Talk:Pathways into Darkness

Props

Kudos to whoever updated this page with the detailed explainations of the cystals and the monsters. Good work! :-)

Orange Crystal

The Pathways Into Darkness "Official Hint Book" lists this crystal as being Oranage, not Red, so I'm changing the listing. Magnus 19:58, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

CVG Assesment

I'm here from the cvg assessment page. I removed the stub tag from the article, as it's not a stub, but the current rating of start is, however correct. it's certainly long enough for a B class, but it's all lists and trivia. The lists of monsters, items and such need to be removed, as well as the trivia section. The list of Germans/their deaths could stay, but it should be converted to prose rather than a list. The story section needs a lot of expansion- currently it sets up the game, but it needs to summarize what happens in it- consider putting the info on the Germans in this section. Finally, and this is the hardest part, to get rated as a B class article you need references. Please look at the various CVG GA class articles for a good idea of what needs referencing. --PresN 19:44, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

• Hey, thanks for the input on the article and how to make it better. But one thing I'm not really clear on. The game is a first person shooter and there isn't really much of a story behind it other than what's in the manual and what's on the back of the box. Got any pointers for how I can expand the story without just putting up a walk-through? White_Bishop 20:27, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Take a look at these articles which have been rated as good articles and are also FPS games with a limited plot: F.E.A.R. and Turok: Dinosaur Hunter. Then of course there is the featured article Doom which has no real storyline to speak of whatsover. Structuring the article like one of these three should improve the quality. Also see: Wikipedia:WikiProject Computer and video games/Article guidelines. Hope that helps, JACOPLANE • 2007-01-9 13:46

You'd be surprised how much story some games have. The only game that really has none is Tetris. The article has me intrigued and I'm gonna see if I can get the game somewhere. If I can, I'll help expending the article. A small tip: a lot of sections can and should be fused. As for the story, that would be "storyline" and "the dead" (which can be used as a reference to "prove" the storyline). And almost all other sections can be merged with gameplay (either that, or become a subsection for it). Look at what FA video game-articles do: Synopsis, Gameplay, Development and Reception/Sales (and anything about a game that's worth devoting a section to, but that differs per game.) However, those four are the basics. A lot of the stuff here also is more GameFaqs material than Wikipedia material.DreamingLady 15:05, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Pathways Into Darkness and Wolfenstein 3D

I'm removing the following sentence:

The game helped usher in the popularity of the first-person shooter genre on home computers, at the same time period as Wolfenstein 3D for the IBM PC.

There are a couple of things wrong with it:

1. Pathways Into Darkness was released more than a year after Wolfenstein 3D.
2. It was never ported to another platform.
3. There can be some doubt whether it even "helped usher in the popularity of the first-person shooter genre" on the Macintosh, since it was never even remotely as popular as Marathon, not even as popular as the Wolfenstein 3D port.
4. It was not sold as "a new adventure game", not a new type of game.[1]

Graf Bobby 03:03, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Capitalization

I'm pretty sure every non-all-caps appearance of the title in the game, packaging and manual says "Pathways Into Darkness". I'm too lazy to take any screenshots or scans right now, though. --DocumentN 18:50, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

What is verifiable abt the idea that the Hispanics are Cuban?

_ _ Verifiability is key in WP: the way to keep articles like the accompanying one from being cluttered up with {{fact}} tags by jerks like me is to convert conjectures like

The last group of dead humans you can talk to are a group of Cuban mercenaries (most likely, this fact is never confirmed, but they are definitely Hispanic) who died while trying to loot the pyramid for artifacts and treasure.

