Im a newbie and i have comments on the "tutorials" in world at war

[Spacelord]

This game looks awesome really but learning curve is sky high! i thought id fire up the tutorials to learn same basic..start the mission..no help msg at all..nothing to help at all..no pop up describing what is that or what it does. no advices..its just a mission that called tutorial *shrug* or am i missing something?

if im not missing anything i have to say that the tutorials and help to new players have to be worked on! user friendlyness helps games alot you know

P.S. i know theres a manual but im more the type of gamers that like to learn by/while playing!

[Goblin]

The manual describes the tutorials, and gives the step by step for them.

Goblin

[Fred98]

World at War??

This is a series of wargames made by Atomic and Avalon Hill about 10 years ago.

Or do you mean another?

[Reiryc]

I think he means steel panters: world at war.

Reiryc

[Resisti]

Originally posted by Spacelord

if im not missing anything i have to say that the tutorials and help to new players have to be worked on! user friendlyness helps games alot you know

P.S. i know theres a manual but im more the type of gamers that like to learn by/while playing!

Yes, you're missing
And Gobling is right: if you look at the manual, there is a tutorial section, describing for each of them and for any turn what you've to do.
There is only one of them missing the support text, but not sure which one (maybe the "caves bursting" one).

[Spacelord]

So i should alt tab out of the game frequently to read what i need to do? heh not very good imo

[Jim1954]

I would strongly suggets printing the manual out so you have a hard copy. It's kinda hard to jot down little notes and underline things on a PC. It's a LOT handier just to flip to the page you need. Worked for me, anyway.

[chief]

you might try printing the tutorials ONLY that worked fine for me

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

I think the best way to learn Steel Panthers is to just play it.

Yes that's what I said.

Learn what the buttons on the right do, but other than that, the game is a process you learn best by just starting a game and doing a quick few moves.

Pick a battle with very few points, buy some tanks and some men and just dash about.

Forget even pretending to accomplish anything, just watch what the commands do and how the units move and what they do for various commands.

Restart a scenario several times. Replay a turn over and over. Don't try to play a great game on first try or 20th.

Whittman's Gambit for instance is great. You get a Tiger with lots of targets, plus a couple of recon units.

This is the best most efficient fastest method. Failing that, knuckling under and actually reading the manual is advised.


Steel Panthers is a great game, but it's an all the way game. You either like it and like the detail a lot, or odds are it is to much work and you will soon call it to much work.

[Veldor]

I've been complaining about inadequate Wargame tutorials for years. If they were better, there are many more people I know who would play the games. Reading along takes an extra dedication not all gamers have. After all there are thousands of games out there and most gamers play at least a half-dozen to dozen at any one time.

Other genres have "speaking" tutorials, or at least text you can read on-screen... The scenario plays out either somewhat like a combat replay (but where you also see the computer moving around the mouse and issueing orders), or like a combat replay but with interuptions where you are allowed to issue some orders etc.. then a return to a sort of "replay" style..

Anything would be better than what Uncommon Valor had for a "tutorial". I'd be suprised if the UV tutorial represented anything more than about a days worth of work...

Not everyone wants to spend the extra time to learn a game they aren't even sure they are going to like...

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

Sheeeeesh veldor, the fact that games come with tutorials at all makes me chuckle some days.

I used to skim "the basic game rules" in most board games just to get a quick peek at the core mechanics, but often I would immediately read the whole manual as casually as I do my weekly Macleans magazine.

To ask a game designer to make a game Homer friendly though, is either insulting the Homer types, or just plain asking for the height of lazy indulgence.

I won't game with anyone that can't manage to sit down for one decent day and study fully a game. if that means reading a book then so be it.

If the potential gamer can't muster that much interest, then please by all means go away and pass up the hobby.

There are limits with everything.

SC has a nice interface, its as plain as day, but if you want toplay the game and have an idea what's going on, then you get to open the .pdf file and read it.

My first couple of games sucked, why? cause I was only seeing the effects of a few feeble playings. But looking at the manual I was able to see why I was not getting better performance out of my game.

Dedication and patience are required to play games such as wargames.

[Veldor]

Originally posted by Les the Sarge 9-1
Sheeeeesh veldor, the fact that games come with tutorials at all makes me chuckle some days.

If the potential gamer can't muster that much interest, then please by all means go away and pass up the hobby.

Times have changed. I wouldn't expect the older ones among us to understand or adapt. I imagine you find reading a newspaper far better than reading on a web newsite. After all, all the sub-tangeants and sub-stories linked into seemingly every word you sometimes wonder how a story about possible war with Iraq ended you up reading about the latest in breast cancer prevention. The web is a dynamic medium and far more capable of delivering just the right amount of info, in a personalized way, with those who want more detail getting it.

