This peer review discussion has been closed.
The article just passed its GAN, and I'm looking to take it to FAC before too long. I plan to expand the article a little—nothing too major; just a few paragraphs—but I thought I'd get feedback now on what it needs to stand a chance at FAC. Comments on prose, content, images and citations are all welcome, but, if you see something else, feel free to bring that up as well. Thanks.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
23:59, 15 July 2011 (UTC)reply
Prose
Lots of "player" repetition: one instance in the lead, the others in "Gameplay" and a paragraph of "Production". Try to find fitting synonyms, or to reword the sentences to be less dependent on that word (pronouns or "The game allows / [insert verb] ..." – for example, "The player begins the game at the" -> "The game begins at the").
Fixed all but one of these. The last is in the Development section, in a paragraph (Andrew Grant) that requires some heavy tweaking. I'll take care of the repetition when I rewrite that part in the next few days.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
17:53, 23 July 2011 (UTC)reply
Actually, I left the one in the lead as well. I've fought with that thing since I started writing that section, but I've never figured out a way to fix it. Any suggestions?
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
18:34, 23 July 2011 (UTC)reply
I liked the previous wording ("It allows players to pilot ... and to perform") better here – for the second sentence, it seemed a lot less in-your-face than "The player". You can replace "Players" in the next sentence with "They" without causing problems with clarity.
Prime Blue (
talk)
18:43, 25 July 2011 (UTC)reply
Alternating uses of "3D" and "3-D" need to be fixed.
The article doesn't alternate. All instances of "3-D" (a somewhat dated spelling) are direct quotes, including the "3-D Cockpit" view, which is the game's official title for that perspective. If you think that needs quotation marks for clarity, I'll add them.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
17:53, 23 July 2011 (UTC)reply
I see. As you left the in-game terminology without quotation marks, I don't think you need them for "3-D Cockpit". Just thought I'd mention it, because it might come up at the FAC.
Prime Blue (
talk)
18:43, 25 July 2011 (UTC)reply
Alternating uses of "Hoops" (with and without quotation marks) need to be fixed. Explanation of hoops needed in "Gameplay".
Remaining problematic direct quotes (if any of those short words happen to be no direct quotes, still remove the quotation marks):
"we've got this new physics guy and he's really stoked, so why don't we try to do a traditional
Cessna sim[?]"
Completely breaks prose flow with informal language, not expressive enough to warrant a direct quote.
"not a game, but a playground"
"novice"
"products were not judged by how cool or fun they were, or how good a time you had playing them, but by the implementation of the standard feature set"
"Flight Unlimited runs just on the geometry of the shape. [...] Toss in the shape of a lawn chair, and it will fall, tumbling to earth, just like a lawn chair would. When you apply ailerons in the game, the only thing that happens is that you change the geometry of the wing. Everything else derives from that"
Not terribly descriptive for a direct quote. In fact, I have no idea what an aileron is, or what any of this means.
It's kind of a hard concept to explain, which is why I went with a quote. Essentially, Blackley is describing how the simulated atmosphere works. The CFD generates an invisible "fluid" that automatically and realistically reacts to the physical characteristics of any object. If you put a lawn chair (he used this example in countless interviews) in the CFD atmosphere, it would fall, flipping and tumbling, merely because of its shape and weight. Earlier flight games hard coded each plane's attributes into the planes themselves, but this CFD model allowed planes to fly as they would in real life: the plane's architecture and moving parts (like the
ailerons) rubbing against the atmosphere. When you adjust the ailerons on your wings, the physical shapes of your wings are altered, which causes the air to flow around your plane in a different way. This changes your direction. If you can think of a way to describe this without relying on the above wall of text, I'll gladly implement it.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
21:33, 24 July 2011 (UTC)reply
This is a big problem. I can only say that the quote with the example doesn't help, and that even the explanation above was hard to understand without multiple reads. From what I've gathered, "The CFD generates an invisible "fluid" that automatically and realistically reacts to the physical characteristics of any object" is the most important thing to say here, right? If it's impossible to explain the rest better, I'd remove it for the sake of the readers.
Prime Blue (
talk)
18:43, 25 July 2011 (UTC)reply
"He didn't care if he was 20% off in the results, as long as they worked correctly, worked consistently, and the sim felt right"
First statement basically repeats the previous sentence. Reword the new information ("as long as they worked correctly, worked consistently, and the sim felt right"), and join with the previous sentence.
"built a complete but incorrectly operation airplane". Delete this in the next sentence and reword the aircraft design manual bit slightly to sound less clunky.
"went up in the planes with a portable DAT (digital audio tape) machine"
Small problem with the first one: could refer to quantity (higher number of maneuvers than were humanly possible). Perhaps "maneuvers more exact than".
