RTFM?

[Rory Noonan]

I recently asked a question to a closed group of ‘power users’ and got some interesting answers. I’d really like to open this question up, and I would encourage everyone (brand new, lurker, poster, veteran) to respond.

What kind of learning resources would you like to see in CMANO? Would you prefer written (the manual), hands-on (tutorial scenarios), visual (videos ala Baloogan); or some other format?

[c3k]

As a newb, I see the need for two solutions. The first would be a MUCH more extensive manual, with a LOT more explanations and examples, including branching decisions points on how to manage your assets. (By "branching", I mean offering two or more actions and then explaining how to do each, with pro's and con's.) The second solution would be a series of short (5 to 10 min) videos like Baloogan's. His were some of the most helpful videos for accessing the depth of this game. I'd keep each video very tight and focussed. Instead of a 45 minute video showing a Desert Storm gorilla package from start to finish, show a few minutes about how to explore the air base assets. Another on how to assign munitions. Another on how to sort how many aircraft to fly, etc. Very small building blocks which can be accessed as needed.

I'm not daunted by steep learning curves and have been involved in actual air ops in my military career. However, this game is...hard to get into. Documentation and video are the key.

[thewood1]

The funny part is the documentation is almost all there. Its just scattered over the manual, FAQs, addendums, and there is a huge amount in the release notes and the wasfaresims posts. I spent a few hours a couple months ago consolidating all into a PDF and it has disappeared off the forum with age.

I think is someone would just take all that info and format, organize it, and pin it, that would be masterful. But it has to be pinned. I'm not doing it again, just to have it fall off the forum after a day.

And at the same time, if people won't even bother referencing the original manual I don't blame the devs for not putting much effort into it.

[thewood1]

Here is the consolidated doc, including Lua, up to 1.12.

[Grazyn]

As the saying goes, "I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand."
Tutorials are always the way to go

[BDukes]

I think maybe update FAQ page would help. Perhaps start mirror page on this forum and direct player directly too in titles. Not sure exist now.

Definitely stop people scold others for not reading manual. It not constructive but make people run away like hair on fire and they never come back to hang out and look at stuff to get info. If you have forum full of forum nanny nobody stick around and learn.

Thank

[thewood1]

"people run away like hair on fire"

you need to work on you colloquialisms. Its starting to veer off into incoherent land.

[ultradave]

I like a nice written manual - PDF being ideal since it can be searched. I like the Command Ops 2 manual. Almost everything discussed has key commands described, and screen captures of the window or menu used and/or the result on the screen with an example from play. It's pretty thorough, although it too is evolving.

C:MANO I think has more possibilities because of the larger variety of units, but I like the concept.

I think a combination of a manual like that, and good tutorials that walk you through a reasonable size mission to illustrate how to do things is good. At least that works for me.

I tend to read a lot though and I realize that some people don't

[thewood1]

Its not even to read. Its a searchable reference. My first read through on a manual is just to get an idea where the info is. Its why I like PDF manuals and don't care about printed manuals. Everyone thinks the hue and cry is over reading the manual. Its not. Its about just searching there first. Its just a common courtesy to take a look in all the available resources.

The main frustration with learning Command is two-fold:

1) The available information has increased incredibly since release and its scattered around the forum.
2) It is a very complex game that requires practice and training yourself.

The people who struggle are the ones that start it up and then come in asking a dozen questions without ever searching for anything or looking at a tutorial. We can't even get certain people trained to out a save up.

The real question is what can you do so people who just want to blow things up can get into the game quickly without coming into the forums and sucking up time that could be spent on helping people with legit hard questions.

[kaburke61]

The tutorials are a great idea, but I definitely love the idea of an up to date (well, as close as possible of course. CMANO keeps evolving at a rapid pace!) PDF manual.

[Puciek]

Absolutely tutorials over everything, I very much like the recent submarine and strike tutorials - they are very awesome at guiding the player in the right direction. Problem is that when you get stuck on them, there is very little that you can easily find to understand a subject better, as the manual is very sparse and grossly outdated, and googling is... uncertain to say the least. So more tutorials, and updated manual, or wiki (to help organize it all, though would like need official support to keep it ship shape) would go far in new player engagement.

Also a category of scenarios set for newbies is another thing, when you open cmano you get A LOT of scenarios to start but have no clue what they are.

[nukkxx5058]

I agree that tutorials with very detailed explanations like the recent submarine tutorials are a great way to learn.
A big fat manual (or rather a strategy guide) with plenty of examples, explanations, tactics wouldn't be bad neither...
But I would definitely rank tutorials as #1 as long as they are of the quality of the last submarine ones.

