This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | ← | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | Archive 7 | Archive 8 | Archive 9 | Archive 10 |
Jay Lender here. In the interest of full disclosure I'd like to start by saying that I'm a professional videogame writer.
Given today's powerful computers, sophisticated programming tools and abundant talent pool, making a product with compelling gameplay is within reach of anyone who has the budget to do so. As a result, game makers are increasingly turning to Story to help differentiate their product from others in the marketplace. The gaming experience is becoming as much about WHY you are killing thousands of zombies as about the visceral thrill of doing it. The gaming press is full of discussion about game writing, both in industry- and consumer-oriented publications, reflecting its growing importance.
It was not always this way: in the past, videogame writing was something that often happened as a golden master headed out the door--a task performed by non-professionals with a little free time on their hands--but today, game developers utilize the services of professional, dedicated writers from conception to ship date. The writing process often runs parallel to the design process, but while many videogame designers may write, not all writers provide design services. Some high-profile examples of this would include Randall Wallace's work on Titan Quest, and John Milius' work on Medal of Honor: European Assault. Neither writer was credited with design work--only with writing. (For my part, I can tell you that in my 14 or so game writing jobs I have always and exclusively been credited as a writer, even when I performed limited design duties alongside the writing.) The industry has already moved toward the adoption of the separate credit for this type of work, and game designers will eventually take both credits, just as writer/directors do (and are in fact compelled to do) in film and television.
I propose that to reflect the reality in the industry, we add a separate "written by" credit to the VG Infobox. This credit would be located directly below the "designer(s)" credit, and would reflect the growing importance and awareness of writing and writers in videogames.
Comments? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jaylender ( talk • contribs) 00:37, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
I think preceded by and folowed by should be on the template. So then you could put the game before it and the game after it in the series. wwesocks 02:59, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Per this discussion, does anyone have any major objections to replacing the current infobox with the alternating colors version? I will make a wide-area announcement here and WP:VG after I do it as to handle any possible issues with the drop-in replacement. -- MASEM 14:08, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Better. Liked it. -- SkyWalker ( talk) 17:03, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
|{{#if:{{{distributor|}}}| {{!}} '''Distributor(s)'''' {{!!}} {{{distributor|}}} }}
. --
Silver Edge (
talk)
05:03, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Are you planning on updating InfoBox VG Hidden with Boxart as well? -- AeronPrometheus ( talk) 18:57, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
None whatsoever, thanks for the work you've put in. Someone another 14:53, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
Done This template currently suffers from a common problem of infoboxes, namely that the <noinclude> opening tag at the end is on the line following the final "|}" of the table. This produces an extra newline in the article, which means a single blank line between the infobox and the following text leaves two blank lines instead of one. This can and should be fixed by moving the <noinclude> onto the same line as the "|}". Hairy Dude ( talk) 00:23, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
If {{ Infobox company}} can have a "homepage" parameter, why can't {{ Infobox VG}}? It would be useful for anyone wanting to quickly find the official website of a particular videogame. It Is Me Here ( talk) 20:02, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
{{
editprotected}}
First of all, I don't want to flame anyone. But: What is it with this infobox and missing whitespace? Is there some kind of malfunctioning bot or editing tool or a few regular editors who honestly believe that removing extra whitespace will safe the project bandwidth costs? Because just about any VG related article I happen to occasionally edit has an inscrutable monolith of code sitting on top of it, instead of the easy-to-navigate table that an infobox should be, even on code level. And it's not just an issue with articles about older games, which might have been created before the various WikiProjects started revamping their infobox templates. No, this also applies to upcoming releases. Again, I don't want to step on anyone's toes here, just thought I should raise this issue at some point. – Cyrus XIII ( talk) 11:10, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
People, shouldn't it be more correct if System requirements was changed to Minimum system requirements?? I don't think that's redundant. Fallon Turner - [ USERPAGE| USERTALK] - 20:26, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
{{
editprotected}}
Spawning from
Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games#Picture format - whether or not to include upscaling. If aspect ratios is to be used, then simply state it as such,
|{{#if:{{{Aspect ratio|}}}| {{!}} '''[[Aspect ratio]]''' {{!!}} {{{Aspect ratio|}}} }}
Currently, most articles are using this parameter to state resolutions, which is incorrect. I suggest the implementation of a maximum resolution field. This is relevant for computer and console games, and much easily verifiable than native resolution.
