tutorial

[panzers]

I have this game and would love to play, but the tutorial sucks.

[JAMiAM]

Any particular complaints, or suggestions for improvement, about it?

[el cid]

Instead of sucking it could blow.

Now seriuosly.

If you play a game like the close combat series and go through the tutorial, is an interactive learning experience. In toaw you could have movies for the different and most important aspects of the game, supply-reinforcements-attacks where one would understand to some detail what is going on without reading the manual. I understand that this is a lot of work, and probably it will never get done.

But perhaps PANZERS complaint is for an entirely different reason.

I just wanted to use "suck" and "blow" in the same sentence.

[jreebel]

I brought this up some time ago and was very specific. What I said then (and still believe) leaving out my intro:

I think the manual stinks. Everyone seems to agree that there is a significant learning curve to the game. I think the inadequacy of the manual is a major factor. It jumps all over the place. It starts off with way too much detail before giving the reader an overview of how to play the game. It has a lot of scenario design related info mixed in with game play info, which can be very confusing. The tutorials look like an afterthought, although they contain a lot of essential information. New information is not incorporated into the manual, but must be found in the various "What's New" sections.

If it weren't for the articles I've found on the web (many of them referring back to the original TOAW) and the information from this listserve, I think I would have given up on the game. The game is complex enough without having to go out and get supporting materials and decide which are worth looking at, when they are germane, etc.

I've seen a lot of "wish list" types of threads here, but I think the biggest help to this great game would be a new, well organized and continuously updated online/electronic/printable manual. It should multiple sections, such as:

1. The basics how-to play and flow of the game.
2. Detailed information on the more complex areas such as supply, shock, etc.
3. Scenario design
4. Several tutorials, in a logical order starting simply.
5. Articles on strategy and tactics.
6. Plenty of examples.
7. Lots of links/indexing.
8. Icing on the cake could be a movie file of the first few turns of a game showing all the moves and explaining just what is happening.

[damezzi]

I think the idea of movies is great. A very simple movie of a veteran player going through a varied scenario with coments on what is happening behind the scenes would already be of great use.
The problem, when learning from experience, is that you know that something will work in a specific situation, but you don't aways know why it works, what are the variables which dictated the results, so you can apply it logically to another significantly different situation.
Going through the manual searching for those variables and calculating their weight in the outcome can be very time consuming.

[JAMiAM]

ORIGINAL: jreebel
I've seen a lot of "wish list" types of threads here, but I think the biggest help to this great game would be a new, well organized and continuously updated online/electronic/printable manual. It should multiple sections, such as:

1. The basics how-to play and flow of the game.
2. Detailed information on the more complex areas such as supply, shock, etc.
3. Scenario design
4. Several tutorials, in a logical order starting simply.
5. Articles on strategy and tactics.
6. Plenty of examples.
7. Lots of links/indexing.
8. Icing on the cake could be a movie file of the first few turns of a game showing all the moves and explaining just what is happening.

All sensible ideas. Now, a question for you, and anyone else interested in the discussion. Would you be willing to accept a $79.95 price point for that level of support? How many others would? Okay...that was two questions...[;)]

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: JAMiAM

ORIGINAL: jreebel
I've seen a lot of "wish list" types of threads here, but I think the biggest help to this great game would be a new, well organized and continuously updated online/electronic/printable manual. It should multiple sections, such as:

1. The basics how-to play and flow of the game.
2. Detailed information on the more complex areas such as supply, shock, etc.
3. Scenario design
4. Several tutorials, in a logical order starting simply.
5. Articles on strategy and tactics.
6. Plenty of examples.
7. Lots of links/indexing.
8. Icing on the cake could be a movie file of the first few turns of a game showing all the moves and explaining just what is happening.

All sensible ideas. Now, a question for you, and anyone else interested in the discussion. Would you be willing to accept a $79.95 price point for that level of support? How many others would? Okay...that was two questions...[;)]

Most of this is being made available - you just have to know where to look. Rather than clog the manual with such, perhaps certain links to articles and AARs could be identified and officially sanctioned somewhere new players would be sure to look.

[Sker]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: JAMiAM

ORIGINAL: jreebel
I've seen a lot of "wish list" types of threads here, but I think the biggest help to this great game would be a new, well organized and continuously updated online/electronic/printable manual. It should multiple sections, such as:

1. The basics how-to play and flow of the game.
2. Detailed information on the more complex areas such as supply, shock, etc.
3. Scenario design
4. Several tutorials, in a logical order starting simply.
5. Articles on strategy and tactics.
6. Plenty of examples.
7. Lots of links/indexing.
8. Icing on the cake could be a movie file of the first few turns of a game showing all the moves and explaining just what is happening.

All sensible ideas. Now, a question for you, and anyone else interested in the discussion. Would you be willing to accept a $79.95 price point for that level of support? How many others would? Okay...that was two questions...[;)]

Most of this is being made available - you just have to know where to look. Rather than clog the manual with such, perhaps certain links to articles and AARs could be identified and officially sanctioned somewhere new players would be sure to look.

That's a great idea. Maybe a list of those stuffs may be posted to the forum, with a link to that thread added in the manual. Can this be done?

[Karri]

TOAW-WIKI!!!!



As a note though, I suggest reading some AARs those can be quite educational at times.

[jreebel]

Been away for a while, so missed some of the follow ups. I certainly wasn't suggesting a 79.95 price tag or more work for the developers. As others have stated, most of this stuff already exists. All I had in mind was somebody volunteering to pull it all together with some guidance from the developers. It could then all be compressed into a file and the location pointed to in various online forums and the manual when it would eventually be reprinted.