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Quasi-related question

Can someone see if this link works for them? I'm trying to see if my college library's databases are open. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 19:41, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I get a screen asking for my eID and password on my end. Hope that helps.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 19:46, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, just seeing if you guys not at the university might be able to use the LexisNexis and EBSCO stuff, but I guess they've closed that loophole :P If anyone wants me to go trolling for print sources though, just leave me a note on my talk page and I can send you shiny PDFs of whatever I find. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 20:23, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Confirming it doesn't work for me either. Giggy (talk) 07:06, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Dynamic game balancing

I came across the nearly-orphaned Dynamic game balancing article referenced in a game theory discussion, but this is a more appropriate place for it. I added the project template, maybe someone on this project will have ideas on ratings and where it should get linked. CRETOG8(t/c) 19:51, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment should be merged with it, it's the same concept. I'd probably move the entire topic to Dynamic difficulty as that's what it's most commonly known as. Examples of dynamic difficulty systems in games include Sin Episodes, Flow, and the AI director in Left 4 Dead. You could also argue that rubber banding in racing games is the same thing. Note that User:GAndrade who wrote the Dynamic game balancing article, is probably the G Andrade who's paper is cited as a reference. - hahnchen 12:09, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Just to inform that I've merged both to Dynamic game difficulty balancing, according to a discussion on Talk:Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment. --Waldir ^talk 19:34, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Mercs 2

I don't know how to make new sections, but Mercs 2 does need a Reception section.ShaneMarsh (talk) 00:49, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

You could probably make the controversy section into a part of the reception section, since it is really reception by a country.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 02:15, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I was referring to reception from gaming press, but it is a moot point now.ShaneMarsh (talk) 12:09, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Nintendo

I have boldly started rolling the proverbial ball on turning the WikiProject into a task force. I have already redirected one page to the Mega Man task force and have tagged three pages in which I consider to be fairly obsolete for MfD in which I have placed on the AFD page. If there are any comments that need to be made or any further suggestions, please either make them on the appropriate talk pages, in this case, WT:NES. Thank you, MuZemike (talk) 13:40, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Note — I have blanked the old WikiProject's memberlist, and I have also replaced the template with the new task force userbox, in which users who display the userbox will not be categorized. I have done this to get a better representation of the membership of the new task force. If you wish to sign up for the Nintendo task force, please follow the instructions on the task force page. MuZemike (talk) 18:07, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Note — Template:User WikiProject Nintendo and Category:WikiProject Nintendo members have both for nominated for TfD and user CfD, respectively. Please do the deletion discussions there. MuZemike (talk) 15:00, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

WPVG template modification request

I'd like to request that the WPVG template be modified include Nintendo as a task force. For example, if someone types in tf=nintendo in the WPVG template, then it would display "this article is supported by the Nintendo task force" in the template. After that, I would probably need to request for a bot to remove the WikiProject Nintendo templates from all articles and annex the tf=nintendo code into the WPVG templates of all those articles. Thank you, MuZemike (talk) 23:11, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

There is no edit needed to {{WikiProject Video games}} to support tf=Nintendo, at least as long as the task force is located at Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Nintendo. I have some bot code that can do the replacement (if the WP MMOG version ever gets approved, anyway). Once consensus determines this is ready to be done, just drop me a note on my talk page and I'll file the BRFA. Anomie⚔ 23:42, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I will let you know about the bot. I am currently going through Stub-class article in the old WikiProject Nintendo and adding missing {{nintendo-stub}}'s. MuZemike (talk) 01:01, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I just want to voice my overall support for this, just in case anyone complains about a lack of consensus. Randomran (talk) 21:50, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I have been bogged down with work as of late, but I'll try to complete the transition when I can. MuZemike (talk) 13:46, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Also, I have a proposal for a new infobox, changing the color scheme and replacing the NES controller with the WikiProject Nintendo logo (the mushroom with the "W"). Any thoughts? MuZemike (talk) 13:49, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

That looks good to me, I like it.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 16:09, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I have another request with the WPVG template concerning categorization of the new task force's articles. We have over 800 Nintendo-related articles, and after the bot goes through and nukes the {{NESproj}} template from all the articles and replaces all of the them with the task force designation, we're going to lose the ability to track Nintendo-related articles by quality and importance (see Category:FA-Class Nintendo articles; it is now empty after I replaced all the NESproj templates with the new TF designation by hand). Hence, my request would be to edit the WPVG template to so that articles in the Nintendo task force are automatically categorized by quality and importance. MuZemike (talk) 02:12, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Importance possibly, but generally when an article reaches a status, isn't that status retroactively applied to all other templates on the talk page, especially in cases of a GA or FA? (After all, can't have an article be FA in one cat and not in another, no?)--Kung Fu Man (talk) 02:15, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

But the {{NESproj}} templates are going away; the only template that most GAs and FAs (and most Nintendo-related articles for that matter) will have is the WPVG template — that's my point. As a task force, we have to drop our own template entirely, hence the need to request for bot assistance to clear the Nintendo template from all such-tagged articles.

Although I will surely accept at a minimum a change in the template in which the Nintendo task force designation categorizes the article into one task force category such as Category:Nintendo task force articles. MuZemike (talk) 07:01, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I think the easy solution would be to change {{WikiProject Video games}} to use {{WPBannerMeta}} as I proposed here a long time ago. That allows task forces to also have class and importance categories. MrKIA11 (talk) 12:13, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Alternatively, we could custom code ours — it's a relatively small change. --Izno (talk) 15:00, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

FYI, the bot code passes my local testing and is ready whenever you guys are. Note that there will probably be at least a few days time for the WP:BRFA process from when you say to begin (BRFA has been very slow lately). Anomie⚔ 03:02, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I just completed stub-sorting all Nintendo-related stubs, so until the code for the WPVG banner is changed per my request, there is nothing more I can do to preserve the types of Nintendo TF-related articles. Hence, I am ready for the bot to go through. MuZemike (talk) 01:03, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

BRFA filed Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/AnomieBOT 4. Anomie⚔ 01:52, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Notability question

Hi, just a quick ? for the Project here: Are news items of games getting leaked/torrented/hacked notable enough for inclusion in game articles? Seems like a pretty common occurance (ie: a forgone conclusion) that games get that treatment; should it only be mentioned if it's an important leak (ie: Source leak during HL2 development)? Just wondering ... Dp76764 (talk) 19:55, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Like pretty much every aspect of game articles, it depends on the individual case. If it receives news coverage from gaming blogs then it might be worth a sentence or two, but if it's just another case of a game appearing on torrent then it's hardly something worth flagging up. What are you looking at? Someoneanother 20:20, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

• That's pretty much what I was thinking and seems to be the position of other established editors; just wanted to get some additional opinions to verify the position. Article in question: Spore (2008 video game)‎ Dp76764 (talk) 20:39, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

In which case we're discussing one of the handful of most widely publicised, talked about and landmark titles produced in the Western world (English sources) stretching back and forward a year or two, alongside GTA IV, The Sims 3 and perhaps Fallout 3. Every scrap of information within the article should be citable with reliable sources three times over, if the likes of Kotaku and 1up aren't going into it big-style then it's a clear sign it's not relevant to the overall picture. Someoneanother 21:13, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for providing the most succinct application of WP:UNDUE I've ever seen. Nifboy (talk) 22:05, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

If I don't post something half-sensible every now and then, they'll demolish my shed :) Someoneanother 10:24, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

If the leak/pirating/whatever of a game makes news in reliable sources more that just "oh, it was pirated", then it should be noted. A good case here is Assassin's Creed, in which Ubisoft is suing the company making the disks for the leak of the PC version. --MASEM 01:19, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Punch-Out!! series

I made the Punch-Out!! (series) article, if anyone's interested, I'd appreciate anyone editing it. - A Link to the Past (talk) 18:07, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Cool. I've gone through and fix all the double-redirects from List of characters in the Punch-Out!! series. Nifboy (talk) 18:19, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I would move Punch-Out!! (video game) to Punch-Out!! (NES game) if I was you. Jonny2x4 (talk) 02:04, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I second that motion, since [Punch-Out!! (arcade game)]] just as easily fits that description. In fact I'll even be bold about it and move it myself, creating a disambig at the old place.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 02:07, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd prefer to have either Punch-Out!! (arcade game)/Punch-Out!! (video game)/Punch-Out!! (series) or switch (video game) with (1987 video game). - A Link to the Past (talk) 02:11, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Problem is that's horribly non-descriptive and hardly the most common means someone looking for information on the game will use. We shouldn't count on the fact that someone will know the year it was released when that may be the very information they're trying to look up. However now I'm confused. I tried moving to to Punch-Out!! (NES) and Punch-Out!! (NES game), only to be told both are protected from being created. Who set that up?--Kung Fu Man (talk) 02:13, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Me!

No, not really. But I disagree with "(NES game)". I think that people know the NES game best, and its exposure in this day and age is the most significant of any games in the series, and since (video game) wouldn't be used anyway, we might as well call it (video game). - A Link to the Past (talk) 19:42, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Yeah but Link, that's going off of opinion. There are many people that just as readily know about the arcade game and not the NES game instead. Punch-Out!! (video game) seems like a subject better used for a disambig a la Captain Commando, where it links to the related articles (in this case it can link to the two games as well as the series article, which is a balanced option all around, no?)--Kung Fu Man (talk) 19:46, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Kung Fu Man. My first introduction was with the arcade game (1984), which is the original platform of the game, and is the game I always think about when hearing the name. Likewise, even if we were going to assume Link is right (which I don't) and guess on what people "know better", more people know the NES version as "Mike Tyson's Punch Out" than "Punch Out". What should be done (which is more common here) for a property that spans multiple platforms and versions, is a single brand page with specific ports/versions having their own page if content and notability warrant it. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 20:00, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

This sounds eerily familiar. If this is going to keep going back and forth, we might as well start an RfC on this matter. MuZemike (talk) 20:31, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Readderssing the date issue in the lead

The original discussion must have slipped off to the archives, but I would like to get consensus for the following style modification. Within the lead of a video game/console article, we should avoid the full use of dates and instead summarize the release by year or if necessary, month and year, including grouping regions as necessary if there's only a small amount of time (day to a month or so) between regional releases. Only on dates that are notable, such as Gears of War's "Emergence Day" or the like, should these be mentioned, as long as they are discussed below in the body.

Looking at Spore (2008 video game) is an example where these details are good, but they're details and excessive for the lead, given that we have the same dates in the infobox. I'm fine keeping this detail, but I believe that this should be pushed to the development section as part of "release and promotion" information, simplifying the lead, in the case, to "a worldwide release in September 2008".

This also makes our coverage of older games look better and more consistent. Getting the exact release date for, say, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (video game) will be really difficult, but comparatively, if newer games have a similar summary, it doesn't look as bad. --MASEM 22:51, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Overall support. Broken street dates are not lead-worthy. Nifboy (talk) 02:29, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I'll have some free time over the next two weeks.

I'm back :) So I gathered from previous discussions that there is consensus to revive the GCOTW collaboration, focusing on essential articles. I'll create a proposal on Tuesday, so any thoughts on how this should be structured would be most welcome. Should we only focus on Essential articles? Should we have more than one concurrent collaboration at a time? Should we have a limited timespan per collaboration, or have an indefinite push for GA status? Constructive/destructive comments much appreciated. Previous GCOTWs can be found at Wikipedia:Gaming Collaboration of the week/History. JACOPLANE • 2008-09-7 23:17

My opinion: a two track process, one track always geared towards an Essential Article, such that after two weeks it should be at GA if not better, with one editor taking charge to usher it through all steps to GA or FA (I'd prefer it being close to FA, if anything); the second track should be requests from other VG editors to help non-Essential articles to help improve it, not a guarantee of GA-ness, but certainly B-class if better; the requester is then responsible, if they want, to take the article further. Both tracks operate on two-week shifts, alternating weeks when a new article is put forward, so that if you don't like either two that are presently offered, come back in a week to see what's up. --MASEM 01:17, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I tried to get things going here, but it looks like a lot of people have been busy. Myself included. It's important to pick a topic that is an "essential" article, but that's accessible enough that we can get at least a hand full of contributors. I'm still keen on participating. I happen to think we should have one or two articles that we're always working on getting to GA status. And if things start going well, maybe have a few FA specialists to finish getting the article from GA to FA, as the rest of us push forward on another low class article. I don't think we need an exact timeline, but we shouldn't work on any article indefinitely either. Randomran (talk) 02:12, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Two species articles suggested

Namely, "Koopa (species)" and "Pokémon (species)". Comments? - A Link to the Past (talk) 22:28, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Notability in reliable sources? Based on my own experience, I'd say Pokemon would probably work, so long as it doesn't lead to us breaking that down into articles about specific types of Pokemon, which might then lead back to each individual Pokemon having its own article again. Not so sure on Koopa, though.