Prime Blue (
talk)
22:06, 29 July 2011 (UTC)reply
"When he flew Flight Unlimited, he just said 'pretty cool.' I was so psyched"
I think this quote adds a lot to the article, to be honest. In fact, I used to have it (and other stuff that's been removed from this version) separated into a block on the side. I don't think it should be removed.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
06:35, 29 July 2011 (UTC)reply
Like the 'pretty cool' Blackley quote, I think this adds to the article. It gives a sense of how much they hated the whole system, and you can't really capture that with a paraphrase.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
06:35, 29 July 2011 (UTC)reply
"make forward-thinking decisions instead of just focusing on the short term"
Lots of
contractions for verbs in "Reception". These would sound less informal if they were not contracted. I included some of them in the comments below, but I think I left out a few.
You can cut down on some references. For example, if a whole paragraph is sourced with just one reference (after each sentence), you can remove all instances save for the last. This would still suffice.
I'd remove ", such as the
Pitts Special and
Sukhoi Su-31": unlike with the maneuvers, "real-world aircraft" should suffice for the lead, and the sentence would read better.
Flying without tilting the plane in any direction. It's a very important fundamental flight concept. I couldn't think of a better way of describing it, unfortunately. Any ideas?
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
03:00, 17 July 2011 (UTC)reply
I can't think of anything, but it needs to be clarified (or possibly wikilinked). However, it seems this is not mentioned under "Gameplay". Is it an important element of the game, or did you just need something for the "ranging from" phrase? If it's the latter, there should be an equally "easy" flight technique that you could mention.
Prime Blue (
talk)
13:07, 19 July 2011 (UTC)reply
The manual offers several examples of basic techniques. Unfortunately, none of them have Wikipedia articles. I went with the most self-explanatory: "rudder turns".
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
23:12, 27 July 2011 (UTC)reply
That's very good. Don't forget to link "rudder" the first time they are used in the lead and the article text. Also, I think the sentence would read better now if "Immelmann turn" came last.
Prime Blue (
talk)
22:06, 29 July 2011 (UTC)reply
"It was intended to ... compete with other flight simulator franchises at the time, such as Microsoft Flight Simulator"
Was it directly stated by the developers to be a rival product, or is this derived from the comments of the press? If the latter, simply say "it competed with...".
I don't have a specific developer quote about it, but the press makes it pretty clear that it was the company's intention. This Boston Globe quote, for instance: "Looking Glass hopes its ultrarealistic Flight Unlimited will not only be able to compete with other games but will serve as the company's springboard into the realm of electronic game publishing."
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
23:12, 27 July 2011 (UTC)reply
"Seeking to recreate the experience of real flight that he felt other games lacked"
Sounds clunky. Maybe "He felt that other simulations lacked the experience of a real fight, and tried to recreate it with Flight Unlimited." But the next sentence has Flight Unlimited in it, too.
"video game; its gameplay is a simulation of piloting real-world airplanes"
"video game, which recreates flights with real-world airplanes"
I just realized that the semicolon was actually wrong. I changed it to a colon instead, but left everything else the same. See what you think.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
03:00, 17 July 2011 (UTC)reply
To be honest, I think that this would be even more confusing to a lot of readers. Plus, I dislike the semi-redundancy of "individual". I left the sentence the same, but changed "functions" to "options" to hopefully clarify the meaning.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
17:53, 23 July 2011 (UTC)reply
"displays large amounts of information about the plane's position"
"displays information about the aircraft's position" (remove "large amounts of")
I know "large amounts of" sounds redundant, but it's just because I wrote it sloppily. The purpose of that mode is to offer an absurd amount of detail about your plane (
here's a screenshot). Tweaked the sentence to reflect this more clearly.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
17:53, 23 July 2011 (UTC)reply
"offers advice in real-time based on the player's performance"
"offers real-time advice based on the player's performance"
Something along the lines of "challenge" would be less POVy here.
It does sound a bit POV, but I think it's a fairly accurate representation of what the manual says: "Trick courses require aerobatic expertise to solve in a short time—the hoops run you through a tortuous path in which aerobatic maneuvers are required. We designed these courses to strain your piloting skills and spatial sense to the limit!"
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
17:53, 23 July 2011 (UTC)reply
The biggest problem here is "extremely", which gives a POV impression even if it isn't meant that way. Same goes for the other two uses in the article.
Prime Blue (
talk)
18:43, 25 July 2011 (UTC)reply
"physics demonstrations—such as those depicting the proper physical characteristics of a falling marble—and the physics for a car racing game"
Aren't both demos using physical characteristics? This would read better along the lines of "physics demonstrations, such as a depiction of a falling marble, and a car racing game."
