Talk:SpellForce 3/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Nomader (talk · contribs) 19:50, 12 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I plan on completing this review, I'll be starting likely tomorrow or the next day. Nomader (talk) 19:50, 12 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

Really well done overall, on hold until a few remaining issues are addressed.

It is reasonably well written.
a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
Still working on this section. I've made specific notes below.
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism):
One website flagged on the copypvio detector, but obvious that it's a copy from Wikipedia and not the other way around.
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects): b (focused):
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias:
It is stable.
No edit wars, etc.:
It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.
a (images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
I'm usually wary of having an article with two non-free screenshots in it, but you do have a rationale that makes sense for the reception one (which specifically highlights they dynamic lighting which is mentioned in that section). I lean towards the side of it being okay to keep in for that reason, but I could see an argument to the contrary. For now, I won't have it hold up the nom.
Overall:
Pass/Fail:
Have a bunch of prose edits which I've listed below here to do and I'm still going to make a pass at the plot section today. For now, it's on hold but really great work! Nomader (talk) 15:17, 13 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Updating from hold to pass, well done. Nomader (talk) 14:28, 17 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm starting this now, but I may be adding to it later tonight as well. General edits are below followed by criteria checklist.

The character creation image seems completely unneeded. Per NFCCP#8, there's no way that the screenshot is needed.
The source for the first sentence of gameplay describes it as "the RPG section" and the "skirmish section", not campaign. Any chance you could add a different source to back the naming?
The Eurogamer source describes it as "3 of 6 talent trees", but the prose says 4 trees. Did it get updated?
Is there a source for the five attributes?
Experience should be explained, or at a minimum wikilinked to Experience point.
The gry-online piece does not seem to verify the "spells, auras, and passive" section unless I missed it somehow because Google Translate stinks.
The plot section needs to be sourced. You can use the game itself if sources don't talk about the plot in detail (see Halo 3 for an example here)

I'm still going through but that's all I've had time for for now, so far. Gotta get back to real life work. I'll finish up the review tonight/tomorrow. Nomader (talk) 20:08, 12 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks so very much for starting this, I had almost lost hope that someone would review it. I'll check your notes tomorrow and make the necessary fixes. Regards So Why 20:25, 12 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Going to be a tomorrow during the day thing instead. And no worries! You should never have to wait that long. Nomader (talk) 04:01, 13 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

No worries. I waited two months, I can wait another two days. Fixes so far based on your list:

The character creation image seems completely unneeded. Per NFCCP#8, there's no way that the screenshot is needed.

The source for the first sentence of gameplay describes it as "the RPG section" and the "skirmish section", not campaign. Any chance you could add a different source to back the naming?

Added another soruce (already in the article)

Perfect, thanks! Nomader (talk) 14:34, 13 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Eurogamer source describes it as "3 of 6 talent trees", but the prose says 4 trees. Did it get updated?

The player can choose three different skill trees when starting but all player characters possess the "Leadership" skill tree (see here), so it's three skill trees you choose plus one that all characters have. I tried to clarify this.

Think that works. Nomader (talk) 14:34, 13 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a source for the five attributes?

Just the game itself which I added to the article. Is this sufficient?

I think that's fine for now. Obviously prefer to do that as little as possible but it's fine in a pinch. Nomader (talk) 14:34, 13 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Experience should be explained, or at a minimum wikilinked to Experience point.

The gry-online piece does not seem to verify the "spells, auras, and passive" section unless I missed it somehow because Google Translate stinks.

The GTranslate for this text is spells, passive modifiers or special battle orders ([1]), not sure how exact this translation is. Unfortunately, I cannot find any English source for this but I could (additionally) source it to the game itself

Hrm, it's probably just a translation change (different wording in a different language). Keep that ref but add one from the game itself too. Nomader (talk) 14:34, 13 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The plot section needs to be sourced. You can use the game itself if sources don't talk about the plot in detail (see Halo 3 for an example here)

Now I'm confused... I tried to follow other RTS examples like Age of Empires II which also is a FA and has no sources for the plot and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Writing about fiction#Sourcing and quotations explicitly says "The plot summary for a work, on a page about that work, does not need to be sourced with in-line citations, as it is generally assumed that the work itself is the primary source for the plot summary."