|{{#if:{{{Max. resolution|}}}| {{!}} '''[[Display resolution|Max. resolution]]''' {{!!}} {{{Max. resolution|}}} }}
|aspect ratio=
is now a synonym for |picture format=
, and the parameter |resolution=
is now available.
Happy‑
melon
10:28, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Hello, is an admin can update the fr interwiki -> fr:Modèle:Infobox Jeu vidéo. Some robot update wrong thing on fr. Thank a lot for your help. bayo 07:12, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Movie infoboxes have a section for the movie's budget and revenue, I think we should add the same to Video Game infoboxes. Sure, the information won't be included on every game, but it's important information to know, especially for high-profile games. For example, Grand Theft Auto IV is speculated to be the most expensive video game ever made at $100 million, and is also expected to break sales records. Information like this is not currently easily comparable across video games because it isn't in the infobox. ---- Rodzilla ( talk) 21:16, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
This is consistently the messiest field in the infobox, and I think it should either be removed and delegated to another infobox, or reworked so that it has sub-fields or a sub-template to present the requirements uniformly, like rows for CPU:, RAM:, etc. To take things even further, perhaps we should consider splitting PC-specific and Arcade-specific fields to a secondary infobox or sub-template. Note: this is especially true when there are multiple platforms to consider. Then the requirements section is messy and BIG. Ham Pastrami ( talk) 02:10, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
A minor change in the latest release version/preview version display: a single slash separating the version number from the date. This is for clearer display and consistency with {{ Infobox Software}}, which uses the same format. GregorB ( talk) 22:07, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
|{{#if:{{{latest release version|}}}| {{!}} '''[[Software release life cycle|Latest release]]''' {{!}} {{{latest release version|}}} {{#if: {{{latest release date|}}}| / {{{latest release date|}}} }} }} |{{#if:{{{latest preview version|}}}| {{!}} '''[[Software release life cycle|Preview release]]''' {{!}} {{{latest preview version|}}} {{#if: {{{latest preview date|}}}| / {{{latest preview date|}}} }} }}
Done Seem uncontroversial to me. -- MASEM 22:16, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
{{
editprotected}}
Bitten me a few times, this one. The template currently accepts {{{designer}}}, {{{genre}}} etc. but uses {{{platforms}}} and {{{modes}}}. We should allow single forms in all cases. While we're at it, the MoS for templates discourages mandatory attributes, so make them optional, and make "modes" a little clearer. Three one-liners.
|{{!}} '''[[Computer platform|Platform(s)]]''' {{!!}} {{{platforms|}}}
becomes
|{{#if:{{{platform|{{{platforms|}}}}}}| {{!}} '''[[Computer platform|Platform(s)]]''' {{!!}} {{{platform|{{{platforms}}}}}} }}
|{{!}} '''[[Video game genres|Genre(s)]]''' {{!!}} {{{genre|}}}
becomes
|{{#if:{{{genre|{{{genres|}}}}}}| {{!}} '''[[Video game genres|Genre(s)]]''' {{!!}} {{{genre|{{{genres}}}}}} }}
|{{!}} '''Mode(s)''' {{!!}} {{{modes|}}}
becomes
|{{#if:{{{mode|{{{mode|}}}}}}| {{!}} '''Playing mode(s)''' {{!!}} {{{mode|{{{mode}}}}}} }}
Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:46, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
Apparently someone has figured out how to make a section of a table have a collapsible format (see {{ Collapsible list}}). This has been done on the Portal (video game) article.
