Breakfast topic: Fit to print
by Amanda Dean 
Sep 20th 2008 at 8:00AM
When I got my recruit a friend account it came with two lovely, full-color Bradygames guide books. Each is a 24.99 16.49 value with the Battle Chest purchase. The books have descriptions of all the races and classes. They go into some detail about the zones and many of the monsters in WoW. The guides contain tips on game play and various mechanics. I found them to be completely useless. They're outdated. They guides don't really give any tips on the nuances of the game. At times they are wildly inaccurate.
Granted, they may be helpful to brand new players, though not entirely more useful than small, black and white Game Manual that also comes in the box. As a rookie I never turned toward printed guides. I asked a lot of questions from resources like Thottbot, Petopia, and of course WoW Insider. Most of what I've learned, I've learned on the fly. The beautiful, colorful images must cost a small fortune to print. It all seems very excessive to me.
I've seen many other printed materials about the game. I've wondered why they exist and who uses them. I imagine they might be nice for collectors, but I really just wanted a copy of WoW and BC.
Help me out here. Do you use printed materials to assist in your World of Warcraft adventures?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Blizzard, Breakfast topics, Guides
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
KiwiRed Sep 20th 2008 8:07AM
The printed guides are great. Right up until a patch changes class mechanics or changes quests. Or new flight points are added. Or new quest or quest hubs are added. Or a zone is changed completely (dustwallow marsh, anyone?).
I'll rephrase that: The printed guides *would be* great, if they were updated to keep relevance with the game they are supposed to guide you in.
skynes Sep 20th 2008 8:13AM
The failing of printed guides with an everchanging game is that the game keeps changing the guides cannot. Even if they updated the Guide, your copy is still useless.
I personally stick to wowhead and wowwiki for all I need.
Mirajj Sep 20th 2008 8:19AM
I have a WoW Atlas that my fiancee got me for Christmas a few years back. It's got some neat info in it, but nothing I couldn't look up faster online.
I don't use it much, but I have on rare occasions when she asks me "Where is such and such in this zone" and I can't remember off the top of my head.
It does LOOK real nice, though. But since I'm sitting in front of the computer anyhow when I need the info, and play in Windowed Mode, there are much faster ways to get the needed info.
ZUR13L Sep 20th 2008 8:42AM
lol When did you start playing?
I got the game at release (still have the mini-Diablo to prove it) and, at the time, there was precious little info anywhere about the game. Furthermore, what little there was, was often broken and / or incorrect. There WAS no wowwiki. Petopia had to be accessed through a link in the Good Intentions guild site (at least, that was the only way I could ever find it) and thott was a fractured shadow of what it is today.
Yes, I speak of a time when Breanni had yet to EXIST!
This was also my first MMO ( I was coming from Diablo, speaking of...) and I needed all the information I could get. I STILL know people who log off to see what level all their characters are and I never went through that embarassing phase because of the books.
You are dating yourself by expounding on the excesses of print. You remind me of someone who can't figure out how to change the channel on the TV because there's no 'channel up / down' buttons, only a big, strange dial. Bradey and similar companies have made small fortunes by putting out books for games for over twenty years now. Many of the PC game books have been black and white but you pull the console gamers in with color.
Books like this are for when you (gasp) have no internet connection (/gasp) and want to pore over Friendship Kombos on the bus on your way to your crappy little job at the mall.
Now, granted, I rarely read them anymore. I still use the Dungeon guide because it's just easier that way. I agree that the books can be incorrect (dwarven mage?). And I freely admit that, if I were to recruit a friend now, I would send him / her an email full of links to helpful sites.
But there was a time when those big, cumbersome, expensive books were all we fucking had.
onetrueping Sep 20th 2008 9:36AM
Wow, nerd rage much?
Anyhow, the issue currently is, why are the old books still being sold, when they are useless? Not if you used them back when WoW started, but if you use them NOW.
Please stay on topic.
kabshiel Sep 20th 2008 10:14AM
Too bad that even at release much of the guide was useless. The entire paladin section, for instance, was completely outdated.
PeeWee Sep 20th 2008 10:41AM
I have also played since day 1, account created at 0.11 on server opening day.
I read tooltips.
I read quest info.
That was all I needed at the time.
As time passed, I discovered Thottbot and Allakhazam, and the information became available more easily. Then came Wowhead, and I haven't been to either Thott nor Allakhazam since.
