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The list of characters was in prose, but was reverted back to a list without consensus and there's been very little discussion about it (except the few regular editors of the article). See the talk page for discussion. [[User:RobJ1981|RobJ1981]] ([[User talk:RobJ1981|talk]]) 17:32, 13 April 2008 (UTC) |
The list of characters was in prose, but was reverted back to a list without consensus and there's been very little discussion about it (except the few regular editors of the article). See the talk page for discussion. [[User:RobJ1981|RobJ1981]] ([[User talk:RobJ1981|talk]]) 17:32, 13 April 2008 (UTC) |
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:Actually the consensus was always in favor of a full list. Rob is insisting that the list violates some wiki policy or other, even though he won't explain exactly which one. [[User:McJeff|McJeff]] ([[User talk:McJeff|talk]]) 17:39, 13 April 2008 (UTC) |
Revision as of 17:39, 13 April 2008
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Images from magazines
This might be a better question for the Video Game Images talk page, but I figured this would get a broader range of input.
Anyway, I was wondering if anybody knows what copyright tag would be needed for an image that was scanned from a magazine or book. Nothing that would feature a model or any real-life person. But say there's a development photo that shows the wire frame from motion capture, or a diagram illustrating gameplay mechanics. Something that I haven't seen on websites and would be great to include in an article. What kind of licensing tag would that need, or is there even one for such a purpose? (Guyinblack25 talk 22:02, 2 April 2008 (UTC))
- I presume it would fall under 2D or 3D arts just like concept arts and renders. Check out Image:Freelancer Bretonia City Concept.jpg and Image:Karas Nue CG.jpg. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong. Jappalang (talk) 01:52, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
- Sounds like a fit. Thanks. (Guyinblack25 talk 15:49, 3 April 2008 (UTC))
- Just double checking. Is this acceptable use of the tags? Image:WS-WiiRemote Example.jpg in Wii Sports#Gameplay. (Guyinblack25 talk 17:18, 7 April 2008 (UTC))
- Hmm, since the image consists of a screenshot and original illustration, you might also want to add the screenshot licensing to the 2D licensing. The image will then be covered by two licenses, and a FUR for each use. Jappalang (talk) 17:55, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
- Sounds like a fit. Thanks. (Guyinblack25 talk 15:49, 3 April 2008 (UTC))
Traffic statistics, again
Please take a look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Traffic statistics. JACOPLANE • 2008-04-3 15:08
- Wow, very nice Jaco. There have been pretty steady increases in the number of views all around the project. That's very encouraging. Is this something that will be updated regularly? (Guyinblack25 talk 15:21, 3 April 2008 (UTC))
Question: should I add any other pages to the traffic page? Perhaps the Newsletter page (I really hope this will be a successful endeavor, btw)? Also, when we see that pages like the Suikoden task force consistantly have under 50 views per month, should we have a discussion about the viability of such a task force? JACOPLANE • 2008-04-3 21:56
Portal
One thing that becomes clear when looking at these statistics is that we should probably put some energy in keeping Portal:VG more up to date, since it is the most viewed page in the entire project. JACOPLANE • 2008-04-3 18:42
- What did you have in mind? Adding more Featured articles to the que, and updating the Current events section? Or are thinking more along the lines of a redesign? We could add in the collapsible FA and GA lists like on the Project page. (Guyinblack25 talk 19:28, 3 April 2008 (UTC))
- Yeah in any case I need to update the Featured article list, since the current list is no longer up to date. The current events also needs a definite overhaul. Maybe the portal should be redesigned, do you have any ideas? JACOPLANE • 2008-04-3 19:34
- I liked the idea, so I went ahead and added in the collapsed FA and GA boxes --PresN (talk) 19:37, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
- What should be included when updating the Current events? Obviously the high profile stuff, but do we have any guideline as to what that should include, or just what ever sounds reasonable? (Guyinblack25 talk 20:09, 3 April 2008 (UTC))
- Back in the day when there was still a VG-current events page, I made a page that lists current-events sources here. That might be useful. JACOPLANE • 2008-04-3 20:15
- Cool, that'll be helpful. How does updating on a weekly or bi-weekly basis sound? And we should probably get a handful of editors to contribute in case one of us is too busy or on a break. (Guyinblack25 talk 20:36, 3 April 2008 (UTC))
- Basically we should update whenever there is a notable story. Here's an example of the old VG-current events page. Of course, that page was more detailed so more stories could be added, but as long as there is a reliable source to back up the story and the relevant articles have been updated to reflect the new information, it can be added. JACOPLANE • 2008-04-3 20:53
- Hey Guy, this will put another feather in your cap, make use a Featured Portal :) Judgesurreal777 (talk) 23:27, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
- Basically we should update whenever there is a notable story. Here's an example of the old VG-current events page. Of course, that page was more detailed so more stories could be added, but as long as there is a reliable source to back up the story and the relevant articles have been updated to reflect the new information, it can be added. JACOPLANE • 2008-04-3 20:53
- Cool, that'll be helpful. How does updating on a weekly or bi-weekly basis sound? And we should probably get a handful of editors to contribute in case one of us is too busy or on a break. (Guyinblack25 talk 20:36, 3 April 2008 (UTC))
- Back in the day when there was still a VG-current events page, I made a page that lists current-events sources here. That might be useful. JACOPLANE • 2008-04-3 20:15
- What should be included when updating the Current events? Obviously the high profile stuff, but do we have any guideline as to what that should include, or just what ever sounds reasonable? (Guyinblack25 talk 20:09, 3 April 2008 (UTC))
- I liked the idea, so I went ahead and added in the collapsed FA and GA boxes --PresN (talk) 19:37, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
- Yeah in any case I need to update the Featured article list, since the current list is no longer up to date. The current events also needs a definite overhaul. Maybe the portal should be redesigned, do you have any ideas? JACOPLANE • 2008-04-3 19:34
Essential articles
We need to do a much better job with our essential articles. Especially "General" and "Genres". These are the articles that the rest of the video game category rest upon. We ought to get a few of them to GA status, and reduce the number of stubs and starts. These should be front and center of our portal. Randomran (talk) 22:25, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
- Yeah, definitely. The essential articles was set up a long time ago in the hope that we would be able to release a WikiReader. If we could get a number of articles up to GA-status, then I'm sure we could find a publisher who would be willing to publish the book for us. I for one would love to have a WP:VG core articles encyclopedia in print. JACOPLANE • 2008-04-3 22:38
Talking of genres, you're not gonna believe what literally just got delivered - Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition 2008. It contains details of pretty much all of the main genres and the original games for each. For instance, Utopia is described as the first god game. Nothing's covered exhaustively, but there's interviews, hardware, genres, individual games etc. It describes RuneScape as the largest free MMORPG. It reckons Street Fighter II was the first game to introduce combos to fighting games, 500,000 arcade cabinets of the game were sold.... Frigging jackpot! :D Someoneanother 10:12, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
- Wow oh wow. That's gold. dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 10:24, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
- And would be a wonderful addition to the magazines project, hint, hint. - X201 (talk) 10:29, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
- Wow, that does sound like a jackpot. It sounds like it could be used to boost our "history" articles too, which are pretty essential. Randomran (talk) 14:15, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
- It's a very cool book. I picked it up this week too and it's much better than I thought it'd be. So don't worry Someone, you're not alone of that sizable en devour. :-p Also, Next Gen posted some of the content on their website here. (Guyinblack25 talk 15:11, 4 April 2008 (UTC))
Any thoughts on restarted the collab of the (rather than week) fortnight to do some essential article work? dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 10:24, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
- I think we should actually build a task force. There's lots of task forces for individual games or series. But no task force for our essential articles. Nobody's building our backbone. Randomran (talk) 14:15, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
- There's definitely a lot of editors supporting the idea. But we somewhat put it off until we got the VG Newsletter off the ground. We hope the newsletter will keep everybody more connected so the multiple departments and collaborative efforts won't die out. Masem set up a talk page and first draft for the newsletter. We're shooting for April 9th as the first date, and feedback would be appreciated. After it's up and running, we'll probably going to cleanup inactive projects and taskforces and then start the article collaboration. (Guyinblack25 talk 15:11, 4 April 2008 (UTC))
New article announcements
Another thing that becomes clear by looking at the traffic stats is that the "new article announcements" page is really taking off, probably mainly due to the efforts of MrKIA11, who has been amazing in maintaining that page. He could probably use some help. I've created a RSS feed that filters out video game-related articles that you can add to Firefox as a live bookmark. That way whenever you have nothing to do you can easily update the new articles page. JACOPLANE • 2008-04-3 22:52
- First of all, thanks. I try to update it as often as possible, as it only takes a minute or so with RSS feed. The main way I could use help is if someone could figure out a way to increase the RSS feed size, as 500 pages are created more often than I am able to update the list. It is currently limited by the fact that only the last 500 articles can be filtered, but if someone could find a way to combine multiple feeds then it could combine the first 500 pages, the second 500 pages, and so forth depending on how large the feed should be. I found this site, which can combine multiple feeds and would work great, if it worked. For some reason I can not get it to recognize that I put in my e-mail address. If someone could try this site to see if they can get it to work, that would be great. MrKIA11 (talk) 23:15, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Cleanup requested for Insaniquarium
Hello, I'm not a member of this WikiProject, but I'd like to request someone with more experience with video game articles take a look at this article and edit appropriately. Perhaps you could add this to your to do list in the cleanup section. The article seems to have too much "gamer" info and reads like a GameFAQs faq/walkthrough. Any volunteers? Thanks. ~EdGl 22:01, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
- eek. I've watchlisted and will try and help out a bit. dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 10:34, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
- OK, I've removed a lot of gamecruft and decorative fair use images. Some info about development/reception/anything but gameplay! would be good. dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 10:55, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
- I've had a quick poke. At the article that is.. oh never mind. I own the game so it'll be a lot easier for me to fix up, there's a gamedev.net interview with Flying Bear and other sources, I'll stick it on my things to do list and fix it up at some point. Someoneanother 11:51, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
- Wow, looks really good now, thanks! Consider that a barnstar-equivalent compliment ;) ~EdGl 14:49, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
- We do our best :) The information is there for some improvements so it should get better in the near future. Someoneanother 15:13, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
- Nice work, SA. I might leave it to you now...I haven't played that game in, like, 3 years...(good times though!). Good luck; EdGl! Cheers, dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 01:49, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
- We do our best :) The information is there for some improvements so it should get better in the near future. Someoneanother 15:13, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
- Wow, looks really good now, thanks! Consider that a barnstar-equivalent compliment ;) ~EdGl 14:49, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
- I've had a quick poke. At the article that is.. oh never mind. I own the game so it'll be a lot easier for me to fix up, there's a gamedev.net interview with Flying Bear and other sources, I'll stick it on my things to do list and fix it up at some point. Someoneanother 11:51, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
- OK, I've removed a lot of gamecruft and decorative fair use images. Some info about development/reception/anything but gameplay! would be good. dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 10:55, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Category:Video game companies of the United Kingdom
Hi! Do you think Category:Video game companies of the United Kingdom should be organized in subcategories (for England, Scotland, Wales, and maybe Northern Ireland) or should it remain as a single category, considering there's currently only 9 Scottish companies listed and 1 Welsh one? Megata Sanshiro (talk) 19:30, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
- I'm personally of the opinion that it should all be in a single category for the UK. We don't have categories for developers in Bavaria and developers in Saxony, nor do we have them for developers in Tennessee and developers in Alaska. While I'm fully aware that the political structure of the British unitary state differs from that of the many federal nations, I don't see the need to localise the categories to that extent. -- Sabre (talk) 19:37, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
- Moved from discusion with the same name below.
