Currently, the manual to the game is packed away in a less than accessible format in \data\help. If it could be moved to an easily modifiable format like we find in
\raw, then modders/end-users could easily upgrade distribute, and replace the default ones.
Benefits:
1). Toady likely wouldn't need concern himself with updating it when a signficantly new version comes out. We could put a tutorial in there dealing with z-levels, channels, wind power, etc.
2). Mods, flavor, fluff. What is that strangler that we find in the base version? If I downloaded the prehistoria mod, what are all those strange beasts? I can just check the long help with the new section I downloaded with.
3). Can include some of the same information found on the wiki even when the player is forced to be offline.
Disadvantages:
1). Time and effort taken to implement the change.
2). As with any mod, you might get confusion when someone has one thing that another doesn't
3). possible copyright issues? I don't know. But as soon as something's written, its copyrighted.
4). If modders don't write their own, then the investment was wasted.
5). The wiki already contains much of the information we might find in here and is quite flexible, allowing tables etc. A text-file based addition to help would be relatively limited.
Is this urgent? No.
Does it need to be done? No.
Do I think it makes some sense? Yes.
Unlike opening up other parts of Dwarf Fortress, once the change was made, it hopefully would be able to exist on its own, not requiring the time of Toady like coordinating an open-source project would.
Thoughts?
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Topic: Open up the help files (Read 763 times)