Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Peer review/Europa Barbarorum

Europa Barbarorum

Hello everyone. I have been involved with editing this article for some time now, but after my last group of edits I think I have changed it sufficiently to warrant a peer review. Most importantly, I feel, the article no longer looks like a copied and pasted version of this page.

In decending order of importance, the aims I would like to achieve are:

• Getting the {{Gamecleanup}} tag that is on the article removed.<
• Getting advice on where to go from here with improving the article / what the main areas of weakness are at present.
• Improving the article's quality rating.

Any feedback on the article as it now stands is appreciated. It Is Me Here (talk) 16:46, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the feedback everyone, I'm now going to close this peer review and move onto a Good Article review. Wish me luck! It Is Me Here (talk) 16:09, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Review by Sebquantic

Here is a short list of things that I think will improve the article

Abbreviations: Using EB and RTW as much as they are really isn't necessary. I would only use them once, if at all, directly after the first mention of the proper noun, and use the full names Rome Total War and Europa Barbarorum. Most casual readers will only passively care what players of this particular game use to abbreviate it's name, so using it so often might turn them away. Another important point is not to overuse those nouns. Once or twice per paragraph is usually more than enough to make sure the reader knows what you're talking about. The rest of the sentences can easily just use a pronoun like 'they', or leave it out completely. See the edit I made to the "History and goals" section as an example

Sentence Structure: Improving the overall structure of some sentences will help the article "flow" better. The article consists almost entirely of compound sentences, which not only gets repetitive, but in a lot of cases breaks grammar. There are a lot of examples where you have three or four commas in one sentence. These might sound better broken into several simple ones, or combined in a different way. This is especially useful when you want to state an important fact, as short simple sentences draw attention to themselves. Try shuffling between compound and simple so that it reads more naturally.

Sections:

• The faction list and release history sections should be removed. Way too specific. Try replacing them with paragraphs that summarize any significant and/or unique things about the lists.
• Try merging the history,release history, and mini-mods sections into a single one called Development so that it is presented in a more neutral and organized way.

Audience: One thing I noticed is that the article assumes the reader already knows a lot about Rome Total War. You should be writing from the point of view that people reading this don't know anything about the original game, or even what an RTS game is. Focus on the things that make this mod unique. This also means not including too many details that will confuse people. Summarizing will be a little tricky here because most of what you have written in the features section does seem unique and deserves to be there (although I don't know anything about this mod). The general idea should be to cut out some of the fluff and technical jargon without taking away the interesting content.

Screenshots: Add some screenshots to supplement certain sections (take your own if possible to be sure they fall under "free use video game screenshots"). These should be related to the section that you put them in. Don't just take a bunch of random shots and inject them wherever. For instance in cartography, maybe put a shot of the game map which the reader might be interested in seeing after reading that section.

--Sebquantic (talk) 02:11, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Response

Hi there, thanks for that review. Here, then, is my response to your comments (I will update it as I go along):

Abbreviations: Preliminary replace of EB and RTW done (unless it's quoted from somewhere - that only happens in the references at the moment IIRC); will improve style, flow etc. in due course.

Sentence Structure: OK, again, I'll look into it.

Sections:

• Well, as you can imagine, having spent a lot of time creating those sections (Release History especially, finding and formatting the references and such), I am certainly not happy to hear that they should be scrapped. After all, what harm do they do? People can skim over them if they do not care what previous versions of the mod were like, surely? Moreover, the whole section is nearly complete (we just need to find one or two more release announcements) and so the tag will be able to be removed soon, making the whole thing look nicer. However, I have to say that you are the second person now who has called for the deletion of that section, so if two more people, say, also vote that it be removed and no-one supports its inclusion in the article, I suppose I will have to turn it into an explanatory paragraph. As for the Faction List section, I would have said that there was even more cause to keep it than the Release History table, as it describes the mod's playable factions in a way which is clear and stands out, I would say, and the factions which the mod includes are surely one of its major features? The mod's website, for instance, dedicates a major section to its factions. Also, let me point out that the table describes the playable factions that are very much end-user material and from which players can choose; there could, in theory, have been another table of the internal names of the factions (i.e., a list of which EB factions take the slots of which RTW factions), something which is only of interest to the mod's developers and which the player never sees (unless they start digging through .txt files) and so something which has not been included in the article as that would really be unnecessary, I feel. I've now had the two further delete votes, so out those tables went.

