Talk:Warhammer: End Times – Vermintide

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Warhammer: End Times – Vermintide/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: David Fuchs (talk · contribs) 15:27, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

 In progress Will be doing. Look for review next week. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 15:27, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

 Comment:: While the GA nominator Lankyant has made some changes to the article, I am the major contributor of this article and I do not think the article is well-written. Most of the content I wrote 7 year ago has not been copyedited at all. IMO The gameplay, development, and reception sections are in need of a complete overhaul before it can become a GA. OceanHok (talk) 13:47, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

Review as follows:

• General:
  • In terms of areas the article falls down on compared to what's out there, I think a major omission from the gameplay section is how the loot system works, besides just describing it as a thing that exists briefly. It's something mentioned quite substantially in reviews, so should be given its proper weight (for example, it doesn't mention that loot die get modified by tomes and grimoires picked up in the missions, and the added difficulty that brings.)
  • Likewise, while I'm not sure there needs to be substantially more detail for the enemies and how they spawn, the article currently treats the information as pretty understood ("even the Massive rat ogre"). The conflict director seems like something more important than a single line (for example, it spawns in characters to ambush those who go alone, encouraging cooperation.)
  • If there's not more substantial pre-release commentary than PC Gamer and similar, I'm not sure it makes sense to include them in the (post-release) reception section.
  • The reception section mixes using critic and publication names, and should be made more consistent (who is Dan Whitehead writing for, for example?)
  • Reception section is generally decently organized, but it needs more work.
  • The expansion section just feels like a laundry list of patch notes and updates without much structure.
  • If there's nothing to say about the sequel other than it was announced and released, I don't think it needs its own subsection.
• Prose:
  • Warhammer: End Times – Vermintide is a co-op-focused first-person shooter action video game set within the Warhammer universe. This is dang lengthy, and is going to be even more impenetrable if people don't know what co-op is. Introduce the co-op elements in another sentence (and spell it out first.)
  • Probably shouldn't have the decorative quote box in the soundtrack or development section, per MOS:PQ.
  • Prose definitely needs more work; I performed a partial copyedit, but there's more systemic stuff to address before line edits. Lots of repetitious phrasing or just unwieldy, long sentences for stuff that could be said more straightforwardly, e.g.:
    • The game was announced on February 5, 2015, with the release of an announcement trailer -> The game was announced with a trailer on February 5, 2015.
    • The game's gameplay is a combination of melee gameplay and gunplay, which the team thought can craft a "visceral" experience for players. -> Vermintide's gameplay combines melee and ranged combat, which the team thought would craft a visceral experience for players. (I have issues with just calling it "visceral" without more clarity about what makes combining melee and ranged combat worthy of that description, but using as an example of prose. You've got "gameplay" and "game" in there three times.)
    • The company had experimented with games like Escape Dead Island and Krater, a—this implies that the company created those games to build towards Vermintide, as opposed to unrelated previous works. The rest of the sentence starts shifting tenses and is generally an unhelpfully long way of saying "After previous efforts like X and Y, Fatshark decided to focus on multiplayer games with cooperative gameplay" or similar.
• References:
  • What makes PressPlayNews.net reliable? Metro is generally not considered an acceptable source either, and given it's only being used for a review where you have other, better options, I'd cut it.
  • Refs inconsistently formatted (Destructoid not italicized, etc.)
  • Performed a spot-check of statements attributed to current refs 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 11, 12, 14, 24, 25, 27, 38, 43, 44.
    • Not sure The game also features a real-time narrative, which slowly unfolds as players progress through levels. is really cited by Ref 2
    • Ref 8 doesn't talk about the gas rats.
    • Vermintide was also the first game where the entire team at Fatshark worked together is going a little beyond the source (which only says that they used to have multiple small projects going on and Vermintide was the first single-focus effort.)
    • Ref 10 does not adequately support The team had wanted to make a Warhammer game since they played Warhammer Fantasy Battle in 2004, but they lacked the team to do so (doesn't mention why they hadn't created a Warhammer game yet.)
    • Ref 12 does not adequately support However, despite being co-op focused, players cannot play as typical fantasy characters like healers. Therefore, Fatshark decided to name these characters "heroes" instead of "classes"
    • Fatshark also announced that the game will be supported by multiple downloadable content, with the first one being Sigmar’s Blessing, which adds new loot. It was released on December 3, 2015. Why is this down here, repeating content from earlier? And why is the tense still referring to future, unreleased dlc?
    • Ref 44 was published on 11/12/2015, but the article says the 300K sales number was from 11/11.
• Media:
  • I'm not sure File:Warhammer End Times Vermintide screenshot.jpg is a very good image; it's pretty hard to tell what's going on in the low-contrast environment; it also has a very weak fair use rationale that needs to be beefed up per WP:NFCC.

Given the issues mentioned and the agreement from OceanHok, who remains a larger contributor to the overall content, I'm going to fall the nomination at present. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 19:35, 3 January 2023 (UTC)