Talk:Magic: The Gathering/GA3

GA Review

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Are those four the only awards that the game has received? I would have thought that there were more. Anyway, I don't know if "History" is the best section to place those. I think a new "Reception" section should probably be created; it doesn't look like the article yet has any reviews, etc. about the game, as well as how popular the game is, so that should all go in there.
I think the information in the Criticism section should be merged into other parts of the article, outside of a "Criticism" section, which is an inherently biased section title. Please see WP:CRITS for more information. I'm not exactly sure where this information would fit, but I think that a lot of it could go under the Reception section that I suggested above.
Maybe the text in Patent should be a part of the short History section? I think it would be more appropriate in there (merge the text together, dumping the Patent section title), since it fits in well with the game's history, and there isn't that much information in both History and Patent.
I don't think that [1] can be considered a reliable source, unless you can prove otherwise, of course.

That's all for now. I'll be putting this article on hold for at least a week; it'll be open for a longer period of time if editors are actively working on the article. Gary King (talk) 20:13, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think I have covered these issues except the first one. The criticism section has been moved into gameplay and artwork as they go rather well into these sections. The patent has also been moved to the history section although the section is a bit long now, with no sensible subsections in sight. And finally the rpg.net source was indeed not very reliable. Some info was in the article which does not match Wizards own statements about the early development of Magic. Provided better reference and rewrote parts of history accordingly.

Regarding the first part: I found a few more awards and put those into the awards section. I also changed this subsection to be an independant section of its own. Indeed this section doesn't make that much sense as a part of the history section. I'm not so sure right now how to go about this "Reception" section business, though. There was one comment about role-player being early enthusiastic fans of the game. Also the awards would fit in perfectly. But I'm not so sure about what else should go in. Have you any examples how such a section should look like? I could find a comparable section only in the article about Warhammer 40,000, but I'm not so sure that it would really improve the Magic article to have such a section. The section is more about the company growth than reception anyway. Regards and thanks for the review so far, OdinFK (talk) 08:53, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There should be mention of spin-offs of the game, especially the video games, in a section titled something like "Legacy". Reception and Awards could probably go in that section, too, since it would essentially be a section detailing how the world reacted to the game. Reviews can go in there, sales numbers, spin-off products that were inspired by the game, etc. I have found some good offline articles that were written in the 1990s, so the article can have a more contemporary point-of-view; most of these are reviews, which is great. Do you have access to offline databases? If not, then you could send me an email by going to my user page and then clicking the Email this User link; your email doesn't need to have any text, since I just need YOUR email so I can send you these articles. There are probably a dozen or so that I would send you; most only mention Magic briefly, which is why there are so many, but they have some really great content. Gary King (talk) 18:42, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't like "Legacy" as a title. Sounds like a piece of pathos about some dead person to me. Also I find it rather unspecific. Reception is a good section title in my opinion. If I can get my hands on some sources for that I would gladly add it. Awards can go in there, too. On the other hand I'm not so keen on citing several magazines commenting on the release of Magic. I know that this is done in articles on video games all the time, but I don't think it would be such a great idea in the case of Magic as authoritative sources in the boardgame world are scarce as far as I know. Regarding sales: WotC did not publish data on sales after The Dark and everything that exists beyond that is speculation. For the early expansions the things that could be said are not that specific either. "Arabian Nights had a print run of 5,000,000 and sold out quickly" is too specific in the first half and too vague in the second.

While I don't agree totally on everything you would like to see in the article right now, I would definitely like to have access to the sources you mention. Great sources are always appreciated. I'm away over the weekend, so you will probably not receive a response until monday evening. Also after wednesday I'll be gone for a month, so we should be done then one way or the other. Thanks again, OdinFK (talk) 17:22, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Okay I emailed you some articles that might be useful. There wasn't as many good articles as I initially thought there would be; most are written about Magic players and how they can make so much money at tournaments. I sent you two emails; the first should contain 10 articles, and the second should contain 2. Regarding Magic video games, I now see that Magic: The Gathering video games already exists, so you don't need to go too indepth on them; but I'm still interested in at least seeing some mention of them in this article, especially since at least some of the games are published by Wizards of the Coast, and they are all, or mostly, official licenses of the game. Gary King (talk) 18:21, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've added a section on reception and a subsection on spin-offs. Both cannot be considered utterly comprehensive, but the article is very long for WP standards anyway and I included everything which I deemed to be of major importance. Do you still miss anything or have any suggestions for improvement?

Also regarding improvements: When this is done (and hopefully M:TG is a GA then) can you give a few suggestions how to improve this article further? I don't want to consume too much of your time, but the goal of the Wikiproject MtG is to get this article to FA. As you are already in the matter I would be very grateful if you could give a few hints which are a bit more specific than the general FA requirements. OdinFK (talk) 18:03, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The lead should be expanded to better summarize the entire article; it is a bit too short for an article of this size. The sections should be organized better. Reception probably belongs at the end, since it's best to get the reader familiar with the game before telling them what a great success it has been. Therefore, Storyline should be somewhere near the top, perhaps even before Gameplay because that section is so long. The article doesn't flow very well; there are too many short paragraphs, so they seem very disconnected from each other. Gary King (talk) 18:51, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Uhm. I'm confused now. Is that perspective towards FA or things you think should still be done for GA? OdinFK (talk) 22:42, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'll just leave that for you to do for FA. I'll promote the article to GA now. Gary King (talk) 01:12, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]