The new Guide sticky thread. Not happy Jan !

[Graphil]

Sirius5 - It was posted in the old sticky that is was going to be updated and guides will only be included for the latest version of the games in order to give the authors a chance to update their guides. And I did get PM's from various authors following that message.

apricotslice - Like you the people who reviewed all the guides have a real life too and volunteer to help on these boards. We all have limited time. Sorry for not having had a chance to review your other guides yet in the 4 hours since you raised the point but I do have to work for a living as well.

I do think you are over reacting. This update is not purposeful attempt to remove or hide peoples hard work. I didn't review your guides but I'm sure they are excellent. Every guide will get rereviewed if requested to by a post here. As I said, only 3 of your guides were on the original first page of the sticky. One is included and the other two were marked not up to date. Those were the mapping service which didn't have the new sectors and hidden secrets and the all you need to know guide which didn't have the new ships. I will also ask for a more detailed review of these to document what exactly is viewed as needing updating.

[Skinmeister]

[Graphil]

Reopened and merged with posts from guides sticky to continue discussion.

[geoffrey]

Reopened and merged with posts from guides sticky to continue discussion.

good the forum should be able to have a view on the subject.
many moons ago i wrote a very crude post on capping k's.

i think the post still gets the odd visit by people that might need a little help.
since the update has changed the method required to cap a k should it also be removed?
no because it can still help even though it is not accurate.
players will adapt what they read, and until someone else writes a better one i think it should stay.
please review your decision.
hopefully my last comment on the subject is to jakesnake5 i hope you
have not driven a valued member away from this forum by your insenstive remarks

[ethoward71]

No-one who is starting the game really cares, since many will never get to use any of the above without reading the Handbook, or its component guides first.

This statement is false, out of date, and totally irrelevant.

Most the new players DO care. Your 'guides' do NOT cover those items, and as such, your guides CAN'T help them get the items.

And your Handbook, which, being as out of date as the contained guides, is useless to these new players.

Stop pitching a fit because YOU will be inconvenienced by this action. Either update, or stop blowing wind. If you don't have time to do it, find somebody who DOES!

X3 changed a LOT from 1.0 to 1.4.03. And some of those older guides don't apply any more because they contain data that doesn't fit. 2.0 did not just add things, it changed quite a bit as well, which you, and most others, have no idea about.

So complaining here about how this causes you grief isn't getting the necessary job of updating the guides done. Spend time doing that, less nagging and arguing about this.

The decision was made, and no amount of tantroms is going to change that fact.

A simple expression, from many MMOG's, applies here: Adapt or Die!. So start adapting or be left out.

The guide from Apricotslice that helped me out tremendously was his "starting out" guide. I've recently started from the beginning again and I don't see anything that's changed in the game at the beginning. That's all his guide did was to give people a boost in the right direction at the start of the game.

You can't tell me that the game is so revolutionized now that even at the beginning of the game, it's completely different. I don't see that anything at all has really changed during the first dozen or so hours played.

[nirwin]

Think about the tech support forum. What's the first thing that's said to someone who says, for example, their joystick doesn't work. Download the latest patch!

No-one would take the time to try and figure out a workaround for their problem, because it isn't needed anymore.

Why should a gameplay problem be any different? We can't have guides listed for all the different versions. If anyone has a problem with something that isn't an issue with the latest patch, tough.

That's not the friendliest or best thought out response in my opinion. Perhaps someone finds that v1.4+ gives them corrupt saves, perhaps v1.3 is the only one that gives them a solid FPS.
I agree that if you can, you should use the latest version, all I am saying is I have seen instances in the past where people couldn't for one reason or another. And I don't think that we should shut the door on them because of their bad fortune, we are a community and we should try to help each other out.

Guides and tech support are very different things, I know because I have to document and support software at work. A document/guide can be stated to be accurate to a certain version, and if you have a client base that are not all on the same version of a product, it is good practice to document the changes made in previous versions. I am not suggesting we have a guide for each version.

Downloading the latest patch is a sensible response in the tech support forum, because it has fixes in it. Simple.
Kind of like if there is an inaccuracy in a guide get the updated one. There isn't an updated one? wait for one like you would do with a patch. Or there is the added advantage of being able to ask in the forum.

Anyway my views have been expressed, they can either be ignored, or heeded.

[Sirus5]

Reopened and merged with posts from guides sticky to continue discussion.