Category:Video game companies of the United Kingdom is being depopulated in favour of new seperate Category:Video game companies of England, Category:Video game companies of Scotland, and Category:Video game companies of Wales categories. Despite the fact that this may possibly have a political motive (the creator of the Scotland category makes much ado about being from Scotland on his user page) the net result is every article bar 10 will end up in the England category, with nine in Scotland and one in Wales. To me this seems a highly unnecessary and ineffective split, for apparent reasons of size, of a category that wasn't particularly large anyway. The user who is actually changing all the articles around (not the user who created the new cat) doesn't seem too interested, or bothered either way, though continues to do it. So I just wanted to see what other people think before deciding whether to go to CFD. Cheers, Miremare 20:04, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
- At the very least, Category:Video game companies of Wales should be deleted. Having one article in a category hardly seems worth the strain on the server. I'm not sure about keeping the England and Scotland one though. I don't know whether or not they'd actually be useful. (Guyinblack25 talk 20:16, 7 April 2008 (UTC))
- I still fail to see why any of the categories other than the main UK one are needed, other than for pushing a political viewpoint. This is an international version of Wikipedia, and ought to be treated as such, and for other users categorising by only the UK makes far more sense that pushing the categorisation to such a local level. With only ten articles in the non-English categories, its simply overly bureaucratic. -- Sabre (talk) 20:43, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
- Ooops, I didn't notice this previous discussion, thanks for the move. :) Miremare 21:01, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
- I agree with having only one category. I've continued to use the England/Scotland categories for a bit because I was waiting for User:Andrew22k to perhaps defend his position here (I notified him of this discussion on his talk page), but he hasn't said anything yet so maybe he has changed his mind or reluctantly agrees. Megata Sanshiro (talk) 14:19, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
- Ooops, I didn't notice this previous discussion, thanks for the move. :) Miremare 21:01, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Yea i agree i forgot to comment here i've been busy the only reason i made a category for Scotland was because i thought 9 articles was enough and i didnt make an English category as it there was too many articles and Welsh or Northern Ireland i could'nt find any.Andrew22k (talk) 15:28, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Copyrighted trailers linked in articles
Are they allowed? I tried to remove one from Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. but got reverted and accused of vandalism. Megata Sanshiro (talk) 20:58, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
- If put under the external links, I guess they can be borderline accepted, although I personally I don't like that sort of usage. Far better that they are used for some sort of reference purpose (very dependent on the type of trailer, conventional trailers aren't good for that but ones like development commentary are) and linked in the reference footnote. They certainly have no place in the article after a game is released unless there is some encyclopedic value to that aspect of the marketing for the game. -- Sabre (talk) 21:13, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
- Key addition to what S@bre said. The link to the trailer should not be a copy violation. In other words, the trailer must be uploaded to the linked/cited site by authorized sources of the copyright holder or the holder themselves. In the H.A.W.X case, IGN should be okay, but I doubt the trailer adds substantial information to the article. Jappalang (talk) 21:34, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
EarthBound revamped, requesting PR
Revamped the EarthBound article and have initiated a peer review. I want to take the article to GA and later, FA. You can help here. Thanks. -- Noj r (talk) 01:48, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
- I'll take a look sometime today or tomorrow. It's nice to see one of the older games going towards FA. Ashnard Talk Contribs 15:29, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
You might as well go straight to FA. Any problems that will be fixed in the GA waiting period will have to be fixed for the FA queue too. ZeaLitY [ DREAM - REFLECT ] 06:19, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
- I wouldn't just yet. You should never really send it to FAC knowing that there are lingering issues. Stagnation is to be expected at FAC, but it may still be opposed outright by people who will want sales data and more info from the Japanese media. Anyway, there's no rush. But saying that, I don't see any problems with the article once that info is added. Ashnard Talk Contribs 12:44, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Coordinator
Does this project have a coordinator? I work for a major video game magazine and would like to interview someone about the work being done here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.117.171.163 (talk) 14:53, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
- Well, thank you for the consideration. Unfortunately, this project does not have a coordinator or leader of any kind. The work done here is a collaborative effort among editors to improve video game related articles. Though I'm sure there are several long time contributors that would be willing to answer whatever questions you may have. (Guyinblack25 talk 16:05, 5 April 2008 (UTC))
- Thank you for your resonse. Which long-term contributors do you feel I should contact? 16:15, 5 April 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.117.171.163 (talk)
- Well, a somewhat large number comes to mind. Also I'm not entirely sure which are currently active. I'm sure they'll see this posting and respond here. The major project contributors check this talk page on a regular basis. (Guyinblack25 talk 16:31, 5 April 2008 (UTC))
- What are you talking about, Guy? We all know I run the show with my puppet strings ;) *sarcasm* --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 16:57, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
- Well, a somewhat large number comes to mind. Also I'm not entirely sure which are currently active. I'm sure they'll see this posting and respond here. The major project contributors check this talk page on a regular basis. (Guyinblack25 talk 16:31, 5 April 2008 (UTC))
- Thank you for your resonse. Which long-term contributors do you feel I should contact? 16:15, 5 April 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.117.171.163 (talk)
- Pick me Nigel!;). Sorry if I seem funny, but have you got any way to authenticate your position? Which "major video game magazine"? etc. Ashnard Talk Contribs 17:02, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
- I'd love to stick my hand in the air but I think I qualify as 'newbie' here :) --Gazimoff (talk) 17:20, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
- Im not sure what the normal procedure here would be, but I would suggest making a user account and on the talk page(or indeed your ip talk page), and ask some questions in a similar way to how the Signpost works, such as here. John.n-irl (talk) 17:24, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
- I'd love to stick my hand in the air but I think I qualify as 'newbie' here :) --Gazimoff (talk) 17:20, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
- Pick me Nigel!;). Sorry if I seem funny, but have you got any way to authenticate your position? Which "major video game magazine"? etc. Ashnard Talk Contribs 17:02, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
- Your best way of contacting someone would be via Special:EmailUser, for example, I can be contacted by Special:EmailUser/Krator. Some people to contact that would fit the bill are (of the above) Ashnard, David Fuchs, and Guyinblack. I would be open to it as well. User:Krator (t c) 08:32, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
- Jacoplane is active and as been around here for a long time. I'd recommend Deckiller too, but I don't know how active/reachable he is right now. (Guyinblack25 talk 23:50, 6 April 2008 (UTC))
Help requested On EarthBound
It has come to my attention that the EarthBound article is in dire need of information regarding the Japanese release of the title. I am requesting that anyone who has said information that they please bring it to the Earthbound article talk page. Also, if anybody that speaks Japanese could translate these Weekly Famitsu articles (September 23, 1994 and October 7, 1994) located here, I would be very grateful as they speak about game's commercial success and the magazine's score for the game. Thank you very much. -- Noj r (talk) 21:53, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
- Noj r, if you don't have any luck finding someone who can read Japanese here, you can always try Wikipedia: WikiProject Japan. Ashnard Talk Contribs 08:43, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Is "video games" misleading?
