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That's a bit of a dramatic exaggeration for theatrical effect. The ASCII art definitely does not take 100 hours to understand. If you use a beginner's guide, y

by GuiA 11y ago

That's a bit of a dramatic exaggeration for theatrical effect. The ASCII art definitely does not take 100 hours to understand. If you use a beginner's guide, you can get the basics in a couple hours - after that, you start having fun but of course it takes a very long time to learn and understand all of the subtleties of the game (but that's true of any good strategy game). O'reilly has published a book about the game, I highly recommend it. You can start really grokking the game within an afternoon.

aaron-lebo 11y ago
The fact still remains that someone can turn on Minecraft, mine a few blocks, and "get" the game, especially if they've played with LEGOs. Dwarf Fortress not so much.
- talmand 11y ago
  Think of the children. I would imagine a good example of this is when my ten-year old decided to try Minecraft, I only had to show her the basics before she was off and running on her own. She's now up there with mods and console commands with no input from me. She then taught her five-year old sister to play without my involvement at all. I can't imagine the two of them playing Dwarf Fortress.
  - GuiA 11y ago
    You'd be surprised. I've worked a lot with kids, and I've seen pre-teens get into Dwarf Fortress very independently. It's not necessarily true that all kids will have the interest/attention for it, but it's still not that crazy. People routinely underestimate kids.
outworlder 11y ago
The basics, yes. But you are gauging the wrong complexity here. Dwarf Fortress has no concept of 'hit points', for instance. A character (monster, undead or whatever) can die for several reasons. For instance, they hemorrhage to death, or a vital organ is hit. The can be crippled for life. All 32 teeth in a dwarf are modeled, and they can all be individually damaged/lost. It has complex social interactions. One reddit thread was asking why one of his engravers was engraving pictures of rats over and over in a room. He got asked to check if said dwarf had a grudge against whoever owned that room. Sure enough, he did - the owner was a noble that happened to be afraid of rats. There's a legal system, dwarfs can commit homicide and you need to try to track down the perpretator and bring to justice, assuming there are no witnesses. Heck, even the world generation is way more advanced than anything I've ever seen.
- GuiA 11y ago
  Hah, I think you are gauging the wrong complexity :) Sure, all these things lead to an incredibly deep universe, but you're meant to discover them as you're playing the game. In a way, the metagame (posting on reddit, reading wikis, etc) is just as important as the actual game (which is also true for Minecraft, when it comes to sharing your creations, learning red stone, etc). But knowing these things is certainly not required to start playing the game or to get in the "swing of things".

by GuiA 11y ago

aaron-lebo 11y ago

The fact still remains that someone can turn on Minecraft, mine a few blocks, and "get" the game, especially if they've played with LEGOs. Dwarf Fortress not so much.

talmand 11y ago
Think of the children. I would imagine a good example of this is when my ten-year old decided to try Minecraft, I only had to show her the basics before she was off and running on her own. She's now up there with mods and console commands with no input from me. She then taught her five-year old sister to play without my involvement at all. I can't imagine the two of them playing Dwarf Fortress.
- GuiA 11y ago
  You'd be surprised. I've worked a lot with kids, and I've seen pre-teens get into Dwarf Fortress very independently. It's not necessarily true that all kids will have the interest/attention for it, but it's still not that crazy. People routinely underestimate kids.

outworlder 11y ago

The basics, yes. But you are gauging the wrong complexity here. Dwarf Fortress has no concept of 'hit points', for instance. A character (monster, undead or whatever) can die for several reasons. For instance, they hemorrhage to death, or a vital organ is hit. The can be crippled for life. All 32 teeth in a dwarf are modeled, and they can all be individually damaged/lost. It has complex social interactions. One reddit thread was asking why one of his engravers was engraving pictures of rats over and over in a room. He got asked to check if said dwarf had a grudge against whoever owned that room. Sure enough, he did - the owner was a noble that happened to be afraid of rats. There's a legal system, dwarfs can commit homicide and you need to try to track down the perpretator and bring to justice, assuming there are no witnesses. Heck, even the world generation is way more advanced than anything I've ever seen.

GuiA 11y ago
Hah, I think you are gauging the wrong complexity :) Sure, all these things lead to an incredibly deep universe, but you're meant to discover them as you're playing the game. In a way, the metagame (posting on reddit, reading wikis, etc) is just as important as the actual game (which is also true for Minecraft, when it comes to sharing your creations, learning red stone, etc). But knowing these things is certainly not required to start playing the game or to get in the "swing of things".