Talk:Ryzom

Stuff I think is appropriately dealt with moved to /Archive 1. Ketil (talk) 12:03, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Work needed

This article needs work. I'll admit that I would have sent it through AfD if I hadn't looked for references first. My suggestions:

• Remove references to forums, blogs, and press releases. They're unreliable sources and we can't write an encyclopedia around them.
• Remove the People's Choice Award mention. Popular vote awards don't matter; awards given by judges at reliable publications are what we're looking for.
• Add references from reliable, third-party published sources. Take a look at the WikiProject Video games guide to sources or the WPVG custom Google search for an idea of sources that we consider reliable (but, again, ignore forums, blogs, and press releases on those sites). There's a review at IGN and GameSpot for starters.

I'll see if I can find time to implement some of these changes but I'm pretty busy at the moment. Wyatt Riot (talk) 13:33, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for chiming in! No quarrel with your points, and I'll try to dig up better resources substantiating the contents. That said, I think the priority is getting an accurate and informative page up, especially as it is hard to find information about how the game works. I'd encourage players to add material describing gameplay etc, even if they don't have a direct RS to back it up. Ketil (talk) 07:30, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Okay - worked the page a bit, I hope it's an improvement. Ketil (talk) 08:35, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

I'll have to disagree with the priorities on this article. First and foremost is meeting WP:V. Everything in this article should be attributed to reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, and if material can't be referenced then it should be removed. This protects the article from deletion for not meeting WP:WEB (which, in its current state, it does not) but it also keeps the article from violating WP:GAMEGUIDE. The addition of unsourced "facts" about games only lead to articles detailing strategies for beating specific bosses, rival guild spamming, and discussion of who's the best player on each server, and that's not the encyclopedia that we're working to build. The work we're doing here is documenting what reliable, independent sources say is important about this game, not what we think is important. Wyatt Riot (talk) 14:12, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Let's at least agree to aim for an encyclopedic, npov, facts-oriented, and general page, that gives somebody who doesn't know Ryzom a succinct, clear and correct overview of the game. At least, that's what I visit Wikipedia for. I'll work on referencing sources, but the problems with this is that:

1. sources are often old, and thus sourced claims will often be misleading as to the current status of the game. Especially if we eschew blogs and forums in favor of more "reputable" sources.
2. good sources are difficult to find, I'd rather spend my time on improving the contents, and postpone the bookkeeping

So although you and others are of course free to delete my work for bureaucratic reasons, may I ask that you discuss it here first? And please also insert appropriate templates (citation needed etc). I'm investing my time here, and it's very discouraging when I have work reverted without having a chance to argue my case or rectify any issues. (This has driven me away from WP pages before, and those pages are still left confusing and misleading because of it). Ketil (talk) 07:16, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

One thing, you're saying this does not meet WP:WEB, which I understand means the subject is not "notable". If so, I don't see there's anything we can do about it, is there? Or are you just saying that we need better references to make the notability obviously so? Ketil (talk) 07:26, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

After rereading this, I think I've come across as a bit of a dick, and that certainly wasn't intended. It's just seen too many articles become a shitstorm of terribleness due to indiscriminate addition of random "facts". Cheers! Wyatt Riot (talk) 14:16, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

I guess I should say that I personally disagree with many of the official WP policies, especially when they are used generally and non-constructively to hamper article improvement. I think you are too hard on yourself here, but please be more specific: which paragraphs are failing to meet which policies and how? If you read e.g. WP:V (beyond the dumb intro), sources are required for material likely to be challenged. So, please highlight anything you find inaccurate, misleading, or wrong, and I'll do my best to substantiate it. Or even better, please contribute to the article itself, of course. Ketil (talk) 07:45, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I brought up WP:WEB because the article isn't referenced from any sources which we find reliable, and that's problematic. WP:V is a "threshold for inclusion" on Wikipedia, not just a suggestion, and this page could be deleted with little to no warning (or simply gutted back to stub status) unless proper references are included. Ideally, every statement we make about the game should be based on and cited to a reliable, third-party published source. In practice, this doesn't always have to happen, but such unreferenced passages could be removed by anyone for any reason, and you (or I) would have no recourse to add the material again unless we add a proper citation. (Personally, if the passage isn't too self serving, I'm generally willing to let it stand or I'll just throw in a {{fact}} tag. But if there's an unreferenced claim about how the subject was the first example of X or was more successful than Y, then I'll remove the passage in a second. The chance of deletion increases the longer the passage becomes, and entirely unreferenced sections will almost certainly be deleted outright eventually.) Allowing unreferenced and poorly-referenced statements to stand may seem okay for the time being, but in time it becomes a nightmare when you push to improve the article. You'll realize eventually that there are huge gaps in citations, so you either cite or delete, leading to hours of additional labor to find references or you're left with an article with obvious flow issues after deletion. Plus, unreferenced and poorly-referenced paragraphs tend to accrete, just as spam links do in an External links section, and that accretion only makes it more likely that outright deletion will occur in the future. I'd much rather see it built properly right now than to fix it later.

