Dominions 3 - The Manual

[Arralen]

Burn the heretic !!!

[PhilD]

Tim Brooks said:
The manual is in final proofing and is at 299 pages. This may slip to 300 pages, but that would just be a formatting thing, not adding anything else at this point -- the content is set.

No, please don't change this to 300 - I want to see what a manual with an odd number of pages looks like

Outstanding news. Will I be able to refrain from running the game until I've read it all?

[Gandalf Parker]

PhilD said:
Outstanding news. Will I be able to refrain from running the game until I've read it all?

LOL
Only if it comes in the mail just as you are about to leave the house for something you cant get out of. Rip open box, snag manual, rush out the door, get in trouble for reading the manual instead of the important thing you were supposed to be doing. "Turkeys?!? Umm... I meant to say... I do."

[PhilD]

Gandalf Parker said:
Rip open box, snag manual, rush out the door, get in trouble for reading the manual instead of the important thing you were supposed to be doing. "Turkeys?!? Umm... I meant to say... I do."

That would be going to teach some class. I've actually been using the Dom2 story of battle replays being incompatible between OSes as an example of what can go wrong when programming and compiling for multiple platforms.

(For those who weren't around at the time: battle replays were inconsistent between Windows and, at least, Linux - despite the game using its own random number generator and not some library function. The bug was finally tracked down to some code lines that went something like:
Code:

---

if (RollDie(x)<RollDie(y))...  

---

and it turned out that the different compilers would make the left function call before the right, while others would do the reverse - something that, unless I'm wrong, isn't specified in the norm - and that was wreaking havoc with the random number generator reproductibility)

[Gandalf Parker]

Those werent inconsistancies. They were realistic commander reports. "Ummm we WON. Yeah thats it oh great god of destruction. We totally kicked their ahnks all over the battleground."

[NTJedi]

PhilD said:
Will I be able to refrain from running the game until I've read it all?

I usually don't read the manual or play tutorials of any new game... I just jump right into advanced or expert difficulty. Usually I do just fine... of course every once in awhile I'll be baffled on how to do some task in some game and thus dusting off its manual.
Reading game manuals are best on a long drive when someone else is driving or reading material for the bathroom.

[WraithLord]

The manual sounds absolutely great, thanks!

I think it goes a long way towards justifying dom-III price tag.

[SurvivalistMerc]

This is marvelous. One of my only pet peeves about Dom2 was that the manual was 20 pages of information then the popup help printed in a difficult to find and parse format. Strong. I look forward to reading your work.