In an (likely futile) attempt to create a interesting forum topic, I present . . . this.

Do you only use information gained from experience, in-game sources and reading the manual? Or do you use any and all information available from videos, wikis, fansites or any other internet source?

I much prefer discovering on my own because it feels more rewarding to learn game mechanics personally than reading a guide titled "How to Win at Game X". For example, I like tactical RPGs. So instead of researching some one else's "Optimal Party" or "Best weapons in the Game" list, I study all the companion, weapon, skill, and ability descriptions and then decide what should work and then try that plan. For the types of these games that I most enjoy, (Wasteland 2, Baldur's Gate) the evidence takes multiple playthroughs to accumulate as to what the "best" plan is. Also enjoy FPS and 3rd person action, but still prefer learning those through experience, so it's not genre specific. In short, unraveling the mystery on my own is a large part of the fun.

But, stating all that, I'm not militant or puritanical about this. After a certain amount of experience with games most enjoyed, I do seek out detailed information from other people who also have alot of experience with any particular game. Sometimes it's lore interpretation or specific gameplay mechanics, but overall much more like comparing notes rather than a how-to guide.

However, I'm not quite vain enough to assume that my preference is the "right" way to play and so am curious about differing, or opposite, motivations.

It depends on the game. I Dislike reading external sources when it's possible to avoid doing so and still have a good time with the game.

However, for many games, that simply isn't possible, either because the game has hidden content and/or hidden gear that is not going to be found from playing it blind, or it has Achievements that won't be unlocked from playing it blind, or it has puzzles and/or battle segments that are not worth the aggravation & tedium of bothering with trying to play through them blind.

So for games where I need to look at external sources either not to miss out on content and/or gear and/or Achievements, and/or to avoid tedium & aggravation, then I will look at external sources about that game.

For my first time playing I'd rather just figure it out for myself (with the help of the manual if necessary). That includes information about the tools and abilities available to the player. I usually find it annoying when I accidentally get advice from min maxers about what the "best" way to play is and just try to ignore it. I don't really mind reading other stuff after I've already completed the game, though, but I'd still rather avoid specific types of advice.

I tend not to use videos (too many of them have audio commentary when I'd just like to see how the game plays out and see other player's strategies), but I do often use other external resources, including text FAQs and forum posts (neither of which you mentioned).

I also like to do some experimenting on my own; this is especially important for games that are less popular, and hence have fewer online resources. (Demon's Winter is an example here; I've even found a couple bugs this way.) In some cases, like Baldur's Gate 2, I might end up spending more time experimenting this way (and enjoying it more) than actually playing through the game. (TES games, especially Oblivion and earlier with that spellmaker that was omitted in Skyrim, are also good, as the Spellmaker is fun to play around with, and then you also get Daggerfall's custom class creation on top of that.)

It's also worth noting that, if the game has decent complexity, I often don't end up copying an entire strategy, but instead gravitate to setups that I happen to like mechanically that are useful (or that I suspect might be useful, even if people don't really do it). Also worth noting that I have a bias in favor of healing abilities, and will sometimes focus on them even if it's a game where doing so is sub-optimal.

I guess in-game tutorials could also be counted as ''learning process''. Even if it's, pretty much always, ''Left-click to select a unit. Right-click to move a unit.'' I still do tutorials because they are part of the game.
For example Age of Empires II has ''William Wallace'' as a learning campaign.
At the very least they also often extra XP or items.

In-game manuals - depends on how they are presented.
If they offer neat artwork, lore then yes, I read upon how an enemy functions. If they offer only stats then I don't bother. Still remember mr.Spock quoting stuff in CivIV. :D

Manuals as an extra - yes!!!
I still vividly remember how in Wolfensten: Enemy Territory someone in a forum asked: ''How do you actually activate the scope on the sniper!?'' I answered: ''The game features a manual! Read it. Page 28. By default it is E.'' I received the reply:
''I never read manuals. I view them as spoilers.''