I would propose that we adopt this to be part of the template, which requires adding one (maybe two) more parameters: the one required would be "first_released" which is just the date the game was first released anywhere, with no mention of country or system. This is the one that shows by default with the collapsed form of the list.
Now, realizing that many games only have one release date they can give (due to age or the like), I propose that a second parameter "no_release_list" (or whatever is easier to remember) be included. If this parameter is on, whatever values make sense for that, then there would be no use of the collapsible list, and the value from "first_released" would be used as the release parameter. -- MASEM 20:36, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't like the idea of collapsing information like this. I'm alright with navboxes being collapsed, but article content is a different matter. If it's important enough to be in the infobox at all, which I think most people believe, then display it! What is the reasoning behind this proposal? --- RockMFR 03:14, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
I want to reseed this (and I'll toss a note at the WP:VG page), but specifically, this is what can be added:
From a template side, this is not a problem to handle. -- MASEM 18:32, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't see any guidelines on what should go in the genre and platform fields. It'd be cool if someone added some. -- Akb4 ( talk) 05:46, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
{{
editprotected}}
Can ''{{{title|{{PAGENAME}}}}}''
be changed to ''{{#if:{{{title|}}}|{{{title}}}|{{PAGENAME}}}}''
, to allow for a blank parameter.
MrKIA11 (
talk)
16:37, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
title=
, it still displays the title instead of '.
MrKIA11 (
talk)
17:01, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
Is it possible to add Last Game, This Game and Next Game options (in the same manner as Template:Infobox Album) to allow linking games in a series? -- JediLofty User Talk 09:25, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
If possible, I would like to see an addition to the infobox similar to the one on the album template that shows alternate covers/box art for games. Obviously it would only be used if the boxarts are significantly different, and not "exactly-the-same-except-for-rating". I think it would help give orphaned images their proper homes back. Yellow Mage ( talk) 12:58, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | ← | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | Archive 7 | Archive 8 | Archive 9 | Archive 10 |
Jay Lender here. In the interest of full disclosure I'd like to start by saying that I'm a professional videogame writer.
Given today's powerful computers, sophisticated programming tools and abundant talent pool, making a product with compelling gameplay is within reach of anyone who has the budget to do so. As a result, game makers are increasingly turning to Story to help differentiate their product from others in the marketplace. The gaming experience is becoming as much about WHY you are killing thousands of zombies as about the visceral thrill of doing it. The gaming press is full of discussion about game writing, both in industry- and consumer-oriented publications, reflecting its growing importance.
It was not always this way: in the past, videogame writing was something that often happened as a golden master headed out the door--a task performed by non-professionals with a little free time on their hands--but today, game developers utilize the services of professional, dedicated writers from conception to ship date. The writing process often runs parallel to the design process, but while many videogame designers may write, not all writers provide design services. Some high-profile examples of this would include Randall Wallace's work on Titan Quest, and John Milius' work on Medal of Honor: European Assault. Neither writer was credited with design work--only with writing. (For my part, I can tell you that in my 14 or so game writing jobs I have always and exclusively been credited as a writer, even when I performed limited design duties alongside the writing.) The industry has already moved toward the adoption of the separate credit for this type of work, and game designers will eventually take both credits, just as writer/directors do (and are in fact compelled to do) in film and television.
I propose that to reflect the reality in the industry, we add a separate "written by" credit to the VG Infobox. This credit would be located directly below the "designer(s)" credit, and would reflect the growing importance and awareness of writing and writers in videogames.