Likewise a tutorial provides just the right amount of "Starting" info with the manual being a place to delve into detail later on in part or whole... Many times these days in an online .pdf or set of .pdf's itself.

I bet you print the manual too.. So do I.. But many many people, especially the younger ones are much more adept at the interactive, dynamic online on-computer world... and for them tutorials and that sort of thing are a must.

After all what do they hurt? You don't sacrifice anything to make one, no not everyone needs one or will use it.. but it can only help.

"Computer" wargames are never going to be a sufficient replacement for the traditional board wargames if everyone making them chooses not to embrace technology. Sure there are a bunch stuck in their ways such as yourself, but then why play computer wargames at all? There are just as many looking for a computer wargame that could even remotely be considered "up-to-par" with other genres of games out there...

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

Times HAVEN"T changed. That is an illusion.

If you want to insist on making wargames insulting go right ahead.
Why not go all the way, ship wargames with an included video showing the poor helpless couldn't possibly read moron how to play.
Why stop there, why not make wargame manuals into picture books like some pre school reader.

I am not a stick in the mud. I am not a dinosaur. I am not some elitist board gamer.

It was damned hard to learn to play Third Reich when I first got it. I played it, it was difficult, I wore out several copies of the manual. Now it is standard practice for me to photocopy the manual so that I have my nice good condition copy, and the one we thumb the hell out of during the game, or hand out to new players.

Wargames are about the considered examination of simulated warfare for the most part. Anyone that can't stoop to read a game manual, is likely not going to be even interested in playing a wargame.

[Veldor]

Originally posted by Les the Sarge 9-1
Times HAVEN"T changed. That is an illusion.

It was damned hard to learn to play Third Reich when I first got it.

That's the best argument you have against tutorials? That its always been hard to learn a good advanced game so it should continue to be? After all, if you were smart enough to learn it, anyone else that wants to play it should be. What does intelligence have to do with anything?

I suppose Automatic Transmissions are for idiots? Why make things simpler? The millions of other improvements in all areas a waste as well. After all, the previous generation didn't have any of them and they got by. "When I was a youngin', we didn't have no..."

How bout a poorly written rulebook vs a well written one? I'm intelligent enough to figure out a game despite its lack of rule organization, clarity, indexing, and so on... But why should I have to? Making the manual easier to understand and better organized doesn't "dumb down" the game or suddenly mean the reader is less intelligent.

Just cuz you suffered through the challenges of learning difficult games doesn't mean games should stay difficult to learn.

Stay difficult and complicated in depth of play, yes... No not every half-wit out there is going to be able to play it and lower wargamers opinions of themselves... But made easier to learn... That they can be and there is absolutely no reason not to besides the arrogant pride wargamers have that I've already mentioned (And every poster here only seems to confirm.)

Your sounding greyer by the day....

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

What are you exactly asking for?

There are limits to how simpleton you can make something before the reader gets offended.

You can't teach medicine or law with pictures either eh.

The mere existence of a tutorial in the first place is a signal the game is involved. But that is not all.

A tutorial needs to be well written, but then what makes you think that will mean no reading?

ASL has a massive manual for a reason, so that error is brutally stamped into the dust. But that means clarification and not brevity.

Players say they want an easy tutorial, translation, they don't want to think they want to do.
But that is just it, most of the "doing" in a wargame, is a lot more involved than the doing of a non wargame.

I have heard a lot of comments about wargames, but the most common is it's boring or tedious. In a lot of cases, thats because the doing is "work".

Work is not normally a problem for a person that definitely wants to play a wargame. You will never be able to make a person that doesn't want to read a manual, also like a wargame. The person is not interested in the effort.

The Steel Panthers manual is not a longer than hell read, and is well worth it.
It is common for most wargame manuals to be about the same level of complexity. I have seen games with longer manuals, but then that is usually just charts and tables.

There has to come a time when you just tell a person look fish or cut bait.
If you don't want to read the manual get over it. Don't expect to play the game well though.

That's not arrogance, that's taking pride in an accomplishment earned.
I reserve the right to let you fail. Failure teaches people things.

[Veldor]

Im guessing you've never played a game with a GREAT tutorial then. Empire Earth has a 200+ page game manual.. Its plenty complicated in its own right, yet it has several tutorials to teach you the basics of the interface, the basics of strategy in the games, the various units, etc...

The point is, its gets you playing FASTER and sooner.. and therefore you like the game sooner.. Then you read the manual.. Some will read only pieces, some will read it front to back.

