OK someone please tell me where I can find a REAL manual for this game

[meriadoc]

What's a manual? I would love to see a real manual for not only CTP2, but every other program as well. It took me several days to figure out how to activate the MAD feature in CTP2 since the only documentation was a quick description of the "set-target" order in the Great Library.

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The Electronic Hobbit

[XWaste]

Yeah, I'm finding its a really 'Great' library

[hHydro]

I love it!

I've already made 2 or 3 posts elsewhere critisizing the manual (or lack therof). Now I have somewhere to do it!

I tend to agree that it's just a way to make an extra few buck off their 'loyal' customers.. (or anyone who hasn't played ctpI. The game was a fair price. It's only $42 Canadian where I am. Activision/Firaxis/whoever take note; I'd have rather paid a few bucks more and gotten a decent manual. If they really wanted to, they coulda made CTPII and CTPII:Lite versions. (with and without manuals.)

Man. Add to the fact that I'm not terribly impressed with the game so far (a topic for another thread) and they're really not giving me much reason not to have gotten a friend to just make me a copy.

I extend my kudos to Firaxis as well. That SMAC manual was GORGEOUS. This little waste of paper doesn't deserve to call itself a manual.

[Ironwolf]

I don't even need a hard copy. Just put a complete manual on the CD. That would help cut production cost a little.

[Grumbold]

Any game of considerable complexity is certainly enhanced by having a well structured accurate manual accompanying it. The difficulty is that to achieve this aim, the entire structure of the game MUST be finalised months before publication to allow the manual to be written properly. These days it appears to be more often the case that game features and parameters are subject to review and replacement up to a few days before going gold. That is tantamount to guaranteeing that any in-depth manual will contain important errata by the time of release which was accurate when it goes to print. Many 3rd party strategy guides also suffer from this fault.

[hHydro]

a) Errata we can deal with. Errors are going to happen exactly for the reason you describe; Things change at the last minute.

b) Some 3rd party strat. guides are just as bad, because they're the result of marketing agreements between the companies specifically so that the 3rd party can get their strag guide out shortly after the release of the game. This is ESPECIALLY prevailent in the console world.

But neither of those are an excuse. As much as I prefer a paper manual, the easy way is to include an electronic manual or exhaustive 'integrated help' (even more so than the 'datalinks' in SMAC, and FAR more so than the great library in CTP2).

If a patch comes out, just PATCH THE INTEGRATED HELP to include earlier errata, as well as changes made in the patch.

I can't think of an excuse for making a game and not providing instructions on how to play it.

[TCO]

I disagree Grumbold. It is not that hard to do do print orders.

And the way to write a good manual is to have an evolving draft. This will actually help the design process as well as making a good manual.