Guest MajorH Posted January 14, 2000 Share Posted January 14, 2000 Not arguing ... just advising on what my motivations are. I have gone to using Adobe Acrobat PDF files for everything - online help as well as documentation. For example, in TacOps 3.0 the online help file that is accessable while the game is being played is actually the full 200+ page manual. As I was finishing v3 I found that I had a manual in Mac Word format, a manual in Windows Word format, a manual in Acrobat PDF format, an online help file in Mac Guide format, and an online help file in Windows help format - everything needed updating. I also had a tutorial in each format. On top of that I had to provide a French translation of each item. As a 'one man band' I was spending all my time screwing around with the documentation - especially recompiling and relinking the online help files - with no end in sight. With a little new code the game engine could use one PDF formatted file for the online help so I reduced my problem set down to basically one file for everything and it is in a format that works well on both Macs and PCs. I do remain 'old school' in one area. I continue to format the manual/online help as if it was a book. I pretty much follow the tradtional book conventions except that I have both a booklike table of contents with hypertext links and a side bar table of contents with links. The user can simply turn pages if he wants to but digital hot links and text search features are also in place if he wants to quickly zero in on a particular topic. Although I have gone to just digital documentation I don't care to pitch this as 'if you want hard copy then you can print it'. I think that line is disingenuous. For a lot of folks printing a decent sized manual is going to burn up a ream of paper and most of an expensive ink jet ink cartridge. That makes for a mighty expensive hard copy manual unless you do it at work . Also you end up with a two inch tall stack of unbound paper that doesn't rest very well on a book shelf. Bottom line - I wish it wasn't so but most folks don't seem to care ... its faster, easier, and cheaper for me as a developer ... as a consumer I have now gotten used to online documentation (getting a big monitor helped) ... each quarter fewer and fewer software publishers provide printed manuals and the printed manuals that are provided seem less and less useful (put in mainly to make the box heavier?). I'll pay you back by trying to not charge as much as others. ------------------ Best regards, Major H majorh@mac.com 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WendellM Posted January 15, 2000 Share Posted January 15, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>For a lot of folks printing a decent sized manual is going to burn up a ream of paper and most of an expensive ink jet ink cartridge. That makes for a mighty expensive hard copy manual unless you do it at work.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Have you considered offering a version of TacOps with a printed manual for a higher price, or making the manual available separately? With the economy of scale it's *much* cheaper for one person/company to make 500 copies of something all at once than 500 individuals doing it one at a time. I know this since I happen to work and a print & copy shop, though I haven't (yet) made a bound copy of my manual at work - hmm, maybe that could be considered "market research" . Generally, I prefer a printed manual to reading .PDFs online, but the low $20 for TacOps makes it easier to deal with. On the other hand, I bought Military Reference Library vol. 1 at the same time, indirectly *because* it was all-.PDF: there's no telling how much hard copies of all those field manuals would run! Wendell 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest MajorH Posted January 15, 2000 Share Posted January 15, 2000 Yes I considered that and decided against it. I expect TacOps sales to take off again due to the stable relationship with Battlefront. If that happens then I will be able to return to improving the game package and hopefully make enough changes each year to make having to constantly reprint manuals prohibitively expensive . ------------------ Best regards, Major H majorh@mac.com 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Mikeman Posted January 15, 2000 Share Posted January 15, 2000 I've always preferred printed manuals, but since the manual can be accessed while playing the game my main reason for this preference no longer exists. The .pdf format is really nice too. As far as manual content is concerned, I just want to say how excellent I think this manual is. It is very thorough, unambiguous, and well written. Other developers should use this manual as a 'benchmark' for manual quality. Mikeman out. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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