Poll: What kind of tutorials does OOTP need?

battists · 02-12-2009, 09:18 PM

OK, we all know that OOTP can have a tough learning curve. It's such a detailed game. So, this year, I'd like to write a few more tutorials. This is a quick, unscientific poll just to find out what sorts of tutorials might be most appreciated.

Feel free to write other ideas in the thread!

kq76 · 02-12-2009, 10:26 PM

I don't know (there's so many ways to play this game, where do you start?), but I think it would be good to especially request and make use of the input from newbies to this question. I know whenever I'm new to a game this question is often blatantly obvious, but when I'm more familiar with a game it's much harder to remember what the stumbling blocks were or what new ones there might be several versions later.

Also, I don't think this is what you meant, but I always find in-game tutorials that guide me along much easier to get me comfortable with a game. Videos or written tutorials are nice if that's all there is and I'm really motivated to figure out the game, but I don't think they're nearly as good as tutorials that tell you to do something in the game and it waits for you to do it then it feeds you the next step. With that there's much less chance that you'll get frustrated or overwhelmed and give up. Now whether that is at all feasible I have no idea, but if it is then I think that would be ideal.

AirmenSmith · 02-12-2009, 10:32 PM

I voted for overview of a season. That would be a great fun way for newbs to see what is in the game and how to use it. Hell even ppl that have played the game for awhile might learn something new.

myasu · 02-12-2009, 10:33 PM

I checked the MLB game.

High percentage of the new comers here seem to want to start the game from MLB style. (At least the ones who have a lot of questions at the New To The Game forum seem to be that way to me)

And those new comers tend to be so eager to start playing right away, sometimes even before reading a page of the manual.

* I also feel that the link to the manual should be somewhere in the New To The Game Forum, as well as in the General Discussion Forum. (If possible, A word of encouragement to read the manual as the title of the link would be very nice)

jdew · 02-12-2009, 10:51 PM

By "Overview of complete season" I'm thinking in terms of a walkthru of an entire season, hitting all of the actions one would take part in... spring training, setting lineups, doing roster moves, trades, hiring staff, scouting, free agents, etc etc... and on and on through a full season. There's a lot that can go on during a season and for a new player to see how, when and why those things how, where and would/could/should be done might be most helpful. And be presented in a reasonable amount of time.

An overview of historical leagues and how they work is also a good candidate (and a second place choice for me in this poll) since many new folks initially come from that direction. Something explaining how to set up your league, what the related options are and their effects. How and why this isn't a single season replay locked into certain player performance results but instead is the start of a multi-year career league that can (and will) deviate from history is important to understand up front. Highlighting and explaining the differences between OOTP and single season replays then tying that back to how various options can be used to narrow or expand the variations you'll see in OOTP historical leagues. Could be helpful but not to the level of a complete walkthru of an entire season, IMO.

While a tutorial setting up the league might be a good idea, I think that can quickly get too complicated and long. There are so many options and dependencies that it could easily be too much to tackle correctly or just run on for hours and hours and bog down in tons of detail, options and relationships leaving someone in a state of MEGO (My Eyes Glaze Over). Yeah, I have the attention span of a knat....

battists · 02-12-2009, 10:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jdew

By "Overview of complete season" I'm thinking in terms of a walkthru of an entire season, hitting all of the actions one would take part in... spring training, setting lineups, doing roster moves, trades, hiring staff, scouting, free agents, etc etc... and on and on through a full season. There's a lot that can go on during a season and for a new player to see how, when and why those things how, where and would/could/should be done might be most helpful. And be presented in a reasonable amount of time.

Yeah, that would be the idea.

jmknpk2 · 02-12-2009, 11:20 PM

I voted for "tour of the interface" to benefit the most OOTP users (not necessarily new ones).

But I think more importantly would be to attend to the newbies. I think the best way to do that would be a season overview that was based on a MLB quick start game. I think that is probably what the most new players are interested in and would jump start them in the right direction. At the end of the overview, of course could be explanations of the other types of replay (historical, fictional, online) with links to the manual or other tutorials for further exploration.

