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[pisskop]

Training Archery is easy.  Archery halls are pretty easy, wood is cheap, and even live training is feasible with cages or, if you are an adept of design, bridge traps.

Hunting was good for RP, food, and stat boosts.

I also really like the idea of semi-military.
I am fond of axecutters and miners, and hunters, and even foragers and fishers as semi-soldiers.  and I usually fire up a part time army when I reach my threshold pop to support it.  which is easy when food grows like mana falls.


there is also a decent bug about dragging the undead around to ropes and such.  If you can get it to work, which is finicky.  But Ive been able to pit undead before.  And tie them up too, but the issue there is them getting back up without the rope when killed.

[Farmerbob]

Heh.  I don't use hunters for archery practice.  I use them for meat/bone/other supplies.

I use dogs and traps for catching or killing things.

Broken hunters break my favorite economy - meals.

[MaGicBush]

Oh come on, we were all "outsiders" once.

Most gamers of my age group (late 20s to early 30s) that I have met IRL are pretty casual (as in mobile gaming casual). Even the hardcore gamers (those that owned gaming stations and/or gaming laptops and also owned and played a prodigious amount of games) I know of have little to no idea what DF is. They are more preoccupied with the latest titles and hyped games from previously known quality game developers to bother with some indie game that has been around for some time that they've never even noticed. In my opinion, DF caters to a very VERY niche audience that knows what it wants from their gaming experience, isn't afraid of "insane" difficulty, non-existent "graphics" and horrible UI and has the patience to slog through a game as intimidating and time engaging as DF is or is rumored to be. Does that sound like the average gamer to you? It sounds pretty masochistic to me. Most people I know are looking for some quick entertainment provided in a neatly bundled package. Whereas all the entertainment value in DF is usually gleaned in between the lines. You'll have to have some imagination AND engage in that imagination while playing to derive entertainment from DF. Otherwise, its just a slog to play through. I reckon that's why I burn out on DF sometimes.

Most casual gamers I know would take a look at DF and decide then and there that they aren't interested in it at all. To them, DF is not even on their radar, so they wouldn't give it a second glance. If it wasn't for coming across, reading, enjoying and being intrigued by the quirky playthrough of Boatmurdered from the LP archive, I too would not have been interested enough to pick up DF. Even then it still took some convincing before I was sure that DF was the game for me, I read more playthroughs from the Hall of Legends here (and discovered that I really enjoyed them) and lurked around on the forums for quite awhile before even deciding to download the game and giving it a go myself. From then on, I was hooked. If not for a background in playing MUDs and ASCII games like The Two Towers, Nethack, Angband, as well as games that involved a modicum of reading like Kingdom of Loathing and so on, I doubt Dwarf Fortress would have sustained my interest. Indeed the ASCII had a certain charm of its on that harkens back to these older games.

Does that describe most us in a nutshell? I doubt it. Just like in real life, we are likely to be of a very diverse gaming backgrounds. Its just that if you aren't looking for something like DF, you aren't likely to stumble across it. Even then, it might take some time to harness the courage to take the dive and actually download and play. For the general gaming public, I reckon we probably don't exist. Does it even matter? Other than as some intellectual exercise, nope, not at all. I'll be happy building my own imaginary microcline castles in the sky, pursuing some megaproject or something and lining up my dwarves for the slaughter thank you very much.

I'm 30 and have noticed this as well. I found df when I was 23 and have played on and off since. I grew up playing muds(act of War mostly and actually never played nethack) with a friend though in the 90s whereas most people I have met don't know what a mud is. It gave me a bit of nostalgia to that time when I first played df and does still sometimes. Good memories since that friend died when we were in high school.

Anyone I know around my age now though, at work, or friends have no clue what df is or think it looks stupid because of the graphics. Its crazy how shallow people are. If it's fun I play it and could care less about such trivial things like graphics. I'm the odd one out it seems though. I don't understand the casual games like mobile phone games either. They seem like a waste of time because of how shallow they are when I can just resume my df game or other rpg, or strategy games I also play. I don't use my phone for that, and never will. If I'm in public I talk to people or do things, and at home I game.  My phone is to talk to people, browse forums, or check the news/weather. Hrm come to think of it, it makes perfect sense a shallow person would like something shallow to fill their time with..

Then there's my son at age 10. And all his generation does is sit around and watch YouTube. It drives me nuts. I'm like "hey let's play a game. " As my son stares at the monitor, "nah, I'm watching jacksepticeye play this." I would have done anything at his age to play a game with my dad, granted all we had was an nes, 56k(more like 22k) AOL for chat rooms or muds, or n64 as I got older.  I hope he grows out of it in the next few years.

