Dominions 3 News!

[Cainehill]

Eh - LCDs definately have their advantages over CRTs too. For example : it's been a _long_ time since I saw a CRT type monitor that had portrait orientation. (As I recall it was part of an expensive Wang word processing hardware suite, not even a general purpose computer.) Whereas my LCD I can swivel 90 degrees, giving a choice of landscape (for gaming) and portrait (for editing source code, working on documents, browsing the web). I do also have a CRT hooked up next to the LCD, but when it dies I'll probably get another LCD.

As far as the paper manual goes : I hate games that don't provide a printed manual. (It's a little different when you purchase the jewel case version for $10.) Sure, I have dual monitors, so I can sometimes look at the manual on one monitor and the game in the other : but then again, a lot of full screen games don't like dual screens. They crash when you try to go to the other monitor, or at best, hang while they don't have focus. And if you _don't_ have dual monitor displays, it's a real PITA trying to play and look at the electronic format manual.

And it sucks trying to print the manuals, usually using more paper than a preprinted manual would, resulting in a pile of paper that isn't nearly as convenient as a book-style manual, especially as most people's home printers don't have duplex ability (to automatically print on both sides of the paper, collating pages, etc).

[Agrajag]

Cainehill said:

Eh - LCDs definately have their advantages over CRTs too. For example : it's been a _long_ time since I saw a CRT type monitor that had portrait orientation. (As I recall it was part of an expensive Wang word processing hardware suite, not even a general purpose computer.) Whereas my LCD I can swivel 90 degrees, giving a choice of landscape (for gaming) and portrait (for editing source code, working on documents, browsing the web). I do also have a CRT hooked up next to the LCD, but when it dies I'll probably get another LCD.

I'm note sure I understand what you mean here, do you mean "flipping" the monitor on its side so that it will be like a paper page?
If you do, I don't see how that would help me. Its just as easy reading "normally", especially if you are reading from a website (rather than a document), since the website interface usually takes up horizontal space.
And you could flip a CRT monitor on its side, it will be pretty crude, but you can put it on its side, and flipping the display is very simple (just get the latest Nvidia drivers).

And as for paper manual VS electronic manual;
Both options aren't very good, you can't read the electronic manual while playing the game, and you can't easily search through a paper manual (what would I do without CTRL+F?!), and you also can't read the electronic one while not on the computer (say... You want to read the manual on the bus, or on an airplane or whatever).
The ultimate option is, obviously to have both!
Put a paper manual in the game case, but have a (none-scanned!) PDF version on the disc, so depending on the circumstances you can choose which one to use.

[Cainehill]

Agrajag said:

I'm note sure I understand what you mean here, do you mean "flipping" the monitor on its side so that it will be like a paper page?
If you do, I don't see how that would help me. Its just as easy reading "normally", especially if you are reading from a website (rather than a document), since the website interface usually takes up horizontal space.
And you could flip a CRT monitor on its side, it will be pretty crude, but you can put it on its side, and flipping the display is very simple (just get the latest Nvidia drivers).

Even here on Shrapnel's forums, the portrait orientation allows me to see / read more of the text onscreen at one time. If you don't think seeing more at once is better - try resizing your browser to half height, and look at how little you can see at a time. Fact is that most "modern" websites waste horizontal space, since they have a maximum amount of text they'll display in a given line. It's even more obvious / pertinent with sites like the new york times.

And viewing PDF files or documents : with the vertical orientation, I can view a full page at 100% zoom. If the monitor is horizontal, again : lots of space wasted on the sides, while I can't view an entire page at once.

Heh. Flipping a CRT monitor on its side isn't very practical, not when the monitor weighs 60+ pounds, has curved sides and the like. Not only inconvenient when you may switch back and forth several times a day, but almost certainly bad for the monitor's longevity.

And, another virtual of LCD monitors : a lot easier to fit several of them into a limited amount of space. My 19" CRT takes, mmm, 19" horizontal and 21 or 22" depth-wise - and it's a so-called "short-neck" design. The 19" LCD, even in "normal" landscape mode, is 15" wide (12" in portrait mode) and requires only about 7" depth.

I can support 3 monitors with my current graphics setup - but certainly can't fit 3 CRT monitors in my workspace.

[Graeme Dice]

PrinzMegaherz said:
If the manual is as helpful as the manual of Dom2, you should just drop it, save the money, lower the price and include a good tutorial / launch a Dominions 3 wikipedia as Stardock is doing for GC2. Maybe you could offer a cheaper download only version, saving people the shipping cost.

