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So far: A Tale of 37 Turns
#1
Yeah, that's me. Not counting any Tutorial Turns, or attempts at Duel Turns, nor even that 5644 short spin as The Forgotten, basically, I'm the Man of 37 Turns.

Or said another way, I have approximately three dozen turns of actual, useful experience, by now. I grasp certain facts. I have a basic, rudimentary grasp of the Alamaze Online Order System, otherwise known as the game Interface.

While I don't have extensive experience with any of the game's plethora of orders and spells, I have successfully utilized the Assassination and Kidnapping options, as one unfortunate Elementalist could no doubt attest to. I've even managed to successfully execute a prisoner. I've even managed to hire a multitude of new characters (or should I refer to them as figures?), and wielded a relative handful of spells to good effect.

And the moral of this story is what?

Well, actually, I'm not entirely sure that this particular story has a moral. Instead, I'm just sitting here doing battle with a bout of The Tiredness. Young men like Wookie Panz know nothing of villains such as this, what with his fanciful spring in his step that he carries about with him, whither soever he goes.

Now, if I could only raise troops when I want to, but it would appear that one or more gnomes (no offense to all gnomes, everywhere) managed to succeed in slipping a few questionable design considerations past the Department of Common Sense. In sharp contrast to the totality of both history and experience, one in Alamaze finds themselves shackled with the heavy chains of requiring veteran brigades, or some such nonsense, before one can begin preparing for war. Or said another way, it's called the deliberate inducing of vulnerability. Fortunately, it is only newcomers who will likely suffer the injury of this foul plague. After all, if you make things deliberately harder for newcomers than it has to be, than it should be, then you can - and should - rightful expect to have to face fewer of them on the field of battle in future epochs of Alamaze.

In a nutshell, whether tragedy or comedy or entirely unintended, Alamaze isn't geared towards new players. It really and truly isn't. Me? Somebody fucked up, and I managed to somehow slip past the guards at the entrance. I don't yet know the rules and the mechanics and the game interface to the point where I can straight up win a game of Alamaze on my own, against all comers. Yet, I already know enough to inflict harm and damage and suffering upon other kingdoms. More importantly than any of that, though, is that, say what you may, I have already figured out to have fun playing Alamaze, come hell or high water.

Rest assured, I am no mere fool that walked in off the street, just yesterday. If anything, I am a fool who has walked what seems an eternity in PBM time, to finally appear on the shores and the plains and the forests and the mountains (etc., etc.) of Alamaze. Even still, is Alamaze a place? A time? A destination? Surely, it's not a kingdom. Is it part of the kingdoms of Arcania? Or are they a part of it?

To an almost infinite degree, when playing Alamaze, I don the role of a student. I make no pretense, otherwise. But if you mess with my town, you do so at risk to your own kingdom and its many inhabitants.

A kingdom is a kingdom is a kingdom. And we all know (at least, we all should now) that the real power in Alamaze lies behind the throne. In the rulebook for Hyborian War, a PBM game with roots that stretch way back into the antiquity of play by mail gaming, the Setting portion of that rulebook states, and I quote:

The role of the player in the game is that of an "immortal power behind the scenes." The player is a personality which alternately inhabits various members of a ruling dynasty--those who wield the true power of Hyboria over the passage of centuries.


And so it is with Alamaze, also.

In the span of 37 turns (or less), I have already learned that information warfare is applicable to the Alamaze battle space. Compared to playing with - and interacting with - many Hyborian War players down through the years and decades, since first stumbling head-first into the PBM melting pot, playing Alamaze is akin to the Age of Neanderthals, from a communications perspective. Maybe it's just me, though, but inter-player diplomacy and communicating effectively in a timely manner certainly appears to be lagging, here, compared to there. I must say, this is both interesting and intriguing. Oh, to be certain, I'm sure that there's reasons for it.

But even still. . .

To win over new players, Alamaze probably needs about six turns with them - provided that they can climb the mountain range of obstacles that Alamaze and its designer(s) have chosen to throw at them. Indeed, newcomers get ambushed, when the finally take the step to give Alamaze a try.

