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[bombzero]

I want you all to think back to your first time playing dwarf fortress, now funny thing is it may not be the time you think it was.

i recently remembered that a LONG time ago, about when i was 6-7 i played an ASCII game about dwarfs, and gave up in what i now believe was worldgen (derp)
i just found it kind of interesting that my first time i played DF was earlier than i thought. jogged back into memory by someones post in the help section i believe.

so what do you remember about your first time playing DF? did you give up in 2 minutes? or did you struggle on for days before figuring it out? or did you even get it right away?

[Reudh]

Downloaded it, struggled, gave up. Decided to read Boatmurdered, then Headshoots, then Syrupleaf.

It was by the time that I finished Syrupleaf that I decided I was going to play this game come hell or high water. I downloaded the Bentgirder tutorial and followed it closely, and now I'm a decent player.

I haven't gotten to the megaproject stage yet though.

[Coolnesstod]

My first time I was confused based on the graphics. I watched plumphelmetpunks Videos of DF and afer about 3 days i got to finally getting metal-industry working. Ive been playing for about 10 months now and i still have a hard time with surviving for more than 4 years.

[Totte]

Started playing Dwarf Fortress couple of months before 40d. 3-4 years ago but still. I tryed a ASCII adventure game and thought it was pretty cool. Then my brother recommended me Dwarf Fortress. Downloaded it and tried it.

I just sat there with a question mark when the world gen started. "Is this the game?" I thought. Went in to embark I just stared at my screen and confused. After 2 min I quit.

Weeks before 40d I gave it a try one more time. This time I had captnduck's first video tutorials. It feelt like trying to learn C++ Language or somthing. Im kinda proud of myself that I went through all tutorials

Im not a hardcore player or anything but I had my periods of DF. Just discovered Dwarf Therapist a month ago which made me play 24/7.

[Organum]

;-;

I played for a few minutes. I couldn't tell if each tile was a single thing or if it was like Sim City and stockpiles would sprout into weird things. I sent a hunter after some unicorns without giving him any armor and after he died I just quit, thinking this game was too hard.

[Gatleos]

I completely mastered it in about five minutes and built a giant golden statue full of magma in the likeness of myself the next day.

...

Okay, I got murdered by Rhesus Macaques. I actually never used any tutorials outside reading wiki articles on specific subjects when needed. It was confusing as all hell regardless.

[Andrew425]

I couldn't understand how to build farms, all I could build were beds.

So at the beginning I would stock up on as much food as I could, selling my anvil and every non food item for it.

Then I would try to trade for the next year's supply when the caravan came around. Unfourtantely I kept getting swamped by migrants and soon they all starved

[bombzero]

I couldn't understand how to build farms, all I could build were beds.

So at the beginning I would stock up on as much food as I could, selling my anvil and every non food item for it.

Then I would try to trade for the next year's supply when the caravan came around. Unfourtantely I kept getting swamped by migrants and soon they all starved

a bed based economy... im gonna do it!

[Telgin]

My first time playing DF (started with 2010) was surprisingly successful.  I followed the tutorial on the wiki and didn't really have any problems.

The strangest thing I had happen was a goat randomly suffocate a few minutes into the game.  I read the part about pasturing the animals I embarked with, apparently put them in too small of pasture and one goat kicked another and killed it.  Was bewildering and funny.

Also had lots of Fun learning about moods and losing a few dwarves to that.  And one fisherdwarf getting caught across a freezing river.  But I never lost any dwarves to goblins in that fort.  Got bored with it right after the first siege and started my second fort.

[JinF]

My first fort.... oh Armok...

I settled into the side of a mountain and got a few farms up thanks to reading the wiki. Made makeshift rooms first and barely managed to make a still and a kitchen before my dorfs decided to eat each other. I also allowed my only crop, Plump Helmets, to be both cooked and brewed. My cook was faster. I then wondered why I was out of seeds, and therefor out of food. Survived for a year off of wild strawberries lol.

I later discovered that digging straight down is not a good idea if you have no military. I still magmafy any GCS I encounter in retaliation.

[KadaverciK]

I remember reading about Boatmurdered and the legendary cotton candy and thought to myself "Damn how awesome would it be to have a cotton candy sword for my adventurer"
Then I played the Complete and Utter Newbie Tutorial for 40d
Seems like ages ago

[dreadmullet]

Found out about this superhard game one day. Apparently it favored gameplay over graphics, which sounded interesting. I downloaded it, somehow made it past world gen and embarked. I had no idea what was going on. It all blended into the same .,.,.,.,.,. stuff, there were these ramps that didn't make sense, my dwarves were flashing different colors, turning into cats and stuff. I only figured out how look around using 'k'. I had no idea the wiki even existed. I didn't even know how to change Z levels. I completely gave up after 20 minutes.

Some months later, I read this Dwarf Fortress diary on RPS, which made it seem like the best thing ever. I decided to really give it a shot this time, with a tileset and access to the wiki.

One of the really newbie mistakes I made was digging my fort out of clay. I was perplexed as to why I didn't have any stone. Also, I didn't know how to use up/down staircases, and only used ramps. I didn't know how to use ramps either. Eventually I start to wonder why everyone is hunting for small creatures.

[King DZA]

heard about it from my brother's friend, Studied up on it relentlessly before actually playing. Wiki, tutorials, reviews, all the works. Carefully prepared for first fort, figured I'd get rid of battle axes since I didn't plan on having my military fight with axes anyway. There were no bedrooms for the first year.

Reached 80+ dwarves, became worried about the now possible threat of a siege. Embarked on an endeavor to build a large wall around the entrance of the fort. Upon completion of the wall, I could not describe how proud I was of myself. First siege arrived, chilled at the edge of the map, Operation Wall-In=success. Upon arrival of the second siege, I learned two very important lessons about defense:

Enemies can, in fact, climb over mountains.

Just because you can't build walls on the edge of the map, doesn't mean enemies can't arrive from there.

And so ended Newlight, first fortress of King DZA.

[MrWiggles]

I got Dwarf Fortress from Softwarepedia.com. It looked really boss. The ascii didn't phase me.

I installed it, and started to generate a new world... and thought it wasn't working. So turned it off.

Then a couple of days later I set it up to generate a world as I went grocery shopping, and came back with a new world. I selected dwarf mode, I was befuddled by the site finder, then I selected Play Now... and I was hopeless lost.

[Lord Herman]

The first time I tried DF, I gave up after a few minutes. I'd seen the wiki, but there seemed to be way too many things I'd need to learn before I could even start to play. I figured the game couldn't possibly be fun enough to justify all that effort.

A few months later, after reading some more awesome DF stories, I decided to give it another try. This time I used the tutorial that was on the wiki front page back then (early 40d era, I think). Things went much better this time around.

I managed to dig a nice little fort into a hillside, set up some farms and industries, and then decided to check out the river. At this point, I hadn't quite figured out that the world had multiple Z-levels. And that's the story of how my first fort was flooded and all my dorfs died.