A Guide to Writing Guides

So you want to write a game guide. Great! Below are some basic tips on how to write a good guide and improve your chances of being spotlighted by Turbine!

Contents 1 Basic Guide-writing Tips 2 Tools of the Trade 2.1 Compendium Guides 2.1.1 Advantages 2.1.2 Disadvantages 2.2 Forum Guides 2.2.1 Advantages 2.2.2 Disadvantages 2.3 Blog Guides 2.3.1 Advantages 2.3.2 Disadvantages 2.4 External Guides 2.4.1 Advantages 2.4.2 Disadvantages 2.5 Mixing It Up 3 Getting The Word Out 3.1 Categorize! 3.2 Word Of Mouth 3.3 Get Featured 3.4 Advertise! 4 Be A Hero

Basic Guide-writing Tips

There are many things you could write a guide about, but it's important to keep a few things in mind when you set out to make a game guide:

• Be sure your subject matter has a purpose and demand. Writing a guide on how to buy an apple probably doesn't have much of a purpose for the DDO game.
• Take the time to use proper spelling, punctuation, grammar, and organization. It not only looks nice, but it helps readers understand your guide better!
• Make it comprehensive. Be sure to include all of the details related to your guide. You should be an expert on the subject you're writing about. Take the time to make it complete! A good guide should take no less than several days to complete (and more if you are a busy person)!
• Do your homework! Don't try to rely expressly from memory for fine details.
• Keep it to the point and concise. Avoid stories, slang, and rambling.
• Get feedback and listen to the feedback. You can always edit the guide at anytime to honor that feedback. Great sources of feedback for your guide will come from fellow guild members, players and even developers.
• Great guides don't always have to come from a single contributor. Work with other players to help keep the guide up to date! Talk with the guide owner to see if they could use a helping hand. Adopt an old community project that has fallen by the wayside. Remember that everyone who uses the websites also has a DDO account! Make use of discussion to talk about potential changes/updates!

Tools of the Trade

Guides can come in many forms, and each form has an advantage (and disadvantage) associated with it...

Compendium Guides

The Compendium is intended to educate players on the finer points of the game. From official game data to purely user-created contributions, or a blend of both, a broad range of subjects can be covered in the Compendium. No matter how you format a Compendium guide, the most important thing to remember to do is to include category tags! These automatically list your guide in the guides index. Here is the basic category tag: [[Category:Game_Play_Guides]]

To include your guide in the user created guides section, you would use the tag [[Category:Community_Created_Guides]] It's a good idea to see what other categories your guide may be a good fit for! Check out the available topic categories by browsing our community guides section. It's also a good idea to use a beginner's guide if you've never worked with a wiki-based site before.

Advantages

• HTML & Wiki Support - You can often build your guide with heavy formatting like any other web page. This includes fun things like embedding and hyperlinking images, sortable data tables, and more freedom in style and heading formats. You can also use wiki language which offers a range of functionality such as automatic table of contents, auto-headers, sub-articles, re-directs, and more.
  
• Sorting Options - By placing your guide in a category, it is easier for readers to find your guide when they're looking for help on a particular subject. You can even place your guide in more than one category in case your guide pertains to multiple topics.
• Ratings - When users find your guide helpful, they can leave a rating to let you know that they appreciate it!
• Segregated Discussion - The guide is housed on its own primary page, with a discussion tab for any comments or updates that your viewers may have. This allows you to easily edit the original guide when necessary without getting lost amid the discussion when you need to make large additions or expansions to the guide.
• Visible History - Anyone who visits can see the history of the guide. This makes it easier to tell when a guide is "fresh" or if it is potentially outdated. It is also helpful for finding older versions of the guide when needed on rare occasions. The visible history is tied to the community contributors, making it easier to see who is contributing to the guide in the case of multiple author projects.
• Communal Contributions - Any user is able to contribute to the guide. This is excellent for correcting small grammar errors, but it can also prevent a guide from growing stale if the original creator is no longer available to update it.

Disadvantages

• Communal Contributions - It is possible for other users to add contributions to a guide. For users who don't like outside input for their guides this can be a disadvantage. The "watched page" and "report" tools can assist with editor disputes or unwanted changes.
• Topical Browsing - Users will primarily find your guide by topic, rather than how recently it was added. It is also difficult for the viewer to distinguish your guide as being more current than another guide on the same topic unless they bother to check the history.
• Shorter Discussions - Very involved debates are not ideal for the Discussion page, and are best kept cross-referenced into a related discussion area such as a forum thread or PM box to avoid confusion when many voices are speaking at once. Lengthy discussion pages can become difficult for you to keep track of, especially if the users get out of order.

Forum Guides

A meeting of the minds where the hottest topics are being chatted about among our DDO players. Everything from game questions to industry gossip, or even "what's your favorite monster" is up for discussion! The forums can be a good "starter" area for guide makers who may not be experienced with HTML or wiki.

Advantages

• bbcode Support - You can use basic formatting to give your post some visual appeal, including images.
• Interactive Discussion - Talk is the name of the game in the forums. When you present a guide users can have lengthy and involved discussions about its contents.
• Ratings - When users find your guide helpful, they can leave a rating to let you know that they appreciate it!
• Chronological Browsing - Users will primarily find your guide by how recently it has been interacted with.
• Sorting Options - Viewers can flip through guides by rating, creation date, recent discussion date, name, response, or view count.

