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[EmperorNuthulu]

My earliest memory was embarking with a perfect location and wondering why I couldn't find any flux. GUESS WHO DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO GET INTO THE Z LEVEL BELOW THEM?

[Ancre]

I discovered Dwarf Fortress in 2007 or 2008 I think. I remember starting with 40d, and not having much problems figuring out what was going on - I might have worked with internet resources (maybe even the wiki) and I know I used and abused the 'k' key. I remember doing a quite compact fortress and that my expedition leader was ashamed to conduct a meeting in the dining room - what's wrong with my dining room ? it's huge and it got lots of tables and chairs in it, you should not be ashamed, you should be proud of what you did little dwarf ! I for sure was proud of what I did back then.

I played a lot, made lots of fortresses and soon abandoned and started over because it was never quite perfect, then I stopped playing for a year or so, then started playing again, then stopped and here am I now starting again.

[Raging Mouse]

I don't remember my earliest fort. It probably didn't last more than five minutes of RL play anyhow -I most likely discovered I'd made an error I didn't know how to handle and decided to try again with a fresh fort elsewhere. I think that went on for 10-12 forts.

My first memorable fort was built next to a magma pipe. Magma workshops and obsidian swords were the most awesome thing in the world. That was the first fort where I actually managed to mass-produce iron bars. Then, while digging a channel for a magma moat, I learned that liquids can also flow through a corner as I clipped an underground room -my iron stockpile. I noticed when I started getting messages of "Interrupted clean room: dangerous terrain" and "Urist mc. moltenironhandler has died from the heat"

I sat in front of my computer, feeling like the world's biggest fool, and decided to donate to Toady for the first time.

[du3lingdragon]

My first real memory, is visiting the Dwarf Fortress website, seeing the backround, and thinking WTF. I exited as fast as my mouse could click. Then 2 weeks later i decided to play, starved to death in the first year and loved the game forever afterwards

[Svarte Troner]

Back in late 2009 or so, I was looking for a WWI game cause I was really fascinated by the period. I stumbled upon WWI Medic and checked out the rest of toady's games. I downloaded DF and embarked on like a swamp area or something. I was mesmerized by the little things running around for probably ten minutes and then came a zombie beak dog.

After I got used to the game, my first real fort was at the edge of an ocean with about a 40x40 area that was actually land. I dug out all my little rooms right next to the ocean and then decided it would be nice to have a little pool in the center of the fort. I dug through the dirt in between my bedrooms and the ocean and pretty much all my dwarves drowned except the ones who were locked inside there rooms (which starved to death).

[Catastrophic lolcats]

Went over to my friend's place and saw he was playing with some funny little ascii game. I asked him what he was playing and he informed me he had no fucking idea and that the name of the game was "Dwarf Fortress". After a few moments he rage quit and went back to watching tv.

6 months later after buying Gmod I went on the Facepunch forums to find out why I just wasted 10 dollars. Got bored of trying to figure out what lasting appeal Gmod had and decided to see what these crazies thought a good game was.

After reading an abridged version of Boatmurdered and the complexity of the game I decided to test it out. Downloading 40D off the site, installed Guybrush and Dystopian graphic set (ended up going to ascii after a few games) Got a couple of tutorials off the net and started to learn how to play.

Although learning how to play, I never bothered to start a real fort ... up until I embarked on a glacier. Using the wiki as my bible I managed to collapse a chunk of ice to irrigate an under ground farm and supply my injured dorfs with water.
Ended up quitting that fortress after I created a tower barracks and a massive pyramid with a central shaft to throw goblins and kittens into ... after you've done that there isn't much a noob can go with no lava or water on the map 

[monk12]

I started playing October 2009, if my timestamps in that folder are to be believed. I'd heard about it before then from the now-defunct Computer Games Magazine (I miss that mag.) It had a bunch of free games in it, and I was playing through them since I'm a cheap bastard and didn't have the scratch to upgrade my system to accommodate newer games.

I don't really remember my first fort apart from completely failing to understand z-lvls and soil layers- I was playing out of the wiki at that point (and I still am, to be honest) and was following the Your First Fort Guide; for the life of me I couldn't figure out how to dig, since I thought the unmined rock was only the black space- I didn't realize my designations had to cover the borders to give my dorfs access.

What really stands out in my memory is my first true fort, where it suddenly clicked. I'm as stubborn as I am cheap, so I'd been plugging away at this game for about four hours, and suddenly it MADE SENSE. I could see the grass, and the walls, and the trees and the hills. I knew what tiles were significant and which I could safely ignore. It was a feeling I hadn't had since I was 8 years old playing Age of Empires for the first time, when I didn't understand the concept of a tutorial. A big part of what got me into the game (and keeps me coming back) is the sense of discovery, of learning new things about the world, especially since those new things are internally consistent and predictable- rather like a particularly clever riddle.