What sources do we have that cover these species in an out-of-universe context? — KieferSkunk (talk) — 22:35, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

None yet. Just making a proposal to garner support and other editors to help design them. - A Link to the Past (talk) 22:36, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd suggest we cull together sources first to establish whether this is worth the effort. Otherwise, if it turns out there's no reliable secondary/tertiary sourced content to support these articles, we will probably have wasted a lot of time. In the meantime, maybe create a user sandbox for each one? That way, you can avoid having the stubs CSD'd. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 22:45, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Questionable Categories

Are Category:KAZe games and Category:Meldac games really necessary categories, as both only cover, and only ever will cover, four articles? Considering my lousy track record with CfDs, I do not want to if I don't have to (see WP:VG/N). MuZemike (talk) 05:32, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Seems fine to me. SharkD (talk) 05:56, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Punch-Out!! problems

There's an edit war going on over the inclusion of a bio of the boxers' skill and signature abilities, and since it doesn't seem like either party will give in, I need a third opinion on the subject. Fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and so on would be nice. - A Link to the Past (talk) 22:31, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Per the guidelines, that information is WAY too excessive. A list of the fictional boxers in these games is not notable at all, as aside from possibly Mr. Dream and Mike Tyson, none of them have had any real-world impact on the industry. I'd just replace all of that with something along the lines of "The series is best known for its wide variety of characters, including the famous Mr. Dream (source) and Mike Tyson. Each boxer has a distinct style and requires different strategies in order to defeat." — KieferSkunk (talk) — 22:59, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I think that's excessive - several of them had action figures, Topps trading cards, King Hippo appeared as a major villain in the cartoon, Bald Bull appeared in every Punch-Out!! title including Arm Wrestling, making him the only character to appear in every game in the series, and of course the two Little Macs, who are the main characters (one appearing in EA's Fight Night Round 2, the other in Smash Bros. Brawl). Mike Tyson and Mr. Dream are famous for being the title characters, Mr. Sandman is iffy, though he's one of the few characters originating from the first game, and the final boss of the first game. Kid Quick and Pizza Pasta can go definitely for appearing only once and having nothing significant going for them. I think that characters should be covered in more than just a couple sentences, because Punch-Out!! has a lot in its characters. Characters exclusive to one game (obvious exceptions including but not limited to King Hippo, Mike Tyson/Mr. Dream, and others) should go. - A Link to the Past (talk) 23:08, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Signature moves of boxers aren't necessary. RobJ1981 (talk) 23:15, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

(EDC) I think the whole section is excessive, for the same reason that I think a list of tracks and cars in a racing game is excessive. While I agree that the characters are the central focus of a boxing game, I disagree that we need detailed descriptions of any of them. Remember, real-world context, not in-universe context. An average reader not familiar with the game isn't likely to care whether Pizza Pasta is from France, or that Bald Bull weighs 250 lbs. They may be interested in the fact that Bald Bull has appeared in every game of the series, but that doesn't mean he needs a biography to explain that. That sort of information could be integrated into a Development/History section, or a general discussion about the characters, which could still be limited to one or two paragraphs. (For note: I do think that a Characters section may be appropriate, but as a summary of the types of characters, some notable standouts, and sourced information about their real-world notability - notes about action figures and inclusion in cartoons would probably qualify.) — KieferSkunk (talk) — 23:16, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

If wanting to include that characters had action figures, trading cards, etc., that's what the In pop culture section is for. The fact that Bald Bull is the only one to appear in all the games can be in a much more whittled down "Characters" section as Kiefer is suggesting, which at most should include a listing of names by game in prose format. All those individual stats and long paragraph descriptions are just not needed, they border on game guide material. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 23:22, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Why are you discussing the game guide content at me? Little Mac and Doc Louis are clearly notable, Bald Bull being across the entire series makes him a notable character, King Hippo appearing in the cartoon as a main villain is notable (especially when he's the only Punch-Out!! character appearing, including Little Mac), Mike Tyson/Mr. Dream are notable characters, etc. Now what I think should be done to help everyone is list the characters in each game in their own article. - A Link to the Past (talk) 23:27, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Whoa, step back. Let's make sure we're all on the same page. I'm advocating taking out the whole section in the series article (and I think that's the article linked above - should be renamed to Punch Out!! (series) if so) and replacing it with a general description of the characters, with notable standouts, in the Gameplay section. Including a prose-formatted list of names in the individual game articles would be fine as well, as you and Marty are both suggesting. I'm just saying that anything more than that is likely excessive and goes against the guidelines, as well as WP policies. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 23:34, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I think some characters warrant a bit more than just a mention in the Gameplay section. Doc Louis, Mike Tyson, Mr. Dream, Little Macs 1 & 2, Bald Bull, King Hippo, maybe Glass Joe, etc. - A Link to the Past (talk) 23:37, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you already mentioned all of those. And as I pointed out, you'll need to provide sources that establish the kind of notability that warrants more detailed information on them. As a person who's only played the first two levels of any of the Punch Out games, I don't even know who most of those characters are (except for Tyson, of course), and frankly I don't really care that much. While WP:IDONTCARE isn't a good argument for including or not including content, it does provide a frame of reference for thinking about what the average reader is likely to want to know. If there's notability for these characters, discuss them to an appropriate level. But there are ways of doing that that still fit in the guidelines, and what we have now clearly doesn't. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 23:41, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, IDONTCARE certainly does seem to be the case, so I don't know why you seem to be opposing the selection of characters. In the context of the series, the characters I listed are important and should be mentioned more than saying "Bald Bull has appeared in every game in the series". This is how I would set it up:

==Characters==

;Little Mac

Little Mac is the star of the console ''Punch-Out!!'' titles, although there are two different characters with the name in the series, one sporting black hair and the other sporting blonde hair. Little Mac first appeared in ''Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!'' (currently known as ''Punch-Out!! Featuring Mr. Dream''), while an unnamed boxer was the star initially. All three of the main characters are diminutive in stature compared to the other boxers, and have to jump to hit them in the face. Both Little Macs have made cameo appearances in other games. The first was the blonde Little Mac, appearing as a hidden boxer in the [[Electronic Arts]] [[video game]] ''[[Fight Night Round 2]]''. Later on, the black-haired Little Mac appeared in ''[[Super Smash Bros. Brawl]]'' as a character who can be [[conjuration|summon]]ed from an item. — Preceding unsigned comment added by A Link to the Past (talk • contribs)

See, that's really excessive, in my opinion. The only thing that's actually noteworthy about this whole paragraph is that the player controls Little Mac in each game in the series. Mentioning his appearance as a non-playable "trophy character" in Brawl is akin to saying "Samus Aran makes a cameo in one of the Kirby games". It isn't particularly notable - it's trivia, as is virtually all of the detail in that paragraph. And this kind of prose just clutters the article and takes away from the more noteworthy details about the game in question - namely, its development history, its impact on the industry and community, Mike Tyson's involvement with Nintendo, etc. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 18:48, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

1. Samus merely appeared, Little Mac's role in Smash is more prominent and got noticeable press coverage. Also, the "diminutive stature" comment is definitely sourceable, and Little Mac appearing in a game unaffiliated with Nintendo is a fairly significant cameo, as there isn't any ability for Nintendo to just throw the character into the game. - A Link to the Past (talk) 18:50, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay, if there's significant press coverage about Little Mac's appearances in other games that's more than just "Look, he appeared!" - talking about why this is significant and important, then it's probably fair to mention this stuff. Is it still to the point where Little Mac requires his own separate section in the article? And does that justify listing all the OTHER boxers in the game as well? Perhaps we can consider a section discussing "Noteworthy characters", where all of the information is sourced and meets WP:N. I'd posit that Little Mac, Bald Bull, Mike Tyson and Mr. Dream are probably the most notable standouts based on this discussion. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 18:57, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

← (EDC) Also, perhaps mentioning WP:IDONTCARE wasn't the right tack for me to use. My intent was not to say that I don't care whether the content is there, but rather to point out that it's not the kind of information your average reader is likely to care about or be interested in. It's certainly information that I, as someone who isn't a fan of the series, do not find interesting, helpful or informative. It does not contribute to my understanding of the game as a whole. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 18:52, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think Little Mac being a trophy in Brawl is that important. I personally feel trophy mentions should be removed from all characters that are simply a trophy and/or assist trophy in the game. It's trivial information at best. RobJ1981 (talk) 20:30, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

series article suggestions

I thought that this could be a sub-task force to determine what warrants being a series article and what doesn't (for example, two franchises - Punch-Out!! and Red Faction - only just got a series article). Throw some suggestions in, and hopefully some of them will be made. A few of mine:

Rhythm Heaven (series)

Spore (series)

Picross (Nintendo series) - A Link to the Past (talk) 23:50, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Series articles are pretty much created when someone feels like it. Some series articles are great – such as The Legend of Zelda (series) – while some suck, such as Half-Life (series), so that gives an idea of how great or how poorly a series article can end up. One that I'm surprised with is StarCraft (series), which was only created in December 4, 2007 (before then, it was being worked on for a month in a user's sandbox). I suggest creating the series article only if there is something to add beyond a summary of each game, like a general roadmap of the series from the developer, for instance. Gary King (talk) 00:41, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Spore definitely has a lot of discussion going for it, and has three games in the series (Spore on PC, Spore on DS, and Spore on Wii, which are three separate games). Rhythm Heaven is iffy and I do not know if a "general roadmap from the developer" exists. And Picross would be hard to get a lot of sources for, because it only had three English releases out of many. - A Link to the Past (talk) 03:18, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

The amount of information available on Spore and the development process simply blows my mind, compared to other games. I guess Will Wright is more open about this project? I'm talking about articles like Development of Spore. So sure, I guess that series could have its own article. Gary King (talk) 03:25, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, Wright has achieved "genius" status according to the media, so discussions of this type probably sell more games than the games do themselves. SharkD (talk) 05:59, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Most "series" articles are rather pointless in my opinion. It makes sense with prolific franchises like Metal Gear, Final Fantasy and Resident Evil, which are franchises that have numerous sequels, spinoffs and multimedia tie-ins, but "series" articles such as Rival Schools, Boktai and Kid Icarus to name a few are unnecessary. The Kid Icarus "series" is nothing more than the original game, an obscure Game Boy sequel and a guest appearance in Smash Bros. The latter two can easily summarized and linked to via a sub-section in the original game's article. Jonny2x4 (talk) 04:58, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

So I guess we have a mini-consensus on Spore (series). I have some more ideas to bounce off of you:

Educational games in the Mario series

Mario role-playing games (there's a Paper Mario series article, all that would be needed is to move that to there, and to include the other three RPG games there)

Cancelled video games in the Mario series

No title yet, but it's a series article on the various franchises about Traveller's Tales' LEGO franchise games.

Katamari Damacy (series)

God of War (series)

Ghosts 'n Goblins (series) (includes the Ghosts 'n Goblins series, Maximo series, and Gargoyle's Quest series)

Gauntlet (series)

Frogger (series)

Excitebike (series)

Dragon Ball (video game series)

Disgaea (series)

Dig Dug (series)

Diablo (series) (it exists, but it's practically a disambig page)

Dave Mirra (series)

Conker (series)

Bubble Bobble (series) (includes Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Islands, Bust-a-Move, etc.)

