It is revolutionary because its scale and breadth, the way it integrates so many moving parts and procedural generation.

But "inspirational" it's not: procedural generation has been used in games since the dawn of times (the 80s!), and same goes for huge sandbox games (Elite), economic/military simulations (civilization, sim city, star control), etc... if anything, DF it was insipired by some of these games, and merged their gameplay into something unique.

In a way, it´s depressing (although understandable) how AAA titles in the last 20 years have focused on graphical improvements and standardized gameplay, instead of exploring new territory.

The recent resurgence (and commercial success) of indies it's the best thing to have happened to gaming in some time.