I just had a small disagreement (quickly resolved, I think) that was due to a misunderstanding of the term "video game". Someone thought by video game, I was excluding text-based games. I've heard before that some people think of "video game" as excluding "computer game". I know we have our own agreed upon terminology that is working out well... but for people who are not part of this project, and come at our articles from a different perspective, they might be mislead by using "video game" as the naming convention. I'm particularly thinking of articles like strategy video game and puzzle video game, or the stubs templates. This particular person was confused because they approached a video game article as a fan of table-top role-playing games. I figure I would mention it with people more experienced / smarter than I am. I imagine this is an old issue, and there's a reason we do it the way we do it? Randomran (talk) 22:14, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
- I second every word (being the other part of the disagreement ;). The term "video game" indeed intuitively seems to exclude e.g. MUDs. For older guys like myself it may also mean "an electronic game NOT played from a computer". Video inevitably brings visuals to mind, so perhaps something like "electronic games" would be a bit better (thanks to Randomran for this creative solution)? Especially when distinguishing role-playing games from computer role-playing games, introducing the idea of video gaming is difficult to accept (in RPG environment we often refer to cRPG, but some of the computer games are not video-based, but e.g. text-only). Pundit|utter 22:39, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
- The varying usage of "video game" was why, for a long time, this project was the Computer and Video Games project, and our articles were set up accordingly. Then we basically decided this was a lousy way of doing things and decided "video game" is a better name for an all-inclusive category. See, for example, the vote to move the article Computer and video games to video game, and the discussion just above it. Nifboy (talk) 00:17, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
- I'm not arguing your view is wrong. What I'm saying is simply that for most readers such an approach may be misleading. While within the project after some discussions your understanding of "video" is totally fine and can be agreed upon, we must remember that Wikipedia is read and used by average Joes who will not come here for clarifications. As in everyday language "video game" is a phrase that was used for non-computer electronic games, and as "video" means typically "relating to images" (to be exact, as Collins English Dictionary has it, relating to or employed in the transmission or reception of a televised image), in case of role-playing games that are entirely textual the name is anti-intuitive. On the other hand, the term "electronic game" seems not to have this flaw. Thus, I'm suggesting "electronic game" instead of "video game", because it does not require caveats and explanations whenever it is used ;) What do you think? Pundit|utter 00:30, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
- I rarely see the phrase "electronic game" used in a context outside of small handheld devices (see Handheld electronic game), so I think it creates more problems than it solves. Nifboy (talk) 02:24, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
I am cetainly not smarter than you and thats where you looking for answers from but I have an idea. It sounds as if there is even a conflict with the fact that the word video game excludes computer games, one of two things should happen. Either maybe we should rename the name of the project or someone should branch off from the VG project to form one that focuses mainly on CPU games. Only a suggestion, pay no mind if anyone thinks it's a bad idea.-- King Rock Go 'Skins! 03:09, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
- I think the problem is not with the exclusion of all computer games, but some of them. However, your remark is another proof that video and computer games can be perceived exclusively. I think the best thing that comes to my mind at the moment is just being flexible and allowing different names in different contexts. The whole discussion started from computer role-playing games and in this context the word computer is just traditionally used, and also "video" is particularly unfortunate because of image-less games. While in case of most games you describe the word video is just fine, elsewhere it may be less obvious. I'm just suggesting less uniformity, that's all. Pundit|utter 03:23, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
I strongly suggest not considering the technical reasons for differences between electronic and video games, but the near similarities that one would go about in creating articles for them, such that it makes sense to keep them under the same purview. Both have a gameplay, likely a development section, likely a reception/sales section, and possibly a story section. The approach in terms of which sections are required and preferred are the same, though obviously what you can get for a handheld portable game is vastly different for what you can find for a modern console game. But still, the key point remains that these articles should have similar structure, and that is advice as part of this project we can give. This doesn't mean a task force underneath the project can't hurt for specifically handheld electronic games or other similar subdivisions, but I think they all should remain under this basic Project. --MASEM 03:28, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
While I have been looking at articles written about computers game, they just aren't as good as the articles we wright for games on 360 and PS3 etc. I think that for a while maybe we should focus on the computer game side of the project.-- King Rock Go 'Skins! 03:33, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Checking in. Didn't mean to start a big mess. I definitely don't think we should separate video games and computer games, because they have far too much in common. Someone who visits a page about Tetris or Action Games wouldn't want to be forced to visit two separate articles to gather the broad information they're looking for. I think the naming thing is tricky, but I understand why it is the way it is. It's not ideal, but I don't think it's broken either. Randomran (talk) 05:04, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
- I'm also NOT for changing names everywhere, but I'm advocating more flexibility. If you want to write e.g. about Zork or Moria it really makes no sense to call it a video game. It is anti-intuitive and confusing. As you apparently have agreed on a particular terminology, I believe it is totally understandable if you stick to it, but just don't rewrite history ;) In particular, keep in mind that other groups and projects (e.g. Wikipedia:RPG) use terminology a bit differently. For me, as for a person mostly into traditional dice-rolling and narrative RPG, the phrase computer role-playing game is totally clear and commonly used (often abbreviated to cRPG). If you call these "video role-playing games" I don't think it will be as obvious. Maybe it is just the matter of different turfs and thus I am just pointing to the fact that applying your terminology everywhere perhaps is not always the best idea. Pundit|utter 16:13, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
- I disagree: Zork and other kinds of interactive fiction are video games, and major publications treat them as such (see: [1], [2]). Nifboy (talk) 19:25, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
- I'm also NOT for changing names everywhere, but I'm advocating more flexibility. If you want to write e.g. about Zork or Moria it really makes no sense to call it a video game. It is anti-intuitive and confusing. As you apparently have agreed on a particular terminology, I believe it is totally understandable if you stick to it, but just don't rewrite history ;) In particular, keep in mind that other groups and projects (e.g. Wikipedia:RPG) use terminology a bit differently. For me, as for a person mostly into traditional dice-rolling and narrative RPG, the phrase computer role-playing game is totally clear and commonly used (often abbreviated to cRPG). If you call these "video role-playing games" I don't think it will be as obvious. Maybe it is just the matter of different turfs and thus I am just pointing to the fact that applying your terminology everywhere perhaps is not always the best idea. Pundit|utter 16:13, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, because it is virtually unused in sources, and any widespread use of it on Wikipedia would be a Wikipedian fabrication, which is not allowed. User:Krator (t c) 01:09, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
- Well, it is used over 2 million time in the Internet, but of course it proves nothing about reliable sources coverage. You persuaded me to a much broader understanding of video games. By the way, an interesting discussion on these distinctions can be found here. Still, I insist on the historical distinction between RPG and CRPG, easily proven by different available sources, even in different languages. Please, note also, that a phrase "video role-playing games" brings much less results than "computer role-playing games". As a result, I believe that the phrase "computer role-playing games" is much more established and perhaps in context of RPG it is better not to change the already historically developed term, especially if just because of terminology assumed mainly for the purpose of Wikipedia standardized editing. So, I'm suggesting uniformity of terminology, but making an exception to CRPG, because of the different naming tradition present in the discourse of this field. What do you think? Pundit|utter 01:27, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
- To use a geographical analogy, calling RPGs that use software Computer Role-playing Games is like calling Zimbabwe Rhodesia. Things change, we've got TES4 on distinctly video game consoles, moving along from when the term was first invented where RPGs were almost exclusive to the computer. User:Krator (t c) 01:34, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
- I don't think you're fully fair in what you've just wrote. Even by the sheer amount of magazines and journals, the traditional RPG are doing quite well (I'd actually think there are more publications about them than about CRPG as a separate genre). Surely, computerized versions are popular, but sticking to the established name instead of introducing an artificial category of "video role-playing games" (practically not used by anyone) is not particularly helpful, either. Pundit|utter 02:01, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
- To use a geographical analogy, calling RPGs that use software Computer Role-playing Games is like calling Zimbabwe Rhodesia. Things change, we've got TES4 on distinctly video game consoles, moving along from when the term was first invented where RPGs were almost exclusive to the computer. User:Krator (t c) 01:34, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
- Well, it is used over 2 million time in the Internet, but of course it proves nothing about reliable sources coverage. You persuaded me to a much broader understanding of video games. By the way, an interesting discussion on these distinctions can be found here. Still, I insist on the historical distinction between RPG and CRPG, easily proven by different available sources, even in different languages. Please, note also, that a phrase "video role-playing games" brings much less results than "computer role-playing games". As a result, I believe that the phrase "computer role-playing games" is much more established and perhaps in context of RPG it is better not to change the already historically developed term, especially if just because of terminology assumed mainly for the purpose of Wikipedia standardized editing. So, I'm suggesting uniformity of terminology, but making an exception to CRPG, because of the different naming tradition present in the discourse of this field. What do you think? Pundit|utter 01:27, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, because it is virtually unused in sources, and any widespread use of it on Wikipedia would be a Wikipedian fabrication, which is not allowed. User:Krator (t c) 01:09, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Web page archives for dead pages?
Where can I go to find a decent archived copy of a link that has since died? The few archive things that show up at the top of Google when I search "web archive" all link to the same program which never gives any helpful results. I want to get an old archived version of this link at Blizzard Entertainment's site, which has since been taken down, and a version of the Steam statistics page for February 2008, but I can't get hold of archived versions of either. -- Sabre (talk) 13:21, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
- Archive.org, in a nutshell. The only con compared to google's caching is that it's not as fast; there's a lag of almost six months for most stuff to be archived, so you may have to wait. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 13:58, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
- Yeah, that's the one I'm referring to, its no good because the two links have only expired within the last two months. How do I access the Google cache? -- Sabre (talk) 14:02, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
- Google doesn't have a cache for the first page. You won't find a cached version of the second one because of the way it's set up (flash app). User:Krator (t c) 15:07, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
- Is there any other place to get an archive of the first page? And surely there's some way for the second one: I can get an archive back for August 2007, and the page still uses the same setup. Although as David Fuchs said, it might just be a matter of waiting six months or so. -- Sabre (talk) 15:13, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
- The august 07 page shows January 2008 data. User:Krator (t c) 15:49, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
- That's not the bit I need for the reference though. I need the information contained in the "View detailed statistics by game" section. -- Sabre (talk) 16:32, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
is 16 articles enough for a category?
