Welcome!
This is intended to tell the stories of adventurers in the realm of Dwarf Fortress (one of the greatest time sinks in my opinion).
Note: The switch in forums has messed up some of the non-standard ASCII characters that I use to describe screenshots. Especially the "Ü"s are now shown as "A~". So don't get confused.
Short intro to Dwarf Fortress:
(Shamelessly stolen from wikipedia)
Slaves to Armok: God of Blood Chapter II: Dwarf Fortress (usually shortened to Dwarf Fortress) is a part roguelike, part city-building freeware video game set in a procedurally-generated high fantasy universe in which the player takes control of a group of dwarves and attempts to construct a successful and wealthy mountainhome. Along the way the player must face off with the dangers of their environment, invaders and sieges, vampires and other night creatures, and the occasional rampant megabeast, all while keeping their dwarves happy and their fortress alive. A second game mode, adventurer mode, places the player in the shoes of an adventurer as they wander the world and do battle with various creatures.
I encourage you to read the wikipedia entry as it sums the game up quite nicely and gives it some background.
Visit also the game's website and the very good wiki which is very useful to have open while playing.
I picked it up in an early alpha stage years ago when there still was no third dimension. The adventure modus was pretty useless back then, so I mainly played the fortress mode. It has a very steep learning curve and the UI is ..., well all ASCII. Back then I shelved the game as the fortress mode does not really have a goal and the newly introduced third dimensions made the UI even more of a pain.
I won't spoil anything by saying that it was not always a good idea to "dig too greedily and too deep"! But back then there were game mechanics that needed you to do exactly that eventually. But I was just a casual gamer and there were people out there that created fortresses that still are admired. Check out "Copperblazes" one of the most popular 2D fortresses ever. (This is btw a dedicated map viewer and archive for DF).
There are by now more and more external helping tools around taht make playing DF easier. For fortress mode the dwarf therapist is a must, I would say. It helps you manage your dwarves (up to 200 can be easily reached in a fortress). There are also "real time" 3D viewer.
But enough of that, this is for adventurer mode. I might do a thread about a fortress eventually. I know that succession games with DF have been tried here a couple of times but were suspended.
Also one thing to point out is that the fortress mode runs in real time, while the adventure mode is quasi turn based.
The idea of the adventure mode (again no clear game target is preset here) is to roam the world, discover its history, meet important and interesting NPC, fulfil some quests, kill some animals for food, get ambushed and die horribly.
The really interesting thing is that in theory you could play all your different fortresses and adventurers on the same map in successive order. (The game does not let you play a new fortress or adventurer on the same world if there is an active fortress game or active adventurer game ongoing.) You can for example create a nice fortress, mine iron, create steel, forge legendary steel swords, mine out adamantium, weave awesome adamantium armor and clothes. Then retire the fortress, create an adventurer, try to make your way to the fortress site and equip yourself with those weapons and clothes. Furthermore, after walking the wilderness for years (haha, more like several weeks only) and losing a leg and a kidney, you can retire your adventurer in a hamlet and create a new one in the same world. Then seek out the old adventurer and try to convince him to join you.
In all that time history and stuff goes on and is tracked by the game.
Countless possibilities!
And if you read on the developers objectives, this will get more and more complex and immersive (?) with each release.
I hope to draw more interest from the RB crowd to Dwarf Fortress, as those guys live from donations and I would love to set up a new SG style fortress eventually. There is even a "Fill the museum" kind of SG game ongoing over at the DF forums, where people pick up the game after one other and play adventurers to find interesting artifacts and stuff to fill a "museum". After each adventurers death the next player starts. And death or FUN as it is known in the DF universe comes quick and in countless ways!!! :D
Feel free to ask me any question and I will answer what I can.
One thing I would like to advise:
Should you decide to give DF a try, I strongly suggest you refrain from reading any spoilers in the wiki.
Trying and dying is the main thing in DF, especially as it is pretty much intended to be played ironman.
mh
This is intended to tell the stories of adventurers in the realm of Dwarf Fortress (one of the greatest time sinks in my opinion).
Note: The switch in forums has messed up some of the non-standard ASCII characters that I use to describe screenshots. Especially the "Ü"s are now shown as "A~". So don't get confused.