Brothers in Arms (series)

Black & White (series)

Bionic Commando (series)

Balloon Fight (series)

Anno (series)

Lemmings (series) - A Link to the Past (talk) 05:08, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Again, they should only be created if there is something more to add than just game summaries and the like. A lot of existing series articles exist solely because someone was looking for it but couldn't find it; unfortunately, those pages tend to lack any more information beyond game summaries. Gary King (talk) 05:28, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

That's why I said "bounce off of you". I was intending to get a response of "well, I know this and it seems like it could generate a quality series article" rather than "make them if you need to". - A Link to the Past (talk) 05:32, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

← I haven't heard of most of those game series; the more notable ones should probably have a series page, such as Lemmings. Gary King (talk) 05:59, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I imagine that Diablo could go quite far. It may not be a particularly large series, but its got novels and merchandise to talk about, and I imagine some fair development information could be acquired. Plus, it's a particularly influencial series for the RPG genre. So yes, "well, I know this and it seems like it could generate a quality series article". -- Sabre (talk) 09:47, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I have to be honest...I think it might be a lot smarter move to fix the individual articles related to a series to a suitable degree before the creation of a series topic. Such cases at the last would give an idea too what info a series topic would need to cover, as well as possibly any sub-articles that could be merged into it (Valis (series) for example comes to mind).--Kung Fu Man (talk) 09:58, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Gonna bite a potential problem in the butt

Resolved

Yay for some more sillyness. I know it seems like it's been on a roll with the last few entries but I need some advice. Awhile back the suggestion came up here to merge or Baldur's Gate character articles that failed WP:N. At that time they used a template for their infoboxes, {{infobox D&D character}} (since modified by User:Thumperward into apparently something more plausible). It didn't seem suitable for video game character articles given the standard of {{General CVG character}} with an appropriate in-universe template tied to it. In this case I cooked up {{D&D VG character}} to not step on any other article's toes, since the others are dealing with by comparison fictional characters in the D&D literature. When the dust settled though only Minsc's article was decided to be left to improve upon instead of delete/merge at a later time so the template for the time being was used solely there.

Now the problem. Thumperward decided to improve the template but apply it to the Minsc article as well. However the template still is stand alone and designed for more literature related articles. I objected to his change on those grounds, noting that the infobox should fit the standard for video game characters and I basically got a response I took as somewhat arrogant in return that didn't even attempt to assume good faith, which a more fun jab in the edit summary for that last one. All that aside what I want to know is should it fit the standard and let the infobox be used on other D&D video game character articles that may achieve notability at a later time or go with the all encompassing box instead?--Kung Fu Man (talk) 23:48, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Request: article on time-keeping systems

If someone with good sources could start an article on video game time keeping systems (such as real-time, turn-based, etc.), it would be much appreciated. We could then merge turn-based game and other articles into it. SharkD (talk) 02:42, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

RfC: Platform abbreviations

Just64helpin has changed the abbreviations for Nintendo DS and Xbox in Template:Vgclegend/sub. I don't find "NDS" and "XB" to be preferable, honestly. "DS" is much more common for abbreviating the Nintendo DS. Nobody is going to confuse it with Famicon Disk System. I doubt many English speaking peoples own an FDS; and, the way the template is designed to display particular platforms based on need, it's unlikely that FDS and NDS will appear listed in the same article. If you look at GameSpot and IGN you'll see that "DS" is used.

"XBOX" also doesn't need to be abbreviated further. It is only four characters long, and is the same length as "X360", which acts to lump the two together in readers' minds. SharkD (talk) 01:28, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I'll just copypaste what I said earlier: This seems to contradict itself: I would think "XB" is more widely used than "XBOX", since the latter is just an alternative capitalization rather than an abbreviation. "DS" still has the potential to be confused with the Famicom Disk System. Just64helpin (talk) 01:38, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I can kinda agree with NDS, since it's more exact and has less chance of needing a retroactive change later on, but I don't see a point to shorten XBOX further.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 01:43, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

"X360" seems to imply the base "X" rather than "XBOX". If Microsoft were to release a successor, eg. Xbox 8000, the franchise would line up as: XB, X360, X8000. In any case, using "XBOX" for Xbox clashes against similar legends - "Wii" for Wii, for example. Just64helpin (talk) 02:00, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't know... when I see "NDS" it makes me think of one of those old, obscure video game systems instead of the modern DS. SharkD (talk) 02:14, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Being an obscure Japanese-only console, and appearing in entirely different decades, I don't think there's much reason to fear readers confusing the two. GameSpot, IGN and GameFaqs certainly don't worry about it. SharkD (talk) 01:53, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Use DS and FDS. If we consistently use "FDS" for Famicom Disk System, like 7 of the top 10 Google results for fds game, nobody will confuse "DS" with it. --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 12:17, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Eugh. I wish this had been brought up before the changes were made, because changing that template breaks all the template it's used in (Template:vgclegend) and all the pages it's used on have to be changed (which has already been done once), meaning this BRD cycle has to span across half a dozen pages instead of just one. Nifboy (talk) 02:22, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

And as I said on the template's talk page, "XB" doesn't seem to be used anywhere "Xbox" isn't, and DS is more common than NDS (though I will concede OC Remix uses NDS). Nifboy (talk) 02:26, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually, this has been (Template talk:GamePlatformKey) discussed once before, yet Just64helpin went ahead with the changes without trying to reach consensus. SharkD (talk) 02:28, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

DS is more commonly affiliated with NDS than any other game system, by an infinitely large margin. Heck, the DS' redesign doesn't even use "Nintendo DS". - A Link to the Past (talk) 02:32, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

From MOS:TM "When deciding how to format a trademark, editors should choose among styles already in use (not invent new ones) and choose the style that most closely resembles standard English".
Additional note: the "choose among styles already in use" text, means styles already in use by the trademark owner not versions invented by magazines or websites. Remember that WP articles should be aimed at a person who has no knowledge of the subject matter at all. Use the full trademarked name. - X201 (talk) 08:17, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

That doesn't mean "Use the full trademarked name", it means "don't make one up", or "no OR". Would you suggest PLAYSTATION 3 over PS3 in every instance in a template? There is no room. I do, however, think it is rather silly that people are trying to abbreviate DS into an abbreviation that's longer. ~ JohnnyMrNinja 08:57, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

The "use full trademark" was my opinion. I placed it at the end of my comment.

PS3 is a trademark as well and, as long as at least one nearby instance of it is linked, there is no problem in using it in a template where space is a problem. But the full trademark name should always be used in the Infobox and in article text because there isn't a space issue surrounding the use of the longer form. On the other matter of Microsoft and Nintendo, neither has tradmarked or use XB or NDS to identify their product so they shouldn't be used. - X201 (talk) 09:25, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd argue that space is an issue in the infobox, especially for games released on multiple platforms. I would much rather see "PS2, PS3, Xbox, X360, GCN, DS, Wii" than "PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox, Xbox 360, Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo DS, Wii". I think that only in cases where there is a clear, legitimate ambiguity between abbreviations (as was argued between NDS and FDS above, tho I disagree that there's a problem there), should we use a longer name. If something were actually released on both the Famicom Disk System and the DS, I would spell them both out to disambiguate them.

As for what the abbreviations are, I have to ask, what was wrong with the ones we were using before? I know I'm a gamer highly familiar with most of these terms, but "DS" certainly made a lot of sense to me, and "NDS" does not. I can look at "DS" and know exactly what it means, but with "NDS", I have to think about it for a moment, or click on the link to figure it out, because I start thinking "NDS... was that an older system?" Changing acronyms and names for the sake of changing them (and/or just for saving space) is only gonna confuse people.

One of the main reasons you want to stick with names and abbreviations used officially by the companies is because you then don't have to worry so much about forgetting what they mean. "XB" might make sense for the Xbox right now, but a year or two down the line, we may look at "XB" and forget that we're talking about the original Xbox with that. I know we'll have article links, but we shouldn't have to rely on article links to explain all the terms when just giving a more recognizeable and slightly longer name would take care of that automatically. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 20:43, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Not sure if those "you"'s were aimed at me or just a general apply to everyone "you", but... The reason I think we should use the trademark version of a product is to support one of the main reasons behind the whole of Wikipedia. To create articles for people with no specialist knowledge on the subject, and for video games the best way to help that along is to use the trademarked names that people see in shops and in adverts, and not to invent our own shorthand versions that exist for formating rather than information purposes. - X201 (talk) 21:04, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I meant the general "everyone you" in that. But I think our ideal of making the articles accessible to everyone conflicts a bit with the ideal of summarizing that info in an infobox. Infoboxes are good for "at a glance" info, and I think it's appropriate to use abbreviations there - just so long as they're industry-standard and linked. At some point, tho, we gotta realize that we can't always be absolutely everything to everyone, and we gotta trust that people will at some level understand how Wikipedia works: If something is linked and they want to know more about that link, they can always click it to read about it. I personally feel that the Infobox should be fine with industry-standard abbreviations, and the main prose in the article should spell out the names so that people can understand what the abbreviations mean without having to link. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 22:31, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I can't believe this discussion. Does anyone really believe that "XB" is a meaningful, frequently used and well-understood abbreviation for "Xbox"? I've never seen or heard this used, and as pointed out above, "Xbox" is already only 4 characters long, really requiring no abbreviation whatsoever. As far as the ridiculous "NDS"... Do we abbreviate the PlayStation 2 as the "SPS2"? No? Then why would we do this with a Nintendo product? --Slordak (talk) 19:59, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I've seen NDS a lot, and it's a far less ridiculous than "GCN". ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 20:52, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I too still have to agree with NDS. I wouldn't use it as a total replacement for DS...but an alternative should be fine, no? Also anyone else notice this flying in the face of the name applied to the Sega Mega Drive article. Double standard?--Kung Fu Man (talk) 21:20, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I hardly ever see NDS, and it doesn't matter if it's less ridiculous than Nintendo's official GameCube abbreviation. - A Link to the Past (talk) 22:28, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

The abbreviation "SMS" is not used, so I don't see where the double-standard lies. SharkD (talk) 22:14, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Woops. Wrong platform. SharkD (talk) 17:27, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Template:Vgclegend

SharkD seems to be misrepresenting the names of several video game systems in the Vgclegend template. For example, the Dreamcast appears as "Sega Dreamcast". This is particularly perplexing to me, since I've tried to make Wikipedia pages consistent by fixing these types of links and avoiding redirects. SharkD has reverted my attempts to remedy the matter. I would like to know what others think about this use of links. Just64helpin (talk) 03:46, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I see no reason, for example, to refer to the Wii as the "Nintendo Wii". That's simply not the name of the product. Even worse is "Apple iPod". Pagrashtak 04:27, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, agree with Pagrashtak. I don't see any reason for such a template to be using a title other than the article title (to take the Nintendo Wii/Wii example. Nokia N-Gage/N-Gage also stands out.). Giggy (talk) 06:46, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I think providing the company name adds context to what is otherwise a lengthy and potentially confusing list. It can be hard to remember which company developed which platform. SharkD (talk) 17:23, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

That's what the actual links are for. The doubled square brackets are supposed to serve some purpose, aren't they? Just64helpin (talk)

Also, the comments you left on my Talk page regarding WP:3RR and WP:OWN are just silly. I properly brought the issue to RfC the last time an issue of this type was raised. (Also, since the topic was first raised in Template_talk:GamePlatformKey, one could in a sense consider your own earlier edits as encroaching upon WP:3RR.) SharkD (talk) 17:33, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Proposals heads-up from Infobox VG

Just to make everyone aware and to garner extra input, there are currently three active proposals on the Infobox VG discussion page.