Well, I like the title you have chosen - it seems to echo the sentiment of some people ... As I said, you are right in what you have done (I have no problems with it and it does look better) - I was just suggesting we try to see things from both sides and see if there might be a solution which would keep everyone happy (as X3 is so good, you would think most of us would be happy)..

I think you (Graphil) are right and we do have to stand behind the Moderators... Equally, Apricot Slice has done a lot of work and is extremely helpful so if he is unhappy, we should do our best to try and help him be happy again.. I do note you proffered some solution and think you idea should be mulled over by anyone upset with what has happened - and perhaps another sticky (with outdated guides) may be something to think about...
If you have Guides (Latest Versions)
and Guides (older versions)...
then, older versions can be checked and put into latest versions at any time - thus some people who might (for hardware or other reasons) be on an earlier version can use the older sticky...

It would also be good to have a version number attached to the guides where possible - this would be helpful for us all to see where a guide is useful..

Hope this post doesn't offend anyone - I am just trying to help..

Thanks

[arcana75]

I feel that any old guides need to be updated or removed. It's a hassle for players to try to decipher what guide goes with what game version.

If a guide (and its authors) are truly worth their weight, then update it.

I used to host spks for peeps and did my own mods. When 2.0 came out I wiped out everything and started afresh, creating new versions of the same mods and uploading new spks; all the spks weren't even my work!

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

Well I remember the posts relating to that little book that came with the X3 software. I keep the handbook as a memento to inaccuracy.

I work in computing myself and documentation really needs to be accurate if its to be of any use. I see the point in applying that to game guides as well.

Given the amount of typing being done by some authors on this post, well wouldn't it have been, "time better spent", making whatever changes were needed to bring the guides up-to-date.

A tsunami in a coffee cup.

[Graphil]

Reopened and merged with posts from guides sticky to continue discussion.

Well, I like the title you have chosen

Just to clarify, the discussion was never locked just moved to keep the sticky clear for suggestions of new guides etc. 2 posts were created initially by apricotslice and esd quite rightly locked one. PS the title is apricotslice's not mine.

[donotdespisethesnake]

Thanks for helping make X3 a success, despite it's bug ridden early versions and the lousy manual. Now kindly sod off

Sort of typical of what I have come to expect from egosoft and its hangers-on.

I for one won't be preordering X4 like I did X3. A lesson learned there!

[The Flash]

*snip*
Each guide was quickly reviewed for relevance. If a particular guide still seemed to be relevant to new players starting with 2.0.02 then it was included; if it was out of date and therefore not useful then it wasn't.

*snip*

It would be ridiculous to leaving all guides in a sticky thread, even if they are completely irrelevant to people playing the game now.

This is a typical 'nanny state' approach: we know what's good for you and are 'helping' you because you are too 'stupid' to understand.

What makes you think I am not capable to decide for myself if something is useful/relevant to ME ?!?

If you really want to help (and I do believe the intention was a good one and that there was no malice here), simply add to each guide the version number of the game it applies to, and leave it to the player (i.e. me) to decide if I want to read it or not.

[The_Abyss]

Of course there is no malice involved, and any suggestion that there was is quite ridiculous.

As has already been explained, the supported game version is the latest. Having guides which refer to previous game versions where content and features are different and therefore can be inaccurate and confusing is not at all from ideal.

To add to this, the old link was a mess and Graphil took it upon himself to offer to clean it up and create a new one, which nobody else had offered to do. Whilst doing so, what content should be included in the list was discussed by the moderators and admins, and it was agreed that current and accurate guides only should be included, as this supports each X game in a cleaner fashion, plus there are new gamers arriving every day who are new to X3 and have never experienced previous X3 versions and never will.

It is for the same reason that bumping of old threads is generally frowned upon as the original posts can be quite irrelevant to the current game version.

The guides were checked where possible and authors have been invited to update them.

All the old guides are still there, no content has been deleted, and so all players will still be able to access them, and the older players who are more likely to use them will also be more likely to know of them.

Suggestions of 'nanny state' and calling the forum users 'stupid' is quite ridiculous, hurtful even when you consider the huge efforts that the volunteer moderators and contributors put into the forums. The games move along with time and so does the forum to keep it fresh. The very same action was taken with a similar thread for X2.

I'm well aware that some decisions will not be popular, but something like this is really very minor, especially when the old thread has not been deleted or tampered with.

[eladan]

Abyss, I don't think the majority of folk here are having a go at the mods. Though some of the posts have been a little over the top...