I'm not sure why people don't like the manual for Dom2. It contains almost all the information you need to understand the basics of the game mechanics, and it's not as though the interface is complicated.

[OG_Gleep]

Graeme Dice said:

I'm not sure why people don't like the manual for Dom2. It contains almost all the information you need to understand the basics of the game mechanics, and it's not as though the interface is complicated.

Eh. No. I had to read multiple 3rd party docs before I figured out what was going on. In any sense, its 90% items/spells 10% mechanics.

[Gandalf Parker]

Third party docs always tend to be an advatage. By the time a developer has a playable product they are past being able to think like a newbie to write a manual.

[Saber Cherry]

Jurri said:
What's wrong with tapwater? Bottled water is a strain to the nature, requiring transportation over long distances via ecologically inefficient means and producing plastic waste in the form of discarded bottles. Additionally, I understand a large minority of bottled water is actually tapwater in bottles (something like 40% if memory serves).

In many places the quality of tapwater is more regulated than is the quality of bottled water, if you're worried about contaminants. Of course there are also areas that lack regulations or follow them laxly, so I don't think generalizations apply to either side of the argument: for some the use of bottled water is the only viable choice, whereas for others it's only rational to use tapwater. Easy for me to say, seeing how great the quality of tapwater is in most of Finland. It could be that I've been told to 'like the crap' but then again your preference of alternatives over tapwater might quite as well spring from someone telling you that it's better. Not knowing what the tapwater is like in Crystal Tokyo, I'd better not hazard a guess.

Heh - Crystal Tokyo is on the moon, and we have no water

Tapwater is well-regulated in some places, and poorly in others - same with produce and bread. I understand that in France you can walk into any bakery and buy good bread. I know that in Mexico, you can walk into any supermarket and buy good milk - and it does not require refrigeration before opening, because they abandoned pasteurization along with blood-letting and other primitive rituals long ago. Their milk is irradiated, and tastes wonderful compared to milk in unfortunate countries that fear modern technology.

So, some people are lucky. But in most of the world, tapwater is contaminated with one or more of lead, copper, fluorine (natural or added), chlorine, chloramines, human or agricultural hormones, MTBE (a gasoline additive), E. Coli, and other unpleasant compounds. They may or may not change the taste of the water, but no matter where you live, it is impossible to filter these out to high standards on the massive scale of tapwater distro systems, which must be used to water lawns, run showers, fill swimming pools, wash clothes, wash cars, run swamp coolers, and other things that use 1000X more water than drinking, and have no need for high purity.

People can install reverse-osmosis or charcoal filters on their tap to reduce these contaminants, or like me, fill jugs from a commercial reverse-osmosis / dionization water purifier at a store. Mmmm, it's sweet and delicious... and more importantly, I won't get cancer / dumbness / unwanted sex characteristics / etc from drinking it in massive quantities.

Of course, if the alternative isn't bottled water but a natural spring nearby (like I have where I go for Summer) it's all cool.

Stop bragging

many higher-quality alternatives for common things aren't ecologically as effective as the lesser-quality alternative.

That's kind of universally true. The more expensive something is, the greater its ecological impact, in general. It is not strictly true because e.g. coal power plants don't pay for their pollution, while nuclear plants do; environmental destruction is cheaper in more primitive countries; and so forth. Despite this, there's a good correlation between cost and impact - cheaper Chinese imports have a lower environmental impact than natively produced quality googs, because the Chinese laborers that produced them live very poorly, eat little, ride bikes, live in tiny houses or apartments (or jail cells), use little energy, and generate trivial amounts of garbage. But that doesn't make we want to buy lower-quality, cheaper items

Like LCD-monitors: they use less energy compared to a CRT of same screen-size (1/2 to 1/3 unless I'm mistaken) and when discarded are far easier to dispose of since they contain less ecologically harmful materials. Of course, LCD-monitors are also more expensive than CRTs (which might indicate a larger ecological strain in the production process: I don't really know), so maybe you've got some other alternative that you prefer over either?

There is no current alternative superior to either. I like CRTs purely because they have a better image and better responsiveness (comparing a top-end CRT from 2002 to a top-end LCD today). Unfortunately, the industry has decided on LCDs, and no innovation has occured in the CRT area for the last 5 years... instead, they're constantly getting worse, as far as I can tell, since most people will not spend more on a CRT than an LCD. $200 CRTs are the same as $200 CRTs 5 years ago but the $500 CRTs of 5 years ago have disappeared.