1. The addition of an "Official homepage" field to the infobox
2. The Addition of 'Preceded by' and 'Followed by'
3. The proposal that "infoboxes be stored in Template space and transcluded into articles"

- X201 (talk) 08:31, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

What about an addition for video game product codes (i.e: NES-XX-RGN, SLPS00000) for the infobox? Jonny2x4 (talk) 15:18, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

The version field seems to work well for that. I used that in Alleyway's article.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 15:33, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

The Version field is for the software version number. It shouldn't be re-purposed for a different use. - X201 (talk) 15:44, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

The product/region codes in this case (at least the first part of Jonny's query) are the version "numbers" for Nintendo games in most cases. There are exceptions (i.e. SaGa, various Final Fantasy games, etc, where the version number is only printed on the rom data itself).--Kung Fu Man (talk) 15:50, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

To me they look like a list of catalogue numbers to be honest. But if they are version numbers then fine. - X201 (talk) 15:54, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Could you provide an example of an article that has product codes in the infobox so we can see what it looks like? My concern is that we'll run out of space if they're all crammed into the version field. SharkD (talk) 17:38, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Problems with Mario Super Sluggers

There is an online card game to help advertise the game, so several people have been added excessive details about the card game on the article. I've reverted it, but now there is a spinoff page which is just game guide content at best. When reduced: it will fit in the Sluggers page in a paragraph or two. See: Mario Super Sluggers Collectible Cards for the new page that was created. This online game to promote the Sluggers game shows very little notability, and is nothing more than an advertising tool. Companies have done this in the past, and I don't think any are notable for seperate articles. RobJ1981 (talk) 17:58, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

As an update, I've redirected the cards page to the section on the main article. Can some people help keep an eye on it for me? If the problem continues, the cards article probably should just go to AFD. RobJ1981 (talk) 20:48, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The concept needs explaining, in a few sentences within development/release. You could redirect the page, try explaining to the editor concerned what is needed and pointing to Super Mario Strikers as an example of what Sluggers should resemble, video game articles are not comprised of lists of game elements. If it keeps popping back then send it to AFD. Someoneanother 20:55, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I've tried explaining it to the editors involved, but they refuse to listen. They just revert me everytime. I've sent it to AFD, as I'm sick of this nonsense. RobJ1981 (talk) 21:16, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Good Topics is now live

I have nominated the first Good Topic video game, Final Fantasy XII. I encourage everyone who knows of a string of related GA's to bring it over to the Good Topic page and nominate it! Judgesurreal777 (talk) 19:19, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Nominations are at WP:FTC, passed topics are at WP:GT. --PresN (talk) 20:29, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Mario RPG FTC possibilities

Anyone interested in a Mario RPG FTC? As it stands, all the FTC needs is an FA or two and the series article to reach GA. - A Link to the Past (talk) 00:21, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I don't think it will pass due to all the edit wars. Mario seems to be a sensitive topic. Megata Sanshiro (talk) 09:33, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Featured Articles

Congratulations to everyone on reaching 100 Featured Articles! MrKIA11 (talk) 13:37, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

RfC for user conduct notice

A request for comment for user conduct on the user in this link has been initiated as a result of what has been considered disruptive behavior stemming from this AfD discussion. If anyone wishes to endorse the RfC or wishes to give an outside view, please go to the link stipulated above. MuZemike (talk) 20:34, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Arcade games

WP:VG has its list of reliable sources, but none on coin-op arcade games. Anyone know where I can get reliable information (stuff that can get through a FA review) about the Namco games Air Combat and Air Combat 22? --Hydrokinetics12 (talk) 03:39, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

There's Killer List Of Videogames. It was used in Donkey Kong (video game), which is FA. It's used in Space Invaders also, which is currently at GAN and will go to FAC shortly after. Hopefully it'll stand up to the current FAC firing squad, then it can be used more widely.

Honestly though, you may be able to get better info from books. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 03:59, 12 September 2008 (UTC))

Today's Featured Article - note

I know there were a couple of people interested in having a few featured articles (I remember one was Myst, I think that was Giggy); be aware that for articles two months out from when they should be added, they should be added to Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/pending (this is not the 30-day discussion point, just a queue to help pre-discussion). --MASEM 15:42, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, they don't care about anniversaries without 10-year multiples, so Myst got shot down pretty quick (in 2013 it'll have enough points, goddammit!) Thanks for the link. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 23:11, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up, I hadn't seen that page. Ocarina of Time has a ten-year anniversary coming up in November, we'll see if that's enough to make it on the front page. Pagrashtak 02:12, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Nah, Myst wasn't anything to do with me. I'm an Age of Empires person (and its had its Main Page day). Giggy (talk) 02:28, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

MfD for Wikipedia:WikiProject Red Faction

A small new WikiProject, Wikipedia:WikiProject Red Faction has been proposed for deletion. It might be better to merge the new project into this one, perhaps as a task force. Please consider sharing your opinion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion#Wikipedia:WikiProject_Red_Faction. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:57, 12 September 2008 (UTC) who is not watching this page

Mortal Kombat characters

I'm currently working on integrating the VG character infobox into all the MK character articles and possibly replace Mortal Kombat character with a subtemplate like the Metal Gear character. I want to improve most of these articles, since they're written in an in-universe fashion filled with excessive plot details. Unfortunately, I'm putting with an unhelpful anon user from Greek who reverted all of my changes (as well as some of other users) with no rationale, while writing personal attacks against myself in the edit summaries. I need someone to help me revert any negative changes he makes while I'm fixing the remaining articles. Jonny2x4 (talk) 01:58, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Dispute over usage of Super Smash Bros. Brawl images over main series images

There have been various disputes over the usage of images from Super Smash Bros. Brawl versus images from the characters' main series. So I feel there needs to be a discussion here to establish whether or not it is okay to use them. In my opinion, in the case of recent characters, if an image from a recent media is available and it's both good quality and from the character's series, it should be used over Brawl's image. And furthermore, if it's a character with no recent images on account of the fact that they haven't appeared in recent times (Pit, Ice Climbers, etc.), the image should be either older art of the character or a screenshot of the character. - A Link to the Past (talk) 17:46, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Whichever looks better in my opinion, which is really a matter of aesthetic taste, but I personally prefer having a quality image from the main series than one from a crossover game. For Strider Hiryu, Captain Commando and Mega Man I used artwork from Marvel vs. Capcom 2, since they were either: lacking in any image at all or the ones which were being used were not that good. But if I had a quality character illustration from one of the main games, I would used them. Jonny2x4 (talk) 18:11, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

For the record, I will never use a third-party appearance of a video game character in their infobox. For example, an image of Solid Snake's render from Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes or Super Smash Bros. Brawl seems pretty "unauthentic" to me. Its akin to using a photograph of Christian Bale in the batsuit or a render of Batman from Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe for the infobox in the Batman article. Jonny2x4 (talk) 18:28, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Well the in the case here of Brawl I can understand it if it comes from Nintendo themselves (for instance, DeDeDe, since recent art for DeDeDe shares the look over his KSS appearance).--Kung Fu Man (talk) 19:20, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

That's not a fair assessment though - Kirby was directed by the director of the SSB series. It may be okay for Kirby titles, but the characters in the Kirby series are still relevant, so they still have current games, and conversely, current images. - A Link to the Past (talk) 19:23, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Point taken. Both images should have a place in the article though ideally as they're both important...I don't see a reason for the original to be in an infobox if available and the secondary in the article body.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 19:34, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay, so can I get some opinions on Talk:Yoshi? It's a different situation, but being 3D and the newest image doesn't balance out being a secondary image. - A Link to the Past (talk) 19:45, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I...honestly don't have an opinion on that case. I kinda thought this related more to the Pit debate, since that was a more apparent change in appearance and Yoshi's...Yoshi?--Kung Fu Man (talk) 19:51, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to echo those thoughts. Yoshi is Yoshi. Arguing over which Yoshi to use is, as AMiB noted when he protected the page, "Mindbogglingly lame". Nifboy (talk) 20:51, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

← As I said in Talk:Yoshi, I personally think that the image that should be used is the one that most accurately represents the current or most recent version of the character as presented by the company that owns it. That would preferably be a rendering of the character in promotional materials for a recent game or other press release, a rendering of that character in a game within its primary series, or a rendering in a recent game that the company owns and has published. Because that's kinda loose, it comes down to a matter of good judgment.
For first-party characters like Yoshi, Donkey Kong, etc., it makes sense to use Brawl images as the most recent, up-to-date versions of those characters. They're well-known, but they've also evolved over time, and Nintendo has been revising them for years. The infobox image should represent the current generation of image unless there's a specific reason not to do so. I think the same holds true for more obscure characters (Pit, Ice Climbers, R.O.B., etc), whose last "primary" appearances were either as 8-bit sprites or very old promotional materials. Nintendo has updated those characters recently and re-rendered them in a way that's meant to make the new images represent those properties, so I think it makes sense to use those images in favor of the old ones.
Where it's NOT so clear-cut is with characters that have changed appearance significantly across multiple games in the series. Good examples of this are Fox and Link - Fox has been re-rendered by multiple artists and made to look quite different in multiple games, and his appearance in Melee doesn't even agree with that of Brawl. And Link has varied so much that they included "Toon Link" in Brawl to point out his Windwaker appearance explicitly. Again, use good judgment here.
I don't think there's much ground to argue against using a Brawl image of Yoshi. I wouldn't use a Brawl image of Solid Snake or Sonic the Hedgehog, though, since those are third-party characters not owned by Nintendo - better to use the current rendering from the latest Metal Gear and Sonic games, respectively. (Again, this is somewhat of a grey area, since I'm certain that Konami and Sega licensed their characters and submitted their own art rather than making a Nintendo artist do all the rendering.) — KieferSkunk (talk) — 21:16, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I've removed both images and protected the page and hope that everyone can come to their senses, or at least go away and let calmer heads resolve the issue. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 01:14, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Just to weigh in here, Super Smash Bros redesigns the characters to create a uniformity for its game because the characters are interacting. To have them all in their own design would make the game look like an ugly patchwork of different styles. If you want to see what I mean by ugly patchwork, just wait for GameFaqs to start their Character Battle - they normally create a banner featuring several prominent characters all photoshoped together in their own series style. But when dealing with the individual series' characters seperately, I believe the series' own distinctive art style should take precedence as it is what helps artistically define that said series. To use any other artwork would not truely inform readers about that character. Take Mario: the official Mario series artwork features vibrant colors and simplistic design[1], which seems fitting for a series which has taken some inspiration from the dream-like atmosphere of Alice in Wonderland, on the other hand the official SSB style features highly complicated details which can muddy the color a little - not very dream like.[2]. Furthermore, appearences in SSB are more like cameoes or footnotes to the character that reflect its historical or present importance to Nintendo (or to the entire video game industry in some cases). That is why I don't feel WP should use SSB artwork for infoboxes, although it may be OK if it is placed elsewhere in the article (if policies on fair use allow it). Finally, Sega and Konami's contributions to SSB was most likely to provide style sheets, perhaps give Nintendo access to their own artists, and stamp approval to a final product that was primarily made by Nintendo's artists - obviously I don't know this for sure, but the possiblity is way to great to even consider SSB artwork for their characters' main pics. CIGraphix (talk) 02:06, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

And that is what I've been saying - I mean, would you have used SSBM's Yoshi, even though it just made him look gross and was "ultra-realistic"? The Yoshi image from SSBB tries to match the other Smash characters' images, not the series itself. There's a definite difference in style - the Yoshi series image attempts to depict Yoshi in a particular way that the SSBB image does not do. The Yoshi series was created by Miyamoto and Tezuka with this style in mind, and it's carried this style through almost every game in its series, in-game and out. - A Link to the Past (talk) 04:06, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Seems like forum shopping by A Link to the Past to get someone who supports his opinion... Stifle (talk) 13:31, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Or maybe, drum roll, me agreeing with this one person and elaborating my points. If I was forum shopping, I'd have messages specific people, not an entire "forum". - A Link to the Past (talk) 17:07, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Conversely, Cigraphix, I think the argument holds about Ice Climbers and Pit (and other obscure characters), that without a 3D rendering for that game, the only images we'd have of them would be 8-bit sprites from the NES/Famicom/VS games. Nintendo has clearly brought them forward into the current generation with their new renderings - same as how this was done for Donkey Kong much earlier on. The renderings have been allowed to change over time as the characters are passed on from artist to artist, and as their images are refined over time. While Brawl isn't canon to any series in which those characters appeared, it does seem to provide a consistent way to recognize each character, and I don't think anyone would argue that any character in Brawl looks significantly different from in a recent game of its series - the biggest differences come to characters that last appeared in the NES or SNES era. (If I had to speculate on which "current" characters deviated the most from their series, I'd probably say Link, just because his appearance has changed so many times and so drastically that it's hard to know which appearance is his official one, and Samus, because one of the Subspace Emissary scenes shows her walking very robotically, which doesn't seem to match how she works in the Prime series.) — KieferSkunk (talk) — 15:27, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I personally prefer the SSBB images for most characters, they're newer, usually cleaner and crisper, and show the "updated" look of the character. As hardware has permitted, most characters have become more detailed over time. Useight (talk) 16:07, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

It's not an updated look for Yoshi. SSBM was an "updated" look for Yoshi, but was also not used ever again. - A Link to the Past (talk) 17:07, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Might as well say something: I prefer the SSB pic for Yoshi over anything else. Doesn't matter what game it is, the whole 3D depiction really stands out. This is why I like the way Ganon is set up. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 17:46, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

It stands out as "more advanced", but does that counter-act the other image's traits of "more true to Yoshi's primary appearance"? Like I've said, should we also replace Anakin Skywalker's image because the Clone War's image is more advanced? It would be a good argument if the other proposed image were BAD, but it's not, it's quite good, and with no flaws to be spoken of, replacing it with Brawl's image because it's more advanced is silly. The Smash image does have enough differences in it that it doesn't properly depict Yoshi, especially since it's only a frontal view, which shows less defining features of Yoshi than the YIDS image. - A Link to the Past (talk) 17:53, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't agree with that. The YIDS image doesn't show anything important about Yoshi that the SSBB image doesn't, and in any case it's viable to include the other image further down. Stifle (talk) 19:26, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Face it guys, there is no better depiction than the one there now. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 20:53, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

We shouldn't use the image just for the same reason we don't use Link's SSBB image. Yoshi's YIDS image shows the characters back and face, while the SSBB image just shows the front of him. Being "advanced" doesn't mean it's a better depiction - it's also a far less common one. - A Link to the Past (talk) 23:43, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

← Are we losing sight of what the purpose of an infobox image actually is? The purpose is to quickly represent the character, right? We're talking about making sure that the reader will easily be able to associate an image of the character with its name and salient details. So I ask you, does the YIDS image fail to do that? Does the Brawl image? I would be willing to bet that the vast majority of readers would say they both accomplish this task. Now, the second question is: Which image presents better? I would argue that an image that's used by the originating company to promote the character (or one of the games that character appears in) is more appropriate in the infobox than a screenshot from a game, regardless of canon/spinoff status of the game. The SSBB image is, near as I can tell, from promotional art for Brawl, which I argued before is a Nintendo-owned title and property. This is the kind of image that Nintendo would post on its own website about Yoshi the character. (In fact, you can see their actual image here.)

