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[StrongAxe]

Obviously we all benefit when the community grows (through funding for Toady One, Mods, and Forum and Wiki Participation), and what a better time to grow it than immediately following the biggest DF release ever!  So, how can well tell our friends and associates about DF before the next release?

I have the following ideas:

• Burning CD's and leaving them at your favorite gamer hangout
• Posting testimonials on social media
• Posting/Linking on your own websites or blogs

Surely y'all must have some more creative ideas than me, what can you come up with?

Edit: Made it less agressive.

[smjjames]

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Toady is the one who would decide when he is ready to market it and how. Plus he is not looking to make money off of this.

I'm all for people telling their friends about it, posting links elsewhere, etc, but you're making it sound like an aggressive campaign.

[nenjin]

Personally, since I've started DF, I have told every single gamer (RPG/PnP/MMO) friend I know about it, and have jabbered about its awesomeness until they thought I had literally lost my marbles. And have posted about it ad nauseam in other gaming forums.

You can do it old fashioned, and print some 8x11s of the SomethingAwful DF picture, write the URL for the download on them, and leave them at college campuses, bus stops, malls.

I don't think there's anything wrong with some good spirited promotion. Problem is, people can and will eventually take it too far, and that's the wrong kind of publicity.

[warhammer651]

custom made dwarf fortress t-shirts.

put down the colored smiley that represents your job

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

 or & (if you feel like being a menace)

.

[piecewise]

Obviously we all benefit when the community grows (through funding for Toady One, Mods, and Forum and Wiki Participation), and what a better time to grow it than immediately following the biggest DF release ever!  So, lets put together some guerrilla marketing.

I have the following ideas:

• Burning CD's and leaving them at your favorite gamer hangout
• Posting testimonials on social media
• Posting/Linking on your own websites or blogs

Surely y'all must have some more creative ideas than me, what can you come up with?

first rule, never stick anything you find in a public area into yourself or your computer. There are plenty of people who know about DF but it perplexes and intimidates them. If you really want to help get people into it then help them understand the thing. Personally alot of my time with the new version will be in the arena running tests on the new materials, diseases, venoms and bodies so that I can update the wiki with my findings.

Warrior-scientist after all.

[nenjin]

There are plenty of people who know about DF but it perplexes and intimidates them. If you really want to help get people into it then help them understand the thing

True story. My friend sees me playing DF after hearing me talk about it for weeks with another friend while we all play FPS together. His first reaction was "Man, this looks even lamer than I was led to believe."

I start to explain to him what he's looking at (my main gate that's a complete mess of blood, vomit, loot, traps, ect...) and describe to him what just happened (soldier chased down a goblin snatcher and hacked their legs off)

After a while he goes..."And the game actually....shows all this stuff?"

An hour later, he's talking about his own obsessive gaming and he says "Yeah, so I sat down to play Civ 3..."

And I was like wait. You geek out on Civ 3 for 10 hours (a game that, while likewise being complex, totally did not grab me the way DF has) and you call DF lame?

Many people just can't get past the graphics. Even with a good tile pack, DF does not have a high legibility for someone that doesn't know anything about it.The interface does all it can, but slows down the whole process of getting comfortable with the controls.

And even to veteran gamers, DF's mechanics are intimidating. Yet another friend, a gaming buddy since childhood who just loves tearing game systems apart, called DF "impenetrable." This guy regularly buys board games, dissects them to find out how best to game the system, then puts them aside when he's figured it out.

In his words "If I'd found DF when I was 14, I'm sure I'd be the ultimate fortress builder. As it is, I'm married and I just don't have that kind of time to invest in one thing."

Yet everyone, even my gaming friends who don't do RPGs, fantasy or any of that, love the stories DF produces. It's not that they lack the will or the ability to grasp DF...many just don't feel like they can gradually work their way into a game. And they have a point. DF compared to like....Defense of the Ancients? It's like comparing Axis and Allies to Candy Land.

[StrongAxe]

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Toady is the one who would decide when he is ready to market it and how.

Your point is taken, then lets make this about how to tell one's associates about DF

first rule, never stick anything you find in a public area into yourself or your computer.

Do you download things from the internet?  Honestly, visiting websites has plenty of risk too.  Now on the matter of putting things in your body ...

[valcon]

Just send them a copy of Boatmurdered.  Done.

[Idiom]

I just played it around them between LAN sessions.

"What is that?"
"Fantasy fortress simulator. I've got a starting colony of dwarves here. I have them digging around for an underground river that's supposed to be here right now. Need a water supply for my planned fortress."
*Gamers leave, simulation players stay to watch*
"Looks like it's out of the 80's"
"Heh, if the 80's had 3 Ghz processors. This thing goes all the way down to bruising on an individual toe. No, it's recent. Developer wants mechanics in before he ups the graphics."
"Graphical improvements would be...?"
"Think SNES"
*Simulation players who have higher graphical standards leave*
"So those similes are your guys?"
"Yep"
"Why are they milling about?"
"Not much to do while the exploratory mining is going on"
"Does anything happen?"
"Well, once you've got some goods being produced and some infrastructure in place, then more dwarves immigrate. This will catch the attention of anyone you're at war with and they'll send armies. Keep everyone alive, and eventually you'll get enough population that other features open up. Like having aristocrats immigrate there, government sets up, crime and punishment goes into effect, there's an economy that will kick in... it just sort of gets more and more complicated and difficult to manage until either the whole thing implodes in bloody violence or achieves perpetual stability."
"Violence?"
"Keeps track of wounds down to the individual limbs and organs. Next version will go all the way down into specific tissues. Right now you can slap someone with an improvised weapon, like pants or something, so hard that their eyes pop out. Next version you could just rip eyelids off."
*people amused by the prospects of violent gore stay, the rest leave*
"That sounds violently entertaining"
"Don't forget the tragedy and drama. These guys are capable of manic depression and insanity. They'll murder, hate, and hurl themselves off cliffs because their baby or friend was brutally killed. Worse yet, they can be mortally wounded and bedridden for the rest of their depressed lives. Eventually, if they don't kill themselves, they become completely dead inside and numb to violence."
*Everyone but one guy leaves*
"Who makes this?"
"Google 'bay12games'"

