[biggerme]

Originally Posted by md40022

The gamer addicts have the reputation and stereotyping that they have for a reason

Just because the game companies found that they can count on their customers to do the work for them without having to pay them, it doesn't mean that it's right.... it just means there's a lot of kids needing to log off and move out of mom's basement at some point before they turn 40.

You're right, manuals do seem to be becoming a thing of the past with a lot of games, but the companies knowing that they can exploit a portion of their customer base for that free labor doesn't mean that it's right.

Well, I have invested heavily in OOTP over the years, and in all that time compared to other games (sims, RPGs, etc.), I have always struggled to find good analysis and guides on how the game behaves. The manual gives hints, but how things play out when you try something depends entirely on someone who has done the grind and figured out some patterns or learnings.

Yes, there are plenty of historic threads in the forums, but they tend to get lost over time. There isn't a repository where you can go back and investigate what the knowledge was and how it has evolved with new releases.

This means I have done a massive amount of reverse engineering to better interpret outcomes from ratings. Sometimes I understand them quite well, but other times I'm just stumped. I can't see the pattern, and the manual's explanation is general enough to be correct but practically useless. It's like stating that you cannot exceed the speed limit, but not specifying what the speed limit is.

But yeah, that's just me, and I have nothing against sharing those learnings, even in a competitive online format, which might backfire because I had some knowledge that gave me an edge in some formats.