Hall of Light Index of Game Manuals

[komunita]

Can anyone tell me how to get into the page containing the game manuals available at HOL.

I could do this for Cheatcodes as it was easy to pinpoint a game and then find the page containg all the games with cheatcodes, but I could not locate a game with the manual and do the same.

Any help will be appreciated.

[thor]

This search gives you all games that have a manual in HOL: http://hol.abime.net/search.php?N_nb_manual=yes

[komunita]

I have viewed the link and there appear to be very few manuals. I do have some myself...how do i upload them to a game on HOL. I am sure that there are others who have manuals and could make this contribution.

[Galaxy]

There are about 90 manuals in there at the moment, and they represent quite a bit of work. If you want to contribute scan the pages from the manual (high quality please as we want to provide manuals that are of decent quality) and contribute them via the HOL ftp (see: http://hol.abime.net/faq.php?section=contributions). We will then convert the pages into a pdf manual.

[komunita]

Can I upload manuals which I already have in PDF format, such as Settlers

[DrBong]

Just to add to what Galaxy said, we're only interested in scans/PDFs that people have done themselves. We don't want to host manuals that have been downloaded from other sites.

@Komunita
Sure if what you've scanned meets the HOL guidelines for the quality of contributions:

http://hol.abime.net/faq.php?section=contributions

[komunita]

I do not understand the logic behind accepting only what has been scanned directly by contributor. I thought the idea was to enhance the HOL's database for everyone's benefit. I must be missing something.

Anyway, fair enough and so be it.

[thor]

That Settlers manual is from a PC version, as HOL is for Amiga only I guess it's better to scan one from the Amiga version

[DrBong]

@Thor
Yes, there's not much point to hosting game manuals made for other platforms if there is an Amiga one available.

Originally Posted by komunita

I do not understand the logic behind accepting only what has been scanned directly by contributor. I thought the idea was to enhance the HOL's database for everyone's benefit. I must be missing something.

If we host material in HOL that has been gathered by other game databases or websites (either by admins or contributors) without permission, then all we're doing is showing disrespect for the time and hard work that they have put into scanning and compiling the material. It's the very reason why some game databases and websites have resorted to watermarking their scans. The HOL Team decided long ago not to watermark scans because game boxes, instruction manuals etc. are not our original work. However, personally I can understand why some non-profit game databases (which is what HOL is) resort to watermarking when other databases and websites continually download their scans and take credit for their hard work.

HOL has granted permission to quite a few sites and individuals for use of the material that we host and in return they have credited us. However, we've also denied permission to requests made because some people basically want to create their own game sites using all our material and none of their own. Consider that HOL was almost 5 years in the making before it first went online in 2002 and everything that is in it now has taken almost 9 years to do. Currently, RCK is organising an off-line version of HOL for Amiga game enthusiasts and it is being coded by someone outside the team.

Several websites have used HOL material without permission and have passed it off as their own (even watermarking scans that they've downloaded from HOL). One guy actually leeched HOL, removed all references to HOL that he possibly could, and offered it on a torrent site!! This is just plain lame! We don't use material from other game databases and websites without getting permission or giving credit. We expect the same respect from others, especially competing game databases and company websites.

Anyway, this type of thing has been discussed before and a range of views have been expressed before in this thread:

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?...hlight=torrent

[gizmomelb]

I must admit, I'm absolutely stumped as to why there are so few manual scans in HOL - generally the manuals aren't that big/thick.

Anyways I spent a good deal of time today scanning at 300dpi (PNG which I'll convert to JPG but I think I'll still keep the PNGs stored away somewhere) for HOL and SPS. About a dozen titles so far, I'm back at work tomorrow so can only do a couple each night after work (if I'm lucky).

[ungi]

hm, i certainly understand that ripping off manuals from other sites is NOT the thing that should be done. but on the other hand, HOL is one of the most useful sites ever for the amiga gaming freak, and should contain as much information as possible.

why not just offer an link to the site that hosts the manual in certain cases? this would not ripp someone elses work and still provide the information required to make hol THE amiga gaming site. "replacement manuals", for example, hosts some THICK manuals and clueboks for amiga games. some manuals there look a bit like the HOL versions :-).

settlers manual... well my original came with one manual for amiga AND pc. while installing the game is different, the gameplay is mostly identical and i certainly would prefer a pc-only manual to none at all. just my thoughts.

[Galaxy]

Originally Posted by gizmomelb

I must admit, I'm absolutely stumped as to why there are so few manual scans in HOL - generally the manuals aren't that big/thick.

Not rocket science. Manuals are a new enhancement to HOL, and were only added in the last month. The bulk of the manuals in there are ones that I scanned previously. In the past we generally only included the manual covers as scans.

[DrBong]

Originally Posted by gizmomelb

I must admit, I'm absolutely stumped as to why there are so few manual scans in HOL - generally the manuals aren't that big/thick.

Originally Posted by Galaxy

Not rocket science. Manuals are a new enhancement to HOL, and were only added in the last month. The bulk of the manuals in there are ones that I scanned previously. In the past we generally only included the manual covers as scans.

Well said. If only we didn't have jobs, lives etc. and our only HOL task was scanning manuals. While there are lots of scans of manual covers in Miscshot, there are also a fair few games with full or brief docs that haven't been PDF'd for download yet (e.g. Defender of the Crown, DOTC CDTV, California Games). These will be converted and added when RCK finishes coding some HOL enhancements that are going on behind the scenes atm. When this happens there should also be quite a few screenshots added also. The old adage applies here, "Rome wasn't built in a day".

[gizmomelb]

ahh, my apologies - I wasn't aware this was a new addition to HOL.