We should appreciate Trophy Guide writers more

[Lava_Yuki]

Definitely, I have always used trophy guides and they are so helpful! However, I do not like guides that post videos, I prefer a proper walkthrough, boss strategies and collectable guides. The Final Fantasy trophy guides were great, as were the Tales ones. 

[soliunasm]

On 7/31/2020 at 11:52 AM, Hanamaru Kunikida said:

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.

 

I was wondering why I all of a sudden got a golden name. Thank you very very much, I greatly appreciate the generosity I just didn't know who to thank.

 

If you want some background for my various guides the Ishin guide was something I was doing as I was playing the game myself and took about two or so weeks to fully write out in between doing the things I was writing about. I also spent my entire first playthrough meticulously watching the bosses. I was immensely grateful that KHHSubs had such good guides himself and without him and Salty Yen I don't think I could have finished the game with the enjoyment that I did, but he basically just gave you the general gist of things and told you to go do stuff. I was finding it hard to find any English information outside of his guide and was basically just running around like a headless chicken at times. This was an issue for some minigames or how to actually get to the weapons you needed and I had to constantly switch over to Japanese guides to get the proper information I was looking for. His weapon, armor, and materials section was also more confusing than it should have been which led to me making all those diagrams for the weapons themselves to make them visually more understandable. Some of the stuff I included were also methods I figured out myself, the Dharma farming method for example was something I had to figure out for myself and I had to share that to save people time, same deal with things like the best way to do minigames since nothing I saw was really that helpful most of the time.

 

Yakuza 1 and 2 were because I saw no complete guides at all for the PS3 trophies specifically and I wanted to save people time who were going to attempt doing the playthroughs. There was an incomplete trophy guide but it only helped to get a basis, and no one explained the missables or anything else you had to look out for. They were my first playthroughs of the games as well outside of a couple hours of the PS2 version of 1 a couple years back which prompted me to actually buy the compilation in the first place (Which is why I knew of the missable issue). It's also why those two guides are such a mess of formatting and information in my opinion. There were obviously guides and video walkthroughs to do said things, GoggleBoxFairy (@AD_1983) and his videos were nothing short of a godsend for me to actually make them possible as were The_Patrick's and HeeroXXXG-01W 's guides on GameFAQs. So many things are missable, you have to be really careful, and there's lots of little things you have to know about to do things reliably and optimally so I wanted to make it crystal clear how to follow things. It also works if you're just going for a 100% run normally, I find myself turning back to my own guides while replaying 1 just so I don't miss stuff.

 

Fist of the North Star was also something I did as I played but I already was prepared for the grind and stuff I had to highlight and explain since I was looking at the Japanese guides when Hokuto ga Gotoku released months prior. There's so much with the minigames and Destiny Talismans in that game that had to be explained, the minigames are somewhat difficult, the amount of items you have to gather and the most efficient ways to do so were never explained by anyone so I had to wing all that, etc. The materials were especially a pain since Japanese guides were incredibly vague on how you find pretty much any of them in any reasonable quantities.

 

Kamen Rider: Climax Fighters was just because I felt like doing a simpler one and the game itself wasn't that involved. Don't buy that game or Climax Scramble, they're awful. Buy the Battride Wars instead. I wish I had it in me to do guides for the Battride War games as I was playing them but Yakuza 1 was really what pushed me to start doing them and I forgot a lot of what went into those games or the tricks I did for some trophies so I held out on doing them.

 

I'm looking at maybe doing Yakuza 7 though I haven't decided yet since it's probably going to take weeks or more to beat it let alone explain a lot of stuff and then there's the New Game Plus DLC that has to come out a couple months after release that would need to be done as well. I think I might just stick to Japanese or Asian games when it comes to guides though since finding English guides for those is typically the equivalent of pulling teeth or they're barebones and the more people that can get help the better. Super Hero Generation is another one I've been thinking of doing but that's so text-heavy and it's an SRPG to boot so you need to know stats so I'm mulling it over.

Personally I am simply happy that people are getting help from the guides, they do take a lot of time but if even one person is helped by it then it's done its job and I'm satisfied.

Edited August 2, 2020 by soliunasm

[TheKamiEneru]

Yeah i think there should be more of a reward for writing guides. As of now, I've made 8 guides because i enjoy making them, and i am currently working on 2 more, but there's not much of a reward for it. People used to get given free premium memberships for life for making guides, but then they stopped giving that out. That's about the only reward that they can give out. They could give you a three month membership per guide or something, but i can't really think of any other rewards.

 

Appreciation wise, i feel like a lot of people do appreciate the guides by giving them favorites and ratings. But just because a guide has loads of favorites, doesn't mean it's the best. Because any AAA game that gets a guide will normally get around 100 favorites, even if its not that good. And any Plus game will also get lots of favorites, for example my Foul Play guide, which i would say is one of my worst guides, is by far my most favorited. 

