Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Archive 83

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"mixed" reception

Hi. Now I've read about one game too many getting a "mixed" reception when it's, well, crap.

Let me ask a question: what does it take for a game's reception to be characterized as "poor"? That each and every source is universally negative and that there is not a single supporter to be found?

Come on, it's getting ridiculous what receptions are called "mixed" by Wikipedia.

If you don't believe me, watch me! Visit the Elemental: War of Magic page, which I am about to edit. Let's see how long it takes before some fanboy retracts my edit, and when, I contest that revert, the Wikipedians descending to justify a "mixed" tag on yet another bomb.

Do note that when I replace "mixed", I will use language used by the developer himself. I won't use this defence over at the E:WoM talk page, but you guys will be able to see if I can get away with another phrase than the uselessly non-commital, even when it comes straight out of the horse's mouth...

Cheers, CapnZapp (talk) 14:31, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

"Mixed" fits perfectly here. Some decent, some poor reviews. See the Metacritic scores. Mixed means nothing more than a broad range of scores. --Teancum (talk) 15:30, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Generally, it depends on who is reviewing it, and I don't think we, as a neutral encyclopedia, are able to make that call without engaging in original research – something we don't want to do. For example, on an article I'm currently working on Wonder Boy in Monster Land, the Amiga version got ratings from magazines as high as 73% and 80% and as low as 41% and 36% respectively. Poor game? Not by the slightest IMO, especially when figuring in the other console versions.

I wouldn't go by mere numerical ratings as far as classifying reception of a game as "poor" is concerned, but I would go by what the reviews actually say. An obvious example of this would be Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing, in which most of the reviews had virtually nothing but cons and criticism about the game. –MuZemike 15:38, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I would argue that we aren't engaging in OR when we look at the distribution of scores to judge this, though still careful consideration of the reviews themselves are helpful and necessary to fill out the prose. There is a vast difference between a game with an MC agg. rating of 70 based on 10 scores that range from 65 to 75, and a MC agg. rating of 70 with 10 scores that range from 40 to 100. One still needs to be careful, but I think in "obvious" cases where there are a lot of positive reviews, and a similar number of negative reviews (the second case above), "mixed" can be used without question. But if it difficult to say that there's a large split, it is better to simply come off and say if it was generally positive, average, or negative. --MASEM (t) 15:46, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

One reason "mixed" is commonly used is that this is the terminology used by Metacritic, a neutral review aggregator. It's preferable per NPOV to use "X game received a mixed reception[metacritic cite]", rather than to say "X received positive/negative reviews", using our own assessment or one from a given individual. Referring to Elemental specifically, to say it received poor grades is inaccurate: from the reviews cited in the article, the game received 6.5/10, 70%, 2/5 and 4/10. In other words, one okay grade, one average grade, two poor grades. --Muchness (talk) 19:11, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

There's a problem though when Metacritic assigns a score of 57% to the "mixed or average" category[1], when in fact that score is well below average and really closer to "fail". SharkD  Talk  02:29, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

I've been thinking about this because I also used to think that the phrase was confusing and used frequently. I believe an issue arises from "mixed review" being a term for a review that has both positive and negative criticism. Thus, receiving "mixed reviews" can be interpreted as a receiving multiple mixed reviews or receiving both positive reviews and negative reviews. —Ost (talk) 20:33, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Regardless of the suitability of "mixed", I feel it's premature to use the past tense for the Metacritic rating. The game has only been out a fortnight, and in that time several patches have been published which significantly alter the users' experience, resulting in at least two major sources not reviewing it at all yet. Today's score is based on only six data points and is liable to change if other reviews are published. If used at all, it should probably be dated ("as of ....") until further reviews are unlikely to change it. (Note: I am a Stardock employee, hence I've avoided editing that section myself.) GreenReaper (talk) 02:10, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with this and added an {{as of}} qualifier for the rating. --Muchness (talk) 17:48, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

After a few weeks that really doesn't matter unless your the next The Legend of Zelda (video game) where even without a remake commentary on it continues to be spawned.陣内_Jinnai 06:53, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Other options

Given prose I used in some of my articles with "mixed" reviews I go into a bit more depth. For example, something like "The Wonder Boy in Monster Land has had reviews across the spectrum from a low of 36 to a high of 80 (out of 100)." This avoids the problem of confusion with the word "mixed", gives a better overall description (a range from 36-80 (out of 100), and notes that the the range is fairly broad and does not use problematic words or phrases.陣内_Jinnai 07:03, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

The Elder Scrolls 3 will be on TFA September 15th (or tomarrow). GamerPro64 (talk) 18:53, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I guess this calls for a celebratory playthrough.—  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 19:11, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Heh, the community will always have general gripes against Main Page requests for video game articles. However, that does not stop Raul (as he has done many times before) from adding them in on-the-fly. –MuZemike 22:55, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Alone in the Dark (2008) cover art

So there is a discussion between me and User:Mr Wesker for the use of the cover art of Alone in the Dark (2008 video game). He insists to use the "Inferno" cover art as it's, according to him, the definite version. And I say that the original release cover should be used because it's the original cover and the one that's used on pretty much all other versions. I don't know if there's something about this on the guidelines, but shouldn't the most common (or the original) cover be used on the article? nickin/conversation/contribution 00:07, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

I'd go with the non-inferno box art. The inferno box art appears to be only for one system and is a special edition-- it warrants a mention in the prose of the article but it shouldn't be used as the infobox's picture. Nomader ^(Talk) 01:49, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Same answer as Nomander from me too. - X201 (talk) 08:55, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Likewise. The original box art is the one to go for; it's used on the most platforms and is the one of release. The idea of a definite version of cover art is far too subjective anyway. -- Sabre (talk) 09:52, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

I've notified User:Mr Wesker about this discussion here. Nomader ^(Talk) 15:49, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

The ideal would be to use both, the original in the infobox and the Inferno in the article as it was until now, but some guys just don't like to have both covers in the same article for some weird reason. As such, if there's this necessity to choose just one, I feel that the Inferno cover is the one that should go because: 1.- It's the definite version of the game and the one intended from the beginning by the creators, if it wasn't released in more platforms it's because of a Atari business decission 2.- This way we disambiguate better with the original Alone in the Dark game. 3.- I consider it a better cover art. I'll respect the resulting consensus here, though, even I feel this way and I stay with the Inferno cover art. But I insist that the better option would be to have both covers, so if there isn't a way to have both in the article, then maybe we could do a mix of both in the same image file to be put in the infobox. I think that would be the best and it would be also tolerated by those guys who don't want both covers to be present in the article in a separate way. (Mr Wesker (talk) 00:48, 16 September 2010 (UTC))

Using both could be a violation of Wikipedia policy WP:NFCC. --Teancum (talk) 01:07, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

We can't use both covers per Wikipedia's policy on fair use. We should use the original release version (the one that was most widely released, the original cover); the inferno one, though most likely representing the complete game, wasn't available for all the consoles like the original was and was released after the original came out. If the Inferno version was the most important version, you should make the prose reflect that and stress how it was the complete version of the game through the text. Nomader ^(Talk) 03:05, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Input needed about roster lists for wrestling video games

See this discussion: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Professional_wrestling#Roster_Listings_in_Video_Games for the discussion. RobJ1981 (talk) 15:45, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Keep the current situation as-is. If anything, games should list who is absent from the game using prose as that might make more sense. An entire roster is unnecessary, but I could see how someone who is expected to be in the game and isn't -might- be of note. --Teancum (talk) 15:52, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

I've responded at Wikipedia:WikiProject Professional wrestling– I figure we should keep the discussion in one place. I agree with Teancum though, only notable roster members or absences should be put into prose. Nomader ^(Talk) 16:09, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Revision to {{Cite video game}}

I suggest adding a "scene" field to supplement the current "level" one. Often, things appear in a specific scene that could not be grouped in with a level or area. For example, the official translation Concerto of Midnight Sun appears both in the prologue after the title screen and in the staff credits of the game. But without the reference mentioning it, it is hard to verify by other editors – and quotes are also fairly useless in such a situation. Could also be used for pointing people to the game's staff credits, rather than giving just a general citation for the video game. Prime Blue (talk) 17:06, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Really the who cite template needs to revamped from the ground up and brought into line with core with a few additions like level, disc and scene.陣内_Jinnai 18:15, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not really seeing the utility of the "scene" field, as opposed to level/area... perhaps you'd mind explaining how the "scene" field would specifically help in the example above, Prime? Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 18:18, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Well i think scene is meant for cutscene. The problem with just level/araa is something like Persona 4 trying to FE, cite the day the fog starts making people sick. Noting the area where it happens doesn't explain when it happens because you transverse the same area the entire game. Moreover they have seperate "levels" and its not inside a "level" so you can't use that. Level/area is only good for games that don't have you constantly revisiting the same level/area throughout the game.

I tried doing this, but i cannot script something that complex and I don't know anyone who can. I had a list of fields we should change:

current

• title - keep
• developer - keep
• publisher - keep
• date - keep and link year field to this as alternative
• platform - keep
• version - keep
• level - keep
• language - keep
• isolang - remove and add deprecation
• quote - keep

from core

• others - add (for other notable team members) with dependency to creator
• url - add (for web-based games
• archiveurl - add
• archivedate - add with dependency to archiveurl
• accessdate - add with dependency to url
• series - add
• volume - add and link part filed to this - there are a few games released in parts that aren't considered sequals
• location - add
• id - add (any other custom id here)
• chapter - add (some games divide themselves by chapters)

unique

• creator - add and link author field to this
• jan - add (Japanese article number) considering how many games are released in Japan, this should be added
• isan - ??? Not sure. I don't know what code US uses offhand. One for the US should be added as it is still the second largest producer of commercial video games
• scene - add
• disc - add (surprised its not there actually)

陣内_Jinnai 18:41, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Your descriptions of what it is you want are kind of terse. Try explaining in greater detail using complete sentences and proper capitalization and punctuation. It seems to me that {{Citation/core}} is the template that needs to be updated first before we make any changes to {{Cite video game}}, otherwise the templates will just drift apart again. I went ahead and started a new topic, here, asking some of the devs of {{Citation/core}} to participate in the discussion. SharkD  Talk  01:35, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

David Fuchs: The article currently uses the template to make the reference "Konami TYO. Castlevania: Byakuya no Concerto. (Konami). Game Boy Advance. Level/area: prologue, staff credits. (2002-06-06)" – however, neither the prologue nor the staff credits can be seen as a specific level or area in the game. The scene where the translation is shown still has to be included, though, to give editors an indication of how to verify the information. With a "scene" field, it would look like "Konami TYO. Castlevania: Byakuya no Concerto. (Konami). Game Boy Advance. Scene: prologue, staff credits. (2002-06-06)". Prime Blue (talk) 19:13, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Mobile Game Boy Adaptor

Find video game sources: "Mobile" GameBoy Adapter – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR · free images · free news sources · TWL · NYT · WP reference · VG/RS · VG/RL · WPVG/Talk

I can't find anything mentioned on the Mobile Game Boy Adaptor. The Mobile Game Boy Adaptor was a Game Boy Color accessory released only in Japan. It allowed players to battle and trade and connect with the N64 somehow with certain games against others via a telecommunications network with your mobile phone. The only games I'm aware that it was compatiable with are Mobile Golf and Pokémon Crystal. Someone has uploaded a commercial for it on YouTube which I found here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWetTVvd7IE Could we please have something mentioned about it? --Victory93 (talk) 04:22, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Hopefully the template I just added will help. SharkD  Talk  06:10, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

That's cool but I meant was that in any way could information about it be added to Wikipedia either somewhere like about the Game Boy accessories. --Victory93 (talk) 00:44, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

You can use those sources to create a new section describing the device, yes. SharkD  Talk  01:43, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

APB: All Points Bulletin / Realtime Worlds

You may have heard about the untimely demise of this game and its developer. Anyhow, attention to the articles would be appreciated in advance of what-may-come. –xeno^talk 22:09, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Table format for "List of best-selling video games" articles

See here. I'd like to switch to a table format for these articles to provide additional context. Thanks. SharkD  Talk  01:57, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

FAC copy editing

proof for Limbo needed

Could someone proofread through Limbo (video game) for any awkward language as part of its FAC process? --MASEM (t) 03:42, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Nathan Drake peer review

Nathan Drake (character) has been nominated for FA multiple times. Each time, it has not passed (I suppose that goes without saying). Anyway, before I even think of nominating again, I beseech you all to leave comments on any remaining problems at the peer review at Wikipedia:Peer review/Nathan Drake (character)/archive2. Thank you all very much. かんぱい！ Scapler (talk) 07:16, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Miss Croft too

I'd like to add Lara Croft to this list. I'd also like to propose a quid pro quo among the three of us: I'll give Limbo and Nathan Drake a swept if you two give Lara Croft one. What do you say? (Guyinblack25 ^talk 19:29, 8 September 2010 (UTC))

I'll try and get to all of these tomorrow (EST). Give me a ping if I forget. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 23:58, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

killer7

Is it too late to add killer7 to the list? It recently failed FAC due to lack of people giving a crap and bothering to comment so I'd like to get it a copyedit so I can resubmit. Axem Titanium (talk) 03:53, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Tales of Monkey Island

Whilst we're at it, I've just opened a peer review for Tales of Monkey Island with the same FAC objective, and since prose is my weakest area I might as well mention it here. I'll see if I can pitch in with these other articles too. -- Sabre (talk) 15:42, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

GLaDOS

Well, it's not for FAC, and it's way inferior to all these other articles, but I don't have much in the way of other hands who have worked on this article so it's way under par. If anyone gets a chance, any help would be much appreciated, especially in the form of a copy edit. A peer review has been opened. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 18:24, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Dragon Quest

Well if we're adding non-FACs, I'll add that as its been up for A-class assement and the one big problem the one reviewer has seems to be prose. I've tried to get someone to copyedit it, but to no avail.陣内_Jinnai 19:30, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Other comments

I will add that our project has been receiving more and more criticism for our articles getting consistently featured on the Main Page. We need to make sure these articles we put up for FAC are of high quality and can stand up to the scrutiny of the general community, whose resentment against video game articles has been growing. At the same time, we need to continue to internally and aggressively scrutinize our own best work and make sure that we have only the best out there that are ready to be featured on the Main Page, should the community happen to have a change of heart. –MuZemike 05:24, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I have to say though, I feel we are rather ridiculous overrepresented at TFA from what I've seen lately, but I don't want us being blocked out of having articles on the main page because of the project's opposition to our topic. We should find some way of encouraging more people to participate in project peer review-- could we make some sort of incentive? Maybe a kind of "Video Game Reviewer Barnstar"? I don't want to encourage lax PRs, but I think if we could find a way to revitalize our peer review process, it could really encourage more people to submit their articles there and would therefore encourage better quality articles. Nomader ^(Talk) 14:15, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree. I think its just an anti-popculture (possibly anti-Japanese popculture) thing as when WP:Anime proposed Tokyo Mew Mew, the first anime/manga article to be listed on the main page there was an immediate no vote because they didn't want to see a manga article on the main page.陣内_Jinnai 03:48, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Most of the VG articles that go up at TFA are simply due to the random selection from the available pool that Raul maes. I don't think there's a lot of push for people to get specific VG articles up, so we are not intentionally overloading it. --MASEM (t) 03:55, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Sonic and the Secret Rings

Yes, I know I've been going on too much about this article. But I think this is the best opportunity I'll have for a long time to get a copyedit. It was a former FAC, if that counts. Tezero (talk) 17:48, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Dead link time! Metacritic

So yeah, it appears all platforms, save for PS3, 360, Wii, DS, PSP, PC, and PS2, have been removed from the web site. So any and all ratings for the N64, DC, GBA, PS1, Xbox, and GameCube are now dead links. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 19:22, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

God... I'm getting really tired of this crap. Can we use archive.org to retrieve all the ratings? Nomader ^(Talk) 19:31, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

That appears to work, yes. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 19:39, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Any particular articles/categories that need attention most? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 19:40, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Start with FAs of older systems, and work downwards to GA and then the rest of the classification. --MASEM (t) 19:41, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I would almost suggest archiving PS2, since it is on its last legs. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 19:44, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

We use Metacritic for a ton of articles– if we decide to do PS2, we should wait until we've finished all the other categories. Nomader ^(Talk) 19:48, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

From what I see, it looks like they took it down so they could revamp it. There were probably way too many pages for them to fix during the layout change, so they axed them. It says "Grey platforms will be available at a later date." _Blake ^{(Talk·Edits)} 19:48, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Yeah I see it too. The question is, should we replace the links with archive.org links in the meantime? "A later date" could extend for quite some time. Nomader ^(Talk) 01:45, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Can someone please link to an article with some dead links? Thanks. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 16:19, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

To answer Nomader's question you would put the archive.org link in the the "archiveurl" field, eg |archiveurl= |archivedate= |deadurl=yes and leave the original link in place. Salavat (talk) 16:46, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Not |deadurl= though, just the first two :) —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 16:55, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

DASHbot appears to have archived the links for Metacritic for 1080° Snowboarding ([2]). Has this happened at any other articles? Nomader ^(Talk) 17:15, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

We should create a project page as a part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Reference library to detail these sites (RPGDot is another good example) and how to browse them using Archive.org. SharkD  Talk  18:44, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

As long as there is an archive copy, a bot can handle these. Unfortunately, there is no way to get a list of pages with metacritic urls. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 10:47, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

This is just another reason why we should really start archiving everything for our video game FAs. H3llbot recently came through and marked a whole bunch in my watchlisted FAs that have fallen silent, including ones from Microsoft, et al. Webciting this stuff once the content's to a stable format will make everyone's lives easier. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 14:17, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

I had the same idea. I've already webcited everything in SNES that isn't already available at archive.org. Anomie⚔ 14:53, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

I just added WebCites for all online refs for my lone FA, Ninja Gaiden (NES). –MuZemike 20:15, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Special:LinkSearch/www.metacritic.com, or more specific searches such as Special:LinkSearch/www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/n64/? You can do the same with the API's list=exturlusage query module. Anomie⚔ 14:53, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

How on earth did I miss that? I guess failing to hit Ballmer Peak too many times. I guess I'll queue all those. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 15:45, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

The bot is not going to help you when doing new research. It only fixes existing refs. For new content we need instructions on how to properly crawl archived sites and articles. SharkD  Talk  01:45, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

OK, I created a page for how to navigate archived sites, here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Reference library/Defunct archived websites. SharkD  Talk  04:08, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I recently encountered this problem as well. It seems all the original pages are still accessible if you replace "com" with "org", though. That's how I got that one here, at least. Note that the "org" links seem to load slower, but they still work. Prime Blue (talk) 17:17, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

The link didn't work for me. SharkD  Talk  01:48, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Yep, that link didn't work for me either. Nomader ^(Talk) 21:26, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Weird. For me, it works (just tried it again). It takes about 20 seconds, but the page will eventually load fully in the old Metacritic design. Do you two get a 404? Prime Blue (talk) 15:26, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Works for me. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 16:38, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

No, I get a 110 "Connection Timed Out" notice from the Metacritic website. Nomader ^(Talk) 16:56, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

That's the message I got, too. SharkD  Talk  03:55, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

EQOA Citing

(EverQuest Online Adventures)
I have made several changes to the EQOA page, but I'm no editor. I didn't cite anything. However, I have left comments in the talk page of what I edited and where to find the sources. Some links I gave link to the exact page where the info can be found, but most of them (if not all but one) I just gave a link to a semi-general place (such as the game's forums) and told the general area of the forum to find the info. All the info I edited in I have personally read, so it all should be citeable.

