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[PTTG??]

If you're new to Dwarf Fortress, one thing that might bewilder you is the lack of stone for use in the construction of furniture and tools in the early days of your fortress.

One reason for this is that, in Dwarf Fortress, most terrain is covered in dirt, which produces no spoil when mined. To find stone, simply dig deeper, layer by layer, and after no more than 10 or so soil layers, you will undoubtably hit bedrock, and find that foundation of Dwarven industry, the rock.

Yes, there are "boulders" on the surface. No, these cannot be used for anything. Why? Nobody knows for sure. It's best not to think about it too much.

Hope that clears things up.

[thvaz]

Nice piece of game's journalism! 

[weenog]

God help you if you hit aquifer on your first few embarks.

[thvaz]

Seriously, this woman is doing a bad job being a games journalist. She KNOWS the game is created by two people living off donations (she read de NYT article) and she is judging the game like it was a piece of AAA gaming.

[the woods]

Thanks, I needed to read 3000 words of mundane thoughts a newb has while tediously drudging through an unfinished ascii simulation game. I'm not sure why she wrote this but hopefully the ars technica audience picks up on the implicit and complex moral of the piece, that you should read the dwarf fortress wiki if you want to be good at dwarf fortress. The game even tells you about the wiki before you generate a world. Somehow this isn't mentioned but she uses her terrific critical thinking skills to type phrases from the game into google, which leads to data from the wiki... She says other games (minecraft) let you experiment entirely within the game to get started but you need to read the minecraft wiki to know what any of the crafting recipes are (among other things). I'm going to stop posting before it starts to look like I get mad about video game words on the internet. Peace y'all.

[Xinael]

Agreed, the woods, this made me pretty mad. How do you go into a game with a reputation for an obscene difficulty curve and a complex UI, and deliberately do things to hold yourself back such as refusing to read the wiki or install a tileset, which you yourself acknowledge would make the game "more palatable"!? She says "Dwarf Fortress is one of the most complex computer games in the history of computer games" and then also immediately says "I wanted to begin at the bottom to let the game be its most challenging, and then work up from there." You're not allowed to be critical of something for being obtuse and difficult when you yourself have deliberately taken action to make it more obtuse and difficult. That's like complaining that a game is too hard on Hard Mode and simultaneously refusing to turn down the difficulty! If she had played along with a guide, and used a tileset, from the moment she felt lost, like she said she would, she would've been fine. My girlfriend was bored one day when she was off work and so I emailed her a link to a DF tutorial and told her to generate a new world in my setup. She did fine. If you're confused, find the information you need. If you're shocked that you're confused when it's well-known that the game is confusing without help, then you're just being an idiot.

[Boltgun]

I felt the same in my first attempt at the game many versions ago.I could not get my dwarves to do anything and gave up.

It's only after reading Boatmurdered that I gave it another go, with the wiki this time.

[RedWick]

You could start at the ground level somewhat, back when there was no z-level and there were only a handful of pre-selected embark sites for each world.

[BigD145]

God help you if you hit aquifer in the first 2 layers on your first few embarks.

[thvaz]

I still remember the first time DF made sense to me. It was magical.

[moki]

Oh well, reading the instructions does help a lot. I learned with the wiki and one of the old quick start guides only. That was a long time before any of the awesome video guides or play-alongs and it was hell - just like it's supposed to be. Even with these limited resources, I did learn eventually, losing 4-5 forts until I understood the basics of food, labors, combat and (most importantly) fluid dynamics. The way to learn DF is either with a play-along tutorial or by having the wiki open at all times and looking up every single fact that you don't understand right away. If you're not ready for that, DF is the wrong game for you. Making it harder on purpose comes much later. In fact, I'm still not at that stage after years of occasional playing.

This piece of "game journalism" is simply wrong. DF can't be treated and reviewed like any other game. It's not just "any game with a steep learning curve", but a unique simulation of more stuff than a human mind can comprehend without some outside information.

[BigD145]

This piece of "game journalism" is simply wrong. DF can't be treated and reviewed like any other game. It's not just "any game with a steep learning curve", but a unique simulation of more stuff than a human mind can comprehend without some outside information.

DF is a game. The choices made in its programming lend to it being a game.

Everything you are comes from outside information. No living thing exists in a bubble. You last statement makes no sense at all in that context.

[Mushroo]

DF is a wonderful game in that the player is always discovering new details. (For example, I only recently learned how to make dwarven cheese...) And just as you think you've got it all figured out, Toady releases a new version with new stuff to explore.

[moki]

DF is a game. The choices made in its programming lend to it being a game.

Everything you are comes from outside information. No living thing exists in a bubble. You last statement makes no sense at all in that context.

Of course DF is a game. What I meant was that it can't really be compared to any other game because of its complexity. Most games can be understood with a bit of common sense and maybe an ingame tutorial, but for learning DF, you need some help from outside the game (like someone explaining it to you in person, tutorials and the wiki) to be able to play it at all. At least I never met anybody who'd be able to just start a game and grasp the basics without losing at least a dozen forts first.

[PTTG??]

People are really upset about this article, but what they seem to forget is that there's no such thing as bad press.

Sure, the author said they didn't read the instructions first. Of course it didn't make sense. You can't write an article on the most complex game in the world without saying it's really complex, and to do that properly, it helps to look at it from the very basis.

I think that it is very important that we don't forget that there is plenty of room for DF to  become more accessible. For instance- Burrows don't make any sense. Going from the name, you'd expect that they'd be underground dwelling areas, not designated places in general.

Also, we see that some information on the wiki is not only out of date, but grievously so; some of the information our journalist friend has printed wasn't true since the 2D version, back when you always started outside of the mountain. We need to keep it up to date and immediately accessible to even the total neophyte- because that's the sort of person who needs information the most and has the least patience.

Dwarf Fortress is not ready to be judged on its UI or functionality, so the community must step in to provide all the support and information that it can.