StrategyWiki talk:Community Portal/2007/October

Wii Classic Controller buttons
I notice there don't seem to be any button images available for the Wii Classic Controller. These are needed both for Wii games that are Classic Controller-compatible (such as Resident Evil 4, Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, and Super Smash Bros. Brawl), and for Virtual Console games that have individual control schemes (such as Nintendo 64 games). Wanderer 22:14, 5 October 2007 (CDT)
 * Unfortunately, our usual graphic artist is unavailable currently. Anyone up for some artistic endeavors? -- Prod (Talk) 22:20, 5 October 2007 (CDT)

More templating
You may have noticed that I made a complete pig's ear of cleaning up the CN, FN and HN this morning; the job queue's currently up at 46000, and guides will probably look a bit shabby for the next couple of days, but that can't be helped. They all still (just about) work, and the styling for the CN, FN and HN is now all in Common.css. However, that's not the main subject of this thread. I want to get people's opinions on having a new "ToC" template, which would be put on the main page of a guide, and replace the current mess we have:

Table of Contents
It would mean there's less to go wrong when someone messes up a guide, and would potentially allow us to do fancy stuff to the main page ToCs of all guides in the future (although I can't really think of anything which would be useful). This isn't something I think we urgently or desperately need, but it can't hurt. As such, I propose a lazy migration (if we go ahead with it), similarly to how we're transitioning the release dates. -- 05:56, 7 October 2007 (CDT)
 * Go for it. -- 09:34, 7 October 2007 (CDT)
 * OK. I've created it as ToC. Just put that into the main page of guides instead of the markup above, and all will be fine. It takes no parameters. -- 14:55, 7 October 2007 (CDT)
 * Along with this change the Continue Nav no longer needs the |game parameter. User:Auto Prod Bot is working on this, but anyone who wants to can help. -- Prod (Talk) 12:09, 9 October 2007 (CDT)

Achievements
I would've brought this up on the talk page for the achievements project, but nothing much seems to be happening there. Anyway, I downloaded and played Team Fortress 2 this morning, and noticed that Valve have introduced an achievements system to it. Since Valve have also just introduced the new Steam Community stuff, I'm pretty sure they'll start rolling achievements out to other games, and aggregating all the data in the Steam Community. At the moment, I believe Category:Achievements only caters for Xbox achievements, so I propose that we move all the pages in it to a new "Xbox 360 achievements" category (correct me if there's a problem here), and have that as a subcategory of Category:Achievements. We'd then introduce new categories for other achievements systems, such as that on Steam. This should increase the scope of the achievements project, and hopefully give it more to do. :-) -- 11:03, 9 October 2007 (CDT)
 * From the description on the Category:Achievements page, it seems that we'll need cats for Category:Xbox 360 achievements, Category:Xbox Live Arcade achievements, Category:Games for Windows achievements, and Category:Steam achievements. The question is, which of these have centralized listings?  -- Prod (Talk) 12:16, 9 October 2007 (CDT)
 * I've just played Portal, and I can confirm that it also uses Steam achievements, so it's pretty certain that more games will start using them. I think we should go ahead with this. :-) -- 13:03, 10 October 2007 (CDT)
 * For games on multi platforms, say Xbox 360 and Windows, we would have to create two separate achievement pages? or could we just add an extra column for those points? Provided they are the same achievements.. --Laviot 20:39, 10 October 2007 (CDT)
 * Yeah there's no need for separate pages. At most you would just create another table on the page, then separate them with tier 2 headings for easy navigation with  enabled.  Like you said, it will probably work out to just add another column, and then maybe where you explain the achievement you can list the differences if there are any. -- 22:22, 10 October 2007 (CDT)
 * This has been implemented. :-) -- 12:26, 12 October 2007 (CDT)

