We should appreciate Trophy Guide writers more

[arcanehornet_]

These people but tons of hours into writing guides, while not getting anything out of it except for helping others.
We should appreciate them more.

[Raveniteh]

I totally agree with this. They are absolute legends for the work they do for us. I think I wouldn't have nearly as many plats as I have if it wasn't for written or video guides when it comes to trophies and/or collectibles. 

 

You guys and gals are amazing and true pillars of our community, keep up the great job! 

[charxsetsuna]

Yeah nearly everyone uses guides in some way but they never really get appreciated much in comparison. 

[Cobbsquatch]

The funniest part is when people spend hours writing a guide and it's wrong  

[BigHatPaul]

Guide writing period should be more respected from the crazy amount of time it takes to do.

[Last-_-Judgment]

1 minute ago, Cobbsquatch said:

The funniest part is when people spend hours writing a guide and it's wrong  

 

People make mistakes, it's up to the community to let them know instead of just sitting back allowing others to struggle too. You still can't fault the effort and amount of time put into them.

[Helyx]

Most of the time I don't use guides. But when I occasionally do, I get irritated at vague descriptions or (more often than not) just flat-out wrong information.

 

To those guide writers that do a good job, thank you.

[Cobbsquatch]

2 minutes ago, Last-_-Judgment said:

 

People make mistakes, it's up to the community to let them know instead of just sitting back allowing others to struggle too. You still can't fault the effort and amount of time put into them.

Eh, maybe, if I was a nicer person ? I dunno, like yeah you're using your free time, instead of having fun, fair play. But personally, I've written 5? 6? by myself and none of em took that long  

[BigHatPaul]

4 minutes ago, Cobbsquatch said:

Eh, maybe, if I was a nicer person  I dunno, like yeah you're using your free time, instead of having fun, fair play. But personally, I've written 5? 6? by myself and none of em took that long  

Err, and what exactly is stopping you from being a nicer person? It isn't asking much.

[Last-_-Judgment]

10 minutes ago, Cobbsquatch said:

Eh, maybe, if I was a nicer person  I dunno, like yeah you're using your free time, instead of having fun, fair play. But personally, I've written 5? 6? by myself and none of em took that long  

 

Can't have been very long games then (or was half-assed). Like @BigHatPaul said, what's stopping you from being decent and giving them constructive criticism. Also, most guide writers are 'having fun' writing their guides. Do you really think that they would be doing it otherwise?

[greenzsaber]

Have to agree with OP. I got burned out of guide writing (for long RPGs) years ago and rarely do it these days because I didn't feel like they were appreciated enough. 

[AJ_Radio]

I can't write a guide to save my own life, even though a few games I've done I know them well enough to the point where I can try to make a guide. But that stuff just isn't for me.

 

Guide writers deserve more credit and it disappoints me that they really don't a lot of the time. I think @Sergen is one of the best guide writers on this website, as somebody who suffered from Asbergers and Autism growing up I can really relate to the material he is saying in his guides.

 

If there's one thing I can credit PST.org for it's the awards showcase they offer to their forum members. Why PSNP doesn't have a rewards system like that is beyond me, because I think that is especially good for the guide writers who poured a lot of work and hours into writing their guides.

[BigHatPaul]

32 minutes ago, greenzsaber said:

Have to agree with OP. I got burned out of guide writing (for long RPGs) years ago and rarely do it these days because I didn't feel like they were appreciated enough. 

You're appreciated buddy! Thank you for all your hard work! You may have helped countless of people without even knowing.

[DaivRules]

Like everything in life, do something because you want to do the thing, not because you expect to reap benefits from others like appreciation.

 

That said, people should take the time to show appreciation for good guides by saying thanks in the comments or dropping a message to the author. It's also showing appreciation by giving feedback about something that you'd like to see changed in a guide. You appreciate them enough that you want their guide to be better.

 

We also do have Guide of the Year awards here where anyone can nominate guides and the guide writers can win money, so that is a pretty nice show of appreciation.

[MikeCheck--]

Thanks

[Astray404]

1 hour ago, Last-_-Judgment said:

 

People make mistakes, it's up to the community to let them know instead of just sitting back allowing others to struggle too. You still can't fault the effort and amount of time put into them.

Usually I won't blame them for having mistakes/typos in guides. Messaging them or commenting below could be a good way to let the writers know. I appreciate their efforts.

[Venocide]

I've only written one guide and it took me over a year. I didn't just do it help people, it could have got 0 views and it wouldn't have bothered me, I did it because it's my favourite of all time and despite the time it took, I had fun doing it and I'd do it all over again. It's nearly at 90,000 views here on PSNP, while there are many guides on here and other sites that are underappreciated, I've had quite a lot of praise on here and I've had people DM me on Twitter thanking me for helping them obtain the platinum. I've made a couple of errors here and there but the community have pointed them out and I've always been quick to fix. 

[AlchemistWer]

Haha thanks!. Personally I wrote a walkthough and trophy guide in my native language and work along with a friend (Honor_Hand) in order to translated both and one of them won a prize in this website and it was a great experience. I can't write as many guides as I would like because english is not my native language but at least Ryza's guide are available here with more than 60.000 views (trophy guide and walkthrough) so thanks again for this message!.

[Suminya]

Personally, I found my own way to show the guide writers my appreciation for their hard work: If they post amazing guides but aren't premium members for some reason, I simply gift them a lifetime premium membership. And when they notice and post about it on their profile, I know I did a good thing. I never reply to these status updates, but in my mind I always say "You're welcome, but I am the one who should be thankful".