Ambushed!

The Alamaze tutorial as we currently know it in its current form, needs to be repurposed. In its current incarnation, it is more trouble than it is worth. It's dull. It's boring. It saturates the newcomers' eyes with text that fails to accomplish a decent return of new players for the return on investment of what all went into the building of it. In military parlance, it is properly classifiable as a genuine clusterfuck.

And, yes, you read that right.

But why say such a thing? Because deliberately going soft on it won't fix it. It's just not up to snuff, and it's never been particularly effective at what it was designed to do. If it has been, then where are the legions of Alamaze players that this gimmick was supposed to deliver? In a nutshell, good intentions, but poor execution of the underlying concept.

One of the grand ironies in it is that many gamers out there are more than capable of teaching themselves how to play Alamaze. Yet, where is the incentive in them doing just, exactly that? We live in the Age of Information. We live in an era of Digital Revolution. Even still, junk in equals junk out. Garbage in equals garbage out.

As a gaming platform, Alamaze is still in a state of relative infancy. The vast majority of its potential hasn't even had its surface scratched, yet. Just today, my mind got to thinking about how the Alamaze gaming platform could offer gamers of the world a way to do battle with Kaiju (think Godzilla or something similar) wreaking havoc on a destructible environment, Alamaze-style. And it wasn't so very long ago that I was e-mailing Brekk Firestarter about how Alamaze could allow gamers to enjoy gaming in a Wild West/ Old West setting. Anybody wanna be a gunslinger? Or a gold miner? Or a saloon owner?

That Ready button that many of you are familiar with. Where did it come from? I am trying to remember, but wasn't it for Centurion? Or was it for fall of Rome? If you don't remember what Centurion was, I promise, I won't hold it against you.

But I remember.

One of the true and deepest beauties of the Alamaze game platform is that, one you learn it (assuming you even can learn it), it will allow for rapid integration into a nearly unlimited number of different games and settings. It's kind of like D&D, that way, only entirely different. Plus, the Alamaze game platform is fully compatible with the most powerful graphics car ever invented - the human mind!

You've seen Alamaze's past. Now, tell me, what do YOU want Alamaze's FUTURE to be?
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#2
Glad you're enjoying the game now. Learning anything new can be difficult especially when most people are impatient and want action right away.

But I disagree with your assessment on the tutorial. Out of the dozens, if not hundreds, of newcomers to the game, you're the only one who has ever said that they don't like the tutorial. Based on your comments, I think it's because you may have expected to learn everything there is with playing Alamaze, but that's not the purpose of the tutorial.

The tutorial is to simply help the newcomer learn and become comfortable of using our order entry website, and help familiarize them to enter orders for the game. Before the tutorial came out, alot of new players made all kinds of mistakes on not knowing what or how to do things for their kingdom.

The tutorial shows the newcomer how to enter actions for the turn. Not particularly how to play the game. That comes with experience in playing the games. Much like Chess, a newcomer doesn't become an instant Grandmaster the first time they play. A tutorial on Chess shows what the pieces are, what they can do, and how to move them into position.

Our tutorial is similar in nature in that the new player is informed on how to do certain things, but not how to become an expert in playing the game. That comes with experience (and the eventual skill of the player).

So, sorry, I have to disagree with you on that the tutorial fails in its task. We've had hundreds of newcomers who were pleased that we offered a free tutorial to help them with the game.
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#3
(09-06-2023, 11:23 AM)unclemike Wrote: Glad you're enjoying the game now. Learning anything new can be difficult especially when most people are impatient and want action right away.

But I disagree with your assessment on the tutorial. Out of the dozens, if not hundreds, of newcomers to the game, you're the only one who has ever said that they don't like the tutorial. Based on your comments, I think it's because you may have expected to learn everything there is with playing Alamaze, but that's not the purpose of the tutorial.