Bluenoser · 02-13-2009, 05:57 AM

I voted other, but they all deserve to be there. My suggestion for other:

Take fmontoya's tutorial for running an online league from his website, update it, add a few more details, pass it around to 5 long time commishs for their comments, then include it in the manual. I've seen plenty of people over the years asking, "How do you start/run an online league?"

Making a good tutorial, especially one that was blessed by some established Commish's would be a very good addition to the manual. I'll go as far as to say it should include a step by step process for running a sim. Right from loading the game and doing imports to the final step of uploading the files and reports.

ootp3to6 · 02-13-2009, 07:15 AM

By "Overview of complete season" I'm thinking in terms of a walkthru of an entire season, hitting all of the actions one would take part in... spring training, setting lineups, doing roster moves, trades, hiring staff, scouting, free agents, etc etc... and on and on through a full season. There's a lot that can go on during a season and for a new player to see how, when and why those things how, where and would/could/should be done might be most helpful. And be presented in a reasonable amount of time.

I would like to see this as well.

JackRules1 · 02-13-2009, 09:14 AM

As the first newb to post to this thread, I found that I had some trouble with my initial set up. I was confused with the different league options and how to get my initial league started. I think some of my trouble stemmed from the differences in terminology between the League set-up menus and the pop-up Getting Started menues.

Fortunately, this forum helped a bunch, and many thanks to all you guys who are willing to help out new players like me.

johneh · 02-13-2009, 12:49 PM

I voted for Tour of The Interface... just because that seems to intimidate a lot of Mogul & Puresim players.

View Poll Results: Which 1 new tutorial would benefit the most OOTP users?
An introduction to the different types of games (historical, fictional, online, etc.)	7	15.22%
A tour of the interface	11	23.91%
Walkthrough starting a MLB game	3	6.52%
Walkthrough starting a historical game	3	6.52%
Overview of a single season	21	45.65%
Other (post in the thread)	1	2.17%
Voters: 46. You may not vote on this poll

02-12-2009, 09:18 PM	#1
battists Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 18,506	Poll: What kind of tutorials does OOTP need? OK, we all know that OOTP can have a tough learning curve. It's such a detailed game. So, this year, I'd like to write a few more tutorials. This is a quick, unscientific poll just to find out what sorts of tutorials might be most appreciated. Feel free to write other ideas in the thread!

02-12-2009, 10:26 PM	#2
kq76 Global Moderator Join Date: Nov 2002 Posts: 11,993	I don't know (there's so many ways to play this game, where do you start?), but I think it would be good to especially request and make use of the input from newbies to this question. I know whenever I'm new to a game this question is often blatantly obvious, but when I'm more familiar with a game it's much harder to remember what the stumbling blocks were or what new ones there might be several versions later. Also, I don't think this is what you meant, but I always find in-game tutorials that guide me along much easier to get me comfortable with a game. Videos or written tutorials are nice if that's all there is and I'm really motivated to figure out the game, but I don't think they're nearly as good as tutorials that tell you to do something in the game and it waits for you to do it then it feeds you the next step. With that there's much less chance that you'll get frustrated or overwhelmed and give up. Now whether that is at all feasible I have no idea, but if it is then I think that would be ideal. __________________ My OOTP Wishlist \| My FAQ List OOTP Wiki \| Your Recommended Team Nicknames, By City (A Crowdsourced Project) For Beta/Devs: Full screen (1920x1080)

02-12-2009, 10:32 PM	#3
AirmenSmith Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Kalispell, MT Posts: 2,094	I voted for overview of a season. That would be a great fun way for newbs to see what is in the game and how to use it. Hell even ppl that have played the game for awhile might learn something new. __________________ Come join me on my Twitch Channel for gaming at its excellence Twitch Link

02-12-2009, 10:33 PM	#4
myasu All Star Starter Join Date: May 2007 Location: Tokyo, Japan Posts: 1,491	I checked the MLB game. High percentage of the new comers here seem to want to start the game from MLB style. (At least the ones who have a lot of questions at the New To The Game forum seem to be that way to me) And those new comers tend to be so eager to start playing right away, sometimes even before reading a page of the manual. * I also feel that the link to the manual should be somewhere in the New To The Game Forum, as well as in the General Discussion Forum. (If possible, A word of encouragement to read the manual as the title of the link would be very nice) __________________ myasu Bill Spaceman Lee- "The other day they asked me about mandatory drug testing. I said I believed in drug testing a long time ago. All through the sixties I tested everything."

