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[Solarius Scorch]

"Thomas Biskup is going to make an ultimate roguelike called JADE, with complex world simulation and procedurally-generated content, but he has not yet gone past some simple basics. And now I find a game that already can do that?"

That's the short story of my conversion from being an ADoMite.

Every word applies to me too. Just add the fact that JADE is not only really underdeveloped in comparison (an understatement), but DF also seems to be written with much more imagination, style, and sense of the medium.

[mgrinshpon]

"So... yeah, I don't think I'm getting honor roll this semester. Or passing it at all."

[EvilFuzzy9]

I downloaded DF after reading a number of LPs and its TvTropes entry and being aware of its existence for a couple of years.  Within minutes of downloading it, I decided to download a tileset because "what the crap I'm not crazy enough to try and decipher this stuff".  Once I finished that, I started a fortress mode game.

"... HOW THE HELL DO YOU WORK THIS THING!" pretty much sums up my 'initial' utter bewilderment quite nicely, I think.

I was turned off of fort mode for a while by the inscrutable key-mapping and the overwhelming menu orgy.  So I played adventure mode for a while (and I still have no idea how you get to those dark towers!) before reading some tutorial stuff to get me past my initial "I-don't-have-any-idea-what's-going-on-how-do-you-dig-what-the-hell" phase and to the point where I could sustain my dorves.  Funnily enough, the version I started on was 31.14, so I never had so much as a snatcher and the worst wildlife were the rhesus macaques (good heavens, how I abhor those thieving little bastards). 

I've been playing DF for barely a month, and it has been a continual learning experience for me. (To give you an idea of how newbish I am in terms of this game, I just downloaded the Lazy Newb Pack yesterday evening and actually figured out the basic setup for metal working just this morning. And I also can never seem to find those damned caves in adventure mode, 'cause I mean it tells me that "You see a cave entrance" when I reach where my mission objective should be and I all but say "What? Where?-! TELL ME YOU DOGGONE GAME!  ")  Yeah, I still kinda suck at it.

[SalmonGod]

I've been playing roguelikes for nearly 20 years, beginning with Nethack when I was 8 years old.  I haven't been into them too much over the past 10 years or so, though... not since I got a girlfriend/college/job/wife and two kids.  I just don't have the free time and thus the patience that I used to.  I would pick one up for a few days now and then, but always revert to more quick gaming fixes.

My younger brother stuck with them, though, and would tell me about DF on occassion.  The stories were really interesting and funny.  I thought it sounded like a really impressive simulation, but I've never been into that style of game too much.  I downloaded and glanced at it a couple times just to putz around for a few minutes and think "Nope... still not worth the effort"

But over the last couple months I got a few more recommendations for other people, and I've been running out of random web material to save me from existential coma at work.  So one day a little over a month ago I turned to tvtropes for some humorous insight on the game.  They linked me to Boatmurdered.  I read that over the next two days.  Was AMAZED at how much life the game has.  It's so much more than a simulation.  Every dwarf lives its own detailed life and personality.

This discovery gave me the resolve to crack this thing.  I looked up the forums (always my first step in approaching anything complex... find a forum), quickly found the wiki and tilesets, and went through the interface figuring out every menu screen and the purpose of every workshop.  I had basic controls down in a couple hours.  This still didn't save my first couple forts from dying of thirst... or the next couple from flooding... but luckily I started with 3.14 and didn't have to deal with any hostilities.

I think my 5th fort (in the RL span of like a week) was the first to attain any sustainability... and then I discovered that invaders were bugged.  Went straight to not only fixing that problem, but downloading Fortress Defense.  Have been having a blast ever since, chronicling the doomed existences of these magma-loving creatures.

[The Merchant Of Menace]

"Hmm, I can give people custom nicknames, and gouge their eyes out... I'm gonna like this"

[drvoke]

"Holy shit, I can DO that?"

[KaguroDraven]

My first thoughts? First time I played I hadn't looked up any tutorial or anything, this thought alone made me look it up.

"Ok dwarves now dig!......I said dig damn it!" *looks furiously for the command to make them fucking dig* *finds it after a few minutes and sets up where to dig, they still don't move* "WHY WON'T YOU LITTLE FUCKERS DIG!?"  I had, tried, to be smart and buy custom equiptment my first time around and didn't give anyone the mineing skill, so noone knew how to dig or had the mineing labor on.

[SethCreiyd]

"I hope there's a wiki."

[TherosPherae]

"What the CRAP!?"

Which very soon turned to...

"What the.... CARP!!!!"

[mnjiman]

"After hours of tutorials I finally get to play now that i understand what im doing... how do I make a farm?"

[bluephoenix]

"okay, what am I looking at here? Huh? Urist McFisherdwarf canceles fishing: Interupted by groundhog."
"A ground hog? Why are my people running away fro... What?! They are getting killed by one groundhog? How do I make them fight back??"
(40d version after carefully or rather randomly preparing for the journey/selecting stuff I thought I might need since I never used any wiki or tutorials. My dwarves all got killed by a groundhog which gave me a phobia of anything that moves and isn't my dwarves in DF)

[wilsonns]

"...Where are the dorfs?...Wait....WHERE ARE THE FU***** GRAPHICS?!?!"
Then I closed the game as soon as I finished the world gen.After some days I tried again, started to read some tutorials, and now I'm addicted

[rephikul]

1st thought: so... how do i play this?
2nd thought: hmm the announcement list is empty

You get the picture.

[Miko19]

Adventure Mode-How the fuck am I supposed to control my character?
Fortress Mode-What the fuck am I supposed to do?!

[Encased in burning magma]

He is fishing! How cute!
... α?
... "dwarf chunk" "dwarf chunk" "dwarf chunk"... what the... what