I simply love manuals as a *.pdf !!!
Besides listing most enemies and weapons they also offer artwork, stories about the game and whatnot. Even the boring numbers are listed in neat spreadsheet, or a clear tech tree!

Videos - never!
If there's a level / puzzle / boss I can't win, I'd rather read up any gameguide, article of forum post. In-game video tutorials are the worst.

Wikis, articles about ''tips & tricks'' - no.

What remains is trial and error.

Unless I've already heard people talk about issues with the game, I always try to go in without outside information and figure out the game myself. These days I don't even read the manual until I encounter a problem or wonder about something.

I do however resort to walkthroughs, guides and videos when I hit a wall in-game, in order to clarify very specific questions, when I can't figure them out on my own after a while. At the same time, I don't enjoy having to do that and it is likely to influence my opinion of the game.

I also sometimes check the consequences of choices in RPGs, if I don't trust the games to be logical and fair. Ideally, all choices should be equally fun, so that you are free to roleplay your character, but in reality there are often better choices and worse choices, with consequences that affect gameplay. I don't see any fun in being locked out of quests, missing more often with a weapon, getting a lame ending or turn of events several dozen hours later etc. So I make sure a choice won't come back to haunt me.

I don't play games to win but to have an enjoyable experience. That can include challenge, but not frustration. And since I hardly ever replay games (too repetitive, too time-intensive), I can't afford my one and only playthrough to be subpar due to bad choices. So even if I don't really like using outside sources, sometimes I feel like I have to, as the lesser of two evils. I really appreciate it if a game never gives me cause for doing it though and everything in-game is self-explanatory, logical and fair.

I believe Wizardry 4 has one puzzle in it where you are expected to have read the manual, as the answer is there.

Also, Bard's Tale 2's manual has that "final clue", a list where each entry is a bunch of arrows, which you just might need at some point during the game.

That's even if we ignore those instances where older games would as questions that need the manual as "copy protection" (Ultima 6 and 7 do this, for example), or that ask you to read paragraphs from the manual (Wasteland, Dragon Wars, and I believe at least some of the Gold Box games).

Speaking of which, Wasteland's manual contains some interesting fake paragraphs, including an entirely fake subplot. (Fake paragraphs are paragraphs the game never asks you to read, and which may contain misleading or false information. For example, paragraph 1 in Wasteland is a fake paragraph, though that one just serves as a warning to those that decide to read the paragraphs without being directed to by the game.) I'm thinking that the bad consequences of choices in RPGs might not be so bad if either:
* The effects are temporary or (relatively) easy to recover from. For example, if that choice just makes the next fight harder, or if it trips a trap damaging and poisoning your party.
* The choice has very obvious immediate consequences (preferably funny), the game lets you save right before (for example, if the game lets you save anywhere), and the game doesn't let you save afterwords (for example, if the result of that choice was to wipe out your party, forcing you to reload the save you just made). I remember one particular choice in Might & Magic: World of Xeen that's like this, and it's actually a rather funny troll (and can also be a reminder that players should save frequently).

I always read manual before playing an unfamiliar game. Manuals often contain info about setting and lore in addition to gameplay mechanics and UI description. However, it is not enough to learn how to play a game.

User-written guides and forum discussions are useful for games with complex rules and systems. They are also helpful, if I can't guess tactics for particular fight or solution to some puzzle.

Action-based player skills are better be learned from personal experience. In some cases, watching video might help to understand, what you are doing wrong.

I prefer a separate training mission over in-game tutorial, integrated into the main story.

Sure, but most choices in games I've played aren't like that. They are more along the lines of "Pick a reward", without giving you enough info about the benefits of the rewards you can choose, or "make a choice now, learn of the random consequences hours later". But now that you mentioned saving - that's a method I use as well, before resorting to guides, if the consequences of a choice are immediately visible: save, pick one reward, reload, pick another and compare etc. until I can make an actually informed choice.