• I'll have a look at it. I was actually thinking of writing about the individual mini-mods in more detail some time; or would you say that would be unnecessary? Alright, I've re-structured the page; how's it looking now?

Audience: I'm afraid I'm a bit confused by your advice. You want me to include more general information about what RTW was like, and how an RTS works, and yet only to focus on what makes EB unique? Could you rephrase your advice somewhat, please? For instance, is the article lacking information on RTW, or does it have too much, or what?

Screenshots: If only it were that easy! To be honest, I thought that the lack of media would come up during peer review and/or feedback and so have already been working on getting images into the article separately. The article used to have screenshots of the mod in it, but these were removed (and the images themselves eventually deleted from Wikipedia altogether) as non-fair use. The mod's screenshots wouldn't be free use as the mod isn't freeware and they would be de facto RTW screenshots, I believe, which means fair use. However, I have sent a request to the mod's development team asking them to re-license all EB-related media (other than the music, which was made by someone else for them and so isn't theirs to re-license) under GFDL, which means that images of the map etc. (which aren't screenshots, but rather artwork made by the development team) will be making an appearance as soon as I get a reply from them.

OTRS number received; addition of images begun. It Is Me Here (talk) 17:47, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Maintenance: Even with the article as it now stands, would you say that it was good enough to warrant the removal of that {{Gamecleanup}} tag at the top (especially considering that the tag was applied to this version of the article, from which I have gone a long way, I would say)? I've removed the tables, and hence the tags, too, per Randomran's advice.

It Is Me Here (talk) 07:54, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Please don't get me wrong, I wasn't saying that what you had written in the gameplay sections was bad. I just saw some ways that it could be better structured. Of course you know a lot more about this game's features than I do, so what should stay and go is really up to you. I probably could have been more clean in my review, but it looks like the two below did a better job. GOod work so far! Sebquantic (talk) 21:36, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Response updated. How does the article look now? It Is Me Here (talk) 16:37, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Review/advice from User:Randomran

I just want to put some weight behind everything Sebquantic said. I'm glad you've already shown a lot of initiative in improving this article, and responding to comments. Let me try to offer some additional guidance, for parts of Sebquantic's review that might be controversial, or need clarification:

• Faction list: The VG wikiproject has a consensus on what's generally appropriate to meet our broader Wikipedia policy concerns. According to WP:VGSCOPE, a list of every weapon/item/location/faction is really considered gameguide material beyond the scope of Wikipedia. We're not here to report every detail of a fictional world, but give people a concise understanding of it. You could probably make the same point by saying "many of the factions were replaced in order to provide greater realism. Whereas Rome: Total War used well-known names such as Germania, Europa Barborum attempted to use names of actual cultures as they were known at the time, such as Suebi." If people want to learn more, I'm sure they can visit the actual game website.
• Version history: Same thing. But this doesn't mean you have to delete it. If anything, this looks to be more salvageable than the faction list. Rewrite it as prose. "EB was in development since June 2005, with its first public release by the end of the year. By December of the following year, the mod had introduced important new features such as A and B. ... Version 1.1 was released in 2008 with new features, with further updates pending. The team has also announced plans for the mod to be developed for Medieval II." Good Article reviewers eat this kind of stuff up -- the development section is as important as the game itself.
• Audience: I agree this is kind of confusing. You want to explain how the mod is unique, but you can only do that if you've made reference to the basic game. Establish a baseline. Give us some context. "RTW is a game that involves X, Y, and Z. While X is the same, EB scraps Y for W. IT also expands on Z by doing A, B, C." Don't jump into detail right away. Summarize the basic game, and try to give an overview of the major changes. Right now, you kind of jump in with detailed changes, without really explaining the core game. Don't get carried away here, but give us more than just telling us it's a historical RTS.
• Images: The images were deleted not because they weren't fair use, but because there was no fair use rationale. This is a huge PITA sometimes, and I'll admit that I'm not the best person to ask what a good fair use rationale is like. But basically, you *can* use a copyrighted image for academic/educational purposes if you explain why. Browse around some other featured video game articles and click on the images. This will give you a feel for how to write a fair use rationale, and will let you justify at least *one* screenshot. Concept art is even better, because it might be public domain or some other free license.
• Maintenance: the main thing for the gamecleanup tag would be the inappropriate content under WP:VGSCOPE. I added it, so I might be biased. But it's reassuring to see that Sebquantic echoed my concerns about those two lists. If you were to summarize these and turn them into prose, I could see no reason to keep the gamecleanup tag around.

