Those were a little before my time, but I still like the idea, preferably if they include an incredible amount of useless lore. One of the big things that keeps me away from Elemental right now is the opaqueness and superficiality of the "Hiregamenon" in-game manual.

The "Hiergamenon" is no in-game manual. Its no manual whatsoever. It just a listing of techs, buildings & equipment. Just imagine a "Civilopedia" of a later Civilization game without any explanations on game concepts, lore or history.

I love the old manuals, esp. Civ 2, MOO2, and SimCity 2000. The nice thing is that they were paper rather than PDF. I have a manual for a program (not a game) that is 1500 pages long in PDF format . Though easy to search, it's not so easy to read on the toilet...

Do you also miss porn .jpegs?

I prefer in-game stuff, give the benifit of better navigation and dynamic media. All the info in a book should be redundant.

Sometimes its just better when things move.

You can always print the PDF manual. Then you will have something to read on the pot.

Sure I have.

But in a day of ever increasing costs and ever diminishing profits, it only makes sense to put the manual in a digital format.

Then, you can print any or all of it for the cost of your own paper and ink - or simply read it on your screen. And if you are prudent enough to have a dual monitor setup, you can read it on your second monitor even while playing the game.

You could, except the manual was written well before the game is done and a lot of things in it are hopelessly out of date. Reading it is just as likely to confuse you as it is to help with anything.

I agree with GW totally on that. You can't write a manual until game systems are locked down, and that didn't really happen in Elemental until right at the end.

The fantasy indie game Dominions 3 comes with a hefty spiral-bound manual. Not sure how many ink cartidges I'd go through if I had to print one of those suckers on my own.

^QFT. 

I do miss the big manuals, too.  Does anyone remember the old-school DRM where a game would actually require you to look up information in the manual ever so often to make sure you owned a legit copy?  Just played some Master of Orion lately and had to smile when a pop-up required me to identify a certain ship on a particular page of the manual before continuing with the game.  Ahh, those were the days...

I wonder if Civ 5 will keep it's big manual. I always kind of liked that too.

I also miss nice touches like the spell book that came with MoM. I guess I can kind of understand why you don't see them as much anymore, and as games become more and more likely to be downloaded from somewhere like Impulse you will probably see them even less. But just because I understand why they are disapearing doesn't mean I can't still wish they were still around.

I do miss the old manuals.  I used to be able to tell if I would like a game by the weight of the box.  I'm not lying that was my barometer.  

I recently noticed something funny.  Starcraft II had a note pad in the box.  I'm pretty sure the only reason it was included was to increase the weight and thereby the perceived value to the person holding the box.

I think the old manuals just added to the whole experience, setting and creating the atmosphere. But maybe that's just old school thinking and most people just want to play a game, not have a more "complete", immersing experience.

For example, I finally decided to pick up The Witcher, an RPG that I had wanted to play for a couple of years. Bought it at GG for twenty Euro, and now I'm facing a 11 GB download. That'll take me a few days since my connection is slow and I need it for work during the day. So, what did I do? I purchased the novels by Andrzej Sapkowski that the game is based on. The four books cost more than the game, but I'll get a lot more out of the whole experience that way. For the same reason I bought Brad's Elemental book (which still hasn't arrived).