Rewrote that sentence to increase clarity. Anyway, the "car racing game" wasn't a demo. The source doesn't specify what it was exactly, but my guess is that it's
Car & Driver (video game). While that was technically made by Lerner Research, things got pretty fuzzy when that company merged with Blue Sky Productions. So who knows.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
23:24, 26 July 2011 (UTC)reply
"However, Blackley instead proposed an
aerobatics trainer, which he first conceived while riding a bus across
Lexington, Massachusetts and considering what he had looked for in flight simulators he had played in the past. Collaborating with Ultima Underworld II programmer Greg Travis, he created a thirty page concept document outlining the game."
"However, Blackley instead proposed an
aerobatics trainer, which he conceived while riding a bus across
Lexington, Massachusetts. Collaborating with Ultima Underworld II programmer Greg Travis, he created a thirty page concept document outlining the game, for which he took his past expectations of flight simulators into consideration."
"The first months of the project produced disparate "modules" that demonstrated prospective features."
You'll need a better word than "modules" here to make readers understand what you are trying to say.
Actually, even I don't know what I'm trying to say. The Official Pilot's Guide, which was written by an outside journalist, says this: "In the early months of Flight Unlimited, all that really existed were a few "demo" modules, but there was no cohesive game." I'm assuming that a "demo module" is like a prototype, so perhaps I could change it to "produced disparate prototypes that demonstrated"?
"he wanted to allow planes in the game to perform"
If you can't explain the maneuver, you could explain why he wanted to use this one. I guess the reason was that they were not possible in earlier flight simulators?
Prime Blue (
talk)
22:06, 29 July 2011 (UTC)reply
The source doesn't really say why he wanted to enable them. I added the last piece of information from the source ("a knife-edge spin, just like he'd seen at airshows.") to give it some kind of context. My best guess is that he wanted to do in the game what he couldn't do in real life, but that's pure original research.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
02:09, 30 July 2011 (UTC)reply
If neither is possible, you could drop the name and just say something like "a maneuver that he had witnessed at air shows". Doesn't make much of a difference if you don't know why exactly it was the knife-edge spin.
Prime Blue (
talk)
12:35, 30 July 2011 (UTC)reply
"and later described his belief that the flight simulator genre had stagnated"
"and later described his belief that this genre had stagnated"
Actually, you'll have to excuse my writing there. The model of "virtual air" is real-time CFDs. I'm going to rewrite that whole paragraph to increase clarity in the next few days. I'll take care of that unhelpful Blackley quote as well.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
23:24, 26 July 2011 (UTC)reply
"CFD" should be "CFDs" in plural per
WP:ABBR (however, the CFD article does not do this, either)
Does "flight model" refer to the game? If so, reword it to include "the first game of its kind".
It doesn't refer to the game. "Flight model" is a semi-slang term that was tossed around by nerdy developers and game journalists in the '90s. Essentially, it refers to the back-end programming of a flight simulator. It's somewhat interchangeable with "physics model", but that term doesn't specifically relate to flight simulators.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
23:24, 26 July 2011 (UTC)reply
"a model of a flat plate" (wikilink, if
dishware – there's several meanings)
Source doesn't specify what kind of plate it is, and the "flat plate model" wording is to avoid a possible close paraphrase. Here's the direct quote: "Once he had his physics equations in place and running in real time, he created a model of a flat plate (using a handful of wireframe programs to check movement and to visualize the airflow), and tweaked the equations until the flat plate fluttered down to earth just as it should."
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
23:24, 26 July 2011 (UTC)reply
My best guess is that he's referring to books about airplanes written by pseudo-intellectuals who don't actually have experience building them.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
23:24, 26 July 2011 (UTC)reply
Used your version, but changed the semi-colon to a colon instead of a period. I have no idea why I thought a semi-colon was appropriate there.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
23:24, 26 July 2011 (UTC)reply
"The game's flight instructor was created by Andrew Grant and voiced by Tom Steit"
"The flight instructor was created by Andrew Grant and voiced by Tom Steit". What title did Andrew Grant have?
"The team also sought to include aerobatic competitions in which the player could participate"
"The staff members also sought to include aerobatic competitions, in which the player could participate"
Changed the "staff members" part, but left out the comma. "aerobatic competitions in which the player could participate" is basically "aerobatic competitions that the player could participate in", minus the end-of-sentence preposition.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
21:15, 28 July 2011 (UTC)reply
"because of difficulties with realism"
Elaborate on that.
Unfortunately, I can't. The Pilot's Guide says that it was hard for them to get the feature to "feel just right", and it apparently "never made the armchair pilots really feel like they were in a real competition." But that's it. I've always wanted to know more about it.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
21:15, 28 July 2011 (UTC)reply
"After assembling a playable demo of the game"
"After assembling a playable demo of Flight Unlimited"
That he endorsed it is pretty evident at this point. Might want to move this somehow.
