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[Lancezh]

In Usability we know the process of constantly testing user interfaces or products to get the most valuable Feedback out to make a product adaptable or most widespread so people actually start to use it. If we would treat Dwarf fortress as such a product with an immense depth that is not easy to understand at first sight i ask myself the following question and would like to have your feedback as precise as possible:

Wether you introduce your friends via Audio Chat (like Skype, TS, Mumble etc.) or by showing them the game in Person:

Where is the point where they usually start to quit and having not the Patience to dig any deeper ?

I know the interface is a huge problem to learn the game but i specifically aim to see at what POINT they are quitting. (For instance at the embark screen, after having the most basic fort, when trying to build constructions, or after the first siege)

[Trapezohedron]

Mostly at the point where you should designate your dwarven hidey-hole, when they can't figure out how to assign a pick to a miner, or if they assume that picks aren't needed and they continue blindly.

[Kay12]

For some, interface. For many, the fact that the game lacks polish and is still somewhat buggy. For many others, it feels too much like work to get the dwarves to do anything.

[Johuotar]

My friend didn't understand how designating or z-levels work so he tried to dig air and ragequitted. 

[zilpin]

Most can't even be convinced to sit in front of the terminal to try it.
But I walked through a few friends on getting started.

Polish
One quite after two seasons, when I explained what was required for a farm.
I made a "newb mushroom farm" custom workshop mod for him, then he gave up once all the stupid dwarf behavior started coming up.
Not bugs, just the "lack of polish" mentioned above.

Military Screen
Another gave up due to complexity of the military screen.  He's in army, and told me he refuses to play a game more complicated than the instrumentation which took 4 months of study to use, just to give basic commands.

Interface, Micromanagement
Two others got sick of the "idiotic" level of micromanagement, especially regarding workshops.  Both said how much better games like the Caesar series let you manage stockpiles, and I agree.
DF requires micromanagement, but gives you little actual control of the outcome.


All of them needed graphics packs to play.  They were fine with primitive 2d tiles.  Seeing "G" or "M" on the screen tells you nothing about what something it.
DF is too complex for 256 glyphs to portray enough meaning any more.

Only one made it far enough to quite due to game bugs.  But he was very pissed off that he spent time on a fort which became unmanageable due to known game bugs, old bugs.
He won't come back.

No one made it far enough to get annoyed by pathfinding lag, FPS death, a siege, or even the "losing is fun" aspect.
They all loved the challenge, just hated the clumsiness of the program itself.

Honestly, I'm getting sick of DFs shortcomings, which seem to be multiplying prolifically.  Bugs will drive me away soon.
I play in ASCII, but it would be impossible to play without Therapist and DFHack.  dfConfiscate and dfCleanMap in particular.
Toady's depth-first manner of approaching things, and lack of interest in fixing bugs, is taking it's toll.

The UI is by far the most important "feature" to work on, but general "polish" and cleanup would have gotten them all farther.

[Kay12]

Seeing "G" or "M" on the screen tells you nothing about what something it. DF is too complex for 256 glyphs to portray enough meaning any more.

The letter thing is partially true - however, after getting familiar with the game the letters start working. Especially people who are already familiar with Roguelikes will find the letters a fairly good way of presenting things. I must disagree about 256 glyphs not being enough. DF isn't even using all of them, and each tile can still have various special effects like flashing and background or foreground color. CP437 (yeah, it's not ASCII) has several symbols not being used yet. DF isn't a true console application, so it may also manouver around restrictions freely. However, a switch to something like Unicode or graphical tiles may be necessary, eventually.

[Jelle]

The military screen? Weird I think it's one of the better interfaces designed in the game. Granted I think the equipment screen deserves some more work, but I really like the positions and schedule screen.

I've only ever once tried to get someone into dwarf fortress, if memory serves he didn't manage to change his keybindings and got frustrated. I guess it's a tad difficult if you don't even know what you need keys for.

[eataTREE]

The military screen is one of those interfaces where complicated things are easy and easy things aren't any easier than the complicated things. It would be nice to preserve the flexibility and power of the existing system while making it require fewer steps to do something basic like setting everyone to train every other month.

[Lancezh]

Seeing "G" or "M" on the screen tells you nothing about what something it. DF is too complex for 256 glyphs to portray enough meaning any more.

The letter thing is partially true - however, after getting familiar with the game the letters start working. Especially people who are already familiar with Roguelikes will find the letters a fairly good way of presenting things. I must disagree about 256 glyphs not being enough. DF isn't even using all of them, and each tile can still have various special effects like flashing and background or foreground color. CP437 (yeah, it's not ASCII) has several symbols not being used yet. DF isn't a true console application, so it may also manouver around restrictions freely. However, a switch to something like Unicode or graphical tiles may be necessary, eventually.

You can learn ANY user interface no matter how bad it is. That is a well researched fact, however if it is unaccessible it drives away possible users that would have used it. Once you get past it you dont really need a much better interface since you learned how to ride the stallion. That drives to another paradox, the stuff feels so natural to most people that use it, that they forget how it was for people who DONT. That leads to another problem, if you change the UI to the better (and that would mean in DF's case COMPLETELY since it is a true mess) you will piss of everyone that is used to the old standard.

It was interesting to see that process with Office 2003 to Office 2007 when my father didnt want to adapt to the new UI and looked for known old (but bad) user interactions. A couple years later he couldnt work with the old anymore...

A whole industry revolved around that problem, its basically the term Usercentered Design.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

Generally the first second they look at the screen, get a bewildered look on their face, and ask me if I can
  pick out the blondes, brunettes, and redheads yet.

The point where *I* start thinking about quitting is every time I have to set up my military in a new fort.

[MrFluffums]

First Referral: Got to about designating stockpiles.  He didn't understand.
Second Referral: Creating an Embark setup.
Third Referral: Title screen, complained about graphics.

[Roflcopter5000]

Honestly, I wasn't irritated with the UI until quite a bit into the game... It was more -after- I got my first few forts up and running with some decent booze production that the UI started to bother me. The 'designate' menu made a lot of sense, stockpiles made sense, the build menu made sense... Then I started getting immigrants.
And everyone I've introduced to the game has quit right about that moment. Where they are like: 'Wait, THIS is how you manage active labor? Holy mother of god.'
It's not the concept, the concept of turn on labor, dwarf does associated task is simple. The actual act of finding out what the appropriate labor skill is, then finding the dwarf, then scrolling through that menu to find the proper labor...
/beginrant
Labor management should be its own full-screen menu. There is an extraordinary amount of information that needs to be assessed when making labor related decisions, and displaying the world around the selected dwarf is showing you literally none of that information.
The military menu is also pretty gnarly, I'll admit, but honestly, that's nothing compared to the ridiculous hassle of actually finding the dwarves you want to conscript in the first place.
/endrant

[jc6036]

Its weird, the first time I played it, I quit for about a month. I got to the build menu, saw stuff like "needs bed" and "needs statue" and I just said wtf this doesnt make any sense. Then I got into rogulikes more, and got a tile set. Then I found out about the workshop submenu. So for me, the problem was the ASCII and important menus being somewhat buried that drove me away at first.

[MrFluffums]

So for me, the problem was the ASCII and important menus being somewhat buried that drove me away at first.

Seconded.

[Hokan]

If the game had a built in, walkthrough tutorial and a labor screen, I think that would be perfect.