Pretty soon, flat-panel CRTs (the ones with millions of emitters, rather than a single cathode) will come out, and destroy everything else... but they're not here yet.


P.S. I don't mean to imply that anyone who likes LCDs or tapwater "likes crap". That was bad wording on my part. What I meant to say was, "Most people like what they're given, even if it is crap.", with the specific examples being cases in which people whose interests run counter to the majority have to pay a price for it - without implying that one choice is right or wrong. As you noted, LCDs have many advantages over CRTs, but I evaluate them using different metrics than other people - I don't care about portability, power consumption, or soft X-rays zapping my brain nearly as much as "ability to perform well in computer games". Wonderbread really is crap, but I might buy it to feed to ducks, for example - they prefer it to the real thing.

[Agrajag]

Cainehill said:
Even here on Shrapnel's forums, the portrait orientation allows me to see / read more of the text onscreen at one time. If you don't think seeing more at once is better - try resizing your browser to half height, and look at how little you can see at a time. Fact is that most "modern" websites waste horizontal space, since they have a maximum amount of text they'll display in a given line. It's even more obvious / pertinent with sites like the new york times.

And viewing PDF files or documents : with the vertical orientation, I can view a full page at 100% zoom. If the monitor is horizontal, again : lots of space wasted on the sides, while I can't view an entire page at once.

Heh. Flipping a CRT monitor on its side isn't very practical, not when the monitor weighs 60+ pounds, has curved sides and the like. Not only inconvenient when you may switch back and forth several times a day, but almost certainly bad for the monitor's longevity.

I guess that for me, this little feature can't be compared to all the advantages CRT monitors have over LCD monitors.
So an LCD monitore might be a better optino if you really use this option, which means they are better for office work (especially since they look good and impress important buisnessman visitors =P), but for a gamer, I still don't think and LCD is a better option.

Cainehill said:And, another virtual of LCD monitors : a lot easier to fit several of them into a limited amount of space. My 19" CRT takes, mmm, 19" horizontal and 21 or 22" depth-wise - and it's a so-called "short-neck" design. The 19" LCD, even in "normal" landscape mode, is 15" wide (12" in portrait mode) and requires only about 7" depth.

I can support 3 monitors with my current graphics setup - but certainly can't fit 3 CRT monitors in my workspace.

The only thing that matters in this case is width (after all, its rather pointless putting monitors behind each other), and the width difference is rather marginal between different monitor types.
If I could fit two LCD monitors, I could fit two CRT monitors. (which I can't, because I rather like having speakers =P)

And I can support 3 monitors as well, though I'll need 1 that connects via S-Video, 1 that connect via DVI and 1 that connects via VGA(I think that's how the connection is called) =P
Well, actually I have a VGA to DVI converter, so I could do with 2 VGAs.

In any case I hardly have a reason to use more than one monitor...

[atul]

Nerfix said:
My only problem with the price is that the I'm not sure if I have any way to pay it.

I had that problem with Dom2. However, at least back then it was possible to pay the game by sending a cheque to them. The actual process was a quite weird experience and involved a lot more unnecessary paper prints than a printed manuals ever will, but unless you're too green-minded it does work. What I did was to go to my local bank, had them transfer money to a collaborating bank in US, which in turn mailed the cheque to the store's bank. It costed about 10 euros extra, at least in Osuuspankki.

On the matter of manual, I like mine printed. Reading from a screen gets tedious after a while, there's no lag for page refresh on paper and finding a correct spot from a book is a learned skill (we didn't need no Ctrl-F when I was young, well fossilized at the ripe age of 24). And Dom2 manual is in active use when I play, assuming I find it. But, to each their own, other people are accustomed to different things.

[Gandalf Parker]

My complaint on manuals goes like this...

A) I dont tend to use a printed one unless Im going to the dentist or somewhere I have to wait

B) I dont like PDF because it always feels like Im using a giant truck to deliver a small box. Its long and eats CPU and Memory to let me look up some piddly little thing. PDF is a ton of special options that the manual never uses.

C)I will use local copies of manuals in HTML form or something else that my browser can pop right up. Especially if its multiple files that are named in ways that tell me how to jump to what I want. Besides, most html manuals do a better job of keyword linking to different sections than any pdf Ive ever gotten.

D) most file forms of manuals I just convert to .txt files. Thats what I did with all the pdf files I got from Dom2.

I'd get more use from a Dom3 hot-coffee mug that has all the keypresses on it for those late night sessions Im going to be plagued with (and if someone else doesnt CafePress it then I will)