I argue that the Brawl image works best for Yoshi's article because it represents an official updating of the character to modern times, and it matches what Nintendo itself is using for promotional purposes. I do not, however, think that an argument of it being crisper, cleaner or higher-resolution than other images is valid by itself. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 03:17, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

1. Actually, Yoshi's art was not used for promotional purposes, it was used because that's his "Smash pose". The image was also used for his trophy, which shows that it was created because it was going to be used in-game, not to promote the game. Yoshi's image for YIDS, however, was used in promotion and on the box art, and for no use in the game itself.
2. It's not a screenshot. It's a hand-drawn image of Yoshi in the style of Yoshi in his series.
3. That is Sakurai's web site, Sakurai owns the domain, and dictates the content of the domain. The web site is not for promotional purposes, it was a preview web site for the game.
4. SSBB's image is not an updating of Yoshi. Why wasn't SSBM's? Because it simply wasn't. Yoshi changes with each Smash game, and the "update" is never used outside of Smash. - A Link to the Past (talk) 03:29, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay, first off, if it's not the official site, then why does nintendo.com link to it as the official Brawl site? Sakurai may be the owner of the domain, but it's still Nintendo's property. Or are we getting into arguing that Brawl is, in fact, not a first-party, Nintendo-owned title? Regardless of who does the promotion, it's Nintendo's property that was promoted.

Secondly, let me extend the domain of this question to other characters: I brought up Ice Climbers earlier in this conversation. Outside of the Brawl series, the Ice Climbers were only ever seen in an 8-bit NES game that contained no specific artwork of the title characters themselves. The cartridge, the box and the manual only had screenshots of gameplay to promote the game, and the title screen just had the words "Ice Climbers" in graphical text. So by the same argument, the only infobox image we'd be able to provide of these characters would be from a screenshot from the NES game. (This is, of course, assuming that the characters were notable enough to warrant their own article.) Yet, I doubt there'd be much argument about using the Melee or Brawl image of these characters to represent them in an article. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 03:51, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) My only problem is with the characters who have currently ongoing series like Mario, as I feel the SSB artwork personifies the SSB series own representation of a character but not that character itself (as I explained before, it's like each character loses some of its individual charm to take on a different charm). The big differences come in the form of shading, texturing and overall complexity; going back to Mario, he seems more idealized in the simplicity of the Mario series art (sidenote: I actually hate how I used the term 'muddy' before since it sounds negative, I just can't come up with a good description to say it creates a different interaction). At the same time, I think using SSB art for characters who really only live on in modern day because of SSBs, like the Ice Climbers, is a good compromise and I have no objection to it. It is offical art made by the copyright owners of the characters - plus those characters may never get their own series offical art again, and SSB art is better than a badly pixelated screen shot (although, like Kief said, such characters' notablity and length of coverage may not be great enough to warrant a WP article seperate from the games, which may negate that discussion). CIGraphix (talk) 04:30, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

1. The image was NOT created for promotional purposes. Every character had their own image, and unsurprisingly, Sakurai used them to give a visual image of what they look like in the game.
2. Brawl images could "fit" on any page. SSBB is newer than the newest Mario, Zelda, DK, Yoshi, Pokémon, Kirby, Metroid, Star Fox, etc. game, but we don't use the Smash image in any of their articles because it's not appropriate to use a crossover image made by different artists, which is why it's rarely done. Why should Yoshi be the only one who uses the Brawl image, even though there's a more appropriate image that depicts Yoshi in HIS series, instead of a one-shot depiction that, if precedence holds up, will change with the next Smash installment? Yoshi in his own series has stayed consistent without looking dated, and that is the exact reason why it is a better depiction - why should an unstable image be better than a stable one? - A Link to the Past (talk) 03:57, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Link, we're going through this again - I make a point and you apparently completely miss it and repeat what you've said before. I made the point that I think MORE characters should be allowed to use their Brawl images because, in some cases, they represent the current state of that character. I agree with Cigraphix on that characters that still have official series should use images from those games rather than Brawl. But last I checked, the last main-series game to feature Yoshi was either YIDS or Super Mario Sunshine, and those are both fairly old by now. I ask you, is the Brawl image of Yoshi really so drastically different from that of YIDS that it's completely unsuitable? Or is this argument just about "official series" vs. "crossover"? And meanwhile, what about other characters that have not been used in ANY recent "official series" games, yet have been updated for games like Brawl? It's quite possible that some of those characters actually do meet notability standards, so if that turns out to be the case, we'll need to address that question for them. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 18:44, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

And that's hardly appropriate. If a character like Ice Climbers or Pit haven't been in recent games, the best thing to do is use an image from the game or from their manual, NOT an image that's far more realistic than the characters' respective series as to fail to properly depict the characters. Do we use the current Pac-Man because it's more realistic or detailed? No, we use a flat, 2D image of a hungry face. And YIDS is old? I guess two years old and, on top of that, one of the best-selling games of 2007 in Japan and a million seller in Japan alone (the first Yoshi game to ever do such a thing), is old. If the image was visibly dated, you'd have a point, but it's not. The Brawl image is not stable whatsoever, as Yoshi never remains REMOTELY consistent between games in the Smash series. The image from YIDS has stayed consistent in the series without looking dated, and as such, are an accurate depiction of Yoshi throughout his series, while Brawl's is only an accurate depiction until they change it once again. YIDS' image is just fine, and "older than Brawl" is not "dated", and without a reason to replace this perfectly good image with an image that shows no indication of remaining consistent, why should we use the Brawl image? And speaking of the idea of using Brawl images, where exactly do you think it's appropriate to use? - A Link to the Past (talk) 19:04, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I guess it's pretty safe to say that you and I disagree pretty fundamentally on what constitutes an appropriate image, then. The Pac-Man character article no longer exists (was merged with the video game), so we can't really use that as a comparison, but I would argue that we'd want to use the current rendering of Namco's mascot if we did still have an article on that character. And you must have much more discerning eyes than I do, because honestly, the only significant difference I can see between Yoshi's 2D representation in YIDS and his 3D representations in both Melee and Brawl are the fact that the latter two show him in 3D. Maybe some minor proportion differences, but it's not like they added a moustache or even changed the style of his boots. :P I don't see anything substantially different between the two except the method of rendering, the pose, and the resolution of the picture. I also disagree that the Brawl image of Ice Climbers does not properly depict the characters. And we've been talking this entire time about the image used in the character's infobox, BTW.

I think we're probably going to have to agree to disagree on these points, though, because we're obviously not making any headway here. Personally, I think this whole argument is silly and pointless - does it REALLY matter so much? We're talking about a video game character here. It's not like we're trying to choose between a photo of President Bush and a political cartoonist's caricature of him. :P — KieferSkunk (talk) — 20:31, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I also fail to see what the deal is. A 3D representation is way better than a 2D one. I'm sure we can agree on that. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 20:35, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

By itself, I don't think that's enough of an argument. Link's point, as I understand it, is that if a 3D rendering of an otherwise 2D character isn't an official image of that character, it's not suitable. He contends that Brawl is not a source of official renderings of Nintendo's characters, which I disagree with. But just because a 3D representation exists somewhere does not automatically make it superior to a 2D rendering - you also need to consider the source of the rendering and whether it's an official rendering of the character in question. I happen to think that the Brawl image is, in fact, the latest official rendering of Yoshi since it's Nintendo's character in a Nintendo game, but Link has been saying he feels otherwise. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 20:40, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that's pretty much what I meant. The Brawl image is just as official as any other Nintendo medium. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 20:43, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

"Because it's 3D" is reason #0 to replace an image. Your statement would only be true if every single relevant article had that truth about them. Explain to me for instance, why a 3D image of Meta Knight is better than a 2D one, even though he's appeared in two 3D games in the character's history AND appeared in an anime? You can't just make a blanket statement of "it's 3D so it's better". Why is it better? His series typically depicts him with handdrawn-like visuals, with a crayon style. If his series does not typically depict him in 3D, why is it better? Should we replace Anakin Skywalker's image with the one from The Clone Wars because it's newer?

And no, that's not my point at all. My point is that it's LESS official than this 2D rendering of Yoshi. It's by a different artist, in a different company, for a different series, that at no point represents one of the key features of Yoshi - the hand-drawn style to name just one example. If the next Smash game featured Mario in a hyper-realistic style, it wouldn't be used for the obvious reason that Mario is not hyper-realistic. And to that same note, the Yoshi series time and time again uses this hand-drawn style for Yoshi. The image also fails to convey Yoshi's ability to carry someone on his back, one of the most significant features of Yoshi. And it's NOT as official. It's an official image owned by Nintendo, but it's not the official rendering of Yoshi. The official rendering of Yoshi would logically be the one that his series' creator depicts him as the most, which is not in 3D, it is in the cartoonish, crayon-drawn style used predominantly in the series. - A Link to the Past (talk) 20:48, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Lemme turn this around on you again, then, Link. Consider the image of Samus Aran. The image currently being used there is from a third party game (made by Retro Studios, and using art created by their artists). The Metroid Prime series is even more widely recognized as being a third-party-developed title of a first-party franchise than the Smash Bros. series is, and yet for some reason that rendering of Samus is considered official enough to use as her infobox image. By your argument, we should be using an image of her from the last first-party-developed Metroid game, which was Fusion or Zero Mission if I recall correctly. That one depicted her in 2D hand-drawn art. So, aside from the fact that the Prime series is considered canon to the Metroid series, what's the difference? (And no, I'm not saying that we should replace the Metroid Prime 3 Samus with the Brawl Samus.) — KieferSkunk (talk) — 21:01, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

That's different, it had involvement from the regular Metroid team, and the Prime series is still a part of the Metroid series. Besides, Prime Samus retains all of the style of older Samus designs - It's not like Samus was cel-shaded, or she had a completely different armor design. Using SSBB Yoshi drops a signature design for the character, and Yoshi not carrying someone is not typical of the character, only in spin-off titles where the characters he's carrying are playable alongside him, so there's no logical reason for him to be carrying anyone. He started off as transportation, then as "playable transformation". In only two games in his series was he not carrying anyone, and in one of them they were Baby Yoshis rather than regular Yoshis. - A Link to the Past (talk) 21:08, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

← See, that to me constitutes original research. Just because Yoshi has never been seen in a main series game serving any other role than transportation or transformation, doesn't mean that that was his only intended role as a main character. Unless you have an official source that says that's all Yoshi is to the series, making judgments like that on how to present him on WP is OR, in my opinion. I agree that we all observe Yoshi carrying someone 99% of the time in all of the Mario games, but I don't think that that necessarily means an identifying picture of the character has to show him carrying someone. In the Brawl image, he still has his signature saddle (look closely), so that should at least imply that he's ready to carry someone. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 23:14, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

<restarting indent> It's obviously not all he is to the series, but it's a significant aspect of the character. The image from SSBB depicts just Yoshi, which is fine, but the image from YIDS does all of that but makes clear his history and ability to carry people on his back. The image from SSBB shows his saddle, yes, but it is only obvious to us because we understand that it is a saddle. - A Link to the Past (talk) 23:24, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

If we're going to go by observations, I just did a google image search on Yoshi to get a feel on how he appears in the "real world" as a character. And the majority of the images are him by himself. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 23:28, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Because there are many side-games that don't require him to carry anyone for the purposes of the game. The fact that out-of-game portraits don't feature him carrying someone doesn't mean it's not a "common feature" - the Paper Yoshi carries Mario constantly in Paper Mario TTYD. - A Link to the Past (talk) 23:31, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Technically, Yoshi is a side character in almost all of the Mario games he's been in (Yoshi's Island and YIDS being the notable exceptions I'm aware of), so games that focus more specifically on him and his species, which you seem to be categorizing as spin-off/side games, are actually "main" games for Yoshi specifically. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 23:35, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

(EDC) I guess I just don't follow how showing a pic of Yoshi not carrying someone on his back, but otherwise having every other visible feature of his character, is taking away from his presentation. I understand your point that, basically, more is better in terms of not only showing the character, but showing him in an example of what he's commonly seen doing. I just don't see that it's so much of an improvement as to negate points of 3D consistency, ownership of property, etc. in the 3D rendering, and as I mentioned earlier, I can't really see a significant difference in style between YIDS, Melee and Brawl, other than the rendering being in 3D and Yoshi not carrying someone.