Really interesting. It looks like Age of Empires II does it that way while Halo 3 and Final Fantasy X do plot citations. But for the purposes of a GAN, I think you're just fine-- thanks for flagging me on the policy here! Nomader (talk) 14:34, 13 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Regards So Why 07:57, 13 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Responded to your comments above. Doing the full review in a sec here. Nomader (talk) 14:34, 13 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Lead

There's a sentence in here that's a bit confusing: "SpellForce 3 is the third full and the ninth overall release in the SpellForce video game series and the first entry in the series since 2014's SpellForce 2: Demons of the Past, itself only an expansion to 2006's SpellForce 2: Shadow Wars (the last full entry in the series)." This needs to be changed a bit because I had to read it a few times to really get it-- but I'm kind of flummoxed at how to reword. I'll think overnight about it.
"The plot serves as a prequel to the first game, the 2003 SpellForce: The Order of Dawn, depicting the events that lead to the creation of The Circle of mages whose actions were the basis for the first game's story." should be changed a bit to: "The plot serves as a prequel to the first game, SpellForce: The Order of Dawn, depicting events that lead to the creation of The Circle of mages whose actions were the basis for Order of Dawn." Or something along those lines. Also here-- is it "The Circle" or "The Circle of Mages"? That capitalization seems off to me.
Say "construct" buildings instead of "build buildings"
Say "to create" instead of "to build" (repeating words in the sentence)
The last sentence of the second paragraph of the lead is a run-on sentence. Should be split in two and

Gameplay

I think there's one main problem with this section: it mentions things like "real-time strategy mode" and some other kind of mode, but having never played the game, I understand the component parts but not what it is as a whole. The first paragraph should talk about the RTS vs. RPG section a bit and how the game actually works in a summary style. I've added prose corrections below, but take a crack at adding that too.
Not necessarily a fan of the semi-colon usage here. I'd make it a period and a new sentence instead.
I'd say "Both modes" instead of "both the campaign mode and the skirmish mode" here as it'll cut down a little bit on the reptition.
I'd cut down a little bit the last sentence of the first paragraph. Maybe instead: "Skirmish mode also allows the player to share the responsibilities of managing a single race with other people." Try it out and see if it works-- you can add the list in at the end if it does but I think it gets a bit game guidey if we go too far into it there.
"In the campaign mode, players can, after a short tutorial playing another character, create their own character, choosing between male and female as well as several body, hair and color styles." Change it to something like: "Players can create their own character in the campaign mode, and are able to customize their gender and appearance."
"They can also choose which skills they want to pursue, allowing them to pick three different skill trees, depending on the chosen fighting style (melee, ranged, magic etc.)" should be changed to something like: "Characters can use three different skill trees that depend on their fighting style." -- I think the sentence runs on a little too long here and could be cut a bit, but if you don't make the change then I'm still okay with it.
What does the leadership skill tree do? Is there a reason they all have it?
Thus should have a comma after it.
Do you have a source for the world map sentence?
Ditto for the sentence afterwards.
Same for teleportation.
Writing about it here, the whole godstones section seems super-duper detailed. Is it a necessary detail to understand the gameplay of the game?

Plot

Dwarfs vs Dwarves "-- check the nomenclature here. "Dwarfs" is what Disney always used while "Dwarves is usually what it is in fantasy settings like Lord of the Rings.
The plot section overall needs to be cleaned up-- it's very "in-universe" heavy and dense. I'm going to be going through later today and making specific copyedit suggestions for the section that are unrelated to the sourcing I mentioned before.

Development

The passive voice of the "Although" sentence feels really awkward to me. Maybe restructure it to: SpellForce 3 was the first game from Grimlore Games, although the studio consisted of a number of experienced programmers, designers and graphic artists, who worked on titles like The Settlers II, Knights and Merchants: The Shattered Kingdom and SpellForce 2.[14]

"While THQ Nordic announced in May 2016 that SpellForce 3 will be released in 2016, the release date was later changed to 7 December 2017, a year later than originally announced." Uses two tenses. Should say instead: "While THQ Nordic announced that Spellforce 3 would be released in 2016, the release date was later changed to 7 December 2017, a year later than originally planned."

Reception

Watch out for weasel words -- critics should be defined if it's only one person saying it instead of "some people say" kinds of notes.

