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[rawrcakes]

1. Pretty much daily these days, but it goes in spurts, yes. New releases or mad ideas keeps me glued for days on end, in a way not quite unlike manic obsession.

2. In real life or on MSN, mostly. I've got very nerdy friends, and even though a lot of them shun away from DF due to graphics, interface or otherwise, they mostly appreciate the storytelling this game brings.

3. Yea, see above.

4. It's unfolding. I might have some idea of how I want it when I start, but there's so many random factors that it's pretty hard to predetermine the story much. I do make special care to make !!good!! things happen if I feel it flows with the general story so far, though, rather than going for a prosperous, perfect fort.

5. No tileset, but I do use Stonesense through DFHack which I tab through every once in a while. I started using it to show it to others, actually, as the regular UNICODE graphics are a bit too abstract for most, but it's nice for my own case to get a nice isometric view of that fort or those death pits. For music, I tend to just use the in-game music. If I'm feeling particularly heroic and/or doomed, I'll mute it and swap it for some the Sword instead.

6. The little I have, yes. I've got a few friends on MSN I keep pestering about various forts and events. I've got a notepad with various dwarvly scribblings, and also uploaded one fort story on DFFD which I felt wasn't too bad in the moment.

7. I envision them, gloriously, but I rarely respond directly to their stories. I do greatly enjoy especially fanart related to DF though - the fan art competition thread is a goldmine.

8. Not unless I keep the world, no. With the changes made after 31.18 and the problems of finding good embarks, I usually end up destroying worlds after one or two embarks. Ideally, I'd want to keep a world and have it progress, so it'd be able to form a long, semi-coherent story, but simple frustration due to finding good sites has put that off for now.

9. Drawing, gaming (digital and otherwise) as well as continuing on my RPG / low fantasy project. Working at a library, with a bachelors in media studies.

[skrimshander]

Thanks a lot everyone!

[nenjin]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

1. Spurts about every 2 to 3 months. Some of that is dependent on Toady's update schedule.

2. Sharing stories, comparing notes, providing assistance, problem solving or generally being supportive of whatever whacky fun they feel like talking about.

3. Every day, in depth.

4. DF has enough detail in it that whether or not a player is actively seeking out a narrative, one can assemble a narrative just from the different bits of information provided. I guess what I'm saying is DF provides a narrative structure and all the player has to do is insert some emotional context into what's happened to make a story.

5. Graphical tilesets, 3rd party music programs and sound effects, visualizers, detailed world viewers. About the only thing I don't use are mods that modify raws.

6. Occasionally.

7. With encouragement and appreciation. And probably some off-color DF humor.

8. Tough question. I would say yes....but not to the extent it's self-evident yet. Occasionally you'll see goods from other fortress, or meet people from other fortresses. But you have to take a few extra steps to make that happen. Worlds can be so large and have had so much past history that it can be hard to get a sense of any agency that you've had. I think that's why mega-projects are so popular. It's something you can visit and point to and say "that's because of me!" But changing the course of civ history, radically altering the landscape....world gen doesn't move forward much if at all after creation without a lot of painstaking labor from the player. So yes, there's some tangible evidence of stuff I've done, but it takes a lot of work to see it, and the impact sometimes doesn't feel like it was worth the effort.

9. Gaming of pretty much all kinds. History, anthropology, computer science, a bit of programming, drawing.

[Graebeard]

1. I play in spurts.  While I was in school I played about 20 hours a week when I was into it.  Now that I'm working it's hard for me to do more than 3-4 hours per week.

2. I interact with players mostly through this forum and through succession games.  I've tried getting my friends hooked, but with the exception of the person that got me into DF, no one I know has been able to really give it a go.

3. See above.  Most of my meatspace friends know I love this game, and we talk about it sometimes, but 98% of the time I'm online when I'm talking about it.

4.  I approach the game from more of an architectural standpoint.  When I tell a story it's definitely something that I feel I need to impose.  That said, once I start looking for a story, the level of detail in the game makes it really easy to find/make material.

5.  No, I almost exclusively play the vanilla install.  The one exception was that I would play the Dig Deeper mod for 40d for the added challenge back before DF 2010 came out.  Now, though, I feel like the difficulty level is perfect without any changes.