02-12-2009, 10:51 PM	#5
jdew All Star Starter Join Date: May 2002 Location: Phoenix, AZ Posts: 1,763	By "Overview of complete season" I'm thinking in terms of a walkthru of an entire season, hitting all of the actions one would take part in... spring training, setting lineups, doing roster moves, trades, hiring staff, scouting, free agents, etc etc... and on and on through a full season. There's a lot that can go on during a season and for a new player to see how, when and why those things how, where and would/could/should be done might be most helpful. And be presented in a reasonable amount of time. An overview of historical leagues and how they work is also a good candidate (and a second place choice for me in this poll) since many new folks initially come from that direction. Something explaining how to set up your league, what the related options are and their effects. How and why this isn't a single season replay locked into certain player performance results but instead is the start of a multi-year career league that can (and will) deviate from history is important to understand up front. Highlighting and explaining the differences between OOTP and single season replays then tying that back to how various options can be used to narrow or expand the variations you'll see in OOTP historical leagues. Could be helpful but not to the level of a complete walkthru of an entire season, IMO. While a tutorial setting up the league might be a good idea, I think that can quickly get too complicated and long. There are so many options and dependencies that it could easily be too much to tackle correctly or just run on for hours and hours and bog down in tons of detail, options and relationships leaving someone in a state of MEGO (My Eyes Glaze Over). Yeah, I have the attention span of a knat....

02-12-2009, 11:20 PM	#7
jmknpk2 All Star Reserve Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 982	I voted for "tour of the interface" to benefit the most OOTP users (not necessarily new ones). But I think more importantly would be to attend to the newbies. I think the best way to do that would be a season overview that was based on a MLB quick start game. I think that is probably what the most new players are interested in and would jump start them in the right direction. At the end of the overview, of course could be explanations of the other types of replay (historical, fictional, online) with links to the manual or other tutorials for further exploration.

02-13-2009, 05:57 AM	#8
Bluenoser Hall Of Famer Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: In The Moment Posts: 14,446	I voted other, but they all deserve to be there. My suggestion for other: Take fmontoya's tutorial for running an online league from his website, update it, add a few more details, pass it around to 5 long time commishs for their comments, then include it in the manual. I've seen plenty of people over the years asking, "How do you start/run an online league?" Making a good tutorial, especially one that was blessed by some established Commish's would be a very good addition to the manual. I'll go as far as to say it should include a step by step process for running a sim. Right from loading the game and doing imports to the final step of uploading the files and reports. Last edited by Bluenoser; 02-13-2009 at 09:57 AM.

02-13-2009, 07:15 AM	#9
ootp3to6 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Haliburton,Ontario Canada Posts: 3,244	By "Overview of complete season" I'm thinking in terms of a walkthru of an entire season, hitting all of the actions one would take part in... spring training, setting lineups, doing roster moves, trades, hiring staff, scouting, free agents, etc etc... and on and on through a full season. There's a lot that can go on during a season and for a new player to see how, when and why those things how, where and would/could/should be done might be most helpful. And be presented in a reasonable amount of time. I would like to see this as well.

02-13-2009, 09:14 AM	#10
JackRules1 Minors (Triple A) Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Central Florida Posts: 245	As the first newb to post to this thread, I found that I had some trouble with my initial set up. I was confused with the different league options and how to get my initial league started. I think some of my trouble stemmed from the differences in terminology between the League set-up menus and the pop-up Getting Started menues. Fortunately, this forum helped a bunch, and many thanks to all you guys who are willing to help out new players like me.

02-13-2009, 12:49 PM	#11
johneh Minors (Double A) Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 195	I voted for Tour of The Interface... just because that seems to intimidate a lot of Mogul & Puresim players.