into verifiable statements about what the dominant opinion makers in the field are conjecturing.
_ _ While Google-tests are not sufficient to establish that the Hispanics are Cuban, they often are helpful in deciding what opinions are widely enuf expressed that they are worth trying to verify as dominant, or at least strong, contenders. I tried looking for the game's title with "Cuban" or "Hispanic", and with each but not the other. Unfortunately, i got results that seem inconsistent: excluding the word "Hispanic" appeared to increase the number of hits, and my interest is too low to keep at it long enuf to find out what's really going on. (Besides, you need to look at "Latin" and "Spanish-speaking" besides "Hispanic".) I'm guessing that something like "Identifying them as 'Cubans' is common." and "Many players argue that their AK-47s support that theory." (which i just made up) could turn out to be reasonable assertions.
_ _ The problem is that even tho you dial back your claims along those lines, you still need verifiability, and who are the reliable sources? The Times (of London), the New York Times, the Washington Post, The New Yorker, and peer reviewed academic journals are something like a joint gold standard, and finding a comparably credible video-game authority may be impossible. It may convince a lot of editors if you can cite the 5 or 10% of the publications on the subject that are most cited (for whatever reason) by the advertising and electronic-entertainment sections of pubs like the NYT -- personally, i think of the NYT daily or weekly "Technology" section. If two or three magazines that the gold-standard pubs accord a "non-laughable source" stature imply that most PiD players call them "Cubans", i expect you'll get away with using those magazines as verification for statements that recognize you can't prove their nationality but mention that there are nevertheless patterns of why players call them Cuban. (But you may have to write articles on Gamer's Companion, etc., where you'd document its authoritative status.)
_ _ There's actually been considerable debate over the years as to whether or not the Hispanics are Cuban. When yo walk past them in game, the event log says, "You see a dead person," whereas for one of the Nazis it would say, "You see a dead German soldier." But in the official hint book, when describing the AK-47, it says, "These were the weapons of choice for the Cuban explorers." The game also mentions, when you pick up Juan's gas mask, that the mask was Cuban-made. IIRC, in 1993 someone at Bungie (Kirkpatrick?) also made one or two posts on comp.sys.mac.games in which he identified them as Cubans. In other words, there's a whole lot of external evidence to say they were Cuban but next to no internal evidence.
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.235.196.206 (talk) 13:20, 6 July 2008 (UTC) _ _ The article needs work, to keep nagging colleagues off your backs, but that work is not one of the labors of Hercules. Happy editing.
--Jerzy•t 04:58, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I understand that this topic is very old, and the main article page was different than it is today, but I did include the cuban expedition (as verified by Jason Jones on a usenet forum). However I did state that they were "Spanish-speaking treasure hunters" rather than Cuban or any national origin. I do not think that including the word "Hispanic" is appropriate at all for this article whatsoever as it is of a different topic. --RiseRobotRise (talk) 01:37, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Bungie's Site?

There's an archive of information at http://pid.bungie.org/ - maintained by a gentleman named Hamish Sinclair and hosted by bungie.

this can be cited to verify release date and almost all story/gameplay related data, though i can't find evidence of the listed tagline anywhere(that phrase appears on the picture of the back of the box as the last sentence in a descriptor paragraph, barring evidence of more prominent usage that sentence should be considered for removal)

the site is ridiculously comprehensive - i'll cite it as a source for now, the site also provides pictures of the game box which i'll add once i sort through the templates/formats for that(if someone can beat me to it, please do).

Mrchhre (talk) 16:35, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't believe its run by bungie, rather the bungie fan community. The site hasn't been maintained for years, but yes it is very comprehensive and does contain all of the information that can be used to site information on this article. However I believe that if possible we should use multiple sources to make the information more credible. --RiseRobotRise (talk) 01:14, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Pathways Into Darkness/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Cptnono (talk) 04:32, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

Nice work. I am under the impression that GA was made exactly for articles like this. There is only so much info available and it looks to be included. A few notes that should be addressed before passing:

• Images

• These appear to be good and have FURs.
• The image in Gameplay sandwiches the text between it and the infobox. It should be moved to the second paragraph.

• Plot

• "In the pyramid, the player finds bodies of their squadmates, as well as members of a Nazi expedition from the 1930s who were looking for a secret weapon, but never returned." Should this be in the first paragraph instead of being alone?
• "The best endings are achieved by..." Should this be "the most favorable" or does it mean the more cinematic?
• This is the section I would consider expanding with another full paragraph if going for FA. Gameplay could also be expanded with types of weapons and monsters. Over expansion of either section could lead to WP:NOT. The current info provided is good for a GA.

• Development

• "Pathways was Bungie's third title,[1] after their previous game, Minotaur: The Labrynths of Crete, sold around 2,500 copies. In the summer of 1992, Jones was living in dorms at the University of Chicago when he saw Wolfenstein 3D, a shooter game with three-dimensional graphics." This sentence should be split in two.
• "...reducing Jones' workload and in the programmer's opinion improving the art." This seems off to me. Maybe a comma or some other tweaking.
• "Jones put in eighteen-hour days for the month leading up to the MacWorld Expo where the game was to be sold." Does the source say if he was successful?

• References

• p. instead of pp. for 2, 3, and 4 (done)
• 13 is not in ISO format like the others

• Other

• Looks underlinked to me. Try to add some. Plot and system requirements might be good places to add a few.
• Media permissions, dablinks, and dead links all check out.

• It is almost an orphan. Can any other pages link here?

