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[Phoenix20]

Before I continue, I would like to chime in that I am not new to the forums, or to Dwarf Fortress. My previous username was "pheonix", and I have finally decided to do away with the misspell in favor of a new username.
I have been away from Dwarf Fortress for quite some time, and have stopped playing shortly after the large release. Since then, I have discovered Minecraft via the discussion board, and have been playing it since. I have, and still do enjoy playing it, but it does not satisfy me as Dwarf Fortress once did!
My problem is a simple one: I wish to pick the game back up, but to do so would mean effort to readapt to the DF UI, and inspiration greater than what was needed to sustain my interest.
Here is my question:
What motivates you to play?

[Cruxador]

What motivates you to play?

Reading the devlog.

[GTM]

The secret is DF talk.  It's one thing to read the plans of things to do, but hearing Tarn go off on these tangents about future plans is really hilarious and heartening.  It really humanizes the experience; it's easy to think of DF as this ridiculously complex Frankenstein of a game, but when you hear the author making sense and cracking jokes it's just easier to connect with.  It's like how watching a band can be more fun if they're friends of your friends or if they're at least from the same school/hometown as you, even if their music is a little out there.

[Gatleos]

What motivates you to play?

Reading this forum. Sometimes I'll immediately boot up Adventure Mode to play it again just because someone on the forums was talking about their awsome adventurer. In fact, that happened a few minutes ago!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I got stabbed to death with a carving knife.

The secret is DF talk.  It's one thing to read the plans of things to do, but hearing Tarn go off on these tangents about future plans is really hilarious and heartening.  It really humanizes the experience; it's easy to think of DF as this ridiculously complex Frankenstein of a game, but when you hear the author making sense and cracking jokes it's just easier to connect with.  It's like how watching a band can be more fun if they're friends of your friends or if they're at least from the same school/hometown as you, even if their music is a little out there.

Also, this. So much fun to listen to.

[Phoenix20]

The secret is DF talk.  It's one thing to read the plans of things to do, but hearing Tarn go off on these tangents about future plans is really hilarious and heartening.  It really humanizes the experience; it's easy to think of DF as this ridiculously complex Frankenstein of a game, but when you hear the author making sense and cracking jokes it's just easier to connect with.  It's like how watching a band can be more fun if they're friends of your friends or if they're at least from the same school/hometown as you, even if their music is a little out there.

This is a nice idea! I haven't considered how many of these Tarn might have done within the last 6 months...

[Rex_Nex]

Not many. Maybe one or two, there hasn't been much lately. They are pretty long though, so they are still very interesting.

The thing about DF is that you have to have the effort to actually start playing with no real plans. I find that the hardest part of DF is actually starting it and doing all the boring pre-playing stuff (Embarking) and doing the same repetitive startup for every fortress. Once you get past this, you get hooked and will wonder what happened to your day week.

Also, you could try and do a less generic fortress. Outside-only fort, embark on a evil biome, 30zlvl tower, etc.

[Phoenix20]

The thing about DF is that you have to have the effort to actually start playing with no real plans. I find that the hardest part of DF is actually starting it and doing all the boring pre-playing stuff (Embarking) and doing the same repetitive startup for every fortress. Once you get past this, you get hooked and will wonder what happened to your day week.

This is exactly my problem. This, and the military screen.
Speaking of which, has progress been made to clean the military issues and combat mechanics with the new materials? I would like to kill Bronze Colossi without knocking their heads off with a slade hammer.

[Gatleos]

The thing about DF is that you have to have the effort to actually start playing with no real plans. I find that the hardest part of DF is actually starting it and doing all the boring pre-playing stuff (Embarking) and doing the same repetitive startup for every fortress. Once you get past this, you get hooked and will wonder what happened to your day week.

This is exactly my problem. This, and the military screen.
Speaking of which, has progress been made to clean the military issues and combat mechanics with the new materials?

Some progress, but the military is still a pain.

[Phoenix20]

The thing about DF is that you have to have the effort to actually start playing with no real plans. I find that the hardest part of DF is actually starting it and doing all the boring pre-playing stuff (Embarking) and doing the same repetitive startup for every fortress. Once you get past this, you get hooked and will wonder what happened to your day week.

This is exactly my problem. This, and the military screen.
Speaking of which, has progress been made to clean the military issues and combat mechanics with the new materials?

Some progress, but the military is still a pain.

I'll assume the military is both still hopelessly bugged and astoundingly difficult to use...

[NW_Kohaku]

What motivates you to play?

Writing threads like this one.

Basically, I loved Oblivion, but never bothered to finish the main quest.  I was having too much fun modding in neat additions to my wizard tower, gathering bog beacon asco caps, adding in companions, etc.

