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Dwarf fortress is difficult for two reasons 1: Unintuitive interface. It takes some time just to learn how to do basic things and find the information you need

Dwarf fortress is difficult for two reasons 1: Unintuitive interface. It takes some time just to learn how to do basic things and find the information you need. 2: Complexity. Once you know every possible command you can give you need to figure out what to do. It's hard to get into but immensely rewarding and satisfying once you do, with some amazingly detailed epic stories coming to life.

warmwaffles 14y ago
My brother plays this constantly, any pointers where I can start playing?
- lost-theory 14y ago
  Following the Captnduck tutorials [1] and using the Lazy Newb pack [2] got me pretty far. [1]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHVZtRdtPdo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHVZtRdtPdo [2]: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=59026.0 http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=59026.0
  - the_french 14y ago
    If you are on mac you can use MacNewbiw instead of the LNB: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=106790.0 http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=106790.0
- Calamitous 14y ago
  O'Reilly has a book for this: "Getting Started with Dwarf Fortress" http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920022565.do http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920022565.do Looks good so far, although I'm not more than a chapter into it yet.
- kzrdude 14y ago
  ask your brother :-)
- intended 14y ago
  You could also move to the reddit forums for DF, they tend to be more newbie frequented, but you could always just lurk in the vintaged Bay12forums.
ineedtosleep 14y ago
It's hard to get into, but if you deal with vim/emacs/etc on a normal basis, the learning curve shouldn't be a big deal (unless you don't have time for it). The game is just like vim/emacs in that you don't know what you don't know and you're likely going to learn piecemeal. If you looked through a couple tutorials and said "Hey I think I get the hang of it now" and start cracking at your first mountain, you'll quickly realize that you have no idea how to craft, deal with rooms, plant stuff, etc. As far as the graphical elements of the interface goes, there's a number of tilesets to use[1] which make the game exponentially more enjoyable. Also, there's a fellow on YouTube by the name of captnduck[2] and, aside from the official wiki, he's probably been the most helpful source for me when it comes to DF. I suggest taking a look at a video or two from him if DF interests you. [1] http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/117975/dwarf-fortress-hate-the-ascii-graphics-want-to-de-ugly-your-fort-heres-how http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/117975/dwarf-fortr... [2] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL06686270DA5FF439 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL06686270DA5FF439
- gchpaco 14y ago
  I'm not sure that DF's learning curve is really comparable to vi. Maybe TECO. Almost everybody's first fort dies because they didn't set plant orders or ran out of booze or something similar. Next, forts die because you got enough wealth to spawn an ambush and you are totally unprepared. There's a litany of failure conditions that can shut you down hard and once they've begun it is very difficult to impossible to reverse; tantrum spirals are the most obvious but for example you might find out that you needed to plant food some time ago, or that aquifers are full of Fun and Exciting and cause interesting problems for your nascent fort. I mean as a veteran I'm pretty good at avoiding these and getting into the late game but I can't even remember what they all are. It reminds me in some ways of the old HGTTG text game, where if you didn't take exactly the right steps at the start of the game you would be irreversibly fucked two hours later with no warning. Except I think that was due to malicious intent, and DF's complexity is some combination of developer indifference / incompetence (Toady is quite good but obviously UI design is not something he's really enthralled by) and Stockholm syndrome on the part of the player base. Some folks won't play without Dwarf Therapist, I absolutely require dfhack's workflow plugin to not go insane, etc. This is not really a good situation, but there's just one of Toady and the community is startlingly loyal, probably helped by the sheer addictive quality of the game once you get going; he can be excused, to some degree, a focus on new, novel things before the total UI revamp needed.

warmwaffles 14y ago

My brother plays this constantly, any pointers where I can start playing?

lost-theory 14y ago
Following the Captnduck tutorials [1] and using the Lazy Newb pack [2] got me pretty far. [1]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHVZtRdtPdo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHVZtRdtPdo [2]: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=59026.0 http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=59026.0
- the_french 14y ago
  If you are on mac you can use MacNewbiw instead of the LNB: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=106790.0 http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=106790.0
Calamitous 14y ago
O'Reilly has a book for this: "Getting Started with Dwarf Fortress" http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920022565.do http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920022565.do Looks good so far, although I'm not more than a chapter into it yet.
kzrdude 14y ago
ask your brother :-)
intended 14y ago
You could also move to the reddit forums for DF, they tend to be more newbie frequented, but you could always just lurk in the vintaged Bay12forums.

ineedtosleep 14y ago

It's hard to get into, but if you deal with vim/emacs/etc on a normal basis, the learning curve shouldn't be a big deal (unless you don't have time for it). The game is just like vim/emacs in that you don't know what you don't know and you're likely going to learn piecemeal. If you looked through a couple tutorials and said "Hey I think I get the hang of it now" and start cracking at your first mountain, you'll quickly realize that you have no idea how to craft, deal with rooms, plant stuff, etc. As far as the graphical elements of the interface goes, there's a number of tilesets to use[1] which make the game exponentially more enjoyable. Also, there's a fellow on YouTube by the name of captnduck[2] and, aside from the official wiki, he's probably been the most helpful source for me when it comes to DF. I suggest taking a look at a video or two from him if DF interests you. [1] http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/117975/dwarf-fortress-hate-the-ascii-graphics-want-to-de-ugly-your-fort-heres-how http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/117975/dwarf-fortr... [2] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL06686270DA5FF439 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL06686270DA5FF439

gchpaco 14y ago
I'm not sure that DF's learning curve is really comparable to vi. Maybe TECO. Almost everybody's first fort dies because they didn't set plant orders or ran out of booze or something similar. Next, forts die because you got enough wealth to spawn an ambush and you are totally unprepared. There's a litany of failure conditions that can shut you down hard and once they've begun it is very difficult to impossible to reverse; tantrum spirals are the most obvious but for example you might find out that you needed to plant food some time ago, or that aquifers are full of Fun and Exciting and cause interesting problems for your nascent fort. I mean as a veteran I'm pretty good at avoiding these and getting into the late game but I can't even remember what they all are. It reminds me in some ways of the old HGTTG text game, where if you didn't take exactly the right steps at the start of the game you would be irreversibly fucked two hours later with no warning. Except I think that was due to malicious intent, and DF's complexity is some combination of developer indifference / incompetence (Toady is quite good but obviously UI design is not something he's really enthralled by) and Stockholm syndrome on the part of the player base. Some folks won't play without Dwarf Therapist, I absolutely require dfhack's workflow plugin to not go insane, etc. This is not really a good situation, but there's just one of Toady and the community is startlingly loyal, probably helped by the sheer addictive quality of the game once you get going; he can be excused, to some degree, a focus on new, novel things before the total UI revamp needed.