In case no one has said it yet... *excellent* work so far. This article has come along way in the past few months. There aren't many high quality game mod articles, and I think this one has a legitimate shot at GA status if you address the rest of the comments in the peer review. It will involve a lot of copy-editing and word massaging, and it can be a pain... but you'll get there if you're patient. Randomran (talk) 04:54, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Review from Mendaliv

So here's a few suggestions I've got.

• Structure While it's of course not essential to follow rigidly the suggested structure of "Gameplay, Development, Reception, References" in WP:VG/GL, it'd be good to condense some of your shorter second-level headings into one another- release history should go under History/Development, the Mini-mods maybe under Reception.
• Content Keep in mind that articles should be written with the largest possible audience in mind, and to follow the reasonably-good rule of thumb suggested in the article guidelines, "If the content only has value to people actually playing the game, it is unsuitable". In particular, I'm referring to things like the comparison chart of factions and the comprehensive version history- for the latter, it'd be quite appropriate to link to it in the external links section or via a footnote.
  • Weight In particular, the article is weighted far too heavily towards the "features" section detailing gameplay; 14 paragraphs and a large chart versus 2 paragraphs in Reviews. While it'd be ridiculous to expect full balancing, I think reception should be weighted while gameplay trimmed back.
• References It seems like you're using far too many primary sources from web forums. While they may be announcements by the devs, it's still rather poor form to directly cite forums. Try to use articles and parts from official documentation if possible, though I understand that can be problematic with some developers; for the game Neocron the dev company makes 80% of their announcements on a forum and never post them to the main webpage. I'd gotten around that by citing some fansites that are really good about news postings.

Hm, I think that covers the major points. Neat-sounding game! —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 12:54, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Response 2

OK, thanks for the two reviews, guys, I've now got rid of the two tables and subsequently got rid of that cleanup tag. More changes to follow. It Is Me Here (talk) 21:13, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I've now re-structured the article; is it OK now, structure-wise (I know I've still got the style fixing to do)? It Is Me Here (talk) 16:37, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

It's a bit better, though I believe there's some content in "features" that should belong in "development". Additionally, it looks like you're rendered that chart as prose, which is better but in my opinion it's still far too detailed for a video games article... though I suppose you could make the argument for keeping it via WP:BTW. If it were me, I'd trim it back to one or two examples, maybe create a list article of units/factions, or have an external link to a page on all the factions, faction changes, unit changes etc. That would definitely still make this article accessible to those only needing a cursory knowledge of the game while making it useful for someone looking to do research about the game. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 21:10, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I see - but I'm concerned that me creating a list article about Europa Barbarorum's factions or release history would just mean someone sending it to WP:AFD due to lack of notability or something. I might create a new, separate article about Europa Barbarorum II once it's released, but other than that, I would think that keeping everything together would be the easiest and safest option. The reason I did not remove much in the way of content when turning those tables into prose (I did remove some information, though, and thus did summarise what the tables were saying somewhat) was because I did not want to lose any of my references, and, indeed, I have managed to retain them all. If people still aren't happy after I've improved the style of the article etc., then I'll see how I can further reduce the amount of content in those sections. It Is Me Here (talk) 16:21, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, at this time a list article might not be notable. I'm not too experienced with the ins and outs of creating them anyway. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 19:14, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Further comment: This article has improved by leaps and bounds. It's on its way to becoming a great mod article. The tough and tedious part about improving any article is copy-editing. Just keep plugging away. And find a way to reference the unreferenced information. Those are minor issues that will just take time and effort. Really, there are two major issues to tackle before then:

• A lot of confusing detail in the development and feature section. Try to summarize as much as possible.
• Expand the reception section: it would be really helpful to know what those various magazines said. That's so key!

These issues are definitely related. The article is kind of our of proportion. It might help you to take a look at a recent featured article, such as Guitar Hero (video game). This might give you an idea of how much detail we give on the various aspects of a game. Pay special attention to the reception section, too. Randomran (talk) 05:16, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

OK, I think I've done what you said now. Thanks very much for all the help - do you think I can now close this peer review and go on to a GA review? It Is Me Here (talk) 18:17, 20 September 2008 (UTC)