If just one person were to add the page to their watchlist, I would greatly appreciate it. The edits I make are more to get the info in there rather than to make it look/read good. That and I don't like hunting down my sources, but I wouldn't mind looking for the hard to find stuff if somebody else can't (though it may be awhile before I make the time to).

(I don't watchlist articles) 
 Mofuggin bob (talk) 13:51, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Newsletter

Is it just me, or is the newsletter defunct? The current issue should have been released back in July, but it hasn't been particularly updated since then. I'd be up for updating it, but I'm not exactly sure what process was used before for updating it and getting a tally of video game DYKs and such– this was brought up before back in August. Either way, I think it'd be good if we could establish consensus to put this on hiatus until the necessary editors and bots come back online, or if we could all agree to taking up a certain portion of its writing. Nomader ^(Talk) 23:50, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

I was part of the newsletter for a while. The reason I stopped was because of the Article Bot being down. If it goes back up, I can work on the Featured Editor and Featured Content sections again. GamerPro64 (talk) 00:16, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

There were a few comments on this issue a month ago. --Mika1h (talk) 00:18, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

And I'll help out any way I can if you guys get it back up. Nolelover 00:25, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

I'll have some time this weekend to catch up on some actual VG-related stuff; if you need anything during that time, let me know. –MuZemike 06:36, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorry MuZemike, looks like I didn't check back in time to give you anything to do, my mistake. With regards to the newsletter, I think we should send out an issue to people as soon as possible listing the interview that we have completed, and maybe things that need to be done around the project-- we can say that for the DYKs and the such that the Alertbot is currently not functioning, and as such, it is unable to be updated at this time? I think as long as we send out something it's better than nothing in this case. Nomader ^(Talk) 04:35, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Here, I updated the list of new FAs, GAs, etc since April, and I have a list of VG articles featured on DYK except April and May, which I still need to get to. I have been trying to keep WP:VG/N updated as much as I can, so you could at least give a good estimate as to how many new articles appeared over the last few months at least; that is not a huge priority, however. Probably the other big thing regards, as you said, the present interview that we have, and we need a rough list of any new developments in the project.

While I am at it, this also serves as a good opportunity to have another interview of a project member set up and ready to go for the next newsletter, so we're not scrounging around as such. –MuZemike 21:03, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Great work on listing the featured work, MuZemike. Hrm... I made a small list of editors to myself that would be good interviewing candidates. Off the top of my head, possible candidates would be you (MuZemike), Axem Titanium, Guyinblack25, New Age Retro Hippie, and Xeno– that's just going off of my mind right now, not really based on any formula or anything. Those are all people who have been here for at least awhile and have in the past or continue to actively participate in the project. On a separate issue, should we just exclude the new articles page for this release of the newsletter? Nomader ^(Talk) 04:50, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Eyes on Good Old Games please

The old PC games DRM-free site Good Old Games went to a standard message that suggests its shutting down but there's a lot of validated reports that are coming up suggesting this is only temporary (possibly part of a marketing ploy) and that forthcoming news on Sept 22. As such, it would be improper to call "GOG was a site..." as some are trying to do. Right now, we don't know details and only can wait until the 22nd to fill in, thus we need to just keep acting like it is available. Eyes to watch for such changes would be helpful. --MASEM (t) 19:41, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Added to my watchlist. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 19:42, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Oh! Better back up all my games to CD, then. SharkD  Talk  03:54, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

It was a prank: [3] --Mika1h (talk) 17:41, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Development info for OutRun Online Arcade?

I've recently been working to try and bring OutRun Online Arcade up to at least C (hopefully B) class, but I'm having trouble finding much of anything on the development of the game. I know the game is based on OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast, which in turn is based on OutRun 2 - but I don't how much of those games I can use as a basis here. Could/Should I give a brief history of development of all three titles? That might help the understanding of the game overall. The cycle between the three is rather interesting. OutRun 2 was built on the Sega Chihiro hardware (which was based on the Xbox). It was then ported to the Xbox, then updated to OutRun 2 SP (new tracks), then Coast 2 Coast combined the two games. Arcade was then built from Coast 2 Coast's code and assets. Trouble is if I did this I'd have to find sourcing on the Chihiro and its history, but I can't find anything reliable on the net. Thoughts? I've removed the expansion tag from the Development section of the article since I don't think I can fill it in much more, but I'd really like to. --Teancum (talk) 13:18, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Considering it's a plot-free game, the number of sources used and that the three main sections needed are in place, it's C-class already, rated as such. There's an interview with the developer Sumo Digital here posted a month after the game was released, looks to be some usable info there. Someoneanother 21:13, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the rating and the interview. I'll check it out. --Teancum (talk)

FF template edit war

I'm trying to add a link to the Final Fantasy Tactics (series) article in {{Final Fantasy series}}, "related series" section. However User:Bread Ninja just blindly reverts any of my edits, claiming that the FF Tactics series article is linked in the {{Ivalice}} template. However, the FF Tactics series is very clearly not linked in that template (and would be out of place if it were). A little help here would be appreciated. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 23:39, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

i did originally confuse it for the game, either way, these need to be in the ivalice template, not in the FF. NOw that i take a careful look at the sreies article i doubt it merits it's own article. it's too small and has more specific information that could fall in it's respected articles.Bread Ninja (talk) 23:44, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

I full-protected the template 6 hours for the edit war. Please hash it out on the template's talk page. We're better than this, folks. –MuZemike 23:47, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

It's out of place in the Ivalice template since it deals with individual games. As for the article itself, it should be expanded, not gimped. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 23:48, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

There's not much expansion, still nothing about it is helping merit it's own article. Plus i doubt their is a legit series of "ff tactics" considering ff tactics: war of the lions is part of the ivalice alliance subseries.Bread Ninja (talk) 23:55, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

ALso you wanted to add crystal defenders in the ff template and that was in the ivalice template.Bread Ninja (talk) 00:04, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

No I did not. I removed it and you reverted me! Stop fabricating scenarios. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 00:57, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

sorry, the reverts previous page gets confusing....anyways....there is no official series of final fantasy tactics, they are just there. So i don't tihnk it deserves to merit it's own article because there is no reception of ff tactics as a whole series (because it isn't).PLus the series article holds no new information.Bread Ninja (talk) 01:03, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Again not true, see "Final Fantasy Tactics series first impressions" by Eurogamer or "'Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions' – Not Being Released On September 15th After All" by TouchArcade, both of which acknowledges the series.

you mean they acknowledge it as a series. still eurogamer still did reception individually, i dooubt the "FF tactics" series merits it's own article especially where grimoire of the riftand war of the lions are part of the ivalice alliance series. there isn't much information justifying the article.Bread Ninja (talk) 01:34, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm with BreadNinja on this one. Ivalice Alliance is a more legitimate article than the little acknowledged series of Final Fantasy Tactics. — Blue。 14:09, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

As for the series, I have to side with books looking a bit deeper. SE sources confirm it also:

• [4]
• [5]
• [6]

There is also usage by other reliable sites than just eurogamer:

• RPGamer
• Gamepro
• 1Up
• an interview which confirms its a series

And that's just a few minutes of searching.陣内_Jinnai 15:07, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I seee. wel i guess i'm wrong, still i don't think the tactics sreies should be part of the main ff template.Bread Ninja (talk) 15:09, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

SE doesn't explicitly say which title encompass the series, afaik in the case of Crystal Defenders, the series they refer to in regards to jobs would be Tactics Advance and A2, but not Tactics WotL. As for the 1UP interview, they refer to the "Final Fantasy Tactics series released for the PlayStation". As far as I'm concerned, there's no series of Tactics games released for the Playstation, just one title. — Blue。 18:03, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Japanese media and the tilde

There is currently discussion on whether or not to use the tilde/hyphen/etc. as found in titles of Japanese media as it appears in the Japanese media rather than modifying it into another punctuation format on the English Wikipedia. As articles in this WikiProject's purview may be affected, users here are requested to contribute to the discussion here.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 21:00, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Ace Combat: Joint Assault

I've expanded the plot a bit, but since the game is already out, help is needed here. Thanks. --Eaglestorm (talk) 08:10, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

What are you wanting/needing help with? Just the plot? --Teancum (talk) 13:19, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

A general expansion, to be at least on par with the other AC articles. --Eaglestorm (talk) 14:31, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, my first suggestion would be to add Template:Video game reviews to a Reception section, then hit up GameRankings and Metacritic to populate that template with those scores and some of the review scores found there. Though truthfully as far as the series goes the only article you could use as an example would be Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War. That article is fairly decent in relation to the types of things it covers. I'd definitely go for quality over quantity. If you need more references to fill out the development and Reception section, try this search, which searches through all Wikiproject Video games reliable sources. --Teancum (talk) 15:32, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

I've made a reception section,but still I'd appreciate the help of editors who have worked in the other AC articles before. --Eaglestorm (talk) 13:11, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

FF template edit war, take two

Alright, again there's an edit war involving this template. This time it's over the addition of the traditional Book/Cat/Portal at the bottom of the template, as is customary to do (see {{Duke Nukem series}}, {{Half-Life}}, {{Queen}}, {{The Carpenters}}, {{StarCraft series}}, {{Friday the 13th}}, {{A Nightmare on Elm Street}}, {{Category 5 Atlantic hurricanes}}, and pretty much anything else. I should just leave the FF stuff alone from now one, too much ownership problems for my liking. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:37, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Don't forget the best looking one:

Megata Sanshiro (talk) 20:52, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

I like how it includes the portal and interwiki links in it. Pretty slick, IMO. SharkD  Talk  21:40, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Red links should be avoided, unless the article is very likely to be created soon. --Mika1h (talk) 22:21, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Verb tense for MMOs that have closed.

I've requested clarification on this article guideline. Opinions welcome at the following link location WT:WikiProject_Video_games/Article_guidelines#Verb_tense_for_MMOs_that_have_closed - X201 (talk) 14:05, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Mario lists

I think we need to address the plethora of Mario lists that we currently have. We have five right now (Mario games by console, Mario games by year, Mario games by genre, Mario media, and Sports games in the Mario series). I'd advocate moving "Mario media" to "Mario video games" and creating a new Mario media list in the same vein as List of Final Fantasy media and List of Final Fantasy video games due to the extent of the series, keeping the sports game list which was created as a split-off of the Mario media list, and deleting the other three lists. I'd like consensus to delete them though from the project, as I feel they're all sort of redundant to each other. Nomader ^(Talk) 02:48, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Oh, goodness gracious; I didn't realize all those lists were there. I suppose I support that merge; delete if completely redundant. I mean, let's have some sense of organization to the Mario articles as is done well with the Final Fantasy articles. –MuZemike 04:25, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Good lord. Merge is in order. NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs 04:31, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, I and User:Nomader have been working on List of Mario media (though not recently). It'd be awesome if someone could take care of "finishing" media, that'd be awesome. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 04:57, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Yeah the separate lists are kind of disgusting– the Mario media list serves as an outstanding video game list, and I really commend User:New Age Retro Hippie on the work he did on getting the basics of it together. Retro, I was thinking though that with the film, any soundtracks that were released separate of the games, the multiple television shows (which has a separate list as well: List of Mario television series), the television episodes, any notable mangas or comics... it adds up to a gigantic article if we put in the video games with them. I think following the Final Fantasy example would probably be best in this case. Nomader ^(Talk) 05:33, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the commendations, and I have no objectionsto splitting up the media list as much as humanly necessary. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 05:35, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, no problem and neither do I. I think we should start though by deleting the lists of Mario games by console, Mario games by year, and Mario games by genre as it seems all of their content is already redundant to the media list and the sports list that we have right now... does anyone have any objections to that? Nomader ^(Talk) 05:55, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Standards for an arcade-only title?

I've been thinking about creating an H2Overdrive article -- but I'm wondering if there are any standards that might deviate a bit from other articles. For instance - in the infobox do we show the entire arcade cabinet? A logo? I just thought I'd take it up here before actually looking further into it. --Teancum (talk) 11:42, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, this was discussed in the past, but I objected to the outcome, but I'll pass it on here. It was decided that if a poster for the game is available, it should go in the infobox. Barring that, an image of the game cabinet is fine, or a screenshot of gameplay. A shot of the title screen is generally not preferred since it doesn't necessarily convey gameplay. — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 11:53, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Dealing with weird rating distributions

The bulk of Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock reviews are expected to arrive today (media block until release, it seems, not a good sign to begin with). But going on what the UK release has generated, I'm seeing a funky score distribution. All the sites that I would consider reliable for review inclusion are giving them game very low scores and I expect that to continue with most US outlets judging by the complaints of the existing reviews. But as Metacritic shows, [7] there is a number of 90+ reviews from non-reliable gaming sources.

Now this may be way too early but lets assume this hyptothetical situation where all the reliable reviews fall under 70 on metacritic but with all the non-reliable sources, it brings the average to 80-85. That will look weird to have the vg review table be full of 60-70s, and an average 10 points above that. I'm thinking the best way to address this is to point that that several "smaller gaming sites" (aka unreliable sources) rated the game high and include some quotes or summary that is obvious on the main MC page, before delving into our reliable sources.

Again, this could be a non-problem. However, I can see this happening for other games in the future as well. --MASEM (t) 14:01, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

I think in this instance you could mention a mode or median in the intro to your Reception section. I've come across this recently too, but more with outlying scores. I dealt with something similar at Monday Night Combat and OutRun Online Arcade, mentioning the majority of reviews. Perhaps those ideas might help. --Teancum (talk) 14:47, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

This is a non-problem. Metacritic has always weighted review sources in terms of their popularity/influence/reliability, this is not a new thing. It makes it stronger than those that do just take an average. - hahnchen 19:02, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, in this case, its not even that. Here [8] is the current page (as of when I write this); of 15 scores they have, the top 7 only include one reliable source, and the bottom 7 include 4. It's the blog-like sources ranking this high while established journalists are having a yawn. But we're only one day out of release, it could change. --MASEM (t) 12:50, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

On a related question: right now, same game, the 360 version has 15 review scores, PS3 10, and Wii 8. When you look at the averages, they improve with fewer reviews (in part that some reviews like IGN's, having propagated to the other scores); this can make the game look like a 74 or an 84 if I pick the 360 or Wii version (respectively). As there should not be major differences between platforms for this specific game (there may be Wii variants due to one extra gameplay feature but presently nothing to compare again), I would think these scores should be relatively close by the end of the day; I shouldn't have to include all three. As this is like still watching the stock market, the averages will likely move closer to each either by weeks end, but in the meantime, and in future cases, I would suggest that if one is choosing one aggregater score out of all release platforms (working on the assumption there are no differences between platform releases), it should be the console that has the most data points for a summary point from the aggregater (360 in this case), regardless how that drags the score up or down. --MASEM (t) 12:50, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Dragon's Kingdom MUD

This article was recently undeleted (copyvio) and is up on AfD (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dragon's Kingdom). I became involved by responding to an OTRS request with regard to the copyright issue.

