A complete rules book on the web

[FrEDa]

Wow, not being a manual or tutorial person myself I'm starting to wonder if my idea of having fun is somewhat different.

Half the fun of playing a game is to observe and think about how it works. Would a game be fun if you consulted 5 or 10 lists of effects, calculated the outcome of your action? That's why we have computers, to do that for us. Is it realistic for a "ruler" to know exactly what the results of an action will be? No. Trial and error, experience are the keys to a fun and realistic game (unless you play Solitaire or something).

So, in a manual (or in the case of Victoria also in the ingame text-over help) you explain the big picture. The player then have to educate himself in the finer details of the operations available. I don't see how having a 600 page manual with everything explained in detail (as in some board games) would do anything for a computer game.

But I guess there are two schools in this, the all-knowing-omnipotent school which says that only by knowing and calculating everything before taking an action the player gets satisfaction and the school-of-hard-knocks where you're banged untill you have created your own (constantly updated and changing) set of "how the world works" rules by which you enjoy the game.

I'm all for enjoying the journey to enlightenment, but I guess some of you are not. So my final question or observation is this :

Are you, the people who want big and mega-detailed manuals, also very fond of huge detailed board games. Meaning do you want computer games, especially strategic and historical ones to go back and become no more than a computer representation of the old school board games where a single turn could take weeks due to all the calculations? Cuz that's the feeling I get from many of the posts in this thread.

Or perhaps it's simple, you lack the time to delve into a game to discover things and thus prefer the shortcut of reading to skill level 5?


As always, ignore me if I smell of bad cheese..

/F

 

[unmerged(22240)]

I agree with Sernaton

And I don't buy into the small company statement either. Maddox 1C is also a small company. In terms of product *far* smaller than Paradox. It has only two products. Il2 Strumovik, and Il2 Strumovik: Forgotten Battles.

Both are flight sims, a niche market. And Eastern front flight sims at that. Even more of a niche market.

There has never been a complaint about the manuals. Or a patch so soon after release. And the patches have not rendered the manual useless.

 

[SR-71]

Lots of discussions

Hi!

There are lots of opinions I would like to discuss.

First, is about Paradox. I agree completely that seems to be "falling", exactly having a strange "rise and fall".

Explanation: EU2 is at present the best game of three (EU2, HOI and Vic) and I've NEVER needed to search anything in any forum to play it, and to enjoy complete DAYS of conquest and fun. And OF COURSE, the MANUAL was perfect, which hasn't detained me to make my own strategies, and discuss with my family and friends, so a good manual is NECESSARY.

Afterwards, appears HOI, that had stupid bugs and some uncomplete. Well, the manual was right too, and after some patches the game is very very good.

But now appears Vic, that has the same weaks that HOI but with a poor manual!

I think there's nothing wrong in recognize that the job is uncomplete and THEN COMPLETE IT . If people in forums think that needs a Manual revision, I think the right thing is to make it and not forget that, again, we're PLAYERS AND CUSTOMERS, and we want some support not only from kind people in forums, but also from the releaser of the game we paid for.

I repeat again, need an TXT file or PDF with addendums and FAQs, like other game producers. And the worst is, if you Paradox did perfectly well with EU2, why aren't you able to make with Vic?????

And I don't want an enormous book, only a simple explanation of HOW my actions run on the game.

Again: REMEMBER EU2!

Greetings

 

[unmerged(12680)]

Wow, not being a manual or tutorial person myself I'm starting to wonder if my idea of having fun is somewhat different.

Half the fun of playing a game is to observe and think about how it works. Would a game be fun if you consulted 5 or 10 lists of effects, calculated the outcome of your action? That's why we have computers, to do that for us. Is it realistic for a "ruler" to know exactly what the results of an action will be? No. Trial and error, experience are the keys to a fun and realistic game (unless you play Solitaire or something).

Would a real monarch have instant and total control over the occupation of every citizen in his realm? Would a real monarch even be able to check out exactly what is making every unhappy peasant unhappy? Would a real monarch reeducate every peasant to luxury carpenters/tailors as soon as he could? NO, this game is a game and not a simulation, as Paradox has stated (even though I would personally prefer a simulation...).
And what about the interface, or the lack of documentation about ìt? Would learning how to use it, or even understanding it, represent the young monarch learning to read and write?

So, in a manual (or in the case of Victoria also in the ingame text-over help) you explain the big picture. The player then have to educate himself in the finer details of the operations available. I don't see how having a 600 page manual with everything explained in detail (as in some board games) would do anything for a computer game.