[bloop_bleep]

Its crazy how shallow people are.

Every once in a while I stumble upon a YouTube comment saying that DF is "dumb" due to the graphics or calling it a rip-off of Minecraft. (For those who don't know, DF was in development long before Minecraft was and the creator of Minecraft actually called the game a "clone" of DF.)

I have to fight the urge to mentally explode when I read those comments.

[KittyTac]

Its crazy how shallow people are.

Every once in a while I stumble upon a YouTube comment saying that DF is "dumb" due to the graphics or calling it a rip-off of Minecraft. (For those who don't know, DF was in development long before Minecraft was and the creator of Minecraft actually called the game a "clone" of DF.)

I have to fight the urge to mentally explode when I read those comments.

They're most likely little kids that shouldn't be on the internet anyways.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

Um. That feels a bit dismissive of younger people. I mean, I picked up DF when I was 13 or so, and while I do look back at 13-year-old James and think "how in the four hells could they think that" (honestly, I do that to James-of-a-few-months-ago), it's not like all children are stupid.

[KittyTac]

Um. That feels a bit dismissive of younger people. I mean, I picked up DF when I was 13 or so, and while I do look back at 13-year-old James and think "how in the four hells could they think that" (honestly, I do that to James-of-a-few-months-ago), it's not like all children are stupid.

I mean 7-9 year olds. They make up the bulk of internet cancer.

[bloop_bleep]

Um. That feels a bit dismissive of younger people. I mean, I picked up DF when I was 13 or so, and while I do look back at 13-year-old James and think "how in the four hells could they think that" (honestly, I do that to James-of-a-few-months-ago), it's not like all children are stupid.

I mean 7-9 year olds. They make up the bulk of internet cancer.

Though there are many adults on the Internet which one could easily mistake for 7 year olds.

[KittyTac]

Um. That feels a bit dismissive of younger people. I mean, I picked up DF when I was 13 or so, and while I do look back at 13-year-old James and think "how in the four hells could they think that" (honestly, I do that to James-of-a-few-months-ago), it's not like all children are stupid.

I mean 7-9 year olds. They make up the bulk of internet cancer.

Though there are many adults on the Internet which one could easily mistake for 7 year olds.

Sure. They're nowhere as proactive though.

[Pvt. Pirate]

Um. That feels a bit dismissive of younger people. I mean, I picked up DF when I was 13 or so, and while I do look back at 13-year-old James and think "how in the four hells could they think that" (honestly, I do that to James-of-a-few-months-ago), it's not like all children are stupid.

I mean 7-9 year olds. They make up the bulk of internet cancer.

Though there are many adults on the Internet which one could easily mistake for 7 year olds.

Sure. They're nowhere as proactive though.

you underestimate the energy of stupid masses.

[SomeKindOfGnome]

Um. That feels a bit dismissive of younger people. I mean, I picked up DF when I was 13 or so, and while I do look back at 13-year-old James and think "how in the four hells could they think that" (honestly, I do that to James-of-a-few-months-ago), it's not like all children are stupid.

I don't wanna be that annoying kid you see in the comment sections of old music videos, but I'm 14 and learned this game pretty quickly.
It really isn't that difficult with the Quick Start guide on hand.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

Um. That feels a bit dismissive of younger people. I mean, I picked up DF when I was 13 or so, and while I do look back at 13-year-old James and think "how in the four hells could they think that" (honestly, I do that to James-of-a-few-months-ago), it's not like all children are stupid.

I don't wanna be that annoying kid you see in the comment sections of old music videos, but I'm 14 and learned this game pretty quickly.
It really isn't that difficult with the Quick Start guide on hand.

Well. You have to be persistent. And to like DF, you have to be at least a bit imaginative. And it takes a decent amount of micromanagement and finickiness. I'd say all those together is almost intelligence. And at the very least it shows good taste in games, as I'm sure you'll agree.

[KittyTac]

Um. That feels a bit dismissive of younger people. I mean, I picked up DF when I was 13 or so, and while I do look back at 13-year-old James and think "how in the four hells could they think that" (honestly, I do that to James-of-a-few-months-ago), it's not like all children are stupid.

I don't wanna be that annoying kid you see in the comment sections of old music videos, but I'm 14 and learned this game pretty quickly.
It really isn't that difficult with the Quick Start guide on hand.

Well. You have to be persistent. And to like DF, you have to be at least a bit imaginative. And it takes a decent amount of micromanagement and finickiness. I'd say all those together is almost intelligence. And at the very least it shows good taste in games, as I'm sure you'll agree.

Yeah, I'm not saying that *all* kids are dumb. It's the 50% who ARE that are really proactive.