The deletion discussion could do with comments from someone knowledgeable on the development of these games in the 1990s/2000s. The MUD script is claimed to be based on freeware code originally a 'tribute' to Dragon Warrior. Though the end result of the deletion discussion may be to delete, there seems to be scope for an article on the evolution of the similar family of websites/browser based MUDs which probably derived from an original text-based MUD. Fæ (talk) 07:43, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Members page

Is there really any real purpose to this page? It just seems to me that it's an arbitrary list of signatures that isn't terribly informative to anyone. The fact that people need to list themselves as inactive also detracts from its usefulness. I'm just seriously wondering if there is any point in keeping it around? --Dorsal Axe 08:58, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

well almost every project has a members list, it's merely to show who has commited themselves to the project. i also see it as a reference list of members. though inactive/active is unnecessary.Bread Ninja (talk) 11:14, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Actually I think it's really useful if we needed to contact our members for any reason, or if we want to browse through editors who are active in the project. With regards to active/inactive, I know that WP:NINTENDO periodically purges their member list-- they move all their users to the inactive list, and then leave a note to their members notifying them that they should move themselves to the active list if they're still active in the project. Don't recall if that's what we do here though. Anyways, I think it's a great way to sort of do a head count about how many people are active in a certain subject area and I fully support the retention of our member list. Nomader ^(Talk) 13:51, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I'd have to say in regards to the peer review and assessment process that too many of us focus only on our own articles and don't spend time reviewing others. I've brought three articles to peer review, only one of them ever received any comments, so I don't even bother anymore. I just get most of my articles to B-Class and stop due to lack of participation. And yet many members who don't review others articles put several up for GAN/PR/FAC. --Teancum (talk) 14:55, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I usually get one or two basic comments but nothing too extensive. I usually write shorter articles so I don't really need it that much, but I really think we should find some way of encouraging WP:VG members to help in the PR process for the members who tackle more extensive articles. I suggested above that we might want to create some sort of incentive for quality reviews, like maybe a barnstar (we video game people do tend to be achievement oriented, after all). I've always noticed how relatively inactive our PR is and I think it'd be a great asset to our project if we could get it active again. Nomader ^(Talk) 18:22, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I usually do PRs when I post up something to get PRed, usually 2 for everyone I post. I admit though I'm not perfect about it. Sometimes there just isn't a second one I really care to PR.

I think the big problem is i, and everyone else, doesn't get a newsletter updating me on what articles could use review (i usually skim past the top section notice on this page unless I've been gone a few days). However, i probably wouldn't recieve the newletter anyway as i'm not listed as a member because the VG member list doesn't collect member lists who post they are members of specific TFs rather than the project as a whole (imo by stating i'm a member of a TF, I'm also saying i'm a member of the project as a whole and feel its redudant to also say i'm a member of the project).陣内_Jinnai 04:12, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Good point, but the problem is that you may want to be part of a task force but not part of the project as a whole. What if you were only interested in editing articles about The Sims, so you joined the respective Sims task force, but you could care less about video games as a whole so you didn't join the main membership list? However, signing up to get the newsletter is actually through a different page where you sign up specifically for the newsletter. Nomader ^(Talk) 04:58, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

How about the VG barnstar with a magnifying glass over it? A reviewer's barnstar for work at PR, FAC, GAN, etc. I'm sure {{VG Barnstar}} could be tweaked to use the original version and others with a parameter. Any thoughts? (Guyinblack25 ^talk 17:02, 30 September 2010 (UTC))

WP:PLOTSUM a template for WP:GAMEPLOT ?

We've never had a full-out standard for game plots, but some game plots are ridiculously long. In the past we've used WP:PLOTSUM as a general guideline, but users occasionally point out that it doesn't mention games in the plot. Is there any interest in having an actual standard? Yes, some games are longer than others, but any game's plot can be summarized in ~800 words or less. --Teancum (talk) 18:05, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

This was an issue in the past and a lot of the issue comes around the JRPG genre where a game that has 30-40 hours of gameplay is going to have a long, rambling plot. It can be done - I know I helped to contribute to the reduction that was Chrono Trigger's rambling plot. But there will likely remain plots that make it very difficult to trim down below a set threshold. Then on the opposite side of the coin you have plots that can be summarized in a few words or two. In general, I would argue that we should aim the same as movies 700-900 words or less, but need to be a bit more reasonable if the plot does ramble; I would though also argue that if a plot starts edging to 1200 words or more, there's likely a problem to be fixed. --MASEM (t) 18:13, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

I'd agree with that for the most part. I think you're right about the long RPGs not being easily summarized, but in that instance perhaps an "oversummarization" might be in order. If a plot would be 1,000 or so plus words, why not break it down to its simplest format and limit it to 1-2 paragraphs, giving an extremely basic overview? It's likely that elements of the plot will spill out into the inevitable Setting and Characters section of those games anyway. I suppose there would have to be a standard given on the length of the game. For instance, there's a {{plot}} tag on Final Fantasy XIII, but its 881 words and probably takes 20+ hours to complete. I'd say games that are 15+ hours can be safe at under 1,000 words, whilst those under 15 hours should be below 800. --Teancum (talk) 18:39, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Some can, but let's take FF7, where you have a death of a major character, a complete reveal about the bg of the other major character, and the like. Now, I am all for pushing character-driven quests to character articles if they don't contribute to the larger plot to help trim down but I don't think either can be done here. Instead, in such cases, a "setting" subsection and a "character" subsection is helpful to establish details that would otherwise bulk down the plot. --MASEM (t) 03:15, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Problem is if we just do that, but don't set standards you get results like Final Fantasy XIII where the character section is enormous.

I think a general guideline for prose length is fine while giving deference to more narrative intensive works like RPGs and visual novels which by their nature are going to be more complex than most platform and fighting games. However, we should really define some limits on characters because it seems that people are loading up those sections and then when they get large enough demanding they be split.陣内_Jinnai 15:59, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

I think that list has both the size and the references to allow a spinout to Characters of Final Fantasy XIII, and crop the rest down to a prose paragraph that IDs the 6 main playables. --MASEM (t) 16:03, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

I'd agree with Jinnai here. Final Fantasy XIII is a great example of what we need to avoid. I'm all for a tiny bit of background on a character is necessary, but this article gives details such as "Lightning was turned into a l'Cie herself. Her l'Cie mark is in the center of her chest. Lightning has long pink hair and is 171 cm tall (5'7")." Such details only matter to someone who loves that game. In this case, I don't have trouble with the amount of characters listed (I don't know which ones are important to the game), but definitely the content shown for each one. As someone who has never played it I see tons of unnecessary detail for the casual reader. Spinning them out into a separate article might be worse - then it starts to wander into WP:TRIVIA. Personally speaking far too many articles get a character spinout article simply because folks choose to list much more then they should - see the brand new article List of characters in Red Dead Redemption. Many character list articles are like this. If they can't fit into a List of characters in NAME OF GAME series, there's probably not a need for a separate article, unless one character them self is notable, such as Cloud Strife. Perhaps a better WP:VG policy would be WP:GAMESYNOPSIS, which could cover standards for setting, plot and characters combined. This way standards can be created based on genre and game length (I.E. a racing game generally needs no setting or synopsis, shooters need a "medium sized" section and RPGs a somewhat larger one. --Teancum (talk) 16:48, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Note that Sjones23 is (slowly) splitting off the characters section into User:Sjones23/Characters of Final Fantasy XIII. We all know that it's too long right now. --PresN 17:02, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Frankly, if an article's plot is getting too long, let the sources be our guide. If reliable sources aren't spending a lot of time in reviews, previews, or special features on the twists and turns of the story, that's a good indication that we shouldn't either. We don't need "A to B, which causes C into D" in all cases; "A over time leads to D" will work fine. Smashing mentions of every character or every mission just kills readability. Take Halo: Reach for example: In two missions, players are sent on recon missions, discover a large force, regroup, assault the aforementioned large force, destroy the landing zone, and clear a way for bombardment, which leads to the discovery of a big honkin' spaceship. In the plot, it's currently condensed to "As the Covenant arrive on the planet in force, Noble Team is dispatched on various defensive missions such as assaulting a Covenant ground base and removing fortified Covenant defenses. " Yes, it's an FPS, but if you're telling me that you can't condense a video game story into less than nine paragraphs, I'll just laugh at you. Hell, I could shrink all of Shakespeare's synopses into far smaller bits. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 21:37, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

All well and good to say here, but I think it needs to be spelled out better, especially for characters.陣内_Jinnai 05:21, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

WP:WAF is a good resource for characters in general. For video games, I think the issue is here that we need to recognize that not every mission, level, dungeon, boss battle, etc. may be important to the key plot (I take pride that my Okami plot is 2 paragraphs long for a 30-40hr game and yet still captures the essence of it without being overly terse). Sometimes it is easy to reduce past that point, other times its not. Often it is best to think non-linearly with respect to the actual plot, just because the player goes from A to B to C to D in that order doesn't mean it is necessary to state it in that order; perhaps the player learns something significant about a character at point B, then B could be highlighted first "The villain is really the player character's best friend, but this not revealed to the player until later in the game", if it allows us to jump from A to D where critical plot events really occur. --MASEM (t) 15:58, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Here's a previous thread where actual numbered restrictions were discussed. Perhaps we can build off that. Also, I believe much of that discussion and related ones guided this section of the "How to write a good video game article" draft. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 16:49, 30 September 2010 (UTC))

I'm in favor of plot summaries for very long plot sections. Ideally the summaries should contain as few as possible spoilers as well. SharkD  Talk  19:06, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

F1 2010

Could someone keep an eye on F1 2010 (video game) please. Looks like it may be heading in the same direction as Civilization V did earlier in the week (IP editor re-adding uncited forum complaints). Thanks - X201 (talk) 07:54, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

RPS has some coverage on issues, namely the AI allegations, perhaps you might find them useful in dealing with such user complaints in the article. -- Sabre (talk) 10:58, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Something is wrong with this page

Carmen Sandiego: The Secret of the Stolen Drums article page a previous user or users put references on the page but it doesn't appear when edited. Dwanyewest (talk) 02:24, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

The only section that contained references was commented out in this revision. It is still commented out, but it is visible while editing in case you want to expand that section or even just bring back the reflist for other references. Reach Out to the Truth 02:37, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Donkey Kong template

Not an edit war, but it seems it better be discussed since we went throught three different revisions recently. The current version is from me, I found that a bit too many articles were removed last time. I am not convinced this is the best format, though. Feel free to make improvements. Prime Blue (talk) 16:30, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to ask to include the Nintendo v. Universal article in the template if that's all right. It was pretty controversial and a landmark period in the early history of Donkey Kong. Sincerely Subzerosmokerain (talk) 16:37, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

I think they should be listed by "Main" and "Spin off" like this There aren't enough games in each category. Too much whitespace is a bad thing. _Blake ^{(Talk·Edits)} 16:49, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

I think it would be hard to draw the line. Some titles like Donkey Kong 3 and Mario vs. Donkey Kong are pretty ambiguous as to its status as a "main" title. Prime Blue (talk) 17:48, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree that Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd. should probably be included as the court case directly dealt with Donkey Kong. –MuZemike 18:22, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Genre format is the best one. There really isn't any "main series" in Donkey Kong games. And the current revision divides the series into too many subseries. --Mika1h (talk) 19:53, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Mika1h, the genre format seems to be the best way of organizing it. Nomader ^(Talk) 21:03, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

But Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2 and subsequent sequels are not "arcade-style" but fully-fledged puzzle games. Also, what is the definition of "arcade-style" here? Prime Blue (talk) 11:42, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Games that fall under arcade (genre). --Mika1h (talk) 22:00, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

The MvDK series fits because it's basically a spiritual follow-up to the original arcade DKs. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 22:11, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

The Game Boy Donkey Kong and Mario vs. Donkey Kong most certainly are based on the original arcade Donkey Kong. But that can not be said for the other sequels, they are just too different to classify them as such. I still think the original platform grouping is the least "controversial" and most evident way to go – with the excessive line breaking removed from the handheld section, it does not even look that bad. Prime Blue (talk) 14:31, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

I think it's confusing how some links have the full title and how some are shortened. The link titled "Game Boy" is especially awkward. I would expect it to link to the console. Megata Sanshiro (talk) 10:24, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Having the full titles would look like that. It's a bit more confusing and harder to find a title without delay, though. Prime Blue (talk) 13:58, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Adding Giant Bomb to reviews template

Is it possible to add Giant Bomb to Template: Video game reviews? Is there a good reason why they're not there already? sdornan (talk) 18:36, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

There were discussions about this in the past. Since Giant Bomb has large portions of it that can be user-contributed, the thought was that it would not be placed as a parameter in the template. It can be added as a custom reviewer on a case-by-case basis. --Teancum (talk) 00:48, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

The wikis are user contributed but not the staff reviews, which can all be found on one page at [9]. Those are all staff reviews written by staff members. sdornan (talk) 00:53, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

For reference here is the consensus that members came to. --Teancum (talk) 01:05, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

So, if I interpreted the discussion correctly, the consensus was that Giant Bomb was a glorified blog with not enough readership. That might have been true two years ago when the site was created, but I don't think that's true now. Alexa gives Giant Bomb a traffic rank of 4,660. A few other websites in the template are Eurogamer with a rank of 4,753, and, for some reason, Game Revolution with a rank of 23,499. Giant Bomb even has a higher rank than G4, which is at 4,839. sdornan (talk) 15:54, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

It's not about popularity so much as reputation. Game Revolution has never been a hugely popular site, but it's an established web site of more than a decade. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 17:40, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, I believe this sort of thing is what scares off most of WP:VG members. To a casual reader that looks like a professional review. I memory serves an audit was done long ago and lots of these user reviews that looked professional had to be manually removed. It comes down to the fact that it's tough for IP users to look at that review and say "oh, that's a user review" whereas on most other sites user reviews and scores are much more limited. For example, Eurogamer only lets users enter a score and IGN only allows a one paragraph review. As IP users typically only do the easiest thing, leaving it out of pre-defined parameters can help to alleviate the issue of Giant Bomb user reviews. Giant Bomb can still easily be added under the custom reviewers and the reader will not know the difference. --Teancum (talk) 16:13, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

I think listing them as a situational reviewer, but put the onus of the user to show they are staff reviews, that's fine. If there is a clear way to do so, like mania where we can tell users "articles with numbers at the end of the url link are by staff members and those without are user reviews" - which they are - then that's a way that it can be done.陣内_Jinnai 20:00, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

The way Giant Bomb handles user reviews is similar to the way GameSpot does it (which isn't really surprising considering the site's origins) but I don't think anyone would argue against GameSpot's inclusion in the template just because someone might mistake this for a staff review. Someone unfamiliar with the differences between a staff review and a user review could make that mistake with any site. The difference should be clear enough, but if it's not then we can use the external link search, which currently lists 434 links to the site. The only occurrences of user reviews are on talk pages, and only one of those talk pages is for an actual article. There are also links to staff reviews which are fine, and links to the wiki which I plan to investigate further. If adding Giant Bomb to the template does result in people adding user reviews, they can be removed just as if someone added a user review from another site. I intend to monitor the link search regardless, to identify and remove uses of the GB wiki as a source. Identifying user reviews would actually be easier. Reach Out to the Truth 21:07, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

3ds as eighth gen

People are trying to argue that the 3DS an 8th gen console (and thus starting History of video game consoles (eighth generation)) based on what appears to be OR - that because the 3DS is the next major console from Nintendo, it must be a new generation. However, I've yet to see any article that classifies the 3DS as such - if anything the closest I can find is that the eighth gen is presumed to start with the next non-portable console (whatever the successor to the 360, PS3, or Wii may be). Any help in either affirming that the 3DS is being called this, or still a 7th gen console, or just preventing the edit warring (its trailing onto History of video game consoles (seventh generation)) would be great. --MASEM (t) 00:41, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

It's not even a console; it's a handheld. Nintendo's yet-to-be-named 3D gaming sytem to replace the Wii would be a better contender, but even that's OR. There has been some talk about rewriting that section to remove generations as they no longer seem as relevant due to technology convergence.陣内_Jinnai 20:02, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Nintendo Power issues 169-171

Anyone got? I'd like to get some information on Ruby & Sapphire from them. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 01:41, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Check the reference library for Nintendo Power. --—Mitaphane _{Contribs | Talk} 20:31, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Sono Hanabira article development

Hello I was trying to develop an article for a series of visual novels known as "Sono Hanabira ni Kuchizuke wo", but am having trouble designing a coherent article. I checked tvtropes, and it seems like the games might be notable. Any suggestions and/or help would be much appreciated. Thank you for your time. Feinoha ^{Talk, My master} 02:50, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Problems at Phantasy Star Universe articles

i'm pretty sure you are family with Uegene Crabs who was once Zang He, Donald Duck and now, Zhou yu. in the past we had some confilicts with him, but now i'm questioning whether he knows the rules to wikipedia at all.

the first problem i'm having is the PS2/PC servers closing. he keeps removing the "English" releases simply because it's implied due to this being English wikipedia, which is ubsurd. we have to be specific to which servers are closed.

another one is adding PSUpedia to the external links even though a while back we already confirmed through consensus with on remember breaking the tie. unforutnately this member retired so i can't ask for her help again. the only reason he said was that it there for a certain ammount of days so why not.

this is really getting ridiculous and if anyone notices the article's previous format, you could see how badly and how unwiki-like the article was before. I'm not only asking to help the article under these circumstances but i also request some attention from other members in order to at least get these articles in B-class.Bread Ninja (talk) 17:52, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

"Mouse perspective" games/levels?

Do we have an article or section of an article related to levels which are played from a "mouse perspective"? A good example is the Vigilante 8 Arcade level Garage. The garage is sized up greatly to make the cars feel as though they are radio controlled. This is semi-common in shooters and other games (but more so with mods) -- I'm just looking for something to wikilink to so I can explain the setting of the level further. --Teancum (talk) 17:57, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Counting a "bonus game" as a release on a platform?

This is about the inclusion of a platform and release date in the infobox if a game did not see a standalone release but was rather just included as a "bonus game" in another game. I have seen this added to quite a few articles ([10], [11], [12]) and thought it might be good to get some opinions to form a definite guideline.

