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« on: May 09, 2011, 09:58:02 PM »
If I may object a little on the project, that I think it's great and deserves praise, I would stress that it should be strictly moderated.
As far as my game experience goes, battlemaster has always been deliberately bad at informing people what button does and similar things. I thought Tom rejected more than one feature request because he likes the troubles that experiencing things can create, and I believe it's a great feature of the game.
A very thorough and comprehensive tutorial on almost all the portion of the game would have the double effect of 1) cutting down the mistakes done by people trying the new stuff. I am aware it's VERY annoying when it happens, but it makes the game more interesting. 2) It cuts down interaction between players. If the Marshal or the new Lord as soon as he gets the position reads the potentially huge post that is on the forum, he will lose all the interesting interactions with the General or Duke (for instance) that teach him the ropes of the new position. And yes, of course one can do both, but I don't think anyone would lose much if a "guide on how to be a lord" would be absent. That's what duke rulers and mentors are there for.
On the other hand the huge amount of unknown options can discourage new players, and some kind of good tutorial is needed.
My personal conclusion is that it should be very welcome a tutorial that covers aspects of a newcomer's turns, such as the one about gaining influence, but that very advanced tutorials should be either very vague or at most exploring scarcely the various options. Something too complete would cut down interactions too much, and that's a true pity for this game.
Just a trivial example to clarify (sorry vessol for using your food tutorial again, but it's just the only one present now): a Lord gets appointed by a duke because of his loyalty and, perhaps, naiveness. I have personally more than once rewarded newcomers that proved to be devout and a bit clueless over long standing and reliable people, as youngsters can be shaped exactly in the way you want to. He puts his hands on this mysterious entity called food, and asks the duke or the banker informations about it. They can lie to him as much as they want, as he sees just a tiny bit of the huge trade network going on around him. Fair? certainly not. But I think it's nice and fun, and pushes people to mentor if you allow them to explain the things how they want them to seem. With a tutorial about food such as the one made by Vessol with 2 clicks the guy would know the duke is fooling him. It's ooc, but he would need very little time to ask the right questions and get the right answers IC, driven by ooc knowledge, and wipe out all the interest of the duke in training him.