Hi! I would like to know if 16 articles is enough to have a category named Category:Paradox Interactive games, or should these articles be categorized in the bigger Category:Video games developed in Sweden instead? Thanks. Megata Sanshiro (talk) 17:27, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
- It is enough for me. The WikiProject Albums, for example, state there is no minimum requirement for categories: if a single article can be categorized with it, it can exist. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 17:53, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
- 16 should be fine, especially if they are all from the same developer. Personally, I think a category should have at least 5 or 6, but that's just me. I don't believe the VG Project has any guidelines for categories. We normally look at them on a case by case basis. (Guyinblack25 talk 12:38, 7 April 2008 (UTC))
Several Wii lists that could be possibly deleted
List of Wii games (North America) and Multiplayer Wii Games don't appear to be that notable in my view. I don't see why there needs to be a region list for Wii, when the main list is just fine and not broken. If it's not broken, it doesn't need fixing. Plus the North America list is just redundant of List of Wii games (which is long, but that really isn't a big issue). The multiplayer list was just a test article, and no one has cared to expand it. What does everyone else think? RobJ1981 (talk) 21:04, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
- Well get rid of the multiplayer one, it looks like a test article like you said. Also i agree any game released in North America is recorded on the main article, kinda pointless having a seperate article. Salavat (talk) 14:52, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Possible Featured Topic
With Zelda II: The Adventure of Link passing GAN today, I was looking at the navbox for the zelda games, and noticed that currently of the 13 articles listed in the "main series" section of the box, 8 are GAs and 3 are FAs. That only leaves The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past & Four Swords and The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures as neither GA or FA. With these articles made GA+, there would be a complete Featured Topic. Something to think about. --PresN (talk) 21:38, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
- It seems like The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is already being nominated for a Featured Topic. Megata Sanshiro (talk) 22:22, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
- Looking into it, it seems someone nominated the topic on March 27, and removed it a few hours later when it was pointed out that it needed Four Swards and FSA. I guess not all of the tags were removed from the articles, I'll fix that. --PresN (talk) 22:30, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
- Let's clear something up before we do this; is there such a thing as the "main" zelda series that would differentiate them as "Thee" Zelda games and not have to include the LCD games, the Tingle game, crossbow training, etc. Do we have a reference that establishes these games as the main ones? Judgesurreal777 (talk) 23:11, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
- If we go with the topic, we need more FAs. (I'll get to [[Link's Awakening]] again when I get around to it!) Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 23:25, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
- Current rules are 20% of the topic needs to be FA, rounded up. 20% of 13 is 2.6, or 3 FAs, which we have. Not that more FAs is ever a bad thing! I'd also like to point out, since he hasn't jumped into the discussion yet, that most of the recent work on the group has been done by User:Gary King. --PresN (talk) 23:42, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
- Wow, this is fantastic—brings back so many wikimemories looking over these articles. I've been on break for a while, but I'll probably come back to help with this if it's needed. Pagrashtak 23:59, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
- I believe featured topics need a main article, so with The Legend of Zelda (series) that makes 14 articles and not 13. But I think the LCD games, Tingle game, Crossbow Training, CDi games, etc. should be included too considering there is (infamously) no official timeline or document that says which game is canon, non-canon, which is a prequel, a sequel, etc. Megata Sanshiro (talk) 11:04, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
- I'd forgotten about The Legend of Zelda (series), but it's GA, so oh well. --PresN (talk) 14:47, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
- I believe featured topics need a main article, so with The Legend of Zelda (series) that makes 14 articles and not 13. But I think the LCD games, Tingle game, Crossbow Training, CDi games, etc. should be included too considering there is (infamously) no official timeline or document that says which game is canon, non-canon, which is a prequel, a sequel, etc. Megata Sanshiro (talk) 11:04, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
- Wow, this is fantastic—brings back so many wikimemories looking over these articles. I've been on break for a while, but I'll probably come back to help with this if it's needed. Pagrashtak 23:59, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
- Current rules are 20% of the topic needs to be FA, rounded up. 20% of 13 is 2.6, or 3 FAs, which we have. Not that more FAs is ever a bad thing! I'd also like to point out, since he hasn't jumped into the discussion yet, that most of the recent work on the group has been done by User:Gary King. --PresN (talk) 23:42, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
- If we go with the topic, we need more FAs. (I'll get to [[Link's Awakening]] again when I get around to it!) Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 23:25, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
- Let's clear something up before we do this; is there such a thing as the "main" zelda series that would differentiate them as "Thee" Zelda games and not have to include the LCD games, the Tingle game, crossbow training, etc. Do we have a reference that establishes these games as the main ones? Judgesurreal777 (talk) 23:11, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
- Looking into it, it seems someone nominated the topic on March 27, and removed it a few hours later when it was pointed out that it needed Four Swards and FSA. I guess not all of the tags were removed from the articles, I'll fix that. --PresN (talk) 22:30, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Inclusion of MSP/PSN/Wii Shop costs and WP:NOT
WP:NOT#DIRECTORY states:
Sales catalogs, therefore prices of a product should not be quoted in an article unless the price can be sourced and there is a justified reason for its mention. Examples of justified reasons include notable sales of rare collectors items, prices relating to discussion of a price war, and historical discussion of economic inflation. On the other hand, street prices are trivia that can vary widely from place to place and over time. Therefore, lists of products currently on sale should not quote street prices. In addition, Wikipedia is not a price guide to be used to compare the prices of competing products, or the prices of a single product across different countries or regions
Now, when it comes to our articles on XBL, Playstation Network , and Wii shop titles, it may be that the inclusion of, even if "funny money" points like MSP and Wii Points, could be seen as failing the above policy. Certainly this would be more the case if it were a full list of available games from that source (since the games are competing against each other), but on the otherhand, new downloadable content costing could be seen as useful for add-ons. (I'm running into a problem now with List of songs in Guitar Hero II, which is why I'm bringing this up; here we have several DLC items so it could be seen as a competing list of products).
So I'm proposing that we need to eliminate the inclusion of what downloadable content costs, unless that there is more to it than just the reporting the cost. Cases that would be acceptable: the mention of the cost of DLC for GHII (in its main article!) as due to the complaints of the DLC's high cost; the temporary cut in price of Undertow due to the XBL outage. Alternatively, we could just eliminate the reporting of costs (outside the above cases) for standalone products, but DLC that adds-on to a game, since it is not competing for anything else, can be included. --MASEM 13:23, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
- Completely agreed. User:Krator (t c) 13:56, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
- What about when used to show a price difference in types of content? For example the List of Virtual Console games (North America). Though it isn't setup like this, what about stating in the lead something like "pricing varies by the system the game originated on. For example, NES games are generally 500 Wii points while Genesis games are generally 800 Wii points." Not every price is listed, but the general idea is still conveyed. How about that? Or is this blurring the line too much? (Guyinblack25 talk 14:33, 7 April 2008 (UTC))
- I noticed that before putting this comment together, and my take on that specific list is that I don't believe any of those are sourced, a requirement of the NOT phrase above. Mind you, if there was a source that stated that directly, including it seems reasonable, but there is a bit of SYN engaging specific to that. However, I can also see leaving that in, and by comparison, saying that new games on XBL are typically 400-1000 MSP, gamerpics 100-200 MSP, etc. as long as it is not a comparison between specific titles/offerings. So I would modify what I'm saying above to only exclude the mention of price in conjunction with a specific product (whether alone or in a list); the price of a generic glass of products can be left but should be sourced. --MASEM 15:25, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
- What about when used to show a price difference in types of content? For example the List of Virtual Console games (North America). Though it isn't setup like this, what about stating in the lead something like "pricing varies by the system the game originated on. For example, NES games are generally 500 Wii points while Genesis games are generally 800 Wii points." Not every price is listed, but the general idea is still conveyed. How about that? Or is this blurring the line too much? (Guyinblack25 talk 14:33, 7 April 2008 (UTC))
Since the prices of XBLA games and DLC are fixed (and do not fluctuate the way a "street price" would, as intimated in the above policy guideline), I see no reason to exclude the price from the articles. xenocidic (talk) 15:32, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
- At first glance of lists like the XBLA and Virtual Console ones, I'd agree with you because the price seems like harmless information meant only to inform. But WP:NOT states "Wikipedia articles are not: Directories, directory entries, electronic program guide, or a resource for conducting business." Listing the price for each individual title turns the list into "a resource for conducting business", even if that is not the intention. I think the middle ground would be to state a generic guideline for pricing in the lead along with proper sourcing. (Guyinblack25 talk 15:45, 7 April 2008 (UTC))
- Also, consider, what is the difference between saying a game costs so many points on XBLM, and saying a game costs so many dollars through Steam, and then further saying a game costs so many dollars through online purchasing at Best Buy/Amazon? (I'm sure there's a logical fallacy in there, I'm just throwing out the ideas). Also, per the "funny money" idea, while the Wii and XBL titles would be ok, the PSN store would not be able to have this since they use real dollars, and this could also seem as a bias against it; if one system can't have it, then the rest of the systems should not. --MASEM 15:50, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
- I suppose my reasons for arguing against this are that no one has really complained about it (kind of a non-issue, isn't it?). We should follow the spirit of a Wiki rule and not the letter. The fixed prices inform the readers and I'm sure that many readers would be confused if they were excluded. xenocidic (talk) 16:05, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
- I get what you're saying, but we can't really ignore the policy just because it's more convenient. The VG Project and similar projects are often seen in a less than positive light because of the subject matter of our articles. Because video games are for kids right? It's because we've adapted and tried to adhere to the guidelines that we have 70+ FAs and 180+ GAs. Not many projects can claim that.
So while I see your point, I feel it is best to be proactive about this matter. (Guyinblack25 talk 16:24, 7 April 2008 (UTC))
- I get what you're saying, but we can't really ignore the policy just because it's more convenient. The VG Project and similar projects are often seen in a less than positive light because of the subject matter of our articles. Because video games are for kids right? It's because we've adapted and tried to adhere to the guidelines that we have 70+ FAs and 180+ GAs. Not many projects can claim that.
- I suppose my reasons for arguing against this are that no one has really complained about it (kind of a non-issue, isn't it?). We should follow the spirit of a Wiki rule and not the letter. The fixed prices inform the readers and I'm sure that many readers would be confused if they were excluded. xenocidic (talk) 16:05, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
- None of these arguments justify including something as variable and irrelevant as prices. 1) They change; 2) they vary by country, venue, etc.; 3) they simply are not encyclopedic content. While obviously people try to keep things fresh, this just isn't appropriate content for a reference work; leave it to the game magazines and websites. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:46, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
- While I agree prices are pretty irrelevant, I feel there are some exceptions. Something localized like List of Virtual Console games (North America) could include a statement like "pricing varies by the system the game originated on. For example, NES games are generally 500 Wii points while Genesis games are generally 800 Wii points."
- Though it does mention two of the prices, it only does so to illustrate how and the fact that games are priced differently. Of course I think the general rule of thumb should be to not include prices, but I believe there are a few exceptions that qualify as encyclopedic. (Guyinblack25 talk 16:57, 7 April 2008 (UTC))
I've included some language to this end in the guidelines that general reporting of prices should not be included. --MASEM 21:33, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
- For my part, I don't know why Wikipedia is always trying to be so much like other encyclopedias, when it can be so much better. xenocidic (talk) 14:51, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Pro Evolution Soccer / Winning Eleven
Why is there separate articles for Winning Eleven and Pro Evolution Soccer? Aren't they basically the same video game series? --Silver Edge (talk) 13:59, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
- Describing the Winning Eleven one as an article is a bit generous Silver Edge. But to answer your question, Yep they are the same thing, licensing differences aside. Suggest merging usable stuff from Winning Eleven in to the Pro Evo article. - X201 (talk) 14:07, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Anyone an IGN Insider?
