Wikipedia:Peer review/Against the Giants/archive1

Against the Giants

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch peer review

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because first of all, I have actually edited this article, and plan to do so again. ;) These modules were the first ever produced by TSR for Dungeons & Dragons and have achieved an iconic status. If Expedition to the Barrier Peaks and (quite possibly) Ravenloft can make FA, then I know this one can too. What do you think we can to do take it there?

Thanks, BOZ (talk) 02:19, 4 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Finetooth comments: This seems to cover the subject pretty well. I found the "Reception" section especially interesting; the reference to Colbert is a nice touch. I have a few suggestions, mostly minor, some of which might make the article a bit more transparent to readers who have not played these games.

Lead

Would it be helpful to say where the games were published as well as when?

TSR was based on Lake Geneva, Wisconsin - would it help to say that in the lead though? BOZ (talk) 00:51, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure. My thinking was that readers might want to know if it had a U.S. origin or maybe a British origin or something else. Maybe it would only clutter the lead. Could it be added smoothly to the "Publication history"?

Possibly - I'd have to give that some thought. :) BOZ (talk) 02:00, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'd think about unlinking "fantasy" in the first sentence to break up the "link bump" sequence. It's a pretty common word.
I don't think anything should be bolded in the lead except the repeat of the title in the first line.
"They earned a 9/10 overall rating from White Dwarf magazine in 1978, with the reviewer noting that it was impressive that Gary Gygax found the time to write them while also working on the AD&D rulebooks." - "With" doesn't make a good conjunction. Suggestion: "In 1978, they earned a 9/10 overall rating from a White Dwarf magazine reviewer, who was impressed that Gary Gygax found time to write them while also working on the AD&D rulebooks."
"Gary Gygax found the time to write them while also working on the AD&D rulebooks." - Spell out as well as abbreviate "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) rulebooks"?
"White Dwarf also reviewed the re-released G module series in 1982, giving it a 10 out of 10." - If "G module series" means the three modules, perhaps the third sentence of the lead should include the abbreviation, thus: "All of these modules (the G module series) were produced for use... ".
"which consisted of the three modules combined together with the four subsequent modules... " - Delete "together"?
"which consisted of the three modules combined together with the four subsequent modules in the GDQ series" - What does GDQ stand for?

Plot summary

The "citation needed" tag should be addressed.

That will be either cited or removed by the time we go to FAC. :) BOZ (talk) 00:51, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"The Chief's treasure room contains a map of the glacial rift... " - Lowercase "chief".
"The second level is also made of obsidian rocks... " - Wikilink obsidian?
"This module is twice as long as the previous two: sixteen pages instead of eight." - Would it be helpful to briefly explain the meaning of "pages" in this context?

Not sure what you mean. The significance of the number of pages? Just that it was double in size compared to the previous two, I guess. BOZ (talk) 00:51, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Books have pages, but a module, as I understand it, is a piece of software. Are the individual screen displays called "pages"? I'm not sure what a "page" of a computer game refers to. Finetooth (talk) 02:03, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, a D&D module for the pen and paper game is a book - thus the significance of the number of pages. :) BOZ (talk) 02:00, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Reception

"Turnbull was impressed that Gary Gygax was able to find time to write them while also creating AD&D's rules" - Probably "Gygax" is sufficient since his full name appears in the lead and again later.
"The maps did not contain a scale, which he assumed was 10 feet per square." - Convert to metric as well?

It's weird that Turnbull is British, but he assumed in feet rather than metres. :) (Of course, the game has never been converted to meters, as I understand it.) BOZ (talk) 00:51, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"One of the traps in the first module is unclear on what triggers it." - Suggestion: "It is unclear what triggers one of the traps in the first module."
"Turnbull's most major criticism was that the adventure was aimed at parties of too high a level. Summing up, he said "No DM should be without them, for even if he never gets a chance to run them, they are a source of much excellent design quality." - You can't add an explanation to the quote itself, but would it be helpful a bit earlier to add the abbreviation after "dungeon master"? I'm assuming that's what DM refers to.
I notice that in the Colbert quote, the words "frost giant", "fire giant", and "storm giant" are lower-cased, which is how I would write them since they are generic rather than formal titles. I wondered about the initial capital letters on similar words like "Jarl" in "There are also polar bears; pets of the Jarl. After defeating the Jarl... ". I think these should be lower-case (jarl) except when part of someone's formal name; e.g., Jarl Grugnar. There might be a few more of these that I missed.

General

I usually find plot summaries to be the least interesting parts of articles that include them. I find that true of this article. The further I went, the more interesting the article got. "Critical reception" was the most interesting. I don't know if there's a cure for this, but I think the plot summaries could be shorter, perhaps collapsed into a single section with no subsections.

The plot summary for each individual module is already considerably shorter than what we might normally include (see the two module FAs I linked to in the opening paragraph at the top of this page), though I admit that all three taken together is a bit long. We'll see what we can do, but we might not be able to trim much out without making it too much of a skeleton. BOZ (talk) 00:51, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Images need alt text, meant for readers with visual impairments, to survive FAC. Since you have only one image, this shouldn't be a big problem. WP:ALT has details, and you can review some FAC discussions to see how other editors are handling the alt text.
Are any statistics on sales available? Did these modules make anybody rich?

Don't know, we'll see what we can find. Information like that might be pretty scarce, as I doubt TSR ever posted sales figures where anyone but an industry insider is likely to find. BOZ (talk) 00:51, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider reviewing another article in a field that interests you. Finetooth (talk) 20:02, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, very helpful. I fixed most of it; if you respond to my other questions we'll see what we can do! BOZ (talk) 00:51, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]