Minecraft and Dwarf Fortress: Different Takes on Living Worlds

After watching a ton of Minecraft being played on people with better machines than mine, I've really been thinking heavily about game ecologies, really digging Minecraft's logical discovery system-- and it's also struck me how building in the game's survival mode has a point to it, at least basically, because you have to learn some basic crafting and shelter making in order to have a reasonable chance of success.  That little element of conflict, that monsters are created in the dark places, is all it needs to drive you, which is really smart design.
 
I've actually managed to get Dwarf Fortress to work on a slightly more advanced, but offline, computer. Takes forever to load and save, and honestly, I feel like I'm either missing something, or that it still, after all the time I've spent avoiding it since I last played, has alienating problems in adventure mode that make it feel like it's tacked on. 

I only bother to compare the two because they both seem enamored with creating larger-than-you-can-reasonably-explore worlds, but Minecraft still manages, at least for a time, to make that exploration worth it, while Dwarf Fortress makes me sorta bitter that it took hours to track down a cave that my compass tells me is there but that I can't see, spending so much time trying to find the entrance that I eventually have to sleep, only to get throttled to death by a yeti.  
 
The randomness of Dwarf Fortress is charming, but the DEPTH of it is still shallow to me. Most people you meet get drunk in little boxes, don't have families, have conversations with you that are more rigid than the unduly criticized Morrowind list system, and are surrounded at all sides by wilderness so expansive an empty that the occasional action, when you accidentally attack a horse or witness a gopher being beheaded by an alligator, while funny or engaging, sort of makes you feel like the canvas is still blank.
 
As DF becomes an ever bigger beast, with its different controls for every page, its massive world with similar environments when you actually visit them, and the adventure mode, which seems secondary but is still featured like a full mode, I feel like I'll still have to go into hibernation again and wait for its creators to make the game more alive. The canvas is still inviting, though. The idea of more organization on the part of the inhabitants, and interactivity between the elements, is grand.  But I feel like the promise is better than what's actually delivered.  At least for now.  As far as actually building a fortress, which as the name suggests is the primary point of the game, I'm a bit too much into experimentation for that particular mode to appeal to me, I guess.  Other people proudly show off their intricate systems of caves, and I in turn am proud of them, but I can't quite imagine building something that has to follow such exacting specifications.
 
When compared to DF, Minecraft is not nearly as complex (the depth may feel deeper but there's almost no breadth, species are the same wherever you go, and the history of the world is limited to what you see), but I feel that it has just the right level of complexity, and it builds on itself as you learn more about how the world works.  The game is quite deadly, but experimentation is encouraged, and ingenuity is all but required.  It, like DF, has a platform upon which new features can be added with ease by its creator, making new inventions just a few weeks away.  But what's neat is that all of these discoveries and creations build organically from the physics of the world.  Water and lava don't act quite right, but as you learn their rules, they act in a predictable manner that can be controlled. Monsters emerge from the depths in seeming chaos, but as you learn to cover your back with artificial or natural light, defend yourself, protect yourself, you grow as an adventurer and get braver, seeing more wonders along the way.
 
Minecraft, for all its charms, does eventually peak, and you're left with a construction set with quirks. I've watched a user get so bored with his creation that he deliberately abandons it and sets off in a random direction with inadequate supplies, and a in few sessions promptly gets his ass killed being stupid. I'm guessing that's why the Darwin Awards hold fascination with a lot of people; while the morbid followers of that particular kind of dark humor laugh at the stupidity of the dead, I think many of them realize that they could have easily gone in that direction, if they'd been so desperate for stimulation that tying balloons to a chair and taking a ride suddenly seemed like a cool idea.  Eventually, Minecraft runs out of things for you to do, and you're left hoping that more things will be released which can combined with other things.
 
But for me, when comparing Minecraft and Dwarf Fortress in this way, I feel as though this hope for new features suggests all sorts of interesting combinations, while with Dwarf Fortress, the same sort of revelation may take much longer than a couple of weeks.  
 
Still, I hope both of these projects have continued success in the future because they're doing what computers do best: creating entire worlds with consistent behavior for us, as tiny little drops in that big old bucket, can slowly carve our way through, but in a safe way, free from the very real consequences that lie in wait for us beyond the computer screen.
 
If anyone has any other games they've come across with interesting ecologies to explore, please let me know in the comments.