[faide]

I find the UI of Dwarf Fortress completely impenetrable, but am fascinated by the level of depth and granularity in the systems underlying the game.

If anyone is interested in the game, I recommend grabbing the Lazy Newb Pack[0] which comes with a few utilities that will make your experience slightly less infuriating.

[0] http://lazynewbpack.com/

[trentmb]

Much like Eve, I prefer to read about others exploits than try and have my own.

[mfoy_]

Funny thing about Eve is that once you start playing it you realize it's... actually pretty "normal".

It's like the Australian Outback, you hear so many terrifying stories that you just assume every single thing in that place wants to kill you, but plenty of things live there.

Just like in Eve, your life in space will be pretty standard fare 99% of the time, even moving out to nullsec can be actually quite a... dare I say, mundane affair.

But it's that 1%... oh man, that 1%. The feuds, the rivalries, the deception, the betrayal.

It's almost like CCP are playing a cosmic version of Dwarf Fortress and the capsuleers are their dwarves.

[phillc73]

What terrifying stories have you heard about the Australian Outback?

Having lived a large proportion of my life in what would be described as rural Australia, if not quite the Outback, I can't really think of anything that is actively trying to kill people.

People die because they were unlucky (trod on a poisonous snake perhaps) or they were stupid (traveling somewhere without adequate water and/or informing others of their whereabouts).

Snakes aren't actually trying to kill you, nor spiders, nor dingoes (unless you're a really small baby maybe), nor feral camels, nor kangaroos, nor the emus. The only think I can think of that maybe actively wants to kill you are the crocs, because they're top predator and have to eat. Also the vast majority of human deaths from croc attacks are also down to stupidity (swimming at night in a known crocodile area, for example). Even so, the crocs are in the north and I wouldn't necessarily call that the Outback either.

Anyway, genuinely curious about the terrifying stories and all the things trying to kill humans.

[spacehome]

> I can't really think of anything that is actively trying to kill people.

[... proceeds to list a bunch of animals that kill people ...]

[phillc73]

The point was that none of these animals actually want to kill people, which was stated in the parent post.

[nkassis]

Drop bears, they are scary.

[jameskegel]

But who is Goon Swarm?

[clevernickname]

Something once strong, but now completely, utterly irrelevant? That would have to be the elephant.

[drjesusphd]

Irrelephant?

[Natsu]

An excellent question... their carp, maybe?

[zer00eyz]

I never thought of eve and DF having anything in common, till I read your comment.

Upon further reflection, I only played both for the level of suffering involved in each. DF has the mantra "loosing is fun" and I played eve that same way.

[ethbro]

That's one of the primary effects of having serious, permanent effects of death in a game, imho.

Perversely, it makes life / things / tasks less valuable. I used the example "there's only so much you'll do for one dwarf who might be killed by its own stupidity" vs "there's almost nothing a lot of people wouldn't do to acquire a for-the-rest-of-time legendary in WoW."

[imdsm]

Once you get over the hump though, it's so worth it. The best game I've ever played. In fact, I go back to it all the time.

This is my current project: https://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/4n6yun/ochre...

The first stage was simply to dig out a big hollow cavern, with walkways and a central pillar of stairs. A chap has given me an idea about a bridge over the volcano and I think I will have a drawbridge block off the entrance once the invaders are quite close, and then marksdwarves can shoot down on them. We expect people to dodge off and into the magma.

I play MasterworkDF, which adds a number of things such as guilds and castes, but LNP is a good place to start.

For anyone who is a bit scared by it, just persevere. Start simple. Seven dwarves. Dig a hole in the ground. Start a mushroom farm. Brew some wine. Get a carpenters workshop. Make some beds. And barrels. And take it from there.

It'll be worth it.

[tehmaco]

I found that learning how one aspect (mining, farming, food, booze, fortifications, military, trading, etc) at a time helped.

I'd figure out how to get one aspect working (starting with the farming -> food/booze aspect), then something Fun would happen. I'd start a new game, figure out how to avoid that type of Fun, then get clobbered by another sort :D

[ethbro]

*For people unfamiliar with the game, "Fun" encompasses Things Going Very Wrong Very Quickly.

[tptacek]

I'm sure the Adams would disagree, but to me, the impenetrability is part of what makes it work so well as a game. A lot of basic tasks feel rewarding because they're hard to master.

[Natsu]

They've actually dialed the difficulty back a bit. Used to be that you could die while trying to kill a bush...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ARLSii23w8

N.B. this was a 3D predecessor to DF.

[lettergram]

I played a few maps with some UI mods. Overall, I kind of like the experience because it reminds me of reading code in the matrix...

[faide]

I do prefer the classic graphics for the same reason. I cannot, however, play without things like Dwarf Therapist anymore though.

[blakeyrat]

What I don't get is while they add "depth" in a few selected areas (simulating stuff like dwarf organ function?) their choice of that awful ASCII UI means the entire game runs on a grid of really huge cubes. So while it's simulating a dwarf's digestion, nothing really can exist in the game that's less than, say, 5'x5'. Perplexing design choice.