Myths or rumors you've heard about Dwarf Fortress? (myth busting)

[True Guesser, Wand Bearer, etc.]

I feel it's safe to say the game has achieved akin to cult status over the years. No doubt you've heard stories, not all of which are accurate. I invite you to share any information you've read or heard about the game that you want clarified. I will answer what I can, but I know at least a few regulars lurk here as well.

[1gnis]

myth: dwarf fortress is fun.
reality: its FUN, not fun. There's a difference

[TeddyyBrosevelt]

Myth: Dwarf Fortress is a hard/very hard/ extremly hard game that always tries to kill you.
Reality: The beginning "difficulty" in dwarf fortress is figuring out how to navigate the UI and figure out what it is your looking at (or find a texture pack)

After that you can VERY EASILY have a fully self sufficient fort with a few dwarves in a very short time. You can easily wall yourself off from any threats ever in a way the AI will never be able to handle. The fun and difficulty comes from trying new things, doing things differently, setting goals for yourself, and/or sometimes intentionally not doing things (aka allowing your base to be a bit more "penetrable", not giving your dwarves natural access to X supplies/materials). Infinite fun and infinite possibilities. Keep trying new things in new locations with different limitations and/or goals

[clinodev]

Agreed, DF isn't "Hard", and certainly not "Dark Souls" hard like the memes go. The world's not even especially out to get you until after you start convincing other civs and sites that you're a threat. I personally like peaceful forts full of architectural marvels, and I usually have quite a lot of gameplay in a fortress before even the evil, aggressive civs start probing at the gates.

It is, however, enormously complex. It's not rare to hear many year players mention they've never followed this or that industrial chain all the way through. People lose forts for want of soap to clean wounds because the multiple steps and industries required intimidate them, which is a shame, since the only thing that can "go wrong" is that you missed a step and still have to do it. There are no failed batches! It's a "keep the wiki open" game.

[Skinny Pete]

It's only "hard," after the initial extreme learning curve, you figure out basic survival, if you go out of your way to make it hard. You can deliberately generate a horrifying world of death, then pick the most dangerous place in it, and you will have a bad time, or as we prefer to call it, !!FUN!!.

You can also create a nearly idyllic, peaceful world, packed full of natural resources and then just build stuff in it.

I generally prefer in the middle, starting with a resource-rich world and then picking a volcano as a location, but putting it near necromancer towers or in the middle of a war zone, so I have a good steel industry and therefore good weapons and armor, but also things to use them on.

Most of my forts get rekt. And this is !!FUN!!.

[mr_pan7s]

apparently the myth here is whether the game is hard or not lmao. I believe it is both hard to learn and a hard game. but there isn't anything wrong with that. someone mentions it's not like dark souls but they must be playing in fairly peaceful areas. i don't even go hardcore and can easily get crushed by a single forgotten beast or run into a tantrum spiral. get a raid of goblins at the wrong time you are not prepared for. most the tactics for defending against the threats is to make an impassible wall they can't come through and thats not facing the challenge but cheesing it in my opinion. and there is nothing wrong with that but it is hard. i'm humble enough to admit myself. i have played plenty of forts for 10's of years as well as had them fail in the first. it's all in what you are trying to do

[em312s0n]

Werewolves. Ive seen werepigs, werepandas, werelizards etc but never werewolves lol