[Suminya]

@soliunasm

You're welcome. And thanks for the insight in your guide writing process, appreciate it. Looking forward to any future guide you may write. ?

[PalaceOfLove706]

I like guide writers, props to them.

 

But also props to the people who upload walk through videos with actually decent, occasionally funny, non-annoying commentary, and who play the game in a way that it’s easy to follow and clear the gamer actually knows what they’re doing. 

[MustBeEpic]

Writing guides should earn you a double platinum, just putting it out there

[Trini]

 A guide that's helping hundreds and hundreds of players for years to come? They don't get nearly as enough credit epscially when they take time out of their day to make it happen without any form of payment in return, true MVPs in the gaming world. 

[mikem192]

On 31/07/2020 at 0:38 PM, arcanehornet_ said:

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.

This needs a bump 

i agree! I’ve used guide websites since they became a thing. Never thinking about the hard work and time people spend on them! Until I played a few games and thought ‘why is there no guide for this’ and wrote some myself 

 

Ultimately it’s very unrewarding. Playstationtrophies are much better at acknowledging writers with the little tile rewards that go on your profile but that really doesn’t matter much. I enjoyed writing them for games I liked but honestly most of the comments are the ones who hate it  

 

‘this is a better way’

’this is wrong’

’this needs updating’

 

Which is fine, as I don’t get the time to check them all everyday but I do check them monthly if life allows. By then my names already been dragged through the mud, rated 1 star, slagged off etc which is just plan unfair. Division 2 and Battlefield V being huge examples of games that are constantly changing with updates and glitches. 

 

I also wrote a damn good guide for A Plagues Tale: innocence. With very good reviews and over 80k views across a few websites. Then PSNP published a second one which IMO is sub par over a year later. Why did I bother? I’d understand if mine was rubbish but come on.

 

It’s put me off writing more to be honest and I think it’s happening to a lot of writers as guides seem to have slowed down. If you use the guide, all it takes is one click to rate them and a thanks. Means a lot 

 

EDIT- I’ve also been slammed a few times for ‘making people miss trophies’ but it turned out they just didn’t read the damn guide in the first place. Moderators over on playstationtrophies are fast in sticking up for guide writers though or tagging us when new info gets posted so we can update the guide 

Edited May 9, 2021 by mikem192

[AihaLoveleaf]

Guide writers are doing god's work out here.

 

One can go somewhere like GameFAQs and get a guide to get through the story mode of a game, or collect all the missables and collectibles. Those guides often aren't written with trophies in mind though so it's likely you'll miss one or get one way later or less efficiently than you otherwise could have. I do also love having a quickly accessible meter of difficulty because anybody that's earned a single Platinum knows the difficulty of just "beating the game" often comes nowhere close to the difficulty of 100%ing the trophy list. 

 

Thank you writers for what you do. Hopefully there will be a better reward system for you all at some point, but until then I will start doing my part to help writers feel appreciated.

[Dreggit]

@mikem192, games are allowed to have up to two trophy guides published for them. You shouldn't discredit Argandalf for the work they did, as they have taken the time to not only write a second guide, but also to record and edit all of their own videos. Please do not be so quick to dismiss another writer's work just because you don't particularly fancy it. You know well enough that it is not necessarily an easy task to get a guide published on PSNP. If you have a commentary that you would like to have on the matter, you can contact me directly, but I think it would be more productive to welcome new writer's in the community.

 

The team and I have gone to great lengths to foster a community for authors, writer's and readers with a dedicated discord that you and anyone else are welcomed to join. We have also put in a massive amount of time in recovering from a critical state that should equally be respected by the community. It was recommended to me to flat deny all publications for review in March, but I dismissed the suggestion and we have worked through hundreds of guides so to catch up to the most recent releases. It was no simple thing to catch up in the queue and took hundreds of man hours to accomplish what we have thus far and we continue to go strong, so please do not discredit the team either.

 

As far as the topic of the thread, creator's should be celebrated. It is no secret that PSNP writing community is underappreciated and is a reason why the discord was made.

[mikem192]

46 minutes ago, Dreggit said:

@mikem192, games are allowed to have up to two trophy guides published for them. You shouldn't discredit Argandalf for the work they did, as they have taken the time to not only write a second guide, but also to record and edit all of their own videos. Please do not be so quick to dismiss another writer's work just because you don't particularly fancy it. You know well enough that it is not necessarily an easy task to get a guide published on PSNP. If you have a commentary that you would like to have on the matter, you can contact me directly, but I think it would be more productive to welcome new writer's in the community.