I understand your concern about the lack of current references, and it's a problem. One way around this, at least one that fits within our policies and guidelines, is using primary (self-published) sources to fill in the gaps. In the case of a game, patch notes work well. To give a hypothetical example, we could reference a statement from a reliable source about how X feature is outstanding in this game, if only Y would be adjusted, and then state that the publisher pledged to resolve issues with Y and reference that to their patch notes. It helps an article stay as current as possible.

Now, some specific issues. The "Storyline development" through "Non-playable races" are sections are entirely unreferenced. I could be wrong here, but I'd imagine much of that content has remained the same since the game began, so we can probably use the older references. The "Game Mechanics" section is also unreferenced. Now if Ryzom is like any other game I've played, things like that get updated fairly frequently, meaning we'd probably have to resort to the old-source-plus-patch-notes method until current sources can be found. The "Availability and subscription model" and "Free software" sections should be fairly easy to source. The "Reception and Awards" section has to go until the game receives a proper, non-popular-vote award. Now the "History" and "Major content updates" will be the problem. They'll have to be gleaned from the older sources and patch notes, but there will probably be gaps. There are quite a few forum links, so try to find out where the forum users got their information, and maybe that source can be used instead. And if worse comes to worse, throw in a {{fact}} tag and hope that someone comes along to add a source. Maintenance tags like that will draw editors to the article.

I'll try to find some time to work on the article myself, but time is something I don't have much of it the moment. :( Cheers! Wyatt Riot (talk) 14:54, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I think this comment is a bit dated now - can I move it to archives, and if you still think this is relevant, we start a new section on it? Ketil (talk) 08:49, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Quite honestly, I don't think any of it has changed. The entire article is still backed up by poor quality sources and little to nothing is attributable to an actual reliable source. Not only is there still mention of a user award, but there are additional user review ratings. Ultimately, we don't care what unreliable sources like or dislike about this game, or what ratings or awards users give. Articles need to be based on published journalism—with a preference for game journalism in this situation, and the WikiProject Video games guide to sources is the best place to start as far as that goes—even if that journalism is old. Wyatt Riot (talk) 12:48, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Well - good thing I asked first, then. Thanks for summing up. Ketil (talk) 07:02, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Okay, looking things over, here is my take on the points you raised:

1. references to forums, blogs, press releases. These are used as self-published sources on themselves, and are okay, according to wp policy. It is, as far as I can tell, perfectly all right to cite a statement by some PR person at Nevrax on the release of some extension. I don't think we reference any blogs.

2. I've removed the user ratings like you requested.

3. There are those references to "reliable" sources that I could find, including LWN, Joystiq, GameZone, GameSpot, and Metacritic.. From my interpretation, stuff about gameplay etc. doesn't need any citation, but I left in the Joystiq ref anyway, since it's "reliable". I've kept refs to reviews on MMORPG since those are the only reviews that deal with the current game, they appear fairly objective, and I feel it's better to leave them in. I've left out IGN, since almost every gripe they had has since been corrected, and it's not very relevant in 2011.

The remaining controversy as I see it is whether we should cite MMORPG ("unreliable") on stuff that's unlikely to be challenged, e.g. the tutorial area, or just leave it uncited. I'm happy either way. Ketil (talk) 14:16, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

One thing to consider is that we're currently reporting some pretty negative details—placing blame for bankruptcies, saying that a company released a poor-quality product, and so on—as fact, even though such claims are only backed up by press releases and forum posts. If someone were to remove the passages for this or any other reason—and I'll be honest here, I've considered it several times—the onus would be on you (or anyone else who wants to restore the material) to provide better references. I just want you to understand this going in.

Agreed, the business related stuff might be controversial, and should have better sources.

Discussion of gameplay, as you said, should be fine unless it approaches WP:GAMEGUIDE-material or is overly praiseworthy of the game. Of course, the same thing goes as above: anyone can remove the section as doubtful, unreferenced material, and it's up to you to provide the references.

Leaving out IGN should be fine, though as responsible editors we may want to consider including it per WP:DUE. If one of the few reliable sources we've been able to turn up considers this a horrible game, that's really something that should be mentioned. Of course, we can always follow it up with a "the publisher patched such-and-such feature" statement to provide some measure of rebuttal.

