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[jc6036]

There's not much to say that hasn't already been said, but. . .

1.)Difficult to use UI
2.)Dwarf Fortress requires higher level thinking, unlike many other games
3.)Some may shy away from the ascii graphics; this one's one of the more common, I think.  It just takes some getting used to.
4.)Does not contain non-stop brain numbing action, a con for some.

Also hater's gonna hate, and on a forum for a fandom that can be quite volatile at times, the hate is going to exponentially increase.

[kaijyuu]

1) Not everything appeals to everyone.
2) Things that appeal to the same people might still appeal to each for different reasons.
3) No accounting for taste; there's no "right" or "wrong," just "what I like" and "what I don't like."

[scriver]

If one wants to introduce DF to new people, I think one really ought to link them to one of the stories rather than the game itself. Boatmurdered or that comic Bronzemurdered (or his other one, whatever it's name was). I personally got here by first reading about DF at tvtropes, then the Boatmurdered story, and then looking up the game. If a person isn't familiar with ASCII games already, it's going to take some incentive to get through that wall.

2.)Dwarf Fortress requires higher level thinking, unlike many other games

I'm really annoyed at this kind of attitude. I don't think DF requires any more intelligence or thought than most games. Sure, it's a very complicated game, but that complication is behind the scene where the player interacts with the world. The player just points and clickstypes. There's just a steep learning curve before you get to know all you can do by pointing and typing, but to get over that you need a kind of patience and/or attitude about losing, not Great Intellects.

[klingon13524]

Yes, people are ignorant fanatics not willing to try new things or accept certain forms of art as valid in their universe. Case closed.

[Jackrabbit]

2.)Dwarf Fortress requires higher level thinking, unlike many other games

I'm really annoyed at this kind of attitude. I don't think DF requires any more intelligence or thought than most games. Sure, it's a very complicated game, but that complication is behind the scene where the player interacts with the world. The player just points and clickstypes. There's just a steep learning curve before you get to know all you can do by pointing and typing, but to get over that you need a kind of patience and/or attitude about losing, not Great Intellects.

Man, if I everyone could see this, I would be happy forever.

[ChairmanPoo]

Does anyone else think of Jon Lajolie's infamous song when seeing this thread's title?


Anyways, yeah, DF is not that complicated. When you get the gist of it survival is simple. It's a matter of wanting open ended gameplay (to the max) and enduring the abstract graphics, not of "higher level thinking". When you get down to it you can do very well keeping to very simple schematics.

[DJ]

Well I guess I'm an idiot too, because I've quit due to interface issues. Not the ASCII, though, but the super crappy data views. DF really needs something like built-in SQL to select and modify multiple entities (dwarves, workshops, animals etc) at once.

[MantisMan]

I've always found that chart to be a bit inaccurate. I read boatmurdered and spent a week reading everything I could on the wiki before starting the game. I honestly have never found DF to be hard, or challenging. There are still plenty of things I do wrong, or screw up (Like trying to have a sane system for equipping my military, or making enough full sets of clothes to keep my fortress clothed), but it's always just been another aspect of the game.

The last person I tried to get to play DF was convinced for the longest time that a game had to have really good 3d graphics, or it wasn't a good game. Period. He wouldn't listen when I tried to explain that 3d graphics aren't workable in DF at all. He finally started to lighten up of the "high quality" part of the graphics when he got into minecraft, but he has yet to get past the "3d" part of his complaint.

[jc6036]

I've always found that chart to be a bit inaccurate. I read boatmurdered and spent a week reading everything I could on the wiki before starting the game. I honestly have never found DF to be hard, or challenging. There are still plenty of things I do wrong, or screw up (Like trying to have a sane system for equipping my military, or making enough full sets of clothes to keep my fortress clothed), but it's always just been another aspect of the game.

Ah, but did you have to do a week of research to play a game such as, say, a popular AAA First Person Shooter?

[DarkWolfXV]

You want to know why you got that response?

Spoiler: this is why (click to show/hide)

Starcraft requires quite good reflex if you want to be more than just in bronze league.
Keybinds and abillity to play with every race at any time of day is hard to learn.
And, halo is easy, becouse most people in multiplayer dont even read tips, think of productive strategies and just spray with assault rifle, not looking at bloom.
WoW varies.
And DF after you learn needed stuff is simple, cage traps and/or bridges to close yourself off. Underground farms etc.
It gets harder if you want to only. Like kill goblins with no cage traps. Use magma pump, or pit, or millions of creative ways to kill a goblin.
Same as Minecraft, its only hard when you dont avoid monsters and wear no armor and bash only with fists.
Its not really that hard as it looks, i'd say Starcraft is harder than Dwarf Fortress, but depends where.
You can spend infinity of  time managing your dwarves on pause, while Starcraft requires kind of fast fingers, you cant really manage stuff on pause.

[Gunner-Chan]

I learned to play DF in half an afternoon at college, and someone could pick it up even faster I bet.

Guys really, it's not the game. It's the interface. DF in fortress mode is for all realistic purposes not much more complicated than Tropico. Just it's much more OBTUSE than most games since there's almost no tangible feedback for certain actions and to say the game has an interface at all (And not an obvious placeholder) is a damn lie.

[Flying Dice]

You want to know why you got that response?

Spoiler: this is why (click to show/hide)

Starcraft requires quite good reflex if you want to be more than just in bronze league.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH.

[Megaman]

I learned to play DF in half an afternoon at college, and someone could pick it up even faster I bet.

Guys really, it's not the game. It's the interface. DF in fortress mode is for all realistic purposes not much more complicated than Tropico. Just it's much more OBTUSE than most games since there's almost no tangible feedback for certain actions and to say the game has an interface at all (And not an obvious placeholder) is a damn lie.

Indeed, DF's difficultly lies in learning how to learn to learn to play. People just get turned off by how difficult it is to do so.

[Flare]

I am new in dwarf fortress and on the forum - and today i posted a huge thread about dwarf fortress in one of the forumes of the servers i play in,i told them the basics and linked them to the wiki -
All i got is serval hating comments and WTF IS THIS SHIT.. i told them before posting crap on the thread give it a try..
When i told them that 4 people told how can it be more awesome then call of duty if they can compare the graphics to gameboy.
When i told them the endless of possiblities there they just went wtf... and no one enterd my thread anymore.
So i must ask the great question why no one understands that his game is good... why is everyone hating on it.

I certainly hope you composed your opening post in that other thread better than this.

[SHAD0Wdump]

I learned to play DF in half an afternoon at college, and someone could pick it up even faster I bet.

Guys really, it's not the game. It's the interface. DF in fortress mode is for all realistic purposes not much more complicated than Tropico. Just it's much more OBTUSE than most games since there's almost no tangible feedback for certain actions and to say the game has an interface at all (And not an obvious placeholder) is a damn lie.

Indeed, DF's difficultly lies in learning how to learn to learn to play. People just get turned off by how difficult it is to do so.

What is a real shame is the direction it's headed.

I learned to play DF, enjoyed it for some time to a degree, since it wasn't too hard to play. But ever since the military update and the resulting new interface I simply cannot bring myself to tackle it. DF has passed the line of required player effort to enjoy for me. I could go back to just before that update if I wanted to, but the only reason I enjoyed it back then was because it was something new. Now... even the older versions are too much effort tackling the interface for me to enjoy what is underneath, I have plenty of other gaming options that provide rewarding gameplay without nearly as many annoyances.