Game Manual in HTML Format ??????

[Richard]

Guys,

Okay here goes...

The problem is posting a PDF or the html manual just encourages pirates. I spend a large segment of my time hunting down and trying to take down sites that pirate our games. In fact, more than larger publishers, pirating is something that kills us small fish publishers.

That being said if you wish to make a pdf for your personal use by all means do so. But posting it is a violation of copywirght law.

We wish it didn't have to be that way, but to do otherwise will just encourage pirates and take money out of Malfador's and our pockets. If it were up to us we would allow this, but because some folks seem to think stealing sofwtare is legitimate we cannot do that currently.

We could not originally include the large manual, simply because we had a set price and adding the manual would have meant the price going up (which isn't fair to the pre-order folks) or cutting our profits and Malfador's in half.

One other option we are considering is printing the full manual and offering it for 7.95 from our website. This cost would ONLY cover our printing costs and would not represent profit to us, but it might be an option for some of you. If we here enough support for that we might just do it.

------------------
Sarge is coming...

Richard Arnesen
Director of Covert Ops
Shrapnel Games
http://www.shrapnelgames.com

[Elmo]

Richard

Thanks for the update. I probabaly would not buy a printed copy of the manual. HTML works fine for me.

Elmo

[greghacke]

A stated earlier, is it possible to include an in-game link to the full manual? This would aleviate my minimal gripes. A hyperlink that pulls up my browser to the manual (or a specific sectoin of the manual) would be perfect...

[Richard]

I know Aaron had talked about having something to that effect built into the game.

I think it is a good idea and you guys would probably get it if enough of you suggested it to Aaron.

------------------
Sarge is coming...

Richard Arnesen
Director of Covert Ops
Shrapnel Games
http://www.shrapnelgames.com

[rdouglass]

I do completely understand about copyrights and I do respect it and will not distribute PDF's to people (I will make one for myself though).

However I fail to see the logical connection behind posting a PDF and pirating the game. If you're suggesting that we all bought the game to read the manual, well that's even too dumb to suggest. Maybe you ought to consider making the PDF a download and sell it for $1 since you dont have to ship or print it. If a printed manual is the only solution, then you guys are sounding like the "Big Guys" more and more - that's something we'd here from Microsoft to support another one of their profit centers - Microsoft Press!

If someone is posting WAREZ of SE4, then they'll probably include the manual anyway since its' on the CD. Some people are going to pirate reguardless - in fact some are probably doing it already. That really sucks for us that believe in MM's and SG's products and are putting up the $$'s so you can continue to develop (IMO) the best 4x game out there.

Again, thanks for cleaning up the copyright question. Maybe you can take 5 more minutes and clear up the pirating issue? That is "How does posting a PDF of the manual promote pirating??" Personally, I would think the demo would do more. Just look at some of the other SE4 forums and look at the threads about getting around the 100 turn limit!!!

Well, enough said. Thanks for listening...

[Commander G]

I'm surprised Shrapnel will not encourage distribution of the full manual so that people can better evaluate whether or not they want to buy the game. I thought they were enforcing ownership by scanning the CD, but I suppose people can make an image copy and pirate that way. I was really surprised when I installed from the CD that I did not have to enter a license number to validate the game. In Stars players who share license numbers can never be in the same game because the game will trash their empires if two players submit turns with the same license number.

[Dime Greenback]

A printed manual as an extra option sounds interesting, but considering the cost of production and shipping it is going to be quite expensive (since it would be an international shipment for me). Probably another $19 for shipping, since it will be just as heavy as the original game.

Not an option for me.

I _do_ want to get a decent printout of the manual, though. That's what laser printers are for, as far as I am concerned.

So is it possible to hit a button and get the complete manual printout in one print job?

If not, then please find a way to get such a manual to us paying customers. I would not mind getting it by email attachment or whatever.

I do not look forward to printing out hundreds of pages separately...