Comments? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jaylender ( talk • contribs) 00:37, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
I think preceded by and folowed by should be on the template. So then you could put the game before it and the game after it in the series. wwesocks 02:59, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Per this discussion, does anyone have any major objections to replacing the current infobox with the alternating colors version? I will make a wide-area announcement here and WP:VG after I do it as to handle any possible issues with the drop-in replacement. -- MASEM 14:08, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Better. Liked it. -- SkyWalker ( talk) 17:03, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
|{{#if:{{{distributor|}}}| {{!}} '''Distributor(s)'''' {{!!}} {{{distributor|}}} }}
. --
Silver Edge (
talk)
05:03, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Are you planning on updating InfoBox VG Hidden with Boxart as well? -- AeronPrometheus ( talk) 18:57, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
None whatsoever, thanks for the work you've put in. Someone another 14:53, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
Done This template currently suffers from a common problem of infoboxes, namely that the <noinclude> opening tag at the end is on the line following the final "|}" of the table. This produces an extra newline in the article, which means a single blank line between the infobox and the following text leaves two blank lines instead of one. This can and should be fixed by moving the <noinclude> onto the same line as the "|}". Hairy Dude ( talk) 00:23, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
If {{ Infobox company}} can have a "homepage" parameter, why can't {{ Infobox VG}}? It would be useful for anyone wanting to quickly find the official website of a particular videogame. It Is Me Here ( talk) 20:02, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
{{
editprotected}}
First of all, I don't want to flame anyone. But: What is it with this infobox and missing whitespace? Is there some kind of malfunctioning bot or editing tool or a few regular editors who honestly believe that removing extra whitespace will safe the project bandwidth costs? Because just about any VG related article I happen to occasionally edit has an inscrutable monolith of code sitting on top of it, instead of the easy-to-navigate table that an infobox should be, even on code level. And it's not just an issue with articles about older games, which might have been created before the various WikiProjects started revamping their infobox templates. No, this also applies to upcoming releases. Again, I don't want to step on anyone's toes here, just thought I should raise this issue at some point. – Cyrus XIII ( talk) 11:10, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
People, shouldn't it be more correct if System requirements was changed to Minimum system requirements?? I don't think that's redundant. Fallon Turner - [ USERPAGE| USERTALK] - 20:26, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
{{
editprotected}}
Spawning from
Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games#Picture format - whether or not to include upscaling. If aspect ratios is to be used, then simply state it as such,
|{{#if:{{{Aspect ratio|}}}| {{!}} '''[[Aspect ratio]]''' {{!!}} {{{Aspect ratio|}}} }}
Currently, most articles are using this parameter to state resolutions, which is incorrect. I suggest the implementation of a maximum resolution field. This is relevant for computer and console games, and much easily verifiable than native resolution.
|{{#if:{{{Max. resolution|}}}| {{!}} '''[[Display resolution|Max. resolution]]''' {{!!}} {{{Max. resolution|}}} }}
|aspect ratio=
is now a synonym for |picture format=
, and the parameter |resolution=
is now available.
Happy‑
melon
10:28, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Hello, is an admin can update the fr interwiki -> fr:Modèle:Infobox Jeu vidéo. Some robot update wrong thing on fr. Thank a lot for your help. bayo 07:12, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Movie infoboxes have a section for the movie's budget and revenue, I think we should add the same to Video Game infoboxes. Sure, the information won't be included on every game, but it's important information to know, especially for high-profile games. For example, Grand Theft Auto IV is speculated to be the most expensive video game ever made at $100 million, and is also expected to break sales records. Information like this is not currently easily comparable across video games because it isn't in the infobox. ---- Rodzilla ( talk) 21:16, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
This is consistently the messiest field in the infobox, and I think it should either be removed and delegated to another infobox, or reworked so that it has sub-fields or a sub-template to present the requirements uniformly, like rows for CPU:, RAM:, etc. To take things even further, perhaps we should consider splitting PC-specific and Arcade-specific fields to a secondary infobox or sub-template. Note: this is especially true when there are multiple platforms to consider. Then the requirements section is messy and BIG. Ham Pastrami ( talk) 02:10, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
A minor change in the latest release version/preview version display: a single slash separating the version number from the date. This is for clearer display and consistency with {{ Infobox Software}}, which uses the same format. GregorB ( talk) 22:07, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
|{{#if:{{{latest release version|}}}| {{!}} '''[[Software release life cycle|Latest release]]''' {{!}} {{{latest release version|}}} {{#if: {{{latest release date|}}}| / {{{latest release date|}}} }} }} |{{#if:{{{latest preview version|}}}| {{!}} '''[[Software release life cycle|Preview release]]''' {{!}} {{{latest preview version|}}} {{#if: {{{latest preview date|}}}| / {{{latest preview date|}}} }} }}
Done Seem uncontroversial to me. -- MASEM 22:16, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
{{
editprotected}}
Bitten me a few times, this one. The template currently accepts {{{designer}}}, {{{genre}}} etc. but uses {{{platforms}}} and {{{modes}}}. We should allow single forms in all cases. While we're at it, the MoS for templates discourages mandatory attributes, so make them optional, and make "modes" a little clearer. Three one-liners.
