re-coded and you know that DF has a small development team. I wouldn't be surprised if it took 2 years to properly add in all the features for adventure mode before they started working on Fortress again.

But hey atleast we got some new features, Chosen sounds pretty cool from todays update.

Despite making several million dollars the dev team remains microscopic because they want it to. Them being slow is a fair criticism at this point. This game won't ever really get much more developed tbh.

This isn't anything new. Development has always been hyper focused on one aspect of the game or another, and dev time for these features has always been measured in months to years. The game as-is is one the most complicated, feature-rich games you will ever experience. The fact that the free feature updates aren't progressing as fast as you would like them to is a you-problem.

Originally posted by midori:

Despite making several million dollars the dev team remains microscopic because they want it to. Them being slow is a fair criticism at this point. This game won't ever really get much more developed tbh.

Until the Steam release DF development has always been funded by donations. That was sufficient to keep development going indefinitely, but at the same time you couldn't exactly build a development team based on that income. The steam release of course generated a nice one-time influx of funds, yet ongoing development is a continuous expenditure. From what i gather about 5.000 copies of DF are sold on steam a month. That equals about 100k a month, but:

- Steams platform fee for this income is 30% or 30k.
- This is income before taxes, so we'll likely see another good chunk evaporate.
- KitFox will likely also receive either a cut or has a set fee for their services.
- And besides Tarn himself, we now have Putnam as a programmer, which equals a two-man salary that has to be paid at the very least.

If we use a programmer salary of 70k a year as a baseline i assume there would likely be room to hire a handful more before hitting the break even point. Doing so would require a steady income though, and not everyone is looking to create a company and deal with the responsibility that comes with it. Neither are there too many people who'd spend two decades developing a freeware game.

When push comes to shove it's still possible to play DF in its classic form entirely for free, and the premium edition is likely to receive years of (slow) updates yet. It's not as if the current situation is anything new, nor do i believe that i have ever seen a promise that a steam release would equate a massive expansion of the development team.

Yeah well whatever reasoning anyone has for the game being in the current state it is in is completely irrelevant. I am simply *not* suggesting this game to my friends and colleagues on the basis that the base game is far to tedious for anyone to enjoy at length. I'll be happy to brag about the complexities that exist in the game, but at no point will I suggest to others that they explore these things for themselves since most wont have the energy to wade through a lot of this stuff.

If the devs don't want to fix it and wont find outside help to come up with a solution, then they have to realize that it's their own unrealized gains and unmet potential that is hurting them.

Originally posted by Excellion:

Originally posted by midori:

Despite making several million dollars the dev team remains microscopic because they want it to. Them being slow is a fair criticism at this point. This game won't ever really get much more developed tbh.

Until the Steam release DF development has always been funded by donations. That was sufficient to keep development going indefinitely, but at the same time you couldn't exactly build a development team based on that income. The steam release of course generated a nice one-time influx of funds, yet ongoing development is a continuous expenditure. From what i gather about 5.000 copies of DF are sold on steam a month. That equals about 100k a month, but:

- Steams platform fee for this income is 30% or 30k.
- This is income before taxes, so we'll likely see another good chunk evaporate.
- KitFox will likely also receive either a cut or has a set fee for their services.
- And besides Tarn himself, we now have Putnam as a programmer, which equals a two-man salary that has to be paid at the very least.

If we use a programmer salary of 70k a year as a baseline i assume there would likely be room to hire a handful more before hitting the break even point. Doing so would require a steady income though, and not everyone is looking to create a company and deal with the responsibility that comes with it. Neither are there too many people who'd spend two decades developing a freeware game.

When push comes to shove it's still possible to play DF in its classic form entirely for free, and the premium edition is likely to receive years of (slow) updates yet. It's not as if the current situation is anything new, nor do i believe that i have ever seen a promise that a steam release would equate a massive expansion of the development team.

The real frustrating part is not simply that fortress mode has seen no content addition in two years, but that nothing will even start untill adventure mode is properly implemented, and who knows how long that will take.
Which means at this point there's still really nothing on the horizon to look forward to.

Also for reference I think the sales for October was 24k units on steam, could be a particularly good month I wouldn't know but it shows that new or returning people are still interested in playing the game, and I'd assume there's definitely a cashflow to be had here, especially if the game actually gets new features and improvement over time.

I have no experience in running a business or programming so my opinion about this isn't super relevant but I don't think it would make it unmanageable to maybe hire one or two extra people to work on the game.

Don't expect to find sympathies here. The Tarn cultists will forever put up with any lack of progress.

They don't care.

Tarn is more of a part-time game developer and spends more of his time on other more important real life issues.

For all the flak against the dev for years, I still don't see a single game anywhere close to this.

It's not so much that we don't care and more that every time it comes up people make it seem obvious that better devs would easily get this done and/or that adding more devs would multiply the development speed in the same amounts.

A larger and more organised team would definitely be able to get to where the game currently is in a small portion of the time it took for this game to get here, but so far nobody funded such a team for a very niche market like this.

As for adding more devs to the current team, the code is something a solo dev made over the years, which means that it is a mess for anyone else to get in, it took several months to Putnam, someone already very familiar with how the game works and development, to get her bearings and be able to start working on small things.
So sure, if you add a few more devs and give them a year or two to familiarize themselves with the existing code, then at least a year to refactor the code into something that allows multiple people to work on it without breaking things for the others all the time, you could then end up with faster progress.