6.  Only in the context of succession games.  Like I said above, I prefer megaprojects and interesting architectural projects to writing narratives or creating my own art.

7.  I used to spend quite a bit of time reading through succession and community fortress threads.  I've cut that down in the last year or two because (1) I have much less time now and (2) I felt that a lot of the material I was reading got to be repetitive or derivative.  I do still run across well-written stories that I really love, though.

8.  Only when playing multiple succession fortresses with the same players.  Actually, that's one of my favorite parts: seeing how people I "know" online deal with different situations.

9.  My interests are pretty broad.  I have the standard dorky interests in science fiction, comic books, video games, manga/anime, board games.  I love to ski.  I consider myself something of a foodie.  I'm a corporate/securities attorney at a large law firm, so the 70 hour weeks I've been working since finishing school last year haven't left me with much time to enjoy my hobbies (other than food).

[GreatWyrmGold]

1. I try to play more or less constantly, but in practice I play more sporadically. Recently, more because I've been working on my Savages' Stronghold mod.

2. Occasional succession/community games, when I don't have mods or RL things to work on; I also work on mods occasionally, like my current project, before releasing them to the public. I also read and write interesting stories.

3. Sometimes. My brother hates it (he's more of an FPS type, but I've occasionally convinced him to play a little...not that he ever has for more than a couple in-game weeks), and a few of my friends seem vaguely interested.

4. Yes, of course.

5. Not really.

6. Yep. I was working on an ongoing story called "Theft from a Tower," but it's fallen kinda by the wayside.

7. Usually positively, or by posts, depending on what exactly you mean.

8. Not really, except for some exceptions, like if I reclaim forts or try throwing more adventurers at a task. Of couse, I usually delete worlds partway through their first fortress.

9. Fantasy, sci-fi, science (especially biology), tabletop role-playing games, a couple other computer games, literature (especially classic sci-fi), and...those are the big ones.

You're welcome.

[Antalia]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

1. I go in spurts. I get a great idea for a fortress, I spend a few weeks building and running it, and then I abandon it when the challenge or interest dries up. (Or sometimes recently, I just lose.) So I often play a few weeks or months, then take a few weeks or months off.

2. I wrote a utility that I shared with other players, and I participate in the forum. Otherwise it's a solo show for me.

3. Yes. My husband doesn't play, but I write and tell stories of my fortresses to him. (He requests them.) Usually the main purpose of forts I've built is to help create a good story.

4. Oh yes.

5. I use Mike Mayday's tileset to save on my eyes, and sometimes I play fitting music if there is a great battle, or a tantrum spiral, or a megaproject about to be finished. I also use some assistant utilities. Before I had them, I used to create spreadsheets to help manage my forts. Now I just use an evidence book and a pen, with the utilities.

6. I haven't shared entire tales publicly, but I often feel like there's one or two I should have. I do share my stories with people in real life who are interested. Which is pretty much just my husband. I find even people who are otherwise really into CRPGs try to change the subject when there's any mention of DF.

7. If I like something someone else has posted about the game, I often read it aloud or show it to my husband, who is very interested in DF stories. I usually don't leave a comment on other people's work, since others already covered what I would say. I also like to read mod descriptions, and I usually leave a comment on the rare occasion that I download one.

8. I don't--but I haven't abandoned a fort in DF2012 yet (where the residents can show up in a subsequent fort). I also tend not to abandon forts, because sometimes I've done something in them that I will probably forget how to do again later--or I just want to retain access to the map to go along with a story. So I tend to create a new world to go with a new fort--I basically kill off historical cohesiveness myself.

9. I was introduced to fantasy novels a few years ago. My favorite ones I've read are probably Robin Hobb's Assassin trilogy, and Patrick Rothfuss' Kingkiller Chronicles. For sci-fi I've found recently that I really like Peter F. Hamilton. I don't really watch movies because I don't find them involving, and because I usually get an overpowering sense (from movies after the early 80s anyway) that I'm not the right demographic for them. (I'd probably be even more off-put if I noticed I was the right demographic.) For games, I play D&D 4e every month or so with a group of real life friends (I play a female dwarf, with a background in swashbuckling as a ship's priest). I am usually more interested in modding or writing assistants for computer games, than actually playing them. I played MMOs in their early history, but I don't anymore because I find players so cruel. Fields of expertise...I know a number of programming languages, I have absorbed more education than anyone needs in higher math, I like to write, and I've been a systems analyst and technical writer.