(To people following this conversation: The reason I'm being as persistent about this as I am is because I believe that if/when we achieve consensus on this character, it'll help set precedent on how we deal with other characters in similar situations. If this were only going to affect Yoshi and nobody else, this would not be so big a deal.) — KieferSkunk (talk) — 23:35, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

It's not about "it's worse if Yoshi isn't carrying someone", it's "it's better if he is". My argument is that the image of Yoshi from YIDS is at the bare minimum equal in quality, but so many aspects push it over the edge - it's presented in the preferred style for his series, it shows him carrying someone (a common ability he is shown to have). - A Link to the Past (talk) 23:38, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree with KieferSkunk on this one. How is it "the preferred style"? It's your preferred style, but that's the limit. The 3D rendering is a far superior image; I don't even think that Yoshi carries someone in even a majority of the games in which he appears (although I'm open to correction on that one). Stifle (talk) 08:31, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

It's the style that's predominantly used in the Yoshi series, how is it "just my style"? Showing him in 3D doesn't add anything to the depiction of the character, but showing him in a style common in his series shows people the unique style his series uses. And even if his series shows him carrying someone less than it doesn't (it does show him carry people more often), it still adds to the visualization by showing this ability rather than not. SSBB Yoshi doesn't tell the player anything that YIDS Yoshi does, but YIDS Yoshi does tell the player things that the SSBB image doesn't. - A Link to the Past (talk) 16:41, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

(to Stifle) Link is right in saying that Yoshi is a 2D sprite and that he carries other characters on his back in the majority of Mario titles that he appears in. Since he has his genesis in the Mario series, there's a strong reason for saying that his primary series IS the Mario series. However, as I pointed out above, he plays the role of sidekick, at best, in virtually all of those titles - as far as I'm aware, he's only the main, playable character in Yoshi's Island and YIDS (which is just the DS adaptation of Yoshi's Island). The only other titles I know of where he plays a more main role are not directly tied to the Mario series, but AFAIK they never established an official "Yoshi series" either, so there's some question as to what is really canon to Yoshi as a character.

That said, I think it strengthens my argument that, because Yoshi is only a secondary character in the Mario series and doesn't really have a full series of his own like, say, Samus Aran, then his rendition in Brawl constitutes the most current version of that character. And the Brawl image is not substantively different from the YIDS image except in rendering style and the character's pose - as I pointed out before, it's not like they gave him a moustache or took away his boots. The only other part of this whole argument that I see giving real priority to the YIDS image is that it also includes Baby Mario on Yoshi's back, to demonstrate Yoshi's role as a transportation device. Personally, my response to that is that a picture of a horse does not require a human to be on that horse in order for people to understand what a horse looks like. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 16:49, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Yoshi's Island, Yoshi's Island DS, Yoshi's Cookie, Tetris Attack (sort of), Yoshi's Story, Yoshi's Universal Gravitation, Yoshi's Touch & Go... - A Link to the Past (talk) 20:56, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Yoshi's Island and YIDS are essentially the same game, and the first of those was originally released as part of the Mario series. Cookie and TA are both spinoff puzzle games (TA is Panel de Pon with rebranding), and they also made another puzzle game simply titled "Yoshi" (NES) that fits in the same category. Don't know anything about Yoshi's Story, Univ. Grav, or Touch & Go, so perhaps those qualify for an official Yoshi series. What does he do in those games? — KieferSkunk (talk) — 23:00, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

How are they the same? YIDS adds many new mechanics. I doubt anyone would list Majora's Mask as "essentially the same" as Ocarina of Time. And the first Wario game was a part of the Mario series, but it's still a part of his series more than Mario's. Yoshi's Story is a game starring Baby Yoshis having to defeat Baby Bowser (it serves as a prequel to Yoshi's Island), Universal Gravitation is a platformer that uses motion controls for the GBA, and Touch & Go is an arcade-type game based on Yoshi's Island for the DS that has Yoshi carrying Baby Mario through a level, attacking opponents with eggs. - A Link to the Past (talk) 00:27, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I honestly don't see what this subthread has to do with the discussion at hand, but I'm honestly getting tired of the argument in general as it is. Frankly, I have more important things to do than continue arguing over the infobox image of a video game character. I don't have a strong objection to using the YIDS image - I just don't see either that or the Brawl image as so substantively different as to prompt a major edit war, and frankly I find it embarrassing that this discussion has gotten so long and heated. I bow out - someone else want to continue arguing about it? Go right ahead. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 04:26, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm establishing that Yoshi is his own series, and that the YIDS image is consistent. It was, in fact, the YIDS image that was replaced initially by the Brawl image. YIDS image should be put back in the article, because it accomplishes everything the SSBB image does, and more. Yoshi's SSBB image shows only a frontal view, an uncommon style for his series, and no special features of Yoshi, while YIDS' shows all of Yoshi's most prominent features, a common ability of his, and a common style of Yoshi's. - A Link to the Past (talk) 04:46, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

And on top of that, this is hardly an embarrassment to the project. There needs to be an established logic that an article's primary image should be the one that best tells the reader what the character is. This generic 3D image clearly does not accomplish what the YIDS image does, and hopefully, this will set a precedent to stop people from doing this in other articles, most notably in Pit (Nintendo). - A Link to the Past (talk) 17:32, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I will repeat my strong conviction that infobox images should heavily prefer the following, roughly in order.

1. Images from games, or rendered from game engines, not concept or promotional art. Video game characters are video game characters, and we ought depict them in their primary medium.
2. The most iconic version of a character. For a character from a classic game series, this may often be an older version. A few years ago, Link would have been a good example - even after Wind Waker, we ought not have illustrated Link in the cartoonish style.
3. The clearest image available. This casts a slight presentist bias, allowing for modern images over older ones - i.e. we'd prefer a Twilight Princess version of adult Link to a Zelda II image. But, and this is a big but, iconicness still trumps this. For example, even though the highest quality game image of Solid Snake comes from MGS IV, his most iconic version remains his normal age, and we ought prefer iconic versions. I cast a similar argument about, say, Pit, who, lacing appearances between Kid Icarus and SSBB, remains most iconic in Kid Icarus, where he was the main character.

For many characters, though - Mario, Link, Sonic, Luigi, Yoshi, and, actually, Snake, to name just a few, the SSBB versions are fine. For Pit, the Ice Climbers, Mr. Game and Watch, or ROB, again to name a few, they are utterly unsuitable due to failing to be iconic (and, in the case of ROB, having the wrong medium). Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:23, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

But like I said, Yoshi's image does not extenuate the style used in his series. - A Link to the Past (talk) 20:56, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

That's not what extenuate means. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 21:01, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

That's what your face means. Burn. - A Link to the Past (talk) 21:02, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

How about we avoid personal attacks. Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:49, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry for making the personal attack of "that's what your face means". Even though it's blatantly obvious that it wasn't an attack in the least, and that anyone who takes offense from that or thinks it's an attack at all really needs to loosen up. - A Link to the Past (talk) 22:52, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

It still lowers the tone of the discussion, brings an element of incivility in and regardless of how poor an insult it is, it can very easily be taken the wrong way. Please avoid such comments in the future. -- Sabre (talk) 22:56, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

In any case, I think the main problem with the Yoshi image is that, by showing him head-on, it loses a distinctive and identifying part of his character, namely the saddle. Phil Sandifer (talk) 23:01, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Zero Punctuation as reception

I've come across this before, but Ben Croshaw/Zero Punctuation reviewed Too Human today, and there's been several additions to the article stating Croshaw's comments in his review. While Zero Punctuation is hilarious, should it be included in reception sections? The bits I've seen in other articles' receptions usually say "Zero Punctuation said this game was bad because..." and then quote the review. I can't remember if reception sections should have a notability requirement, but regardless, should Zero Punctuation be included, even though it's basically just a single blogger's comments on a game? I've already reverted an addition, wanted to check what the community thinks before doing it again. Thanks! Fin©™ 23:54, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Zero Punctuation's primary purpose is to entertain, via amusingly hyperbolic statements. It is not a reliable source. Axe it if you find it. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 23:57, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

... beat me too it. ^ What he said, its not a reliable source. Sharpen your axe! -- Sabre (talk) 23:59, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

At least, to some extent. He is working for the Escapist magazine, a reliable source, though if they vet his reviews, its unknown. However, more importantly, he should not be exalted as much as I've seen (I feel mentioning part of his review of Portal given that he generally hates all games is a useful meter, but we've since struck out the part of putting forks to his eyes if he ever says that again). Caution definitely on anything more than a sentence from him. --MASEM 00:00, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

He works for PC Gamer as well. SharkD (talk) 02:19, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

(e/c) Fastest reply ever! Cool stuff, will do! *sharpens battle axe* As an aside, is there a notability requirement for Reception sections & vg review tables? Fin©™ 00:02, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

If a source complies with WP:V and WP:RS it can be used. It doesn't necessarily need to be notable, it just needs to be reliable and secondary, although such sources often are notable as well. I believe the notability for sources applies to additions to {{VG Reviews}}. -- Sabre (talk) 00:07, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Cool, thanks! Fin©™ 00:11, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

He is a reliable source for his own views, and his views on video games seem to me to be notable. I'd include it. Phil Sandifer (talk) 02:35, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm kinda surprised, just to toss it in, that it wasn't brought up yet his reviews are previewed on X-Play.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 02:40, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like an issue of how you present it, since while his reviews do cover all the normal reviewer bases well enough, especially gameplay, the phrasing is meant to be entertaining and exaggerated. So in other words, saying he had issues with the x aspect of the game is ok, quoting him as saying it was like "eating a sandwich of watery ejaculate between two slices of cardboard" is not. As for whether his reviews are notable, I'd say they definitely are notable when positive (i.e. Painkiller (video game)), and may be useful in other cases as well, depending on the game. --erachima talk 03:42, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Again, I point to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Archive 52#Angry video game nerd spam. It's a snowball argument; why should we allow TheGuyWithTheGlasses when we shouldn't be allowing the AVGN? MuZemike (talk) 04:32, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Uhm... that's not what WP:SNOW talks about, at all, so I'm not sure why you linked to it. Wikipedia:Snowball clause refers to skipping the process on decisions that don't have "a snowball's chance in hell" of going the other direction. Snowball argument is a derogatory description used to describe statements which depend on slippery slope fallacies, i.e. "don't do this because it could snowball out of control".

In fact, since admitting that you're making a fallacious argument is about as far from being persuasive as you could possibly get, I have no clue why you said that at all... and That Guy With The Glasses is apparently a character that AVGN is in a virtual feud with? Long story short, I don't understand what you're getting at. Could you please explain what you're trying to say more clearly? --erachima talk 05:52, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

What I thought he meant was: if we include blogger X's comments, then why not blogger Y/site Y (which will then snowball, not WP:SNOW - though it might be WP:OSE, which I've never been very good at spotting). At the end of the day, Croshaw's just a blogger, though he gives his views in a humorous way. He's not really notable regardless of his viewership. Fin©™ 10:29, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant to say WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. MuZemike (talk) 15:14, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

...But OTHERCRAPEXISTS is also a link to a page describing an argument not to use. I don't know if you're trying to be ironic here or what, but supporting your side via pointing out the fallacious arguments it contains is really not a good debate strategy.

