Ridiculous Games with No/Useless Tutorials

[Cheimison]

TOAW III or any John Tiller game, for example.
"Print out this PDF and follow the written instructions."
And better hope they work, because they are often outdated and no longer correspond to the engine!

Why did anyone ever think this is acceptable? Especially with a game that already has crap layout, extremely complex options and obscure controls hidden in submenus of submenus of dropdown bars? And most of these games came out in like 2003-2010! We're not talking DOS here, come on!

Would it kill these people to at least make a Youtube tutorial video? That would be like 500x more useful than some obscurely phrased text-based instruction manual. And I do not have a printer and never will, because paper is medieval archaic crap.

I actually think just making a damn Youtube video would be easier than writing a 15 page pure-text description trying to explain what's going on onscreen. Do these old programmer dudes even Internet or what?

You can tell they obviously put a lot of work and effort into making these games, but they totally drop the ball on explaining how to play it to anyone that doesn't already know how to play 5 of their other games.

[JudgeDredd]

TOAW III or any John Tiller game, for example.
"Print out this PDF and follow the written instructions."
And better hope they work, because they are often outdated and no longer correspond to the engine!

Why did anyone ever think this is acceptable? Especially with a game that already has crap layout, extremely complex options and obscure controls hidden in submenus of submenus of dropdown bars? And most of these games came out in like 2003-2010! We're not talking DOS here, come on!

Would it kill these people to at least make a Youtube tutorial video? That would be like 500x more useful than some obscurely phrased text-based instruction manual. And I do not have a printer and never will, because paper is medieval archaic crap.

I actually think just making a damn Youtube video would be easier than writing a 15 page pure-text description trying to explain what's going on onscreen. Do these old programmer dudes even Internet or what?

You can tell they obviously put a lot of work and effort into making these games, but they totally drop the ball on explaining how to play it to anyone that doesn't already know how to play 5 of their other games.

Rude!  I'm an old programmer dude  :)

I agree in that videos are a much more pleasing way of learning a game and use them often for board gaming. However, I think you're wrong in your assertion that "making a damn Youtube video would be easier". Firstly, if you were to speak to anyone who makes videos...reviews for example...you'll find that there's lots of editing required. Secondly, I've watched many videos on playing board games where text pops up part way through informing the viewer that the presenter got something wrong and explaining the proper mechanic.

So easier? No. More helpful? Yes.

Quill is a guy I go to regularly for inspiration in playing games. He's not a manual replacement because he does lets play videos - so his videos are rife with "guesswork" and "wrong" moves...but they are very enjoyable and inspirational to watch.

[Cheimison]

Quill is a guy I go to regularly for inspiration in playing games. He's not a manual replacement because he does lets play videos - so his videos are rife with "guesswork" and "wrong" moves...but they are very enjoyable and inspirational to watch.

I don't mind having the manual/reading the manual, it's just the really poorly implemented tutorials. You may as well not have one when the person has to learn to play the game to use the tutorial.

[JudgeDredd]

You should try World in Flames. I don't believe a single one of it's tutorials are relevant anymore - and I'm not sure they even load now.

[Cheimison]

You should try World in Flames. I don't believe a single one of it's tutorials are relevant anymore - and I'm not sure they even load now.

I can't remember what I was playing, some Paradox Game, I think - but you couldn't actually complete the tutorial. It was still there, on the main menu, but it was impossible to complete because the game had been changed and the tutorial hadn't.
I know that these developers are working on a lot of stuff but I would think that a functional tutorial to at least explain the interface would be an obvious necessity.

[BanzaiCat]

Hey now...I wrote TOAW III's manual. :)

[glen55]

You should try World in Flames. I don't believe a single one of it's tutorials are relevant anymore - and I'm not sure they even load now.

