Please make the guide more accessible...

[Artnez]

A friend of mine came over today. He plays BF2 but didnt like PR when he tried it.

Anyway, I sat down for a couple rounds of PR and was lucky enough to find a great squad, just like back in the day. I had my friend watch what PR is *supposed* to be like and he was excited to download and play PR again.

I realized then that the user manual needs to be in people's faces, not tucked into some wiki thing.

Perhaps the devs can publicly ask the community to help in organizing a simple and to the point strategy guide that will only cover the essentials for good teamwork (with lots of pictures).

A lot of these people just don't have the patience to deal with PR and as much as you guys hate them, I think the more popular PR is, the more we're going to get out of this mod in the long run.

So what do you say? Shall we re-assess the strategy guide and force feed it to the new PR players so they will see the benefits of playing right?

As a footnote, maybe it's best to start with simple explanations, for example -- saying that to enjoy PR a player must exercise "patience, restraint, and extra focus/awareness". I think it should also be noted that PR is NOT a real life simulator... it can't be. Too often newbies say "well, in real life... [insert something not 100% realistic in the video game]"...

I simply cannot imagine someone not liking this mod once they get the full PR experience. Unfortunately, those of us who have been playing for a long time have spent a lot of time learning how to find the gameplay we want. We can't expect players to find this, it has to find them.

Of course the best scenario would be someone with a good computer actually record an in-game match (with VOIP recorded too) to show them how to play right.

[Wasteland]

You mean like the "PR Essentials" guide that's bundled with the game on installation?

[Artnez]

You mean like the "PR Essentials" guide that's bundled with the game on installation?

No.

When someone is installing the game, they want to get into the action. The common thing for players to do is to click next, next, next, next, finish. You can't expect someone who just came home from work, or school, or whatever -- to download the mod for hours then sit down and start reading.

It needs to be in the person's face. Just like the PR devs do promo videos that do absolutely no justice to the mod (because this mod isn't about eyecandy). Maybe the promo video time would be better spent simply creating a guide on how to play.

It could be simple stuff, just do a voice over and explain in the most simple way how the game works and encourage people to do VOIP.

Then put a huge banner with a link to the video on the homepage for all time and poof, I'm willing to bet players will be much more cooperative and understanding than they are now.

Remember, 99% of mods are basically "download-and-play", without any guides, etc.

[Artnez]

You mean like the "PR Essentials" guide that's bundled with the game on installation?

Oh also, people usually react badly to desktop icons that link to a webpage. It's just uncommon for mods to come with big manuals.

Besides, a 10 minute movie could go over all there is to PR, while it would take much longer to read through the entire manual. And if you're talking essentials, it would probably be a 5 minute movie.

[KingofCamelot]

So you want us to add like a to the point essentials video to the start of the mod and force the user to watch it the first time they start the mod?

I actually kind of like that as an idea, and we can definitely make it a one time watch but you can't skip video.

[youm0nt]

There's so much info and new things about PR, I'd say it might take a while to make... Though, there's plenty of time for it until 0.7.

[Ghostrider]

I see your point and I think it has merit. On the other hand, the .pdf manual has only 18 pages (full of pictures I should add) and its layed out very well.

Even if they only played BF2, it does come with a manual. The problem is that some people just dont want to read because, apparently, its too difficult to do so.

For our next manual, we'll include a coloring section and a maze. Your friends in school should find it more interesting
In the maze, you must look for the best path towards the next objective in enemy territory. I bet it'll be really fun. I'm eager to try that out myself

-Ghost

[Spearhead]

I bet the guys who are too resistant to the "learning" part of playing the game will find a way to skip it... like taking a bathroom break or getting a beer...

I like the idea but if someone is too lazy to read the basics section of the short manual they won't be willing to learn much by another way.

I think we'd have a higher impact if we were releasing the manual 1-2 days ahead of the new version and separately... I guess there will be a bunch of people who want to kill time while leeching the game but don't want to waste time after it's installed.

EDIT: Starts working out the maze...

[ArmedDrunk&Angry]

Can the maze include mild, low voltage shocks ?

[Yahwhay]

Spearhead']I like the idea but if someone is too lazy to read the basics section of the short manual they won't be willing to learn much by another way.

Maybe they don't even know the basics manual is there (I don't even know where "there" is to be honest, I just leaned through playing) or find reading boring. Maybe if you, at the begining, promise some kind of lesbian action at the end (but don't put it in) so they watch it all the way through Although, the video probably would be watched if it couldn't be skipped, anyone who doesn't bother watching are probably the same people who will give up after 10 minutes of play.

[StealthUk]

Well, i agree with you. In the mod "Sandbox" by the Sir. comunity they have "Welcome to sandbox! If this is your first time playing please read the user guide" message instead of the "Connecting to server" message you get when logging in. They replaced BFHQ with the user guide in the menu. It would help, i really hate people that come on and don't know how to do anything.

I was commander today and some guy that obviously hadn't read the guide jumped into the support truck and drove off while i was building things for the team... pisses me off.

[eggman]

Using the BF2 MOTD as a link to a guide is a good idea.

We install Spearhead's PDF with v0.6 that has some basic info, I think it's an excellent improvement. The wiki is convoluted and most people dont want to deal with a bajillion page wiki.

If people are not intrigued by an FPS that has a learning curve, enough that they click on that PDF we place n their desktop and read it after a few rounds of the game .. well... I dunno what to say....

[Yahwhay]

eggman']If people are not intrigued by an FPS that has a learning curve, enough that they click on that PDF we place n their desktop and read it after a few rounds of the game .. well... I dunno what to say....

Maybe it's not so much they don't want to read it but more they either don't think they need to (they've got their l33t bf2 and CS:S sk1llz afterall) or they don't realise it's there, I didn't know it was there until just now and probably wouldn't have noticed it if you hadn't said.

[eggman]

yeah we can do a better job of messaging on the installation.

What I mean is that if people play PR for a few rounds and then decide it sucks, not sure they will ever like it. Back in the days of 0.1 .. well .. it kinds did suck. But now we're pretty far along the mod has a certain type of player who will find it appealing .. or not. It's the ones who find it appealing but are still confused we need to do a better job of facilitating a better introduction... not the ones who try it for 2 rounds spamming questions like "warez teh snipr" .. followed by "f u mod skucs".

We just need to be realistic about how broad we want to attempt to appeal to and not unrealistically attempt to convert 24/7 karkand players over to PR.

Not saying we can't improve it, but Spearhead's guide is pretty accessible, tho I definitely agree we can do a better job on the install.

[knewman]

Just wanted to add that spearheads guide was great, I learned some stuff from it and I thought I already knew it all!

[The_motivator]

Can the maze include mild, low voltage shocks ?

low voltage, high amps...