Personally, I think this should be mentioned somewhere in the article itself but not in the infobox. If the game is just a "gimmick" in another game, it is not really to be considered a release on a platform. On the contrary, I consider a real release to be a standalone game published as such in physical or download form, or as part of a collection of games marketed as such (e.g. Super Mario All-Stars, Gradius Collection, The Legend of Zelda: Collector's Edition). Prime Blue (talk) 18:25, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Some Mirror's Edge facts

I'm posting this here instead of Talk:Mirror's Edge, because I'm not sure how active that page is. If you're not aware, EA is fighting an ongoing battle with notorious trademark troll Edge Games. Tim Langdell, owner of Edge games filed for a preliminary injunction to stop sales of Mirror's Edge, that injunction has been denied, you can read the court order at http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/california/candce/3:2010cv02614/228647/67/0.pdf

There are some interesting points which could go into the Mirror's Edge article, but I don't have the time to edit it into the prose -

• Mirror's Edge is coming out on Mac this year.
• Marketing cost of $9 million in the US
• 3 year development time, team of over 60 people
• 2 million copies sold worldwide, 750,000 of which were in North America
• Mirror's Edge 2D for iOS has sold 37,000 copies on the iPad
  • hahnchen 19:36, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

That lawsuit's going to be really interesting to watch, since the judge called out Langdell for falsifying evidence to support his trademark claim. Torinir ( Ding my phone My support calls E-Support Options ) 19:50, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

NTSC-uk as a reliable source

Currently there's a discussion on NTSC-uk as a reliable source at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Sources#NTSC-uk. If we could get some editors chiming in on their opinions and thoughts that would be great. --Teancum (talk) 00:46, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

We've had a user assist in responding, but I don't feel comfortable closing this one just yet. Could one or two more users please take a second and chime in at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Sources#NTSC-uk to help reach a consensus? Thanks much. --Teancum (talk) 11:57, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Use of British Isles on Quarth

--HighKing (talk) 13:34, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Overly detailed gameplay

While we're on the subject of PLOTSUM, I think we should address this. Beyond WP:GAMEGUIDE and WP:GAMECRUFT - neither of which goes into detail - we don't have anything. Both of those just cover mostly extreme cases.

• Detailed instructions: Saying that a character can jump, shoot, and drop bombs is helpful to understand the game, but avoid explaining button combinations or cheat codes.
  • You can drive a dump truck a fleet of dump trucks between those two extremes. That isn't helpful 98% of the time.
• Strategy guides and walkthroughs: Basic strategy concepts are helpful to understand the game, but avoid details about how to solve puzzles and defeat certain foes.
  • A bit better as it addresses certain foes (and thus anything similar, such as a stage), but the former its not clear whether its solving particular puzzles or every puzzle. Nor does it define basic and this is a key point as someone familiar with the game will consider something quite advanced as "basic" whereas a newbie might not.
• Lists of gameplay items, weapons, or concepts. Specific point values, achievements and trophies, time-limits, levels, character moves, character weight classes, and so on are considered inappropriate. Sometimes a concise summary is appropriate if it is essential to understanding the game or its significance in the industry.
  • Pretty much this is the only section that really says what is clearly inappropriate.
  • Although I'd contend that it should modified to "Sometimes a concise summary is appropriate if it is essential to understanding the game or its significance in the industry as demonstrated through reliable sources.

Beyond very vague notions, there is no clear indication of what should always be in this section and what should not be in this section, other than lists. Moreover, unlike WP:PLOTSUM there is no other place, other than the less clear policy we can direct others to for clarification.

I know there does and should be some level of vagueness, but there have been numerous times myself and others have seen something as violating WP:GAMEGUIDE while the other party doesn't. GAMECRUFT doesn't really help in those situations because its so vague and there's nothing else to really point to easily to help resolve these disputes.陣内_Jinnai 05:40, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Like David Fuchs suggested above, the gameplay section can often been based on how much attention it is given in reviews and reception, forcing on the question "How would you describe this game to someone that never played a video game before?" If it is a generic first person shooter ala Halo or Half-Life (1), we can refer to the major genre article and describe elements from there. The more unique part of the gameplay there is, again as given by sources, the more we should go into it (ala gravity gun, portal gun, celestial brush, etc.) Basically, I would say that if you start at what the genre is and define how it deviates, as outlined in sources, that will help dicate the size of the gameplay section. --MASEM (t) 05:55, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Personally, I've taken a dry minimalist approach to writing gameplay, but my recent articles had such basic gameplay mechanics that the section was super short. I do, however, like the idea that we should focus on what makes the game unique.

And again, the "how to write" draft has a section that could be useful. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 16:55, 30 September 2010 (UTC))

Relying on the genre articles to describe the bulk of the gameplay seems like a good idea to me when possible. SharkD  Talk  19:08, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't like that unless its clear what the genre is. Sometimes its not so clear, especially with hybrid games. We don't have an article on many of those.陣内_Jinnai 19:13, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

While that's true, we're always going to have outliers that don't fit into specific genres. Those need to be handled on a case-by-case basis in my opinion. Genre seems to be the only thing that would easily cover a standard for these things. When a game is outside of a genre or covers multiple genres then a consensus from multiple editors should be the deciding factor. Otherwise we're back to where we originally were. --Teancum (talk) 20:32, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Exactly. Outliners where the genre is iffy and/or non-obvious probably do need more explanation, but the closer they are to standard tropes, the less to explain. Mind you, this doesn't mean that you can say "Quake is an FPS" and have that as the bulk of the gameplay section. Some reiteration of what aspects of the genre are in that game are necessary, but not a full dissertation. And remember, most people could care less the different between non-regen and regen health, for example. --MASEM (t) 20:40, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Well can we codify this then since there seems to be some consensus here?陣内_Jinnai 23:24, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Agreed - I've never edited any policy, so I'm probably not much help, but I can help revise a draft once in place. Anyone up for starting a draft? --Teancum (talk) 00:00, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I think I'm a little late to this discussion, but I tend to be a bit more detailed (compared to others) as far as gameplay sections are concerned. The things I try and do are the following:

• Try and stick as close as possible to what game manuals, strategy guides, etc. say about gameplay. Don't try to get into too much more.
• I think as the others have said, don't try and provide specific solutions to stuff or go overboard such as listing minute information about characters as this runs afoul of WP:GAMEGUIDE normally.
  • I myself made an exception when I wrote the gameplay for Blaster Master, as I included the "grenade glitch" in there; I felt that was a fairly notable part of the game which I felt wouldn't have made sense to put it elsewhere.

Basically, I try and keep gameplay sections comprehensive, concise, simple and understandable, especially for those who are not into video gaming. –MuZemike 17:28, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Proposed text

The Gameplay section should include enough information to give the reader a basic understanding of how the game works without going into needless details, such as how to kill specific bosses. In order to minimize this effect, wikilink to the appropriate video game genre(s) whenever possible. Howevever, this is not an excuse for writing a one line sentance like "Halo is a first person shooter." and leaving it like that.

Gameplay elements that make the game unique to its genre(s) and that are necessary for understanding the the work as a whole can be commented on. The level of detail should be based on the amount of reliable source commentary from the developers and independent reviewers.

A screenshot for non-text-based games is generally warranted in this section. Occasionally, more than one screenshot or other media may be warranted for copyrighted video games based on reliable source commentary. If the video game is still under copyright make certain any non-text meets Wikipedia's fair use policy. All such media, whether public domain or proprietary must be appropriately tagged. 陣内_Jinnai 01:49, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

"Gameplay sections should cover all important aspects of gameplay without delving into guide material and should be accessible to non-gamers" seems succinct enough to me. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 20:48, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Problem is that doesn't give clear indiciation what is important what isn't and how to determine what violated GAMEGUIDE and what doesn't, beyond the obvious extremes.陣内_Jinnai 02:00, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Title italics via Infobox VG

Shall we follow the example of WikiProject Albums, WikiProject Films and WikiProject Ships and implement italic article titles for video games via {{Infobox video game}}? —chaos5023 (talk) 17:51, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I'd say yes to keep in sync with the MOS. I'd prefer a template update though since that'd obviously be faster. --Teancum (talk) 18:05, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

If I understand what you mean by "template update" correctly — embedding the code to produce the title italics in {{Infobox video game}}) — that's what I meant. Is that what you were talking about? —chaos5023 (talk) 18:08, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

It's easy enough to add. Just need a yea/nay to go ahead and do it. --MASEM (t) 18:11, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm in favor, so that's two yeas so far. I wonder if there are any likely objections. I suppose they should be given a bit of time to arise in any event. —chaos5023 (talk) 18:14, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

How would it be implemented? Not every page using the infobox has the same title as the game the infobox describes. Some pages cover multiple games and have multiple infoboxes. If the infobox will be capable of handling such cases, go ahead. Reach Out to the Truth 18:29, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

If I understand how the other infoboxes — {{Infobox album}}, {{Infobox film}}, {{Infobox ship}} — are doing it, it's with a variation on the logic from {{Italic title}}, so the italicized title is based on the actual base article title, not the title attribute of the infobox. So I think everything would be fine with the areas you're concerned about. —chaos5023 (talk) 18:50, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes- the italic template has nothing to do with the infobox that it's attached to, it's just a convenient way to get it in there without manually adding it to 20000 articles. Additionally, if you have an article titled "blah (series)" that has infobox video game in it, it will render as "blah (series)" - it stops italicizing when it hits a "(". If, however, it's titled "blah series", it will be "blah series", and you'd have to override it with a "displaytitle" template at the bottom of the article to fix it (that way, it's the last to load). I found this out because my discography articles are all "music of the blah series", so they all rendered wrong when they added this to the infobox album template. I don't know how many articles we have that are titled strangely like that and use the infobox vg template, but they would all have to be manually fixed. --PresN 20:59, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, that's an important detail, and maybe an objection. I'd still be in favor of the infobox approach, though; lot less work to tweak the edge cases than to manually apply {{Italic title}} everywhere. —chaos5023 (talk) 21:05, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I believe those infoboxes include a parameter to force the displayed title for this. --MASEM (t) 21:17, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Ah, right, I've seen that parameter; didn't quite grasp what it was for. Makes sense. —chaos5023 (talk) 21:21, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, here. Let's get some Wikipedianess going.

I propose that {{Infobox video game}} be modified similarly to {{Infobox film}} for the purpose of italicizing article titles, and supporting override of same, on articles where it is transcluded.

• Support as nominator. —chaos5023 (talk) 21:27, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support. I just edited the infobox for Back to the Future trilogy to suppress the default italics and found it to work satisfactorily. The feature is poorly documented though. We should explain how to bypass the default italics in the template's documentation. Reach Out to the Truth 13:20, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support. Seems the most straightforward way to adhere to having italics for something that should have italics 97% of the time. The rest can easily be bypassed. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 14:54, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
• What is the exact benefit of this, again? I'm not sure when the MoS was amended to include typographic styles in article titles. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 18:36, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

  Consistency of presentation between titles and text. The call for it that I know about is WP:AT#Italics and other formatting. —chaos5023 (talk) 18:39, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

  There was an RfC at Wikipedia talk:Article titles. Closed the 20th of September; looks like only 28 people !voted. Since then, various wikiprojects have been pushing this through, mainly through their infobox templates. I first noticed it when Albums did it this week, but I think Species started a long time ago, sparking the RfC in the first place. --PresN 19:04, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Ridiculous Template

{{Video game companies of the United States}}

Really? 3 Templates rolled into one? 16kb of transclusion in every US video game company article? Given that all this is rolled up, how is this any better than the Category:Video game companies of the United States link at the bottom? Let's kill this. - hahnchen 20:51, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Does seem a bit much. Surely it's every US video game company article that's at issue, though, not every US video game article? —chaos5023 (talk) 21:01, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Correction made. - hahnchen 21:09, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Noted. Well, I think there's a valid argument that, given that it doesn't attempt any organizational breakdown besides alphabetical chunking, it's pretty much a harder-to-maintain, higher-overhead version of the category, yeah. I'd support ditching it on that basis, at first blush. —chaos5023 (talk) 21:12, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

It's a waste. Navboxes are mention to help with navigation between connected topics. While there are some companies with implicit connections (in house studios, etc.), there's nothing like that here. It is best served by the category and likely the large parent list of VG companies if it exists. --MASEM (t) 21:17, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Agree that the navbox is too lengthy and barely relevant to the articles it's in. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 14:52, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

WP:TFD ? –xeno^talk 14:55, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I think so, yeah. —chaos5023 (talk) 14:57, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Realtime Games Software Template

Yes, I looked myself up on wikipedia, a mistake, I know!

Anyway, the template for RGS has two games on it that I don't recognise ("By fair means of foul" and "argonautica") - I know it was all a blur back then, but even so ...

Where does this data come from? Perhaps someone can look into these two games, confirm that RGS had no hand in them, and make some edits?

--Ian (talk) 09:49, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

The sources on the edit note say that it was compiled from data on World of Spectrum and Moby Games. We really ought to get a Guest Book for developers to sign when they pop in. We had that Jon Ritman bloke in here last year. He wasn't happy... - X201 (talk) 12:15, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Additional: Does anyone know if Martijn from WoS has a WP account? Might be a quick way to sort it out if he has. - X201 (talk) 12:30, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Another Addition Ian, consider the blur sharpened; Here's the evidence "£7.95 for CBM 64, Coming soon for Spectrum." Perhaps the blur was caused by the QL programming ;-) - X201 (talk) 12:53, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Special offer on "Additionals" today: Here's a link to By Fair Mean or Foul it has Realtime and Superior Software both listed as the Developer. Although it looks like a mis-tagging. WoS has Superior listed for one part of the description and then changes to listing Realtime accompanied by a list of names that doesn't tie in to the employees at Realtime - X201 (talk) 13:01, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Sources not archiving

If anyone knows anything about User:MiszaBot, can they drop in there and find out why threads older than 60 days are not archiving? Thanks. --Teancum (talk) 13:51, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

The reason its not archiving is because Miszabot has a parameter called minthreadstoarchive, the default for this parameter is 2. With the 60 days that you have it set to, the page needs to have two threads where the last comment was before the 9 August before it will archive. - X201 (talk) 14:17, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Perfect, I've set that parameter to 1, and decreased archive time to 45 days. Thanks. --Teancum (talk) 14:32, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Stadia in football/soccer video games

Hello chaps,

I'm currently in a dispute with a user concerning the listing of football stadiums in the FIFA (and therefore Pro Evolution soccer) series. Stadiums have been listed in the series' articles for many years now:

• Pro_Evolution_Soccer_2011#Stadia
• Pro_Evolution_Soccer_2010#Stadia
• Pro_Evolution_Soccer_2009#Stadiums
• Pro_Evolution_Soccer_2008#Stadiums
• Pro_Evolution_Soccer_7#Stadiums
• Pro_Evolution_Soccer_6#Stadiums
• FIFA_05#Stadiums
• FIFA_06#Stadiums
• FIFA_07#Stadiums
• FIFA_08#Stadium
• FIFA_09#Stadia

I've added details to the FIFA 10 article but a user has removed my input because (s)he considers it inappropriate_content. All views welcome... see talk:FIFA 11 20:20, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

It looks like guide content to me, which isn't suitable for the site. Stadiums are equal to levels/areas of video games, which are rarely listed in full. Also note: just because something has been listed for years doesn't make it alright. RobJ1981 (talk) 03:40, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Original research in console sales figures

It looks like a new push for WP:OR/WP:SYN is brewing at Talk:Mega Drive#Total Mega Drive Sales. Some users are dissatisfied with the sales figures reported in every reliable source that has been found (some listed here), preferring instead to add up numbers from disparate sources (some of doubtful reliability) to come up with much higher figures. The previous discussion on this topic is archived at Talk:Mega Drive/Archive 10. Other affected articles include Console wars and History of video game consoles (fourth generation). Please comment. Thanks. Anomie⚔ 03:41, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

In List of best-selling game consoles we have the worldwide sales figures for a number of consoles. Here someone replaced the worldwide sales figures for one console with individual cherry-picked sources (but didn't add them up to try to skirt WP:SYN, so the list now has no worldwide figure listed at all), then someone came along and added them up, I reverted the whole mess, and the original person started the cycle over. Whee. But if no one else cares, I won't waste my time anymore. Anomie⚔ 11:44, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

YouTube interviews with actual developers auto RS?