I can't remember what I was playing, some Paradox Game, I think - but you couldn't actually complete the tutorial. It was still there, on the main menu, but it was impossible to complete because the game had been changed and the tutorial hadn't.
I know that these developers are working on a lot of stuff but I would think that a functional tutorial to at least explain the interface would be an obvious necessity.

Any manual or tutorial from a Paradox game can pretty much be discarded 3 months after release date (or earlier). The only way to learn the game is from the forums, wiki, googling or youtube, and even for those you had better check the date it was released.

[solops]

I could not disagree more strongly with OP. I hate tutorials, finding them time-consuming and less helpful than just playing. I loathe U-tube videos. The best way to learn is to play with a good printed manual in hand to answer question. Even an out-of-date printed manual is infinitely preferable. Most changes are not to base mechanics. I still refer to the TOAW3 manual. And I hate those useless wikis. I play offline. Wikis are insulting.

[Cheimison]

I could not disagree more strongly with OP. I hate tutorials, finding them time-consuming and less helpful than just playing. I loathe U-tube videos. The best way to learn is to play with a good printed manual in hand to answer question. Even an out-of-date printed manual is infinitely preferable. Most changes are not to base mechanics. I still refer to the TOAW3 manual. And I hate those useless wikis. I play offline. Wikis are insulting.

The control layout and options in TOAW3 are pretty involved and obscure, and expecting someone to just 'figure it out' is a pretty tall order.
HPS/John Tiller games are even worse, it's more like using Photoshop than a real game GUI.
I don't want tutorials on tactics so much as interface. The interface needs to be clearly explained, location and function of options, etc. This is best done by an integrated tutorial that points to elements in the GUI. Literally almost every game except for these house wargames has a tutorial like this, and for good reason.

Hey now...I wrote TOAW III's manual. :)

The manual isn't the problem, it's the need to constantly refer to a PDF file to play a tutorial that's little more than a lame scenario file with no integrated graphics or real explanation of the interface or mechanics that you didn't already get from the manual. The manual is pretty much a roster of how the mechanics work, which is what is needed in these sorts of games.

[FarAway Sooner]

I think, at their heart, most technologists aren't marketers.  A lot of them aren't even communicators, really. 

When you replace "technologists" with "grognard technologists", the effect becomes even more pronounced.

Designing a game on a budget is hard.  Few of the biggest shops really have the resources, or the people hired, to do perfect tutorials.   Especially given that the skill set for a good tutorial is so different. 

I do agree, though, that poor tutorials make the front door to a lot of those games much smaller.  Which is a shame, because once you get into the house, many of those games are delightful.

A lot of the Paradox games suffer from the same phenomenon that afflicted board-based wargaming in the 1980s.  Having modeled a bunch of really interesting stuff, they decided that the best path forward was more complexity.  Board-based gaming as a hobby declined for 10 or 20 years, and didn't start to rise up again until the arrival of Eurogaming (simple game play concepts that complement each other nicely, driving easy access AND increasing replay value) with titles like Settlers of Catan.

[Cheimison]

Having modeled a bunch of really interesting stuff, they decided that the best path forward was more complexity.

This is also something that cripples the AI. It's too damn involved, and there's no way the AI can figure it all out - especially since their Endless DLC model means that the core game has to remain largely unchanged while more and more features are added. Something else I find really weird is that Paradox has explicitly stated that they design Europa Universalis IV around multiplayer balance, even though 90% of all the games I see/hear about are single player. It's like they're more interested in designing a game for in-house than their actual audience.

I don't mind fairly crunchy games, but I would also like to see more games that play like strategy board games and less like spreadsheets.

[FarAway Sooner]

Yeah.  So much of AI capability is about how the basic game is designed.  It seems like that's a bit of an afterthought these days.  But it's one of the reason why I'm really into assymetrical games (i.e., games where one or more human players don't play the same way as PC players). 

AI Wars was brilliant in this regard.  It goes to reason that a godlike machine mind that now only views humans as rats living between the walls of its galactic empire might play a little differently than the puny humans.