But should a guide which largely has good relevant info be dropped simply because it has a section which is out of date? It's a different case than for old threads. I think even new players would rather have the guide than have no info whatsoever. As has been mentioned, that's what the guide threads are for - to point out inaccurate info in the guide.

As I've said, a nice red version number next to out-of-date guides would keep everyone happy, I suspect. At the very least, surely there could be a link to the old guide sticky.

[Dhore]

Umm sorry to point out the kinda obvious but why not just have at the bottom - *older guides* and *Unsupported guides* and let the reader decide of its a risk worth taking to follow the guide?

hmm Older Guides, dib dib dib for the females

[The_Abyss]

As stated before, and this will be the last time, non-current versions of the game are not supported and therefore the guides to them will not be linked in this forum - they confuse new players.

I've already linked the older post above - it can easily be bookmarked. As has previously been suggested, I'd encourage authors to update their guides if they want to keep them linked.

[dalin80]

those older guides were 10x more useful then the awful manual that shipped with the game so i find there removal as 'out-of-date' or 'not-current' very funny.

[eladan]

As stated before, and this will be the last time, non-current versions of the game are not supported and therefore the guides to them will not be linked in this forum - they confuse new players.

Since when has Ego supported the information contained in the guides? I'm sure if I took the time to read through the guides which have been updated for 2.0.02 I could find something which is incorrect. Does Ego take responsibility for that? Of course not. Anyone with a shred of sense understands that the guides are player-written, and ultimate responsibility for them rests with the author. If you think there's any confusion there how about a standard disclaimer?

I've already linked the older post above - it can easily be bookmarked. As has previously been suggested, I'd encourage authors to update their guides if they want to keep them linked.

That's fine, but new players coming in look in the stickies, not this thread, which is likely to disappear within a day or two never to be seen again (and don't try to mention the search... )

I'm not attacking you Abyss, but I believe your logic is in error.

[The_Abyss]

As stated before, and this will be the last time, non-current versions of the game are not supported and therefore the guides to them will not be linked in this forum - they confuse new players.

Since when has Ego supported the information contained in the guides? I'm sure if I took the time to read through the guides which have been updated for 2.0.02 I could find something which is incorrect. Does Ego take responsibility for that? Of course not. Anyone with a shred of sense understands that the guides are player-written, and ultimate responsibility for them rests with the author. If you think there's any confusion there how about a standard disclaimer?

I've already linked the older post above - it can easily be bookmarked. As has previously been suggested, I'd encourage authors to update their guides if they want to keep them linked.

That's fine, but new players coming in look in the stickies, not this thread, which is likely to disappear within a day or two never to be seen again (and don't try to mention the search... )

I'm not attacking you Abyss, but I believe your logic is in error.

I'll make this clear one last time as I don't think you're understanding correctly.

No, the guides are not 'checked' and Egosoft is not responsible for their content, although there is certainly some care required to ensure that we administrate the forums properly and ensure that information is accurate where possible and up to date. However, testers and moderators do look through guides, and based on their feedback a link to a guide would be included. Yes, there may be errors within the guide and I'm sure this gets fed back to the author or posted to the guide. However, the intention is to ensure that any nconsistency is not down to an incorrect version of the game. There is only one 'correct' version of the game, and that is the last one. A standard disclaimer stating that everything may be wrong is not really very welcoming for a new player. this is not new - updates have been made before as the game has been updated. It shouldn't be an issue now.

Yes, I'm well aware that this thread will disappear in a couple of days, or even sooner. Yes, new players look in the sticky threads which is exactly the point to have them updated only for the current game version. There is no value in going back to look for a guide which is incorrect and out of date.

If there is a compelling reason that has been missed for keeping out of date guides stickied which can confuse new players, then by all means post the reasoning here. However, maintaining old, inaccurate information will not continue, and certainly not for the sake of just keeping them, keeping the thread going, or for sentimental reasons.

Again, if the authors of out of date guides are still active in the community to update them, then this is fantastic and really good - they'll be stickied as quickly as Graphil can read his PMs.

[t4ct1c47]

Edit;

I had to skim read alot of threads before I managed to find the X3 map and info on the hidden ships. A simple rename of the links have helped me find the download links much easier this time round. I don't post on these forums much but do frequent them and I have to say that I like the layout of the new guides stickie. It's evident that to some it's a shame that some of the older guides were removed but to me alot of them were just repeating the same information anyway.