How many people would volunteer for re-writing the manual?

[earwicker7]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

That would be different than correcting errors.

Not that Im trying to overlap threads, but wouldnt that seem to be wiki territory?

The only rewrite Id push for would be someone rewriting the .map files for the maps that were provided with the game to smooth the road for newbie games.

I don't know... I don't really like the whole "anyone can publish at any time" aspect of wikis. My thought is to get something that is a group project, with a lot of vetting before anything is published.

[Colonial]

I thing Earwicker's idea has potential. not sure if I will have any time to devote to it after christmas...

[Duncan_Frost]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

C) before making Shrapnel mad
D) before making Illwinter mad

Why would Shrapnel and/or Illwinter get angry about the community fixing their mistakes, for free? I don't frequent these forums very often but are they really that uptight about this kind of thing?

Really all we need to do is make an errata document, with page references in the manual and notes on what is wrong.

[TheConway]

Well, there is already a "lies my manual told me thread" somewhere around here fwiw.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally Posted by Duncan_Frost

Why would Shrapnel and/or Illwinter get angry about the community fixing their mistakes, for free? I don't frequent these forums very often but are they really that uptight about this kind of thing?

Not at all. Fixing errors for free would be great. But Ive seen this type of thing come up on many game forums, and can clearly see where the same problems would come up here. It tends to depend on how careful the person doing it is about not insulting the people who have the power to approve.

One at a time, an item might be agreed on as being an actual error that the original person made in the manual. But saying that any particular person can do a project like this tends to run into SOMETHING that sparks a disagreement in terms. There are mistakes, then there are updates, then addendums and clarifications (adding to the manual), then there are outright rewrites of the manual into a completely new style outside of what was desired by the devs.

Really all we need to do is make an errata document, with page references in the manual and notes on what is wrong.

There are threads for that, and a prominent link on the OFFICIAL WIKI which says "Manual Errata". But even those make my point clear. Like many things about this game "everyone knows" that there are "many" errors in the manual, and things like best nations, sucky nations, killer strategies, exploits, etc. But when it comes to pinning them down to an agreement on what those are, it tends to be not nearly the problem that "everyone knows".

Manual Errata on the Wiki
http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Manual_errata
Discussion Thread on Manual Errata
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=39469

[earwicker7]

"One at a time, an item might be agreed on as being an actual error that the original person made in the manual."

Bingo! That is exactly what I'm thinking... nothing gets thrown in without community approval. There could be master threads for each subject, and, let's say, a minimum of one week of an "open forum" to discuss the issue. Once consensus is reached, it goes in the rulebook.

If I can get enough volunteers, I can take item forging as my first task. I would just need someone to show me how to mod a maxed-out rainbow pretender into a game with lots of gems (I'm assuming this can be done?), and I'd go through the items one at a time, first checking the manual description, then the in-game description, then I could create the item and equip it to see what effects it actually has.

[Gandalf Parker]

That wasnt quite what I meant. Sure you want the community to agree (thats hard enough) but then if you want it to be a change to THE manual then there is Shrapnel, Illwinter, and the original author. So not only do you have to be careful to insure that the manual does not agree with how the game really plays, you have to be careful what you call it. I would avoid calling them errors unless they really are errors. Such as, calling the thread and the wiki page "Lies My Manual Told Me" would not be the way to shmooze the road since it would apply to very little of what is listed.

[thejeff]

There is a DebugMod that should let you do the testing.