The tutorial is to simply help the newcomer learn and become comfortable of using our order entry website, and help familiarize them to enter orders for the game. Before the tutorial came out, alot of new players made all kinds of mistakes on not knowing what or how to do things for their kingdom.

The tutorial shows the newcomer how to enter actions for the turn. Not particularly how to play the game. That comes with experience in playing the games. Much like Chess, a newcomer doesn't become an instant Grandmaster the first time they play. A tutorial on Chess shows what the pieces are, what they can do, and how to move them into position.

Our tutorial is similar in nature in that the new player is informed on how to do certain things, but not how to become an expert in playing the game. That comes with experience (and the eventual skill of the player).

So, sorry, I have to disagree with you on that the tutorial fails in its task. We've had hundreds of newcomers who were pleased that we offered a free tutorial to help them with the game.


This one must have gotten lost in the shuffle of busyness.

It's fine that you disagree with me on this issue, Mike. The tutorial for Alamaze is one of the absolute worst tutorials that I have ever encountered, anywhere. As for the "hundreds of newcomers who were pleased that we offered a free tutorial to help them with the game," where are they, today? And offering a tutorial isn't the same thing as people loving - nor even liking - the tutorial in question. Additionally, it is my understanding that the vast majority of people who have tried the Alamaze tutorial never bothered to finish it - and I can certainly appreciate why, having tried it, again, recently.

As far as your remark of, "Out of the dozens, if not hundreds, of newcomers to the game, you're the only one who has ever said that they don't like the tutorial," feel free to show us a list of all of their comments - for the relatively few who may have bothered to leave a comment about it, at all. I would really like to know who all of these hundreds of newcomers are to which you refer, since they aren't anywhere in sight. When I recently (9/4/2023, 7:53 PM) remarked in e-mail to Alamaze's new owner that the tutorial was a "clusterfuck,' not only did he not disagree with me, he concurred with that characterization of it. So, there's no truth in the assertion that Im the only one who who has ever said that they don't like the tutorial.

And what about all of those who have tried the tutorial, but whom get lost or confused with it? If you actually had hundreds of newcomers who were pleased that you offered a free tutorial, and they actually expressed that, those comments would have likely been in writing, and not conveyed over the telephone. Surely, a record of those praising the tutorials would have been kept, and particularly if they numbered in the hundreds. I've known Rick McDowell for twenty years or more, but I don't ever recall him mentioning such a supposed large body of praise for the tutorial.

There are, of course, some scattered comments about a tutorial that can be found in the Alamaze forum. A couple of the early ones were:

Ry Vor mentioned that he would like to have a tutorial version of the game but You Tube videos are better for that purpose and Primeval games that have a mentor (which is the best way of learning the game). So I was planning on the solo game to be a quick version of the normal game to get a person's feet wet before heading into a Primeval game. 

- unclemike
SOURCE: https://alamaze.net/forum/thread-10218-p...l#pid34805
SOURCE DATE: 12-19-2015


The Ready Button was a great innovation, not seen elsewhere in PBEM, but was originally done for a solo Centurion game.  It was used some for Fall of Rome games, but the main purpose was a new player could instantly play Centurion free, and it was in a tutorial version of about 9 turns, with 9 minutes between turns, where orders were restricted to about 6 per turn.  Again, the point was to allow quick access to a scaled down game in Centurion - was just the military aspects of Fall of Rome.  Fall of Rome of course had the interactive map.

- Ry Vor
SOURCE: https://alamaze.net/forum/thread-10437-p...l#pid38440
SOURCE Date: 04-18-2016


If one does a forum search for the word "tutorial," you can find every instance where tutorial was mentioned in the forum, here. Be sure to place special focus upon how relatively few comments about tutorial that there have been in recent months and years. And since I know for a fact that there were stretches of time under Alamaze's prior management/ownership where people were complaining about how Alamaze support was lacking (though their own choices of phraseology was a bit more colorful than that), it makes me wonder how such supposed praise for Alamaze's tutorial was tracked better than complaints about various other things.


