Are Game Manuals now dead?

[drgoodspeak]

With most of the PC games I buy these days, the manuals seem more and more insignificant. Most games will give you a tutorial, or a campaign, or series of missions to learn to pick things up.

I appreciate Civ must be a really, really tough game for someone new to the series to get into, and I guess that's who the manual is really meant for.

However, with the amount of depth to a Civ game, you'd think the manual would really have a part to play. There's also the Civilopedia and I think what we have with Civ5 is an uncomfortable mix of the two, without either one being a complete resource.

I looked up the "Discuss" diplomacy options in the manual as I was curious as to what the "Pact of co-operation" and "Pact to isolate" options really did. The manual essentially gives you the same view you on screen in the game. A list of the options available with no explanation!

I looked up "Forts" and "Citadels" in the Civilopedia to see what bonus each gives you and the difference between them. I'm used to seeing the bonus expressed as a percentage modifier and yet I found no detail available, only the abstract concept.

Is it now time to focus on one, exhaustive resource? Make the Civilopedia the detailed resource it should be and provide a "manual" to cover system requirements and how to install the game.

 

[SuperJay]

Is it now time to focus on one, exhaustive resource? Make the Civilopedia the detailed resource it should be and provide a "manual" to cover system requirements and how to install the game.

That's the general trend in software documentation these days - a quick-start guide to get you up and running, and then the meat of the documentation is accessed from within the program. It just makes sense in every way - from deployment and updates to environmental impact to distribution costs.

At my company, we're phasing out almost all printed doc and moving more and more of our userbase toward online distribution. We'll be at a point in the next couple years where we only ship physical media on request; the majority of our users will download and install the product via our website and the product doc is included as HTML- and XML-based help with some associated PDFs.

I can't speak to the quality of the Civ V PDF so far, but the Civilopedia has answered most of the questions I've asked of it. However, I did notice that some hard detail is lacking in certain entries - some are more of a conceptual overview than a nuts-and-bolts description. I'm sure that's a result of the game's development cycle, but hopefully it will be filled out in later updates.

 

[gingerbill]

I miss massive manuals , i remember when i purchased 'falcon 3' with its huge manual . I got excited just picking it up

But i think a good tutorial is better than a manual , I think the system games use now of having a tutorial and then inroduging the keys and game elements over time is far better . I think some people forget how difficult and unfriendly some old games were. Both this and a manual would be nice though

 

[croxis]

The civ 5 manual is a pdf you can download here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=380015

In many ways digital manuals can be superior, forexample you can click on the entry in the table of contents and it will load that page. However I do have fond memories working through the Civ 2 tutorials with the manual in my lap. There are always tradeoffs between the two.

 

[Rince]

The included "tech" tree is nice though. So much information on a single poster.

 

[epitaxial]

That's the general trend in software documentation these days - a quick-start guide to get you up and running, and then the meat of the documentation is accessed from within the program. It just makes sense in every way - from deployment and updates to environmental impact to distribution costs.

At my company, we're phasing out almost all printed doc and moving more and more of our userbase toward online distribution. We'll be at a point in the next couple years where we only ship physical media on request; the majority of our users will download and install the product via our website and the product doc is included as HTML- and XML-based help with some associated PDFs.

I can't speak to the quality of the Civ V PDF so far, but the Civilopedia has answered most of the questions I've asked of it. However, I did notice that some hard detail is lacking in certain entries - some are more of a conceptual overview than a nuts-and-bolts description. I'm sure that's a result of the game's development cycle, but hopefully it will be filled out in later updates.

Same with the company I work for - for IP [Intellectual Property] reasons, we had to shred all of our paper manuals and only use pdf manuals [even though people still print out instructions so they don't have to carry their laptops around].

The lack of a manual is a side effect of digital distribution and consolization of PC games. The tutorials make it easier to [a] configure the language for the user and make it easier for someone to learn how to play the game [the age old monkey teaching - do by example].

 

[shadowplay]

It isn't just games, a lot of hardware even comes with little physical documentation and rely instead on pdfs or their website. I really prefer to have physical documentation in my hands, it's much easier to work with when things go wrong or become confusing.

 

[duxup]

I'm not sure we'd want a manual at this point when even the online manual isn't very specific. It is sad when they can't bother with getting that right.

I miss massive manuals , i remember when i purchased 'falcon 3' with its huge manual . I got excited just picking it up

Was that the big color three ring binder with nice tabs and such?