[temkc5]

Full disclosure of biased

I bought the games after watching a few of baloogan's videos and continued watching his videos to find out where all of the controls
Exist
(Oh how I miss those videos (COW[&:]))

But if you do these tutorials like you've done the submarine tutorials people shouldn't need a video.

Keep up the impressive work Apache85[&o]

[$trummer]

I think the very first task should be to update the manual by incorporating the addenda*. And it should not be necessary to have to hunt for a printer-friendly version of the manual (i.e. one without a dark background). It would also be great if the manual included an illustrated step-by-step playthrough of a sample mission.

* Sorry but I just can't bring myself to ignore five years of Latin in school.

[guanotwozero]

It might be useful to include walkthrough documents to accompany the tutorials, including manual references (links?) for each action.

That way manualphobes can get a gentle introduction to reading it, or at least using it as a reference.

Impatient players can dive straight in without a full RTFM session, but still figure out where to find useful info.

Win-win!

ORIGINAL: $trummer
* Sorry but I just can't bring myself to ignore five years of Latin in school.

Dulce et decorum est, ubi fieri potest, includere Latine. [:)]

[thewood1]

And now we come to my main point.

"Impatient players"

This is the problem. When people come in and ask about the game, they will get an almost universal response that the game isn't for everyone. If you want to jump right in and start playing complicated scenarios, you will be disappointed and frustrated. In the old 1-10 Avalon Hill game complexity rating system, this is a 12. Even the most simple scenario is more complicated than 95% of the PC games out there.

I remember one of the first reviewers panned Command because the screen was so cluttered when he played. He started out with a large scenario and didn't know about the map options. He never read the manual, played a tutorial, or even played around with the options. He just plowed in and then panned the game.

Experienced players will help, but at some point, even the most charitable player will eventually throw their hands up in the air in their own frustration if the new player isn't willing to do some basic work to understand naval warfare and the game. The results of those encounters are scattered over the five year history of this forum. I came to the conclusion a few years ago its better to confront that issue early and upfront. Sometimes its painful and not pretty, but it keeps the forum from degenerating like it has several times in the past.

I don't think its the devs responsibility or duty to spend an inordinate amount of time with "impatient players". I don't want them spending their time that way. I want them adding features and developing DLC. The documentation is actually, in its raw form, very good and complete. It definitely could be organized and consolidated, but its there. There are probably close to 20 tutorials in the game and on the forums. There are dozens of videos. No matter how many you build, the player still has to have the ambition to use them.

I mean, we still have players to this day that bring problems to the forum without a save. There is an entire thread on new players and asking for help. No one gets hammered for asking a question. But asking a question and then not taking advantage of the lesson learned does cause frustration. The people I like helping are people with a question that takes what you say and goes and tries it and does some research on it. This is a game that requires learning, training, patience, and a good understanding of the resources that are at hand to help.

Good tutorials and documentation are always welcome, but still only help to a point. And keeping them up to date and organized is a lot of work. There was a discussion about a year after release about the devs spending time on manuals. The general consensus was that as long as we know where to look, the players would rather time be spent on development. I would like to see the community, with help from the devs, tale all the existing docs and get them into shape for new users. We can solve this is we want to have a little ambition.

[guanotwozero]

ORIGINAL: thewood1

And now we come to my main point.

"Impatient players"

This is the problem...

Well, it takes all sorts to make a world.

Some players are the types that own and have patiently read every copy of Janes' ever printed, some are newly arrived from playing twitchy first-person "shoot death kill" games where patience is not a virtue.

In my mind, it's a good idea to welcome and help anyone who has chosen to try CMANO, no matter what their background and personal nature. What works for one person may not work for another, so having a range of options would make sense to me.

Sure, for some, RTFM is very much the best route, but I wouldn't like to exclude the manualphobes and the impatient - it just means a different approach to immerse them in the game we all love. So that they can come to love it too.

[thewood1]

Again, I am not saying you have to read the manual, but not using it as a resource, or any of the other resources out there, is incredibly inconsiderate of the devs' time and the people willing to step in and help. I always notice that some of the people who are so concerned with offending the few who can't be bothered with learning the game are the same who I never see step in and help.

The world is made up of all kinds of people. But not all people can do everything. There are games I don't play, like HOI games, because I don't have the where with all to figure out the details. The resources, manuals, videos, tutorials, etc. are all there. But every time I start to go through it, I am just not ambitious enough to do it. And I would never consider going to any forum and ask basic games questions over and over again without someone pointing me to the resources to figure stuff out.