 

The team and I have gone to great lengths to foster a community for authors, writer's and readers with a dedicated discord that you and anyone else are welcomed to join. We have also put in a massive amount of time in recovering from a critical state that should equally be respected by the community. It was recommended to me to flat deny all publications for review in March, but I dismissed the suggestion and we have worked through hundreds of guides so to catch up to the most recent releases. It was no simple thing to catch up in the queue and took hundreds of man hours to accomplish what we have thus far and we continue to go strong, so please do not discredit the team either.

 

As far as the topic of the thread, creator's should be celebrated. It is no secret that PSNP writing community is underappreciated and is a reason why the discord was made.

Solid points. Although I do believe a second guide wasn’t needed, its still repeated information whether or not he did the videos etc himself but it is a good guide and obviously took time. I will add that his other game guides are very impressive so I totally agree he is a welcomed writer that will help many people.

 

Maybe I’m just bitter he thought my guide wasn’t good enough *sobs* because when I submitted my battlefield V guide I had to justify why to the guide team and was told it’s not normal to publish two unless the first isn’t good enough. My argument was mine was current and up to date in order to get it published! So I gathered the same chat happened about my plagues guide. I guess things are different now and I know the team has had a huge turn around and that hard work hasn’t gone unnoticed at all! 
 

I’ll check out the discord 

[Argandalf]

14 minutes ago, mikem192 said:

Solid points. Although I do believe a second guide wasn’t needed, its still repeated information whether or not he did the videos etc himself but it is a good guide and obviously took time. I will add that his other game guides are very impressive so I totally agree he is a welcomed writer that will help many people.

 

Maybe I’m just bitter he thought my guide wasn’t good enough *sobs* because when I submitted my battlefield V guide I had to justify why to the guide team and was told it’s not normal to publish two unless the first isn’t good enough. My argument was mine was current and up to date in order to get it published! So I gathered the same chat happened about my plagues guide. I guess things are different now and I know the team has had a huge turn around and that hard work hasn’t gone unnoticed at all! 
 

I’ll check out the discord 

I never thought yours was not good enough. I thank you because your guide helped me get the Platinum.

It happents that I have a personal project of creating video and written guides of games that I play and enjoy a lot, being A Plague Tale one of those.

Sorry if you felt it sort of personal, but it was not.

Hope to see you on the Discord community!

[Charizarzar]

16 minutes ago, mikem192 said:

Solid points. Although I do believe a second guide wasn’t needed, its still repeated information whether or not he did the videos etc himself but it is a good guide and obviously took time. I will add that his other game guides are very impressive so I totally agree he is a welcomed writer that will help many people.

 

Maybe I’m just bitter he thought my guide wasn’t good enough *sobs* because when I submitted my battlefield V guide I had to justify why to the guide team and was told it’s not normal to publish two unless the first isn’t good enough. My argument was mine was current and up to date in order to get it published! So I gathered the same chat happened about my plagues guide. I guess things are different now and I know the team has had a huge turn around and that hard work hasn’t gone unnoticed at all! 
 

I’ll check out the discord 

Ideally only one guide is necessary (and maybe a walkthrough would be better if another trophy guide already exists, especially since walkthroughs are much rarer on here), but since the rules do allow a second trophy guide so long as it’s of equal quality, the second Plagues Tale guide did at least seem to qualify for that and presented things in a different way. It also wasn’t an instant publish (most guides aren’t), but he made some impressive changes to it. I’m sorry you felt like that though, I can understand why.

[mikem192]

25 minutes ago, Argandalf said:

I never thought yours was not good enough. I thank you because your guide helped me get the Platinum.

It happents that I have a personal project of creating video and written guides of games that I play and enjoy a lot, being A Plague Tale one of those.

Sorry if you felt it sort of personal, but it was not.

Hope to see you on the Discord community!

Never thought of it that way mate. Enjoying the game does make writing a guide very enjoyable and I can’t say I blame you. 
I’m man enough to admit I was wrong, they actually compliment each other very well and your video guides are ace which some may like, my written text guide might suit others. Shame I failed to see it that way from the off! We live and learn lol 

 

Your guide is actually very good, not sub par by any means ( I was just being sassy) and your AC V one must of taken some serious dedication. Glad to have you on board the guide writers community and my apologises again!

 

@Charizarzar & @Dreggit keep up the amazing work ??

 

[Yuber6969]

I agree with this. It takes a lot of work and they don't get paid for it AFAIK.

 

In particular I wanted to give thanks to the writers of the platinum walkthroughs for Persona 4 Golden and Persona 5 Vanilla. They let you fully enjoy the games without clicking all over the place for missables, and they did it all without spoilers. 

