Tutorials

[goodwoodrw]

With all the negative stuff around about price, can I say the tutorials are excellent. AS a player of the previous 2 titles, after watching the tuts shipped with the game, I have a feeling the enjoyment that I am going to get from this game will be much greater than the others. Thats not saying I didn't have fun with COTA and HTTR. If you don't invest in this game and you consider yourself a true Gronard, I think you will be doing yourself an injustice.
Ron

[Wild_9]

Totally agree. The tutorial movies are very detailed, yet the information is provided in such fashion that it is relatively easy to grasp. I believe that they nicely complement the PDF manuals (I have always loved PG's manuals - very professionally done) and add more value to the final product.

[Henri]

The key to playing this game well is planning. With HTTR, it never occured to me to plan anything - I would just order battalions to go hither and tither, and I quickly got bored - in addition to getting my butt kicked. To some extent I did more or less the same with COTA. Orders delays should severely penalize players who don't plan and who will then complain that their troops just mill around and don't go fight the enemy [:'(].

The videos are absolutely essential to understand what one can do with planning, how to choose units to detach and time their arrival, and contingency planning, an important idea that never even occurred to me (although I presume that there are military types here who are trained in that sort of thing...).

After watching the tutorials once, I tried to repeat what I had seen, with the result that my two detached units that were to cover the enemy lines of reinforcements across the river from a hillside arrived there before the main assault began, with the result that they were the vanguard of the main assault![:o] Also I had chosen the two wrong units, so I watched the videos again and paid attention on how to calculate times and delays.[8|]

Then I finally got it about right and you can read a brief report about the results in "early impressions" thread.

Henri

[PirateJock]

Agree wholeheartedly on the tutorials - just got the last tutorial to work through but learnt some useful things on game mechanics and, more importantly, great examples and food for thought on how to plan and anticipate responses .... will definitely improve the way I play. Massive thumbs up for these.

[oldspec4]

ORIGINAL: Henri

The key to playing this game well is planning. With HTTR, it never occured to me to plan anything - I would just order battalions to go hither and tither, and I quickly got bored - in addition to getting my butt kicked. To some extent I did more or less the same with COTA. Orders delays should severely penalize players who don't plan and who will then complain that their troops just mill around and don't go fight the enemy [:'(].

The videos are absolutely essential to understand what one can do with planning, how to choose units to detach and time their arrival, and contingency planning, an important idea that never even occurred to me (although I presume that there are military types here who are trained in that sort of thing...).

After watching the tutorials once, I tried to repeat what I had seen, with the result that my two detached units that were to cover the enemy lines of reinforcements across the river from a hillside arrived there before the main assault began, with the result that they were the vanguard of the main assault![:o] Also I had chosen the two wrong units, so I watched the videos again and paid attention on how to calculate times and delays.[8|]

Then I finally got it about right and you can read a brief report about the results in "early impressions" thread.

Henri

My experience w/ RDOA/HTTR/COTA is similar, i.e., I suck at the planning stage and then lost interest as I basically watched the battle. The immersion factor just didn't kick in for me. But w/ the tutorial comments and the new estab details on equipment (something I need for game immersion), it may be enough for me to take another look.

[Mac_MatrixForum]

I just finished the tutorials. They were great stuff. Though I've played RDOA and HTTR, with the expanded possibilities of BFTB, I didn't feel like any minute of time was wasted and the videos set the mood very well. I would definitely love to see some video AARs with bits of the history thrown in. Maybe it would draw other buyers in, the marketing value is great.

[Arjuna]

We plan to publicly release the rest of the tutorial movies over the next few weeks.

[Banquet]

Agreed, the tutorials are very, very good!

[MarkShot]

I am very happy to see that video tutorials are going over so well; even among non-native speakers of English.

I think the idea was first kicked around about two years ago by Eddy Sterckx and he did some sample video narrations and screen capture. I have to admit that I was concerned about the concept. Many of the customers are not native speakers of English. I was concerned that as such they would have trouble with regional accents and possibly the accents of non-native beta's English. Perhaps, I was prejudiced by experience many years ago working overseas in Taiwan for the military there. I encountered many who could read English, but could not handle spoken English.

I am glad to have been proven wrong.

And as Dave would say in his Australian lingo "things for BFTB are about to hot up"

[henri51]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

We plan to publicly release the rest of the tutorial movies over the next few weeks.