My point is that with all the resources available to the player, continuing to ignore people pointing to where you can basic questions answered is a good way to get someone frustrated with you. And also, by all types of people, I am sure you are including people that are just too lazy and impatient. They want answers now. They have no appreciation for the people trying to help them. They don't get the hint. They have to clubbed over the head sometimes.

There have literally been people that have come on to the forum trying to play a 1000 unit scenario without ever looking at the manual, looked at a video, or tried a tutorial. They'll ask a question and when told they should start with a tutorial, will badmouth the advice and the game. It has happened enough times that I typically have a standard answer on the best process to learn the game. Most eventually conceded that to play the game, they need to learn it. But we still get a few knuckleheads that will piss and moan about this being broken or that needs to be fixed to hide their own unwillingness to learn the game first.

When someone comes in and asks what a patrol zone is, my standard answer is to point them to the page in the manual and many times actually quote the manual for them. When they then come back and ask what a reference point is, I, at that point, will tell them they should read the manual, watch the videos, and play the tutorials. It either gets better or worse from there.

[Puciek]

ORIGINAL: thewood1

Again, I am not saying you have to read the manual, but not using it as a resource, or any of the other resources out there, is incredibly inconsiderate of the devs' time and the people willing to step in and help. I always notice that some of the people who are so concerned with offending the few who can't be bothered with learning the game are the same who I never see step in and help.

The world is made up of all kinds of people. But not all people can do everything. There are games I don't play, like HOI games, because I don't have the where with all to figure out the details. The resources, manuals, videos, tutorials, etc. are all there. But every time I start to go through it, I am just not ambitious enough to do it. And I would never consider going to any forum and ask basic games questions over and over again without someone pointing me to the resources to figure stuff out.

My point is that with all the resources available to the player, continuing to ignore people pointing to where you can basic questions answered is a good way to get someone frustrated with you. And also, by all types of people, I am sure you are including people that are just too lazy and impatient. They want answers now. They have no appreciation for the people trying to help them. They don't get the hint. They have to clubbed over the head sometimes.

There have literally been people that have come on to the forum trying to play a 1000 unit scenario without ever looking at the manual, looked at a video, or tried a tutorial. They'll ask a question and when told they should start with a tutorial, will badmouth the advice and the game. It has happened enough times that I typically have a standard answer on the best process to learn the game. Most eventually conceded that to play the game, they need to learn it. But we still get a few knuckleheads that will piss and moan about this being broken or that needs to be fixed to hide their own unwillingness to learn the game first.

When someone comes in and asks what a patrol zone is, my standard answer is to point them to the page in the manual and many times actually quote the manual for them. When they then come back and ask what a reference point is, I, at that point, will tell them they should read the manual, watch the videos, and play the tutorials. It either gets better or worse from there.

As a new player, what are all those resources you are referring to? Manual doesn't even explain basics of sonar and submerged detection, not even single example of how layer affects things, besides merely few lines that "it's hard". If people don't read the manual it's because it's just not good, and very bare bone, and it really is.
While for you it may seem like plenty of information, for actual new player finding ANYTHING about how cmano works is hard work as the information is scattered all around. And this isn't about lack ability to play the game, but obstacles that must be jumped over for basic knowledge.

You may want to remember that every single day in your life someone patiently helps you with a matter you know absolutely nothing about. And then almost never do it by tossing the manual at you with words "RTFM", especially when you pay them.

[thewood1]

And I am appreciative of when people help, but I also make sure I help myself. If I ask a question and they say the answer is in the manual, what's the first thing I would do...I would look in the manual. The next time I have a question, that is the first place I would look.

btw, almost all the information you need is here...

tm.asp?m=3607586

Pay particular attention to the FAQ...its huge and fairly well organized. It probably answers 80% of the new player questions that get asked. Is it perfect? No. But if someone took the time to bother looking at the new player thread, they would see tutorials, videos, manual addendum, FAQ, etc. I still go back to the FAQ a lot because it gets updated. I am alsways learning something from it.

Its not like I jump on someone for asking a basic question. But its a pattern I see enough to know someone is in over their head. Asking a number of very basic and easily found questions. At that point I'll point them to where they can find their answers. If they continue to press on without even doing the basics of learning the game, I'll start pushing them to really focus on what they are trying to do. At that point its up to them. If they keep going down this path, I'll keep pushing.