Well, I mean that he officially endorsed it. The back of the game's Official Pilot's Guide features his picture with the caption "Endorsed by Mike Goulian". I assume that the game's box had a similar treatment.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
21:15, 28 July 2011 (UTC)reply
Although "publication" is of the same word stem as publisher, I'd replace the "Publication" header with "Release", as that's a more common term for video games.
The material in that section doesn't necessarily deal with the game's release, though. It'd be kind of strange to read something titled Release, only to be greeted by coverage of the company's 1994 cash infusion. Actually, I struggled with that section title for quite awhile. Originally, it was "Self-publishing", but I changed it to Publication for brevity. Do you have any other ideas besides Release?
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
20:56, 29 July 2011 (UTC)reply
"had been developed under other video game publishers"
Seems like something's missing here to know what you mean. Developed under contract?
"he described "taxiing uncontrollably on the ground and going back to the interactive flight school before I ever became airborne", which he called "frustrating""
Is there a specific reason for the skewed box art? If you can find a better one, you should replace it. A search turned up
this one only.
It's the box shot that was here when I started working on the article. I looked around for a better one a couple of times, but, like you, came up with nothing particularly good.
This is the real cover, and it's the only version of it on the Internet, as far as I can tell. Unfortunately, it has that annoying Mobygames watermark on it.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
21:35, 30 July 2011 (UTC)reply
Flight Unlimited DOS.png could do with a stronger description and non-free use rationale. You could use a level and mode name under "Description" to better identify the source. You can strengthen the rationale by mentioning that this is the "Three-Way View" (I assume), and that the image shows specific gameplay elements (name them) talked about in the section, which would otherwise be hard to understand for readers. The image caption should reflect that (mentioning the name of the view in the image caption would also be helpful). Additional points for using a "Reception" comment in the rationale, so that the image shows something that a reviewer liked or disliked. The "ghost plane" isn't exactly visible in the image: if possible, replace the image with another version, in which the "ghost plane" is bigger.
I'll try to take a new image in the next couple of days. Question: should I keep it in the prettier 3-D Cockpit view, or change it to the duller-but-more-relevant Three-Way View?
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
21:35, 30 July 2011 (UTC)reply
You don't have to use the Three-Way View just because it's more relevant. Just go with the one you like better, and try to make the rationale as strong as possible. :) If you run into problems or have questions, I am happy to help.
Prime Blue (
talk)
22:35, 31 July 2011 (UTC)reply
Something needs to be done about
Seamus Blackley.jpg. Either crop it losslessly to show only Blackley, or use
Seamus Blackley February 2006.png. Either way, prepare for negative comments toward those photographs, as their quality is subpar. I think you can savely remove "(pictured here in 2005)" from the caption.
Thanks for finding/uploading that other Blackley image. I was going to just crop the existing one, but, after doing so, it looked even worse than it did already. I swapped it out for the new picture, but it seems a bit too large, actually. It kind of dominates the article. What do you think?
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
20:39, 7 August 2011 (UTC)reply
The third image caption would avoid repetition if it was something like "The flight instructor was designed to respond to the player in real-time. It provides guidance in the midst of an improperly performed maneuver, such as the
Immelmann turn demonstrated above."
Again, consider splitting up multi-page sources into individual sections. I know it is a lot of work, but it will guarantee a smoother FA, as that is almost certain to come up again. Still your choice, though.
Some print sources are missing the issue numbers (e.g. Computer Gaming World).
Outside of that, I could find no problems with the sources. So if the direct quotes above are dropped, you will have passed the source review of the FA as well.
Replied to some comments (stroke out some right away, so checking the diff might give you a clearer picture). I noticed that you cut down some of the direct quotes instead of rewording them completely. While it's ultimately your choice, I still think that these could be easily changed to ordinary sentences without quotes, and would prevent the impression that the article uses too many direct quotes. Also, I checked all sources for close paraphrasing and accurate representation during my review as a preparation for the FAC, so please keep track of the new ones you'll add (so I don't have to go through all of the old ones again).
Prime Blue (
talk)
18:43, 25 July 2011 (UTC)reply
Sure thing. And I'm going back through my print sources to check for/remove any close paraphrasing, since I assume you don't have access to that stuff. In other news, I responded to quite a bit more of your review.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
23:24, 26 July 2011 (UTC)reply
From what I can see, we're pretty much through with prose. Great work, as always. Do you want me to go over it again with a final read, or do you still have expansions coming up?
Prime Blue (
talk)
15:10, 3 August 2011 (UTC)reply
I still have two paragraphs to add, so go ahead and hold off on the final read for now. I'll try to get back to the last few issues tomorrow, and hopefully have at least one of the paragraphs finalized by the day after that.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
05:57, 4 August 2011 (UTC)reply
This peer review discussion has been closed.
