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[GodlyTeapot]

So I agreed to show my friend the ropes of fortress mode, he has a pretty decent fortress and he did most of a video tutorial before he got stuck in so he knows the bare minimum. Sure enough a necromancer turned up with 80+ reanimated dwarves and filthy elves to give him a taste of the famous and much sought after FUN. He had four bridges surrounding his downward stair entrance, I asked to see them after he raised them,  and they hadn't become solid walls. Caring deeply for my friends dwarves I advised him to wall off his stairs on a lower level.

"Can't I just build a floor instead?"
"Yeah, but if any flying creatures are reanimated they will fly down through the hole in your ceiling."
"No, I mean building a floor on the stairs above."
"That'd work, but your dwarf will be trapped."
"I know, I'll be able to see if my surface walls work."



He will make a fine Dwarf Fortress player.

[Kreydurst]

Dear overseer.

While you might find it funny to sacrifice your lowly mason. The joke is on you, for I have created an artifact when you weren't looking. And as I have my last true breath, because my lungs are sure to be ripped out and reanimated into beings of their own stead. I will use it to laugh at you, for the wonders I might have produced is beyond your ELVEN mind!

Love, Urst-kun.

[Casei]

This summer my boss's 9 year-old son spent a lot of time at our workplace, and one day I brought my laptop and showed him a stable fortress. His eyes widened at the little features of the fort, from the atom-smasher to the lion pit.

"I can do all this?"

"And more."

He downloaded it that night, and brought his own laptop the next day. Over the next few weeks I gave him advice on how to have slightly less FUN (he was having plenty of FUN on his own).

By the end of the summer he had built a relatively stable fort under my guidance.

I knew I had done well the day he came in with his tablet instead of his laptop.

"Where is the fort?" I asked.

"I accidentally flooded it."

"Oh no, that's terrible."

"NO WAY! IT WAS AWESOME!"

[JerDGold]

I told a buddy of mine at work to check it out.  He read some Time magazine article about it and said "Sorry, I don't have an extra lifetime to spare.  It's hard enough keeping myself alive."

[Krawdad]

How do you get them to see past the graphical interface? I've tried to get several friends interested, but every time I tell them a cool story about it, they respond with, "That's awesome, but it's really just a bunch of ASCII symbols blinking around, right?"

The graphics packs made it hard for me to read some of the font, so I just got used to the default graphics. What graphics pack do you use, Casei? I'm really surprised that a 9 year old was able to pick up the game.

[Kreydurst]

The graphics packs made it hard for me to read some of the font, so I just got used to the default graphics. What graphics pack do you use, Casei? I'm really surprised that a 9 year old was able to pick up the game.

That would be the major problem with graphic sets. For the most part, I'd suggest ironhand for beginners. But I must say, that if they need a graphics pack to get into DF they're likely to quit sooner or later. I love the asc II but it just hurts my eyes to much, which is why I use ironhand.

[Casei]

What graphics pack do you use, Casei? I'm really surprised that a 9 year old was able to pick up the game.

Like Kreydurst, I use Ironhand. I pointed him toward the Lazy Newb Pack to make his life easier. The ASCII is pretty off-putting to many, so I tend to show the game to the unwashed uninitiated using the graphics pack. That way it looks no more intimidating than, say, Zelda.

He enjoyed the game enough to stick with it a couple of months, but he's moved on to Minecraft because he can play it with his cousins on a private server.

[nzybwnb]

I've only gotten two people to try it in years of showing it to people. One of them loved it and stuck with it. I consider my attempts a success.

[Revlakius Javensky]

My brothers: "What's this? It like a 2D version of MineCraft/Age of Empires!!!"
"OMG, y u no chop wood?"
Me: "You have to designate certain tasks like mining and chopping wood..."
My brothers: "Yeah yeah, I know!"
Me: 

[FrankMcFuzz]

Story 1
My friend's first fort ACTUALLY MANAGED to get raided by kobolds. (Never even seen this happen before) One of his butchers was so mad at the whole situation that he punched one of the kobolds clear through the skull (Undrafted, uncornered butcher. It's my favourite accidental kill)
He figured out fishing pretty early after that. He didn't, however, figure out that the I on the world map means Necromancer Towers. Zombie mussels ate everyone.

Story 2
My really stubborn work friend's REALLY STUBBORN DAUGHTER started playing it when I chastised that 'turning on the game and playing it for 5 minutes doesn't count and playing it' because she'd played it once, and that to 'actually play it for reals' she'd have to get the king to arrive. Her mother hates me now because she forces her mother to watch and she doesn't understand it. I feel like this is a real success for me.

[WanderingKid]

That would be the major problem with graphic sets. For the most part, I'd suggest ironhand for beginners. But I must say, that if they need a graphics pack to get into DF they're likely to quit sooner or later. I love the asc II but it just hurts my eyes to much, which is why I use ironhand.

I would disagree, but it depends on your definition of "sooner or later".  I haven't played Super Punchout or Xaxxon in a long time, either. 

I required the Graphics pack because I refuse to try to translate a bunch of random colors and symbols on the screen into something my brain won't twitch sideways at.  I'm a few years in now.  ASCII sucks (opinion).  If it's what you're used to from when the game was a few bare bones and you've built up with it, or if you invested the time it takes to grok the meaning of all that random crap, awesome for you.  I and those similar to me need the graphics, even though we think the game is awesome.

However, on topic:  I introduced recently a friend of mine to DF, after BS'ing with another person at work about it in front of him.  We were discussing the circus I'd accidentally freed in a particular fort and the ensuing catastrophe that followed.  While discussing breaching the magma sea to slow them down, and then pouring the cavern lake into the stairwell behind it to seal it and only losing four miners, he got curious as to just what the hell we were talking about.

Roll forward a month later, and a similar response to the above comment: "Dude, I work on bikes, date, go for rides, workout, eat dinner, and sleep.  My other option is DF.  I'm afraid DF got trumped.  I fell asleep."

[Sadrice]

I've never found ASCII to be any more difficult than graphics packs because ultimately, aside from things like barrels and tables that  you see often enough to recognize instantly, most of the symbols in graphics packs are cryptic enough that I have to K to see what they are anyways, so it ultimately doesn't matter much whether a llama is an L or a tiny indistinguishable picture of a llama.  In fact, an L is much more recognizable than a tiny picture, which aside from its long neck ends up looking almost exactly like every other mammal.

[Guvnah]

Twas explaining game design depth and had just started talking about social stats when a new mayor took over the position. So I was like, ok, lets check her out .... Legendary Liar, Legendary Flatterer, Legendary Persuader   

He was rolling when he saw it.

[Manivald]

Story:
my fortress of 20 or so dwarves were siedged by goblins. The invaders had killed one dwarf, but didn't dare to move foward and the dwarves were solwly climbing down the trantrum spiral. My jeweler decided to make a artifact and I was thrilled to achieve this. A artifact! What could it be? I held the dwarves alive just so long that i could see it.
Guess what?
It was a cristal MUG.
Nobody used it!
It was left at the workshop due to a bug.

I am sorry for letting the goblins in.
Forgive me.

[Loud Whispers]

I managed to sell one fried into DF by regaling to them the story of how one of my champion Dwarves alone stood against the tide of giant badgers. While he never managed to move beyond adventure mode panicking, I consider it a success in the long fight for DF everywhere.