Whoops! - There goes my argument that the price is justified because the scenarios alone are worth $20...[8|]

Henri

[zanekin]

Two thumbs up !!! In France, the not particulary aussie Arjuna's accent is well received too !!!

No joke. It's a real masterpiece. I mean, i'm a teacher in secondary school and the educational achievement is amazing.

I've exactly the same feeling about its impact on my play (i'm not near to let this game on my shelf) and really hope that it will a big push for the hesitant buyers.

[Grim.Reaper]

I can't believe what a difference having these tutorials make for this game series! I own both of the other titles and never could grasp the concepts. These videos are well done and like someone else mentioned, its providing a great education as well. For the first time I can understand how to plan an attack and consider all the factors.

If I was Matrix, I would get these videos posted ASAP because I think they are good enough to sell a lot of copies!

[goodwoodrw]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

We plan to publicly release the rest of the tutorial movies over the next few weeks.

Dave
How many tutorials in excess of the 6 do you plan to release, and are primarily going to show more of the games mechanics or show tactical hints, or a combination of both?
Ron

[Hertston]

The tutorials are indeed excellent. I hope Matrix take the positive feedback on board and include similar ones with future games.

[daft]

ORIGINAL: Hertston

The tutorials are indeed excellent. I hope Matrix take the positive feedback on board and include similar ones with future games.

Not only that. I hope that BftB gets more, similar movies in the future. The nature of the engine lends itself very well to deep and thoughtful discussions on tactics and planning. I see it as a fantastic platform for lecture-like reviews of common situations that you might end up in on the battlefield. I think that would be an excellent way forward for the engine, the community and Panther Games.

[Arjuna]

ORIGINAL: BASB

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

We plan to publicly release the rest of the tutorial movies over the next few weeks.

Dave
How many tutorials in excess of the 6 do you plan to release, and are primarily going to show more of the games mechanics or show tactical hints, or a combination of both?
Ron

Gee I need to be careful how I word myself. Let me clarify that the game comes with eight movies ( Welcome, Game Concepts and Tutorial Movie #1 to #6 ). At the moment we have uploaded the Game Concepts movie for public download. TM1 should be uploaded soon and we'll eventually upload the remaining tutorial movies over the coming weeks.

I do not have any definite plans to do any more movies. Is this something you would like to see? Would you be prepared to pay for them? It took me a couple of months to do the movies. So it's not a trivial commitment of time ( about a week each ). One option may be to reactivate the Panther War College and have people subscribe to it for a modest fee. We could aim to cover some particular aspect of the game ( like how to conduct a delaying action or strategies for a particular scenario etc ). This could include the development and provision of a movie along with supporting graphics, checklists etc. What do you think?

[vj531]

10/10! tutorials are fantastic as is the game

As a dyslexic they are invaluable and personally I would love to see a couple of new ones explaining nuances of the game over time.

[goodwoodrw]

Ah ha now I with u, no I don't believe you misled us, I have misinterpreted what u meant, I suppose some of us may pay for additional support, in the way of video tutorial support for tactics, but I guess there would be others that wouldn't. This clearly indicated by the way people have debated the price. Yes my line was along of tactical tutorials.
Ron

[Magpius]

The videos are indeed excellent.
Also great to hear some magpies in the background on some of the voice overs, nice touch! [:D]

[daft]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna


Gee I need to be careful how I word myself. Let me clarify that the game comes with eight movies ( Welcome, Game Concepts and Tutorial Movie #1 to #6 ). At the moment we have uploaded the Game Concepts movie for public download. TM1 should be uploaded soon and we'll eventually upload the remaining tutorial movies over the coming weeks.

I do not have any definite plans to do any more movies. Is this something you would like to see? Would you be prepared to pay for them? It took me a couple of months to do the movies. So it's not a trivial commitment of time ( about a week each ). One option may be to reactivate the Panther War College and have people subscribe to it for a modest fee. We could aim to cover some particular aspect of the game ( like how to conduct a delaying action or strategies for a particular scenario etc ). This could include the development and provision of a movie along with supporting graphics, checklists etc. What do you think?

As I said above, I think that the engine lends itself very well to be used as a plattform for more general tactical discussions, not only as a way of describing the best course of action for a given scenario included in the stock game. I think general concepts such as delaying actions, concerted attacks with multiple units working in synch etc would be very interesting to see done in the same type of format as the tutorial movies. I can't really comment on the viability of a subscription model for this type of content, but putting it out there as a package deal with the things you mention included (checklists, textual guide etc) does sound like a very good idea to me.