Online distribution
Speaking of Steam, it's probably about time we started differentiating between hardware systems and online distribution. I propose we have a new "Online distributors" category, which is a subcat of Category:Systems, and which contains the current online distributors (GameTap, PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade), plus any new ones such as Steam. It's not really a major change, but I want to get some feedback on the naming, since I think it could probably do with improving. -- 11:11, 9 October 2007 (CDT)
 * I think Online distrobutor sounds fine; it's better than "Video Game Portal" or something like that. What about Wii virtual console? -- 11:29, 9 October 2007 (CDT)
 * I don't think we need to get into detail about how the games are distributed (the |media parameter is enough). However, Wii Virtual Console is treated as a separate system from the Wii, so we could treat Steam as a system.  However, that would mean that games available only through Steam (ie. not on cd/dvd) would not be in Category:Windows. -- Prod (Talk) 12:19, 9 October 2007 (CDT)
 * Category:PC doesn't have games in it despite them being commonly known as "PC games", and Category:Windows already has a Vista disambig; it's not too much of a stretch to have Steam-exclusive releases also only in their specific category. The message could be made bigger (like Category:MS-DOS's DOSBox notice) to increase visibility. GarrettTalk 15:20, 9 October 2007 (CDT)
 * Agreed. -- 01:28, 10 October 2007 (CDT)
 * I've created Category:Steam, put it in Category:Systems, and populated it with the first Steam games I could find. If anyone notices a Steam game I've missed (there'll be hundreds), could they please add it? :-) -- 14:53, 12 October 2007 (CDT)

Problem with category
I want to change the category in Medal of Honor: Frontline to Category:2015 (Company) but the 2015 cat is still there, Is it a template that is doing this or me?-- The preceding signed comment was added by Rocky (talk • contribs). 12:05, 9 October 2007 (CDT)
 * You should be using Category:2015. Why did you create the "2015 (Company)" category? -- 12:13, 9 October 2007 (CDT)
 * It was marked for renamiong by Prod because it will conflict with the date.-- The preceding signed comment was added by Rocky (talk • contribs). 14:46, 9 October 2007 (CDT)
 * Despite the fact that problems with this will only surface in 7 years (:-P), he's right. You should name the new category "2015 (company)", though (note the lowercase "c"). Thanks. -- 01:26, 10 October 2007 (CDT)

Notification of online users
Is there any way we could see if a user is or is not online? It would be nice if we could. --Myth (talk) 15:44, 9 October 2007 (CDT)
 * No there isn't, and I don't think it would be a good idea. If you want to see if a sysop is online, at least one of us is idling in IRC at any given moment (generally... there are a few times where it'll be completely empty). Otherwise, just leave a message on a talk page. -- 19:53, 9 October 2007 (CDT)
 * There is a way on wikiepdia, after a bit of searching, i found ithere, can we use this here?-- The preceding signed comment was added by Rocky (talk • contribs). 11:12, 10 October 2007 (CDT)
 * Possibly, but it would have to be adapted to fit in BlueCloud as well, and since it's javascript, some people will be unable to use it. As it is though, I'm still leaning towards the "bad idea anyway" side, and that isn't going to change. While it's a nice feature in forums, it isn't so much in wikis. -- 15:20, 10 October 2007 (CDT)
 * Agreed with Ryan. -- 15:46, 10 October 2007 (CDT)


 * Well what makes this different than a forum? I mean we talk about adding forums anyways, and it WOULD be useful. -- 15:03, 12 October 2007 (CDT)
 * Ok, say we do have this... how would it be implemented as a nearly accurate way of showing onlineness? The way the one works in the link Rocky gave depends entirely on user input to change the status -- not very reliable and too much work at the hands of most users (myself included, I am NOT going to be using that method to toggle my online status). So, can you come up with anything better? Also, a wiki is very different from a forum, as you've stated yourself. After all, why would we talk about implementing a forum if a forum and a wiki are pretty much the same thing already? It just makes no sense. Forums are for chatting to other people in a semi-organized fashion. Wikis are for presenting information in an organized fashion. Chatting and presenting information are two wholly separate things. Finally, please list three different reasons why adding in an online indicator would be useful. I sure can't think of three, so good luck with that. -- 15:48, 12 October 2007 (CDT)
 * I've been curious about this subject, I just never really got around to asking about it. From what it sounds like, the online indicator from Wikipedia would be a drag to use. No one, including myself, would be willing to put that much effort into an indicator of whether you're online or not. While I would like to have some sort of indication, it wouldn't really bother me if we didn't. Lunar Knight (Talk to me + Contribs) 19:06, 15 October 2007 (CDT)
 * There is also a bot that will update the status based on activity, maybe we could use that or the one that's replacing it. link-- The preceding signed comment was added by Rocky (talk • contribs). 01:44, 21 October 2007 (CDT)

