User talk:.:Alex:./Newsletter/Video games

Project at a Glance

As of 2008-04-07, the project has:

Featured Articles, Lists, and Topics Candidates and Reviews

Changes to Featured and Good articles, lists, and topics in March

News

Current proposals and discussions

• Well, gee, thanks 1up!
  1UP.com has recently changed their rating scale. A list of affected articles can be found here. See discussion for details.
• Inactive project cleanup
  Proposal to consolidate inactive projects and taskforces. Project page can be found here.

Feature

The Importance of the Lead

The lead is one of the most important parts of any Wikipedia article; its job to summarize the article in 2 to 3 paragraphs in order to familiarize the reader with the structure of the content that you will providing them as well as to give a quick one-minute overview of the topic. Many articles that are processed through Good Article or Featured Article assessments will be heavily scrutinized for a poor lead section.

For articles dealing with video games, a common practice has developed for leads, being a 3-paragraph discussion.

First paragraph

The first paragraph should state the name of the game (using both bold (to identify the article's name) and italics as per the manual of style), along with any other alternate names the game may go by. The genre of the game should be clearly identified as well as the developer and the publisher. If a notable person has been cited by the game as having worked on the game's development (such as Tim Schafer or David Jaffe), this should also be noted. Release dates should be given, along with the release of any ports, remakes, or sequels.

Second paragraph

The second paragraph should summarize the plot briefly in one or two sentences; a high level overview is only needed to set the stage for further discussion. One or two sentences should be included to discuss the gameplay, including any notable features of the game.

Third paragraph

The third paragraph should cover the reception of the game, citing its general critical reaction and any significantly notable successful or failing elements in the game. If the game has won awards, this aspect can be noted, but specific mention of any award is discouraged.

This approach should help you to write a good lead for nearly any game, though this may need to be altered for other games. If there's not a lot of reception information for a game, it may be worthwhile to combine the listed first and third paragraphs into one paragraph. There may be need to talk more about an aspect not normally covered in video game articles (such as with E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (Atari 2600)) which should be noted in the lead.

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Project at a Glance

As of 2008-05-06, the project has:

Changes to Featured and Good articles, lists, and topics in April

News

There were 256 new articles in April 2008

Current proposals and discussions

• Well, gee, thanks 1up!
  1UP.com has recently changed their rating scale. A list of affected articles can be found here. See discussion for details.
  • About 14% of the articles on the list have been checked and updated.
• Inactive project cleanup
  Proposal to consolidate inactive projects and taskforces. Project page can be found here.
  • WikiProject Warcraft and WikiProject StarCraft have been switched into Warcraft task force and StarCraft task force under the VG Project.
  • WikiProject TimeSplitters has been deleted.

Feature

Writing about Gameplay

The Gameplay section is a crucial component of a good video game article. Although it may be relatively easy for an experienced gamer to write such a section, care must be taken to maintain an appropriate focus and balance. The section should be written for readers with little or no knowledge of video gaming and should not be filled with detailed information about weapons, levels, or other such topics that are only of interest to the video gamer or that might be found in a game guide. Your goal for crafting a good section is to have people who have never picked up the game understand the basic mechanics. Do note, however, that it's safe to assume the reader has at least a minor knowledge of what a video game is.

This section often begins the body text after the lead, but is sometimes placed after the Plot section. Games with little or no story can cover the plot in the Gameplay section. When writing about a game, use your head and common sense about the ordering. Generally, start off with a broad stroke—is the game a RTS or an FPS, etc. Don't talk about why the gameplay is like it is; generally, that is better placed in the 'Development' section later on in the article.

Images can be added to better illustrate some aspects of gameplay. Generally, a single screenshot will suffice. Because of screenshots are non-free content, usage should be minimalised. Multiple images can be used, but all images should add something to the article beyond what the prose states. All non-free images require a fair use rationale to be used on Wikipedia.

Things to remember

• Don't add in cruft about weapons, levels, and minute details of trivia; gameplay sections should serve as a primer to the game, not an exhaustive list of every facet of the game.
• Don't use gaming jargon which can be confusing to readers, such as "NPC" or "MMORPG". If you use these terms, state the full name and the abbreviation the first time it appears. For example, "Halo is a first-person shooter, or FPS."
• Wikilink! So you don't have to describe what a god game is, link it.
• Talk about what makes the game different from others; if you only talk about why StarCraft is a real-time strategy game, then readers could just visit the article about the game genre and be better served.

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Project Navigation

Project at a Glance

As of 2008-06-04, the project has:

Changes to Featured and Good articles, lists, and topics

News

There were 203 new articles in May 2008

Current proposals and discussions

• Well, gee, thanks 1up!
  1UP.com has recently changed their rating scale. A list of affected articles can be found here. See discussion for details.
  • About 28% of the articles on the list have been checked and updated.
• Inactive project cleanup
  Proposal to consolidate inactive projects and taskforces. Project page can be found here.
  • WikiProject Dragon Quest has been redirected to WP:VG.
  • WikiProject Massively multiplayer online games Guild Wars task force has been deleted.

Interested in a specific video game series or company? Check out some of our task forces to help improve the related articles.

Feature

Writing about Development

Development content is very important to include in an encyclopedic video game article. It provides a history of how the game came to be and provides real world information needed for an article to claim comprehensiveness. However, writing this section can be difficult because the amount and type of information available will vary for each game. One of the best sources for such information is a developer interview. These can provide insight into the thought process of the designers and give examples of influences and obstacles encountered. Previews can also be helpful by giving a snap shot of the game before it was released and may mention development issues that were still being addressed.

When writing about development, common sense should be used to organize content to maintain a sense of flow for the reader. Most times, it is best to give the information in a somewhat chronological order—though information can also be grouped by topics like audio, promotion, graphics, etc. If one such topic gets large enough, it can be split off into its own subsection or regular section. For example, Kingdom Hearts#Audio is a separate section from the rest of the development information because it focuses on the game's musical score and voice acting. Portal (video game)#Soundtrack, however, does not have as much content and is a subsection of the main development section.

What to include about development

• Who are the developers? Which company or studio developed the game, and are there any prominent designers involved?
• When did development begin?
• When and where was the game first announced? (e.g. Tokyo Game Show, E3 Media and Business Summit, etc.)
• What influenced the game's story, characters, music, and/or gameplay ? (e.g. past games, movies, books, etc.)
• Were there any delays?
• Was anything excluded because of time or technological constraints? (e.g. extra levels, game modes, characters, story arcs, etc.)

Things to remember

• Avoid proseline. Though maintaining a sense to chronology is important, this section should not read like an ordered list of events.
• Images in this section should be relevant to the information given and should add on to it.
• Source everything to avoid information being tagged as original research.

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