A manual doesn't have to explain why button A is shaped like a box and button B like a circle, but I expect this to tell me what they do and how the game works. And funny about that big picture, the main failing of the manual wasn't that it didn't have enough detail (though it did fail to speak about some important things) but that it didn't tell how all this would fit together.

But I guess there are two schools in this, the all-knowing-omnipotent school which says that only by knowing and calculating everything before taking an action the player gets satisfaction and the school-of-hard-knocks where you're banged untill you have created your own (constantly updated and changing) set of "how the world works" rules by which you enjoy the game.

I don't want to be omnipotent, but I don't want be hindered because the manual didn't tell me where I could find the button for action ABC, this isn't representing anything, just simply lacking documentation.

I'm all for enjoying the journey to enlightenment, but I guess some of you are not. So my final question or observation is this :

Are you, the people who want big and mega-detailed manuals, also very fond of huge detailed board games. Meaning do you want computer games, especially strategic and historical ones to go back and become no more than a computer representation of the old school board games where a single turn could take weeks due to all the calculations? Cuz that's the feeling I get from many of the posts in this thread.

Or perhaps it's simple, you lack the time to delve into a game to discover things and thus prefer the shortcut of reading to skill level 5?

I find boardgame boaring... And I spend a LOT of time with all Paradox games, I never play anything else anymore. And that last bit was just low...

 

[unmerged(13520)]

Afterwards, appears HOI, that had stupid bugs and some uncomplete. Well, the manual was right too

It's funny that you mention that, because the HoI manual contains several misleading statements and a moderate amount of wrong information, so it's far from what I'd call "a right manual"...

But now appears Vic, that has the same weaks that HOI

Not really....It's actually considerably better than the first version of HoI in several respects as far as many of us have managed to notice. It's still far from perfect, evidently.

 

[unmerged(11825)]

this is revolting

i can't see what your problem is with the manual. the lack of a tutorial, yes.. but not the manual. the manual gives a good idea of how to play the game, and explains the basic idea of things. I feel that the Victoria manual is what it should be for the game. Or do you want fluff, a la C__ III?

Or perhaps you want the AD&D set of manuals, with tables and everything. I don't know what sorts of games you guys are buying, but I don't know how much more of a manual you can give for a game.

However much you paid, you paid it for the game, and that's what you got.

There are so many complaint that I see here and there about Paradox and their patches. You don't hear very many complaints about S__rr_ and their patches, you know why? Because they are rare. I guess their games must be better, because no patches are released for them.. like E___r_ E_r__ and Arc___m. Oh wait, no those games were full of bugs. And. wait.. no they did release one patch each for those. Look at how many patches were released for EU2, good lord. EU2 must really suck in comparison to E___r_ E_r__ and Arc___m. No wait, nope.. With both of those games, that one single patch (which came out months later) only fixed one or two bugs with multiplayer. Okay.. E___r_ E_r__ still runs, no CTDs there.. but there's some serious issues with the balance and.. well, at least it functions. but Arc___m? It crashes every two hours.. but at least I could go multiplayer now if I wanted.

Paradox patches are not about fixing bugs, although they do that too. Read the txt file that comes with the patch next time.. These patches are improving gameplay based on conversations seen on these forums.

I don't every want to see another post or review equating the number of patches paradox releases to the quality of the game and programming. This equation is based on appearances rather than fact. read the txt file.

And about updates to the manual. You know, it sounds really simple, doesn't it? Release the manual in pdf format, that way the patch can also patch the manual. That's slick. And it would work too. No problem.

I've read this whole thread, and nobody has pointed out the obvious.. although, like a lot of threads like this on the net(not just these forums) people start talking about how the companys are doingthis or that todeter software pirates. Then it gets down to a conversation about how the company is just after money from the consumer, and in their efforts to deter those who would steal from the company they are offending potential customers, and i'll never do my business there again!

What a load of crap.

Updates to the manual might sound pretty easy to you, but it doesn't to paradox. Remember, not everybody speaks/reads English. They can't exactly pay for translations everytime they release a patch (to improve gameplay, usually based largely on customer input).

Now, i've put myself on the opposition, and you can yell back at me all you want.. I'm not returning to this thread, because I don't like it.. and besides, there will be more like it later on, because people start yelling before they start thinking logically.

By the way, one thing I can agree with you on.. a tutorial would've been nice.. if only for the use of the interface.