Cptnono (talk) 04:50, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

• • I believe I've addressed most of your concerns. I've added a handful more links, added a tad to the end of development to clarify the game's release, and made some other tweaks. About the image: it's going to sandwhich text no matter where it goes, unfortunately, because of how short the gameplay section is. As for your comment about "Pathways was Bungie's third title...", what did you think should be split in two? Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 16:37, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Disregard the splitting of the line. I realized it was already two but missed the full stop used. D'oh and apologies.

I viewed the article on a couple machines w/ different browsers and settings. Moving it down was only better on one while worse on another. Forget that too then. Sandwiching is better than not having it here.

Excellent work. Your recent additions were great. This meets GA requirements.Cptnono (talk) 13:38, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Adding the story into the Article?

Hello, upon reading this article, I noticed that the one thing missing was the plot and story. I'm not sure how most editors of this article feel about adding this in, but nearly every game article I come across contains some information about the plot, story and the background to the game. Also it is a very integral part of the PiD experience and is very impossible to play the game through without having a firm grasp on the story. I know writing one may be difficult given the open endedness to the game itself, but it is at least worth discussing about. -RiseRobotRise (talk) 03:38, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, there is a section on plot. If you think there's more to add, that's another matter :) Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 02:59, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Third or Fourth

The article has a cited statement that Pathways into Darkness was Bungie's third game. However, it appears to have actually been their fourth - Gnop!, Operation: Desert Storm and Minotaur: The Labyrinths of Crete all preceded it. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 01:48, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Alex Seropian released Gnop! a year before Bungie was incorporated, therefore it was Alex's game and not Bungie's. Bungie confuses the matter by referencing Gnop! as part of their history, but notice that they say "Bungie", not Bungie: http://www.bungie.net/inside/history.aspx?link=HistoryOfBungie_p1. --Iritscen (talk) 13:43, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Actually, to correct myself a little, the game says (c) 1990 Bungie Software in the About box. Alex must have used that as a DBA before incorporating. I guess it's up for debate, though to me it's still not a Bungie product, but rather just a little freeware bauble that Alex released as a hobbyist. I won't mind if someone wants to revert, but my change from "fourth game" back to "third game" was in keeping with the Tuncer Deniz article I provided a link to in citation #1. I don't think Bungie considered Gnop! their first game at the time Deniz wrote that, seeing as it wasn't packaged and sold like a "real" game. Much later, they probably only added Gnop! to their History page for laughs, to show how far they've come. But again, it's debatable. --Iritscen (talk) 14:17, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I think going with what the sources said at the time makes the most sense--that Gnop wasn't really Bungie's first game, so it's their third. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 15:25, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

It bore the company's name and logo, and was re-released by the company on later compilations that far predate the current Bungie.net history page. See File:Bungie_gnop_splash_marathon_trilogy_cd.png.

It was known in the Bungie community way back then (i.e. when the Marathon trilogy was still new) as Bungie's first game. I think Tuncer's article is incorrect, not Bungie's history article, and I would like to revert it to say "fourth". Are screenshots acceptable as citations in cases like this, to replace the current one since they don't match? --Pfhorrest (talk) 06:14, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Not really, considering it would fall under original research provisions. Tuncer did work for Bungie, so I don't see why he wouldn't be considered a good source. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 13:39, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Just to reiterate, I don't think that Bungie really considers Gnop! their first game. As further evidence, if you watch the trailer for Destiny, at 2:50 (link) the game is not in the list of Bungie titles on the wall. Perhaps in my first post above, I should have put more emphasis on the quote-marks surrounding "Bungie" as the maker of Gnop! on the Bungie History page, because I'm pretty sure that was more of a joke than anything. Unfortunately, Wikipedia's Desert Storm page still proclaims that it was the 2nd Bungie game and Gnop! says it was the first, both using the Bungie History page as a citation. Without something more concrete than the old Deniz article, I don't know if I feel like making a correction to those pages and then having to fight over it. If someone else does, though, by all means have at it. --Iritscen (talk) 16:13, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Okay, owing to my apparent inability to let anything go, ever, I have updated the Gnop and Desert Storm pages now that Bungie's redesigned site is more straightforward about Gnop not being a Bungie release. This page is thus already correct in stating that PiD is the third game after Desert Storm and Minotaur. --Iritscen (talk) 00:35, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

See continuation of this discussion at Talk:Gnop!. I have provided photos that Bungie considered Gnop! their first game, and screenshots from the game itself showing that it was published under the Bungie name. I'm changing this article back to say PiD is the fourth Bungie title. --Pfhorrest (talk) 07:13, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, all right. I've always hemmed and hawed over this since I realized that Seropian seemed to be using the name "Bungie" before incorporating under that name. It's debatable whether Gnop! should count as a product of a company that didn't exist yet, and I think that's why it hasn't always been listed by Bungie everywhere as its first game, for instance in omitting it on their studio wall. I lean towards not counting it, but as I said up top, I'm not going to put up a fight over this, as it's not clear-cut to me. --Iritscen (talk) 17:20, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Can't follow this