The tutorial isn't plagued by programming errors. Rather, it is plagued by other shortcomings and deficiencies. To me, it's a simple enough matter to acknowledge them, and to hold the tutorial to the light of scrutiny. I'm not inclined to give it a free pass. It certainly doesn't deserve one. The Alamaze tutorial needs to either be replaced or revamped or repurposed. In its current form, it is more of an obstacle and impediment than a feature.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here's an e-mail that I sent to Alamaze's new owner about the Alamaze tutorial back on 09/04/2023
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Because newcomer Studcraft was drowning in the Rick McDowell designed tutorial for Alamaze, I have decided to try the tutorial, once more - even though each of the few times that i have launched it, previously, I found it to be both boring and annoying, a dullish-hell of its own kind.

Once it loaded, I decided to copy all of the text on the entry page into the Tutorial Game, and then I pasted it into a word processor. That first page weighed in at 42 pages in length. Sacré bleu!

Forty-two fucking pages - and I (or any newcomer) hasn't even started, yet. Clearly, this is why Jack planted those magic beans, so that he could climb away from the Alamaze online tutorial and into the ski, in some hopeful bid to escape to the clouds. This reminds me of a Gordon Ramsey episode, where he shows up at some restaurant, somewhere, and it ends up being a total clusterfuck. Surely, some how, some way, there must be a better way forward than this wretched abomination.

Let's take it in steps, shall we?

============================
ALAMAZE TUTORIAL BEGINS HERE
---------------------------------------------
     [Tutorial]             Introduction
                            

                            This is a Solo Tutorial game for new players to learn Alamaze. Normally,

                            there are several kingdoms in a game that compete against each other but

                            for this tutorial, only your Elven kingdom and a stationary Dwarven kingdom

                            will be participating. In 3rd Cycle (The Choosing's release), there are 24

                            different kingdoms
with varying abilities to choose from!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE FROM CHARLES: Seeds of confusion with the Alamaze Tutorial get sowed in the very first paragraph. Instead of a normal start,

Alamaze decides to treat newcomers to an abnormal version of Alamaze.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------       
                            Please follow the highlighted tutorial messages for helpful hints about the

                            game. If you have not done so already, please reference the Help Guides for

                            more information:

                            http://fallofromegame.com/alamazeorders/...Cycle.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE FROM CHARLES: So, why would newcomers be expected to have already looked at/studied the Help Guides? Guides is in plural
form, meaning more than one. What's the point of having a tutorial, if the tutorial, itself, is insufficient and not up to the task at hand
of teaching newcomers how to play Alamaze?


If I counted right, on the Help Guides page, there are no less than 32 different items found there. Sending newcomers to the Help
Guides, thus, is nothing short of insanity. It is an engraved invitation to ensure that the newcomer gets lost and goes slap out of
their mind, trying to make heads and tails out of such a voluminous amount of the Help (ahem!) Guides. As a general rule of thumb,
if you want people who are new and inexperienced to focus upon whatever it is that they are tasked with doing, then tossing almost
three dozen distractions at them right off the bat probably isn't the best thing to do. Plus, the more that you toss at them, the faster
that their confusion index will grow.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------                          
                            This tutorial offers a limited set of rules, spells, and kingdom actions

                            (orders) to simplify the game. This sample game is limited to only 7 turns.

                            When you are finished with the tutorial and ready to play against others,

                            sign up for a 2-player Duel, 5-player Primeval, or 12-player Steel game in

                            the Alamaze Game Queue.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE FROM CHARLES: It offers a "limited set" of rules - but even that limited set of rules has already proven to be confusing to
newcomers. They end up lost, unsure of what to do or where to go. They can't even figure out how to move Groups. ironically
enough, the rules, themselves, are not the core, underlying problem. Rather, lack of familiarity with the game interface is. Instead
of focusing upon easing the transition to the interface, someone opted, instead, to provide a smaller set of rules, without dealing
with the interface problems. And the end result? The tutorial hasn't been getting the job done. If I could learn how to play Alamaze
and how to have lots of fun playing it, without bothering with the half-ass excuse for a tutorial, then so can others. Why, then,
is the tutorial even called a tutorial, at all? At present, the Alamaze tutorial does not facilitate rapid integration for the newcomer.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------                         

