Would LOVE to see better initial documentaion.

You know, it may be a good community project to try to establish some sort of guide based on whats available.   I mean, I find fan-manuals are often better at explaining some mechanics than official ones.   Mainly because fans have the time to put into it.   I should push the elemental wiki more.

http://elementalbeta.wikidot.com/

You can contribute to this wiki if you want to help out...

Yea, but the point is that you kind of need access to the formulas used in the game to document this information even semi-efficiently?  I know you can fiddle and tinker and try to figure out all that stuff out the long hard way with no help, but the point of having a more thorough manual included with the game is so that the customers don't HAVE to waste so much time re-inventing the wheel when the developers already have access to all this information?

At the moment devs can change rules in a day. So, any documentation at this point is ... pointless.

We're working to have less mystery meat math in the game this time around, which should make stuff much easier to effectively document (without it going rapidly out of date).

Well since the game is still a work in progress and not by any means feature complete producing documentation at this point would not be sensible.

Yea, I did not really mean for anybody write all the documentation right now...just that I hope better (more thorough) documentation will be included in the final game when it ships.

Yes I agree Soulfire777, one problem with Stardock games though is that they often implement major new features post release. So I think maybe online documentation that can be presented in a printable format is what we need so it's easy to update.

In the age of digital distribution the best type of documentation is contextual tooltips and in-game encyclopedias (think the CIV 4 Civopedia for example) since many people aren't getting paper manuals. This also allows updates as things change. The problem is this takes a fair chunk of resources to write up and proof. That said I preordered the limited edition because I'm a total nerd that loves 200 page manuals.

Good point, I like the idea.

A beta testing manual is sort of an oxymoron...  If they take a year to put the game out from now, any work put towards that is a complete waste.  This sort of thing does need to be documented before release, but it's the final phase of testing where you're refining balance.  That way the game is feature locked, and you're working with a completed system already so you wont need to waste time checking numbers that aren't a candidate for the final version anyway.

The size of the initial modding documentation determines the skill level of the first modders, the level of interest in modding, and the size of the mod community.

Every game known for its "moddability" has had extensive documentation at launch or very shortly after that.

Bioware put out an extensive set of documentation aimed at different audiences right from introductory material on to third party software developers for NWN (honestly this is first class documentation.)
http://nwn.bioware.com/builders/
http://nwn.bioware.com/developers/


Bethesda put out a massive wiki prior to the game launch not just for Oblivion but also Morrowwind
http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Oblivion_Mods_FAQ


Unreal Tournament put out a pretty extensive guide as well
http://unreal.epicgames.com/UTMods.html

So did Valve
http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Main_Page

And Firaxis
http://www.2kgames.com/civ4/downloads.htm

Putting out decent documentation is definately worth it, so is spending time on polishing the toolkit or IDE. "documentation" as an afterthought rarely works out, it really needs somebody to actually do it. A lot of companies don't do it because it adds to production costs, but I feel it's worth it. Would DirectX have overtaken OpenGPL if microsoft didn't have extensive documentation on it?

Waiting for the mod community to make the documentation might work, but it might take a year or two to really get there - and by then, the game's initial splash and wave of buyers has already come and gone.

Yes I totally agree here! 

Strategy games are all about making good decisions, and you really need a convenient way to access relevant information at your fingertips to make good decisions.  No matter how great a game might be, it's not fun if you feel like you are forced to "guess" what to do next because you don't have access to the information you need...

When the third party tech-tree came out for GalCiv 1 and 2, it made it like a whole new game for me!  But until somebody took the time to create this tool, the game was not nearly as fun for me as it should have been...

Perhaps the Elemental Wiki should be accessable from within the game, similar to how Lord of the Rings Online lets you access the lorebook while playing. (Really it's just a web browser control inside a game window, which isn't that hard to do in Windows).

Somehow I've missed this topic. Just a quick question: Are we gonna have a basic modding manual as well? [I am thinking about a .pdf manual for example -> It worked very well in Dominions 3.] Examples: "How to code in a new local/global resource into the game." ; "How to implement a new race." etc.

That could be an adequate compromise, but a 'proper' in-game Elementalopedia (hay! spell-check flags are working for me at the moment! Go Bara!) would have two things that an in-game browser window wouldn't: visual harmony with the game UI and authoritative, professionally edited text.

Maybe a skin could cover the obviously-a-web-site graphical problem, but that would still leave players dependent on the kindness and skills of strangers rather than the diligence and talents of the dev team.

No reason why the person at Stardock tasked with writing the documentation couldn't write it in the Wiki instead of in the Elementalopedia. The lorebook is largely written by a Turbine staffer, but it's easier to add community content on a website then on something built into the game. (And in the case of a wiki, the users could add new information directly.)

Yea, well, that's actually what I don't want for an in-game help system. A publicly edited game wiki is a great supplement, but it is also a great way to spread misinformation, at least for short spans that could mean a very frustrating decision in a given game.

If there's a real concern about that, a format like a wiki could be used only where edits have to be approved before going up.

It doesn't seem to be a major problem with games, though. WoWWiki is among the best resources on the net for straightforward WoW information, and the GC2 wiki was where I learned how a lot of things work that just weren't covered elsewhere.

It's especially useful for something like a modding community, because even if Stardock puts out good initial documentation, things like samples and common practices will continue to be developed as the community gets better at modding the game.

Put that together with some UI that makes it look pretty in-game, and I'm sold. Maybe even enough to get off my lazy but and contribute...

An online In game 'Wiki-ish' thing is okay but i would like to have a nonedited section that describes basic game formula and some such available as well as roughly 60% of the games content *I want there to be things that supprise me even if i read the whole thing*

Cool.

This sounds like possible heresy for the balance/multiplayer crowd, but I actually share the sentiment even though I have an above-average love of good docs. I want to have strong explanations for general design principles, basic functionality, and common units. But I definitely don't want to read a detailed breakdown of something like a GalCiv2 Mega-event because the whole point of that feature is to add replayability to the game by radically changing maps in 'mysterious' ways.

Agree 100%.  I just want to understand the details of the basic game mechanics - not spoilers for all the surprises.  Using GalCiv 2 as an example, I wanted to know where in relation to my planets and the influence borders I would ideally want to place my influence starbases for best effect - stuff like that.