I've been noticing more and more that digital download games (XBLA, PSN) get interviews with the 'little guys'. While sourcing X or Y website itself might be dubious, can we say it's safe that even when a 'little guy' gaming site interviews a developer that so long as you physically see and hear a developer's response it's automatically reliable? I don't see why this wouldn't be the case to be honest since at that point it's "straight from the horse's mouth". I'd call those reliable, though admittedly if a better source exists it should be replaced when possible. But when your XBLA game isn't Braid or Limbo it's a lot tougher to get all the sourcing from the big boys, and often you miss out on great little gems in the small guys interviews (all the big boys usually have the exact same interview, just with a different interviewer asking the questions). --Teancum (talk) 01:02, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I would argue yes as long as it is absolutely clear that the interview is with the developers, regardless who does the interview. There will likely be some that question this at FA, but even with text interviews from developers from normally non-RS sites, they usually aspect this logic particularly if there's collerating data from RS sources. --MASEM (t) 01:18, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

That's kindof what I figured. I don't think any of the articles I work on will get a push from me past GAN, but that's good to know if I ever go for FAC. Regarding the text interviews I've mostly been fortunate enough to verify the content since smaller/indie developers often link directly to these interviews from their own blog/news section of their website. --Teancum (talk) 01:34, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I'd say it's allowable only with the official recognition--the question of "high quality" sources makes it an iffy proposition at FAC. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 02:00, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

You're speaking of the text interviews and not the YouTube ones, correct? --Teancum (talk) 04:14, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

What if (I know I'm trying to expand past the context) said material from YouTube is from the developer/company/etc. itself? Would we treat that under WP:SPS if anything? I mean YouTube does allow role accounts, and so they can certainly do this. –MuZemike 07:16, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Youtube is the same as any site that has a variety of sources.陣内_Jinnai 08:32, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Regarding MuZemike's question: That would not be considered a self-published but a primary source since it comes directly from the authors in that case. Prime Blue (talk) 09:59, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, it could also be treated as an SPS, but the point here is that with only that dev commentary alone, you're likely not going to pass notability, but when that commentary or whatever is used as part of a development section of a more fleshed-out article, you're probably fine with it. --MASEM (t) 14:17, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I'd also chip in a question about the quality of the interview. Some interviews are just the developer/producer/whoever spouting the things that the PR Dept. want them to say, making them little more than the equivalent of a press release. - X201 (talk) 15:35, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

What if the interview is by a fansite but hosted by Youtube, Can that be considered reliable? Also, what if the interview is a bit casual so it isn't exactly high quality but still contains a developer in the interview? Sincerely Subzerosmokerain (talk) 18:28, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, I think it would go back to context. If the fansite is asks questions directly in relation to the article, and the answers are from an actual developer, then it goes back to being straight from the horses mouth. I really think the only thing that concerns me with the "little guy" and fansite interviews is that, like X201 said, they aren't structured, so a little bit of common sense should be used so we don't twist a developer's words. Other than that I'd say if the devs said it and you saw their face on the video while saying it then yeah, use it. --Teancum (talk) 13:16, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Quick request

Do any videogame project members identify themselves as either a deletionist or inclusionist, and don't mind being briefly mentioned on a radio show? Marasmusine (talk) 11:40, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Radio show? I would call myself an mild inclusionist - if an article has a lot of coverage, but minimal coverage in the standard reliable sources, I lean on the side of inclusion. A good example is Spring (game engine). --Teancum (talk) 15:24, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Personally, absolutely not. I don't agree with the notion of editors being pigeonholed and compartmentalized out of mere convenience; such labeling separates, as opposed to brings together, a group of editors in a collaborative environment. I tend to lean towards what Teancum has written above, and, on the other hand, if I see an article which clearly doesn't fit what is generally agreed that Wikipedia should have, I'm not afraid to propose deletion. I try and follow WP:BEFORE when I can, as I especially think if something can be merged, it should; just because one is able to write an article on a separate subject doesn't mean that there needs to be one. That's my mainspace philosophy in a nutshell. –MuZemike 15:57, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

It's the self-identification that I'm interested in. I was thinking of mentioning S@bre as someone who states they subscribe to neither philosophy, and Dream Focus as an explicit inclusionist (although not a project member). I haven't spotted any self-claimed deletionists yet. S'funny, I feel I lean that way myself, and yet my opinions in AfDs almost always match those of yours and Teancum's. Perhaps this goes some way to showing how meaningless these labels are. I should also note that the radio piece is light-hearted in tone. Thanks, Marasmusine (talk) 20:05, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

I think I'm an inclusionist. I will write an article or support one being made as long as it has a few reliable sources and isn't almost the exact same thing as an existing article. I almost never propose deletion or merging unless literally the article is literally all or almost all in-game citations or no citations with cruft on the side. What would happen if everyone was like that? Btw, there's been some interesting drama going on for a while at the Pokémon sub-project. Remember how all the Pokémon except for, like, six used to be just in lists? The total's in the 40s or 50s now, and it hasn't come easily. Tezero (talk) 01:15, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm a "whateverworks"ist. I don't like to consider myself for merging or for splitting - I only base it one what should be merged and what should not. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 01:33, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Out-of-date FAs/GAs

This thread more specifically deals with older games, but newer games suffer too to an extent. I've seen a lot of older games, specifically those featured far in the past, feeling very off; for example, Donkey Kong, while informative in many ways, can't possibly be that limited in reception. If someone took the time to accomplish the (admittedly arduous) task, it could be a very strong article reception-wise. Additionally, the references bug the crap out of me. I think it'd be a good idea if we kinda take up some of these articles and fix them up to the current standard, because it kinda makes me cringe when I see so many messy reception sections. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 10:58, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

When I have the time and inclination I'm going to spruce up some of my older FAs, like Halo 2 and Golden Sun, but I'm stuck between writing new content and madly archiving everything so it doesn't go OTN. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 14:05, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Donkey Kong (video game) has been on my clean up list for a while, but like David, there's just so much else to do. I do think a decent Reception section is possible for DK and most any older game from the 80s. However, anything before the 80s is unlikely to have any decent critical commentary.

Back on topic, I agree that our older articles don't exactly live up to the standards set by our current ones. Some attention here and there would do wonders. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 20:17, 9 October 2010 (UTC))

Well, reception-wise, I did my part with Kirby's Dream Land. ¦D Next stop, Mario Bros.! - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 20:54, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Another one to add to that list is LittleBigPlanet. It's got dead links, broken section links (see the talk page), nine non-free images, and mx tags already on the article. I'm planning on putting it up for GAR soon, but since topic started, I suppose it could possibly be fixed without the need to GAR it. --Teancum (talk) 21:00, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

The images should be fine now, agreed? - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 21:12, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I've fixed the dead links. - X201 (talk) 12:51, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

• There are still six screenshots from the game. One of those DLC shots needs to go, along with repairing the plot section per the mx tag there. The rest of it seems to be fixed up nice though. I'll hold off on a GAR for two weeks or so in case ya'll need some time to fix those last two issues. While you're working on it though, the first image's caption is really weak per WP:CAPTION. The rest are much better. --Teancum (talk) 13:13, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

If we are listing FA/GA articles that need attention, I would like to mention Left 4 Dead and Deus Ex (video game). GamerPro64 (talk) 23:17, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

• I'd like to volunteer a link to the Online print archive to help with this. Many FACs with now-weak Reception sections (Grim Fandango, Age of Mythology, etc.) could be beefed up with the reviews contained therein. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 18:31, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

All the small things

Sorry if this seems egoistic but it made my day. Especially since I rarely write prose in Wikipedia. Rock, Paper, Shotgun posted a news article about Gray Matter along with my crudely written development section. Yay! --Mika1h (talk) 19:47, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

You'd be wanting {{Press}} then. -- Sabre (talk) 21:09, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

It's always good to see contributors' efforts being of use. Someoneanother 23:19, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Character tables

Are character tables such as the one at Super Smash Bros. (series)#Characters accepted? I was under the impression that they were, but DKqwerty has removed such tables at Mario Kart and Mario Party, stating they violate WP:NOTGUIDE. I have argued the point that if they were normal game series, they would have a section of prose, but because they are such a large series and share characters with other games, the table directs readers to where more information is available. What is the consensus of the project? _Blake ^{(Talk·Edits)} 14:12, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

• I think that the inclusion of characters in SSB is a much more notable facet of such characters and the individual games (see Snake and Sonic in SSBB) in part being a large crossover title, compared to the assortment of characters in MK or MP games, which generally all come out of the single Mario universe (give or take), and attract little media attention. --MASEM (t) 15:09, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

• I'm on the fence with this one. On games that are largely driven by their character cast (such as Marvel: Ultimate Alliance) I find it appropriate. I'd say in this case I definitely agree with Masem; Mario Kart and Mario Party aren't as character-driven as Super Smash Bros. (series). It does feel like a bit of an eyesore, however, and perhaps some prose and allowing that table to hide would improve the readability of the article. --Teancum (talk) 15:38, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

• I think character tables are a clear violation of WP:NOTGUIDE. They are no more significant than level or track lists, which are routinely removed when added to such articles like Mario Kart or Super Mario 64, citing WP:NOTGUIDE as precedent. There is no encyclopedic or historical value to the tables and they are largely available on other video game-specific sites and wikis; including them on Wikipedia seems to also violate WP:IINFO. Any significant changes, additions, or crossovers to playable characters should (in my opinion) A.) be sourced to establish significance and B.) be in prose (i.e. Snake and Sonic in the SSBB article, which are easy to source and place in prose).
  With regard to Teancum's comments, I agree that there may be exceptions, like character-driven fighting games whose only discernible difference between games is the roster (Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, etc.). However, a series like SSB isn't character-driven, and the games are significantly different which each release; therefore, it should be easy to squeeze important additional, dropped, or crossover characters in that section with sources. With series like Mario Kart or Mario Party, the tables are just as invaluable as a level or track list. Hiding the tables might be a middle ground for series like SSBB. But overall, in my honest opinion, I think they're inappropriate in any article, including character-driven ones. If it can't be said as prose, of what value is it? DKqwerty (talk) 21:06, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

• I feel that character articles fall into the same category of wrestling rosters, and therefore, WP:NOTGUIDE. Character lists and rosters veer into the "game guide" territory, and we should really strive to make sure that we don't turn into a glorified GameFAQs character checklist, especially when it's tempting to do so with things like Super Smash. Nomader ^(Talk) 02:57, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

• I would strongly disagree that SSB is not character-driven. Perhaps not so much as SF, but the creation of characters as well in SSB as well as character discussion clearly establishes this. When you are discussing a new SSB game, the first thing you think of is "what new characters?", whereas with Mario Party, you think "again?". - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 06:18, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

• This is all ancillary opinion which has no barring on the actual triviality of the information. And there's no need to disparage the MP series like that here. DKqwerty (talk) 14:43, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

• This can be sourced by the fact that IGN has articles in which they predicted players that would appear in Brawl. They don't do anything of the sort for any Mario Party or sports game. _Blake ^{(Talk·Edits)} 15:45, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

• I'm on the fence here. My big question is what - non-trivial addition - does this add to the article that could not be better provided by prose? From that I can tell its just a statement of who is in the games and whether they are start characters - trivial info. On the other hand, this isn't a wrestling game and who is(n't) in a particular series and who is a starting character could be relevant if the prose gave some independent reliable source or development info on this. It may also help if it was made more clear which ones were not Nintendo characters in there and why they were added/commentary on their addition. Those kind of aspects can justify it as it makes the info easily discernable to the casual reader.
  That said, noting what series they belong to isn't redundant info. That info should be obvious from the article link.陣内_Jinnai 06:29, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

• I agree that this all boils down to sourcing (or lack thereof): the tables act as repositories of trivial information under the guise of tabular data, while avoiding the mandate to source information because the information is technically and irrevocably true. However, the need to source information is not simply to establish factualness, but to also establish that the information, though true, is important enough to be included. These tables are simply a giant escape clause from this policy. And the fact remains that if the information can be well-sourced for importance, then the information should be easy to add as prose. DKqwerty (talk) 12:15, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

• So then could we say that any game that receives significant coverage on the topic of specific characters merits their inclusion? I cited Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 awhile back, which I feel is a great example of coverage of revealed characters. Kotaku, IGN, and Marvel themselves covered the reveal of each player character and NPC. However given the nature of this game and the large cast a table presents the information better than prose. --Teancum (talk) 14:46, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

• I have created prose for the characters that appear in each game,(minus the last sentence about who is in Brawl, because I got lazy)

Super Smash Bros. introduced the series with twelve characters. These characters include Mario, Donkey Kong, Link, Samus, Yoshi, Kirby, Fox, Pikachu, Luigi, Captain Falcon, Ness, and Jigglypuff. Super Smash Bros. Melee features 26 characters, 14 more than its predecessor. New characters include Bowser, Dr. Mario, Falco, Ganondorf, Ice Climbers, Marth, Mewtwo, Mr. Game & Watch, Peach, Pichu, Roy, Young Link, and Zelda/Sheik. Super Smash Bros. Brawl features 35 characters. Dr. Mario, Roy, Young Link, Mewtwo and Pichu were removed from the roster. 16 new characters include BLAH BLAH BLAH and BLAH

This is effectively what the table says, minus the series column. I think the table should be kept. It is not gameguide information because it is on a table. It is just information presented in a better way. Lists of video games are not displayed as prose. They have tables because that is how the information is best displayed. Also, might I add that this article went through GAN and had no problems with the table. I do agree now though, that it may not be best for the Mario Party and Mario Kart articles. _Blake ^{(Talk·Edits)} 15:55, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

• Perhaps something more akin to this:

Super Smash Bros. began the series with twelve Nintendo characters which have remained throughout the series: Mario, Donkey Kong, Link, Samus, Yoshi, Kirby, Fox, Pikachu, Luigi, Captain Falcon, Ness, and Jigglypuff. Super Smash Bros. Melee features twenty-six characters and Super Smash Bros. Brawl features thirty-five characters. The series rosters have expanded to include more characters from series like Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and Pokémon, as well as adding series such as Fire Emblem and Kid Icarus. Brawl was the first game to feature characters from third-party games: Sonic the Hedgehog of Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog series and Solid Snake of Konami's Metal Gear series.

How many more and which particular characters were added and removed is really not relevant or encyclopedic. Simply the concept of expanding the rosters is important, as well as the third-party characters and from which companies and series they originated. If people want specifics they should just refer to each game's article, or if they want wonkish detail they can refer to a game guide or walkthrough. DKqwerty (talk) 05:44, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't like the tables for much of the reasons mentioned above. They take up more space than is necessary to convey the same information, are very similar to tables I've seen in some guides (admittedly in the minority), and receive limited coverage by the media. Publications often focus on a few favorites in reviews, but rarely are every character covered in any detail outside game guides. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 17:09, 30 September 2010 (UTC))

The tables seem kind of crufty to me, but I'm not heavily opposed to them either. SharkD  Talk  19:07, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

• I think there is an ideal density of information for which the tables are too big but the raw prose list is too dense and full of blue links to be readable. Given that readability is a greater concern than optimal usage of space I prefer the table. Nifboy (talk) 16:39, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

• Editor Purplebackpackonthetrail recently re-added the character table to Mario Kart (diff). I decided to wait and see what happened. As I expected, an IP account made a tedious and incorrect revision to the table (diff). This is one of the major flaws with character tables: they're never sourced. This is because the information is so trivial that there are no reliable sources for the information except gameguides, walkthroughs, and promotional websites. As such, people (especially anon. accounts) will make frequent, tedious, and often incorrect revisions to items like character tables. An item which should identify simple tabular data (which can be verified through the game) becomes a breeding ground for tedious revisions of "y" to "n" or vice versa (diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, etc.) when the data should remain constant if it was ever capable of being accurate in the first place. Again I ask what invaluable information these tables present? What irrevocable function do they serve? In what manner are they informative? They do not present truly tabular data, they're simply a chart which may tickle our OCDs inside, but which offer no tangible benefit or information to readers. DKqwerty (talk) 14:26, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

• You definitely did the right thing by reverting it. As I've said before there are occasions where table data is more easily presented, but what happened there is a clear example as to why it should be avoided if possible. Then again, that table is an utter mess, with 10 columns and 35 rows there would never be a way to keep that clean and accurate. As you mentioned, IPs often come along and make incorrect changes, and honestly in this case it's very possible that they misread a row or column when either checking for a character, or in making the change, screwing everything up. I would still have trouble with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (video game)#Characters if it weren't for the fact that the game's popularity was never high, and now is practically nonexistant. List of Gran Turismo courses also suffers from the Mario Kart curse of IPs adding original research or outright false claims. --Teancum (talk) 14:50, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
• I'd also, like to point out that the table contained further policy violations, having unsourced characters for a game which hasn't even been released yet, violating both WP:V and WP:CRYSTAL. This is a frequent issue with such articles: keeping speculative information based upon a few screenshots from appearing in articles. The tables provide a repository for unsourced information. In addition, of what value is it that a character was in a single game? Or only two games of eight or nine games? Is appearing in one quarter of the games in a series significant? One half? All of them? The tables don't allow for these distinctions and simply cram all the information into one section under the guise of "easy reading." The problem is that most of the information gleaned from such a chart, no matter how much easier to read, isn't at all significant and wouldn't stand up to prose requirements for both veracity and significance. DKqwerty (talk) 17:05, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

• I reverted DK back, because when I first re-added the table, discussion here seemed a) closed (no comments in a week), and b) inconclusive. Had I commented, it might have tipped the balance in favor of keeping it. In addition, there seems to be majority support on the Mario Kart talk page for keeping the table; DK is the only one who opposed it. I don't see how an IP adding bad info to a table is my fault, and blatently disagree with Teancum's "you did the right thing to revert it". Also, I don't understand why DK brought this back here and added on to a dead thread instead of just continued it on the talk page. Maybe it's because on the talk page, there isn't really support for his BOLD deletion of the table in the first place. And DK, I don't think you appreciate that tables are much better than prose for displaying raw factual data Purplebackpack89 15:37, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Stuff can always be brought back when where is disagreements on stuff. I don't necessarily see how bringing said discussion to a wider audience when previous discussion was stale and inconclusive is considered forum-shopping. –MuZemike 16:01, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

I think character tables need to be cleaned up quite a lot. Take Marvel: Ultimate Alliance for example. The game has many characters, but the table has gotten flooded with brief cameos way too often. List the playables, bosses and notable other characters...not everyone. The same goes for other games as well. RobJ1981 (talk) 16:17, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm, I thought I had axed all the non-notable characters long ago. Oh well, I did it again. --Teancum (talk) 17:45, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Iou don't need a table for eithe SSB or MK. The basic info can be summarized in a paragraph. FE: SSB:

Super Smash Bros. began the series with twelve Nintendo characters which have remained throughout the series. Its sequals, Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. Brawl have continued to add new characters from other Nintendo series from 26 to 35 respectively. Starting with Brawl, characters from popular third-party developers, Sonic the Hedgehog and Solid Snake were added to the lineup.