[Uristocrat]

1. How often do you play? Is Dwarf Fortress a fairly consistent activity or do you go in spurts?

Spurts.  When I have little time, I hardly play at all.  When I have time, I play a lot.

2. Given that this is a strictly single-player game (succession games notwithstanding), how do you interact with other players?

The forums and, to a lesser degree, the wiki.

3. Do you ever play/discuss the game with friends in real life?

Very rarely.  My cousin's kids are the only ones who even play and I don't see them that often.

4.Do you feel a sense of narrative—a "story unfolding" if you will—while playing or is that something to actively seek out?

It's something you have to create, at least for me.  Sure, there's a lot beyond my control, but I feel like I'm the one directing things to a large degree.

5. Do you augment your own playing experience in any way (graphic tilesets, outside music, etc.)?

Just the Mayday tileset + DF hack & therapist.

6. Do you create and share your own DF stories/art?

Does having a box full of Saguaro rib wood from investigating RL material properties for DF count?

7. How do you respond to stories/narratives/illustrations that other people have posted?

I like to read them to get a sense of how other people play the game.

8. Besides the fact that multiple fortresses can exist in the same generated world, do you feel a kind of historical cohesiveness between multiple games?

I usually do one fortress per world, so not really.  I'm generally trying to build something, rather than exploring the local history, so I don't spend much time in legends mode.

9. What other interests do you have? Books/movies/games/fields of expertise?

Most of my other interests have to do with computers & games.

[Starver]

Haven't read any other replies (first one excepting, which may have a point - but I'm not sure), save to see that people have done...  Hopefully I'm not just repeating.

1. How often do you play? Is Dwarf Fortress a fairly consistent activity or do you go in spurts?
I think 'spurts' covers it.  When I do, often obsessively, and then I may appreciate this (or have something else to obsess over, or even stop procrastinating about something else) and cut it back a whole lot.  Currently I'm in a low-activity period, but still do an hours or two of gameplay per session (probably between a month and a season's-worth of in-game time, given my micromanagement).

2. Given that this is a strictly single-player game (succession games notwithstanding), how do you interact with other players?Purely via this forum, in matters DF-related and otherwise.  No sharing of forts.  I have so far uploaded one map to the usual resource, and consider that this as far too low a "paying it back" contribution to the community.

3. Do you ever play/discuss the game with friends in real life?
Rarely.  Friends, relatives and colleagues have been talked to about aspects of the games.  One friend complains that searches for Warhammer-style Dwarves' fortress designs is hard to Google and considers me mad to play this.  Colleagues tend to ask "Are you killing dwarves again?" whenever I've got anything (could be Kingdom of Loathing, various other web-games, a MUD that I play) on my screen, in a way they intend to be annoying (as a comparison, they also ask "Have you done it yet?", of anybody and everybody, without specifying what "it" is... or caring...  you've got to have a duck's back around here... ).  I may mention DF-style geology to family, but then we've got a bit of an armchair-geology vibe going on in my family (among other things).

I may have persuaded a couple of people to start up DF (although one of these was already heavily into Minecraft, so I suspect he's not stuck with it).

4.Do you feel a sense of narrative—a "story unfolding" if you will—while playing or is that something to actively seek out?
I'm going to say "no", here.  I've too much of a designer-mentality.  There is an aim and a plan, and unexpected events are an impediment to this, while events that are anticipated (though uncertain) are catered for by said plans.  OTOH, occasionally I've had a tale I can tell.  Even if it's only speculation about "Ninja Hippos!" as what's happening for a given bug.  (Search for it. )

5. Do you augment your own playing experience in any way (graphic tilesets, outside music, etc.)?
Raw, native DF, only.  Minor configuration changes only (water-depths as numbers is the most relevant to this question, plus expanding from 80x25 to 120x50 tiles on the window).

