Reading the Manual,who did?

[Sinn_Ah_Taggh]

Lately serveral members of my clan has become interested in PR, wich is good, but i am notecing a slight problem.
Nobody bothers reading the manual..!
Why?
I dont know,but it is starting to get to me.

When i startet playing (after a very long break from PR) back in 0.8, the first thing i did after completing the install was reading the manual...all of it!
Im not sure if that made me a better player,but im sure i didnt ask TO many question that would irritate the unlucky squad that had to train me

I personaly feel that,by now, i can call my self a competend PR player and i feel very comfortable with the various systems that players face in the game.
I guess this is why i have been promoted to head of the PR department in our clan.
To make shure that new and old members get the required information and training they needed before jumping into battle.

But today one of our members contacted me regarding the installation of PR and i offcourse gave him the walkthrough and he is currently DL´ing the files.
After som general chat about PR and some frontline stories i encouraged him to read the manual to save himself and others of some potentialy embarrassing moments on VOIP/VT.
He promptly gave me this answer: "Why bother,i´ll just ask you. Besides,why would you need to read a damn manual to play a game?"
I have noticed that this is becoming an increasingly "popular" reply,and this is IMO not a good trend.

Personaly i think that the manual is there to give you a feel of the different systems and functions of the game and it will save you and your squad a lot of ingame troubble down the road and therefore its not a "damn manual to play a game".

So now im here to ask the community if you guys have similar encounters when it comes to new players?
And did you read the manual before jumoing into battle?

This is not a rant about "n00bs" or "nillan00bs",but more of a general conserne regarding the level of competense for future players.
I am well aware that this is still just a game and we (well,most of us) play this for fun.
But i fail to see the fun in asking questions that is easely answerd by the manual.

-Sinna

[snooggums]

Most games have tooltips and therefore most people skip the manual. It isn't laziness, it is just that most people are used to having very similar controls for games and are used to getting messages like "You should do X here."

I still learned most of what I know by asking people in game, since the manual lets you know what is going on but doesn't really give tactical ideas about how to use stuff like a person in game would. Quick learners don't need to read the manual but there are always small things that most people don't catch just by playing (like how you can place 30 mines as an engineer, and that they remain for x minutes after a death).

[ankyle62]

i breezed through it, cant say i read it word for word.

[maarit]

ops:
i didnt read a manual when i started to play.
im not sure was there even manual v0.4?
i think that i was bored to vanilla and wanted to just check is this mod good and i didnt wanna spend my time to read manual,if the mod is ****.

i linked manual to my friend who started to play.he readed it but is hard to remember everything when you are middle of the battle.

but MOD IS GOOD AND YOU SHOULD READ THE MANUAL!

[Elektro]

After my first game where i shot the head off a guy on the carrier by mistake i read the manual

[rampo]

Nope never read the manual and i trained flying on empty servers. All i know has been thaught to me by good squad leaders and helpfull players

[dbzao]

We intend to add the in-game help messages back, with PR specific tips. We just never got into doing it yet, really. So that would solve the initial "what's the shovel for?" questions and stuff like that.

But the manual would still be useful to explain some rules and ways to use some PR's systems.

[Jigsaw]

I did read the manual, and continue to do so after each release as there are often new features added. In my opinion it is easily the best way to learn about the game before getting into a squad, because too much questioning during a round can really ruin it for the experienced squad members. However, I also believe that learning by doing is the best way to learn, and experience is far more important than reading the instructions.

I have encountered the problem that you refer to, just yesterday there was a new player in my squad who constantly asked questions and was finding it difficult to perform some of the basic tasks. The only thing you can do is be patient and walk them through the game, as they will (for the most part) learn if you put the effort in.

That being said, from my experiences in game the level of ability from the average player is considerably higher than it was a year ago.

[Spec]

I don't know if I read the manual when I first downloaded PR. I don't think I did. But now I read it, and look through it again with every new version.

I agree, many people skip the manual of games because it's normally not very useful since you have some kind of tutorial in game. I think so did I with PR back in 0.5.

[Tit4Tat]

When i first instaled PR i did read the manual i think its the most logical thing to do as PR game play is quite different to vanilla. After reading it i played for number of hours only to return back to the manual and try to remember all the things about cache spawn time, how many points u need for a cache to be shown blahblah etctec. All in all ive read it a few times, so i knew the basics and all i need to play it well was experince, which with time ull get.

After playing PR for couple of month i still hit everything around the target and not the target its self. Ill see an enemy run across the street i stop>zoom>unload a mag>see his silhouette in the back wall>he stops>2shots>me screaming MEDIC!!!

Than ive stumbled onto a guide on youtube showing you how to shoot PROPERLY...after that day i am a man i am today.

[503]

I read the manual after playing a game without reading the manual.

[akatabrask]

When I found out about pr my pc couldnt run it so i ended up reading the manual a couple of times so i was "prepared" when I got a new pc

Pretty much the same thing here, except I mainly read it to read about all the awsome features the mod had.
After that it was all watch and learn.
I also skim through the manual briefly each major release in order to see if there's some new thing that I didn't know about and stuff like that (and it takes pretty much as much time as the installation of the mod/update does).

[J.Silver]

Nope... I dled the core and that was it.. Loaded it up and went all, " WTF!" Then I read the manual and voila! Levels downloaded... Really... Common sense is God's gift to everyone... But much like 80 year old strippers, it's your choice to accept it!!


By the way, first map was on Fools Road.. It really was a ground breaking event for me... We stormed that depot like we owned it... Blood was driven down the hills like a river.. Well, mine at least... Reminds me of the quarterdeck....

Manuals are there for a reason... Love and cherish this sacred gift the almighty Dev team instilled upon us. Nay, I walk into the valley of the shadow of death. I shall fear no evil for the manual art with me.

[TheWhaleHunter]

Nope, didn't read it.
I joined a squad as a rifleman and told em I was new and shouldn't be trusted with any other kit or complex tasks. I just followed orders, something I didn't have to read the manual to do.

I closely observed the changing of kit, how the medic did his job and how the SL did his. How people split up assets and such. I didn't bother with any questions.

Then I jumped into a training server, tried out all the vhiecles and took a look at the comrose. I had seen my SL build a FOB, and in the comrose I saw "Firebase" so I know what that was for, I had also observed that we had brought 2 crates and that was where we got our kits from. From observing the medic I understood I wasn't supposed to throw my medic bag but to use it as a tool, etc.

And I had also watched A LOT of videos while installing the game, so I had seen almost all game mechanics in video.

Worked for me. And I don't think I've asked more than a handfull of questions in my time playing PR.

[Zrix]

Read through the manual when it came out, now I usually just flip through it to see if anything changed since the last version.

[RememberTheAlamo]

First few days I played without reading it.
Once I've read it, the game became a lot better and more clear

[Kain888]

I actually read the manual before even downloading game.

My brother sent me link to manual to show me game. I was amazed how well BF2 can be changed, then i read it like 2 times when i started playing and I'm reading it after each release.

It's good to know what game can offer and don't be so back to veteran players. Although in manual there is like 40% of things you want to know. A lot of important things is missing that's why I'm waiting for online guide.

[Bringerof_D]

yes, i thoroughly read the manual as best i could the day i installed PR

and yes i've encountered players who have not who ask stupid questions while i'm squad leading. but honestly "read the manual" is a horrible response (since you're in the middle of a live round, if he were to go read it he'd have to leave the game), i found it was much more effective to explain it as fast as i could and when given the chance, demonstrate.

[Anhkhoa]

I read the manual and all of my squad except my squad leader (who ignored me) thought I was "the best guy in the squad".
I didn't even use VOIP..