Why Your Game Is Broken Part X: RTFM!

[monkey0506]

Why Your Game Is Broken:
Part X: RTFM!
a.k.a. Part Zero: You're A n00b!
a.k.a. Part -1: You Posted In All Caps!
a.k.a. Part Infinity Billion Plus One: You're still a n00b!

In this, the original, uncensored, unofficial, undocumented, unsupported, somewhat superfluous, completely ostentatious edition of Why Your Game Is Brokenâ,,¢ we will be discussing the number one primary cause of all broken AGS games, especially those that were never released! So sit down, shut up, and strap in because this is gonna be a bumpy ride.

I just joined the forums.

Congratulations. You've managed to prove that you are a human being or at least equivalent thereof enough to supply all the required information to register an account. Just to be current I have reviewed the process required to register an account. One of the first things you must do in order to register is to take a very simple quiz.

This quiz is not anything extravagant. It won't give you your IQ score at the end. It's just a method of trying to weed out trolls, bots, and morons. The problem is it doesn't work. Mostly you're just looking for the longest of the answers. Aside from that you might have to use a bit of logic and or a reading level equivalent to about that of a 5th Grade US student...Are You [As] Smart[ As] a 5th Grader? anyone? Most of the contestants are at least capable of selecting an answer in any case.

It's not to say we don't appreciate new members. A new face is always welcome. But this is not a defense if you break the established forum rules and customs! Obviously though if this applies to you, then you haven't read the quiz to register, you haven't read the rules, and you've thoroughly made sure to make no attempt to solve the problem yourself before demanding someone assist you. As such, I'll try to make this a bit more graphical. Perhaps the pretty pictures will catch your attention.

IT DOESN'T WORK!!!11

There's several things wrong with this. First off, it's in all caps. That's likely to get you reprimanded at minimum, and made fun of at best. Next you're not holding down the Shift key quite long enough while mashing the '1' key to produce the '!' symbol. Not that you should be repeating that key that many times anyway in a post, but it's just plain silly anyway using a number as a punctuation mark. Following that there's the issue of emotispamming. There's really not an excuse to repeatedly use the same emoticon more than once or maybe twice in a row. They're there for a reason, cluttering your post with images is not the reason.

The final thing wrong with this is that it does not describe the problem. Anytime you create a post you should have a well defined problem than you need help with as well as what you've done to try and resolve the issue yourself. But enough seriousness, time for some pictures! Once you've got AGS downloaded and installed, let's take a look at step one!



That's weird, it looks like that says don't post. If I don't post how am I supposed to get help?

This may strike you as odd, but your first line of defense in the battle against ignorance is yourself. If you're not willing to take some time to teach yourself, nothing anyone else can say is going to force you to learn it. You have to at least be willing to try. So the first thing you'll need to do is open your AGS folder, which should look reasonably similar to this:



Obviously you wouldn't have this Madden style magic marker going all over the screen, but that's there for clarification. We are not going to open the editor yet. The very first thing you need to know about before you ever even think of touching the editor is the help file. This is the first resource you will reference in regards to 99.9% of your issues when starting out using AGS.

At the very least you should take the time to familiarize yourself with the layout of the help file before you start using AGS. It will help you to be able to easily find the correct page when you need it, and in so doing can help you to assist yourself in solving many of your own problems with AGS.

One of the most important things you'll need to know about is the three different ways you can browse through the help file: Contents, Index, and Search.

Contents


When you select the Contents tab, you will see an itemized list with all of the articles in the help file listed in an easy to navigate directory tree:



If you have a general direction where you're trying to go this can definitely help to point you in the correct direction. For example, if you have a Scripting question you would open the Scripting tree. You can then work your way through the tree to find the appropriate help entry. If you cannot find what you're looking for however, don't fear there's more to the help file yet!

Index


If you know what you're looking for and you weren't able to find it in the Contents, or just want a faster method to pull it up the Index is a great option. The index contains a list of every page in the help file, listed by the title of the article. You can also type in a search term and it will automatically seek to the nearest page title. So if you're looking for information on blocking scripts and you type in "blo" you've already typed in enough to identify the article, "Blocking scripts, explained." So if you have an idea what the title of the page is it's definitely a great place to look. If you have no idea whatsoever what the title of the page would be, these two options haven't been much help. But there is one last option within the help file...

Search


This can often be the most useful option in the help file. Many times you don't know the exact title of the page you're looking for, so the other two options don't provide much help. But with the search function you can seek any page with a specific search term. Here I've done a search for articles related to "blocking" and found several pages with the word "blocking" within them. Based off the results I now have a better idea what page I'm looking for. If I'm still not completely sure, I can still look through the pages to find the specific answer I'm looking for.

What if I still can't find what I'm looking for?

