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[Orange Drink]

At some guys wedding anniversary that I was dragged into, I found DF on their son's computer. I managed to get a seven year old to get over the ASCII by showing him adventure mode.

Still can't get my friends or anybody around my age to even go on the goddamn Bay 12 website.

[MMad]

In order of importance:

1) Get them a decent graphics pack. Like the Mike Mayday one.
2) Show them the kind of stories the game easily generates, e.g. Boatmurdered.
3) Show them how creative you can be with your fort design, and how much freedom you have in the game.

[uberubert]

I tried showing my friends the game. I tried telling them random stuff about the game. Even the one friend that keeps complaining about the lack of depth in todays new games seem to not bother with this game. Back in the 2d-days, I successfully had one of my friends try out the game, with random tutorialization over skype, but I never heard anything more about him playing the game since..
I think the learning curve is the main new-player-killer, amongst my friends atleast. Anyone with a small sense of logic and reason can get over the whole "omg graphix"-phase. (I got 2 of the GTX280 cards in sli, and spend more time playing dwarf fortress than anything with "real" graphics)

Atleast my brother sometimes checks in on the game, and asks "Is that blue blob a small lake?", or "What is Mörul up to now? Is he still drowning merchants to steal their goods?". I would have had him try it out if he had a longer attention span than a 5-year old eating chocolate.

[IHateOutside]

I'm totally going to gouge an (elf) child's eyes out with my hands (or maybe a sock), screenshot it and show all my friends, seeing as they like stuff like fallout, oblivion and GTA4, which are all less violent and imoral than DF.

In summary-Go Dwarf Fortess!

[The13thRonin]

Show them my mod: http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=35736.0

Then prove to them how vastly cool it is to do something like beat a dragon to death with its own severed leg.

[Tormy]

I've recently tried to initiate a few of my close friends into The Evil Dwarven Conspiracy Dwarf Fortress. However, they were repulsed at first sight with the graphics and the only one who bothered playing a tidbit was killed off by the Holy God Carp Steep Learning Curve. I need some help creating a convincing argument to get them playing. Now, help me. You will get cookies.
kthxbai

If your friends are "graphics whores", you won't convice them...ever.

[Footkerchief]

Hey now, I'm a unabashed graphics whore.  I only play DF because I'm a gameplay whore too.

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

I introduced it to some of my friends and they actually tried to delete it.

[The Mad Engineer]

The graphics were part of what enticed me.

After reading Boatmurdered, I decided to give it a try.  I downloaded it, genned a world, and then tried to choose an embark site.

I had no idea what I was doing.


I managed to fumble past the embark screen, and finally started to play.


I had never played an Asci-game before, and I spent about a full hour with the k key, finding out things in fascination (The red dot is a cardinal?  I laughed in glee.)  Then the next three hours were spent trying to figure out how to dig.  Another hour to go up and down z-levels (I had to use the wiki for that one), and when my dwarves finally started building farms and things, and it started to rain (It actually looks like the rain is falling in DF, as if you are watching it from above.  It's an illusion (If there is open space you don't see the rain), but its still a nice effect), I was hooked.


I'm one of those weird people who actually like to read books and stuff, as opposed to the cell-phone-texting TV watchers around me, so that might have played a part.

[Tormy]

Hey now, I'm a unabashed graphics whore.  I only play DF because I'm a gameplay whore too.

Well yeah, but you ain't a hardcore graphics whore in that case! 

[Jude]

Tip number one, unless they're already roguelike players, don't even mention that the game involves ASCII, just bring a version on your flash drive that's already set up with a graphics pack. Hell, even if they ARE roguelike players. I'd been playing Angband for 7 years before I found DF and I was still put off by DF's ASCII, which I found way more confusing.

Number two, don't count on a high success rate. I've managed to get two friends into it...one is a hardcore gamer, he's the one that I learned it with, and the other plays some games, and he gave up pretty soon. The rest of my friends don't really play computer games at all, so I haven't even bothered with them.

[Scarpa]

I have the opposite problem as most here. Of three friends I've tried to hook only one actually played. The other two heard me talk about the game and said 'no way I'm touching that crack'.

And unfortunately I'm kind of proving their point...

[Labs]

I tried to get my cousin and two of my closest friends to play. Both my friends said this sucks but my cousin got interested after I showed him the Mayday tileset. My main problem is probably that most of my friends are jocks and aren't interested in ASCII games, just graphics heavy games like COD and Halo. I'm a bit of a jock but I'm definetly the geekiest out of all my friends.

[Fuzzy]

Everyone try to get/make t-shirts with the same design on them (not necessarily my design, but something similar and vague).

FWIW, there is at least one Dwarf Fortress T-shirt. Ian of Three Panel Soul made one about the Catsplosion. I will note, though, that TheToadyOne was a bit peeved when they came out because he was not consulted before the shirts were released and in its default state, the shirt does not actually use the word "Dwarf Fortress". But, hey, they're a possible starting point.

[varkarrus]

My friend convinced me by mentioning it, then telling me very little about it, until I downloaded it myself to ease the pain.