Printed guides? Waste of space, waste of money.
juicyjuice Sep 20th 2008 8:49AM
When I first started getting into the game when it was vanilla wow, I bought the guide book and read it alot. Mostly for the reason that wow was so overwhelmingly huge compared to every other game I'd played. So yeah, looking back it was almost laughably outdated, but it was great for delving into all the different areas of the game and discovering things about the game you didnt know before. In a sense it was actually better than thott/wowhead (I didnt know about them at the time), because while those sites are really good at providing you with the information you're looking for, nothing beats a book's ability to broaden your understanding about something as big and complicated as wow.
On a funnier note, it listed the original release talent trees too which are hilarious. I ended up tossing it, but I think the 31 point resto druid talent was Innervate, and the prot paladin's was blessing of kings!
Brent Sep 20th 2008 9:33AM
I don't use the Brady books as guides, but I do have them stacked next to the john where they make enjoyable and colorful reading material.
joerendous Sep 20th 2008 10:11AM
^^this
Shial Sep 20th 2008 9:33AM
The worst case I ever found was the guide in the DiabloII battle chest. It had a lot of pages, describing every skill, with tables and so on... That guide got outdated with 1.01 patch, and 1.09 was live by that time!
Gurgi Sep 20th 2008 9:34PM
I'm not sure if its the case with the battlechest books, but when you bought the Penny Arcade designed binder with the guide, you got some sort of subscription that gave you free updates. The point of the binder was to give you somewhere to put your print-outs.
Catastrophe Sep 20th 2008 10:28AM
What the world needs is some kind of magic book that can be updated and accessed in an instant, from anywhere in the world maybe even via the interwebs.
Any changes could then be added into the magic book and anyone reading it would never have to worry about the information being outdated.
If someone could think of a way of getting this book on the magic telebox I use to play my mmorpgers they could make sqillions!!!!oneone!!!eleven
*Note that was meant to be sarcasm, but really does anyone still use paper guides? In an ever changing and evolving world the guides are out of date long before the printing have even finished, modern gaming problems demand modern gaming solutions*
offday Sep 20th 2008 11:05AM
I think the problem here is that too many people who have been playing since the start are commenting. Of course the guides are going to be useless to veterans of the game. Personally, I came into WoW with the battlechest about a month ago, and the guides have helped me out a lot. Sure, some things are outdated, but they can't help that. Bottom line is calling the guides worthless and a waste of time is a little harsh. A lot of hard work went into the guides. Don't put them down because you think you're the god of warcraft.
robsolo Sep 20th 2008 11:48AM
I have to say, compared to the guides in Asia, Bradley Games sucks.
_Every major patch_ they will come out with a book bigger than the Bradley Games WoW guide. These guides are full of all the stats of mobs, what drops, maps of dungeons, guides to boss' etc etc of all new stuff. Of course, they're all in Chinese...and it's mostly stuff you can find on thottbot/wikiwow or whatever if you kow where to look; but compared with this, the 'guides' that come out here in NA are total crap.
Soriel Angelfyre Sep 20th 2008 11:24AM
they make great bathroom reading material....thats about it though since they were out of date before they hit the shelves
Jayo Sep 20th 2008 1:29PM
sheeeeet..... my game manual still lists Dwarfs as being eligible to roll as Mages.
Ivellios Sep 20th 2008 2:04PM
The only printed books I find to be useful are the Dungeon Companions I & II. While they can become slightly outdated, they more or less are relevant to the instances they cover.
Currently I have the two books that came with the battle chest (I did the RAF too) and both D.C. Books.
When it comes down to it though, they are all just for show. The internet updates itself way faster than Brady Games can produce a book.
Kalerender Sep 20th 2008 6:45PM
I purchased the original guide when I first got the game (well, before I got it actually since I was waiting for stock to come into the city), however I got it for the penny-arcade cartoons in it, about the only thing I used the material for was the maps (this was back in 04).
ZUR13L Sep 20th 2008 10:32PM
"onetrueping said...
Wow, nerd rage much?
Anyhow, the issue currently is, why are the old books still being sold, when they are useless? Not if you used them back when WoW started, but if you use them NOW.
Please stay on topic."
Um...
no u?
The issue, to quote the OP (to whom I must appologize if I came off a tad harsh; I had had yet to have any coffee), is, "why they exist and who uses them."
I think I answered both questions, while you've answered neither.
Nice try, thoug--- lol You didn't even try, did you?
Nevermind!
^_^