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[pivole]

I've played it a fair bit, and I must agree that the ASCII graphics look daunting at first, but they aren't that difficult to master, and half of it doesn't matter anyway.

[Dbuhos]

The first time I saw Dwarf Fortress I instantly left because I couldn't handle anything.
Years later I find it again and decide to learn it, so I download a tileset and get used to the controls and such.
Now days I can handle a fortress with hundred dorfs in ASCII fairly well.


So it simply takes SOME time to get used.

[Gizogin]

Yes, DF is actually that difficult to learn.  It might not be that hard to create a world and embark, but it takes many fortresses and a huge sum of patience to actually understand how to create a fortress, keep your dwarves happy and safe, and actually build something you can take pride in.

I learned about DF from TVTropes.  I downloaded it, stumbled through worldgen without the faintest idea what as going on, embarked on the first site it showed, and set to work blindly trying things to see what they did.  I figured out digging and cutting down trees right away, then learned about stockpiles and a few of the buildings.  By the time I quit my first fortress, I knew how to set up an aboveground farm, how to dig out an area and get all the resources divided into stone and gems, and how to make alcohol.  My second fortress taught me about furniture, room designations, and the basics of happiness.  By my fourth fortress, I had discovered the wiki, and I started following the "Your First Fortress" guide.  I didn't even know how to change z-levels until after that.  I didn't look at the military until around fortress #10, which was around when I discovered Boatmurdered, and later the forums. 

[Loud Whispers]

Yes, DF is actually that difficult to learn.

It varies from person to person. Some people are hit with a cliff with a loop de loop, and others are hit by a gentle slope...

...That continues forever.

[Chaos Armor]

I've been playing for more than two years and I still don't understand all of the mechanized parts of Dwarf Fortress. But when I first started I didn't know a wiki existed so I was lost trying to figure out what to do since I wasn't sure what the dwarves needed (I didn't know about the tutorial either). Then I found the wiki and in no time at all I could create a successful fort (it still exists too). The ascii graphics are easy for me to read, I adjusted to them in about a day or two. But as Loud Whispers said

Yes, DF is actually that difficult to learn.

It varies from person to person. Some people are hit with a cliff with a loop de loop, and others are hit by a gentle slope...

...That continues forever.

I completely agree with this.

[Lord Dakoth]

It's not that difficult to learn in the sense that anyone can learn it, given a little time and motivation. It's just that it's significantly harder to learn than games that most gamers are used to. People who are used to Call of Duty *crosses self* and Angry Birds aren't accustomed to dealing with anything more than is immediately on the screen. On the other hand, in DF, you have to constantly be more-or-less aware of several things at once, including food/drink supply, invaders, dwarven happiness, fortress expansion, and however many other things you decide to burden yourself with.

From what I see, people who play lots of RTS games generally do very well with DF, where people who play lots of action/FPS games have a tougher time on keeping the fortress as a whole in perspective.

tl;dr - It's not actually that hard to learn, but most people expect to learn the ins and outs of a game in 15 minutes or less.

[Kirbypowered]

It's probably already been said, but the hardest thing about Dwarf Fortress is understanding what does what. This is why, if following a tutorial, it can be pathetically easy to learn. If jumping straight in (without the ingame tutorial) you're not likely to know about z-levels, what to do with workshops, how to set up a hospital, or especially how to get your military to train (UGH). There are probably dozens of other things. It's probably also annoying to beginners in that the game doesn't warn you that it might take a while to get used to.

[darklord92]

than theres also what people see in the game. i didn't pay much attention to df until i learned about "k" and "v-z" after that i started to really enjoy the storys and it kept me at the game.

[Ancre]

I didn't had much trouble learning how to play dwarf fortress, probably because I enjoyed the challenge.

But yes, I tried to initiate my brother to the game and it is a difficult game to learn. There's a lot of different commands, not all of them intuitive, and you have to know all of them. Once past the graphics and the commands, you once again have to learn how to make things like rooms, or produce metal, or make farms work.

All in all I would say that it's not that it's hard to understand, but that there is a lot of things to learn and to remember, a lot more than any other games. The wiki and the tutorials are helpful, but even then the list of just the things you need to know is very long.