I would love to get access to their articles about the Legend of Zelda games for the Philips CD-i. I'm building up this article, and references are very hard to come by, and it could be crucial. Thanks! Judgesurreal777 (talk) 22:56, 7 April 2008 (UTC) CD-i games based on The Legend of Zelda series http://insider.ign.com/teasers/316/316803.html
- This isn't from IGN but there's a long and interesting article about these games on [3]. Information from it could probably be used. Megata Sanshiro (talk) 14:26, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Nintendo GameCube Preview Disc
Well, after three AfDs, there has been no effort whatsoever to source any claims of notability. The only claim of notability that exists can also apply to every Official PlayStation Magazine demo disc that OPM has released. Can anyone assess this article in any way? Perhaps make it notable, something which no one who voted Keep on the AfDs (with very few exceptions) have been able to do? - A Link to the Past (talk) 03:57, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
- Here's a link to the article in question Nintendo GameCube Preview Disc. --Oscarthecat (talk) 19:55, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
- I see that all AFDs have been no consensus. Perhaps a suggestion to merge would help? I see no reason why a short description couldn't be on the GameCube article. RobJ1981 (talk) 20:10, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
- But would it qualify as a merge? All that needs to be merged is that a demo disc was bundled with the GameCube at one point. - A Link to the Past (talk) 23:35, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
- A partial merger is still technically a merger. The article doesn't really say much, so like you said, not much needs to be merged. It wouldn't hurt to mention some of the demos and features of the disc either. IGN thought it was certainly notable, so might as well include the notable info. They have three articles that mention it. [4], [5], and [6]. (Guyinblack25 talk 00:03, 9 April 2008 (UTC))
- Nintendo bundled it, so it was news. What games are on the disc is completely non-notable. - A Link to the Past (talk) 00:10, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
- A partial merger is still technically a merger. The article doesn't really say much, so like you said, not much needs to be merged. It wouldn't hurt to mention some of the demos and features of the disc either. IGN thought it was certainly notable, so might as well include the notable info. They have three articles that mention it. [4], [5], and [6]. (Guyinblack25 talk 00:03, 9 April 2008 (UTC))
- But would it qualify as a merge? All that needs to be merged is that a demo disc was bundled with the GameCube at one point. - A Link to the Past (talk) 23:35, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
- I see that all AFDs have been no consensus. Perhaps a suggestion to merge would help? I see no reason why a short description couldn't be on the GameCube article. RobJ1981 (talk) 20:10, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
- Here's a link to the article in question Nintendo GameCube Preview Disc. --Oscarthecat (talk) 19:55, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Request for Interview
I am a Georgia Tech research student studying the Design of Online Communities, and I would like to interview some members from this community regarding your experiences in editing Wikipedia. If you are interested in helping out my research, please contact me through my Wiki Talk page. Thank you! Midas7g (talk) 16:58, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
- Hello. Thank you for taking an interest in the project. If I may ask, is this related to a similar question posted above? (Guyinblack25 talk 17:09, 8 April 2008 (UTC))
- This is not related to that request. I am a student trying to find individuals to interview, anyone from new users to the experienced, well-established members. Midas7g (talk) 18:07, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
- Sounds interesting. We'd be happy to help in anyway we can.
- Two more questions though. Do you have a limit to the number people you can or would like to interview? I'm sure there are probably several editors that would be interested. Also, are there any age requirements? I believe some of our editors (including some major contributors) are under 18. (Guyinblack25 talk 19:48, 8 April 2008 (UTC))
- I have no limit to the number of individuals I can or would like to interview. My minimum requirement is at least three, so the more people willing to help, the better the results will be. As for age requirements, I would prefer individuals who can agree to the consent form (on my user page) so 18+ would make things easier. This doesn't mean there is a strict 18+ limit, it just means that using those particular results in my research would involve a little more than just "click here to agree." Midas7g (talk) 00:37, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
- This is not related to that request. I am a student trying to find individuals to interview, anyone from new users to the experienced, well-established members. Midas7g (talk) 18:07, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Launch of VG Newsletter
FYI- For those that may not know, we have been working on getting a monthly newsletter for the VG Project ready for distribution. Discussions have been taking place, and will continue to take place, on the VG Newsletter talk page. Since this will be an ongoing effort, suggestions/comments to improve it are welcome and encouraged.
The newsletter will aim to help keep members up to date on the efforts of the VG Project, encourage participation, and offer lesser known editing tips. The current plan is to have the first edition go out on April 9th, and be distributed to all members using the {{User WPVG}} tag. For further editions, editors will have to signup to receive it on their talk page. Further details on how to sign up will be included in the newsletter. (Guyinblack25 talk 00:23, 9 April 2008 (UTC))
Redirect pages
Just out of curiosity, should redirects be stamped with the VGproj template on their talk pages as non-articles? --AeronPrometheus (talk) 02:59, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
- No. Redirect pages shouldn't even have talk pages, unless there was something there before. xenocidic (talk) 03:01, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks. --AeronPrometheus (talk) 03:02, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
VG Project newsletter: 1st edition
FYI- The first edition of the monthly VG newsletter is done and transcluded below. Here's the link to the April edition page.
Members interested in signing up to receive future editions on their talk page, should enter the following wikicode #{{user0|(your username)}} on the member sign up section.
Questions, suggestions, and comments can be left on the newsletter talk page. (Guyinblack25 talk 01:32, 10 April 2008 (UTC))
The Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games Newsletter |
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In The Groove (Series) & In The Groove 2 Article Brushups
It was a few weeks ago that I brushed up said articles, but just tonight found out about WPVG, so I thought I should alert you guys to the changes, which mostly boils down to a lot of clarifications and simplifications (stuff I'm often told I'm good at). I'm going to do more work on it within a week. I'd speak more at length, but it's 1:30 in the morning, I'm tired, and I'm something of a Wiki-newbie. I'll read the rules and regs tomorrow to improve my understanding of how WPVG works, and figure out how to get that WPVG banner onto my userpage - I'll be more than happy to help clean up all the In The Groove-related articles. --AceOfHeartsDX (talk), 1:27, 10 April 2008
- Welcome. Thanks for the introduction and taking an interest in the project. If you'd like to put the VG banner on your userpage, simply put the wikicode, {{User WPVG}}, in the desired location on your page. If you have any questions about editing video games or Wikipedia policies and guidelines, please feel free to post back here. (Guyinblack25 talk 16:40, 10 April 2008 (UTC))
- Those articles could use all the help they can get. Good to have you aboard, I'm currently working on the Dance Dance Revolution articles so feel free to ask me for help if you have a question. --AeronPrometheus (talk) 16:44, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Crazy Taxi (series) merge proposal
Obviously not many people are aware, so some more comments would be good: Talk:Crazy_Taxi_(series)#Merge. dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 10:42, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
- For a second there I thought TTN had returned until I looked at the date and found that the proposal was nearly two months old. It isn't without precedent; Namco Museum games are all on one page. hbdragon88 (talk) 03:28, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
- True, but CT was an individual, notable game, and wasn't merely a collection of games like Namco Museum was. - A Link to the Past (talk) 05:06, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
Structure for a vapourware video game
I'm taking it on myself to do the long-needed rewrite for StarCraft: Ghost, but I'm having trouble thinking of an effective structure. I can't see that the traditional structure for released or in-development games would work, and I'm not getting any decent pointers from looking at the histories of the other two classic vapourgames, Duke Nukem Forever and Team Fortress 2 (which incidently are no longer treated as vapourware). Anyone got any thoughts on how best to structure the article? -- Sabre (talk) 15:37, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
- Hmmm... that's a tough one. Personally, I see vaporware as software that has yet to be released. Until they officially announce it has been canceled, I would treat it like any other unreleased game. With that said, I would maintain the traditional video game article format. Describe the gameplay and story in terms of what is proposed, and try to have the article focus on things from a development point of view. I would also change "Trouble with development" to simply "Development", and split the development info if possible; like Team Fortress 2#Development (maybe have a subsection for delays and problems). But that probably depends how much information is available on the the actual game development, and not just the problems they encountered. You may have already tried this, but hope this some. (Guyinblack25 talk 16:11, 10 April 2008 (UTC))
DNF is still vaporware in my eyes until they announce an actual date. Anyway, I'm still wondering on how to fix proseline on that article. It used to have a separate history and development timeline that I pulled together into the history of the game. I added plot and reception on the presumption that it will be released someday, based on what they have released and how the community has reacted to DNF.