The article just passed its GAN, and I'm looking to take it to FAC before too long. I plan to expand the article a little—nothing too major; just a few paragraphs—but I thought I'd get feedback now on what it needs to stand a chance at FAC. Comments on prose, content, images and citations are all welcome, but, if you see something else, feel free to bring that up as well. Thanks.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
23:59, 15 July 2011 (UTC)reply
Prose
Lots of "player" repetition: one instance in the lead, the others in "Gameplay" and a paragraph of "Production". Try to find fitting synonyms, or to reword the sentences to be less dependent on that word (pronouns or "The game allows / [insert verb] ..." – for example, "The player begins the game at the" -> "The game begins at the").
Fixed all but one of these. The last is in the Development section, in a paragraph (Andrew Grant) that requires some heavy tweaking. I'll take care of the repetition when I rewrite that part in the next few days.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
17:53, 23 July 2011 (UTC)reply
Actually, I left the one in the lead as well. I've fought with that thing since I started writing that section, but I've never figured out a way to fix it. Any suggestions?
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
18:34, 23 July 2011 (UTC)reply
I liked the previous wording ("It allows players to pilot ... and to perform") better here – for the second sentence, it seemed a lot less in-your-face than "The player". You can replace "Players" in the next sentence with "They" without causing problems with clarity.
Prime Blue (
talk)
18:43, 25 July 2011 (UTC)reply
Alternating uses of "3D" and "3-D" need to be fixed.
The article doesn't alternate. All instances of "3-D" (a somewhat dated spelling) are direct quotes, including the "3-D Cockpit" view, which is the game's official title for that perspective. If you think that needs quotation marks for clarity, I'll add them.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
17:53, 23 July 2011 (UTC)reply
I see. As you left the in-game terminology without quotation marks, I don't think you need them for "3-D Cockpit". Just thought I'd mention it, because it might come up at the FAC.
Prime Blue (
talk)
18:43, 25 July 2011 (UTC)reply
Alternating uses of "Hoops" (with and without quotation marks) need to be fixed. Explanation of hoops needed in "Gameplay".
Remaining problematic direct quotes (if any of those short words happen to be no direct quotes, still remove the quotation marks):
"we've got this new physics guy and he's really stoked, so why don't we try to do a traditional
Cessna sim[?]"
Completely breaks prose flow with informal language, not expressive enough to warrant a direct quote.
"not a game, but a playground"
"novice"
"products were not judged by how cool or fun they were, or how good a time you had playing them, but by the implementation of the standard feature set"
"Flight Unlimited runs just on the geometry of the shape. [...] Toss in the shape of a lawn chair, and it will fall, tumbling to earth, just like a lawn chair would. When you apply ailerons in the game, the only thing that happens is that you change the geometry of the wing. Everything else derives from that"
Not terribly descriptive for a direct quote. In fact, I have no idea what an aileron is, or what any of this means.
It's kind of a hard concept to explain, which is why I went with a quote. Essentially, Blackley is describing how the simulated atmosphere works. The CFD generates an invisible "fluid" that automatically and realistically reacts to the physical characteristics of any object. If you put a lawn chair (he used this example in countless interviews) in the CFD atmosphere, it would fall, flipping and tumbling, merely because of its shape and weight. Earlier flight games hard coded each plane's attributes into the planes themselves, but this CFD model allowed planes to fly as they would in real life: the plane's architecture and moving parts (like the
ailerons) rubbing against the atmosphere. When you adjust the ailerons on your wings, the physical shapes of your wings are altered, which causes the air to flow around your plane in a different way. This changes your direction. If you can think of a way to describe this without relying on the above wall of text, I'll gladly implement it.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
21:33, 24 July 2011 (UTC)reply
This is a big problem. I can only say that the quote with the example doesn't help, and that even the explanation above was hard to understand without multiple reads. From what I've gathered, "The CFD generates an invisible "fluid" that automatically and realistically reacts to the physical characteristics of any object" is the most important thing to say here, right? If it's impossible to explain the rest better, I'd remove it for the sake of the readers.
Prime Blue (
talk)
18:43, 25 July 2011 (UTC)reply
"He didn't care if he was 20% off in the results, as long as they worked correctly, worked consistently, and the sim felt right"
First statement basically repeats the previous sentence. Reword the new information ("as long as they worked correctly, worked consistently, and the sim felt right"), and join with the previous sentence.
"built a complete but incorrectly operation airplane". Delete this in the next sentence and reword the aircraft design manual bit slightly to sound less clunky.
"went up in the planes with a portable DAT (digital audio tape) machine"
Small problem with the first one: could refer to quantity (higher number of maneuvers than were humanly possible). Perhaps "maneuvers more exact than".