 

Having a guide writer background myself, I also know how good it feels to see someone simply say "Thanks for the guide, it really helped me out" or something along these lines. Even if you can't gift anything, a few words of appreciation can go a really long way. Especially when you went above and beyond to write the, in your opinion, perfect guide or walkthrough for one of your favourite games. The Yakuza Ishin guide is a perfect example for that, putting the entire thing together must have taken months. The same person also wrote guides for the PS3 remasters of Yakuza 1 and Yakuza 2, which are similiar extensive (and obviously very good).

 

And yes, I was the one who paid for their premium membership. It was a no-brainer after having read through the Ishin guide. With that being said, there's one more thing left to do: Thank you for your guides @soliunasm, I really look forward to using them in the future.

[Maverick6146]

Absolutely. I myself use all kinds of guides, extensively and I really appreciate those authors who write in-depth guides, especially those old-school text-based ones. They don't get paid like those youtubers but the effort is the same, if not more.

 

I think the patches/DLCs make the writers' job harder as they have to keep up with all the changes. So as a community, we should help them more, not simply pointing fingers.

[ladynadiad]

1 hour ago, Maverick6146 said:

Absolutely. I myself use all kinds of guides, extensively and I really appreciate those authors who write in-depth guides, especially those old-school text-based ones. They don't get paid like those youtubers but the effort is the same, if not more.

 

Yeah, definitely appreciate the guide writers who take the time to do step by step walkthrough guides for games like VNs, point and clicks and other similar sorts of games rather than just posting videos of how to earn trophies or just giving a how to earn X trophy.  I know writing takes more effort than recording your playthrough, but it makes for a far more enjoyable playing experience to follow a text guide with minimal to no spoilers in it and maybe a screencap here and there to show where to find a collectable or item.  Sadly there are times where I have to turn to other sites because guides here don't do it, but I definitely appreciate the ones that take that time to write up a walkthrough.

 

Also want to give a shout out to those who write guides for non-English games and make plats doable for us importers who aren't fluent.  Definitely appreciate the people who take the time to transcribe another language, translate it and give an English description of what it does or how to do it.  That's especially a huge undertaking for lengthy JRPGs with lots of stuff to collect but it actually helps a lot because the language barrier can make it harder to come up with the best strategies for playing the game and many of us don't want to wait years for a localization.

[ninjagirl657]

As I write guides for JRPG's now and again, sometimes just getting a thank you or seeing the amount of people platinum the game is the reward itself. For me personally I write guides to help people, I got 30 years of gaming experience to share and their are some games with no guides. I got a few other guides I like to write, but they require time and research to make sure the information is correct and recording gameplay. I hate guides that are incorrect or give false information, it just show how lazy some writers are with their research or they don't care, I've seen that on a few guides.

 

Looking at the JRPG sector, not many people are willing to do the guides, I'm good at JRPG's and wiling to do guides, but they take time to do. I did the Dragonball Xenoverse 2 guide 2 years ago, no one did a guide and only 4,000 achieve the platinum. So I wrote a guide when I 100% it to help others, since then it got 7,000+ achiever's. To me that is the reward because I helped others to achieve the platinum, I also do extensive research to make sure the best strategy is available. I have big respect to other guide writers and always looking to improve on mine, but I spend more time rewriting guides to improve them and due to having dyslexia it gets sent back, so I rewrite it to correct those mistakes, which will make me a better writer. As a gamer THANK YOU GUIDE WRITER'S, for all your hard work and THANK YOU GUIDE MODERATOR'S for reading the content & helping us to be better. They need are thanks as well.

[StressEater]

Most of the people who were very good at writing guides in the past , no longer write guides now. Instead they post videos on YouTube and try to get a little revenue for their time. Which is good for them and good for those who want/ need help. For me, I prefer a text guide. I just find it easier to get the information I am looking for. There are times that I need a video guide but I try to avoid it. It just seems that everyone out there is trying to be the next big thing on YouTube and they have a 30 second intro on their video and then another 60 seconds explaining their thoughts on the game, and then 5 to 10 seconds actually showing me what I am looking for. 

[Dr_Mayus]

Yeah there are a lot of shitty guide writers that just want their name on something. I remember using a few guides that I would try messaging the guide writer with blatant wrong information and got no answer. So I instead started writing the guide team to get shit changed.

 

Or you will get "beat the boss for the trophy"...cool story, maybe some tips on how to beat the boss.

 

Or guide writers who don't do a collectibles checklist so now I have to go to the 15 collectible trophies and copy and paste them into a word doc so I can hopefully follow along without missing one (but since i don't know the game I don't know if I put it in the right order).

 

Or guide writers that just post a 20 minute video under a trophy so I have to watch this super long video instead of just them telling me what to do.

 

Or guide writers who make collectible video guides but don't timestamp it so you have 0 idea in this 45 minute video where the 1 collectible you need is.

 

So yes, good guide writers should be thanked and separated from the bad ones.

Edited August 1, 2020 by Dr_Mayus

[RawManiaC90]

How I see things!  You buy the game, the reasons that make you buy it are strictly related to your personality!  What you feel and think alike!  After you play it and you have a little idea of the list of trophies, sit and think ok, what do I do now?  Take a look and find that maybe you only have 50-60% of the game .... and then is where starts the work of these wonderful people !?

Sometimes even involuntarily, but you do it because you either have a great pride as a trophy hunter or you want to take every penny out of the game, or it just comes naturally!  Let's see what else I can do ...I do not hide from the fact that I always keep my eyes on the guides of these people!  That's after I play the game alone without spoilers or tips (this way I don't spoil the joy of a 30-year-old child!)??That's how I show respect for the one who created the game, for the hours lost in the studio, for the eyes that scream after sleep, and the smoking neurons of people who want to make you happy!

After them come those who write the guides!  Respect their work and in turn they struggle to make you understand the logic of the puzzle!  Which is why I say so ... Thank you!  Thanks to everyone who does this and I bow to them??