You don't need specifics about every character, every game, every series each character belongs to if they have their own article (that info will be on that page). This is suppose to give an overview of how the roster expanded, not a detailed breakdown. The same kind of paragraph can be used with mario kart陣内_Jinnai 23:50, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Just because the data is factual doesn't mean it's not trivial and indiscriminate. Again, no one has actually addressed my concerns with the various policy violations (WP:V for starters, plus WP:NOTGUIDE, WP:HTRIV, and WP:IINFO). In addition, no one has explained how it's encyclopedic (and not trivial) information that a single character appeared in, say, one of eight games of a series? Or for whom and in what manner this information is encyclopedic and useful as opposed to simply being indiscriminate facts? Some people have offered ideas as to when it might be relevant, just not why. And Purplebackpackonthetrail just seems to enjoy criticizing parliamentary missteps as opposed to supporting his or her stance on the issue. Simply put, when presented as prose, the information would be removed immediately; within a table, the same, equally trivial information lasts forever simply because it's "easier to read" and looks nice. Just because you dress up trivial information in a nice tabular fashion doesn't make the information any less trivial than as prose. Again, I think a prose mention somewhere between my suggestion and Jinnai's suggestion is the simplest resolution: remove the bulky and pointless tables in lieu of a direct and informative prose statement (except where WikiProject Video games editors can agree that a table is appropriate and/or necessary). DKqwerty (talk) 15:17, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

DragonFable

I've been working on this article for DragonFable, located here. Because this is my first time working on an article, I was wondering if any of you know any good ways of presenting the article and tips on stopping it falling into fancruft or gameguiding territory. I'm fairly sure an article would be possible, since I've managed to find a few reviews already, but it'd be good to know just how much I'll need to add before I can make it a proper article without it being speedied or AFD'd in an instant. Harry Blue5 (talk) 22:50, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

About.com isn't considered a reliable source, but you can use these: [13][14] Tezero (talk) 17:20, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I'll remove the About.com source, but may I inquire as to why it is considered unreliable? Just curious. Harry Blue5 (talk) 18:33, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive 16#Huffington Post.2C Gawker and About.com, Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive 22#About.com. A simple search at WP:RS/N can be mighty useful sometimes... ResMar 01:42, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Bah, I think I've got the hang of your Project when I find WP:VG/S and then you reveal there's another thing? Curse you, Wikipedia, you and your little dog too. Also, does anyone know how I can make a section on gameplay without inadvertently turning it into a gameguide? Harry Blue5 (talk) 17:39, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Also, I have a question on the reliability on this source: http://www.mpogd.com/news/?ID=2936. I understand the site isn't considered exactly reliable, but since this is an interview with an official staff member (Cysero) and all... would this source be more reliable than they're average stuff? Harry Blue5 (talk) 17:52, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Fridae'sDoom started helping me out, but I'm worried that the annual holidays are just trivia. Harry Blue5 (talk) 16:15, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

NPD Data cutback

[15] NPD is cutting back the amount of sales figures on VGs (hardware and software) from now on.

While I believe we should still encourage sales figures whenever they can be found (excluding VGChartz, of course), I think we need to be aware that it's going to be difficult to include for most games from here on out. --MASEM (t) 22:32, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

• True. Although, last time NPD did this, it didn't last very long. Basically, I'd wait before altering any guidelines. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 23:34, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Detailed game descriptions

I'll try to make this brief and to the point. Gregory Weir, a game developer, has made a great many non-notable games. One editor want detailed descriptions of all these non-notable games in separate articles. Another editor wants all the information on all the non-notable games in the main Gregory Weir article. Problem is, all the information on all those games unbalances the article. We don't really have a precedent for a developer who has written a half-dozen ignored games and one or two more notable ones. What say ye? Please discuss here. — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 02:31, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

If a game he made meets notability standards, make an article on the game. If it doesn't, it should not receive more than a mere mention on the developer's article. Going into ad nauseum detail on non-notable games is unnecessary bloat. Torinir ( Ding my phone My support calls E-Support Options ) 10:51, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for chiming in on this matter. — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 13:22, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

List of PlayStation 2 collections for the PlayStation 3

Notable or no? I think it's trivial listcruft at best. The games are just enhanced ports, and the list will likely not grow much at all. RobJ1981 (talk) 05:09, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I would say not. Even if it quintupled, this information could be categorized easily. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 06:38, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Not to mention two of the four 'references' are links to the WP pages... ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 13:43, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Categorize something like this. I don't see the topic of a list of collections notable in and of itself, rather each individual collection has the notability. This fails guidelines per WP:NOTINHERITED. --Teancum (talk) 13:48, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Not yet. If there were more definitive plans for several other series, I would make it a different type of article, but right now, this all can be summarized on the PS3 page about these collections, as well as on the respective game/series pages. --MASEM (t) 13:49, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Alright, I sent it to AFD. RobJ1981 (talk) 02:40, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Anyone have an AccessMyLibrary account?

Or an account on a similar service? Currently helping to clear the video game AFC backlog, and one game—Mortimer and the Riddles of the Medallion, a classic LucasArts game—has me stumped source-wise. No coverage in the reference library, very little-to-nothing on Google (Standard, News, Books, Scholar), etc. However, I did come up with this list of material with AccessMyLibrary's search engine. I don't have an account, though, so I can't read them. I know there are other services like this, but I'm drawing a blank on their names. If anyone has an account with one of these services, it'd be great if you could help me out. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 03:31, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure it's free to make one; I have one, for example. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 04:41, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I believe you need to have a library card from an American or Canadian public library to access content on that website. Gary King (talk · scripts) 06:47, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Nope; I haven't had one for years and I was able to get access. I don't remember how, but I think it's only a temporary account thing or something. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 07:04, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

It looks like you can essentially enter any valid US zip code to view articles on the site. Gary King (talk · scripts) 07:33, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the responses, guys. Maybe they've changed the service since the last time I checked, because I don't remember it being this simple. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 18:47, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Belated TFA mention

Forgot to mention this yesterday, but its better than not at all. Ninja Gaiden (Nintendo Entertainment System) is currently Today's Featured Article. GamerPro64 (talk) 02:08, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

DragonFable, again

Okay, so I've been working on this DragonFable article, and its almost finished (well, finished the bit where I can sent it off to the main article space anyway). So I was wondering, is it good to go yet? How many more sources do I need before I can make this a real article? Harry Blue5 (talk) 00:44, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I've made the article. Harry Blue5 (talk) 22:30, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Metal Gear canonicity

Hideo Kojima has already stated that certain titles in the franchise, such as Snake's Revenge, are not canonical, but yet there's this anon who insists that Portable Ops and Peace Walker are also non-canonical, and are part of some "Expanded Universe" crap. I've taken down the thread because I believe such discussions are in forum territory, but the guy's crowing like he's the judge of everything Metal Gear. He's been persistent about this for several months, even as much as 63.17.xxx has been a few years back. Can somebody cut this guy down a peg? thank you.--Eaglestorm (talk) 01:13, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Fallout 2 edit war

Didn't really know where else to put this. I've become embroiled in an edit war over the Fallout 2 page. To me the style the others keep reverting to is inappropriate, and the information misleading/not notable. Perhaps I'm just wrong but I wanted some better opinions on the matter. For now I'm just going to stop editing the page because there's not much else I can do. Muskeato 18:11, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

There does seem to be some sillybuggers going on at Fallout 2, someone's determined to include a reference to 'cops' (so the world blew up but the scraps of humanity remaining can still dial 911?) and use language like "sleep with girls". Someoneanother 12:49, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

In addition to the unprofessional prose, none of it is necessary. Simply summarizing is plenty. --Teancum (talk) 12:55, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I have reinstated the gameplay description with better wording. Hopefully, this will be acceptable. 201.226.192.12 (talk) 13:09, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Not really.. and now another ip has shown up and is reverting any changes, wonderful. Someoneanother 14:30, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

And another, this is some offsite piss-take. Someoneanother 15:12, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Looks like the protecting admin found a number of proxy IPs. Not uprising considering the age of the game and how edits were reverted. --Teancum (talk) 17:15, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

BioShock characters

The user PavelChekov01 has been deleting List of BioShock characters and edit warring with the creation of a separate article called Characters of BioShock. I would like to get some separate input on this to prevent an edit war. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 19:43, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, I'm pretty sure that the characters page have been named the other way. The "List of [series] characters" is the correct way and he should cease and desist. Sincerely Subzerosmokerain (talk) 20:23, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

There's really nothing wrong with the naming change; lists don't need to explicitly be called "List of X" (as per a recent RFC). But, I would argue that if the overall group of characters cannot be commented on and instead is just a list of all the characters with minimal bookending, the "List of" moniker is better. --MASEM (t) 20:27, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Pass. The level of fancruft in the one currently standing is ridiculous. Someoneanother 21:04, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

To clarify, the title isn't the problem, but rather, he is creating a separate article. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 04:53, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Let's see if I got this right.. there was a load of excessive character details, anything with a name listed etc., added to the original list. This was removed. The content was then forked to an existing redirect, without attribution, then the original character list was redirected to the fork? If that's the case it's a mess, the fork needs to vanish and we need to sit down and talk about which characters belong and which don't. How that particular fork-deletion hokey-cokey happens I don't know. Someoneanother 13:00, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I've added a {{Merge to}} tag to both pages with the discussion link heading right here. On a different note, I agree with Someone's comments - the new article is full of WP:GAMETRIVIA, listing pretty much everyone you ever encounter, and writing in-universe descriptions for them, violating WP:WAF. However neither article has a single source to provide a rationale for it not simply being in the games' articles themselves. There are far too many "List of [x] characters" articles that either 1) list everything under the sun, 2) are unnecessary because the plot summary covers the content, or 3) make no attempt at justifying a separate article. List of characters in Red Dead Redemption is an excellent example. And it was closed as no consensus at a recent AfD due to a simple amount of Keep votes rather than rationale. In that case only one character is notable, and everyone else is adequately covered in Red Dead Redemption#Plot. --Teancum (talk) 14:44, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

In my searches, I've seen reception pop up for a few of those characters, so I feel that we could go with the honours system and you could take my word for it that there is some validity to it? :v - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 19:29, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Xbox 360 System Software

Where is the move button on that page? If it's move protected why there is no lock icon? I was planning have "system software" in small caps like other similar pages. --Mika1h (talk) 20:56, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

[16] Was protected back in 2008. Edit protection was later removed, but not the move protection. Reach Out to the Truth 02:20, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

So can someone here move the page? --Mika1h (talk) 12:18, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

"20 Years of Nintendo Power"

Is there anyone who owns this magazine? I was hoping to use it for the Nester's Funky Bowling article. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 21:05, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

A couple of review archives

While working on the online print archive, I stumbled across small ~2003 archives of early EGM reviews and PSX Official PlayStation Magazine U.S. reviews. A lot of the latter is junk, but there are a few gems; the former consists almost entirely of gems. Some of the links were broken, but I managed to add quite a bit to the archive. I thought I'd link to the working ones, so that everyone could have a chance to go over them. These are the archives: EGM, OPM. Here are the working EGM reviews:

• Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos
• Ghouls 'n' Ghosts
• Mario Kart Super Circuit
• Paper Mario
• Final Fantasy VIII
• Superman 64
• R4: Ridge Racer Type 4
• Spawn: The Eternal
• PaRappa the Rapper
• Final Fantasy VII
• Mario Kart 64
• Tomb Raider
• Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain
• Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars
• Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV
• Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure
• Rayman (Jaguar)
• Rayman (PlayStation)
• Ninja Gaiden Trilogy
• Mortal Kombat II
• Demon's Crest
• Super Metroid
• Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom
• Secret of Mana
• Make My Video: C+C Music Factory
• Super Mario Kart
• ActRaiser

And here are the working OPM reviews:

• Final Fantasy VII
• Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
• Final Fantasy Origins
• The Amazing Virtual Sea-Monkeys
• Beyblade
• Disney's Treasure Planet
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
• Austin Powers Pinball
• Aces of the Air
• Planet of the Apes
• NFL GameDay 2003
• Madden NFL 2003
• Gundam Battle Assault 2
• PaRappa the Rapper

As always, more reviews may be found in the online print archive. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 20:40, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Jimmy- I don't know if I ever said so, but these links are awesome. There are several games on my todo list that will benefit from the links you've found. Thanks for taking the time and effort. Now if only I had the time to put the effort into the actual article writing. :-p Thanks again. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 21:11, 22 October 2010 (UTC))

Thanks. And, if these links are helpful, the online print archive may contain more stuff you need. PaRappa the Rapper and Symphony of the Night, for example, have 4 reviews each in there. And Dark Chronicle (which I noticed was on your to-do list) has 5. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 21:22, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually, wait--reading your comment again, I realized that you were talking about the full archive the entire time. Oops. Well, thanks; I have a lot of fun working on it. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 21:27, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Dead Metacritic links

Has already been noticed and discussed a few weeks back. I've found another way to access these older pages (the first one was to replace the "com" with an "org", but that didn't work for everyone): Use apps.metacritic.com instead of www.metacritic.com – that way, you should be able to access all score sites for games on older platforms. If all else fails, you can still use Internet Archive which has many Metacritic pages stored. Prime Blue (talk) 12:32, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Or, if you can access the old scores, just WebCite them now just in case the apps.m goes dark. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 13:22, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Spore Creepy and Cute expansion pack

I've suggested that Spore Creepy and Cute expansion pack should be merged into Spore (2008 video game). See here for discussion. Harry Blue5 (talk) 22:17, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Back to the Future: The Game

I think there might be a heated discussion brewing at the talk page. Sarujo (talk) 05:12, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Final fantasy series navbox template

can someone help me on how it works exactly? I've been working on several navboxes that are far too huge, and seems easier to do it similar to Final Fantasy series navbox template.Bread Ninja (talk) 10:03, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Krome Studios Adelaide

Given the unfortunate recent demise of Krome Studios, I was wondering if we should delete the Krome Studios Adelaide article? If you have a look at it, it was a bit pointless while the company was running (due to the main Krome Studios article), now it seems even more pointless.

Do you think this should be nominated for deletion? 93.182.151.38 (talk) 10:59, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Please note, I can't ask people on the talk page as it points to Ratbag Games talk page. 93.182.151.38 (talk) 11:10, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

I've redirected the page and talk page to Krome Studios, it's best not to delete if a good place to redirect exists and that's the case here. Someoneanother 14:31, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Pocket Games

Does anyone know if the Ziff-Davis magazine Pocket Games (http://www.ziffdavis.com/press/releases/050622.1.html) ever had a website? If possible, I'd like to incorporate it into the Online print archive, but I haven't had any luck finding it. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 22:08, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Peer review

I have recently noticed that this Wikiproject's Peer Review page has 8 reviews on there, with 6 unreviewed. Can someone review some of them? The oldest is from August. GamerPro64 (talk) 16:10, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

I've archived two where the author simply wanted an assessment, and left comment at another. The Sonic article I can't really help with as I personally haven't ever written anything FAC quality. --Teancum (talk) 20:35, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Xbox Live certification complaints - building up info

I've noticed that nearly every indie developer (as well as on occasion big developers) have issue with the Xbox Live certification process - its slowness particularly. As this isn't something that's covered other than a mention in an article here and there I am currently building up references to support the problems in one of my sandboxes. For now any references will do, even forums -- when I go to write the prose and get things cleaned up I'll sort through what's reliable and what isn't, searching for better references if I can. I'd like to insert it into the Xbox Live Arcade article as a section.

Also in regards to that I'll probably be calling on anyone who's interested to assist me with the prose. Though I think its important to point out, this one will be tough to keep WP:NPOV since it could be construed as an attack towards Microsoft. Anyhow, if anyone knows of other developers which have complained about the process please let me know via a reply here, preferably with a link to the facts if possible. --Teancum (talk) 12:01, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

• Interesting idea. I don't have time to help with the prose (sorry), but I can tell you that you're missing what's probably the most famous complaint about this. Jeff Minter has, I believe, stated multiple times how terrible the approval system is. The first, and most well-known, was his 2007 comment describing it as a "massive, spirit-crushing inertia". Here's a link, but there's probably a more reliable one than Kotaku floating around. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 20:20, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
  • I looked at your coverage again, and I noticed that you already had his blog entry listed. I don't know how I missed that the first time. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 08:22, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Newsletter/draft

Does anyone else have anything to add to the Newsletter draft, particularly the "Announcements" section? I would like to see the the version of the Newsletter sent out sometime this week if possible. –MuZemike 01:43, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Batman: Arkham Asylum was promoted to GA in September. --Teancum (talk) 01:48, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

And Warcraft II was never listed as a GA (and won't be until the primary author takes on something of what was said in 5 GA reviews, a PR and a GAR) and so shouldn't be listed as a delisted GA.

Just look at the to do list's history. It basically has a record of every achievement the project made. GamerPro64 (talk) 01:57, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Right, because I forgot to finish the September list when that month ended :) –MuZemike 02:06, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Also, lets forget that PlayStation 3 was demoted from FA status in September. PlayStation 3 never appeared on the main page. JJ98 (Talk) 02:31, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I placed that on the September list. The only we need to really update is the "Announcements" section – any recent changes within the past several months that are relevant to WP:VG. –MuZemike 05:16, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Newsletter/20101022 has been set up. I'll wait for a little bit to send out with my bot just in case anybody finds any other concerns or issues; note that since we did not have a "feature", I wrote one up fairly quickly on WP:VG/N and WP:VG/R. –MuZemike 18:42, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

The latest issue looks great MuZemike. Good job on the feature, the announcements and overall. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 21:42, 28 October 2010 (UTC))

What to do with conflicting IGN scores?

