How to get happy thoughts from furniture?

[Captain Tofu]

Surprisingly the DF Wiki does only state 1 relevant sentence concerning this: "A dwarf must stand in or pass through the actual tile containing the display furniture in order to admire it; they cannot do so from a distance."
I guess this applies to all furniture, since I have 2 ~2000☼ artifacts standing in the meeting hall that nobody every got a thought about. And since the only thoughts I see, concern roads, bridges and an animal trap I places at the food stockpile, I assume, that confirms it? What are your experiences?
And what are statues good for then? I can place any other (but passable) furniture to increase room value.

I don't remember this from earlier versions of DF.

[DoubleG]

There does seem to be some problems with artefacts, displaying, value, etc in this version. When you put an item on a pedestal apparently it doesn't add to the value of the room but can be admired from a distance.

Furniture definitely does add to room value should be admirable from a distance. But I would be interested if anyone else has more info.

+1 bump

[Diarmuhnd]

Originally posted by DoubleG:

... in this version. When you put an item on a pedestal apparently it doesn't add to the value of the room but can be admired from a distance. ...

Something is wrong with your game then. I have no issue with displaying items on pedestals.

I have 10 Temples and all of them have a pedestal with an artifact on them behind golden vertical bars. Each displayed artifact has added its value to the value of these temples. The value of these temples range from 2,500 to over 25,000.

edit: unless your putting the pedestals in rooms that don't have a listed value rating like private bedrooms or generic meeting area's like Statue Gardens.

[Bufo]

Displayed artifacts are broken in bedrooms. They work in temples and guilds.

[Diarmuhnd]

Artifact furniture works fine in my bedrooms, but its not displayed, its placed.
I never bothered putting an artifact on display in a bedroom, go figure.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by Captain Tofu:

... What are your experiences? ...

AFAIK, the quote from the wiki is directly referring to or (inspired to explain) Artifacts stored in Display Cases or within other means designed to try to prevent their Theft. An addition was made to make such cases non-traversible and, thus, nullify the Thought/mood generation property of artifacts since a dorf couldn't enter the tile with it being blocked by the display case. (Display cases, various barred "viewing" sorts of arrangements, etc. Why? Because for receiving such a large benefit from an artifact, the player must assume some penalty or risk.)

"Value" always applies to installed items in designated Zones, AFAIK. And, AFAIK, there is no way to reduce the impact of individually installed items Wealth/value effect. (Likely because some major game mechanics rely upon it.)

[Kuehnau]

You can use a display to basically put anything on them, their effects feel like they are directly related to their value. I make a ♥♥♥♥ ton of figurines and then encrust them in gems and put them on display in almost every room of my fortress.