|{{!}} '''[[Computer platform|Platform(s)]]''' {{!!}} {{{platforms|}}}
becomes
|{{#if:{{{platform|{{{platforms|}}}}}}| {{!}} '''[[Computer platform|Platform(s)]]''' {{!!}} {{{platform|{{{platforms}}}}}} }}
|{{!}} '''[[Video game genres|Genre(s)]]''' {{!!}} {{{genre|}}}
becomes
|{{#if:{{{genre|{{{genres|}}}}}}| {{!}} '''[[Video game genres|Genre(s)]]''' {{!!}} {{{genre|{{{genres}}}}}} }}
|{{!}} '''Mode(s)''' {{!!}} {{{modes|}}}
becomes
|{{#if:{{{mode|{{{mode|}}}}}}| {{!}} '''Playing mode(s)''' {{!!}} {{{mode|{{{mode}}}}}} }}
Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:46, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
Apparently someone has figured out how to make a section of a table have a collapsible format (see {{ Collapsible list}}). This has been done on the Portal (video game) article.
I would propose that we adopt this to be part of the template, which requires adding one (maybe two) more parameters: the one required would be "first_released" which is just the date the game was first released anywhere, with no mention of country or system. This is the one that shows by default with the collapsed form of the list.
Now, realizing that many games only have one release date they can give (due to age or the like), I propose that a second parameter "no_release_list" (or whatever is easier to remember) be included. If this parameter is on, whatever values make sense for that, then there would be no use of the collapsible list, and the value from "first_released" would be used as the release parameter. -- MASEM 20:36, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't like the idea of collapsing information like this. I'm alright with navboxes being collapsed, but article content is a different matter. If it's important enough to be in the infobox at all, which I think most people believe, then display it! What is the reasoning behind this proposal? --- RockMFR 03:14, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
I want to reseed this (and I'll toss a note at the WP:VG page), but specifically, this is what can be added:
From a template side, this is not a problem to handle. -- MASEM 18:32, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't see any guidelines on what should go in the genre and platform fields. It'd be cool if someone added some. -- Akb4 ( talk) 05:46, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
{{
editprotected}}
Can ''{{{title|{{PAGENAME}}}}}''
be changed to ''{{#if:{{{title|}}}|{{{title}}}|{{PAGENAME}}}}''
, to allow for a blank parameter.
MrKIA11 (
talk)
16:37, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
title=
, it still displays the title instead of '.
MrKIA11 (
talk)
17:01, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
Is it possible to add Last Game, This Game and Next Game options (in the same manner as Template:Infobox Album) to allow linking games in a series? -- JediLofty User Talk 09:25, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
If possible, I would like to see an addition to the infobox similar to the one on the album template that shows alternate covers/box art for games. Obviously it would only be used if the boxarts are significantly different, and not "exactly-the-same-except-for-rating". I think it would help give orphaned images their proper homes back. Yellow Mage ( talk) 12:58, 25 June 2008 (UTC)