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Quoted from UNCgump:Why doesn't Stern publish full, clear rule set info?
It would be soooo useful, since games have only grown more complicated and the opacity of the rules makes many games less accessible to anyone other than an owner or obsessive player.
For the same reason a book doesn't give away all its secrets on the inside cover.
Games are meant to be explored and discovered.
Quoted from Tuna_Delight:Disagree as a rule. For some yes. Others would like to know what the hell the rules are at the outset. Why not provide the info and give the customer the choice as to whether they wish to explore or not?
Same reason a clothed woman can be sexier than just appearing nude from the start
The discovery process and knowledge rolling out vs being dumped at once extends the time the game is new and fresh... and in people's mind and conversation.
You always get some start on the rules and you want the process to be intuitive. It's not like you show up completely blind
It's not possible to have customer choice because once the info is out... it can't be taken back
Quoted from Circus_Animal:I suppose that really depends on why and where you're playing. If you're playing a game you've purchased, then yeah, go ahead and explore, but I'm not dumping hundreds of dollars into a sited game just to try to figure out how the scoring works.
Yet.... that's exactly what the industry and operators want... you to keep coming back to find more and get further.
If that's how you feel... just wait till others work it out for you.
Quoted from Circus_Animal:And when it comes to tournaments, it's absolutely ridiculous that the rules are not readily available to all competitors.
You are aware that the biggest tournament for a long time (at expo) was ran on the new game for the year... which often people had never even seen before... let alone mastered. And that's what people looked forward too...
Your knowledge of the game and your ability to map that into strategies is part of the player's skill set. You can study, learn your own, or be coached... but game knowledge is part of the competition as well. Besides, most players will share insights and with just about anyone as long as you are not in a match together at the moment
Quoted from Tuna_Delight:Seriously? You honestly think that this is a concern of Stern's and that's why they don't provide detailed rules info?
No.. I'm jus tad dressing the comment of "just let people chose"... that's a fallacy... once it's out, it's out. You can't selectively release it.
Even the designers themselves will be coy with answering questions if you just want to have it all dumped out for you... and you are friends! They want to see people learn and discover.
Quoted from Tuna_Delight:I don't share your concern. If you don't want the availability of detailed rules information to spoil the fun of exploring the game for you, THEN DON'T READ IT. It really is that simple.
Applying your logic, my creating a detailed Mustang rules document and sharing it with the pinball community was a disservice to the pinball hobby as it ruined the joy of discovering the game's rules.
The difference is your scenario is a third party who has worked to figure it out and likely isn't 100% coverage, nor is it confirmed as fully accurate, nor does it happen immediately. What is asked here is stern themselves document and publish the full details THEMSELVES and when the product is new.
You may not want to agree with it... but there is a reason the formula exists and has not gone away in over 30 years of gaming. To do so would devalue the game and its launch. When game makers started doing strategy guides, it was to monetize what was happening via third parties and they could not stop it... so instead they just used their access to one-up the guidemakers and take the money for themselves.
Are you upset about gift wrap too?? I mean, why hide what the gift is.... wouldn't you be more willing to open it if you knew what it was??
Quoted from Tuna_Delight:. In my communications with John Trudeau when I was writing the Mustang rules doc, he never once expressed any concern regarding people not discovering the rules on their own. Rather, he seemed happy that people would now likely play and enjoy Mustang even more.
So did you ask him why he didn't do it himself? Or simply dictate it all to someone to capture?
Everyone knows the interest is there... they have the knowledge (as does every game maker).... yet they don't do what you are asking. Ever thought there is a reason why hundreds of people across decades... have all come to the same conclusion about the psyche of the players and buyers?
Quoted from Tuna_Delight:So did Stern providing rules/strategy info for GoT at its release devalue the game for players?
If you go back and look you'll find they didn't release a full rule sheet but a primer on how the houses worked and their benefits (likely because even they released the game was not intuitive and would have suffered greatly if no one could get it going..). They didn't do what the thread here is asking for... which is why there are over far more detailed and extended rule sheets for got... instead of RTFM
Quoted from Tuna_Delight:I still think (and it's just my opinion) that it comes down to a money issue. If the effort required to provide detailed rules information resulted in a greater profit (i.e. resulted in selling enough additional games) for them, I think they would do it. As it is, Stern apparently doesn't see a value in typically doing so.
And I'd point you to the decades of history that show it's not just stern coming to this conclusion. So it's not very believebale to think a dozen hours of writing by a trivial employ is the reason the vast majority of companies do not do it.
Quoted from Tuna_Delight:He told me that regretfully, Stern can't share this info outside of their organization as it would be a conflict of interest for them and they had already maxed out their hours allotted for the game/code design. He also said that the Stern design teams spend many overtime hours, both at Stern and at home in order to create the best games that they can; each game is a labor of love for them.
So he can't share it... not that stern can't. It's kind of hard to have a conflict of interest with... yourself stern. Sound to me like He was acknowledging the ip is sterns... not his.
Quoted from Circus_Animal:...except that I don't. If I've played two or three games and still have no idea what I'm doing, then I won't keep putting more and more money in. I'll go and play a self-explanatory Williams, Gottlieb or JJP.
Bye Felicia!
Quoted from Circus_Animal:The key words were "readily available". There's a massive difference between a player failing to learn the rules and the rules not being available for a player to learn. I can't think of a single sport where players have no choice but to learn how the scoring system works by trial and error.
Except when you play against another team... they don't write down for you how they plan on competing.. they only must stay within the constructs of the rules of the game. Everyone plays within common rules, but each can develop their own strategies and advantages. Just like pinball.
Quoted from Circus_Animal:Stern's current formula did not exist even 15 years ago. With few exceptions, pinball machines used to have instructions written on the playfield, inserts that clearly depicted game progression and instruction cards with useful information. The game itself told you what to do. Stern have gotten rid of all of that and have not replaced it with anything.
So is your complaint you want better rule cards (as if those were ever very good).. or you want rulesheets published? Because you act like this is a new stern problem... yet we all know we needed rulesheets for pretty much all Solid State and newer games. This only being a Stern problem is laughable. STTNG's rule cards didn't tell you wtf the artifacts are for.. or what the various modes did or scored. Nor does my Flash Gordon tell you really how to qualify the playfield multipliers, or explain the two bonuses well.
Yes games have gotten more complex... but we also have speech, DMDs, color changing inserts, and all kinds of feedback steering you.
The need for rulesheets isn't a new problem (its why we started making them in the 90s!) and the reasons why the company doesn't dump out everything they know about the game in advance to players is for the same still. Don't try to rewrite history here.
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