 

Those guides look like a ton of work was put in to them. I wanted to tag the P5 writers but I wasn't able to. @Venocide

[TomataEighty9]

Agreed  

 

Im just glad that someone want's to use their time creating guides for us mortals  

 

Thanks for the work!

[Venocide]

On 09/05/2021 at 5:53 PM, yuber1234 said:

I agree with this. It takes a lot of work and they don't get paid for it AFAIK.

 

In particular I wanted to give thanks to the writers of the platinum walkthroughs for Persona 4 Golden and Persona 5 Vanilla. They let you fully enjoy the games without clicking all over the place for missables, and they did it all without spoilers. 

 

Those guides look like a ton of work was put in to them. I wanted to tag the P5 writers but I wasn't able to. @Venocide

 

Thank you for the lovely comment ^^ 

[LoveInHell]

Trueeee. Writing guides is hard and it takes in so much time. Not only before publishing but after publishing too.

 

I’ve only written one guide and find it already hard to maintain it because

 

1. I need to update it if something changes and I don’t play the game anymore

2. No time to check what’s going on in the game, so I feel like I update too late

3. I must depend on others to tell me “hey this method doesn’t work anymore”, the problem is not everyone leaves a comment on the guide. (idk why my guide got 4 stars, so feedback is super important)

 

Big props to people who write guides!! I don’t think I can handle writing another one.

[Troz]

this thread makes me smile! writing guides can be very fun to see something you've made take shape. its always nice to know that a guide has helped somebody.

 

I am only 16 and I think I have learned to write very well because of these guides. The guide team (especially @Dreggit and @Roronora_Zoro666) push me to do better, and it shows! I'm gonna go write some more! keep this thread up! 

[Roronora_Zoro666]

5 hours ago, HYPERS said:

this thread makes me smile! writing guides can be very fun to see something you've made take shape. its always nice to know that a guide has helped somebody.

 

I am only 16 and I think I have learned to write very well because of these guides. The guide team (especially @Dreggit and @Roronora_Zoro666) push me to do better, and it shows! I'm gonna go write some more! keep this thread up! 

I appreciate the feedback, it really means a lot. Keep up the good work, mate.

[horatio_deltoro]

Nice shout out OP, I totally agree!  Anytime I use a guide, even if it's just to locate a collectible or something I missed on my own, I try to leave a comment thanking them.  Not all heroes wear capes! 

[Troz]

@felatio_deltoro that means more than you know ☺️ usually writers just have to trust that its helping people because you can get 15000 views and 3 comments

[DJ__Beatroot]

They've saved my ass multiple times, believe me.  The fact they do this for the love of the game, no compensation whatsoever, is really unbelievable.  

 

Thank you, thank you to all of the guide writers out there.

[AJ_Radio]

It takes a LOT of work. There is a DLC pack for a game that I wouldn't mind writing about, and a old Sega Genesis game that I would write up, but I would likely have to replay those games all over again just to get an idea of how to obtain each and every trophy.

 

The game in question in Toejam & Earl: Panic on Funkatron. Played this one back in the 90s, have many fond memories of it as it was a part of my childhood growing up. There are Let's Plays on YouTube, old Let's Plays, but that wouldn't help me write a guide for the game.

 

You can take videos from other YouTubers as long as you properly credit them in your guide. But this game in particular was rather niche, the first ToeJam & Earl was far more popular and there is already a guide for it. For best results I would have to buy an Elgato Capture Card, edit and cut the video footage that I want with video editing software, and upload it to YouTube. Doesn't sound that bad, but I used to know people who did video editing for a job and it is a lot of work.

 

Somebody said it best when he said that he spent more time editing and looking over the video before uploading it to YouTube. Especially if it's a 20 - 30 minute video or more, that's a lot of time you're going to be spending on that video if you want it to look good and presentable.

 

I wouldn't mind playing Toejam & Earl: Panic on Funkatron again, but I don't feel like doing it to write a guide and post some trophy videos onto YouTube. If I want to comment on such videos that's even more time and money I have to shell out. So I can perfectly understand why most trophy guide writers take videos from other people, it saves them a lot of work and hassle.

 

Trophy guide writers, especially guys like @Sergen and @Copanele, I have the utmost respect for. Sergen really helped me with the Community Challenge DLC in Batman: Arkham Knight, without his input I probably would of taken longer in getting those trophies.

 

Yeah, I don't know. Maybe if I was 20 - 23 years old again. But at 33 years of age my free time is slipping away from me, due to work, family duties and other stuff going on in my life. Gaming isn't the 'Be All, End All' thing like it used to be when I was a kid.

 

The writers deserve far more credit on this website.

Edited August 12, 2021 by AJ_Radio

[Z1MZUM]

The backbone of psnp and what lead most people here.