 

[milk steak]

Physical media in general is going away. Look at newspapers, magazines, books, movies, music, games, etc.

It's a good thing IMO. Less physical resources wasted, easier distribution, etc.

You always have the option of printing it out yourself (or paying Kinko's to print and bind it nicely).

 

[heartCORE]

I miss them for nostalgias sake =P...but since most of my purchases are digital...and there are forums...yeah.

 

[SuperJay]

As a tech writer at a software company, in general I'm glad we're phasing out printed media. It's costly, archaic, and once you distribute it you're stuck and it can't be updated. With our PDFs or server-hosted online help systems, I can make changes and push them out to the server, and users can access that updated information the very same day.

I'll tell ya though.... when you're sitting on that multiplayer Host Game screen talking with your friends on Steam chat and trying to pick out which civs you're going to play but not quite remembering what each and every civ's unique bonus is... you wish you had that printed manual.

 

[heartCORE]

*cough*ipad*cough*

 

[heartCORE]

edit: double post weirdness

 

[timtofly]

Actually, Brady Games does have a full color manual out. It may not be up to date, but may be a good read for some. I have browsed through it, but did not purchase it.

 

[mva5580]

Why would they waste the resources of printing out manuals when they can just throw a .pdf onto a CD, or as a file in a digital download? I'm surprised it took this long for this to become the norm, honestly.

And yes I loved physical manuals, a lot of times for me the manual by itself gave me tons of entertainment, just reading it all and soaking it in. But this was an inevitable step because it just makes sense.

Only a matter of time before the actual discs and packaging is cut out as well.

 

[SuperJay]

Only a matter of time before the actual discs and packaging is cut out as well.

Yep.. already happening, in fact. Our company actually 'incentivizes' the downloadable install by charging a "media fee" for the CDs and packaging.

It won't be long before you'll the CD version of Civ 5 for $59.99 or be able to buy it off Steam for $49.99.

 

[Gorey]

In many ways digital manuals can be superior, forexample you can click on the entry in the table of contents and it will load that page.

Yes but i can't take it to the toilet with me (which is where i do all of my reading).

 

[Thoughtful Thug]

With most of the PC games I buy these days, the manuals seem more and more insignificant. Most games will give you a tutorial, or a campaign, or series of missions to learn to pick things up.

I appreciate Civ must be a really, really tough game for someone new to the series to get into, and I guess that's who the manual is really meant for.

However, with the amount of depth to a Civ game, you'd think the manual would really have a part to play. There's also the Civilopedia and I think what we have with Civ5 is an uncomfortable mix of the two, without either one being a complete resource.

I looked up the "Discuss" diplomacy options in the manual as I was curious as to what the "Pact of co-operation" and "Pact to isolate" options really did. The manual essentially gives you the same view you on screen in the game. A list of the options available with no explanation!

I looked up "Forts" and "Citadels" in the Civilopedia to see what bonus each gives you and the difference between them. I'm used to seeing the bonus expressed as a percentage modifier and yet I found no detail available, only the abstract concept.

Is it now time to focus on one, exhaustive resource? Make the Civilopedia the detailed resource it should be and provide a "manual" to cover system requirements and how to install the game.

The retail copy of the game does have a "manual" if you want to call it a less significant one than we all previously was given in the other games. It is just a big folded poster with all the tech tree as well as some additional infomation about some of the icons being represented in each tech brackets.

To me, after reading this either prove that the game is dumbed down, or they are just being eco-friendly. Gotta save the trees. Even recycled tree pulps can't compete to new trees being cut down.

 

[milk steak]

Yes but i can't take it to the toilet with me (which is where i do all of my reading).

Sure you can. iPad, Kindle, smartphone. Half the time I'm browsing this forum is when I'm on the throne.

 

[Traitorfish]

Given that the manual for Civ4 was as thick as the gamebox itself, I can understand why they'd want to phase it out. They're kinda flushing money down the toilet there...

It won't be long before you'll the CD version of Civ 5 for $59.99 or be able to buy it off Steam for $49.99.

While, at present, I can get it for £25 on Amazon and £30 on Steam. Someone, I think, has not thought that through.

Which really shows how much of a rip-off digital distribution is at the moment. It'll become reasonable over time, but they don't want to make it over-cheap or they'll upset distributors and retailers and could lose that market. Even the "25% off" they've got in steam is a pretty paltry compromise.