Why would we do that? It's a waste of resources and energy for some people. If we're going to do it, we have to do it through code so it's automated without having it mandated by edits. Rather than waste our own efforts and focus on something like this, why don't we just make a suggestion for a mediawiki feature? -- 02:41, 21 October 2007 (CDT)
 * There's some extensions here, here, here here and [Extension:UserLoginLogoutLog here], most of these don't look that good really but we may be able to make some of them work.-- The preceding signed comment was added by Rocky (talk • contribs). 03:23, 21 October 2007 (CDT)
 * Yeah that's what I'm talking about, except I think an actual mediawiki feature would be better (like, being able to set it in user preferences). LastLoginTime looks really good.  The only problem is whether or not the use of cookies enables the time to change.  If it does, then we have a decent solution.  -- 03:48, 21 October 2007 (CDT)
 * Only thing is it isn't made by a MW developer.-- The preceding signed comment was added by Rocky (talk • contribs). 10:30, 21 October 2007 (CDT)
 * Still no, those extensions look pointless (and aren't official), so I would never recommend they get installed. Plus, what is the point in this? I truly don't see a point in adding this in. If you manage to pester a MW dev to write a stable extension for this, good for you, but it's still an emphatic "no" from me. -- 16:14, 21 October 2007 (CDT)

Copyvio in Okami?
All of the information on Okami/Characters is copied word-for-word out of the game's instruction manual. It even says so at the top of the page. Is this a violation of copyright? New User 20:06, 9 October 2007 (CDT)
 * Yes. It needs to be marked as such, and then re-written and integrated into more useful information (I haven't looked at it).  If it's factual, then we can have it.  If it's a story, or background, it needs to be reworded.  -- 00:39, 10 October 2007 (CDT)

They say immitation is the greatest form of flattery...
...I just think it sucks. The wiki at Shoryuken.com (which is over-ridden with ad-bots) stole our fighting move icons without crediting Blendmaster at all. See this page :P Sucks... Procyon (Talk) 15:38, 11 October 2007 (CDT)
 * I can has GFDL violation? At least he apologized... -- 16:15, 11 October 2007 (CDT)
 * Until they license themselves as GFDL I'm not saying it's ok; but yeah, I hope you explained to them that they can put them back up if the wiki goes that way... -- 00:55, 12 October 2007 (CDT)
 * Oh yeah I keep forgetting that you don't have to be licensed that way... But if they do like Creative Commons, can they use GFDL pics if credited? It seems like they should be able too...  -- 00:57, 12 October 2007 (CDT)

Settlers III
Hi! Can somebody provide fair use images for The Settlers III (of the items and buildings at least; I can make map screenshots myself, I hope) and please work a little over the things I'm writing to make it meet some quality standards? --Best thanks, Proto 20:20, 12 October 2007 (CDT)
 * What you've done so far looks quite good, actually. The only thing I could suggest is for the mission walkthroughs to be written in continuous prose, rather than a series of bullet points. :-) -- 00:56, 16 October 2007 (CDT)
 * DB, they are nowhere near done. Proto: don't worry about "fair use" for the various cut out images.  If you need editing done to screenshots, you can upload them to SW and then leave me a message on my talk page with the image names and what specifically needs to be cut out.  I'll handle the editing, re-uploading and deletion of the full screenshots.  Also, you might want to start a todo list on the discussion page for any other contributors (use  ).  -- 04:08, 16 October 2007 (CDT)

QR Code
I've added the QR Image to the Main Page/WIP. What do you think? -- Prod (Talk) 13:25, 16 October 2007 (CDT)
 * Looks good, but it could use a "what is this?" link below the image so people who aren't familiar with QR codes can read up on them. -- 15:30, 16 October 2007 (CDT)

Sonic Robo Blast 2, out of scope?
I'm sure that a fan game like this shouldn't be covered on StrategyWiki. It only meets one of the criteria, being the fact that it's a computer game. Same thing goes for Mario Adventure.
 * I'm not so sure; they're two quite popular fan-made games (I believe). While I certainly wouldn't want the site crawling in guides for every game mod under the sun, I don't see any harm in having such guides. I'll wait and see what others have to say. --DrBob (talk) 06:07, 21 October 2007 (CDT)
 * If they are mods to games, they should go as part of that game and shouldn't be given their own game. -- Prod (Talk) 10:07, 21 October 2007 (CDT)
 * That should be done for small mods, but I think total conversion mods – where the mod is a new game in its own right, and only uses the engine of the modded game – should get their own guide. --DrBob (talk) 10:16, 21 October 2007 (CDT)
 * I have to agree with DrBob. There are some pretty fun mods out there that are games in and of their own right. echelontalk 15:27, 28 October 2007 (CDT)

