Peri, I do not want to be offensive, or to sound like I am trying to insult you in any way. That is not my intention at all. However, what I am about to say I cannot think of a way to say without being rather confrontational and potentially offensive about it. For that, I apologize.
Don't worry. If things remain polite I have no problem to discuss a bit. I really failed to see my point awkwardly if you come up with such an answer, especially since I really share the ideas you have. At this point can't do much else than bring up my game experience in the hope you can understand what I want to say more than I can really explain.
This would have likely been my "better achievement in bm" if I had answered that thread (or whatever was the title). I have the firm belief, ic and ooc, that every char should be a mentor for those below him in hierarchy: marshal for those in his army, lord for knights, duke for everyone in his duchy and government members for everyone that needed an answer. I always tried to play all my "main" chars with this philosophy as far as time allowed me to. One of them had the mentor class but not all as I tried to play other subclasses as well. Now, this mentor-approach gave me a lot of occasion to discuss with students (not only proper ones, also just people asking let me call them generally students) and teach them things. Clearly one can teach them a lot of strictly IC things such as history and politics of the realm etc. But the real achievement comes from teaching them game mechanics.
With teaching game mechanics I do not intend just the ropes, but really becoming like a constant figure whom to ask whenever needed, through their entire career. It happened me at least a couple of times to run in this way into characters (but I should perhaps say players) with the right mix of commitment, curiosity and humility as to really ask a LOT of things, again mainly mechanics but still in a good-rp way and to see them grow experienced in time. My chars opened basically every door they could to these characters, and I can state they had a remarkably quicker ascension to important places of power as compared to the average. To summarize, through mentor interaction my chars built very tight IC bonds with several people around them, and in some particular cases the student's behaviour really influenced the beginning of their game. A bit egocentrically I would say it might have even helped them in the decision whether to spend time on bm or not.
As you can see the necessary condition for this to take place is the ignorance of the character that seeks my counsel. As I said one can certainly ask to his superiors strictly IC things, but you won't be as attached to anyone else than your first real mentor that told you how the game works. I have a firm belief that this is a great game experience for both parties involved and, if you allow the term, also some kind of strategy. Many people are concerned about loyalty of their subjects: if you're the one that has an answer for everyone that's an outstanding way to gain their trust.
Ok now let's try to comment this thing from an ooc point of view. First: this is all very nice, but holds just for the very first char. In fact these teachings are basically aimed to the player: his next chars will likely no longer be asking explanations around, so it's a one shot opportunity and depends completely on how long has the player been playing. Second, as I've said, finding nice and interested students whose game experience is considerably improved by their mentor in return of their interest is absolutely (as far as I've seen) the exception and not the average. I also really have the feeling this helps in creating the right attitude in players: if they had as starting game experience a deep interaction with some of his superiors, I hope they will be just as available in the future to grow up the new generations. And if you allow me a bit of a detour, again attitude is everything for my chars. You can say what you want but in my opinion if you're arrogant in this game you'll have a hard time getting anywhere.
All these things are unlikely completely destroyed by posting some advanced tutorials for sure, but I am afraid they may be diminished, as more people will gather informations from the wiki and the forum rather than ask, and diminish the already very thin mentor-student (again, in a generalized sense) interaction between players.
Speaking now about your arguments, however, I find them quite convincing. I truly agree that - to use your words- we are a criminally nepotistic bunch, and that generalized knowledge is likely to help in the direction of broadening the influence sphere to include more players than the usual ones, making everything potentially more challenging and fun. I still believe one has the in game tools to do so, but it's a matter of numbers. You are likely going to reach many more people with the tutorials than mentors will lose students because of it. However, what I really don't like, is the potential change in attitude that having almost the entire game under your eyes in tutorials can create: there is nothing that I can think of worse than starting to build a legion of self-learned full-of-themselves average players, who are likely not bothering being kind to their neighbour as they can just point him to the forum. And so I ask, if the aim of bm is not winning, is an unexperienced general that gives a good game experience to those around him better or worse to have than a general that knows way more things through the forum but does not really care about those around him? The cut is not clear, the mere reading of a tutorial will not turn you into a bear, but it's just a slow decay of interactions that I would like to avoid. People won't ask, people in higher power won't bother to explain as they didn't really get through the social-learning process where vocality is so important, and the silence will kill the game, even if your realm wins the war. Rarely I found the same enthusiasm and genuine commitment to the game as I found in clueless newcomers, excited to get into new things. Older players are professionals, so to say, and they tend to be moved way less. I really realized how less involving I am to the people around me when I hold the same position for a long time, getting used to it by knowing it in full details.
Now, in this insanely huge wall of text for the writing of which I apologize deeply with the hard drive that stores it, I didn't really make up my mind which between your argument or my argument - or to rephrase pro and contras about the tutorials - convinced me. I am just throwing here this huge reflection in the hope someone may elaborate the points here and conclude whether there could be a better way to shape these advanced mentoring tutorials as to avoid colliding with the points I raised.
edit: I forgot to explicitly mention it, but I hope it's clear that the concept of player retention is something I'm quite concerned about. We can argue forever whether the steep learning curve is truly the barrier, but I would like to throw in my opinion that interaction with a cool mentor is definitely a good way to retain players. And to interact with a mentor the new player must ask something he can't find anywhere else.