6. Do you create and share your own DF stories/art?
Apart from the aforementioned map and the occasional long-winded and not necessarily on-topic anecdote, not really.  I find myself rather asocial, in this regard, despite the general volume of my contributions to the forum.

7. How do you respond to stories/narratives/illustrations that other people have posted?
I laugh, I cry, I...  Well, maybe I laugh.  I quite enjoy tales told with the intention of providing Schadenfreude (sp?).  I also appreciate screenshots (though can struggle a bit to understand parts of some non-default tileset versions).

8. Besides the fact that multiple fortresses can exist in the same generated world, do you feel a kind of historical cohesiveness between multiple games?Well.. they can't, not at the same time.  Insofar as active player-structures, anyway.

But, aside from that, I generate new worlds for new versions of the game, there's quite a few abandoned (or, rather, discontinued, but still playable) worlds in my own playing history.  I appreciate each individual history, but apart from per fortress-instance (while ever it's played) or Adventurer career (as long as I play him), I really don't consider it anything other than "worlds with (roughly!) the same physical laws and societal norms".  I may copy a worldgen so that I can Adventure and Fortress-build in the same land, but not in any way that interactions occur between the two.  I rarely abandon (as opposed to leave going mouldy, on my hard drive) a fortress embark, and so it's been a long time since I've (even accidentally) Adventurered onto a self-shaped area of landscape.

9. What other interests do you have? Books/movies/games/fields of expertise?
I'm probably a geek-of-all-seasons in both leisure and work.

Spoiler: You want long-winded details? (click to show/hide)

In literature I lean towards Terry Pratchett, but appreciate Tolkien.  Tom Clancy seems to have figured highly, though not much else that's military-nerd-like.   SF: Clarke, Asimov, naturally; but really anyone 'golden era' or of similar prestige (we're talking Simak, Bear, Vonnegut, (Alan Dean) Foster, (Kim Stanley) Robinson, I suppose), oh and definitely Neal Stephenson, but that list starts to look a bit US-centric, and how could I have forgetten H.G. Wells?

My radio channel (and primary daily entertainment fix) of preference is BBC Radio 7 4 Extra, which is self-styled as home for "Comedy, Drama and Sci-Fi" rebroadcasts and originals, and I range at least between Beyond Our Ken ('60s comedy-ensemble half-hour thing) and anything actually current.

I'm not one for TV at the moment (hard to watch TV while programming/game-playing/etc) but I suppose I'd put myself down as a passive fan of the current Doctor Who and the likes of comedy-topical-quiz-show-too-many-hyphens "Have I Got News For You" (which I see is back on the screens, but I haven't had chance to see it on iPlayer, yet), generally also with a similar preference to radio, given the chance.

Films you can ditto, biased towards the SF-front (and obviously without any 'current affairs' available).

In games, I tend to go for management games, with or without action.  Sim[City,etc], [The] Sims, XCOM-like's (e.g. UFO:AI).  But I also like flight-sims, from old-school Elite (including Oolite) that also have that "management" element, through to X-Plane where it's just pure flight and physics.  Not too fond of driving games (save for Carmageddon-likes), surprisingly.  I've wandered away from FPSs (consoles have spoiled these, IMO), although I do like the first-person Minecraft.  MUDs and other text-style adventures have an active place in my heart.

Expertise?  Well, I'm very much rounded across all aspects of IT, and padded out across a number of scientific disciplines, though I do not consider myself an expert in any particular subset.  The most I'd hope for is "competent professional" or "educated amateur" in the more prominent areas of my knowledge-base, such as computer security, programming, data processing, geographical sciences, microbiology, network installations, robotics (albeit the theory/simulation of dominates, here), and I'm definitely no more than an 'armchair' space-physicist.  Really, I'm probably spread far too thin, and rarely need to know the DNA/RNA base-pairs when I'm crimping RJ45 plugs onto Cat5/6/whatever cables, anyway, or the fracture modes of quartz when I'm trying to exclude regressions-towards-the-mean from a huge mound of collated data.