Anyway, getting back to the actual issue here, the key difference between AVGN and ZP is that since AVGN reviews retro titles, and only the horrible ones at that, his reviews will never (or almost never) have a notable effect on the subject. The Wizard of Oz for NES isn't going to have its sales hurt or helped by someone reviewing it 15 years after they stopped making the game. ZP reviews current titles, so they're relevant to the subject.

That said, this is really an issue of editorial judgment. We certainly don't need to put the info from Yahtzee's reviews onto every game he's ever done (that would be rather spammish), but in cases where the editors on a certain page believe it improves the article there's no reason to keep him out just because he uses humorous presentation, which appears to be the main argument against him. --erachima talk 20:26, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

• I agree with Phil Sandifer here. Giggy (talk) 11:05, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I definitely don't think he's reliable as a reviewer. The reviews are meant for hyperbole and humor, not accuracy. However, that doesn't mean they shouldn't be included. It's obviously something we can verify. It's just a question of presentation. This deserves to be treated more like "... in popular culture", rather than treating it as representative of how the game was actually received. Randomran (talk) 21:01, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

And we all know what happens to "in popular culture" - they are axed on discovery. hbdragon88 (talk) 07:29, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I need some help

Namely, this case: Talk:Soulcalibur II#Merging Necrid. The bulk of his argument is that the character only appeared in one game, and therefore can't be important. Which is the polar opposite of the argument that was already shot down in WP:FICT's discussion, "It appears in more than one game, it should stay." Additionally if you check the Assessment page, you'll see the article achieved A-class status already.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 16:31, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Appearing in only one game does not detract from notability, but adds nothing. What other examples are there for his notability? - A Link to the Past (talk) 16:41, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

After reading it, I think it is sufficiently notable, and TTN is just being TTN. - A Link to the Past (talk) 16:43, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

casual deletion review... need help understanding

I was going through a few past AFDs, and stumbled across these:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hoenn
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Comparison of massively multiplayer online role-playing games

A lot of the results I understand, but these two in particular I'm having trouble seeing. Hoenn seems the furthest thing from a "speedy keep" let alone keep article. And the MMORPG comparison article looks to be a violation of WP:NOT and WP:VGSCOPE that has virtually appropriate to salvage. But I wouldn't dare re-nominate such an overwhelming consensus unless I understood exactly what happened here. Can anyone fill me in? Randomran (talk) 03:57, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

The first looks like accusations of WP:POINT flying around when you look at the articles' histories and AfDs of Hoenn and Johto. The second (and I wouldn't doubt with the first) seems like a lot of WP:CANVASSing. Things have cooled down since then; you could try re-nominating for AfD. I just know if admin really look at DRVs in order to overturn a keep very seriously, at least that's how I understand it. MuZemike (talk) 04:28, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure I see the violation of WP:POINT for taking Hoenn and Johto to AFD. I'd like to understand though. Thoughts? Randomran (talk) 05:59, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

It might be a reference to the Pokemon purging, or it might be that the nominator was having an edit war of some sort on the main pages or having difficulties convincing editors on the talk pages to fix them up.

That said, I think I'd rather see a merge of the pokemon regions into one page before taking to DRV or renominatino; regions in Pokémon or something, and all that cruft with each of the individual towns cut out. Alternatively, the regions could be merged into their respective games?... --Izno (talk) 06:12, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I think the Poke-fan(boy)s thought it was some sort of a Poke-witch hunt from those rational editors who are not necessarily huge fans of Pokemon. MuZemike (talk) 20:21, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Hey now, have some good faith ;P. Gotta remember these guys had worked on a lot of articles only for them to be mass-culled, so the reaction to further removal was completely understandable.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 21:24, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Tossed merge tags up, though with the scope of things already someone else should be the one to handle the actual merging of information.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 10:09, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

In the case of the second article, which particular Wikia project would be most suitable for hosting this sort of data? I find Wikia hard to navigate, and am not familiar with how projects are organized there. SharkD (talk) 23:39, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I would just like to point out that Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hoenn was certainly a bad-faith, POINT nomination. There was a huge content dispute, and one thing led to another. In any case, I would most likely support the merge of Kanto (Pokémon), Johto, Hoenn, and Sinnoh to the Pokémon regions article, as I don't believe there is enough sourced information for them to warrant individual articles. Artichoker[talk] 01:59, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I also support merging those four articles into Pokémon regions. Pagrashtak 13:06, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, merging seems like the way to go, and hopefully with that merge it will lead to a better article. So i support a merge. Salavat (talk) 14:51, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

As long as we could keep the new merged article referenced, I would support it. Kuro ♪ 23:15, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Massive, massive, massive. From city aritcles (like Mauville, Jagged Pass) -> List of Hoenn locations -> Hoenn -> Pokemon regions? There's at least ten cities per region, for four large regions, plus the Orange Islands and the Sevii Islands (the latter decimated in AFD)...at what point do we just axe this? They're going to contain so little information, with so many headers... hbdragon88 (talk) 01:31, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

None of it is cited, and as such can be axed if challenged. So axing the pages is not an unlikely outcome. Further, they read like travel guides and game guides... Ie, it should be axed now and then rebuilt. --Izno (talk) 02:24, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I haven't looked over them in a long time, but when I edited them actively I tried the best I could to remove dumb stuff like "Eletrike can be found on Route 2" or "Go into the south house to get a free coin case," i.e. the travel parts. We can probably use Nintendo Power and Prima guides as well as the anime for certain facts about the cities, if I happened to know anything about it. hbdragon88 (talk) 03:16, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Um... when you say "None of it is cited, and as such can be axed if challenged." all of the regions, excluding Hoenn, are referenced by Prima and Nintendo Power guides, so just challenging them would not be enough to "give them the axe". Kuro ♪ 05:55, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Seeing as all these articles have serious notability and verifiability issues, a merge could only help. Singularly, there might be too much information that violates WP:NOT and WP:V. But in aggregate, it might meet our policies. Randomran (talk) 20:52, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I would want to keep say, a line of text for each town in the regions. The town sections are referenced, and could easily be shortened. Kuro ♪ 17:08, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Collector's editions

When a game is rereleased as a Collector's/Limited Edition, how is this information represented in the title? Does it appear after a colon or dash, or in parentheses? SharkD (talk) 05:08, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm thinking in brackets/parentheses, unless the game was specifically retitled for the collector's edition (which is sometimes subjective - best to go what the sources say). Is there a particular case you seek advice on? Giggy (talk) 06:51, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

No, I've just noticed that MobyGames almost always uses parentheses (see here), whereas Wikipedia doesn't (see here). Whether or not the phrase appears on the box doesn't seem to matter with MobyGames (see here). SharkD (talk) 07:51, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Colon, as long as it is actually part of the title. It is a subtitle just like Tomb Raider III: Adventures of Lara Croft. See Subtitle (titling). Parenthesis are only used for a notation that is not a continuation of the actual title (like disambiguation). A colon is a continuation of the title. ~ JohnnyMrNinja 07:58, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

OK, how about a game that already has a subtitle, such as Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn? SharkD (talk) 10:18, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Off topic, but regarding that article, why are the only two screenshots of dragons in the game?--Kung Fu Man (talk) 11:27, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Probably because the bots haven't gotten around to flagging those for deletion yet. SharkD (talk) 05:44, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Special edition subtitles are generally used by the publisher in place of the original subtitle, and I have never seen this not be the case. ~ JohnnyMrNinja 06:07, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Proposed archive for cited web pages

WikiProject Video games' articles are at particularly high risk of cited web pages going offline or being taken over by advertisers / domain resellers, sinc emost vidoe gam ecoverage is on the web these days. The risk has been raised at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Wiki_cache_for_references and I've already responded. I suggest WikiProject Chess should pitch in, and also post on the Talk pages of any other Wikiprojects that would be seriously hurt by the disappearance of important pages / sites. I've posted a similar notice at WikiProject Chess. -- Philcha (talk) 10:03, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

You could try and see if the Wayback Machine can be manipulated to preemptively generate a link that will work today and still work in the future after a page has has been removed. In this way, we won't have to worry about sites disappearing. SharkD (talk) 12:08, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I didn't understand "see if the Wayback Machine can be manipulated to preemptively generate a link...".

I'm busy with paleontology and chess articles, so will have to leave WikiProject Video games to sort this out to its own staisfaction. -- Philcha (talk) 12:49, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

'Delete' class of articles

How about creating a 'Delete' class of articles to quickly flag articles for future AfDs? SharkD (talk) 15:09, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I would rather recommend the use of {{Notability}} or some other cleanup tag rather than slapping a flat "DELETE" on the talk page. Nifboy (talk) 15:22, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Agreed with Nifboy. I can't see any good coming from such a class, especially with the presence of vandalism on wikipedia that can tend to go unnoticed for months.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 15:28, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

OK, I'll do that. SharkD (talk) 16:34, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

It's definitely important to flag articles for cleanup, but a tag should actually give people an opportunity to address the problem before we resort to deletion. There's some good stuff flagged under Category:Video game cleanup. Maybe it would be helpful to come up with a few more specific tags for problems that plague video game articles in particular? And if they're not addressed after a certain time, it helps to go through them and see which ones are beyond salvaging, and thus should be deleted. Randomran (talk) 16:10, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Well I can say one thing in that regard, most people don't know what the heck "in-universe" means unless it's better explained to them. That's one that could definitely use some tweaking.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 16:14, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I can't help but feel like there's an opportunity to modify Template:Gamecleanup and make it more clear, and more organized. Maybe have a flag for section versus article, and keep those in two different categories. Maybe even add a few flags for common issues, as seen in WP:VGSCOPE. I'm thinking out loud, here. Randomran (talk) 16:42, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

On a side note, I've made a list of all our articles that have been tagged for cleanup since '06. Nifboy (talk) 17:57, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

LexisNexis

Does someone here have a LexisNexis account? It would help me a lot if someone could have told me whether there are any magazines that reviewed the PC game Codename: Gordon. The article was put on hold for the GA status, and I was advised to ask for help from someone with an LN account. Diego_pmc ^Talk 16:28, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I couldn't find any. I searched for articles after January 14 2004 (major US and News publications), search term "Codename Gordon" (no quotes) and then "video game" within the results I got. hbdragon88 (talk) 18:16, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for your trouble. Diego_pmc ^Talk 18:38, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I've got access to Lexis as well as EBSCOhost and all that jazz... maybe we should have a place where people looking for print material (besides magazines) can contact people? Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 01:26, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Walter Day

People who watched The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters might know Walter Day. He's recently started editing Wikipedia: User talk:Walter Day. This guy is kind of a legend :) JACOPLANE • 2008-09-10 05:42

Cool. Has he confirmed it's him? I know it's annoying but it'd probably be a good idea to confirm that this is/isn't the real deal (a glance at his edits show that, not unexpectedly, he's editing in his field of expertise... which is great). Giggy (talk) 06:43, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

He hasn't confirmed yet, once he does I'll inform him of Wikipedia:Conflict of interest, Wikipedia:Autobiography, etc. He seems to be having some problems with image copyrights and notability issues, so I didn't want to lay it on him all at once :) JACOPLANE • 2008-09-10 06:47

Wow, I hope it's really him. He could be a real help to the project, specifically some of the arcade articles—most of which are in terrible shape. I wonder if there are any other editors with major video game connections. I know there are a few with connections to some gaming websites, but most of us are just normal gamers. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 16:00, 10 September 2008 (UTC))

Walter's a friend of mine, I'll email him to clarify if that's actually him or not. I really doubt he'd have the time to do much more than TG related edits if that is him, since his time is usually so taxed as it is. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 23:29, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

It's not e-mail verification, but Walter responded on his talk page. I see no reason why it wouldn't be him. He says he wants to start writing more for Wikipedia, which is pretty cool given his knowledge. Perhaps other people here could watch his userpage and help him out if he's having problems. JACOPLANE • 2008-09-14 23:38

