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Ubisoft getting greener by ditching paper manuals
Ubisoft will cease including paper instruction manuals inside its Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 boxed games, starting with this holiday's Shaun White Skateboarding (as revealed in an announcement that quietly confirms the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of Shaun White Skateboarding). In place of a paper manual, a digital manual will be provided and accessible in-game. Digital manuals are often more convenient than paper ones (except if you're trying to read one on your way back from the store) and are already becoming commonplace with the proliferation of downloadable games. Plus, we're not exactly going to lament the loss of the no-frills, black-and-white manuals most games include nowadays. But how does Shaun White feel about it? "It's pretty cool that Ubisoft is making a conscious effort to go green with its new video game packaging," White said in a canned statement. "I'm excited for my new skateboarding game to come out and stoked that it will be the very first Ubisoft game to be part of their green packaging initiatives." In addition to saving money for Ubisoft, scaling back on paper manuals -- no plans to extend the initiative to Wii, DS or PSP games were announced -- is part of an environmentally-conscious program from the publisher that also introduces a new recycled "ecoTech" case for PC games packaging. Splinter Cell: Conviction will be the publisher's first PC game to sport the new box when it arrives at retailers next week.
Tips from the manual
Guynumber from Area 52 brings up a good point: why did Blizzard even bother putting game information in their original manual? Surely, they must have known that they'd be changing the game quickly, and while of course they'd have had no more idea than we had that some things so big would change (no ammunition, anyone?), they could have at least kept in mind that patches were coming.Curious, I pulled out my old original manual. Here's some tips straight from the original release of World of Warcraft, when Magister's Terrace was a twinkle in a dev's eye, and Icecrown was just a level in Warcraft III, that aren't applicable any more: Pallies are only available to Alliance races and Shamans are Horde only. As Guymember points out, the manual says you will lose significant experience on death (but not so much as to lose a level). Only the Priests, Shamans and Paladins have resurrection spells. Attack Rating increases your chance of hitting a target with a weapon. As a first level priest, your maximum skill level in holy magic is five. As you cast holy spells, your holy skill will max out until you level up and the cap increases.