As most gamers buy lots of games, what happens otherwise is you shelf it meaning to get back to it when you have more time to spend learning it.. But may or may not.. And if you dont, your ultimately affecting sales as 1. Your less likely to buy another product by that publisher 2. Your much less likely to be telling all your friends and fellow gamers about it... and so on..

A good tutorial simply allows you to get "hooked" faster and reduce frustration and stress. Might also reduce the number of questions "newbies" need to ask.. Not everyone likes forums, knows how to use them, or has fast enough inet access. Many insist on AI's alone and many wargamers are "loners"... Tutorials are even better for those types as well..

Let me replace the word "arrogant" with self-centered possibly.. I don't mean any of it in a negative way.. All I'm trying to say is many if not most people all have different tastes and ways of doing things and to try to put a blanket "This is what a wargamer should be" statement to anything is, well... flawed.

[CCB]

I very rarely read the manuals or tutorials. I usually just start clicking away to see what does what.

I usually lose a lot too at first. :p

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

I personally prefer "intuitive" interfaces.

I played my first game of SC with no idea how to run the software whatsoever.

But then when you consider that the game is basically click on unit and have it move or not move and attack or not attack.

Other functions are either right click on unit or right click on screen to access the options menu off to the right.

It allows the person to play the game instantly and see how things work. But if the person wants to play the game and win at least once (even the game vs AI at basic level is not easy), then they will just have to sit down and read the manual.

Its called Strategic Command because you are in complete control of the startegic decisions of all the forces. A tutorial no matter how easy to employ, will in most cases not teach a new wargamer much.
Sun Zu's Art of War might though.

I expect I will suck playing SC regardless of how easy it was to play, simply because it is an experience driven game. The more you play the better you get.

There is never any easy way to replace experience with a simple tutorial.

I can still remember my first encounter with Steel Panthers. It was back in its original form.
Looked to hard to understand, so it languished unplayed. Eventually gave it to a friend. He sat down and played it. Then told me hey Les you gotta play this game. So I begged him to give it back to me hehe.
I took it home and sat down and learned it by playing it. I never used the tutorial though. I am now fairly good at it. But that is all experience.
I know though, that the better players, the ones that read the manual front to back and back to front are better than me likely.

They earned that skill level.

The best way to get someone to play a game, is to just tell them they have to play such and such a game. If the persons opinion means squat, they will.

I have never once played a game based solely on an easy tutorial.

[Veldor]

Originally posted by Les the Sarge 9-1
I personally prefer "intuitive" interfaces.

No argument there, but as for tutorials.. You must be right. It all makes sense now. Since just about every other non-wargame these days has a great tutorial, and just about every wargame does not. Only two things can be devised from that:

1. Clearly tutorials are of no use whatsoever.
2. They must be in all other games because the players are too unintelligent and uncommitted to read the manual.

Which in turn means:

1. Wargamers are clearly more intelligent than other gamers.
2. Wargames CANNOT have tutorials or be easy to learn as true wargamers would then not play them as their intellectual superiority over others would be harder to prove.
3. Anyone wanting the features available in nearly all other games to be in wargames must not be a true-wargamer and therefore who cares about them.

Its all so clear now, my apologies...

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

There are tutorials in other games? I wasn't aware?

Or at least I have never needed one.

Let's see, played every version of Civ or Civ looking game, and the only thing I looked at in the book was charts describing unit data (did this mostly in toilet as a way of wasting time).

Played every version of Heroes of Might and Magic, and have only looked at the book for the same reason, hmmm Lightning bolt does cool damage, and Black Dragons are the top of the pecking order clearly although bloody expensive things.

Played sims of all sorts, and all I ever did was look at chart that explained what a few buttons did.

Age of Wonder 1 and 2 see explanation of Heroes.

I don't play much of anything else though, but that's because I am a wargamer.

Maybe though, just maybe you are begininng to notice something though Veldor. You are realising that certain people are predisposed to be wargamers and certain people are not.

I am by the way excrutiatingly highly educated, for that I also am deeply sorry.
I was told by my sargeant once long ago "Les you intimidate the other guys eh, if you acted a bit dummer, you might have more friends". That worked for years, till I noticed people could not actually accept that I was in fact as smart and as educated as I say. It became something of a personal sore point with me. Finally I had had enough. I rebelled. Sorry world, if you don't like the fact I am incredibly smart, get over it (I did).

I like wargames because they are hard, challenging, and teach me something. if that is to hard for some, well get over it, because I am not concerned if it is to hard for you.