Anyone can state they are someone on a talk page. I'm waiting until I hear back from him direct, as I stated, I'd be surprised if that's him because he's genuinely very busy. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 01:20, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Table dilemma

I am working on two related sets of list articles, and am facing a sort of a dilemma. The first example is here; the second dilemma is here. In the first example there's an additional column for 'Sub-genre' info. In the second example this information ismerged into the 'Notes' column (my preferred format). Now, I prefer having it the way it is in the second example, but this makes it much harder to import the data into a spreadsheet (where I do all of my work). I want the tables to look right, but I also want to be able to easily copy and paste everything into my spreadsheet. What should I do? SharkD (talk) 16:41, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I went ahead and changed the first example so that it matches the second example. I'm still looking for a good solution for importing them into spreadsheets, though. SharkD (talk) 09:28, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Copyediting for V0.7

V0.7, the latest DVD version of Wikipedia, is approaching soon-ish (roughly October), and includes articles based on our assessments. As such, some of those articles still need some work done on them. A list of affected articles is available and it would be nice to get some of these issues cleaned up before they're immortalized in DVD form (at least until the next release). Nifboy (talk) 19:38, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for asking, but who determines which articles get into these hard versions of Wikipedia?--十八 21:28, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Yea, I'm looking at that list and finding it odd that something like FF13 (unreleased) is on there. --MASEM 23:20, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

It's based on importance tags, what links to it, and view counts, among other things. I'll be glad to help but first I got to copyedit and create stable versions for the WP:HALO selections (all are GA+ and all but two are FA, beat that :P ) Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 23:23, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

They really need a better selection process. For example, Lara Croft, which I just re-rated from B to start-class, at it's present quality shouldn't be anywhere NEAR going on that disk.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 23:28, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

We can axe articles from the DVD, guys, so I suggest we do that first and focus on getting our quality articles ready for the presses. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 23:31, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Edit: the note from the bot is below. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 23:32, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Well how do we go about that? And if they're removed, will subsequent articles take their place? I'm really confused overall why the whole selection process even includes B-class articles or lower...--Kung Fu Man (talk) 23:42, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Like it's stated, everything start and above are included. Then, the importance we ranked them, what/how many articles link to them, and traffic statistics also factor in. Lots of high-traffic articles are in crappy shape, so I think it's fair that they would get added here. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 23:50, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Uh, why is Fiscal year in our remit? :P Well it's certainly an ecletic mix of articles, but very few in number considering how many we have :/ Someoneanother 00:37, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

It isn't. "Video game" is the only section of articles from our project that are to be added in WPV0.7 that weren't already included in a previous version of the DVD that also have an maintenance tag on them. I think.--Izno (talk) 02:05, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I was incorrect. See #Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Video game below for how the list is generated. --Izno (talk) 02:11, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

New article: Universe of The Legend of Zelda series

I've moved Hyrule to Universe of The Legend of Zelda series to hopefully expand its relevance. Anyone interested in contributing? - A Link to the Past (talk) 21:14, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

In all honesty, can I go on the record as stating that while that article should have enough for WP:N by far, moving it was pointless? There are very little if any other regions in that game's world that have the same weight.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 21:21, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

It's a much wider coverage. For instance, the "Sacred Realm" is fairly notable, but neither warrants an article nor inclusion in a page on Hyrule. If I can find but a mere handful of sources on the notability of the various regions in the Zelda universe, their reception, etc., that would easily validate the move. - A Link to the Past (talk) 21:24, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Then a separate universe of article would have been a better idea, rather than pulling Hyrule directly into it. We have character lists that don't pull notable characters into them after all.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 21:27, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

And in all likelihood, the Hyrule article would be deemed not notable enough on its own, and/or the Univers of The Legend of Zelda series would, too. - A Link to the Past (talk) 21:29, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I think that LTTP is right, a universe article incorporating the other world of zelda articles would be a stronger article than Hyrule, which i do not think would survive an honest look at its reliable sources. I would also favor merging some of the other fiction articles from Zelda into it, to bolster the article. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 00:33, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Hyrule was actually one of the better articles related to the Zelda series. But expanding it to the whole universe, to include peripheral locations, can't hurt. Really, the lowest quality articles are:

• Recurring enemies in The Legend of Zelda series
• Bosses in The Legend of Zelda series
• Races in The Legend of Zelda series

...which are generally unsourced. Randomran (talk) 14:53, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

• • My stance on those three articles are, in order, "cleanup", "delete", "merge". - A Link to the Past (talk) 17:56, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

By all means, go for it, it is long overdue and I for one will support it. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 23:50, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Giant Bomb

The above website is starting to be added as a source to articles. I understand that its not just any new website, due to the fact that former Gamespot employees, Jeff Gerstmann and Ryan Davis are behind it. I have removed its addtion from the VGReviews template on the grounds that I think a one month old website, regardless of its staff, needs time to prove itself as a reliable source. Any opinions? - X201 (talk) 08:44, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

A website fronted by veterans can't be anything other than reliable for our purposes, regardless of age, if there's nothing suggesting anything untoward. It's certainly worth keeping an eye on for the time being, but I wouldn't deny editors sources on the off-chance these journalists have been tied up in the corner and their cats are typing up the reviews. Someoneanother 09:26, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

To put it another way, if this was a personal blog of one of them, I'd check the author out, see that it's a journo ('expert'), then use it as a source. What's so different about multiple authors sharing a blog that changes this? Gaming journos are increasingly turning to the blog format and setting up shop (like Rock, Paper, Shotgun), we might as well move with the times and get on with the job in hand. Someoneanother 09:31, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry I should have explained the point that specifically had me wondering. As well as the news section they also appear to be creating a - for want of a better description - video game version of IMDB. Users can submit content to the site, and then it is added to the specific article by a moderator. When a user has earned a set number of points they can add un-moderated content. Full spiel is here [3] . Their processes and statement of intent seem to be very good, but I know some people have misgivings about IMDB being used as a valid source and with this appearing to follow the same model I thought I'd raise the question first. - X201 (talk) 09:48, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

That's a different matter entirely, and one which could cost a lot of wasted time if it's used in good-faith by inexperienced contributors. Why not add the site itself to the references page but specify it should only be used for reviews and articles by the journalists themselves? We have AllGame to use as a database, no point RS-baiting with this one. Someoneanother 10:17, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Unless Giant Bomb has a reliable editorial policy, a "reputation" for fact-checking, and makes revisions to articles, it can't be used, no matter who it's run by. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 12:20, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Whoa. Makes revisions to articles? That's thoroughly verboten in some areas. (It's a complete no-no in academic publications) When did that get added as a requirement for reliable sourcing? Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:45, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, this isn't for us. The whole point is that they must have some sort of editorial oversight; an example is that they update or change incorrect content on already published material is one of the grounds that can be used. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 14:48, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I still have some difficulty here, just because editorial policies are rarely publicized very actively. To my mind, this is a place where WP:RS fails us - Giant Bomb is most akin to a news source, but because RS tries to make a hard distinction between opinion pieces and "news reporting" (a distinction that is clear in some cases, and far from clear in most) it really doesn't help here. In this case it's probably best to use the self-published requirements. In which case Giant Bomb is fine - its writers have been published previously by clearly reliable sources.

But in the end, I think WP:RS gives poor council on this, and that the situation needs to be taken on its own merits. For me, at least, Giant Bomb is on the same level of reliability as Gamespot and IGN. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:55, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

This is assuming the employees who were previously published at Gamespot, et al are writing everything. Thus I think it's better to put Giant Bomb on the same level as Joystiq and Kotaku- nonreliable except when the author can be proven via SPS. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 15:03, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

For reference, the list of articles linking to giant bomb can be found here. --Oscarthecat (talk) 20:51, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Practically all the giant bomb links now give a 404. Perhaps the site has restructured its pages. Lot of duff links now in wikipedia articles as a result. --Oscarthecat (talk) 11:23, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Realms of Arkania

Can someone here please confirm if/when Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny was released for Atari ST? Someone recently changed the game's entry in the List of RPGs to remove the ST platform. However, just about everywhere (and here) I look it says it was released for the ST. The WP article says the port was started but never completed, but no source is given to back up the statement. Thanks! SharkD (talk) 16:29, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Stalled FAC

If anyone has some time, could they look at the Discography of FF7 FAC? It's stalled out, with a lot of comments and little !voting. I don't care if you oppose or support, I just don't want it to silently fail. Thank you! --PresN (talk) 04:41, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I have responded to the FAC, here. -- Noj r (talk) 05:16, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Help needed with two console lists

List of PlayStation 3 games and List of Xbox 360 games are getting too cluttered with columns. PlayStation 3: first released and exclusive columns should go. Xbox 360: exclusive, and Metacritic rating need to go. I brought this up here, as the talk pages aren't that active and I know if I just remove them outright... people will complain and just revert (which was the case with the PlayStation 3 list not too long ago). Thoughts? RobJ1981 (talk) 21:04, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Title, Developer, Publisher, and the 3(4 if enough Aussie dates are known) release dates should be it. Exclusivity can be marked with a footnote (as well as directing to the various (console)-only categories); same with PS3 trophy support (but even less so I don't think that's needed; a separate list can track that). Definitely no Metacritic values. --MASEM 23:12, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Here are some of my suggestions, knowing very well how problematic this is having worked on the List of NES games and still trying to get back to the List of Famicom games:

• It might be argued that many of the information is excess and is not needed, especially regarding the WP:SIZE issues. However, I am not convinced that cutting half the information out would do much, especially when it's required to have a separate reference for every game on the list.
• I will argue, however, that the flags have to go. Replace them with the standard two-letter country codes (i.e. NA, JP, EU, AU). Having a bunch of pictures equates to too many HTTP requests from the server, which can be just as bad as loading an almost 100KB article.
• Also, an alternative to having the greyed-out "Unreferenced" on a lot of them, replace them with that one-position "—" symbol located just below the edit summary box. That is only one byte approximately 34 bytes with the "unreferenced" box. Multiply that by several hundred of them to replace, and you can save a few KB right there. MuZemike (talk) 00:01, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
• You could try to use one of the {{vgrelease}} family templates and try to combine those three columns into one, like what I have done in the NES List, but using dates instead of companies, obviously. For example, the Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation could read like this in one column (code: {{Vgrtbl |NA |2007-10-23 |EU |2007-11-23 |JP |2007-11-01}}:

20071020071023October 23, 2007 (NA)
November 23, 2007 (EU)
November 1, 2007 (JP)

• That's the one I use, but if you go to the template's documentation, there are many related ones that can also be used which may work well with these types of lists I have discovered. I think there is one, {{vgrsort3}} I think, that puts the first release date at the beginning of the template, but it only works for one country, (Of course, the template is unprotected, so that can change.) a big plus for that would be sortability for the list; you would be able to sort all games by the games' first release dates.
• For multiple publishers, you can do the same as above with dates; in fact, that's exactly what I did! I think it looks neater (more organized, that is) when other publishers are on separate lines, but that's me.

Those are my suggestions/opinions for right now. MuZemike (talk) 00:01, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I would just like to add to MuZemike's comments: I also don't think it's necessary to remove the "Exclusivity" and "Trophies" columns. It's probably the only thing that is exclusive to this particular table and makes it unique. People can go to GameFaqs if instead all they want is a straight list of PS3 games. I however don't think the flags are a big deal if you stick to the current format.

Another suggestion I'll make is to switch to using the ISO date format (i.e., YYYY-MM-DD). This should cut down on the wasted space significantly. However, if you instead choose to use the {{Vgrtbl}} template, then this is not such a big issue. Having an individual column for each region's release date has its good points, but removing them clears up space for other things, like genres. Note that the {{Vgrtbl}} template will make sorting the date a bit more problematic, as the template produces multiple values instead of just one. Unfortunately, support for three-dimensional tables is lacking.

The last suggestion I'd like to make is to decrease the font size. Decreasing it to 90% should not cause any problems. SharkD (talk) 06:31, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I've been playing around with a new table format. You can check it out here. I'm not 100% sure I want to keep it though. SharkD (talk) 09:23, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

This article uses an interesting vertical orientation for column headers I haven't seen used before. SharkD (talk) 18:41, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Because of the obvious con of having to "look vertically" at the headers, I don't know if that is exactly the way to go. Maybe at a 45-degree angle, perhaps, if that ever comes up? MuZemike (talk) 06:53, 18 September 2008 (UTC)