Unfortunately even with all the great options the help file has built-in to assist you in finding the correct page, you may not always be able to find the help you need. Our next step is to open the editor. If you haven't yet started a game, that's wonderful. Go ahead and start your first game project. We won't be doing anything with it yet, we're only opening AGS so I can show you another self-help option.



AGS has a Help menu, the first item of which is Dynamic Help. Dynamic Help is, exactly as it says, a dynamic option to further assist you in finding that right page in the help file. What it can do is depending on where you are in AGS it can actually try to direct you to the correct page in the help file. Depending on your question it's not always a fail-proof solution, but it can be a major boost in the right direction.

This isn't helping. Some help file that is!

While the help file is your first resource to contact if you have a problem or question about AGS, it is not an all-inclusive help solution. There are other resources available that you should contact before you click that Post button.

The AGS Wiki and Beginner's FAQ


The AGS Wiki is a wiki based around AGS obviously. It contains many articles that can help you discover answers to questions you may have about AGS, so it is definitely recommended that you check it out and look over some of the articles there. It is also the location of the Beginner's FAQ (BFAQ) which are a set of frequently asked beginner's questions that may or may not be easily answered in the help file. You can search the wiki as well so if you're not sure of the title of the page you can search for words within the article to see if there are any relevant articles.

The Forum Search


If you click on "Search" at the top of the forums, right beneath the AGS banner, you will be taken to the forum search which will allow you to search through the forums. This is often the most important step, but very often the most neglected one. Very often new users will have a simple question that they would like a quick, easy answer to. If they use the forum search, they often will find that their question has not only been asked, but has been answered before.

You can enter keywords, search for posts by a specific user, sort by date, relevance, and much more with the forum search. It is a very useful tool for finding posts in the forum related to a specific question or issue.

I've done all that and I still don't have an answer!

If you have completed all these steps and you still haven't found your answer, you are now qualified to post in the forums. You should at this point have:

- A well formed question. Simply saying something such as "how do you do scripting" or the like is not a well formed question. There is actually a scripting tutorial in the help file which should have been the first resource you looked to. If you have a specific question, try to be clear what you are asking.
- The resources you have used. Have you read in the manual? The BFAQ? Have you searched the forums? If you've done this and have missed the answer it will say much more for you than if you are simply asking for the answer without having done anything to try and resolve the issue yourself. In short, the more you do to try and fix it yourself, the more willing we will be to try and help you get your problem resolved.
- Any relevant scripts, error codes, or screenshots. Any time you are asking a question regarding a specific script, error code, something you are seeing in AGS, etc. it is best to provide as much detail as you can. If your script for turning your GUI on isn't working, post the script you're using. If you're getting an error message, post the FULL error message (Ctrl+C to copy it when the error is displayed!). You can also use the PRT SCR (Print Screen) button to copy the screen to the clipboard and paste it into Paint or whatever picture editing software you use. You can then crop the relevant data and upload to an image server such as ImageShack or Photobucket so we can see exactly what you're seeing.

In Conclusion

As I said, the more you do, the more we're willing to do. So if you haven't taken the necessary steps yourself and you're having problems making your game (and this does apply retroactively to anyone who for the same reasons have failed to release their games), it is because your game is broken. Your game is broken because the author is unwilling to take the necessary steps to fix the game. It's not that there are no resources available, but if you cannot even make an attempt to resolve your issues yourself before you come crying to us, how can you expect us to take you seriously enough to make your game for you?

-monkey

[Khris]

Great Work!

Now all we need is for CJ to replace the forums link on the main page with one leading to this thread.

[TerranRich]

While the thread I created years ago in the Beginners' Forum says much of the same, it's not as concise and detailed as the above post. Good work.

[markbilly]

I'm sorry I have to say this, but:

Do you know what this thread says to new-comers, or anyone scouting for a friendly, helpful community? It says: FUCK RIGHT OFF!!!1111 (and do it yourself, n00b!)

And yes, it is in bold. It is in caps. It even has 1s on the end.

It really is a shame this thread exists, and any other thread with a similar theme. There are some really lovely people on this forum; they are helpful, friendly and genuinely want to help. This thread completely misrepresents these lovely people, by making the whole community look arrogant, insensitive and unwelcoming.

And on the subject of not looking at the help file. Don't try and tell me the first thing you opened in the AGS folder, was "ags-help". I mean, when I get some new, exciting software to play with all I want to do is experiment.

Although you are correct that help contains most fixes, lets be honest: surely it takes just as long to post a link to the solution and sticky it, as it does to have an immature rant? A rant that will only put people off and prevent the expansion of a mostly amazing community. And a pretty amazing piece of free software.

I'm not hoping to cause any trouble, I just felt this needed saying. So far my experience of this community has been great!

