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the bugs

3 (4%)

the stories (including the !!SCIENCE!!)

27 (36%)

the learning curve

1 (1.3%)

FUN

11 (14.7%)

Other (post your reasons)

4 (5.3%)

all of the above

29 (38.7%)

Total Members Voted: 75

[Dwarf4Explosives]

For the sheer insanity and craziness, both that resulting from the game itself and that resulting from the community.

[Ivir_Baggins]

The satisfyingly soporific mundaneity of much of it. It's the same reason why I play Cities In Motion.

[SimRobert2001]

For the stories. The ones of failure and success. Like the time i lost 60 dwarves to thirst because i didnt realize the water was 13z levels above my entrance.

[slinger342]

Every fortress and adventure is different!

[utunnels]

It is funny gamefaqs users have rated its difficulty level unforgivable.

Maybe it is time to review how many exploits and tricks do we old players use to make the gameplay "forgivable". Maybe we need to avoid them if we want to have more fun.

[Loud Whispers]

It is funny gamefaqs users have rated its difficulty level unforgivable.

Maybe it is time to review how many exploits and tricks do we old players use to make the gameplay "forgivable". Maybe we need to avoid them if we want to have more fun.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Max™]

I have a problem with getting mad at games, smashing controllers, punching things (the floor, the wall, my knees, etc), I've destroyed keyboards, game discs, and damn near screwed up the relationship with my woman. I was a childish jerk who unintentionally made others suffer due to my lack of control over my own anger and rage, and I didn't know where to begin fixing it.

Then I started playing with my dorfs and it just kinda stopped happening, from very infrequent, to not at all... I haven't been rageful or destroyed something related to a video game since 40.14 or so. Last time I did get really screaming smashing things pissed I actually had a good reason for it: I was cleaning the guttters and didn't notice the wet patch on the deck under one foot of the ladder so while I was up about 11 feet off the ground I felt the ladder start sliding.

"FFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU..............." *clunk*

Big goose-egg on my forehead, gash on my leg, various scrapes, bent the ladder in the fall, ended up hurling it across the deck and cussing loud enough for the neighbors a couple streets over to wonder what was going on before I went back inside and calmed down.

That may have been an overreaction, but at least it is understandable, where not being able to do that damn dancing mini-game perfectly in GTA: San Andreas leading one to smash the game disc with their bare hands is not.

I love df because I have never gotten mad at this game, despite all the screwups I've made, all the stupid deaths, all the ridiculous ways I've lost fortresses (I didn't know how to brew booze for a lot longer than I should have), and lately all of the nonsense I've had happen in adventurer mode... it's ok, nothing to get mad at, and as a result it has helped me deal with and control my rage everywhere else.

I love df because losing isn't just fun, it's good therapy as well.

[Dunamisdeos]

Well, here's the story that got me from mild enjoyment to full on hooked.

I was still in the short-term failure stage of learning how to build fortresses. In this instance, I discovered the concept of cave ins.

I was evening out the entrance to the fort by chipping away at an overhang of yellow sand. I channeled the wrong spot, and the whole thing (5-6 squares or so of pure yellow sand) dropped one z level. In the entrance corridor were 4 dwarves... and one turkey. All 4 dwarves were standing behind the turkey, and got away scot free despite being right in the danger zone for the dust-splosion. The turkey had nearly every bone in it's body broken, and it's beak was sandblasted away from its face. Gone.

The turkey sat there unable to move in a pool of it's own blood in the main entryway, and was nonchalantly passed by dwarf after dwarf on their way to anywhere else. The turkey suffocated after two more seasons of flailing helplessly in its blood puddle.

So if you want to test your friends to see if they are DF-worthy, tell them this story. The kicker is whether or not the laugh hysterically, or make that little horrified O face most people make when I tell this story.

[Urist McVoyager]

I love it for the stories and the sense of triumph I get from learning to do something new.

I did a no points embark. Before that, I could not do very much with the military besides stick them in a barracks and use it for static defense. I butchered livestock, used it to supply a crossbowdwarf, and fiddled with scheduling until I had one on patrol. Six motherfucking keas came swooping in, and the wonderful little warrior went straight to work repelling them.

That made me very happy.  And then the fort fell within the year because god damn kobolds kept stealing my shit and came back with a vengeance. Killed everyone in the hospital and I quit, feeling I'd learned some things. Mainly how to use the military screen, and to destroy all kobolds on sight, the little demons.

[PDF urist master]

My favorite part of the game is the hilariously gruesome combat system and the stories that come from it. There's nothing more satisfying than watching a squad you raised completely annihilate an enemy.

I think my favorite moment in the game was when a gremlin shown up and started punching people and leading to job cancellations. before my squad could get down there, I witnessed a brewer put the gremlin into a chockhold and completely mangle its head with one punch. That was a fuck yeah moment and I immediately demoted him to soldier duty.

[Urist McVoyager]

If he were anything but a brewer that would be a promotion.

[TheFlame52]

I've got a brewer in my fort that I call the Brewmeister. He has killed six various cavern creatures, among them a GCS. He's also crippled because his leg was mangled fighting a cave croc (he didn't kill it).

[miauw62]

Boom de yada boom de yada...

[RedEthmoid]

I love Dwarf Fortress for the same reason I love a lot of other games, a combination of wish fulfillment and vicarious living through another world or characters.  The depth and complexity of DF reminds me why I loved gaming in the first place.  The big name companies don't make them like this.  And also, Dwarf Fortress represents an ideal society to me in a lot of ways.  Its a microcosm of a socialist civilization.  Dwarves with nothing to do get plenty of time off, full employment for dwarves with skills to put to use, free food, alcohol, lodgings, clothes, etc.  There are the drawbacks of going insane, or being invaded though.

[Dwarf4Explosives]

I love Dwarf Fortress for the same reason I love a lot of other games, a combination of wish fulfillment and vicarious living through another world or characters.

So...being perma-drunk and getting your limbs burned off by magma is your dream?