My first true fort fell not to starvation, or goblins, or tantrums, but to sturgeons. This was back in 40d, and my dwarves would chop down the willows by the river and then the haulers would get dragged in by the fish. After I lost half my dwarves before I figured out what was going on, I abandoned and went on to make a new fort with my newfound understanding of the game. I played more or less constantly for almost a year, and every month or so I'll go on another binge when I get the urge to build, or when a new release promises new features.

[Krelos]

The first time I heard about DF I went and googled for screenshots to see what it looked like and promptly decided I wasn't that desperate.

A few months later I heard about it again, and decided to give it a real look this time. I pretty much immediately knew I'd never really enjoy playing in ASCII mode, so I got Mayday's and started it up.
I spent several hours reading the wiki and (after learning that, no, you really can't embark on a 16x16 site) soon had a lovely little fortress going next to a volcano. I used screwpumps to get water from the river and solidify the top of the vent and filled it in 2 Z's deep with water, and set about building a pure Olivine tower in the center, which connected to the fortress via bridge about 6 levels above the water.
I think I had more than 12 "farmers" going, since I didn't yet realize that 2 is optimal. I think I was out of wood as well, and that there wasn't nearly enough beds to go around, and all my barrels got filed with plants, so everyone was drinking water from the vent-lake.
One favorite memory from that first fort was when someone went melancholy and walked out to the end of the unfinished bridge and jumped to his death.

It all ended shortly after I turned on invasions, and my stonefall traps proved to be less effectual than I had hoped. It didn't help that I didn't know to forbid them, so my dwarves all ran out to reload them, with their own corpses.

[Dr. D]

I started the game up, and could not for the life of me figure out how to dig (or switch between z-levels). So I abandoned.

The next fortress I did okay, had a lot of silver, and was looking for something to smith into weapons. I rage-quit that fortress after I trapped one of my miners.

The next one I rage-quit after my legendary axe dwarf dodged into a murky pool.

Since then I have gotten better about that.

I since reclaimed the first fortress and dug out the HFS for shits and giggles. Oh, everything's on fire! Neat!

[analog]

Aaaaaah, back in the 2D days!
When your farmers would constantly risk being swept away by the seasonal floods because you were too lazy (or ignorant) to dig channels.
Where your miners faced many cave-ins because you were too lazy (or just plain stupid) to figure out when a room went over the 7X7 mark.
Where most forts would always be CAREFULLY planned but in the end you HAD NO FREAKING ROOM FOR MORE SLEEPING QUARTERS.

[Angel Of Death]

One of my memories was "Jesus Christ, armour makes you a living tank!". Ahhh... The memory that made me switch to Genesis mod.

[Strife26]

I remember the good old 2d days, mostly that I had a main room that was 8x8. It kept collapsing and I kept digging it out again. I repeated until half of my dwarves were dead (and both picks were gone). Good times.

[Pukako]

I must have found it 2 or so years ago - 31.12. 

Looked at it for a while, had NO idea what was going on, and left it alone.  At this stage I was playing Stars! (http://wiki.starsautohost.org/wiki/Stars!_FAQ) a lot.

Then, a few months or more later, I found the story of Boatmurdered on the Nodwick blog - looked at my version, did a search, and found version 16. Also got a 64 bit computer, and Stars! doesn't run on these...

No idea again, found this forum (which is the BEST forum for any game out there), CaptainDuck's tutorials, and sort-of worked out things from there.  And there we are....

[Ethicalfive]

I was searching for roguelikes, having heavily played ADOM and nethack for a number of years before taking a break, I figured there must be something equaly good, if not better around by now. Found DF and though it sounded pretty interesting. Fired it up. Managed to make it to embark. Then for the life of me could not figure out how to make my dwarfs do anything. Built a farm but they wouldn't farm it(didn't know the q menu sets the seasonal plantings)! Then rage quit. A week or 2 later I decided to give it another shot. This time I looked for some tutorials and found captnducks video tutorials and after many hours I finally grasped the concept and have been loving the game ever since.

I know toady doesn't want to work on a better menu system yet, but damn, I wonder how many potential donations he's lost because of people giving up before they really even begin.

[MasterMorality]

It took me at least two or three fortresses before I even knew there were Z levels. I was endlessly confused when the map just randomly changed as people did stuff from a whole page to just this random bit of land surrounded by nothing.