while. I noticed he had the latest version of MS's Flight Sim on his system
but only had a self-printed manual for it. I suggested he must of had a
'shady ' copy of the program to have to print out his own manual. He then
showed me the original disk and pointed out to me that for the last several
versions Microsoft has only provided an on-disk version of the manual that
you have to print out yourself. The same with their Train Sim I understand.
I also recently bought a retail genuine copy of N4 - only to be very
disappointed by find that it didn't have a real manual - only an on-disk
.pdf file one :-(
It seems that we get less and less for our money. And some might say, less
and less reason to bother with buying a genuine version of software.
Interestingly, these providers have been saying for years that if they could
only reduce piracy they would then have the resources to add more value for
to their produces for everyone. But, in the worst traditions of commercial
hypocrisy, it seems that now they are overcoming piracy they have now
realise they can provide the absolute minimum value possible as now their
clients have no alternative. It seems that the pirates were actually
providing the essential, all-be-it unofficial, 'commercial' competition that
keeps suppliers honest.
It seems that software piracy actually provided a real service to end users
after all - even the ones who always bought genuine. Apparently piracy
forced the providers to add value to their original products to make them
more attractive than a pirated version. They did this by the added desirable
things you got in the box with a genuine version - such as a real manual
amongst other things on occasion.
If it takes piracy just to get the providers to give their customers the
rather minimal item of printed manual then may the pirates live long and
prosper. Then I will still buy the original anyway to get a genuine manual.
Furthermore ...
If Papyrus are going to treat their clients like dirt by making them print
their own manuals, then the very least they could do would be to provide a
manual version that actually prints in a half way reasonable fashion on a
standard modern B&W ink jet printer. Instead we get the cheapest possible
solution by just getting a standard manual on a .pdf file ( which can't be
altered in any way to suit your printer ). It has many light grey text
paragraphs which DON'T EVEN ***Y-WELL PRINT SO YOU CAN READ THEM.
Who on Earth is the quality control man at Papyrus ? Didn't he ( or she )
even try printing a copy of the pathetic excuse for an on-disk manual ?
Apparently not. There is NOTHING on-disk worthy about the provided
print-it-yourself manual. No cross references, no hyperlinks, no nothing,
not even enough quality control to make sure that it was even actually
printable.
Do I now have to go and buy a high resolution printer just so I cant print
the manual in a way so that all of it can be read ?
Again I have to say... If it was the influence of software pirates that gave
us real manuals etc in our purchases then more power to them. Papyrus really
suck on this point.
Phillip McNelley