They should have intervened much sooner, when Activision bought Blizzard.

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Quoting: whizse

Quoting: LeflOr rather, why should I play this when the real Minecraft exists?

No Microsoft account needed?

This is imho a _very_ big plus. Microsoft has been pushing very hard to use a single account in all their products, and they didn't care a bit about compatibility issues... Soo, now one is forced to constantly change passwords, because product A does not allow to input password characters that are perfectly valid in product B....
(As an example: If you change your password in the browser, you can set characters that simply don't exist on the on-screen keyboard of the Xbox 360.)
It would be hilarious, if it weren't so annoying...

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Quoting: redneckdrowAlso, I'm concerned that the CPU overhead in WINE/Proton would lead to early FPS death (single-digit framerates, for the uninitiated). 'Course, you usually have to play without FUN for quite a while to hit that point, so I might try Proton.

I wouldn't worry too much. Since WINE is not an emulator, but rather an open-source reimplementation of the Win32 API (and some other Windows APIs like DirectX), all CPU overhead it has compared to Windows' own implementation of those APIs happens when programs call functions of those APIs. The CPU-heavy parts of Dwarf Fortress are in its own game code, not talking to the OS, so they should not be affected by WINE. Graphics, Sound and Input will still use a different amount of CPU time compared to Windows, but for Dwarf Fortress those only make up a tiny part of the game's computations.

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Quoting: amatai

Quoting: whizse

Quoting: slaapliedjeBy the way, everything should be written in NCurses, graphics are way overrated.

I'm not so sure, I tried video in the terminal but it's not just the same:

You should use libcaca, cacafire is as realist as a real fire.

Given the screenshot, I'm not sure if I want to see that in combination with something called caca.

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Quoting: TheSHEEEP

Quoting: soulsourceAnd that's just one example. There are plenty of things that are really hard to bring over to actual graphics, but work well with ASCII.

True, but aside from actual graphics just being more pleasing to look at for... almost everyone, probably .... there is also the mouse issue, which for me was always the biggest blocker to play Dwarf Fortress again.

Each time I felt like playing, I remembered the immense pain and time investment I had to do just to learn how to control the damn game, my interest in playing again quickly subsided.

This is certainly true. If you have the controls in your muscle memory, they are fine. If you had enough time to forget them: PITA.

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Well, I still think that the ASCII art of Dwarf Fortress is a thing of beauty that is hard/impossible to match with actual graphics.
Take for instance the variety in different kinds of grass. They do have a unique ASCII representation, and have an annual blooming cycle. Of course visualized, and if you don't expect it to happen, it's a very impressive surprise if suddenly a lot of grass tiles on your embark turn into bright (ASCII) flowers.
For ASCII that's rather quick to do, as you just need to decide a character and a colour to visualize the flowers. For graphics, well, you need to draw the flowers first...
And that's just one example. There are plenty of things that are really hard to bring over to actual graphics, but work well with ASCII.

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Unless they announce a native Linux version, I couldn't care less. The original is running fine in WINE, after all.

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Quoting: pb

Quoting: soulsourceThere's also an open source reimplementation of the game called Settlers 2.5 Return to the Roots.

Does it have a single-player campaign? I checked the FAQ and it says "Return To The Roots besitzt noch keinen Singleplayer Modus." but I don't know if it's up to date.

The campaign is afaik not implemented, but I think they meanwhile have an AI for free play.
(Would need to check though, haven't played in a while.)

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Settlers 2 was the first game I got for PC. After 26 years it's still one of my favorites.
There's also an open source reimplementation of the game called Settlers 2.5 Return to the Roots.

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I wanted to buy it anyhow, but now I want to buy it even more.

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