RTFM: Remembering the Forgotten Manuals

oldtaku

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I agree that some of the old manuals were great (but there were a lot of crappy ones as well), but there are some real problems with including manuals in games:

- Most people don't read them (and didn't even back in the day).

- You have to be organized enough to have final screens and mechanics and everything else worked out long enough in advance of shipping that you can print them. Remember some of those old manuals that had inaccurate or clearly out of date info in them?

- Distribution is moving to digital, making them even less relevant. On the other hand, this does make the 'far enough in advance' less of a problem if your manual is all digital.

- It's a less and less hardcore audience, who won't read the manual and if they need a manual to figure your game out will just toss it aside and try the next thing.

- The whole 'you open up the box and there's just a small sheet of paper and your product, which you turn on and go' thing is Apple chic. It's a nice thing for Apple, but everyone loves chasing Apple without actually understanding why they do things.

Not disagreeing with your love of manuals, but I think you need to accept they're dead except as premium bonus items like a packed in cloth map. These days you buy the collectors' edition and it'll have your art book which mostly serves the same purpose.
 

Lopsided Weener

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It's not a console game, but the manual for Civilization IV was massive, and kept me glued to it for an hour at the very least. A friend of mine bought Civilization V a while ago and I was disappointed to find that when he opened it, there was only a tiny booklet inside. Ah how times change.
 

omicron1

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For my money RTS/TBS games have always had the best manuals. From Pharaoh's 150-odd-page encyclopedia to civ 3's ring binder to AoE's miniature books and associated tech tree foldouts, they were a joy to read. A pity the modern equivalent is the Collector's Edition art book - I'd pay extra for a proper manual in the box - maybe hardcover and glossy, but certainly more than a collection of pretty coffee-table pictures.
 

Mumorpuger

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I don't suspect anyone born past 1988 would "get" this article at all.

In response to it though I give a resounding and wholehearted "YES."
 

bjj hero

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I miss manuals. I still remember games like Buck Rodgers on the genesis with hundreds of pages explaining the formulas for attack/damage/etc. All taken from the DnD version at the time.

Or the SNES Metroid which came in a bigger box than usual to fit the comic book sized manual. Great times.

I also miss people asking questions on 56k modem online quakeII and being told to RTFM. Its not something you hear (read more accurately) anymore.

An enjoyable read.
 

ElPatron

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surg3n said:
Your opinion is right to a point - games that require manuals are not big hits anymore.

My point isn't the manual at all. I want a *new* game that mandates the use of a manual.

Mumorpuger said:
I don't suspect anyone born past 1988 would "get" this article at all.
Born in 1993.

Lopsided Weener said:
It's not a console game, but the manual for Civilization IV was massive, and kept me glued to it for an hour at the very least.
I remember that manual. Lots of detail.
 

Kenjitsuka

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Mike Wehner said:
Sometimes a premium is put on this type of content, requiring that you buy a collector's edition if you want a glimpse at concept art or additional materials. You may even find yourself reluctantly shelling out money for a strategy guide you don't really need, just to get that same behind-the-scenes feeling that the manuals of yesterday provided for free.
Exactly.
I got the Diablo 3 Collectors Edition AND special edition strategy guide for this reason.
Read it in the train home, ahhhh, the anticipation!!!

Funny story, still have the Diablo 1 manual from 1997 lying 1 meter away in the closet ;)
 

Isalan

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I remember the original Warcraft manual, that was like a manual with a novel attached to the end. Loved reading me a bit of Warcraft lore.

Can't think of any recent manuals I've seen tbh, last one I remember reading was one of the GTA 3 (may have been Vice City or San Andreas) ones with all the adverts for the various fictional shops and services presented as a tourist guide. Not a long manual, but very nicely presented I thought.
 

Right Hook

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The author has a decent point and I agree with a lot of what he is saying but there is definitely a lot of nostalgia influencing his overall opinion.
 

008Zulu_v1legacy

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I like the manuals from the older Command & Conquer games. Equals parts instructional and background lore. Made it more engaging.
 

Therumancer

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I agree, having a good manual to flip through was always a plus for a game for me. What's more having the spell lists for your RPG in your manual was an interesting take on copy protection, and also allowed them to have more detailed systems without having to worry so much about being able to have the game be able to explain itself for the MTV generation and beyond. :)

My favorite manuals were probably the Ultima IV set, which included it's own spell book listing all of the game's spells, along with a lore book. The original Might and Magic (while crude, I really liked the drawings of the adventurers throughout it) and Wizardry "Bane Of The Cosmic Forge", and "Crusades Of The Dark Savant" which also had some excellent artwork that contributed to giving the game personality.

To be honest, it seems the printed/supplementary materials have gone the way of the dodo in the quest to make gamers pay for every little thing. I suppose I could stomach it if cutting these corners in some way had reduced the cost of games, but really game companies just pocketed the money they saved, while gradually moving on to find ways to increasingly gouge the customer more and more.
 

immortalfrieza

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I think the reason that manuals have become pretty pitiful these days is because they aren't really needed anymore. In the 8-16 bit era they didn't have the means to really put all that much backstory and such into the games themselves, or putting a lot of tutorials either, or at least they weren't used for that purpose very often.