[kaputtnik]

I am so glad I stuck around here long enough to gradually notice that the people who compile these pamphlets are also but mere humans. One or two spelling errors and some obscure opinions on some obscure topics later - tada - I had overcome my fear and posted something.

[Matti]

And on the subject of not looking at the help file. Don't try and tell me the first thing you opened in the AGS folder, was "ags-help". I mean, when I get some new, exciting software to play with all I want to do is experiment.

You're right. But when you're stuck and need some infos you ARE looking at the helpfile, at least before posting questions in a forum. There's really no need for the question how a character is able to change the room. This quesion indicates that you haven't read anything in the tutorial.

On the other hand I doubt this thread will be of any help. Is it for the few people who post stupid questions? I don't know if they'll read this thread and I don't know if they would stop asking basic stuff. It's those people who don't want to put any effort in their work. They want to instantly make a game while being to lazy to go through the Tutorial. I doubt any of them will ever finish something with AGS and I don't care if they get help or not.

Nevertheless, monkey, it's a great thread with a lot of work in it..

[thezombiecow]

As far as I see it, the problem is that everyone these days expects help files to be utterly useless. Hitting F1 in an application is very much a last resort, because they're scant and poorly-indexed.

The fact is that AGS' help file is surprisingly detailed and amazing, and someone should point out that it's actually genuinely useful and thorough, that one sentence alone might be enough to encourage newbies to look there first.

[(deleted)]

(deleted)

[monkey0506]

I just want to be clear that I wasn't trying to discourage anyone from using AGS or make them feel inadequate for not knowing the answer to a question.

However, the forum does have rules. These rules do include things like reading the manual, the BFAQ, looking through the forums. Yet we consistently continue to have the same questions asked over and over.

The purpose behind the rules is to try and prevent threads like "How to make character change room to room" when the question has already been thoroughly documented. If you are not willing to put forth the effort to exhaust even the simplest of your available resources, how can you possibly expect anyone to take you seriously that you plan to create, develop, and produce a full 3D, voice acted, AGS game complete with full musical score and you're going to do it all by yourself within about 6-8 months time? I'm not referencing anyone in specific, but very often new users make claims as to what AGS will allow them to do, but fall short due to their own lack of willingness to do what it takes.

Of course the AGS community appreciates its new members. I do recognize retrospectively how much the title and the opening could send the wrong message. I may consider revising it to be a bit less offensive. It's not my intention to chase people away.

Ultimately the purpose of this thread was to try and point out that one of the biggest problems people (generically speaking) do have when they first join the forums is that they ignore everything they answered in the quiz, they ignore the rules, and they post questions that have been answered a hundred billion times before and more often than not do so not in a kindly, friendly, "Hi, I'm new and I just wanted to know..." but rather a "WTF THIS IS STUPID HOW DO I..." method.

There are the new members who will post from the very beginning in a mature, and altogether more calm manner. Even if they make the mistake of not reading in the manual or using their other resources, I'm still much more willing to not just say "RTFM!" but actually point them in the correct direction and then point out the available resources. I've done it before.

I'm also not trying to imply that simply because I've been here longer and I know more about AGS than you do that I'm some type of elitist god-like being. We're all humans (or the equivalent thereof ). As long as you at least make the effort to pose your question in a mature manner I'd say the majority of the other members are still willing to answer the redundant questions. I just got tired of yet again seeing about infinity billion threads being created demanding answers...

[markbilly]

Maybe I live in alternate dimension, but I haven't had experience of this enough to annoy me. I see the odd dumb thread around, but really not that many. Certainly not enough to make this much fuss. I'd say 99% of the forum is sensible, interesting conversation and advice. And I see far more of this kind of thing than I see "HOW DO I MAEK CHAR GO ONE RM TO OTHER!11" threads...

[Pumaman]

I think the main irony with this post is that you're expected an excited newbie to read it all through before doing anything else! Rightly or wrongly the AGS Forums seem to have a reputation as being hostile towards newcomers, and I think we should be careful not to seem too negative -- otherwise we could accidentally put people off from joining and making a game, and we could end up missing out on some great games as a result.

When ridiculous posts are made, I think we should try to give people the benefit of the doubt for their first post or two, and answer them politely but point them to where to look for similar answers; obviously if someone keeps posting annoying questions then we need to be firmer with them.

The technical forums certainly seem quieter these days than they used to be -- whether this is because fewer people are making games, or because AGS has become easier to use, or because people are now checking the manual/wiki/etc before posting, I don't think we've got anything to worry about right now.

[Dualnames]

It's a bit hostile... I LIKE IT~~~!!!!

[Ghost]

It's a bit hostile... I LIKE IT~~~!!!!

