FAQ: FAQ Discussion & Submissions

[GrudgeBringer]

I have read and reread the complete Manual at least 4 times.

I have also read different sections for clarifaction more times than I can count.

SOMETIMES, you just have to ask a question, either because you just don't understand it or perhaps because you are looking in the wrong section BECAUSE you don't understand it.

I understand that a lot of the vets that have been so helpful in these Forums and going up and beyond the call of duty to make these FAQ's and other listings.

Without you guys there would not be the community that D3 has.

That being said, it seems to me that this particular game draws a somewhat older and more mature player. One that not only has responsibilities in life but also understands there are proceedures to find out information (as they do every day in thier chosen professions).

We try not to bother the 'upper Eschelon' as they have been thru it more times than they need to.

But when we DO post our problems in the Forum there are a lot of people that remember when they where just as frustrated as the Noobs are and how these same Noobs are trying hard to compete with the more experienced players and last perhaps 40 turns before they are unceremoniously destroyed and forgotton in thier respective games. And they are happy to pass thier acquired knowledge on to the next generation of players (which is what keeps this game alive).

We don't ask the 'GURUS' (and I mean that with complete sincerity and respect) to answer our Noob questions as this would be akin to swatting a fly with an Atom Bomb.

However, we also don't need to be told by these people that we respect and hold in somewhat AWE that when we ask a qustion that we should go somehwere else to find an answer or "Read the Manual" (agian).

Every Forum I have EVER been on in some pretty inticate games ask NOOB questions and I think MOST of us take the time to answer them (up to a point when we become the elite and then there is always an 'underclass' that takes over).

I for one don't need to be scolded for asking a question that I can find no answer for OR that when I look in the FAQ and put in words like 'Heal Afflictions' it comes up 'Not Found'.

So please, moderate these forums and do the excellent job that you do mediating disputes, directing threads that should be in another area to the proper place, and in general hold this game together.

But to criticize a very new player and make him feel pretty stupid on a public forum for asking the same question that you probably asked 5 years ago....

Just my opinion and not directed at any one in particular but I HAVE heard people ask why the 'gurus' get so angry

[Edi]

I'm sorry if you felt like you wee being lectured, that was not the intention in the 2 spells thread. My comment is the only one there that could be considered so, though it was made as a more general comment on the board at large, not toward you in particular. Unfortunately tone of voice does not carry through text too well.

One of the reasons there is sometimes frustration among the veteran players when faced with questions covered by easily found material (such as the FAQ) is that more often than not the questions are posted without even trying to look for any information, whether in the manual or somewhere else. This is often due to the fact that unlike many other games, Dominions 3 almost requires that the player actually read the manual instead of ignoring or just skimming through it.

That said, the manual does not have all the answers to common questions and some answers it does have are a bit hard to find. That is the reason why the FAQ was posted. In most forums I have frequented, the forum FAQs are considered more or less required reading and I suspect most of the veterans here think the same way about the Dom3 FAQ. Doesn't mean that it necessarily needs to be religiously studied right off the bat, but a quick skim through the FAQ by reading just the questions (in boldface font) will give an idea what kind of information there is.

As far searching for a specific phrase, that is often a good tactic, but a dangerous assumption at other times. The reason being that if you use an exact phrase and whoever wrote about the subject did not use that particular phrase, you won't find anything. Searching for just 'affliction' would have found the relevant FAQ section immediately. It's not exactly a common word outside Dominions circles and even in the FAQ it only appears in the section dealing with them. The forum search function would also have netted an answer, especially if tried with acouple of variations like "heal afflictions", "healing afflictions" etc.

You are right that the crowd here is on average a lot older than in many other gaming communities and what you say about attitudes toward searching for information is true, we deal with that every day at work. So we tend to apply it outside of work as well and that's why we also do the things we do with writing FAQs etc. It is sometimes easy to forget that others may be far less experienced in doing that. This leads to less forgiveness for cases where the information has been made easily available through e.g. the FAQ or other manuals like the modding and mapmaking manuals. It's different when basic information is easily available, but must be applied in complex combinations to get the desired results. In those cases questions that look basic on their face can be anything but. In Dom3, modding and mapmaking are subjects where both the common and seemingly common but actually truly complex questions can easily arise.

Then there is also the factor of inauspicious coincidences. Someone comes to the forum and posts a slew of questions that would all have been answered by reading the game docs, the FAQ and the manual, they get answers to their first few questions, perhaps even detailed ones, but sooner or later the answers start getting shorter and less friendly as frustration mounts. Then somebody else comes and asks one or two questions instead of a whole slew, but gets a curt answer nonetheless because of the previous person. I know that should not happen, but it does because nobody here is anything other than human.

