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[Patchouli]

Matrix, etc.

[Organum]

The one guy I showed it to just said "This intro is killing me, man."

[PotatoLord]

Only one of my friends actually tried to play it, and gave up. They all still love the stories I tell them about it, though.

[Scarpa]

One of my friends got into it briefly, long enough for us to have a nice succession fort that produced some decent megaprojects. Another friend gave it an honest try but just couldn't hack it. Both now bait friends/coworkers by having them ask me to explain the game to them.. so far no one else has given it a try.

Recently my boss thought another coworker played it and I got all excited and asked him about it but he had no idea what I was talking about. He was intrigued by the game though and tried to play it only to find out 'that ascii game' can kill even a good computer and he takes pride in his crusty ancient linux box.

[LordZorintrhox]

Most of my friends at home appreciate the complexity and shear awesomeness of something that generates as much detail as DF, but only one actually plays it.  At school, however, it is sorta a dark spectre that haunts the background of the SciFi Society (the resident, and massive, nerd conclave).  They certainly know about it, but opinions are more extreme.  Most can't see through the ascii to the beauty underneath, but I've never had anyone really disparage it.

[KurzedMetal]

Friend: "what are you playing now?"
Me: "One of those ASCIIish games."
Friend: "Hahahhaa. You are crazy."

Most of the time, i don't even bother trying to explain the genre to them, i know they won't like it just because it's hardcore (some doesn't like the idea of losing their "work" and they don't care about replayability), has ASCII graphics and, in the case of DF, "random" interface (since it can't be "bad" because it wasn't even designed, AFAIK ) and extremely steep learning curve (i've found nothing even close to this curve, even NetHack was easier to get spoiled).

I'm one of those players who'd proudly wear a rogue-like T-Shirt (i need to buy/make one) , but my friends and family likes graphics and easy (dull) gameplay .
The only commercial games that caught me for quite a while were the Warcraft, Baldur's Gate and Diablo series. Ohh i almost forgot my bane: Heroes of Might and Magic III, such much fun (time wasted)...

EDIT: fixed a typo, thx ratbert

[Nether]

One tested it shortly, only to fail liking it due to the difficulty.
All others (10+) regarded it no fun due to the graphics. Those guys never even touched it.

[Vattic]

A gaming enthusiast friend checked it out for himself after I told him that I'd been playing it. He said that it looked interesting, had poor graphics, and got distracted by other games before giving it a try.

Other friends who don't really game have seen it in motion and one said that he enjoyed watching all the little dwarves run around and compared it to an ant farm. He despaired at the violence when I read one of the combat reports and pointed out the teeth, arms, and other parts laying around / stuck in my fortifications.

[Tharwen]

"This game makes me want to vomit"

[_DivideByZero_]

Talking about the combat system and drawing magma-powered entrance halls eventually led to one of my friends downloading it. He plays with a graphics pack but seems pretty interested. Everyone else looks like "O.o?" when we talk about it.

[TmanEd]

As far as gaming buddies go, I have one online friend that plays it, and we often talk about it. My buddy that I (physically) play video games with... Well, he thinks RPGs like Fable are too complicated. But hell, Halo and Gears of War are good for playing with friends, even if they can't swallow up an evening on their own like DF can.

[Umune]

Convinced two friends (brothers) to play, chugging along slowly with my help. But. They can't access parts of the wiki due to an alcohol parental filter.

[UltraValican]

I learned about dwarf fortress at first while looking up minecraft on one of the schools computers, both me and my friend ,friend #1 were very interested...I was skeptical about downloading but the tales of 40d were too much and I downloaded, my friend #1 was always interested to here about the gruesome dismemberment  but never tried playing as far as I know, another friend of mine( this friend looked upon me as a role-model of sorts despite him being older than me) decided to play. I'm not sure for how long but he said he enjoyed the intro.. what’s strange though, is that shortly after friend #2 started playing he told me he stated dreaming about "squiggles" and letters and that I was the king of the dwarves....
Finally I convinced a female friend of mine to play over facebook messaging, when I described to her that dwarf fortress was a "game in which you control a group of retarded alcoholic midgets" she responded " is it a game about Prohibition?", then I told her about  a dwarven woman that gave birth over magma and she was ready to try dwarf fortress, I directed her to the lazy newb pack but quickly forgot that she was a devote apple user and afaik the lazy newb pack is incompatible with macs.....damn shame too. She would have enjoyed these forums a lot, particularly the community games and stories thread…

[Yagrum Bagarn]

Convinced two friends (brothers) to play, chugging along slowly with my help. But. They can't access parts of the wiki due to an alcohol parental filter.

Download the entire wiki and give it to them on a flash drive.

My girlfriend is halfway resigned to losing me when I go on a bout of DF.  Two of my friends play, and in fact introduced me to it.  The other 2 or 3 that I think are interested (and enjoyed Boatmurdered) say they just don't have the time to learn, but plan to do so one day.  I don't bother showing the game to someone unless I consider it a foregone conclusion that the'd like it.

[PrimusRibbus]

One of the big problems I've had is that Reddit (ugh) has given people the impression that DF is literally impossible to play unless you are Neo from the Matrix, or a MENSA member. The famous "This is DF's learning curve" pic has scared off a ton of people from even trying it.

This has led most of the people I've talked to about it to say something to the effect of, "Look man, I don't play WoW because I don't want gaming to be a job. I'm not going to take on a full-time job to learn this game either."

I'm of the opinion that DF does not have a very steep learning curve, but does have a blatant lack of documentation and a non-obvious menu setup. The basics of the game are easily learnable within a day if you keep the Wiki up beside you. The few people that I was actually able to get to try DF were surprised at how easy the game was to learn when they had the Wiki as a manual.