As for specific data to Ghost, I'm curious to how much of it is actually sourced. New and changed units resemble game guide information and it sounds like it's entirely rumor-based. Lead contains far too specific information that should be put into development. It needs a gameplay section, but I dunno how good of a section it would be if all it consists of is "Ghost retains the same gameplay style as its predecssor" (if that's the case). hbdragon88 (talk) 23:55, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
- Hehe! I know what you're referring to with "DNF", but the first thing I see is "Did Not Finish". Which I suppose is appropriate. :) — KieferSkunk (talk) — 23:58, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Picture format - whether or not to include upscaling
There is currently a discussion going on at Talk:Grand Theft Auto IV#Picture format about what formats should be in the info box. The game has a native resolution of 720p and an upscaled one of 1080p. Some editors want just the native one there whereas others, such as myself, think both should be written up. At xenocidic's suggestion I am asking here for any opinions on the matter. John.n-irl (talk) 16:46, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
- My opinion is that only the native resolution should be in the infobox, as otherwise we would need to include every possible resolution that it could be up(or down)scaled to. Perhaps the ability to upscale could be mentioned in the body of the article. xenocidic (talk) 16:51, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
- I agree with Xenocidic, the native resulotion is the one made by Rockstar to be fited to the consoles. Jørgen88 (talk) 17:18, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
- Its the resolution the game is running in, put not necessarily output in. John.n-irl (talk) 18:08, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
- I agree with Xenocidic, the native resulotion is the one made by Rockstar to be fited to the consoles. Jørgen88 (talk) 17:18, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
- A console like the Xbox 360 is able to run any of its games in whatever resolution the user has selected as their desired output resolution (480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p, etc.). It can and will perform any possible combination of scaling either up or down. Listing these as "supported" resolutions is meaningless, so I would agree with Xenocidic and others that only the native resolution should be listed. --Slordak (talk) 18:39, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
- As far as I was aware that wasn't quite what upscaling was, there is a difference between upscaling and just displaying something at a resolution it wasnt designed for. Similar to showing a DVD on a HD tv at "HD" resolution without upscaling produces a very different image to one which is upscaled. John.n-irl (talk) 19:45, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
- If you show a DVD on a fixed-pixel display (such as an LCD HDTV/monitor), by definition, the image is scaled to the native resolution of that monitor when displayed. This is regardless of what resolution is fed to the device, so the difference lies only in where the upscaling is done and the quality of that operation. For a game, either the game is rendered in the higher resolution, which makes a real difference, or the image is simply upscaled somewhere (in software, by an A/V receiver, or at the end by the fixed-pixel HDTV, etc.) Since we're not talking about actual rendering at a higher resolution, it's called upscaling. --Slordak (talk) 20:13, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
- Ok my mistake, however I would like to point out if you play a dvd on a HD tv with a normal DVD-player, and compare it to one played on an upscaling player(in my case a PS3), there is a difference between the images. So im slightly confused by your explanation. Off to read some more websites on it. :) John.n-irl (talk) 20:20, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
- True. There's no doubt that the quality of the upscaling which one device performs may be significantly better than that of another. It also helps in some cases to do the upscaling close to the source data itself, where additional contextual information may be available (such as telecine/pulldown flags on DVD discs). The scaler in the Xbox 360 and most upscaling DVD players will be significantly better than the one built into lower-end (and even many mid-range) LCD displays. --Slordak (talk) 20:23, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
- Cool, thanks for the explanation. John.n-irl (talk) 20:29, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
- For what it's worth, I thought I'd add something to this as well: Technically, there is a significant difference between "scalers" at each end of the operation here. If you send a 480p signal to a 1080p LCD TV, the TV "upscales" that image to display in its native pixel space. It just does this by extrapolating the pixels in the source image to the target display area, and this produces resolution artifacts even on the best displays. However, the 360 and any other good DVD player that can display DVDs in HD resolution will actually render the image in the target resolution. This allows the MPEG renderer to do whatever rounding of edges, area filling, smoothing and sharpening it deems appropriate, and the image it sends out doesn't need to be upscaled by the TV. So while it's still not the same quality as a Blu-Ray/HD-DVD at 1080p, it is generally much higher quality than a lower-resolution signal being upscaled. I thought I'd discuss the difference, since the term "upscaling" doesn't really apply when you're talking about the source creating a higher-res image. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 18:03, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
- Cool, thanks for the explanation. John.n-irl (talk) 20:29, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
- True. There's no doubt that the quality of the upscaling which one device performs may be significantly better than that of another. It also helps in some cases to do the upscaling close to the source data itself, where additional contextual information may be available (such as telecine/pulldown flags on DVD discs). The scaler in the Xbox 360 and most upscaling DVD players will be significantly better than the one built into lower-end (and even many mid-range) LCD displays. --Slordak (talk) 20:23, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
- Ok my mistake, however I would like to point out if you play a dvd on a HD tv with a normal DVD-player, and compare it to one played on an upscaling player(in my case a PS3), there is a difference between the images. So im slightly confused by your explanation. Off to read some more websites on it. :) John.n-irl (talk) 20:20, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
- If you show a DVD on a fixed-pixel display (such as an LCD HDTV/monitor), by definition, the image is scaled to the native resolution of that monitor when displayed. This is regardless of what resolution is fed to the device, so the difference lies only in where the upscaling is done and the quality of that operation. For a game, either the game is rendered in the higher resolution, which makes a real difference, or the image is simply upscaled somewhere (in software, by an A/V receiver, or at the end by the fixed-pixel HDTV, etc.) Since we're not talking about actual rendering at a higher resolution, it's called upscaling. --Slordak (talk) 20:13, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
- As far as I was aware that wasn't quite what upscaling was, there is a difference between upscaling and just displaying something at a resolution it wasnt designed for. Similar to showing a DVD on a HD tv at "HD" resolution without upscaling produces a very different image to one which is upscaled. John.n-irl (talk) 19:45, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
I think this field is one of those that made it in without any discussion before the template was protected, so as long as it remains, and its use undefined, it's entirely up to the editors to make the most of it. Challenger 1983 (talk) 00:17, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
- Can we get a motion to change this parameter to something clearer? I raised it previously but got only one reply from Challenger 1983. "Picture format" links to aspect ratio, but the infoboxes are showing display resolution instead. Not only is the link misleading, but as raised above, it seems to be encouraging warring over native and supported resolutions. I propose the elimination of the "picture format" parameter, and either:
- insert a "Max. resolution", or
- "Native resolution".
- Both of which links to display resolution. Jappalang (talk) 00:54, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
Useful article for games within last year
Next-Gen article listing the top 100 selling games of the last year (based on NPD #s), including sales numbers. Always useful to have for a good game article. --MASEM 21:30, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
- I was gonna put the data up for Halo 3's sales when I saw the article mention on Halo.Bungie.Org, but then I found out it was redundant. :P Oh well. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 20:32, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
- Doesn't hurt to have multiple sources for the same content though. It'll only strengthen the article. (Guyinblack25 talk 20:49, 11 April 2008 (UTC))
Listing every official site of every country in the world in External links
Hi! I would like to know whether it's allowed to list every official site of every country in the world in the section "External links". This concerns OGame in particular. I thought that listing only the English-language official site would be enough, and I believe my point of view is backed up by Wikipedia:External links#Non-English language. However a user disagrees and claims that I'm "trolling" and that I "don't know the subject". Since I don't really see how knowing the subject more would make these links comply with the External link guidelines, I'm asking for a third opinion or more here. Thanks. Megata Sanshiro (talk) 07:22, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
- Since we are the English Wikipedia, only English-language ELs are going to even be relevant to English readers, and all other language links can go into their respective wiki pages on the other language wikis. However, if say we have a video game developed by a Japanese company, then the Japanese official website should be listed as well as other suitable English-language links.--十八 07:27, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
- It would be idiotic to list every one of them because all of the sites contain links to the other languages. User:Krator (t c) 09:07, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
- I look down the list and it strikes me that only one of those complies with the external links policy at all. The two reviews should be used as references in a reception section, so they don't need to be in the external links, the tools are essentially spam that are there for fans, not encyclopedia readers. As for the official sites, you do not and should not have the links to every language the site is in, you only need one. I would pick "www.ogame.org" over "www.ogame.us", as it does contain the links to all the other languages across the top - making it more useful for non-English readers - but get rid of every link to the other language listed there. -- Sabre (talk) 09:23, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm thinking we should add something about this to WP:VG/ELEr, nevermind that, the VG guidelines already state "Only the English version of the page should be included if there are multiple languages. If no English version exists, then the official page in the language of the country of first publication should be provided, but indicate that the site is in a foreign language.". The links on OGame are rather silly and should definitely be removed. JACOPLANE • 2008-04-11 09:30- Wow that is pretty ridiculous (or funny). Definitely remove all but maybe American/European sites. Strongsauce (talk) 10:04, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
- Looks like User:Anubis1055 has severe ownership issues with the article, as well. Someone might need to talk to him about that. NeoChaosX (talk, walk) 11:30, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
- Personally, I agree with User:Juhachi about "official English site" and "official original language site". But that's just my opinion. And yeah, there's some major OWN issues there... ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 11:40, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
- As per WP:VG/EL they should be removed, this page needs a serious amount of work, and even then I cant see it being much more than a stub. John.n-irl (talk) 14:53, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
- I think we could stand to diversify, while at the same time preventing link spam. The best compromise I've seen is "official English site" and "official original language site"/"official home country site". We shouldn't bite the contributors from other countries who are trying to improve things. Randomran (talk) 21:15, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
- The first thing is only English links should be there. 2005 (talk) 21:36, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
- Completely false. See Wikipedia:External links#Non-English language content and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links)#Non-English-language sites for the relevant guidelines. -- Quiddity (talk) 03:17, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
- However, in this case, neither of those two apply. The existance of the international site removes any justification for the use of the other sites, and none of the three points under Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links)#Non-English-language sites are relevant. - Sabre (talk) 09:55, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
- Please read the two guidelines you linked to. The first says such links can exist when "an official site is unavailable in English", and since there is one obviously the score of non-English links should not be linked. The second ssays when "when the webpage contains key or authoritative information found on no English-language site", and since it is, once again the guideline makes clear a score of non-English links are not called for. So, as stated above, my statement was completely true. 2005 (talk) 10:51, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
- If there are "visual aids such as maps, diagrams, or tables" at a foreign language site, that aren't available at the English language site, then it is completely reasonable to link to that location. Therefor, your generalist statement that "only English links should be there" is false. Possibly you were only referring to this specific diff, but the way it was phrased implied that all non-English links were forbidden. -- Quiddity (talk) 05:17, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
- Completely false. See Wikipedia:External links#Non-English language content and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links)#Non-English-language sites for the relevant guidelines. -- Quiddity (talk) 03:17, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
Improving our image... killing some cruft