Disadvantages

• Static Creation Point - After the initial creation, it can be difficult to add large new sections to your guide, to inject or remove sub-topics, or "pass on" the discussion to a new thread when needed.
• Single Contributor - Collaborative efforts can prove challenging, especially if the original poster is no longer available to edit the first post.
• Non-topical Browsing - Keyword searches are the closest thing to topic browsing a viewer can do to find your guide. Viewers sometimes don't have the patience to sift through their query results if other non-related guides happen to include the same keywords. The intent of your guide also may not come across properly via a keyword search. For example, your guide may be meant for new players, but if you never actually said the words "new player" or "beginner" in your guide, it may get missed!
• Outdated Information - If the guide's original creator is no longer available, it is impossible to edit the original guide with newer information to keep it current. Updates must be appended to the discussion by others and can become lost in additional discussion, making the guide difficult to follow as a whole (especially one with a lot of discussion).
• Limited Formatting Options - While you are able to use some text formatting, images, and links, you do not have the full range of layout options available under HTML.
• Chronological Browsing - A blessing and a curse for guides in the forums, older guides are often over looked by viewers because they are more difficult to dig down to.

Blog Guides

My.DDO is a great place to call your own! It is YOUR piece of Eberron where you talk about the things that matter to you, socialize with who you want, and more!

Advantages

• Easy Categorizing - My.DDO offers easy click-to-add category options, and allows you to add your guide to multiple categories for easier browsing by your viewers.
• HTML Support - You can often build your guide with heavy formatting like any other web page. This includes fun things like embedding and hyperlinking images, sortable data tables, and more freedom in style and heading formats.
• Chronological Viewing - Viewers can chose to browse your guides by subject matter or by how long ago you posted it.
• RSS Feed Available - Like to write many guides or make frequent changes to your guide? Users can subscribe to an RSS feed of your blog to receive updates.
• Ratings - When users find your guide helpful, they can leave a rating to let you know that they appreciate it!
• Flexible Limitations - You have the potential to control how much (or little) other users can interact with, and contribute to, your guide.

Disadvantages

• Single Contributor - Collaborative efforts can prove challenging, especially if the original creator is no longer available to edit the original guide. Redirecting their audience off their blog onto yours can prove challenging.
• Outdated Information - If the guide's original creator is no longer available, it is impossible to edit the original guide with newer information to keep it current. Updates must be appended as comments. If the original creator did not enable comments, there is no way to append the guide.
• User Browsing - It can be difficult for a viewer who is looking specifically for "guides" rather than "blogs" to browse. Any time you make a non-guide blog entry it will compete with your guide unless you put diligent effort into making your guides very visible on your page. Users can find your guides by an internet search or word of mouth. Extra widget boxes can help direct visitor traffic to your guides if they fail to browse your category listings.

External Guides

From googledocs to full featured home-made creations, some users are able to create rich and in depth guides using a variety of online tools.

Advantages

• Flexible Limitations - You have the potential to control how much (or little) other users can interact with your guide.
• Unlimited Support Options - How you present your guide is limited only by the tools you use. From HTML to wiki or even advanced java script, you can create your guide to look and behave exactly how you like.

Disadvantages

• Traffic - You have the guide. You have the site. Unfortunately now you have to do the hard work of getting the word out about your site. This will require you to regularly prod the DDO community to try and attract users to your guide because those users need to navigate off-site to find it, or chance upon it in a browser search.
• Security - Some viewers are hesitant (and for good reason!) to engage with a third party website. They don't fully trust what will be done with their data or contributions, and this can result in your guide reaching fewer eyes.
• Maintenance - The burden of maintaining your guide is fully upon your shoulders with more than just the content potentially. If your service provider has technical issues, if you are too busy to manage the operation of where your guide is housed, or if any number of other problems occur, the responsibility to get things going again is yours alone. Instability can mean lost visitors.

Mixing It Up

You may find that your guide works best when you combine all your available resources together! Perhaps you use your blog feed to keep visitors up to date about changes or needs for your collaborative compendium guide, and you're available to discuss it on your official forum thread? Sometimes utilizing multiple tools can help you to provide the best and most relevant information for your fellow players!

Getting The Word Out

The best guides still require a little effort to make sure people know they are available as a resource! There are many ways to accomplish this.

Categorize!

This is the most important part of guide writing! Users aren't often just going to stumble into your guide, they very often are LOOKING for that information. By adding your guide to existing and major categories it makes it easier to find in places like the Compendium, or even in your My.DDO blog.

Word Of Mouth

• Once you post your guide, tell people about it. Link to it from other websites. Tell your guild about it, or anyone else who plays the game.
• When you make major additions or changes, let people know!
• When you meet another player who is confused about the very thing you wrote about, point them to your guide! With the websites integrated into the game, there's no excuse for them not to take a look!

Get Featured

• Getting spotlighted by fansites, Turbine, and beyond is a great way to keep your guide current and relevant!
• If a guide is commonly pointed out by other players as a great resource, it is more likely that it will be spotlighted because it is fitting a need of the community!
• If you see a guide that you think is excellent, nominate it to be featured! They might be thinking the same thing about YOUR guide too, and may repay the favor!

Advertise!

Include static links to your guide from places like your blog page, your signature, your character's bio, and any other place that another viewer is likely to chance upon it by chancing upon you! Be proud of your guide and reach out!

Be A Hero

Guides are a LOT of hard work and even dedication. It can be time intensive, require research, and good execution to pull everything together. The ultimate reward is helping another player to learn something they may not have known, or may have been confused about, in DDO. By writing a good guide, you've done a great service for your fellow players, and help to enrich their gaming!