In the plot section it says: "Before the game begins, players' parachute fails to open. Awakening hours later, players find almost all their equipment inoperable." Should that be "the player's parachute ..."? Or have the parachutes of the whole team failed to open? George Ponderevo (talk) 01:59, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Fixed. Well, someone fixed that bit before, but I clarified things further. —Frungi (talk) 18:37, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Connections to Marathon

There are certainly a lot of connections to Marathon--indeed, there are plenty of reasons that people thought Halo took place in the same universe as Marathon too. But fan speculation is just that, and unless we've got reliable sources talking about it, we haven't reached the threshold of inclusion. I'm also going to point out that using Hamish as a source creates further issues of quasi-canonicity; Hamish went much further than anyone at the time at breaking open Bungie's stories, but he was clearly plumbing depths Bungie didn't (at the time) expect; as a result some of his ideas influenced and shaped Marathon's later story and some of Bungie's mythos (like the number 7's significance), but that doesn't change the fact that he's still a fan without the "mainstream cred" needed to cite his opinions (unlike, say, Claude Errera of Halo.bungie.org.) Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 17:36, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Okay, well I'm not going to keep fighting to keep the passage in, but it didn't seem inappropriate to me to state what fans were speculating as long as it's not stated as fact. If we wanted a definitive statement, I'd think we'd have to go to the source, i.e., Jason Jones, but my intention was just to let readers know that there is "maybe" a connection, and to supply a reference showing the reasons people think there is a connection. Plenty of articles have sections devoted to interpreting a fictional work, full of citations linking to speculation (a classic example is "2001"). The key is that such ideas are not stated as fact, which is why I changed the phrasing of the Marathon connection to be uncertain. --Iritscen (talk) 17:57, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

I definitely see your point, but even for something like "there *might* be a connection", we still need a reliable source. I haven't seen anything from Bungie that would qualify or support that, or someone reputable picking up on the fan's comments. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 19:37, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree with David. Anything that appears here needs to be backed up by a reliable, published source. Even saying fans speculated about something would need a source specifically saying "fans speculated that xx". Though the Hamish Sinclair site is a great fan resource (and has been since the 1990s), it's still a self-published personal website, and really shouldn't be used here. That said, I think this connection is obvious and significant enough that I'd be surprised if some reliable source down the years hasn't mentioned it.Cúchullain ^t/c 20:46, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Okay, but just for the record, I'm not sure that either WP:SPS or WP:RS apply here, as the goal of those policies is to avoid the use of personal/questionable sites as references for facts, whereas the Hamish link was linking to gathered fan speculation, and that was all the statement in the article was intended to assert -- not some fact, but simply that fans speculated a connection. Not to harp on it, but the 2001 (film) article has links at the bottom to sites similar to Hamish's, and it passed a GA review (Mar. 2012) while those links were there. Considering (1) the fact that fans always bring up this subject (try Googling "Marathon Pathways connection") sooner or later when talking about the games, (2) that the obscurity of this game makes it unlikely that there would be some scholarly work on the subject, and (3) the harmlessness in the statement that there may be a connection, I'm not really sure why it's such a controversy. I don't suppose the Bungie Wikia would be considered a better source for the connection speculation (again, not as a traditional Reliable Source, but simply as evidence of speculation, on a site that is not the work of one man)? --Iritscen (talk) 15:29, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

No, as an open wiki the Bungie Wikia isn't usable here either. To your other points, I think the real issue is there's no way to tell if this (or any item) is really significant to the subject unless it has appeared in a reliable, published source. In other words, the fact that these theories exist doesn't necessarily mean it's noteworthy enough to go in an encyclopedia article. Personally, I do think it's significant, but I was a big fan of these games, so I accept that it may have colored my perceptions about what's really significant and what isn't. As such I oppose including it until we find a reliable source. This doesn't have to be academic work; I think we may find something in some video game or Mac publication or another, perhaps a contemporary dead-tree source.Cúchullain ^t/c 18:36, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

←C. has it mostly right here. Independent of needing to be verified by a reliable source, if reliable sources don't actually cover the topic in question that's a good suggestion that the information doesn't belong on Wikipedia (though of course there's plenty of other wikis, websites, etc, where it can be and is discussed.) Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 14:15, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

External links modified

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Source

• https://archive.org/stream/MacWorld_9401_January_1994#page/n97/mode/2up