Does No One Honestly Know WTF The Difference Is Between The Collectors Edition Guide And Standard Edition? It HAS To Be More Than The Hardness In Cover And Cover Art!

On What? Skyrim? I Think CE Has A Dragon Statue.

artbook, making of DVD, and a cheap, plastic, McDonalds novelty toy.

I'm Talking About The Guide Book.

Shouldn't this thread actually be in the Skyrim discussion?

http://www.amazon.com/Elder-Scrolls-Skyrim-Prima-Official/dp/0307891372/ref=tmm_pap_title_0:

Collectors edition:



Normal edition:



Both are equally a waste of money so long as http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Main_Page exists.

So you're telling me that the only difference is a special map code inside... Wow. SO worth the extra 10 dollars

Strategy guides are all equally worthless due to the invention of the World Wide Web

I agree for most games they are useless, but for http://www.amazon.com/Disgaea-Cursed-Memories-Official-Strategy/dp/0974170089/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1320797665&sr=8-6 a guide is really useful. However, none of the good guides are made by Prima or Brady... that stuff you can just find on the internet.

Never get a collectors edition on PS3 when the company is bed buddies with microsoft... <_<

Even though you feel strongly enough to repeat it twice in successive posts, it's still your opinion, and not fact. I personally don't want to have to pause the game and get up and go over to the computer, just to search for a mundane piece of info on the net. Having the information in my lap while I'm playing is lot more convenient for me. Also, seeing as my workplace does not allow us to use the computers, or have phones on us for that matter, I like having a hard copy to look over while on break. And believe it or not, some people still prefer "old fashion" page flipping. Most of the time, the guide books are well designed and works of "art" themselves, and are good conversation starters when sitting on the coffee table as well.

How many mistakes where there in Oblivion's Prima Strategy Guide? I mean, there was one so blaringly bad that there was a Sticky for it on the forums due to how many people came on here asking about why they couldn't find the Ayleid Statue in some dungeon. Books have mistakes/typos/etc and cannot be freely updated. Wikis can. Wikis can also include information on known bugs, workarounds, and similar things that once again a book cannot.

You're going to have to pause the game anyway, and most console users have a smartphone/tablet/netbook/laptop they can have open to the page right next to them while gaming, and obviously all PC users will be able to use their browser. If you want them as reading materials or cofee table eye-catches, that is a completely different story, but for actual accurate and up-to-date information, strategy guides are not worth the paper they are printed on.

Don't remind me. I had a couple of Prima guides for PlayStation games when I was younger, and due to a mistake in the guide I wasted hours powerleveling for an unwinnable fight that Prima claimed you could win if you were strong enough. :facepalm:

A forum post I found that describes this mistake:

And you've read and compared the Skyrim guide to the game, and can speak to it's accuracy? Think that Prima can't learn from their mistakes? Ok, so we all have to pause the game regardless, but I personally don't have any of the gadgets you speak of, therefore your point, at least for me, is moot. And even if I did, I would still buy a guide for reasons already stated.

Another thing about finding info on the web is that you may have to wade through pages and pages of text before you can find what it is you are looking for, and even then you may have to compare it to two or three other sites to "confirm" it's accuracy. And as far as UESP is concerned, it's content is all user submitted, no? So, the info I may be looking for may not be submitted for days, or weeks... Take note that I have and do use UESP, and love it. But, I have my reasons for buying a guide, and you have yours for using the web. And that's as far as I'm going with this discussion. We are now way off topic.

Prima guides are notorious for poor quality, always have been. I used to buy them back in the day for my pokemon games and there were always numerous mistakes. You are in the extreme minority, and personally getting accurate information is far worth it.


See, that's the one great thing about the web over a book: ctrl-f.


Maybe you do if just doing google searches, but for things like these forums and UESP (or whatever wiki is for the game in question) that is certainly not the case.


Normally you may be right about it taking a long time, but thanks to the PC version, console commands, and the construction set, it is done very fast. Quality maps usually take a little bit longer, but informational stuff is always right up there right away.

I occasionally print things out, e.g. lists of feats in NWN, maps to hidden packages in GTA, class progression in FFT, so I can see how the books could be useful. But I always try to play without hints and minimize spoilers so they are not worth the money to me.

i WANT A TOY!!!
I'm not too sure but what DEFRON said sounds about right. And maybe a dragon statue ?

As much as I like UESP (and I do actually value its information more than the official game guides, which are often at best "unsubtle") it is often nice to have a printed copy. After an Oblivion session, for example, I'd often like to curl up with the guide and read about how it "should" have been done: sometimes I'd disagree, other times I'd see stuff I'd missed or didn't think of, but I rather enjoyed it in a way that I wouldn't've had I just stayed seated at the computer and browsed the web for a bit.

My main gripe with them is that when I pay for a printed copy, it'd be nice if it was actually localized(sic), especially when said team gets a huge list of credits. The worst culprit has to be the Mass Effect guide which was printed in A4 for the UK market but without the benefit of reformatting, they simply stretched the original Letter-format to fit. It didn't look good, and one wonders why they didn't just stick to Letter-size for the print run anyway. Anyway, that's a bit OT.

Yeah but the map location..maps in the guides for ES games are always really nice to have on the side of you..instead of alt-tabbing or window moding. I usually get the guide right away just for that purpose. I'm still contemplating it for Skyrim, I might wing it and find things on my own but I'm not sure yet.

Are you guys seriously trying to argue whether online guides or printed guides are better? That's nonsense, there's no such thing. It's just a matter of opinion. I've used and loved UESP for years, and late into Oblivion's life cycle it's the most authoritative place to get answers to any conceivable question. However, you don't always want to sit at the computer to read something. There's a nice quality inherent in just having a book sometimes. You can take it places, read it on trains, planes, in the bathroom. Books and Wikis are different in most respects. It's pretty hard to justify calling one or the other a waste.

One of my fondest gaming moments is from years and years ago I was shopping at a mall with my family. We had gone to visit my grandmother and the whole group was spending the day at this enormous mall called http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graqevine_Mills. Playstation was new to me and I was just a kid. I wandered into an Electronics Boutique (back in the day) and the sales guy convinced me into trying Final Fantasy 7 (a game I had never even heard of). He sold me a guide as well.

Spending the rest of the day at that mall reading the guide book without ever having any idea what the game might ultimately be like was incredibly fun. Best gaming day of my life, and it was one of my first.

As something of a tribute to that day at the mall, I often times buy my video games at malls now, regardless of where the nearest Gamestop actually is. Also, I will usually sit in the mall and read the guide for a few hours before I actually take the game home and play it.

I'm just saying, stop arguing whether orange or blue is the better color. Instead, you guys should agree that guides generally are awesome, and enjoy the ones that you like most for whatever reasons you happen to like them.

This thread is in the wrong section (should be in Skyrim General) but has been answered, so I'll lock it up before it turns stroppy or spammy.