If you require games to have all necessary information in-game, then you’re crippling the potential depth of complexity of the games in one blow.

Sure, some relatively simple games can get away with it, but it’s contingent on the game. If you want something more complex, then I don’t think it’s not at all unreasonable to have external aids.

In fact, for some games, the external aids are almost *part* of the game. Think EVE ship planners, or City of Heroes character planners, or spreadsheets to keep tabs on trade routes in X3.

I’d even go as far as to suggest developers should be releasing these aids themselves rather than relying on an altruistic community to do so. In-game or out, they’d add to the experience.

And talking of ‘old school’, remember when games came with real manuals that actually told you how to play the game (my Falcon 4.0 manual is still on my shelf as a reminder of what we have lost)? I think your approach is very much ‘new school’.