The title says it all. Another user and me encountered Darksiders where he reverted an IP changing the score to "8.9" based on [17] back to "7.8" based on [18]. IGN seems to have a habit of reviewing the same game differently based on your location. So which of those scores should we include in the VG review template? Regards SoWhy 21:53, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

We should use both. They are both reliable sources. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 21:57, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, and you may as well add the IGN AU review to the UK and US reviews. (edit) or alternatively take IGN out of the review box since there are already plenty of other reviews there. Nifboy (talk) 22:33, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps, but in spite of a lot of people disliking IGN, a lot of others use them as their primary source. Taking them out might be odd for them. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 22:38, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

For games with multiple reviews from different locations, I sort them by location in the template field (e.g., Halo 3: ODST.) I reference them as "IGN UK/US/AU" in the body and bring up the reviewer so there's no issue of confusion. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 22:43, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks David, that's probably the best solution. I changed it accordingly. Regards SoWhy 10:55, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

In general, I'd use the US score. Its the original, and has more reach and influence than the regional reviews. Just because IGN offer 3 scores, doesn't mean you should use all 3 - IGN's opinion is not 3 times more valid than anyone elses. - hahnchen 10:58, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

I do disagree with that. If you want to argue that we should use the "original", you would have to argue to use the one score published first, because the other two are then likely influenced by the first review. In this case, the AU was the first, then the UK and the US was the last to be published. Apart from that, I also disagree because we also use scores if a magazine is published in multiple countries, e.g. "Official Xbox Magazine" and "Official Xbox Magazine (UK)". From what I can tell, IGN's case is not really different from this example. Regards SoWhy 09:11, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Similarly, if IGN were to have particularly notable writers reviewing the same game, it would be important to include both. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 09:43, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

No, I say original, in that IGN has always been a US site, with AU and UK being relatively new supplements. And its different to say Official Xbox Magazine, where completely separate editorial teams cover different regions. IGN does not work like this, it all falls under one umbrella, one format, one standard. What I'm speaking out against, is the habit of putting in 3 IGN scores into a review table for no real reason. So if Gamespot were to offer 4 reviews, we'd put all those in as well? Hell no. IGN's voice is not three times stronger because it does something 3 times. - hahnchen 13:56, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

IGN is not one person. We're not overrepresenting them, we're representing individual reviewers adequately. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 19:32, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

For most games, especially AAA games, have no shortage of high-quality reviews from reliable sources. We should be cherry-picking reviews from the crowd for the strength of their arguments and how they illustrate certain points of view. If all three IGN reviews do that well, why not use them? I doubt you're going to run into balance issues. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 20:02, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Also, I'm no expert but, IGN does seem have 3 different editorial staffs, so I fail to see the difference. Regards SoWhy 20:22, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

That's a good point I forgot to mention—there's no financial incentive for these guys to pay for three writers to write different reviews if they were an amalgamated force. :P Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 20:31, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

No. With a magazine such as OXM or Nintendo Power, each country has an entirely separate editorial team. The format can be different in each, and each team can implement their own design. PC Gamer US and UK are completely different publications, with only the name linking the two. With IGN, there's one format worldwide - if you visit IGN UK and AU, the majority of the editorial is from the US. IGN does have a UK presence, but its clear that it is a supplement of the US parent.

I'm not saying don't use IGN UK or AU, some of the regional reviews are well written and thoughtful. I'm saying that you don't automatically include every IGN review just because they exist. We should be cherry-picking reviews based on their own strengths - but based on this discussion here, it's clear that all three IGN Darksiders reviews were added just because they exist. - hahnchen 22:04, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Your argument is solely based on the fact that they share some content, which is irrelevant. What's relevant is that they pay three different teams of people to do the same job, thus establishing that those teams are largely independent. If PC Gamer UK uses content from PC Gamer US because they don't have enough to fill their magazine, would that change the fact that they are independent? Of course not. If you check their staff list, you will notice that they have three different editors-in-chief for example.

And I would strongly advise against "cherry-picking" reviews. It's not our job as editors to determine which reviews are "strong" or "weak", it's our job to include them for the readers to make up their own mind. Removing a valid review just because some editor thinks it's not "strong" or not "influential" or has not enough "reach" (as you argued above) is not the spirit of our policies. We are supposed to edit neutrally, without judging the content of a reliable source. Regards SoWhy 08:26, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

No. My argument is that the regional editorial teams are merely supplements to the main IGN US site, which the staff list confirms. A regional team is less than 10% of the US team. PC Gamer UK has its own editor who dictates its vision and design, IGN UK's editor does not - it follows from the US, because it is merely a supplement.

No again. It is our jobs as editors to cherry-pick reviews, that is the definition of the word "editor". Seriously, really? The whole reason why we generally include IGN, GameSpot, Edge, is precisely because they are strong, and that they have influence and reach. There's a whole load of reviews on Metacritic, even reliable ones, that we don't use because of this reason. Our policies dictate that we don't give any view undue weight, yet this is what people do when they automatically include triple the IGN reviews just because they exist. - hahnchen 22:04, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Assistance with Transformers: War for Cybertron

I've spent a lot of time and effort keeping this article from spinning out of control since, as with many franchise-based games it becomes an IP magnet. Recently put a major push into the article, expanding, sourcing, wikifying, etc (see before and after. I'm at the point now where the Reception section is really all that needs to be rewritten, but I'm just not finding a lot of motivation for the article. Would anyone be willing to give it a bit of a jump start? If so, there's a barnstar in it for you. --Teancum (talk) 17:47, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I tried to do it after seeing this, but in the middle of gathering all of the links, I totally became unmotivated. >.> - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 05:23, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I actually just sucked it up and punched it out just now you can see the updates to the Reception section here. --Teancum (talk) 15:25, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Anyone have a Highbeam account?

I must apologize for making so many topics, recently; I wouldn't have made this one if I didn't really need the help. I'm doing a little clean-up on Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri, and its old-and-forgotten status has made it difficult to find sourcing. Highbeam contains several articles that would majorly aid in this. I don't happen to have an account there, though, so I can't read them. Here are the links:

• http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-777010.html
• http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-17278685.html
• http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-8378766.html
• http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-17278894.html

If anyone has an account there, or has access to these articles through a similar service, it'd be great if you could help me out. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 21:10, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

• Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 09:45, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

You can get a free trial, no? I used mine already, though there might be a way round it. bridies (talk) 10:39, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

There is indeed a free trial; however, User:Addionne has already helped me out with his LexisNexis account, so I won't be needing to use it. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 22:19, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Assessments of character lists

Apparently, per [19], WP:ANIME's convention is to assess character lists the same as actual articles, whereas I always thought we assessed these as "List-Class". My reasoning is that character lists are not on the track to become Good Articles or Featured Articles but to be Featured Lists. Any thoughts here, or am I missing something? –MuZemike 23:06, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, Characters of Kingdom Hearts was once a Featured Article. And Characters of Final Fantasy VIII currently has FA status. GamerPro64 (talk) 23:21, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

So, the title shouldn't have anything mentioning "List" in it, then, because for a fairly experienced user like me, that is confusing. –MuZemike 23:30, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't know what to think about it. Also, Characters of Final Fantasy XII, Characters of Halo, Characters of Myst, and Characters of StarCraft are all Good Articles. So if an article that is about characters in a series be a list, should these articles be delisted? GamerPro64 (talk) 23:36, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

When I checked List of Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow characters, they are marked as Featured List status, even though it says "List of". So does that count? Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 00:00, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I've always understood character "lists" to be articles in the traditional sense; it walks, talks, and looks like an article. Nifboy (talk) 01:25, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I always took it as an either-or; most character lists were lists and looked the part, while a few of them were heavily prose-based, looked like articles, and weren't named "List of". Basically- does each character get more than a short para or two? Is there a large development section/ reception section that heavily balance out the character sections? If so, judgment call says it's an article. --PresN 02:12, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I think there is an air of inconsistency here, as referenced with the FL mentioned above. Moreover, what I don't want to see happen is that, knowing a hypothetical article won't get up to FA, somebody reclassifies it as a "list" and tries to pass it off as an FL. –MuZemike 02:32, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I think, for assessment purposes, if a list can be assessed like an article in terms of prose and references, then it should be assessed like an article. I tend to reserve the "list" assessment for indices and tables like Lists of video games. Nifboy (talk) 03:28, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I've been trying to convert list articles that are more prose than list into "Characters of" articles, but often, I find my lack of ability to delete a redirect to prepare for a move to be an inconvenience. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 05:34, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

This all boils down to the question of the actual difference between an "article" and a "list". This question has been raised in the past and, while the answer is obvious for some articles and some lists, there are pages like "Characters of X" and maybe "X discography" that just can fit in both classes. Due to the lack of clearcut definitions, these pages end up being classified as either articles or lists simply based on the main contributor's appreciation (or that of FAC reviewers, in the case of List of Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow characters). I don't think this issue will be resolved anytime soon, or even if it's really an issue to begin with. Megata Sanshiro (talk) 09:43, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Following up on Megata's comment, I agree that this is not that big of an issue. And even if it were, the definition would have to be defined on a much wider forum than our project's.

Article assessments are meant provide readers with a rating of reliability and usefulness and editors with guidance as to what needs to be fixed. So outside some confusion, I personally don't see a problem with lower letter ratings for lists because the can be useful. The designation is only important when going for GA and FA/FL. My two cents. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 21:38, 28 October 2010 (UTC))

Should Wii Remote Plus have its own article?

This is a new device. Right now the only pages that the really talk about it is a small section on Wii MotionPlus and on Wii Remote, where it is barely mentioned. Do you guys think this device deserves its own article (or at least a bigger segment on on Wii MotionPlus or Wii Remote) Thegreyanomaly (talk) 08:25, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Three articles, on what is basically the same controller, seems like overkill to me. I'm still getting over the shock that the Wii Zapper has its own article. - X201 (talk) 08:49, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

it should still at least have a stronger segment that what it has now, with at least an infobox. Thegreyanomaly (talk) 22:13, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with X201 and Thegreyanomaly's assessment. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 21:28, 28 October 2010 (UTC))

Wikiproject Proposal - Casual Games

Hi, I have noticed that there are few articles relating to the casual gaming industry - and many are poorly sourced, advert-style, etc. I have proposed a sub-project of WP Video Games to address these concerns. I feel it is a significant enough part of the industry, and that there is a significant amount of work that it warrants a child project rather than simply a task force. Please check out my proposal and weigh-in with your input here. Thanks! -Addionne (talk) 12:46, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Ijji article issues.

OK, all day today, there have been a ton of anons adding text about a hack job on the ijji.com website. A few hours ago, the site went down (Not found errors, DNS/Server related), however I'm seeing nothing as far as news on the hack job. Just a lot of links to specific game hacks and a single forum post. The only "sources" that the anons are providing are YouTube links. Someone else want to try some fact checking on this and confirm/deny the edits the anons are making, because I can't seem to find anything worthwhile for sourcing. Torinir ( Ding my phone My support calls E-Support Options ) 03:56, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I would suggest getting page protection for a week or two so it can cool down. --Teancum (talk) 08:11, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I put it on a 3-day semi-protection for now, so you can clean it up without having to revert such edits all the time. Regards SoWhy 08:17, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

As an aside, is there a reason why we have three non-free logos of different versions with absolutely no fair-use rationales? –MuZemike 22:37, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

No clue. I'd say bag 'em and tag 'em. I haven't been much involved in the creation of the article, personally. Just had it in my watchlist for a few years. Torinir ( Ding my phone My support calls E-Support Options ) 22:44, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

It seems all three of the questionable FUI's were uploaded by one user, User:Airsoftgeek. Seems he had a fourth image uploaded as well, which was tagged by a bot and subsequently deleted. Almost all of his contribs were on the Ijji article, though he has not edited since May. Torinir ( Ding my phone My support calls E-Support Options ) 22:54, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

A small push in article requests would be appreciated

It's not glamorous or well-paid, but it would be great if anyone with a little spare time would consider taking a peak at the list and dealing with even a single request. It's backdated to early 2009 and could do with a small push just to claw it back. A functional stub is all that's needed, a couple of cites and some categories. Someoneanother 18:34, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

• I'll take Necrodome and CyClones, since they fall within the range of the Online print archive. Should have cited stubs up for both within the hour. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 19:35, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Done. They're worthless, uninformative stubs, but that's better than nothing. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 20:40, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
    • And I added infoboxes that are as tall as the entire article, plus tags on the talk pages. --PresN 20:52, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
    • They're not worthless - a lot of these requests have been there for more than a year, anything's better than nothing. Thank you. Someoneanother 21:16, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
      • No problem. I'm doing one more, too: Dreams to Reality. It's a little tricky to find sources for, but I've already found some stuff. I'll get its article up soon. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 22:51, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
        • Made Kid Klown in Crazy Chase. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 00:41, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
          • Well, I made a decent article out of it, too. This is probably all that I could make out of all that, though. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 04:09, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
            • Impressive work, Hippie. And nice job, everyone else. I had so much fun on this yesterday that I'm going to try again today—Robinson's Requiem, if I can dig up material for it. I'll do its sequel Deus (video game), too, so it doesn't show up on the list later on. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 17:11, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
              • Tossed up a page for Robinson's Requiem. Found more sourcing than I'd anticipated; in fact, there's a lot more than what I put in the article. It allowed me to make it more than a stub, which is good. Will hit Deus (video game), and possibly Expedition Amazon (which is actually in the backlog) and Mass Destruction (video game), soon. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 20:22, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
                • Mass Destruction (video game) has been created. Couldn't find any material on Expedition Amazon, so I won't be making that one. Will have Deus (video game) up at some point tomorrow. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 21:42, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
                  • Another update. The Speris Legacy [20] could easily be created using these scans from the ever-useful http://amr.abime.net. If someone else doesn't get to it before I do, I should be working on it tomorrow. Sidenote: a stub for Arkedo Studio could be created with this source alone. Again, if no one gets to it first, I'll do it. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 23:32, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
                    • Update. The Speris Legacy and Deus (video game) have been created. I found another game in the backlog—Z-Out—that could be created with Amiga Magazine Rack scans. I'll do this, and Arkedo Studio, soon. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 19:44, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

• Dreams to Reality has been created. Again, a lousy stub, but an article nonetheless. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 04:00, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
• Handled a few articles that didn't pass WP:GNG, commented on one that could conceivably created and pointed to sourcing. --Teancum (talk) 14:50, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
  • The balance has tipped more in our favour due to everyones' efforts, thanks! As soon as I get a minute I'll deal with a few more myself. Someoneanother 01:57, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
    • Sounds good. My next three projects are Z-Out (material), Masterblazer (material) and Arkedo Studio (material). Might do Helldorado (video game) soon, as well, since it should be pretty simple to find sourcing for it. If no one gets to them before I do, I should have most of them up by tomorrow. Hopefully, someone creates Yukio Futatsugi (no idea what goes in to editing a real person's article, so I can't do it), since that would take care of February 2010. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 03:36, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
      • Got sidetracked today, so I only put up Z-Out. Should have the others up (for real) tomorrow. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 03:25, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
        • Arkedo Studio is finished. I was going to do Masterblazer, but—having never played any Ballblazer-style games—I couldn't understand the sources well enough to write about it. Someone more familiar with the concept will have to take care of that one. Next up: Mortimer and the Riddles of the Medallion, if I can find sourcing for it. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 03:05, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
          • That's done. I've now created most of the articles that fall within my range of knowledge and/or ability. There might be one or two more in there that I can do, but that's about it. I'll finish those up soon. It was fun working with you guys. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 20:10, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

• Thanks so much for what you've done, the list hasn't been quite so trim for an age. Someoneanother 00:36, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

• No problem. I had fun doing it. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 22:41, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I had a look and Super Skidmarks has been on my to-do list for a while. I believe I have sources for it stored away. I'll try and get something up over the weekend. bridies (talk) 05:52, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Haven't forgotten this. There's a reasonable amount of material to get through so I'm drafting it offline. bridies (talk) 05:52, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Made a start on Super Skidmarks. bridies (talk) 16:34, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I like what I'm seeing here, but don't forget to add new pages to Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/New article announcements to help inform others of what's new. Reach Out to the Truth 16:49, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

• I've never seen that before. I'll have to remember to update it, next time I make an article. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 22:41, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

• I'm really struggling for time ATM but I'm determined to keep up this momentum, I'll have a go at a few more pinball game articles over the weekend. Someoneanother 18:54, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

• There are 34 requests left from 2009 and 28 from 2010, the list hasn't been this low for a considerable time. What's been done already is excellent but hopefully we can keep it up a little longer. Someoneanother 22:35, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

• Good to see that this is still going. While I can't contribute any more, I'd like to provide these sources for Legal Crime—a game in the backlog: Computer Games Magazine review, Computer Games Magazine review 2 (later), Computer Games Magazine news article 1, Computer Games Magazine news article 2. Hope these are helpful. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 05:40, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Wii Remote Plus picture needed

We need a picture of one for Wii MotionPlus. Can someone fortunate enough to have one already please donate a picture? Thanks

Thegreyanomaly (talk) 03:04, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Global Defense Initiative

FYI, Global Defense Initiative has been nominated for deletion. 76.66.203.138 (talk) 06:16, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I've added it to Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Deletion. Nifboy (talk) 20:54, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour

Hello. In this article, we can read that "Toadstool Tour was developed by Camelot Software Planning, the same team responsible for the game's predecessor, Mario Tennis". But the game's predecessor is Mario Golf, no ? 95.176.69.218 (talk) 21:48, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Fixed. --Mika1h (talk) 22:47, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

GameFan archive

I located a new review archive for the Online print archive: GameFan. Before inserting reviews from it, I double-checked a few scores, names and excerpts, and they matched up—so I'm pretty sure these are the original print reviews. However, if someone has a copy of GameFan from the era these reviews are from, it'd be great if you could compare content between the online and print editions. Sometimes, as noted in the Online print archive's header, there are differences in the online reviews; some are unedited original drafts, some have been updated since their print incarnation, some lack extra content present in the print edition, etc. Before I add any more from GameFan, I'd like some confirmation on what, exactly, it is that I'm handling. Thanks JimmyBlackwing (talk) 01:07, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Serious edits in Dissidia Duodecim

this article has been vandalized and many other editors haven't helped, in fact, it made it harder to revert by removing templates, and certain references. It wouldprobably need to be revert a wholepage full of edits.Bread Ninja (talk) 20:06, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

You can always try requesting page protection. --Teancum (talk) 09:50, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I want to revert everything to how it once was. No sees how bad it is.Bread Ninja (talk) 09:58, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

"Recurring enemies in the Mario series" cleanup

Recurring enemies in the Mario series has been edited a lot recently by IP editors who are adding non-notable enemies and taking their information from MarioWiki. These non-notable enemies need to be trimmed off, and the stolen information needs to be removed. _Blake ^{(Talk·Edits)} 15:33, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

If it's a big issue, I suggest requesting page protection. --Teancum (talk) 16:20, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Title italics via Template:Infobox video game, the sequel

So I proposed that we do like some other WikiProjects and implement title italics through {{Infobox video game}}, in this discussion, which I forgot about and let get archived. Oops. Anyway, consensus seemed to be perfectly happy with it, but we never got a close-and-implement. But since it's been a while, may as well just propose it again, I suppose. So:

Propose that we implement title italics for articles, per Wikipedia:Article titles#Italics and other formatting, via the established techniques for doing so.

