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[Argembarger]

I picked up Dwarf Fortress around late July-early August of 2010.

At the time, I had never heard it before. Also, I was recovering from major jaw surgery.

For 6 weeks I was on an entirely liquid diet and not allowed to do anything more physically straining than carrying a gallon of water, carefully. Not to mention my jaw was in crazy amounts of pain, even with some pretty strong doses of painkiller several times a day.

About a week into this ordeal, after lots of internet-surfing, I came across Dwarf Fortress by chance. I don't really remember what I was looking for at the time, but I ended up on the Bay12 Games home page. I was rather intrigued.

I downloaded Dwarf Fortress and started playing it. I didn't have a clue what was going on, and I don't remember which version it was. I taught it to myself from scratch, over the course of about a week, maybe a week and a half. Every time I played, I learned something new. Every time I played, my fortress crumbled for a different reason, whether starvation, thirst, siege, tantrum spiral, or forgotten beast attack.

It was utterly engrossing, trying to work out all the little logistical management issues with my dwarves, and dealing with their dwarfiness and their desire to go on break rather than bring crafts to the trade depot.

Dwarf Fortress gave me something to think about besides my hunger and mouth-pain. It kept me occupied and happy for those 6 long weeks.

I remember the first fortress I consider a success, in that it didn't crumble as a result of my inexperience. Instead, it crumbled due to a sudden case of rampant FUN.

It was around week 5, and I had been starting to feel better, both physically and in my DF abilities. I had dug out a meager fortress, around 30 dwarfs strong, with a 7 dwarf military. I had already repelled some minor goblin attacks, and trade was good. My dwarfs were content enough to throw parties, and because I had a strong surplus of food and booze, I didn't really mind. I let them have their fun.

Then, suddenly, for no reason at all, Urist McRandomPsycho picked up a -dolomite statue- and hurled it across the table, injuring several dwarfs and killing my outpost leader. Urist McRandomPsycho then started chasing dwarfs through my fortress, beating them to death with his bare hands.

The party raged on. They were determined to party. It would break up briefly when Urist McPsycho would charge back in, but every time he left (to beat a hapless farmer to death in an isolated dead end of my fortress) they would party again.

The worst part was that my entire military was participating in this party.

At the time, I didn't realize you could undesignate the dining hall to break up the party by force, so I felt pretty helpless to stop it.

Then, while all this was going on, there was a goblin siege. 12 speargoblins stormed into my rioting fortress (which, at this point, there were 3 berserking dwarfs (due to best friends murdered by the first one, and my lack of a royal dining hall to supplicate them)).

I thought, hey, awesome. Maybe the berserkers and goblins will take each other out and let me salvage this fort.

Nope, turns out goblins and berserk dwarfs are best buddies, at least when there are sane, rational dwarfs around.

There was so much blood that day.


....

I think I'm going to donate to Toady once my next paycheck comes in.

[Terrahex]

I haven't actually come to the point yet of where all my dwarves have been killed. I only stop because of low framerate.

my earliest memories include the regular graphics and me trying to figure out what the heck was going on. my dwarves didn't have the chance to die becuase a friend who refered me to dwarf fortress told me about the graphics pack and now after about five monthes of playing, I am so better than him.

Ironically, I already was on this site before playing DF because I liked roll to dodge games.

[Double A]

I accidentally made a column that stretched from the top of a cavern to the bottom implode, killing two miners and losing both picks. Goooood times.

[slink]

My earliest DF memory is of downloading some graphics version from somewhere else because I was leery of that screen with all the blood dripping down it on this website.  This graphics version would play fine until I built a room.  Then it always crashed.  I suppose the download was missing one or more files.  Judging from the date on my 40d zip file, I finally downloaded a proper version in the Autumn of 2008.  I downloaded it from here, despite the lurid screen, and discovered that the game was much, much more than dripping blood.   

[Omegastick]

I used to hang around on the Picture Wars forums and back then they all played DF, after about a year being there I naturally had a go at DF and gave up after five minutes. A week later I had another go and found a tutorial on how to start and I picked up the game within a week after that.

Funnily enough I've only had one fortress end because everyone died, and that was death from thirst and one person was killed by a frogman (or something like that). I had the outpost going well to start with but suddenly noticed that I had no plants to make booze and that it was winter. I dug for the underground river as fast as I could and by the time I made it there all but one of my dwarves were dead. A frogman (or whatever) promptly jumped out of the river and killed my last dwarf.

