Thanks Xenoargh
I wouldn't mind clicking on her!
Nobody has ever, ever complained that a game gave them too much help, in terms of understanding the mechanics.
That's just not true, though. There are a lot of people who despise the hand-holding many modern games force upon the player. And consequently also a lot of people who rejoice about retro style games where discovering the game mechanics is already part of the game. Just google "games hand holding" or something like that to see what I mean.
I'd suggest these people are often people who have been playing games for long enough, however id still advocate training for first time players. It could be the first space game person plays for all we know. Catering to this audience is still as important because they paid for it.
If you really like you can even parody it, like in Far Cry 3: blood dragon....damn that was funny.
You're right though Xenoargh most games used to come with a manual, I remember the manual for B17 Flying Fortress for Atari 1024STE, now THAT was a manual nearly half an inch thick. That was quality documentation, though that was a rare case as only about 20-30 % of games came with a manual, and if they did it was filled with lots or pictures of enemies and such and didn't give you detailed game mechanics - you still had to learn that the hard way.
Anyway Alex, having help or suggestions presented by an officer would be good for reasons specified earlier.
Though one help tip would be the second in command resolving a conflict may not always be as favorable as if the player takes direct control, I think new players should be aware of the pros and cons of auto resolve. I personally almost never use auto resolve as it doesn't give any real benefit.
@thaago: I can see why you would like audio briefings, and that could be a possibility. However getting in voice actors is expensive, and we'd need to have the game finalized with all the mechanics finalized so that the audio help is accurate. To say nothing of greater expense if you want to release to a global audience and need to have it translated into multiple languages.
Text pop ups are cheap, easy to implement and let the player absorb the information at their own pace. Not everyone has an IQ of 100 to understand an audio prompt straight away, and not everyone has good hearing. On top or that translating text to other languages is as easy as dropping it into google translate, and getting a pro text translator for final presentation is less expensive as well.