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[WaffleEggnog]

Well, DF is, by far, the best game i have ever played, its very, very entertaining and requires you to use your brain, rather then "OMG iz duh bad guy gettem!"

However, one this that i have never been able to do is convince someone else who has never heard of DF before to see the awsomness of it. Most of the people i introduce it to hate it immediatly because of the graphics. The honest ones actuly start playing, however get quickly confused and never touch it again after i leave.

So, my question to you, have you ever gotten someone who has never seen the game before to play it? And, if possible, how to do it, as i would like to get some of the people i know playing.

[Alastar]

it's not a game I would actively convince others to play. Those not tempted by a detailed description probably won't enjoy playing it.

[xeniorn]

I got a friend to play it, but he's just the type that would like this sort of games.

I would say DF is just such a kind of a game that doesn't need and doesn't really benefit from being advertised, except for the fact that advertised games reach more people.

Personally, I got to DF purely by luck. I had in mind I wanted to play minecraft. At the time, I only had a quite old laptop available and it wasn't fast enough to play minecraft on. Searching the internet for minecraft-like games I found df. At the first moment I found it interesting since it reminded me of a game I liked to play when I was a kid which included drawing a, well... Dwarf fortress, pretty similar to what we have here, with industry, underground rooms, enemies on the surface, labor division and such. Stockpiles, lots of stockpiles.

Anyway, the only thing that disappointed me judging from the screenshot was that I thought it was 2D (and this was after it was already 3D) since it didn't occur to me that a game with ASCII graphics could be in 3D. I actually played it in 2D for a few hours before discovering it has Z-levels, which struck me as really... WOW. And the more complexity I found in this game, the more I liked it.

To sum it up, I don't believe you can really "recruit" somebody to play dwarf fortress if he isn't really a type of person that likes such complex and unorthodox games. The only thing you can do is make them *aware* that DF exists, eventually they'll start playing it, or they wouldn't play it for long anyway if you actively tried to get them to play.

[katana]

Out of friends:
-One guy actually plays it now
-One guy tries to figure out how to make it real time 3d and refuses to touch it until he gets that working
-Three guys basically go eww, ascii (and go back to playing battlefield or something)
Not even bothering to introduce it to a few other people I know.

[kiaser90]

I haven't tried to get anyone else to play it, however, I do tell one of my friends any weird stories that happen to me or that i read on the forums.  He usually gets a big kick out of them and is in awe of the detail the game provides.

[Beyondrepair]

One rule (or rather, hypothesis) is the following: Someone who doesn't enjoy reading conventional books probably won't enjoy playing DF. Everything in DF requires imagination and immersion to enjoy. Very little looks "cool" graphically (intricate fortress design patterns and the bloodstains after major fights excepted). If I describe gameplay to people, they go "wow" but when they see it their enthusiasm declines. Adding a tileset may help a little bit in overcoming the barrier caused by ASCII, but that's a small step.

The second problem encountered, if you got them to try the game, is the learning curve. Learning DF is definitely unlike 99% of games out there; almost all games try to be easy on the surface (and you only have to get good at them to beat levels on harder difficulties or play multiplayer). In DF you won't have much fun unless you spend at least 100 hours with it. Someone who doesn't have a lot of time at the moment simply won't do it.

I learned DF in several periods myself, I started in 2007 after having DF recommended by a friend at university, but didn't spend enough time to "learn" it until 2010. I put "learn" in quotation marks because it only indicates the minimum amount of learning necessary to enjoy the game; I'm far from skilled at it.

[RenoFox]

While my friends reactions vary from politely derailing conversation to boycotting the new cyberdrug, I've had more success on imageboards. Several have gotten interested because of the community games, and even more love it for the stories despite not playing themselves.

[werechicken]

Any of my friends who are into this kind of game are put off by the ASCII graphics. It's tragic really.

I only got into it because the forum I took part in had a huge section dedicated to it. Even then I only started playing it after downloading the graphics version.

I guess it's fairly niche

[Wirevix]

I've got my boyfriend promising to play it whenever his endless list of "stuff that needs to get done" starts to get a little shorter, but other than that it's mostly just me sharing stories of DF to other people.  It's a game that's difficult to get people into.  I've actually had more trouble with the time-eating requirement of it than the lack of graphics; most of the people I suggest it to are avid readers and don't mind ASCII, or are perfectly content with the available tileset options when they see them, but don't have enough time to really play between work and school.

[TinyPirate]

Apparently!

[Draxxalon]

I've gotten several people hooked.   A couple others dabbled for a while before eventually giving up, with many people being unable to breach the UI or graphic style (even with graphics packs).

[Sirus]

I've gotten a few guys at school interested. The other day, one of them made a "tearing the fat and struck down" joke in regards to getting hit with a weapon. Mission accomplished 

[Blargityblarg]

I introduced it to my cousin back in 40d, we played it until 3 in the morning, he never touched it again.

[Moonshine Fox]

Several people. At least three who are still playing.

[Sus]

Sadly, not yet.

It's kind of a hard sell, given the steep learning curve sheer cliff covered in *menacing crystal glass spike*s and the less than impressive graphics, after all.