Uhm, I'm one of those people who got introduced to DF by a real life pal.
His first attempt was like: "hey, you like Nethack and ADOM, right? There's another ASCII game, but you don't control just one person. You control an entire civilization."
I downloaded, was overwhelmed after a few attempts, and gave up.
He did several more attempts in the weeks after that. I was always responding: "Cool. But I can't even figure out how to change the z-level/dig/which of the three billion workshops I need."
He then started to tell me stories of his fortress. Interesting ones, like that one about his fortress with the river in the southwestern corner, his dwarves up in the north, and his attempts of building a channel between the river and his dwarves; only to find out that the water was salty. He apparently barely managed to desalinate some of it with an obscure windmill/pump construction before they all perished.
Sounded good, but I still wouldn't budge.
Then he gave me the link to TinyPirate's tutorial. Suddenly, I got an idea of what to build when: that had really been the main obstacle between me and DF up to that point.
So, if you want to give other people a DF fix:
- first, evaluate if they run in panic at the sight of ASCII. If so, fix them with a tilesetted game.
- next, tell them awesome stories about your own struggles with the game. Failed fortresses create more of these than fortresses that are running smoothly. Or almost fails, but "I fixed it in the last second before they were all dead" stories. Link them up with Boatmurdered, too.
- finally, link them up with a decent tutorial so that they get the idea of "first, some farms. Then, a carpenter and a still. Then, whatever" type of stuff. This helps, because "well, what do I need now? Uhhhhm.... glass window sounds nice!" sort of building priorities are fun, but lead too just a bit TOO much Fun. Also, hook them up with the magmawiki.
If you follow these steps, these random people might surpass you in your nerdidwarfiness soon and build pump stacks that you haven't dreamed of yet.
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Topic: Does anyone but us understand Dwarf Fortress (Read 13902 times)