I got into DF shortly before the release of DF2010 and two memories stick out about my first afternoon with the game:
My first fortress went reasonably well until I ran out of booze. "No big deal, I'll just make some more!" I thought. I then realized that I also had no food left. Bugger.
Then, to punctuate my despair, winter came and all the lakes froze over.
That fortress ended with a single, naked dwarf aimlessly running around on a frozen lake until he died. It was at that moment that I fell in love with the game.
So I started another fortress, this time next to a volcano. I had managed to survive a full year, trade some goods and continue producing a steady stream of booze and food. I had even managed to survive an imp attack with only a few losses (the poor dwarf who first found the imp and the two dwarfs who wanted his socks).
It was time to begin metal production for the first time! I had channeled into the volcano to create a series of magma canals under my fortress and had created a pool under the room that would house the magma forge. Once everything was set up, I decided that it needed to be decorated. How could I not? I had bent the magma to my will for the first time and I was over the moon. I wanted to surround the forge with some grating so that the forge would be surrounded by a(n entirely imaginary) glow.
It was then that I figured out that grates don't support ground tiles and my only anvil plummeted into the pool below.
Suddenly, goblins!
When dwarf fortress does !!FUN!! it does it all at once.