The end. And that is how you find people who will actually like it. Sell it on the aspects people will either love or hate.

[nenjin]

It makes me a little sad that DF only appeals to a niche of people initially. Even RTS/Sim/Retro gamers seem to pause before trying DF, which is criminal.

I'll just keep telling my friends about the crazy **** that I'm doing or that happens. Eventually one story is going to make them want to see what happens when they play it.

[SkyRender]

 DF is a hard sell.  There are just some things you should never do when trying to convince someone to try it.

 The first thing you never do is reveal the full depth of the game.  That drives people away as surely as a pack of skeletal whales sends even the stoutest-hearted Dwarf fleeing for safety.  And besides, it's far more exhilarating when you find those things out on your own.

 The second thing you never do is show them the in-game graphics flat-out.  That will scare away almost as many as revealing the game's full depth will.  Instead, show them a few visualization screenshots from Stonesense or Visual Fortress, and reveal what the in-game visuals actually look like only once they understand that those visualizations represent what the in-game graphics are showing them.  Using a decent tileset for your first in-game graphics presentation is advisable.

 The third thing you never do is mention "the next version".  The game is intimidating enough as it is.  The prospect that a new version is just around the corner might turn them off entirely to the game, since it means they'd probably have to re-learn the whole thing again in a month or two.  We may look forward to the update, but to the newcomer, the update is a daunting prospect.

 The fourth thing you never do is let them try out an already-built, complex fort.  That's a lot like making someone learn to swim by throwing them head-first into whitewater rapids.  Let them start out on their own terms, pick their own embark and choose Play Now (even though we know it's a bad idea), and let them learn as they go.  Answer their questions reasonably without giving too much away.  If they get frustrated, provide advice that helps mitigate that frustration.  Never insult, belittle, or talk down to them; you're there to help them, not humiliate them.

 The fifth thing you never do is force others to play Dwarf Fortress.  If they refuse to like the game, don't fight it; doing so will make them resist it even more.  Let them turn a blind eye to the game.  You've already done your job by planting the seed of curiosity if you've followed previous steps as best you can.  Eventually, their curiosity will overcome them and they'll try it out with the intent of seeing if it can be fun.  And if they never do, that's fine too.  Odds are they wouldn't have liked it if that's the case.

[zwei]

Just send them a copy of Boatmurdered.  Done.

Dunno, I always found that thing a bit ... uninteresting? There are much more, hmm, coherent stories nowadays.

---

Anyhow, do not give them df right after release, ohforfsake, it will be crash prone untill comunity gets a go on it for few weeks.

---

Anyhow2: best way to gt people interested is to play it while they are at room and chucke like madman, describing what happens to your fort...

[Capntastic]

Please don't randomly post links on other forums unless you're already a contributing member there.   Coming off as a spammer would generate ill will towards DF.

[Alex Steiner]

I am in the process of getting some friends playing (before reading this thread), but I am limited in that I can't be there when they start playing (other than an MSN convo or something), and I was wondering how best to present it.

I have considered giving them a clean copy of DF, one with the Mayday set (my personal favourite), one with a pregenned world, one with a preset beginner party, saved and ready to continue (made by me beforehand).

Which would you recommend?

The thing that got them interested was me making an obscure catsplosion reference, and then having to explain it. That led to a list of uses for cats (leather bags, skull totems, roasts, soap etc etc), which led to other quirks of the game (what do you have to do?). I mentioned "Losing is Fun", and the learning cliff, the explosions of violence, and finally megaprojects. I gave examples of towers, fountains and pyramids (as well as what they could be made of eg glass, wood, soap etc), and then I mentioned magma. Well, you can guess where that lead...my friends are those amused by images of !!Elves!! and !!Dwarven Wine!!, and were amazed when I said that, as of now, dwarves don't notice when they're on fire. Why not? Well it's still an alpha. Aren't they usually full of bugs and missing features? This one's very good, and the only bugs are hilarious. *atom smasher description*.

I had military and worldgen mentioned in there somewhere too.

Now I have to decide what to give them. Also, should I include utilities like Visual Fortress or Dwarf Therapist? (the former to help explain z-levels, latter to help with the interface). Or give them a link to a tutorial? I'll definitely point them at the wiki, I still refer to it regularly.

Hmmm...

[azazel]

I personally recommend this one: http://afteractionreporter.com/2009/02/09/the-complete-and-utter-newby-tutorial-for-dwarf-fortress-part-1-wtf/

Only downside is that it uses the mayday set, but it's a good tutorial. Really good, actually.