[darkflagrance]

My earliest DF memory is of downloading some graphics version from somewhere else because I was leery of that screen with all the blood dripping down it on this website.  This graphics version would play fine until I built a room.  Then it always crashed.  I suppose the download was missing one or more files.  Judging from the date on my 40d zip file, I finally downloaded a proper version in the Autumn of 2008.  I downloaded it from here, despite the lurid screen, and discovered that the game was much, much more than dripping blood.   

This is exactly why I waited for months after reading the Tale of Boatmurdered and digesting the wiki to download this game: that screen/title combination is/was easily one of the major barriers to entry that this game possesses.

[Zrk2]

Staring at the screen and going WTF mate? Then playing through undecisives illustratedd tutorial. Then running a for with 1 tile wide halls and no goblins. In 38c, I think.

[tehc]

Trying to follow captainduck's tutorial, then becoming completely confused when he started making shit at a mason's workshop. It just wouldn't work for me. Figured out later he chose a biome that was half mountain half forest so that he could dig into a hill made of stone. I was digging into sand and naturally didn't have any stone.

[Burnt Pies]

Watching indescipherable symbols move around on my screen while trying to figure out how to open the menus. Also not thinking to look for tutorials anywhere. Lost interest for a while, then picked it back up, I don't remember why. Lost my first fort to a Kobold Ambush, lost my second to thirst, lost my third to faulty harddrive.

[h3lblad3]

Started, I think late '09.
I don't even recall my first fortress. I just recall everyone starving to death because I had no clue what I was doing at all. At all. Nothing. Nil.

So I began referring to CapnDuck for everything I didn't know. Specifically, how to prevent starving.
Running water/lava. Fun stuff, y'know.

[Vercingetorix]

I found Dwarf Fortress in the summer of 2009 when I was doing a Google search for "sleeping dwarf" (I was looking up some stuff for Baldur's Gate 2) and the 40d page for Noise was one of the top results.  From there, I started reading the wiki and took the plunge.  Obviously, it was a nightmare when I first started playing but I found the Mayday graphics pack and started to learn the game.  I felt like I had graduated to actually "getting" the game when I was able to play using the ASCII.  I remember was quite happy when I built my first magma forge...and not so happy when I breached the eerie glowing pits.

Of course, since then it's been a pretty much ongoing process of refining my playing style and taking on new challenges.  I'm personally not too big a fan of megaprojects (I'm looking forward to the ongoing kingdom/civilization effects your fortresses can have) but I am a fan of watching my fort develop.  Even if it's just running in the background most of the time, accruing history is a fun process and I like to see it develop.

[Untelligent]

Trying to figure out why I couldn't build anything on Open Space or get dwarves to move there.

[TurnpikeLad]

I started playing back in September 2006.  Saw a thread on the Penny Arcade forums and realized that this was a game I was going to be playing for years and years to come.  I remember my first fort, setting my bedrooms up right next to the cliff face and figuring out how to irrigate a farm.  I was working at a cheese shop in Pike Place Market at the time, and I remember one day after staying up until five AM I was making sandwiches and arranging them in a grid on the counter just like in a dwarf stockpile.  I loved the quirky atmosphere of DF, and the challenge of keeping your dwarves fed and watered in the 2d game. 

I joined Something Awful because of the Boatmurdered thread, and I've been a member there for four years now.

[Grax]

Don't remember when i joined the community of dwarcomans, but i clearly remember times when the roofs were falling without supports, so in a newer version i digged multi-levels with a paranoid accuracy. ;-)

[Mickey Blue]

I started about two years ago or so (give or take), I had a job then that had a lot of downtime so I'd bring my laptop with me to surf the net and watch videos/whatever.  I remember having read a lot about Dwarf Fortress in reference on TV tropes site and eventually checked out the whole "Boatmurdered" thing. 

I downloaded it once, went "Wow.. I'll never be able to figure this out.." and dumped it.. Then a few months later when I was again bored I found (I forget how, but found a link for it somewhere) the fan made tutorial ("complete newbie guide..") and decided to give it another go, I was hooked since.

These days I generally play in a sort of wave motion, I'll spend a few months where its pretty much all I play, then I'll get out of it for a few months (either I'm busy in RL, or another game catches my eye, or I just decide I need a rest from building fortresses.. Fortri?) but I end up always coming back.

The best was shortly before the start of 2010 I started a new job and was super busy and really didn't have time for DF for several months, when I came back low and behold there was a whole new version out, not just an update but it had been changed in radical ways.. Needless to say those are the most fun, when you come back after being away and there is so much new stuff to see and do.

-MB