Hear, hear! I recently introduced someone new to the game and the actual start of the game was the most confusing part to him. ‘What are black roads? How does city size matter?’ etc. Also there are like a billion traits, many of them with little effect. Adding an option for every little thing is not the way to go.[/quote]
So… a play now (generate default world, generate reasonable char) would be a good function?[/quote]
The existing ‘Play Now’ is nice and all, needs to be improved somewhat. For one thing it is far on the right side, making new players rather chose ‘Custom Character’. It should be the first option. As you say, it needs to generate reasonable characters, which it almost does, but not quite. The characters are often less then ideal when it comes to survival.
My point regarding the ‘Black Roads’ stands. It is a really confusing option. Should be named ‘Surrounded by Zombies’ or something similar.
A few more easy to understand options would be great. I think DF has 5-6 world gen options and that’s enough to get the balance you need. Some things (monsters/sci-fi weapons and so on) will get modularized to make it easier. There could also be an ‘easy’ and a ‘hardcore’ mod made to suit people just starting off or who want more of a challenge.
However, the ‘main game balance’ should be central to this as the argument of ‘well just put an option in for it’ leads to horribly disjointed game design with no balance for the central game. It also overwhelms new players and leads to a lot more things needing to be factored in all the way along (so that options don’t completely break everything).
Uneron - couldn’t agree more about Black Road, it’s a bit confusing as to what it does. I feel many people will think it does more than it actually does (just surround you with zombies at the start) and I don’t think any ambiguity is good at an option stage.
How about we make a context sensitive start? Something that detects if you have played the game before (save games, modified options etc). And if it doesn’t it gives you the option to “Start now” which generates an easy to use char (we will define some good start options) and world using the defaults. And a “main menu” option. That goes towards the current menu.
Think that would make it more accessible to first timers.
Edit: 3 options. Also add the tutorial as an option.