I really liked how Life Is Strange allowed you to do this trial and error thing / exploring different approaches without reloading, even though there was still uncertainty about unforeseeable consequences later on, along the line. In Life Is Strange 2 though, this was absent; you only had the second, unforeseeable consequences, and I hated that, becasue they tended to be really bad and not all that logical. I had to stop playing because of that, because I didn't feel like replaying whole episodes just because it turned out the game misinterpreted my choices earlier on.

See what instructions the game has, then play around in a sandbox/safe area for a bit.

It's why I don't like it when games give time pressure. Of course, I was "classically trained" by games like Super Mario Bros, and there's literally only two action buttons, so that helps.

But I do feel the Mario 64 school of design is a good one. You've got a bit space to play around in, and all but a few mechanics can be experienced within the castle grounds.

Not futile at all. Definitely better than the n-th [give-away] or [forum-game] thread. :) Only from experiences gained in-game (tutorials, playing), respectively, from reading printed manuals.
Out-of-game souces are only used, if I get stuck or when a game is simply not good enough in explaining something.

Oh, and I never watch/read "how to win/beat" or "which build is best" stuff.
Kills the fun (for me), if you look up "surefire ways" to win a game.

Edit: typo and wording

I have a lot more fun figuring out and discovering everything on my own, failing/dying a lot, and then replaying the game with a better result. I find that very satisfying.
However, I use Youtube videos (but not cheat codes) when I either need a hint or just want to see how someone else dealt with something, or maybe just to see if I missed anything, which I usually did. That helps a lot with my next playthrough.

find out which button makes me win ---> push it until i win ----> rinse and repeat

I'm not a game manual fan. A long time ago when I was buying retail boxed games maybe, because in order to whip out the Disk/CD/DVD you had to pry open the box first and before you even got it home (or installed to play it) you might leaf through the manual to have a quick read.

I don't mind in-game tutorials, but there are limits to my patience:
1. If they severely restrict your gameplay in the early stages of a game they should be optional. What I mean by this is constantly pausing the game to tell you in baby steps what key to press to do what action.
2. They should be clear and fluid - don't break the action and pause the gameplay unless the action is time-sensitive. Non-pausing popups from the side of the screen or tooltips etc are good. Full-screen instructions should be avoided.
3. If a tutorial is written in at all it should introduce all the basic elements of the game, or give solid grounding in how the entire game interface works. A bad example: Stranded Deep: the tutorial is very sparse on detail and will throw you to the wolves (not give you hints you how to leave your first island) after completing a handful of crafting tasks. Sure, it's a learn as you go survival game, but the tutorial might as well not exist if it's not going to be more detailed on how all the interface works.

Best design is to have a prologue region of a game which has a tutorial, but has no bearing on the rest of the game (meaning no advantage is given other than learning how to play - no items or experience etc get added to your character). Then this region should be skippable. If story is to be part of this section, then the gameplay elements should be skippable to allow cutscenes etc to play as normal. Other tutorial methods, like a menu you can select to activate a "training room" to teach you things is good as well, or mini-instruction vids from your game journal or something.

Basically what used to be spelled out in the manual I like put inside the game now. But there's nothing more frustrating than being forced to sit through a tedious tutorial section just because you started a fresh game. Devs should beware frustrating customers like this.

Often times my inability to sit and read the long tutorial text boxes in an RPG these days (I used to have a great deal more patience than this) results in me skipping through. In many games, however, I find when it does baby steps that I get bored and try to skip as much as I can through it, once again. Nothing is worse than the patronizing "Can you look up? How about down?" that Halo used to do.

Depending on the game I prefer to have a tutorial paced such that I can engage with the mechanics as they naturally come about and read or listen (prefer read as I read faster than most people are going to speak in a game) to a brief elaboration. But, sometimes I feel like in an effort to do this devs will skip out on one or two features that I only learn about by accident 99% of the way through a game.

Edit: I do like having manuals or manual like references as a way to refresh myself when it has been a while.