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Old December 18th, 2009, 12:46 PM
Squirrelloid Squirrelloid is offline
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Default Re: Updated Manual?

In Game Manual/Documentation:
Actually, the developers are the right people to do it because they wrote the code. They have access to the code. They're the only people who know for sure how everything works.

As to what to document? Everything. Every spell, every unit, every item, every mechanic. The actual algorithms used by the code should be made available, as should full stat displays, and so on. In fact, documentation should happen *as they write the code*. Anything else is sloppy programming.

You code a unit, you write the documentation page for it immediately thereafter. Now you have a record of what it does that you can reference as you code, *and* the user will have a document that tells them what it does. If you change the unit, change the documentation. (Ideally, the documentation can update changes automatically by being linked into the code).

I shouldn't have to start up a game as a nation to see what their units do, or play 40 turns to see what their national spells do. That can be a lot of work for another game where you have to fight that nation, and then repeat for all your other adversaries. All the basic information should be accessible from inside the game itself.

Games like Civilizations have been doing this since the mid-90s. Its really not an unreasonable expectation.
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