Do not take this as a rebuke of your above post, but as an explanation of how interactions on forums like this often go and why. You have a lot of good points in your post and you have legitimate reason to be frustrated and angry at what you saw as disrespectful treatment. I am not angry at you for saying those things and I don't think anyone else is either. It is a good reminder that the old hands like me sometimes take some things a bit too granted and expect more from new players than we perhaps should. Not always, but sometimes, and we need to work on that.

[capnq]

Originally Posted by Edi

That said, the manual does not have all the answers to common questions and some answers it does have are a bit hard to find.

And some of the answers that the manual has have been invalidated by game patches. (See the thread "Lies my manual told me": http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showt...ht=lies+manual , for example.)

[Sombre]

I get pretty annoyed by people asking about how to do stuff in the mod forum because 90% of the time it's really quite clear in the mod manual and they haven't made any effort to try and find the answer. Not only that, but often they're effectively asking you to do what they want for them, with examples of code etc. Go and find examples from mods already out thre, it's what I did. Play around and try stuff from the mod manual. Dive in and have a go at doing an entire mod as a learning process. I did all of this with my first mod Avernum and I didn't end up irritating people with lazy questions. Not only did I learn quickly through this process, I also ended up producing a mod I could continue to work on and improve as I honed my mod making skills.

[GrudgeBringer]

I would like to thank you for responding to my post and the understanding of the points I was trying to make.

I agree that sometimes we (Noobs, including myself),find it easier to ask a simple question so that we can continue on with a game or perhaps so we can just go on to the 'next' question.

The size of the manual itself is daunting to say the least, and no matter how many games you play there is ALWAYS something someone does that you just sit and stare at. Wondering how did he do that and how was that possible.

I for one have played most of the EU games as well as the Ageod AACW which is very intricate.

But they did not have MAGIC, and I believe that if you look at the forums that is where the game starts to veer off the beaten path to those of us that are tacticians. I personally have tried to look at magic as just long range artillery or perhaps better armour/equipment but to no avail.

This is possibly the deepest game I have ever played (including Chess) as there is no set rules or moves. Throw in Summoning, Communions, Blood magic (and of course Giants) and all of a sudden you have a game that some of us feel like we are not only lost, but lost in the DEEP part of the forest.

Some games have Strategy Guides that walk you thru the game and you use them for about a week until you feel comfortable and then you start exploring options on your own.

No matter how many times I design a pretender I ALWAYS find that it just isn't that good. Of Course there are guides Like the ones Baalz and others make) and all of a sudden you get a glimpse of what they are talking about which brings up 20 other questions that just are not covered in the manual.

I guess what I am trying to say is this IS D3...some of you have been playing since D1 and we hang on every word you say because it might give us a foot up. If you where playing HOMM 5 I would know the answer to every question you ever wanted to know on any subject in that game.

We look up to you with respect for just the time you have put in this game and for STILL being here.

Maybe in a year I will be one saying..."its in the manual" ( I may also say check out page 45 in the manual).

Anyway THANKS to all of you who take the time. And thanks to you for taking the rime to listen to frustrations of a person whoi really is trying but ffles lost and just won't quit!!

[Edi]

Section on installation and directories added to the second FAQ post. It covers the issue discussed in this thread and I also moved the bit about where to install mods and maps to that section. It covers Windows issues, not Linux or Mac.

It occurs to me that if somebody with experience of Dom3 on the various operating systems were to write a more detailed and coherent piece on what installs where in each OS, that could help a lot of people. I've not run Dom3 on Linux or Mac, so I can only cover the Windows side and that only on XP.

The stuff we would need is where savedgames go and where mods and maps go and whether it varies depending on default or custom main install directory.

[lch]

As I've always been preaching: If you add a section about information how to start the game in debug mode, then everybody can see the savepaths for themselves. People who are used to click on icons will need to learn how to add parameters for that, of course.

[Tichy]

RE: where stuff goes on a mac:

Maps are stored in the application package: ctrl-click on the application itself, select "show package contents", maps are in the folder Contents/Resources/Maps.

Mods are stored in the folder dominions3/mods in the OSX home or user directory.

[Tichy]

Savegames are also in the user directory

[chrispedersen]

I've read the manual backwards and forwards - hell I've fallen asleep reading it.

Its dogeared, and tagged each in relevent sections. I've read the FAQ, the Strategy guides, the db. I've read the mods, the unit db. I've played way north of 500 games of dominions. I've spent *weeks* trying to figure out why a mod doesn't work.

And I still find out something new every week. Like ritual of returning working in the capital province.