Short intro to Dwarf Fortress:
(Shamelessly stolen from wikipedia)
Slaves to Armok: God of Blood Chapter II: Dwarf Fortress (usually shortened to Dwarf Fortress) is a part roguelike, part city-building freeware video game set in a procedurally-generated high fantasy universe in which the player takes control of a group of dwarves and attempts to construct a successful and wealthy mountainhome. Along the way the player must face off with the dangers of their environment, invaders and sieges, vampires and other night creatures, and the occasional rampant megabeast, all while keeping their dwarves happy and their fortress alive. A second game mode, adventurer mode, places the player in the shoes of an adventurer as they wander the world and do battle with various creatures.
I encourage you to read the wikipedia entry as it sums the game up quite nicely and gives it some background.
Visit also the game's website and the very good wiki which is very useful to have open while playing.
I picked it up in an early alpha stage years ago when there still was no third dimension. The adventure modus was pretty useless back then, so I mainly played the fortress mode. It has a very steep learning curve and the UI is ..., well all ASCII. Back then I shelved the game as the fortress mode does not really have a goal and the newly introduced third dimensions made the UI even more of a pain.
I won't spoil anything by saying that it was not always a good idea to "dig too greedily and too deep"! But back then there were game mechanics that needed you to do exactly that eventually. But I was just a casual gamer and there were people out there that created fortresses that still are admired. Check out "Copperblazes" one of the most popular 2D fortresses ever. (This is btw a dedicated map viewer and archive for DF).
There are by now more and more external helping tools around taht make playing DF easier. For fortress mode the dwarf therapist is a must, I would say. It helps you manage your dwarves (up to 200 can be easily reached in a fortress). There are also "real time" 3D viewer.
But enough of that, this is for adventurer mode. I might do a thread about a fortress eventually. I know that succession games with DF have been tried here a couple of times but were suspended.
Also one thing to point out is that the fortress mode runs in real time, while the adventure mode is quasi turn based.
The idea of the adventure mode (again no clear game target is preset here) is to roam the world, discover its history, meet important and interesting NPC, fulfil some quests, kill some animals for food, get ambushed and die horribly.
The really interesting thing is that in theory you could play all your different fortresses and adventurers on the same map in successive order. (The game does not let you play a new fortress or adventurer on the same world if there is an active fortress game or active adventurer game ongoing.) You can for example create a nice fortress, mine iron, create steel, forge legendary steel swords, mine out adamantium, weave awesome adamantium armor and clothes. Then retire the fortress, create an adventurer, try to make your way to the fortress site and equip yourself with those weapons and clothes. Furthermore, after walking the wilderness for years (haha, more like several weeks only) and losing a leg and a kidney, you can retire your adventurer in a hamlet and create a new one in the same world. Then seek out the old adventurer and try to convince him to join you.
In all that time history and stuff goes on and is tracked by the game.
Countless possibilities!
And if you read on the developers objectives, this will get more and more complex and immersive (?) with each release.
I hope to draw more interest from the RB crowd to Dwarf Fortress, as those guys live from donations and I would love to set up a new SG style fortress eventually. There is even a "Fill the museum" kind of SG game ongoing over at the DF forums, where people pick up the game after one other and play adventurers to find interesting artifacts and stuff to fill a "museum". After each adventurers death the next player starts. And death or FUN as it is known in the DF universe comes quick and in countless ways!!! :D
Feel free to ask me any question and I will answer what I can.
One thing I would like to advise:
Should you decide to give DF a try, I strongly suggest you refrain from reading any spoilers in the wiki.
Trying and dying is the main thing in DF, especially as it is pretty much intended to be played ironman.
mh
"You have been struck down!" - Tales of Dwarf Fortress
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"moby_harmless seeks thee not. It is thou, thou, that madly seekest him!"
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"moby_harmless seeks thee not. It is thou, thou, that madly seekest him!"
![[Image: worldgraphicelregion312.png]](http://imageshack.us/a/img824/6641/worldgraphicelregion312.png)
![[Image: worldgraphicelregion312.png]](http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/6641/worldgraphicelregion312.png)
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![[Image: descriptiongs.png]](http://imageshack.us/a/img715/9559/descriptiongs.png)