Come now, are you serious? I'd hate to be considered a "generally hostile guy" just based on the fact that I'm part of the AGS community. (edit due to post below: Okay- seems I didn't get the satire. no harm, I hope)

But do we really have such a bad reputation? Back in the days when I joined, there were less "Halp PLZ lol" threads by newcomers, agreed, but since then, AGS has build a larger fanbase, and that's bound to attract the odd overexited newcomer who downloads AGS and is a bit clueless. I'm with Chris here, all regulars should give a newcomer a few "posts to settle in".
Monkey has gone some lengths here, and there's quite some truth in what he says.
If nothing else, the thread should remind long-time AGSers about their first days.

[Dualnames]

Well, I just found a little bit of the article too sarcastic and less friendly for my tastes. Monkey is a good chap, but well, I'm not for that kind of humour, if I've misinterpreted anything, you're all allowed to chop my head off.

[LimpingFish]

The truth is that the answer to most of these ridiculous threads actually is "read the manual". The information is in there. I know. I've read it. I don't believe I've ever posted in the help thread, yet I suck at scripting. But what I need to know is usually found in the manual.

So, the real question, I think, is: Is replying to one of these threads with "read the manual" acceptable? Maybe instead of just "RTM", you could highlight the relevant section in the manual?

Other than answering every simple question that gets posted, I think this perceived hostility towards newcomers will remain, simply because of the nature of "read the manual" as a response, regardless of it being the correct one.

[Pumaman]

I'd say that "read the manual" is not an acceptable reply. It's not always easy to know where to look -- for example:

Q: "How can I make it so that the text isn't shown when I have voices turned on?"
A: "Read the manual!!!"

Usefulness: Zero

On the other hand:

A: "You need the SetVoiceMode function, look it up in the manual for details"

Usefulness: Very.

[Jared]

From the reactions to the 'hostility' inherent in the first post, I'd guess that not too many people have ventured onto the ScummVM forums. Whew. They don't even have well-written documentation as an excuse.

That said, not entirely sure why the post exists. I browse the Beginner's Technical Questions thread quite a lot and I've pretty much never seen a thread like the one described. I've seen plenty that have been answered [many times] previously, but that's par for the course of any online help, surely?

[auriond]

I agree that the same people who post n00b-ish threads are not likely to read through this behemoth of a post.

In the Livejournal help section where I used to lurk, people who volunteered their time to help would answer such questions with a standard format and a link to the relevant section on their FAQ. While we don't have to have standard format answers, a quick link to the tutorials would help.

I consider basic knowledge to be stuff that's covered in the tutorials, e.g. "how to make character change room". The tutorials are written in plain English and walk you through everything. Beyond that, however, I think it's reasonable if people ask for help in the forums, because they may not even know what they're looking for. I've realised that not everyone has great search skills, and what may seem out in plain sight for some of us is simply not evident to other people.

That said, I've never thought that the forums were very hostile towards newbies. In fact I've always been amazed at how kindly people like KrisMUC reply to queries posed in a short, abrupt and demanding manner. The only hint of hostility I usually see is in the acronym, RTFM. I never did like that phrase, especially used on a first time poster, but I can definitely see why people get frustrated at newbies who post for the gazillionth time "how do i draw a characrte in ags?".

[monkey0506]

In part I'd say I wrote this because of our most recent trolling (or, if you prefer, trollish) newbie. It's always been a pet peeve of mine when someone posts not just asking but actually demanding help without having put forth an ounce of effort on their own part to discover the answer. Even if they had done as much as read the forum rules it would have at least directed them to the forum search and the wiki as well as the manual online.

I'd say the real reason I get upset about this is because it's somewhat of a personal issue to me. I'm the type of person that I don't just want a simple answer. I don't want to know that it works, but why and how...actually, scratch that...knowing whether it works or not is pretty important as well.

But it seems to me that there are those new members who quite simply refuse to put forth even the tiniest amount of effort for themselves. I don't want to seem like an elitist or a hypocrite here, so let me be the first to say I have made posts without verifying them against other sources first. But I would say that at least those have been few and far between.

Certainly not every new member is guilty of doing this, so don't get me wrong here. And I do understand that definitely there are times when a new user doesn't know how to look for the answer. Even if they know about the help file, wiki, forum search, etc. they may not know what specific term to look for to find their answer.

But this wasn't directed at the new users who are trying but don't know how. This was directed at the users who don't try at all. I guess I just wanted to vent because it annoys me when I see this happening.

Partly I wrote it satirically.

And partly I intended to be able to create a viable visual guide for new users who aren't willing to read.

All these things together I can probably say didn't make for the best end result possibly from any one front. So I am sorry if I offended anyone, that definitely wasn't my intention.

Besides, it was time for my annual hijacking-of-someone-else's-idea-and-trying-to-pass-it-off-as-my-own.

I wasn't actually trying to pass it off as my own, but you get the idea anyway.

[SSH]

If someone asks how to read the manual, can we say RTFHTRTFMM?