Prime Blue (
talk)
22:06, 29 July 2011 (UTC)reply
"When he flew Flight Unlimited, he just said 'pretty cool.' I was so psyched"
I think this quote adds a lot to the article, to be honest. In fact, I used to have it (and other stuff that's been removed from this version) separated into a block on the side. I don't think it should be removed.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
06:35, 29 July 2011 (UTC)reply
Like the 'pretty cool' Blackley quote, I think this adds to the article. It gives a sense of how much they hated the whole system, and you can't really capture that with a paraphrase.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
06:35, 29 July 2011 (UTC)reply
"make forward-thinking decisions instead of just focusing on the short term"
Lots of
contractions for verbs in "Reception". These would sound less informal if they were not contracted. I included some of them in the comments below, but I think I left out a few.
You can cut down on some references. For example, if a whole paragraph is sourced with just one reference (after each sentence), you can remove all instances save for the last. This would still suffice.
I'd remove ", such as the
Pitts Special and
Sukhoi Su-31": unlike with the maneuvers, "real-world aircraft" should suffice for the lead, and the sentence would read better.
Flying without tilting the plane in any direction. It's a very important fundamental flight concept. I couldn't think of a better way of describing it, unfortunately. Any ideas?
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
03:00, 17 July 2011 (UTC)reply
I can't think of anything, but it needs to be clarified (or possibly wikilinked). However, it seems this is not mentioned under "Gameplay". Is it an important element of the game, or did you just need something for the "ranging from" phrase? If it's the latter, there should be an equally "easy" flight technique that you could mention.
Prime Blue (
talk)
13:07, 19 July 2011 (UTC)reply
The manual offers several examples of basic techniques. Unfortunately, none of them have Wikipedia articles. I went with the most self-explanatory: "rudder turns".
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
23:12, 27 July 2011 (UTC)reply
That's very good. Don't forget to link "rudder" the first time they are used in the lead and the article text. Also, I think the sentence would read better now if "Immelmann turn" came last.
Prime Blue (
talk)
22:06, 29 July 2011 (UTC)reply
"It was intended to ... compete with other flight simulator franchises at the time, such as Microsoft Flight Simulator"
Was it directly stated by the developers to be a rival product, or is this derived from the comments of the press? If the latter, simply say "it competed with...".
I don't have a specific developer quote about it, but the press makes it pretty clear that it was the company's intention. This Boston Globe quote, for instance: "Looking Glass hopes its ultrarealistic Flight Unlimited will not only be able to compete with other games but will serve as the company's springboard into the realm of electronic game publishing."
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
23:12, 27 July 2011 (UTC)reply
"Seeking to recreate the experience of real flight that he felt other games lacked"
Sounds clunky. Maybe "He felt that other simulations lacked the experience of a real fight, and tried to recreate it with Flight Unlimited." But the next sentence has Flight Unlimited in it, too.
"video game; its gameplay is a simulation of piloting real-world airplanes"
"video game, which recreates flights with real-world airplanes"
I just realized that the semicolon was actually wrong. I changed it to a colon instead, but left everything else the same. See what you think.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
03:00, 17 July 2011 (UTC)reply
To be honest, I think that this would be even more confusing to a lot of readers. Plus, I dislike the semi-redundancy of "individual". I left the sentence the same, but changed "functions" to "options" to hopefully clarify the meaning.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
17:53, 23 July 2011 (UTC)reply
"displays large amounts of information about the plane's position"
"displays information about the aircraft's position" (remove "large amounts of")
I know "large amounts of" sounds redundant, but it's just because I wrote it sloppily. The purpose of that mode is to offer an absurd amount of detail about your plane (
here's a screenshot). Tweaked the sentence to reflect this more clearly.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
17:53, 23 July 2011 (UTC)reply
"offers advice in real-time based on the player's performance"
"offers real-time advice based on the player's performance"
Something along the lines of "challenge" would be less POVy here.
It does sound a bit POV, but I think it's a fairly accurate representation of what the manual says: "Trick courses require aerobatic expertise to solve in a short time—the hoops run you through a tortuous path in which aerobatic maneuvers are required. We designed these courses to strain your piloting skills and spatial sense to the limit!"
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
17:53, 23 July 2011 (UTC)reply
The biggest problem here is "extremely", which gives a POV impression even if it isn't meant that way. Same goes for the other two uses in the article.
Prime Blue (
talk)
18:43, 25 July 2011 (UTC)reply
"physics demonstrations—such as those depicting the proper physical characteristics of a falling marble—and the physics for a car racing game"
Aren't both demos using physical characteristics? This would read better along the lines of "physics demonstrations, such as a depiction of a falling marble, and a car racing game."
