I first started DF right after the very first 2D version came out. A friend of mine had found it, and was telling me about all of these epic things. The one thing that stood out was that you could mine. Bringing me back to my fond memories of Minerva.
So I downloaded it, opened it up, created a world. Didn't know squat, went into fortress mode. Failed.
Read the manual, worthless. So I stopped playing for a day or so, and let it sink in. I opened DF again, another world, another fortress. This time I paused it. And went through every single menu. I saw how to open a menu was by pressing the highlighted key. Within a few tries, I got a pretty decent fortress going, and it imploded somehow. Lack of food. Went to the forums, found out how to channel and make farms.
I was one of the first players of DF, before there was a wiki, and before there were huge amounts of people. I taught myself how to play, and enjoyed it. Downloaded every release, messed with the init.
Then right before 3D came out, the wiki was released and updated. Went there and learned a great deal. I've been with DF every since I first started, even if I didn't sign up to the forums for years afterwards.
Statistics: Donated many times. Never edited or updated a wiki page. Longest fortress was four years before I got bored with it and starved everyone slowly. Craziest fortress death was a fey mood, dwarf couldn't get the materials he needed. Tried building him in, and he went batshit insane. Killed many many of my dwarves, and the rest started going insane. Then goblins attacked.
Yeah.
- Kayla