                            To enter your kingdom's actions (orders) for the upcoming turn, please

                            login at the Alamaze Online Order Entry website located at

                            http://fallofromegame.com/alamazeorders/login.php. When you are done

                            filling in your kingdom's actions, the turn will be processed after you

                            press the Ready button (on the Ready menu tab).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE FROM CHARLES: Could they not have come up with a bigger name? This is like a Kamala Harris word salad. The newcomer is
being buried alive in words, and this contributes to an avalanche of confusion. A game designer's forte is designing games, not
crafting documentation. A programmer's forte is programming, not documentation and/or tutorial expertise. The end result of what
eventually transpired and ultimately became the Alamaze Tutorial is self-evident failure. The tutorial is bloated and dysfunctional,
and I've barely even scratched the surface of it, yet.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------                           
                            Have fun and we hope you enjoy your Alamaze experience!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE FROM CHARLES: If they hate the tutorial, or if they are lost as they try to wind their way through the Catacombs of Confusion
that is the current Alamaze Tutorial, and they don't know where they are or what they should do, what then has the current excuse
for an Alamaze Tutorial actually accomplished? Maybe I'm preaching to the Big Choir, here, but the way that the tutorial's text is
written, it failed to get straight to the meat of the matter. Rather than dispel confusion, it creates more and more and more
confusion.


After reading this first part of the overall tutorial, what has the newcomer actually learned?
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#4
In a bad mood or something? Really, the tutorial isn't that awful, and yes, we've had many positive comments for the tutorial. Rather than argue which seems pointless, I'll just say that the tutorial is helpful for many new players who've complimented us on having it around...
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#5
I am playing a duel with a new player that started with the tutorial so I think you could say it got him past first base.

Every once in a while I have tried the tutorial just for kicks.  It was interesting to see how I could use movement agents and wizards to uncover the map as quickly as possible.  Also to see if the un-moving Dwarf could be completely eliminated by game's end on turn 7.  The answer is yes.

I am playing a duel with a new player that started with the tutorial so I think you could say it got him past first base.

Every once in a while I have tried the tutorial just for kicks.  It was interesting to see how I could use movement agents and wizards to uncover the map as quickly as possible.  Also to see if the un-moving Dwarf could be completely eliminated by game's end on turn 7.  The answer is yes.
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#6
(09-18-2023, 11:17 AM)unclemike Wrote: In a bad mood or something? Really, the tutorial isn't that awful, and yes, we've had many positive comments for the tutorial. Rather than argue which seems pointless, I'll just say that the tutorial is helpful for many new players who've complimented us on having it around...

Nope, I'm not in a bad mood, at all. I just tend to question things that make no sense to me. I'm not emotionally over-attached to the tutorial.

The Alamaze tutorial, in its current form, is definitely awful. It's terrible. It's horrible. It's boring. It's counter-productive, and will likely always scare off more potential new players that it will ever land.

I have no desire to argue with you, but simultaneously, your chosen lines of argument raise more questions than they answer, there this thread is concerned.

Furthermore, in light of the fact that prior ownership/management made a point of utilizing positive quotes as mechanisms to promote Alamaze, why would the same prior ownership/management not utilize positive compliments about the Alamaze tutorial to not be used to also promote Alamaze, as well as Alamaze tutorial, itself.

You, yourself, told me earlier this year, Mike, "You may want to have a link from the quotes site to the unofficial Alamaze site." So, you clearly grasp that positive compliments are not of no value. None of what were supposedly "compliments from many new players" are preserved and archived anywhere? If nothing else, why wouldn't those very same compliments from many new players be used to promote the tutorial to additional new players? Why allow them to go to waste and fall into oblivion?
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