• Support as nominator/re-nominator. —chaos5023 (talk) 03:41, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support with parameters to customize or disable if needed; it must properly italicize titles like Pokémon Red and Blue and it should be able to be switched off on pages using multiple infoboxes that include a secondary one implementing {{italic title}}. I also note that this would align with the current state of WP:ITALICTITLE after last month's RfC close. —Ost (talk) 14:34, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support - makes life easier, I see no reason not to do it. --Teancum (talk) 15:26, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
• Neutral. I don't see much gained from this, but I don't see any real harm. Though I do share Ost's concerns and believe that if this is implemented, then it should provide flexibility. Articles like the Pokemon example and character ones like Ryu (Street Fighter) need selective formatting. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 21:17, 28 October 2010 (UTC))

  Yupyup. The "established techniques" I mention, by which I mean the way the other infoboxes have been doing it, support disable/override. —chaos5023 (talk) 10:24, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

• Support, with the same reservations held by Guyinblack and Ost. However, whether a consensus is reached here or not, I am already seeing many video game articles with this template. I don't think that there's anything that will stop it from being implemented. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 10:49, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

I have implemented this in Template:Infobox video game in the same way that the film infobox did it. This allows |italic title=no to turn off the option on a case-by-case basis, or |italic title=force to force italic titles even when they wouldn't normally be. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:27, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I think I got the remainder of the Pokémon games done, so they should all look right now. Reach Out to the Truth 17:00, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Incidentally, whitespace in {{Italic title}} winds up making it so that if a VG article had {{Italic title}} manually added before this implementation, now it winds up with a big block of whitespace at the top of the article. So if you see VG articles around that have this big hunk of whitespace on top of them, it's probably because they need {{Italic title}} removed. —chaos5023 (talk) 18:33, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Should this be implemented in {{Infobox VG series}} as well? (Guyinblack25 ^talk 19:53, 3 November 2010 (UTC))

I thiiink so. Practice seems to generally be that series names are italicized in running text, which would indicate that this would be appropriate. WP:MOSTITLE is unfortunately silent on the topic, though, and also silent on whether book series names should be italicized, which would be the closest place from which to reason by analogy. If anybody knows of any strong indications as to whether italicization of game or book series names is correct, I'd love to hear about them. —chaos5023 (talk) 19:58, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I think it should be put into the series infobox as well, if we're going to have it in the game infobox. --PresN 18:02, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't seem to be able to get a lot of feedback on the topic of italics in running text for these. I'm going to just open a separate proposal on this page for this concept. —chaos5023 (talk) 00:10, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

I've opened a thread about the more general part of this at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (titles)#Book and video game series, if anybody cares to comment on it in a less specific context. —chaos5023 (talk) 22:17, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Can someone take a look at The Maw (video game)? I had no trouble with whitespace prior to the update, now it's there. {{Italic title}} isn't actually in the article, but must be transcluded somewhere as it's in the list of templates used when previewing an edit

It seems to be working after I removed the blank line between {{redirect}} and {{infobox video game}}, though I don't know why it behaves that way—as opposed to ignoring the line as on Honey. Is the infoxbox generating a leading blank line that would become visible when preceded by a blank line? —Ost (talk) 16:54, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I believe so, yeah; I saw the same thing with {{Italic title}}. —chaos5023 (talk) 17:42, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Neverwinter

New article for an upcoming game: Neverwinter (video game). 204.153.84.10 (talk) 15:14, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Y Done. Looks like it was made yesterday. GamerPro64 (talk) 16:54, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Oh no, I wasn't requesting an article, I was just bringing up the fact that it now exists. :) 204.153.84.10 (talk) 22:11, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

It has since been added to Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/New article announcements. Reach Out to the Truth 22:21, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Looks fine to me, given the amount of information to work with. DYK push? —Deckiller (t-c-l) 21:47, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

cfd: Category:Tandy games

FYI -- discuss -- Make (talk) 18:40, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

As it turns out, the hardware in question is Tandy 1000. The discussion could need input by someone with insight into the categories for video game hardware platforms, especially variants of IBM-PC/AT. -- Make (talk) 09:59, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Which format for lists?

Which format should be used for lists, this or this? Regards, Theleftorium ^(talk) 19:46, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

I would hesitate to state a general rule; situational consensus should control. But if I were starting a new list article, I would use the straight columnar form rather than the form with labels on every line. —chaos5023 (talk) 20:02, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

I'd agree that it depends on the article although simpler lists are usually better; in this specific case, I'd prefer the first example though since it's much easier to read and our goal is easy access to information after all. Regards SoWhy 20:30, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Either, though the first is ideal for lists of this kind. It's more an issue of why the list is being reworked in this way for no good reason. Someoneanother 21:52, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Related to this, User:RexxS brought up accessibility issues with {{VGtitle}} at a recent VG FLC. Seeing how alt text has become more prevalent for our quality articles, it makes sense that other accessibility issues, like table structure, will follow suit.

What ever format we pick as our standard one should take this into account. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 16:35, 9 November 2010 (UTC))

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Archive 82#Standardization of media lists. Jonathan Hardin' (talk) 23:31, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

"Reception and legacy"

A lot of video game articles have a section titled "Reception and legacy". Is it really an appropriate way to organize the information? Reception and legacy are totally different things IMO; I don't really see why they are grouped together. Thoughts? Megata Sanshiro (talk) 18:28, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, I think legacy does have a place in reception if there isn't enough material to give it a section of its own for the target article, as it regards more how the game affects or inspires works that come after it. That does fall under the way the game was received, doesn't it?--Kung Fu Man (talk) 18:35, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I've done a lot of retro game articles, and I have normally reserved "Reception" for coverage of a game during that time, while "Legacy" I tend to reserve for "retrospective" coverage and lasting impact coverage. –MuZemike 19:01, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Legacy is also what its impacted. Sometimes there just isn't enough legacy to make another section, but there is enough that it deserves a paragraph worth.陣内_Jinnai 19:07, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Agree with the above. If there's no real "legacy" information, just chop that part. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 19:39, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Here are my personal practices on the subject:

• I've treated content about cultural references, games partially inspired by, sequels, remakes, and re-releases as a game's legacy. Like the last paragraph in Cauldron (video game)
• Content about changes in cultural and industry behavior (changes in how people play games or how games are made) I treat as impact. See Defender (video game) for example.
• Any commentary about the game itself (plot, gameplat, etc.) I consider as reception, regardless of when it was published. I do this because most of the retro games I work on (games in the first half of the 80s) lack sufficient commentary from its time of release. I've been able to find articles from their time, but most are nothing more than brief descriptions or strategy guides.
• I think reception, impact, and legacy go well together mainly because the two are history about the topic that occur after its release.
• As noted by others, if there is enough content for separate sections, then it is best to separate them out. If there is no legacy or impact, then the section title should reflect this.

(Guyinblack25 ^talk 15:25, 9 November 2010 (UTC))

I personally believe that two should be separated. It wouldl be confusing for first time readers to understand what part is legacy, or which is just reception. impact basically is "legacy". i agree with guy, except maybe turn it into a subsection within the reception section.Bread Ninja (talk)

Another request for sources

Me again. To anyone with a LexisNexis account: do you have access to the following articles?

• [21]
• [22]
• [23]

I'm currently improving several articles on Looking Glass Studios games, and these sources would be a huge help. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 01:15, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

• As a side note, the second link (on the music and sound effects done by ex-Tribe members) is easily the most important of the three. If no one can get to it, I'm probably just going to have to drop the $3.95 and buy it from their archives. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 06:49, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure how much time I'll have to hunt for these at the moment... would you mind sending me this request by email? Better chance I'll come back to it. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 07:13, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
    • E-mailed you. Thanks for the help, whether or not you're able to find them. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 11:42, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

New York Times says hello

Saw this in an upcoming edition of the Signpost - The New York Times Magazine has a brief article praising Wikipedia's Video Game coverage among other things. (if you hit a paywall, try getting to the article through Google) - hahnchen 23:48, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

According to http://stats.grok.se, not too many people followed the author's advice- the daily pageview count of WP:VG/FA went from about 7 to 44 and WP:OWN went from 100 to 200. I wonder what it would have been if she had linked to the pages rather than asking people to search themselves. --PresN 00:23, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Actually, looking closer, the article hit the web on the 5th, and hit the actual paper on the 7th, so those pages essentially saw no boost from the web edition and, obviously, you can't hyperlink from a piece of paper. --PresN 00:28, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

She specifically mentioned WP:VG/FA, so I checked that one. The influence of the article is a more noticeable there, although it surely would have gotten more hits if she linked to it directly. Reach Out to the Truth 02:36, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Head to the talk page for Angry Birds and you'll find a link to the article that begat this one. --McDoobAU93 02:52, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Wish User:TKD was around to see this; most of the Halo: Combat Evolved writing she quotes was written by he and I in 2006-2007. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 03:52, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Aye, I had a pang of remembrance on seeing that... Combat Evolved getting to FA was what spurred me to work on featured articles. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 05:57, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

I think that was what persuaded me that it was possible to write good articles on recent games as well. --PresN 07:44, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Video game articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release

Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.

We would like to ask you to review the Video game articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (♦) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Sunday, November 14th.

We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of November, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, with your WikiProject's feedback!

If you have already provided feedback, we deeply appreciate it. For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 16:38, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Is the VG project currently doing anything to assist or check the selection process? (Guyinblack25 ^talk 15:20, 10 November 2010 (UTC))

Dammit, Raul; or, Golden Sun TFA

Once again, the video game articles I don't want on the front page get scheduled for tomorrow (UTC), and now I'm hastily doing cleanup. Any extra eyes would be nice. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 06:14, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

We all wish we had your problems, David :) --PresN 06:35, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

I gave it a shot. You kinda, uh, blew away everything I did in an enormous EC, though. —chaos5023 (talk) 06:47, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Oh, uh... yeah. I kinda saw your first edit summary and assumed that it would be some minor fix. Didn't realize you'd go to town on it too :( Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 06:51, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

I dunno that any of it was worth writing home about. :) —chaos5023 (talk) 06:57, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Would you mind if I did a reception search, and if you could clean it up after I posted it? - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 07:10, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

• The two reviews at the Online print archive could be used to flesh out the Reception section. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 09:54, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Actually, on second reading, I'm gonna pass on it; I thought it was The Lost Age, which would have made Google searching a lot easier. This would eat up too much time at the moment; maybe after the TFA I'll look for stuff. :V - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 10:10, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
    • I guess I'll do a little work on it. Found the GamePro review, too. The second page is broken, and archive.org didn't seem to like whatever was on it; as in, there's only one working archived version of it, and it seems to be broken. Either way, it looks like the entire review is contained on page 1. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 10:22, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
      • I tossed in a rough paragraph on the two reviews from the Online print archive. Didn't get the GamePro review in there, though. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 10:48, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
        • Did a rush job on the Reception section. I hope it's an improvement. You'll be glad to know that I managed to salvage the dead US sales link; a few Internet Archive bugs made it a close call, but I did it. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 11:21, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
          • Many thanks, everybody. I'm not going to try and go adding more sources I've found until after the TFA to spare my sanity, but it's a mite nicer than it was just a day ago. Egad, I hope Raul doesn't nom Halo 2 next, I'll pull my hair out trying to clean that one up. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 19:51, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
            • Don't tempt me :P Raul654 (talk) 07:08, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
              • I'm sorry, but that was quite an unexpected and funny reply. :-p (Guyinblack25 ^talk 15:03, 10 November 2010 (UTC))
• Welcome to my world from 3 and a half years ago, David :) —Deckiller (t-c-l) 15:09, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
  • I just started a massive copy-edit, but I'm afraid I was too late! —Deckiller (t-c-l) 01:41, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

AFD

I have put the game Dragon Ball Z Side Story: Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans up for deletion. Sarujo (talk)

Thank you for the heads up. In the future, would it be possible to sign your comment with four tildes so we can see the timestamp? Thanks! —Deckiller (t-c-l) 01:43, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

How to proceed with possible conflict of interest

Hi, a user, Special:Contributions/TadjHolmes has a strong interest in the articles VG Chartz and Brett Walton (an article about VG Chartz's webmaster which he created). Someone asked him some time ago if he has any connection to VG Chartz, to which he replied no. However, it appears that, in the past, his name (Tadj) used to be in the copyright notice on the VG Chartz website.[24] Also, his AIM screenname (broshnat69 [25]) is similar to Brett Walton's nickname (broshnat [26]). I have asked him on his talk page if there is some explanation for that, but he hasn't replied despite having edited Wikipedia after I posted the message. He also has removed the AIM screenname and changed his name in the source I listed above (above was a Google Cache and here is the current version [27]). I would like to know how to proceed from here since the user didn't explain himself and I'm not sure what to do. Thanks. Megata Sanshiro (talk) 00:39, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

• This most definitely seems like a conflict of interest. Every edit this user has made has to do with VGChartz. I suppose the best place would be WP:COI#How to handle conflicts of interest, or taking it to WP:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard. --Teancum (talk) 01:03, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

• Also, this user is requesting that VGchartz be reassessed as a reliable source at Template talk:Video game reviews#gamrReview and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Sources#VGChartz --Teancum (talk) 01:14, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

I have posted a notice at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard#VG Chartz and Brett Walton. Megata Sanshiro (talk) 10:15, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Since there's a VGChartz discussion open, there is a problem on List of best-selling PlayStation games, where one Magic Box link has been replaced with a VG Chartz link and I don't know where the change lies. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 11:16, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Family Feud (video game) added to nom for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Family Feud (home game)

Hello, this is a general notice that Family Feud (video game), a compilation article of the many different releases of Family Feud over the past 20 years or so, has been nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Family Feud (home game). Thank you. Vodello (talk) 19:53, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Title italics via Template:Infobox video game series

In this discussion, we implemented title italics per WP:ITALICTITLE via {{Infobox video game}}. It was suggested that we may want to do the same in {{Infobox video game series}}. The advisability of this is less clear-cut, because it's not completely clear that italics are appropriate for all video game series in running text, but predominant practice seems to be that they are italicized, so I'm going ahead and making a proposal for it. Please see also the discussion I opened on italicization of book and video game series in general, looking for some support or opposition for the underlying question of appropriateness in running text.

Propose that we implement title italics via {{Infobox video game series}} as we did via {{Infobox video game}}.

• Slightly hesitant support as nominator. My main concern would be if we wanted to adapt the Chicago Manual of Style advice referenced in the discussion at WP:MOSTITLE, noted above. If there are a lot of video game series that would not be italicized under that convention, infobox implementation might not be a good idea. The ability to easily override the italicization may make this moot, though. (Edit: I am convinced by comments below that current practice should simply be honored.) —chaos5023 (talk) 00:18, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Frankly, Wikipedia leans towards APA in most cases, and Chicago's general lack of italicizing a lot of things (especially when used by news sources) mean we shouldn't be using it as a reference in this case. As I've said since the beginning, if people feel so inclined to make titles consistent with body text, they need to do it uniformly, and so that means the series too. Logically it helps as a means of visual cues anyhow. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 01:09, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support for consistency. Seeing as we already italicize series names in article text, it makes sense to do so with the title. Whether we should be doing that in the first place may be debatable though. :-p (Guyinblack25 ^talk 15:38, 9 November 2010 (UTC))

 Done —chaos5023 (talk) 04:14, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Video games Industry in Japan help

I have need help with Video gaming in Japan I know there is more information out there if you can help to help to improve the article it would be appreciated. Dwanyewest (talk) 01:16, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

I think you'd be better off moving the article to your user space and working on it there. - X201 (talk) 15:21, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

You're also going to have to look for articles from Japanese reliable sources for that else there is evident NPOV issues.陣内_Jinnai 18:40, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Sephiroth

FYI, the usage of Sephiroth is under discussion, see Talk:Sephiroth (Final Fantasy). 76.66.203.138 (talk) 05:49, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Specifically, it is being proposed that Sephiroth (Final Fantasy) be moved over dab to Sephiroth, a prospect toward which I cannot overstate my violent opposition. —chaos5023 (talk) 16:11, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

VG Chartz reliable?

Is VG Chartz considered reliable for sales information? I thought no and removed it twice from Mortal Kombat II but I keep getting reverted. Thoughts? Lol-kitas (talk) 12:32, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

It is never considered a reliable source. If you need to explain it to those reverting, point them to WP:VG/RS#Unreliable sources. --Teancum (talk) 12:53, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! Lol-kitas (talk) 11:17, 17 November 2010 (UTC)