Rewrote that sentence to increase clarity. Anyway, the "car racing game" wasn't a demo. The source doesn't specify what it was exactly, but my guess is that it's
Car & Driver (video game). While that was technically made by Lerner Research, things got pretty fuzzy when that company merged with Blue Sky Productions. So who knows.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
23:24, 26 July 2011 (UTC)reply
"However, Blackley instead proposed an
aerobatics trainer, which he first conceived while riding a bus across
Lexington, Massachusetts and considering what he had looked for in flight simulators he had played in the past. Collaborating with Ultima Underworld II programmer Greg Travis, he created a thirty page concept document outlining the game."
"However, Blackley instead proposed an
aerobatics trainer, which he conceived while riding a bus across
Lexington, Massachusetts. Collaborating with Ultima Underworld II programmer Greg Travis, he created a thirty page concept document outlining the game, for which he took his past expectations of flight simulators into consideration."
"The first months of the project produced disparate "modules" that demonstrated prospective features."
You'll need a better word than "modules" here to make readers understand what you are trying to say.
Actually, even I don't know what I'm trying to say. The Official Pilot's Guide, which was written by an outside journalist, says this: "In the early months of Flight Unlimited, all that really existed were a few "demo" modules, but there was no cohesive game." I'm assuming that a "demo module" is like a prototype, so perhaps I could change it to "produced disparate prototypes that demonstrated"?
"he wanted to allow planes in the game to perform"
If you can't explain the maneuver, you could explain why he wanted to use this one. I guess the reason was that they were not possible in earlier flight simulators?
Prime Blue (
talk)
22:06, 29 July 2011 (UTC)reply
The source doesn't really say why he wanted to enable them. I added the last piece of information from the source ("a knife-edge spin, just like he'd seen at airshows.") to give it some kind of context. My best guess is that he wanted to do in the game what he couldn't do in real life, but that's pure original research.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
02:09, 30 July 2011 (UTC)reply
If neither is possible, you could drop the name and just say something like "a maneuver that he had witnessed at air shows". Doesn't make much of a difference if you don't know why exactly it was the knife-edge spin.
Prime Blue (
talk)
12:35, 30 July 2011 (UTC)reply
"and later described his belief that the flight simulator genre had stagnated"
"and later described his belief that this genre had stagnated"
Actually, you'll have to excuse my writing there. The model of "virtual air" is real-time CFDs. I'm going to rewrite that whole paragraph to increase clarity in the next few days. I'll take care of that unhelpful Blackley quote as well.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
23:24, 26 July 2011 (UTC)reply
"CFD" should be "CFDs" in plural per
WP:ABBR (however, the CFD article does not do this, either)
Does "flight model" refer to the game? If so, reword it to include "the first game of its kind".
It doesn't refer to the game. "Flight model" is a semi-slang term that was tossed around by nerdy developers and game journalists in the '90s. Essentially, it refers to the back-end programming of a flight simulator. It's somewhat interchangeable with "physics model", but that term doesn't specifically relate to flight simulators.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
23:24, 26 July 2011 (UTC)reply
"a model of a flat plate" (wikilink, if
dishware – there's several meanings)
Source doesn't specify what kind of plate it is, and the "flat plate model" wording is to avoid a possible close paraphrase. Here's the direct quote: "Once he had his physics equations in place and running in real time, he created a model of a flat plate (using a handful of wireframe programs to check movement and to visualize the airflow), and tweaked the equations until the flat plate fluttered down to earth just as it should."
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
23:24, 26 July 2011 (UTC)reply
My best guess is that he's referring to books about airplanes written by pseudo-intellectuals who don't actually have experience building them.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
23:24, 26 July 2011 (UTC)reply
Used your version, but changed the semi-colon to a colon instead of a period. I have no idea why I thought a semi-colon was appropriate there.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
23:24, 26 July 2011 (UTC)reply
"The game's flight instructor was created by Andrew Grant and voiced by Tom Steit"
"The flight instructor was created by Andrew Grant and voiced by Tom Steit". What title did Andrew Grant have?
"The team also sought to include aerobatic competitions in which the player could participate"
"The staff members also sought to include aerobatic competitions, in which the player could participate"
Changed the "staff members" part, but left out the comma. "aerobatic competitions in which the player could participate" is basically "aerobatic competitions that the player could participate in", minus the end-of-sentence preposition.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
21:15, 28 July 2011 (UTC)reply
"because of difficulties with realism"
Elaborate on that.
Unfortunately, I can't. The Pilot's Guide says that it was hard for them to get the feature to "feel just right", and it apparently "never made the armchair pilots really feel like they were in a real competition." But that's it. I've always wanted to know more about it.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
21:15, 28 July 2011 (UTC)reply
"After assembling a playable demo of the game"
"After assembling a playable demo of Flight Unlimited"
That he endorsed it is pretty evident at this point. Might want to move this somehow.