I love digging through the modding features (although they are never enough) to make whatever wacky crap my heart desires.  (It is now "Giant Cave Spider Fortress!")

I also love the simple act of intensive study of the game mechanics, and the ability to try to model as many systems into the game as possible. 

I love the things I have learned about real-life chemistry and geology and ceramics and technological progress and whatever else I've learned because of this game.

Hell, I hardly even play it, I just play with what it can be.

[Marshall Burns]

I find that the hardest part of DF is actually starting it and doing all the boring pre-playing stuff (Embarking) and doing the same repetitive startup for every fortress.

Wow, getting started is my favorite part. I love looking for a site that has a combination of elements I haven't played with yet, and then looking at the landscape it vomits at me and deciding what I'm going to do with it.

[NW_Kohaku]

Funny, I tend to just look for savage jungles so I can get fun pets like Giant Tigers to throw into cages and open during sieges. 

[Dutchling]

devlog and pretty much the fact that I haven't had a succesful fort yet (as in: lasting longer than 15 years + sieges and FB's)

[Chromasphere]

I find that the hardest part of DF is actually starting it and doing all the boring pre-playing stuff (Embarking) and doing the same repetitive startup for every fortress.

Wow, getting started is my favorite part. I love looking for a site that has a combination of elements I haven't played with yet, and then looking at the landscape it vomits at me and deciding what I'm going to do with it.

Diddo.

But mainly.... the story.  It's absolutely incredible how deep and intricate some stories can get.  Sometimes I'll write down all the characteristics and other details of all my starting 7 (nickname them to keep track easily) and then track them throughout their life.  You can probably write a very interesting novel every time.

Other exciting and heartrending stories can be found in Legends mode.  It takes some digging, but with the help of Legends Viewer and World Viewer (two excellent programs, one with interactive map), you can more easily dig out these wonderful stories  of people's lives set in a rich and diverse world filled with wonder, courage and horror; epic triumphs and heartrending defeats.

It's all about the storytelling!

[NW_Kohaku]

Speaking of which, has progress been made to clean the military issues and combat mechanics with the new materials? I would like to kill Bronze Colossi without knocking their heads off with a slade hammer.

Because the only recorded non-cheating Bronze Colossus kills were killed in one hit by throwing a fluffy wambler at it, of all things, Toady decided to make cumulative damage actually work, by the way. (Yay!  The broken throwing skill beat the broken damage system!)

This means colossi are killable, if hard to kill. 

For the most part, military kiiiiiiinda works, but there are so many subtle tricks to making the military work that Toady apparently wanted to throw in, but then give players absolutely no clue to figure out why nothing was working, that it's functionally a "bug by bad design".

Things get dismissed from the bug tracker as "the game working as intended" pretty often.  If people can't tell the difference between a coding error and the game working as designed, you have a serious game design problem.

In a case like this, if it's done well then it's organic/intuitive enough that you don't need to be told. After all, do you need to be told that a dwarf who doesn't like helping others might not make, say, a good doctor?

Obviously, yes. 

We had this problem with noise, as well.  People spent much time worrying about making sure their workshops would not interrupt their residential neighborhoods with too much noise until people figured out that workshops and training drills and the like didn't create noise.  Only re-arranging furniture caused noise.  This meant someone moving in to their home created a noise cube that woke up everyone in the entire fortress who was sleeping, but the pounding of the forge wouldn't wake up someone two feet away.

Suspending fortresses on bars of soap.  Drawbridges count for support, but grates do not.  Tricks for not having dwarves build floodgates in ways that wall them in a magma chamber.  Animals reproducing through spores, without needing direct contact.

Just think of all the things in this game that logically should or shouldn't happen, but where logic is suspended by dwarfiness, and you'll have your answer as to why people don't just assume that simply because something is logical, it doesn't necessarily mean it will happen in the game.

In game design, when a feature is hidden so well that players cannot find it or it is commonly misunderstood as a bug, it is common practice to regard that feature as a failed mechanic and consequently revise it in some way.

If the obscurity of Dwarf Fortress game mechanics is leading to player-perceived problems with the game and thus driving away frustrated players, then the game mechanics need either illumination or reworking; in this case, the effect of personality traits on the functionality of in-game systems. Even if the exact mechanics are not revealed, revealing to the players that mechanics that once appeared useless now have a point can help reduce misunderstanding created by the previous paradigms players had built about older versions of the game. In an alpha like Dwarf Fortress, this is even more important. After all, since DF is currently still testing the balance of new mechanics and ridden with bugs, isn't in the developer's best interest for his players to have an idea of what to look for and how to know if it is working?