Now, they can easily put how to control the game and it's backstory directly into the game itself, which actually works quite well a lot of the time because learning by doing is more effective than by reading a manual, and they can slowly reveal the backstory of the game as the game progresses to give you a deeper understanding of the game than telling you "this guy did this" and trying to imagine it in your head, instead of having it right in front of you; Show, don't tell. not to mention that they can use this to create surprises that revealing in the manual would ruin.

captcha: watch c-beams glitter.

Ok captcha. Ooooh... Pretty....
 

VanQ

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Oct 23, 2009
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Does anyone remember the original StarCraft manual? Oh man, was that a good one. It had 50+ almost A4 size pages, about 15 were dedicated to the backstory on how modern man got from here to the current time in the StarCraft universe. This was a paperback quality backstory too, no big chunky text. The artwork in that manual was and still is full of style and sets the mood perfectly for the game.
I remember lugging that manual around with me all over the place, there was a full tech tree for each race as well as detailed character bios and hints and strategies and my god I want to read that manual again. Thank God I horde all my gaming purchases, I still have it here.
Excuse me while I spend the next hour reading over that backstory again.

Hell, even games like Crash Bandicoot, Rayman and Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee had awesome manuals. I need to go back and read those too.

Mumorpuger said:
I don't suspect anyone born past 1988 would "get" this article at all.

In response to it though I give a resounding and wholehearted "YES."
I was born in 1989 and this article had me oozing with nostalgia.
 

JEBWrench

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I have a fair few games that feature "You can read the manual in-game now!"

Which didn't work so well - since I was playing on an SD television, and couldn't read the damn manuals.

Apparently knowing how to play the game is optional nowadays.
 

Deadyawn

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You know those things that you didn't realise you missed until someone points it out for you. This is one of those things.
Whether or not these manuals are still strictly relevant isn't the point. The point is that they were awesome and added a whole lot to the game. And we don't really have that anymore. I think what made them interesting was the fact that they were actual items. Tangible objects that we could touch and carry around and use without the aid of some electronic device. They were related to the game but they were a seperate facet.
Maybe that just me. In any case great article.
 

ultrachicken

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I haven't even been bothering to read game manuals lately. It's a pretty lame situation, but there really isn't much incentive for devs/publishers to bother. Since when were sales affected by the game's manual?
 

lacktheknack

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Rednog said:
Also, where does Downpour fit into the Silent Hill universe...? I'm sorry but do the silent hill games really tie into each other besides them all taking place in Silent Hill? Silent Hill is a story about one's personal hell and coming to grips with why they are tormented. There is no set time line between the games and there is no connecting story. Hell one could even argue that all the Silent Hill games are taking place at the same time. You see the character from 2 running across your screen in downpour at one point, and you can sneak into the room from 4. That's the whole reason why Silent Hill is a scary place you don't know that much about it. Do you really want someone to sit down and be like ok this is why this is such an evil place, this is the character's complete and whole past and why he is in Silent Hill. No! That is the whole reason you play the game, it's to be brought into the narrative by the game and not having to rely on a leaflet.
Well, talk about spitting in the face of continuity. I haven't played Downpour, but I'm assuming he wasn't in Ashfield (where The Room was), and Silent Hill 2 revealed a metric butt-ton on how the town works. Also, Silent Hill 3 was a direct continuation of Silent Hill 1, and Silent Hill Origins was a prequel (with some ret-conning) of Silent Hill 1, as well as Silent Hill 4 referencing Silent Hill 2... in a long-past tense.

Most likely, the references in Downpour are results of "Did Not Do The Research" fan service because the devs were too damn lazy to read the Book of Lost Memories (the canonical everything to Silent Hill) or some of the better fan theories (see: Dena Natali).

I can't say you did either. "No set timeline"? Do you want me to outline the only one that makes sense? And it's not about working through your own personal hell - that's not what 1 and 4 were about, they were other people's personal hell that the protagonist got dragged into it (especially 4).

OT: I have a 120 page manual for Roller Coaster Tycoon - it came in really handy. I wouldn't mind seeing complete manuals come around again.
 

likalaruku

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A couple of years ago I bought an updated version of an old game for it to work on windows XP, but it came with no manual. The manual had illustrations & a diary-style prequel chapter. Mine got torn up during a house move, so I went on eBay to see if I could buy the manual. The gong rate for the manual alone was $30.
 

Wolfram23

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Yeah it's pretty sad. I loved pouring over manuals. In fact my dad used to joke about it - he'd say "sure he reads... his favorite books are his game manuals!" Har har.

Anyway probably my favorite manuals ever were Starcraft, Myth (Total Codex), and Homeworld 2. I played a ton of SNES games, mostly rented, and most definitely poored over them too but they don't really stand out like the 3 I mentioned.