Smacky's Guides are now available at http://www.smackysguides.net/.


FAQ

Here is a pre-emptive list of Frequently Asked Questions:

Q1. Despite you mentioning Smacky's Guides in nearly every post you make to nearly every thread on this forum, I don't know what Smacky's Guides are. What are Smacky's Guides?

A1. Smacky's Guides are my attempt at a player's guide to Daimonin. This means various things which are too boring to mention here, but can be read in the section entitled "Introduction" in Smacky's Guides. Basically, if you play Daimonin, and particularly if you're a noob, you might like to read Smacky's Guides.

Q2. Why the plural?

A2. Smacky's Guides incorporate a number of individual Smacky's Guides To ..., categorised as beginner, intermediate, and advanced guides.

Q3. That makes me wonder if I can write my own guide. Can I?

A3. I will restrain myself from giving the obvious sarcastic answer. A useful answer is slightly complicated. The answer is no in the sense that Smacky's Guides are called Smacky's Guides for a reason: the reason being Smacky's formidable ego. But the answer is yes in the sense that Smacky's Guides are licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License so you are free to base your own guide(s) on Smacky's Guides, with minimal restrictions. See the Copyright & licensing notice and the section entitled "Editing" in Smacky's Guides for further details.

Q4. I see. So Smacky's Guides are really a one-chick show then?

A4. Not at all. Smacky's Guides would be slightly less wonderful without the input of players such as yourself. Suggestions, corrections, criticism, and adulation are all welcome. See the section entitled "Editing" in Smacky's Guides for further details.

Q5. I'm still reluctant to click the link to Smacky's Guides. Can you change my mind?

A5. Smacky's Guides[/i] come highly recommended. Michtoen himself thinks they are 'good work' (he can get a bit OTT at times). Devs such as Hune and Unislash are 'absolutely thrilled' at this 'AMAZING WORK'. Even one-time rival clan leaders Ratix and Kyle are united in their endorsement of Smacky's Guides. It's also been scientifically proven that reading Smacky's Guides makes you more attractive(1).

Q6. I'm convinced. But now the link has scrolled off the top of the screen. Oh what to do, what to do?

A6. Fear not. Here's another link: Smacky's Guides.


Linking to smackysguides.net

This is encouraged. There are some nice buttons in my gallery for this purpose.

To use one of these buttons to link from a wiki page on this website, insert the following code into the page:

[/list]

To link from an external web site, please make a local copy of the appropriate button (do not direct link) and use the following code for

[X]HTML:

[/list]

To link from a DaiML document, please make a local copy of the appropriate button to wherever the document is hosted (do not direct link) and use the following code:

[/list]

(Obviously feel free to amend the above code snippets to suit your needs.)[/size]


This post to be edited as and when


(1) Scientifically unproven.

Great work, Smacky!

October/November update

o I have given Smacky's Guides a bit of a facelift to make it fit more cosily into DAI/HTML. It's mostly style and little substance but I think the new look makes it easier to read.

o The facelift will make it easier for me to add more eye-candy (it is more structured so there are 'logical' places for graphics now) but as yet I haven't added much.

o I have cleaned up the page contents ("On this page") for each page, and added a section contents ("Also in this section") to the first page of each section. A whole-guide navigation system (ie, something along the lines of the nav bars in the old wiki version of Game Mechanics) requires a fairly major development of DAI so is probably a way off yet.[/size]

Nov/Dec 2005 Update

o Maybe I've been reading too many W3C Recommendations, but I've just completed the Modularization of Smacky's Guides[/i]. Basically this is splitting Game Mechanics into several smaller, topic-specific guides. It should make information easier to find as well as making it easier for me to update/expand Smacky's Guides in the future. Plus it means a 400% increase in the number of guides available, from 2 to 8, so it looks as if I have done lots of work. :wink:

----

I am more or less happy with the layout of Smacky's Guides now. As such, structurally they should be fairly stable for the foreseeable future and I can update the guides for B4 and think about adding new content (textual and graphical), probably in the new year.

I am, however, always happy to listen to suggestions.

Nice work Smacky

Jan/Feb 2006 Update

This was just meant to be the addition of a new guide to cover the basics of the magic system, but as usual it turned into a major update. I then made the mistake of posting a "ready by" date which guaranteed it wouldn't be ready by then. My latest punishment for my optimism is a nasty cold. I know when I'm beaten so I've just released an incomplete update. I'll fill in the gaps as and when.

• Wrote Smacky's Guide To Magic.
  
  
• In doing this, had an idea to improve the structure of Smacky's Guides. Took bloody ages to make the changes throughout! (This probably won't be particularly exciting if you're already familiar with Smacky's Guides but should make them slightly easier to read and navigate for new readers and easier and quicker for me to amend/update.)
  
  
• Updated sundry other sections.
• Added eyecandy. :shock:
• Had breakfast.

[/size]

Hurray for Smacky - he kills himself for our benefit!

I need some input.

Currently Smacky's Guide are split into several (mostly) relatively short sections per guide. This is partly to help me organise things while I develop the guides.

However, it is not necessarily the best format from the reader's perspective.

It may make the guides more readable to combine certain sections or even to have one guide per page in the long run.

This would certainly make printing a hardcopy, if anyone does that, easier.

It would also mean I could streamline the guides somewhat as I wouldn't need to repeat certain information between sections to have those sections make sense on their own, if you follow.

OTOH, short sections (as now) may make it easier to go straight to the precise information you want (as there is no search facility).

They also mean slightly shorter download and rendering times which may be relevant to people on dialup (then again, Smacky's Guides are mainly only text with no fancy tables, etc.)..

So what, if anything, does anyone suggest?

Don't worry about the current lack of navigation links. I plan to address that but it will require some work on DaiDoc itself and I'd rather spend my time fiddling with the actual guidea right now.

When will you get some more band with. its only the 7th and your all out. can you get a mirror web site or lets get the source code so we can veiw it off line. i think its just to popular.

That's actually punishment because I went over last month. But worry ye not, everything is under control. Expect something nice by next weekend.

Yeah, that's how I often use your guides... I'll wonder, "What does con affect?" and then I'll click on the guide that talks about stats. So I like the compartmentalization. That said, for the printing-out types, stuffing everything into one long page might not be very economical (not that you suggested that anyway). Of course, the reason people print things out is for reference. So you might try, in addition to having your online, compartmentalized guides, having also a downloadable/printable concise reference sheet, or at least a summary of all the guides.

Thanks Weimar.

The new organisation, although not wildly different from the old, should make it easier to use the guides for reference (that's what they're intended for). I've also made efforts to make them more approachable to new players (that is, you can take a guided path through the two or three pages dealing with char creation).

Printing  is (actually, will be before the weekend) also better supported. I haven't directly done a summary for printing, although such a thing does exist for Character (again, to help newbies). Reference sheets are a good idea. Give me some time to think about that.

EDIT: I forgot, I'm looking at options to make the guides searchable.

Nice Smacky,

1st and 2nd hit...must mean I'm first visitor to new site   ...May you get many more hits

-Skat

Cheers Skat, and grats on getting 1st and 2nd. I'm up to 10 ATM lol. BTW, if anyone writes a nice sentence or two about the guides, not me, it goes into Endorsements (hint hint).

I most heartily endorse and reccommend Smacky's Guides.
How many separate volumes of the rare Collector's Edition of Smacky's Guides will be in B4??