What's wrong with current BBGs?

[GrimFinger]

Nobody ever makes a user RTFM, but if he doesn't, and asks questions of the game moderator that are answered in the tutorial, the GM has the option of simply send a link to it rather than answering the question, which'll save everybody time. And, I believe that there are players who prefer to read a tutorial before filling out their first turn.

RTFM, of course, for those who might breathe air instead of acronyms, stands for "Read The Fucking Manual." Or, if one prefers a muted variation on the same, "Read The Freakin' Manual."

Most games that I have ever played have had manuals. Many have also had tutorials. Some have had strategy guides, as well. Others have had example turn reports, or overviews, or guided tours. Just piling more eggs on the player's plate won't make those eggs taste like bacon, however.

Certainly, tutorials can instruct the player at a pace where a game is more easily comprehended. Tutorials can also bore players out of their very existence.

Going back to my very first posting on page # 1 of this thread, I will say it, again. My own experience to date with browser based games has been that, by and large, they are boring. Whatever else may be said about tutorials to their benefit, tutorials have acquired a well-deserved reputation for being boring.

The more intuitive that a game is, the less that the game in question needs a tutorial. I think that that much is axiomatic. Of various browser based games that I have tried, to date, I just don't think that a tutorial - or even a better tutorial for those that already had one, would have been sufficient to bridge the gap, in order to transition the game from being boring to being exciting and engaging and addicting.

Programmers are a lot like engineers, in that as they program their respective games, they each acquire a hefty degree of familiarity with them. When a game manual or a set of rules are then crafted by those very same individuals, things tend to invariably get taken for granted.

The completely uninitiated approach the very same games with very different perspectives form those who programmed them. What is obvious or logical to the programmer can be confusing - or even invisible - to the player new to the game.

Since I play in Far Horizons: The Awakening, currently, I will use that game as an example to help illustrate my point. I downloaded the latest version of the game manual from the game moderator's website again, earlier this evening. The rules in question are the seventh edition of the rules for Far Horizons. Yet, they are highly deficient. Why? Because, things that I need to do are not always obvious.

Why aren't they obvious? There have been at least seven separate revisions to the rules, and even still, confusion is no stranger to the uninitiated that chance to try the game.

In the following thread, site user Wolvar posted this:

I understand the frustration took me a good 4 weeks to understand everything myself even with the rules. Still pretty much a novice since this will only be my third attempt.

If a game is incapable of making me want to read the rules, after I start playing, then what are the chances that I am the only one who will feel that way?

Over a decade into the Twenty-First Century, do I want to become a rulebook archaeologist, and try to sift through the bits and pieces covered by a mountain of text, just in order to perform basic, rudimentary tasks? It certainly isn't going to make my Top Ten list of things that I most look forward to doing.

I want to sit down, and play the game - whatever game it is that I play. I don't want to hoist a voluminous tome of boring incarnate, regardless of whether it is First Edition or Seventh Edition, in order to get up and running in the game. If the game is intuitive, then I, the player, will know that, and I will feel that. The game moderator won't have to pressure me or brow beat me or remind me to read the game manual or the rulebook. Rather, I will have incentive on my own to tackle what I call "the heavy reading."

If I want to read, then I'll buy a book. Except, I don't like to read. I like to play games. I don't like to play games that bore me to death, though. I also don't like to play rulebooks posing as games.

Boring Browser Based format + Boring Tutorial = More Boredom

That's the simple math of it, to me.