I've included one very positive review and one very negative. IGN was relatively positive (7.5), but most of the content is outdated.

Including unreliable references is a bad idea, just as bad as including "my brother says this game is awesome" statements. Both are unreliable, so why include one but not the other? Wyatt Riot (talk) 23:28, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Due to the nature of the statements, I'd say. The reviews in question don't make unqualified judgements like that, but go into some descriptive detail, and they are (or should be) used as a reference to those details, not for arbitrary opinion. Ketil (talk) 08:06, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

That's the problem. They're detailed reviews, but they're from someone who appears unqualified to review the game in any capacity. You or I could easily write our own reviews and then include them in the article while getting paid by MMORPG.com at the same time. That's exactly the kind of sourcing we want to avoid. Wyatt Riot (talk) 11:14, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Contributions needed

Although the section above lists a bunch of stuff on the technical side, I'm mostly concerned with content at this point. Some things I'd like to see:

• more stuff on the mainland. I've not gotten there yet, could we perhaps have a section on each of the four homins' capitals?
• info on governance (e.g. matis nobles, and senates, awakened etc), and especially how PCs affect the world.
• more stuff on events. All info I can find is very in-character, which makes it hard to understand how this works.
• the guild system, including guild halls and outposts. guild wars?
• number of players? Anybody have an idea?
• screen shots - is this acceptable to upload to WP/WM?
• and the level cap for non-paying players - I thought it was hundred-something, but I can't for the life of me find any info on it. Help?

Ketil (talk) 08:41, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Okay, level cap is 125 (pretty high, IMO, I'm still 20ish after a week), somebody claims 5K players in 2010, but I don't know who the source is. Ketil (talk) 12:06, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Another thing I'd like to see is comparisons to similar games. This is the only MMORPG I've played, so I don't know how unique (or "notable") the various aspects (weather and seasons, foraging and crafting, guilds and outpost wars etc). It seems Ryzom has a bunch of novel and advanced concepts, but I can't really tell. Ketil (talk) 09:27, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

WP:VG assessment

For the time being, I am going to keep this at Start-Class, Low-importance. There are a few issues which need to be addressed:

• Is there Reception information on the game? It seems like there is undue weight placed on the Gameplay as opposed to anything else.
• References are missing for most of the Gameplay sections. Normally, a how-to guide or something online should suffice to source most of the gameplay information.

Suffers from old review syndrome - most stuff I find is shallow and aged. Old reviews could go under reception, some critique about it being unfinished and unpopular. Ketil (talk) 11:50, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

According to what I find of WP guidelines, stuff like this is not likely to be challenged (WP:V), as it is subject plot and subject specific common knowledge (WP:When to cite), and causes WP:Citation clutter. Unless Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games has a more rigid policy than the rest of WP (does it?), this shouldn't really need citations. Ketil (talk) 08:37, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

• Avoid using "he or she" in your writing. A good workaround for that is to switch to a plural noun so that the plural pronoun "they" can be used.
• Avoid using the 2nd person "you" and replace with the appropriate 3rd person.

he or she occurs once, so I kept it. Removed the you. Ketil (talk) 11:50, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

• I tend to be a little strict on paragraph lengths, but I think the lead could be shortened to two paragraphs, given the article's current size.

Reworked the intro. Better now? Ketil (talk) 11:50, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

• The layout of the "Game world" section seems fairly choppy, and I don't think the short subsections are helping very much, what I would try to do would be to logically separate each gameplay element by paragraph (i.e. one on "beginning play", one on storyline, one on gameplay environment, etc.) and lose most of the sections.

Done - I hope. Ketil (talk) 06:42, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

• When possible, try and write in full paragraphs, preferably somewhere between 4 and 8 sentences in length. Short, choppy paragraphing looks unprofessional and unappealing to readers.
• The "Major content updates" section could be better written in prose than a list.

Those are my suggestions. If you have any other questions, drop a line, and I'll be happy to look at it again. –MuZemike 05:50, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

People

For reference, "marjo" is the Community Liason at Nevrax:

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/sagaryzom/tech_info.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ketil (talk • contribs) 06:59, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Providing a citation.

Please bear with me, I'm extremely new to editing Wikipedia. That's why I'm placing this on the Talk page, rather than in the main article, so more experienced editors can (a) ensure it's up to standards, and (b) format it correctly.

All that aside, there is a [Citation Needed] tag regarding the action creation system in the main Gameplay section. I can't get a link direction to the appropriate section, but section "[5e] Building Actions" of this page https://forums.ryzom.com/showthread.php?t=34761 gives a good detailed description of the process. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.248.87.116 (talk) 08:05, 19 February 2019 (UTC)