"Upon release, customers and critics alike criticized the number of bugs still left in the final release." Uses release twice in one sentence. Instead try: "Upon release, customers and critics alike criticized the number of bugs in the game."
Instead of "at one time" say "at one point"-- one time is a bit longer term and you're really referring to one day here.
"Within 14 days of release, 21 patches had been released." Again reusing a word here-- I'd suggest: "Within 14 days of release, 21 patches had been issued by Grimlore Games." Wikilink to the patches article as well too.
Get rid of all of the "the"s in the following part: "the settings and the lighting effects".
Get rid of "Which they considered more realistic than SpellForce 2"-- don't think that's a huge claim and the Wild Hunt comparison is more apt.
Instead of "some critics bemoaned", say "GameSpot" -- you only use one source there.
"The soundtrack of SpellForce 3 was considered to fit well and helped with setting the game's atmosphere." To replace the first sentence of the soundtrack section.
"Help" to "helped" in the next sentence.
"With some considering" -- use a specific reviewer here instead of just saying "some people".
"With some considering the voice actors" ..... "and that at least one voice actor". With some should be defined as a reviewer or two. At least one voice actor-- should be defined as well (if it is in the review).
"PC Gamer for example" remove "For example"
"Others however considered" Remove "others" and say who said it.
"Reviewers also noted" Say who noted.
"The combination".... I'm much more okay with not defining the reviewers in this section as you're sourcing them to a bunch of different reviews.
"Others expressed surprise" -- define the reviewer here.
"likening to a beta" -- should be "likening it to a beta"

@Nomader: Thanks for the review so far, I made all the changes. Most of the wording comes from the fact that I had more sources before Czar advised me to cull a number of those (see the talk page's "Pre-GAN" section).

As for "dwarves" vs. "dwarfs", I was actually using "dwarfs" because that's how Terry Pratchett used to write it. But the game uses the "dwarves" version so I changed it. Regards So Why 19:01, 13 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Nomader: Lead fixes done. I split the first sentence you mentioned in two, that should take care of it. Unfortunately, my native language favors long sentences with multiple clauses and subclauses, so sometimes I write English sentences that are longer than a native speaker might. Eagerly awaiting what else I can fix.

Regards So Why 19:44, 14 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@SoWhy: We're definitely getting there. Added some notes for the gameplay section. Nomader (talk) 20:31, 14 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Done

Regards So Why 13:52, 15 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@SoWhy: Ah we're getting so close! I think it's a huge improvement, but with the gameplay section, I'd like one last edit-- you talk about the game how it's a role-playing RTS hybrid, but what's the point of a level? What's the goal of this construction and stuff? Specifically-- what are you trying to do with the gameplay? Nomader (talk) 14:59, 15 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm...I'll have a look at it again tomorrow with fresh eyes. I'm confident I can whip something up once I had some sleep (living at UTC+2). Regards So Why 20:27, 15 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Nomader: Thanks again for all your suggestions. I tried to clarify the section some more but I might need some more details on what to improve. Regards So Why 09:08, 16 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@SoWhy: Hey SoWhy, I think I was looking at this way too late and too granular. I re-read the section and it works great now with the new first paragraph. I don't have any other concerns here-- terrific work and thanks for being so responsive. I have a few more notes just about the plot section that I've put below.

"Noria, alongside his companions – siblings Anselm and Gwen and young Betrand – manages to find Isamo about to execute his child, who was trying to stop their father." Pronoun usage here is a tiny bit confusing. Is this referring to Isamo's child or Noria's child? Think it should be clarified a little bit here-- right now, I'm not sure who's father or who's child it is.
After you fix this one issue, I'll approve it as a GA! Nomader (talk) 19:22, 16 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Well, Tahar (Isamo's child) can be both male and female, so I was using "they" for it. Hence the confusion. I took your suggestion to make the whole paragraph more concise. I hope it's clear now. Regards So Why 19:36, 16 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Perfect. I added "an action" and a comma to one paragraph of the plot (diff here: [2]). There's one more "their" in the last paragraph of the plot section's first sentence which is unclear, but I'm going to go ahead and pass this article now with the expectation that you'll fix the one edit as you've done so well with the others. Absolutely phenomenal work, SoWhy. Nomader (talk) 14:24, 17 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]