Well, I mean that he officially endorsed it. The back of the game's Official Pilot's Guide features his picture with the caption "Endorsed by Mike Goulian". I assume that the game's box had a similar treatment.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
21:15, 28 July 2011 (UTC)reply
Although "publication" is of the same word stem as publisher, I'd replace the "Publication" header with "Release", as that's a more common term for video games.
The material in that section doesn't necessarily deal with the game's release, though. It'd be kind of strange to read something titled Release, only to be greeted by coverage of the company's 1994 cash infusion. Actually, I struggled with that section title for quite awhile. Originally, it was "Self-publishing", but I changed it to Publication for brevity. Do you have any other ideas besides Release?
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
20:56, 29 July 2011 (UTC)reply
"had been developed under other video game publishers"
Seems like something's missing here to know what you mean. Developed under contract?
"he described "taxiing uncontrollably on the ground and going back to the interactive flight school before I ever became airborne", which he called "frustrating""
Is there a specific reason for the skewed box art? If you can find a better one, you should replace it. A search turned up
this one only.
It's the box shot that was here when I started working on the article. I looked around for a better one a couple of times, but, like you, came up with nothing particularly good.
This is the real cover, and it's the only version of it on the Internet, as far as I can tell. Unfortunately, it has that annoying Mobygames watermark on it.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
21:35, 30 July 2011 (UTC)reply
Flight Unlimited DOS.png could do with a stronger description and non-free use rationale. You could use a level and mode name under "Description" to better identify the source. You can strengthen the rationale by mentioning that this is the "Three-Way View" (I assume), and that the image shows specific gameplay elements (name them) talked about in the section, which would otherwise be hard to understand for readers. The image caption should reflect that (mentioning the name of the view in the image caption would also be helpful). Additional points for using a "Reception" comment in the rationale, so that the image shows something that a reviewer liked or disliked. The "ghost plane" isn't exactly visible in the image: if possible, replace the image with another version, in which the "ghost plane" is bigger.
I'll try to take a new image in the next couple of days. Question: should I keep it in the prettier 3-D Cockpit view, or change it to the duller-but-more-relevant Three-Way View?
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
21:35, 30 July 2011 (UTC)reply
You don't have to use the Three-Way View just because it's more relevant. Just go with the one you like better, and try to make the rationale as strong as possible. :) If you run into problems or have questions, I am happy to help.
Prime Blue (
talk)
22:35, 31 July 2011 (UTC)reply
Something needs to be done about
Seamus Blackley.jpg. Either crop it losslessly to show only Blackley, or use
Seamus Blackley February 2006.png. Either way, prepare for negative comments toward those photographs, as their quality is subpar. I think you can savely remove "(pictured here in 2005)" from the caption.
Thanks for finding/uploading that other Blackley image. I was going to just crop the existing one, but, after doing so, it looked even worse than it did already. I swapped it out for the new picture, but it seems a bit too large, actually. It kind of dominates the article. What do you think?
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
20:39, 7 August 2011 (UTC)reply
The third image caption would avoid repetition if it was something like "The flight instructor was designed to respond to the player in real-time. It provides guidance in the midst of an improperly performed maneuver, such as the
Immelmann turn demonstrated above."
Again, consider splitting up multi-page sources into individual sections. I know it is a lot of work, but it will guarantee a smoother FA, as that is almost certain to come up again. Still your choice, though.
Some print sources are missing the issue numbers (e.g. Computer Gaming World).
Outside of that, I could find no problems with the sources. So if the direct quotes above are dropped, you will have passed the source review of the FA as well.
Replied to some comments (stroke out some right away, so checking the diff might give you a clearer picture). I noticed that you cut down some of the direct quotes instead of rewording them completely. While it's ultimately your choice, I still think that these could be easily changed to ordinary sentences without quotes, and would prevent the impression that the article uses too many direct quotes. Also, I checked all sources for close paraphrasing and accurate representation during my review as a preparation for the FAC, so please keep track of the new ones you'll add (so I don't have to go through all of the old ones again).
Prime Blue (
talk)
18:43, 25 July 2011 (UTC)reply
Sure thing. And I'm going back through my print sources to check for/remove any close paraphrasing, since I assume you don't have access to that stuff. In other news, I responded to quite a bit more of your review.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
23:24, 26 July 2011 (UTC)reply
From what I can see, we're pretty much through with prose. Great work, as always. Do you want me to go over it again with a final read, or do you still have expansions coming up?
Prime Blue (
talk)
15:10, 3 August 2011 (UTC)reply
I still have two paragraphs to add, so go ahead and hold off on the final read for now. I'll try to get back to the last few issues tomorrow, and hopefully have at least one of the paragraphs finalized by the day after that.
JimmyBlackwing (
talk)
05:57, 4 August 2011 (UTC)reply