This has been bothering me for some time, and I guess now is as good a time as any to talk about it- cruft. I'm not talking about questionably notable list of mods for whatever game, I'm talking pure, unadulterated cruft. Like 20KB of weapons lists, 21KB of text on a nonexistent facilities in the middle of who knows where (not to mention excessive fair use images), etc. Not to pick on Half-Life, but there's a massive amount on locations with absolutely nothing that would justify its existence in the eyes of WP:FICT, and even if FICT isn't the benchmark of perfect policy, I think we can all agree that Black Mesa will never be a featured or good article. I know there are plenty of editors like me who would like to merge, condense, source, and occasionally, delete such info- I've had plenty of success dealing with Halo topics, for example merging United Nations Space Command, which was 24KB readable prose on plot and minutae, into Factions of Halo which now features just one paragraph of introduction and three times that on development (and I haven't even finished fleshing out the article.) But the vast majority of this cruft- and I think, this is endemic to all fictional topics- is that a large base is stopping consolidation and cleanup dead in its tracks. I start a Prod for a crufty article with no hope, it gets contested. I take it to AfD, it either snowballs "KEEP I luvs it" or I'm told "discuss a merge, don't delete". Merge discussions don't get any input, but when I merge IPs come to my talk page and protest, and a week later I find all my changes have been reverted. From my experience, I've had next to 0 success in dislodging any of these because of people who don't give a damn what policies say, they like their video games. So I say that either we settle down, sack up and hew out (and follow) an exacting line for dealing with video game subjects, or we just give Wikipedia to the fanboys and wait for the hardliners to storm through. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 20:53, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
- Just noting that FICT right now is still under debate, though I would argue the trend is towards reduction and merging of material to avoid OR/POV-type favoritism writing (i've been trying to get it there for a year now, almost). However, I would strongly urge that we can move forward in VG alone to help cut down the fluffy; not with the vigor that TTN was doing it, but still merging to at least cut down on articles like Black Mesa and City 17. --MASEM 20:59, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
- Yeah, that's definitely a regular occurrence on Wikipedia that needs to be dealt with. The best solution I've found is to find some like-minded editors willing to endure the rigor of discussing the issue with virtually everyone that wants to voice their opinion on the matter. I know that sounds like a big conspiracy theory that only strengthens most of their negative comments about us, but I'm honestly not sure what else to do but wikilawyer them into submission. The problem is that this is time consuming and draining. I know I don't have the time to edit like I use to and because of it there's a sizable backlog at Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Cleanup. (Guyinblack25 talk 21:08, 11 April 2008 (UTC))
- I'm with you 100% and next time you decide to take on an article like that you can come find me. There are far, far too many video game pages that resemble lousy fan sites and opinion pieces. I'm all for making WP:FICT just a bit more stricter to hold things together. And if they don't deal with this endemic problem for all of wikipedia, then the WP:video games project should take it upon ourselves to promote a higher standard. Randomran (talk) 21:17, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
- @Masem - I definitely agree TTN was off the rocker, but it's been my experience that unilateral action actually provokes the least response. I'm not saying that's good, it's just that currently there's too many admins closing for 'consensus' when actual arguments against deletion are invalid, and this is crippling the trimming of bad articles. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 21:38, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
- Hmm... what a mess. Its troubling because some articles organize the fictional aspects fairly well ( Final Fantasy VIII). Not that organizing the cruft would make us look better. People complain about pop culture articles being on the front page (here), and then nobody complains about an extremely one-sided article on the front page about a pop culture author! Perhaps there should be a standard about how many fictional world articles to one video game article can be made? Otherwise you have articles like Black Mesa taking up an entire article when one World of Half-Life article would suffice. I dunno. -- Noj r (talk) 21:47, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
- @Masem - I definitely agree TTN was off the rocker, but it's been my experience that unilateral action actually provokes the least response. I'm not saying that's good, it's just that currently there's too many admins closing for 'consensus' when actual arguments against deletion are invalid, and this is crippling the trimming of bad articles. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 21:38, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
- I have to echo that. I've seen a lot of deletion discussions closed with consensus, but with most people saying "hey I know what this is" as being the threshold test for wikipedia. Wikipedia is bad in that there's lots of policy on how to add information, but very little policy on how to take information away. This isn't just a cleanup issue. It's straight-up noise. Randomran (talk) 21:51, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
- We should never limit the number of articles on fictional subjects, but the problem is people confuse that with the fact that if there isn't any real world info and reception, et al, it shouldn't be an article about a fictional subject. WP:HALO had at least 69 article in its scope assessed at one time, but I can say with certainty that there were closer to 100 back in 2006 or so; since then there has been lots of merging of stubs, et al, and integration, to the point where more than 35% of the articles are GA or FA. I think having small wikiprojects/task forces helps combat the fanboyism ("The Z series has a list of X, why not Y?") but I think a clear demarkation and policy is the best tool we can do. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 21:56, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
- The policies are there to take out information. The problem is they aren't well-known and leave room for interpretation. (Guyinblack25 talk 21:59, 11 April 2008 (UTC))
- I agreed with TTN that cruft was really rampant, but I didn't like his "This article gets redirected because I said so." TTN was running rampant, enforcing some nonexistent privilege, almost as bad as the cruft was. I just hope this discussion doesn't mutate into "TTN2". The bad that he did far outweighed the good. - A Link to the Past (talk) 22:00, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
- You do have a point. Well, if we want to combat this now, we need to be closely monitoring new article additions. Its a no brainer to see "Call of Duty 5" and "ammunition types of Call of Duty 5" and have a taskforce quickly wipe out the latter article. A task force might be the solution and then its a matter of cleaning up the pre-existing articles. Maybe two taskforces can be created, a monitoring one and a clean-up one. I dunno, I think its better to think solution and not problem. So we really need to find one. -- Noj r (talk) 22:04, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
- I wouldn't mind being on such a taskforce. I'd try to keep TTNs in line, you know? - A Link to the Past (talk) 22:10, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
- You do have a point. Well, if we want to combat this now, we need to be closely monitoring new article additions. Its a no brainer to see "Call of Duty 5" and "ammunition types of Call of Duty 5" and have a taskforce quickly wipe out the latter article. A task force might be the solution and then its a matter of cleaning up the pre-existing articles. Maybe two taskforces can be created, a monitoring one and a clean-up one. I dunno, I think its better to think solution and not problem. So we really need to find one. -- Noj r (talk) 22:04, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
- I have to echo that. I've seen a lot of deletion discussions closed with consensus, but with most people saying "hey I know what this is" as being the threshold test for wikipedia. Wikipedia is bad in that there's lots of policy on how to add information, but very little policy on how to take information away. This isn't just a cleanup issue. It's straight-up noise. Randomran (talk) 21:51, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
- I think a taskforce is a good compromise. Afterall, some creep in the fictional stuff is acceptable if its notability is established by reliable research that focuses on an aspect of the fiction. We want to keep things clean, but we don't want to be heavy handed either. So long as there's a diverse set of views on the taskforce, the filter will be intelligent. Randomran (talk) 22:48, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
- I'd be interested in joining a taskforce like this. However, my motivations would be more on the transwiki side of things (I've mostly moved over to StrategyWiki). This would hopefully minimize the "you deleted all my content" complaints where people would re-add the non-notable information (which has actually worked quite well on some of the articles I've worked on). -- Prod (Talk) 01:00, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
- I think a taskforce is a good compromise. Afterall, some creep in the fictional stuff is acceptable if its notability is established by reliable research that focuses on an aspect of the fiction. We want to keep things clean, but we don't want to be heavy handed either. So long as there's a diverse set of views on the taskforce, the filter will be intelligent. Randomran (talk) 22:48, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
(outdent) Transwikiing is also a good option, and to help offset the "but it's no longer at wikipedia where am I gonna find it" types, I usually include a "(Halo article) at (Halo Wikia)" external link to Halo articles so if the readers really want the whole messy shebang, it's just a click away -> {{Halopedia}}. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 01:32, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
- The problem with the other wikis is that they can be painfully inaccurate. There used to be links on every StarCraft article to the StarCraft wikia, but I had to remove them due to how off the mark they were. I don't want to mislead other readers by pointing them to information that is wrong and judging from the negative reaction I got over there when I tried to change just a few incorrect points it will always be wrong. However, we really do need to tackle this cruft here. I personally was hoping to hit the Half-Life series myself (regardless of picking on Half-Life, it is mostly a complete mess. We were lucky enough just to recently get rid of all the articles for monsters without going through a painful AfD, although that is evidence that painful en-masse AfD's can get the job done) after I'd finished with the StarCraft series, but there was more to the StarCraft series than I had thought. In any case, it looks like if it doesn't happen by the wikiproject it isn't going to happen. I tagged Vortigaunt up a few months back, and I've seen very little in improvement but plenty of the aforementioned "I've heard of it, its notable" accompanied by removal of the tags. -- Sabre (talk) 09:47, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm hearing a lot of talk about creating a new task force, but we already have Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Cleanup, which has languished after a good start. If more contributors worked on that cleanup page and the articles that have been tagged by it then I think we don't need to set up another task force. There has also been some talk on the newsletter talk page of reviving the WP:GCOTW. Anyone interested? JACOPLANE • 2008-04-12 15:00
- (1) I'd definitely be up for the GCOTW project, and would appreciate regular reminders to join in. (2) I thought the cleanup taskforce was for improving existing articles? If the mandate were to cut crappy WP:NOT articles then I'd be all over it like a fat kid on a smartie. (note: fat kids love smarties. I've seen them.) Randomran (talk) 17:25, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
- I'm also definitely up for reviving the GCOTW, but someone would have to step up to the plate and commit themselves to pruning the nominations and updating the various templates. The main reason the GCOTW was retired in the first place is because User:Thunderbrand left wikipedia ( /me cries ). If someone would take up the task that Thunderbrand left behind then I'm sure a weekly collaboration could be a great success once again. It's also good as a rallying effort that unifies and focuses the attention of this community. JACOPLANE • 2008-04-12 18:22
- I was kinda hoping Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Inactive project cleanup would be the next thing we tackle, because it would probably be best to consolidate our resources before expanding. But it seems like everyone really wants the collaboration project up and running.
- Anyway, I believe what I'm about to say has been said before by another editor, but I think it would be good to reiterate it. Though, we already have a GCOTW, I think it would make more sense to extend the time frame to a month. That way the same group of editors can watch over the article while it goes through GAN and possibly FAC; which can normally take about a month from starting on an article to finishing up a GAN and/or FAC. This way, addressing the more common issues of copy editing, adhering to the Manual of Style, and making sure it's comprehensive will be easier. It will also cut done on the amount of work needed to handle nominations and updates for templates. Any thoughts? (Guyinblack25 talk 22:33, 12 April 2008 (UTC))
- I'm also definitely up for reviving the GCOTW, but someone would have to step up to the plate and commit themselves to pruning the nominations and updating the various templates. The main reason the GCOTW was retired in the first place is because User:Thunderbrand left wikipedia ( /me cries ). If someone would take up the task that Thunderbrand left behind then I'm sure a weekly collaboration could be a great success once again. It's also good as a rallying effort that unifies and focuses the attention of this community. JACOPLANE • 2008-04-12 18:22
- I agree. Especially if we're going to be tackling more essential, top and high importance articles, they're gonna need more time. A week is good for expanding a stub that just needs more information. But you need a month to get proper references, resolve conflicts, re-think the layout once or twice, get a variety of opinions... So I'd be all for switch to GCOTM. Any thoughts on a clean up (especially pruning prod-worthy articles) task force? Randomran (talk) 14:17, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
- As Jaco already pointed out, there is already a department for that; Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Cleanup. It is set up similar to the Assessment department, but just serves a different function. There is a section for requests that is currently backlogged. I was trying to clean up World of Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, but got too busy with real life to finish it up, and others were busy with merging most of the separate King of Fighters character pages into List of characters in The King of Fighters series. There is plenty there that could use some clean up for those interested. (Guyinblack25 talk 15:52, 13 April 2008 (UTC))
- I agree. Especially if we're going to be tackling more essential, top and high importance articles, they're gonna need more time. A week is good for expanding a stub that just needs more information. But you need a month to get proper references, resolve conflicts, re-think the layout once or twice, get a variety of opinions... So I'd be all for switch to GCOTM. Any thoughts on a clean up (especially pruning prod-worthy articles) task force? Randomran (talk) 14:17, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
Nitpicking video game article suffix naming conventions
Through link-diving I found myself looking at the list of video game articles and I have a question. The text in parentheses is not very consistent throughout the list of articles. Such as {video game) vs video game vs (videogame) vs (Video Game) vs (game), etc...
Is there a unified way of indicating an article is a video game? I know that most articles don't need this due to there being nothing to confuse it with, and that multiple games might have the same name making it necessary to add the year or platform to the title, but say for instance the articles I'm working on; Dance Dance Revolution links to the series article and Dance Dance Revolution (video game) links to the first game in that series. Should all articles needing to say it say "(video game)" with parentheses and all lower case (which is the way the majority of articles have it) or is there a better naming convention in use or has it just not been dealt with yet?
On a similar note, should it be "(video game series)" or just "(series)"? And I've seen variations of these too. --AeronPrometheus (talk) 22:06, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
- This is what you're looking for. General rule- don't do anything in parentheses unless you have to, then it's (video game). If a game article conflicts with a series article, they either both get stuff; (video game), (series); or one wins, if a specific wikiproject has a rule for it. The only one that I know about that does is WP:FF, and that doesn't cover a whole heck of a lot of conflicting names. --PresN (talk) 23:23, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
- Thank you, that's perfect. Does this mean I would get flak for trying to iron out the article names or would I have the blessings of the WP:VG members... Including the ones that babysit articles? --AeronPrometheus (talk) 23:41, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
- I don't see why anyone would have a problem with it. --PresN (talk) 01:16, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
- Well, this is Wikipedia after all. But at least this time I can cite this conversation to anyone stonewalling me and go "Where were you when I asked?". --AeronPrometheus (talk) 01:56, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
- I don't see why anyone would have a problem with it. --PresN (talk) 01:16, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
- Thank you, that's perfect. Does this mean I would get flak for trying to iron out the article names or would I have the blessings of the WP:VG members... Including the ones that babysit articles? --AeronPrometheus (talk) 23:41, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Kotor 2 deleted content discussion
I write Lightsaber forms and force forms section to gameplay of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II The Sith Lords. But it several times cutted by User:EEMIV, with trivia reason... Can somebody help me? --Beyond silence 23:49, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
- Well, frankly, the content you added was considered (at least by EEMIV) to be trivial game-guide information - the sort of information that would be more useful and interesting to someone reading a strategy guide. Please see WP:GUIDE and WP:VG/GL for policies and guidelines on what should and should not be added to game articles. In general, WP is not meant to be a source of strategy guides - game articles should focus on a general synopsis of the game, its history and development, its reception, etc., but going into detail about specific characters and their attributes, specific moves, weapons, etc., is almost always too much detail for an article meant for the casual reader. (Remember that the various forms of lightsabre and Force use that you listed will mean absolutely nothing to someone who isn't intimately familiar with the game or series.) — KieferSkunk (talk) — 00:10, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
- This section isn't content advises how to play! But it's a important gameplaye element... --Beyond silence 09:09, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
- How is it important to list all the different kinds of light sabers and Force techniques/styles by name? Wouldn't the phrase "This game includes eight forms of Lightsaber and six unique styles of Force" (or something similar) added to the main body of the article suffice? A phrase like that not only makes more sense to the uninformed reader, but it can be integrated into the article in such a way that it adds depth to the body and makes the article more interesting, while at the same time covering a potentially important gameplay element.
- Put simply: Yes, pointing out that the game includes a lot of different lightsabers and Force styles can be important. But going into depth about what specifically all those sabers/techniques are is not. As I mentioned, the average, uninformed reader doesn't have any knowledge of the specifics about the Star Wars universe (heck, I'm a Star Wars fan and even I didn't recognize those names). But knowing that there are a number of unique offerings in the game will help to pique the reader's interest, and if they want to learn more about those specifics, we can point them to an online FAQ or (preferably) another wiki (like StrategyWiki) where this level of detail is perfectly fine and appropriate. :) — KieferSkunk (talk) — 18:22, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
- This section isn't content advises how to play! But it's a important gameplaye element... --Beyond silence 09:09, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
Copyedit needed for Guitar Hero (video game)
Can I ask someone to do a good copyedit of Guitar Hero (video game) for prose language as part of its FAC? I am too close to the article to see anything that might be out of place. --MASEM 12:05, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
- I'll take a look and see what I can do, as time allows. :) — KieferSkunk (talk) — 18:23, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
Merging two stub pages: Graphic adventure game and Point-and-click adventure game
Every once in a while I make my rounds through the various video game genres articles... and I come across the Graphic adventure game and Point-and-click adventure game articles. There's a pretty old merger proposal here, but I think it's a good one and one I agree with. Rather than BOLDly merge, though, I wanted to get some feedback. These two stubs have been hurting for contributions but nothing has happened for a LONG time. Maybe if all the information were at the graphic adventure game article, it would be easier for people to contribute? I think a merge is the easiest solution in the short term, that will make a split viable in the longer term.
Please keep all discussion at the talk page for Graphic adventure game Randomran (talk) 17:31, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks a lot folks. Hopefully this article will be a friendlier place to collect information on the subject. Randomran (talk) 14:08, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
Translation help needed, maybe?
I found a forum post that translates a recent issue of Famitsu for the new spinoff of the Ace Attorney series; the game info is not that exciting but what is the development information that follows the article that explains why the spinoff (score!). I have found a forum post where someone has made their translation of the text, but obviously that may or may not be a reliable source. Since I doubt there will necessarily be a english-based interview, what can I do to include the translation or something comparable for the article? --MASEM 23:01, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
- I had a look and... that is not Japanese. The magazine the poster bought was the Chinese version of Famitsu, so you would need a Chinese translator. I can say the forum poster has the rough gist of the text correct. You can simply use the Chinese source as is, as Wikipedia allows foreign sources if no English equivalent is available (again provided they are reliable, which in this case Famitsu Asian version passes) — WP:VUE. Personally I find the situation of quoting foreign magazines is the same as that of any English magazine. Jappalang (talk) 02:51, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
I just redirected this to Campaign (role-playing games). Surprised there wasn't an article on it - we have random map and death match. The current redirect doesn't really discuss as well as possible - anyone interested in creating an article? dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 00:43, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
- Hmm, I didn't realize that was exclusively an RPG thing. When I think of "campaign", I actually think about RTSs and the single player mode. You usually play a "campaign" of several levels linked in some kind of storyline. Just my 2 cents. Randomran (talk) 01:10, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
- Yeah, that's my point. I was surprised there was nothing on it, so I redirected it to the most relevant thing at Campaign (it's mentioned there, but no article) for now. dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 01:19, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
- That page itself can probably be simply renamed to Campaign (gaming) since there's not much there that seems that specific to RPGs. I've never actually heard the term "campaign" used in an RPG (sidequest, or storyline seem more relevant), but they've been used in strategy games forever. -- Prod (Talk) 02:27, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
- Yeah, that's my point. I was surprised there was nothing on it, so I redirected it to the most relevant thing at Campaign (it's mentioned there, but no article) for now. dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 01:19, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
- "Campaign" has been used in Dungeons and Dragons since the 1970s to describe the adventures played. It is more widely used there than in computer games (until the time table top gaming is eventually overwhelmed by computer stuff). They have not been in strategy games "forever" since strategy board games tend to be completed in single sittings. Jappalang (talk) 02:56, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
- I second the proposal to rename back to campaign (gaming)... and to throw in a token mention for strategy games. If you can't figure out what to put in that section, just attach a one-liner like "Strategy games often involve an extensive single-player campaign" and tag it with a request for expansion. People love requests for expansion! Randomran (talk) 14:13, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
Music and party video games
I have noticed that the genre of Music and party video games has yet to be given an article. This is an problem because many of the games we have under the Music genre are actually Music and party.
Example: Guitar Hero 3 and Guitar Hero Aerosmith
King Rock Go 'Skins! 14:34, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
- Hmm. I was just looking at this article too. I've never heard the term "music and party". I've more commonly heard these all described as "rhythm games" anyway. I think most of the research supports that. Randomran (talk) 14:42, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
- Regardless of it being "music" or "rhythm", that genre and "party" genre are two very distinct genres that should not be mixed. There are music games that aren't party games, party games that aren't music, so trying to combine the two is not a clean approach. There's no problem listing both genres in the game article, but making a new genre that combines them is a bit OR-ish as well. --MASEM 14:48, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
Fixing a bad + old = bold rename: music video game and rhythm video game
From what I can tell... a good three and a half years ago, someone moved the rhythm video game article to music video game with no research and no real consensus. See this old discussion on the music video games talk page where the guy merged basically by himself.
The article has a pretty lousy focus, involving any game where the player makes noise -- like SimTunes and Otocky. My intuition is that this should be a "Rhythm video game" article that focuses on Guitar Hero and DDR.
Fast forward...
On the music video game talk page, someone said the "music video game" name is based totally on the intuition of the editors. They the "music game" genre is still emerging, and there are far more references out there for "rhythm game". This is probably a violation of WP:no original research.
But because this has been the status quo for more than 3 years I don't want to do anything bold without first getting more feedback. I think this should be renamed back to "rhythm video game" with the appropriate focus. But really, I'm all for anything that is compatible with what all the references out there say.
Please, please check in at music video game and offer your two cents. Randomran (talk) 14:39, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2008 needs some outside opinions
The list of characters was in prose, but was reverted back to a list without consensus and there's been very little discussion about it (except the few regular editors of the article). See the talk page for discussion. RobJ1981 (talk) 17:32, 13 April 2008 (UTC)