Template:Wikipedia a little strange
The link to the word 'Wikipedia' in Template:Wikipedia actually links to rather than the expected. Is there a particularly good reason for this? It just seems a little strange. --Pelago 15:12, 21 October 2007 (CDT)
 * Works as expected for me. Looks like Rocky fixed it while I wasn't looking :). -- Prod (Talk) 15:26, 21 October 2007 (CDT)
 * This is because we originally didn't have a Wikipedia interwiki; we did have one for Wikibooks, though, so I just routed it through that. GarrettTalk 17:27, 21 October 2007 (CDT)

Engine Cats
We have an infobox that allows the engine to be listed, but what about category pages for such engines? -- 20:15, 22 October 2007 (CDT)
 * What's the point? Is anyone seriously going to be looking for games based on the engine they use? --DrBob (talk) 06:42, 23 October 2007 (CDT)
 * Potentially, yes. If we had a cat page for them though, the page would give information on the engine and all the games that use it - which I think would be pretty nifty to be able to see.  -- 17:37, 23 October 2007 (CDT)
 * True. I'd tentatively support this then, but I'm wary of over-categorisation. That said, I can say with 90% certainty that nobody clicks the categories at the bottom of a page, so we could add as many as we liked. :-) --DrBob (talk) 19:11, 23 October 2007 (CDT)
 * I think this is a cool category to add. echelontalk 23:17, 23 October 2007 (CDT)
 * I'll go ahead and start implementing it, since nobody's raised any objections. --DrBob (talk) 03:13, 24 October 2007 (CDT)
 * I've created Category:Engines, and created a category for teh best engine evar. If everyone's still OK with it, I'll go ahead and add the games to it properly in a few hours. --DrBob (talk) 08:18, 24 October 2007 (CDT)

Modes and bot support
So far, we have MMOG, multiplayer and single player for modes. I propose that we add "Multiplayer with bots" and "Co-operative" to the list, and categorise games as such. Previously, I've wanted to eradicate the multiplayer category (since just about every game uses it), but I've now realised that nobody really cares how many categories a game's in, and so it's OK to keep it. What does everyone else think? --DrBob (talk) 03:12, 24 October 2007 (CDT)
 * I think specific types of play should be implemented, so we can break down each type more accurately into groupings. I got this idea from Wikipedia when I saw on an RTS game's infobox - one of the modes listed had something to do with campaigns or skirmishes - something different from simply "Single player" since Single player could actually mean online play, by yourself (considering originally multiplayer was defined as co-op, simultaneus, or versus on the same console).  Now that example is a little messy, but maybe something like, Single player campaign, could be a "specific category" in comparison.  As well, we could have something like "Turn based multiplayer" like that of Super Mario Bros.'s 2 player mode.  Whatcha think boys (oh sorry Froglet)?!  -- 04:33, 24 October 2007 (CDT)

PC system requirements
I've created a pcreq template for sole use in the |requirements parameter of infobox, which allows PC game requirements to be given in a pretty, graphical, and rather-more-helpful-than-before manner. It comes with all the associated baggage. Thoughts? --DrBob (talk) 09:03, 24 October 2007 (CDT)
 * The green on red is a little bit of an eyesore... I wonder if maybe we should change Progress bar to be different colors?  It's not too bad for longer bars but for something shorter it just messes with my eyes.  I personally think a light and dark blue would be good (especially because our primary color for the site is blue).  Another option is to make the red and green a little more pale.  What do you all think?--
 * I'd plump for a paler red/green combination, if someone could come up with one. We'd also need to change the text colour to make sure it's still legible if we were to change the background colours. --DrBob (talk) 10:36, 24 October 2007 (CDT)
 * I'm not quite sure how to go about changing it, or I'd play around with it. We could use the same colors as the yes and no templates...  "90FF90" for green and "ff9090" for red.  Another good green is "00FF7F" --
 * Remember, color coding must be done via skin CSS... Nice job again DB. -- 20:30, 24 October 2007 (CDT)
 * One thing, when the HDD goes over 1000 it goes into decimals for me.-- The preceding signed comment was added by Rocky (talk • contribs). 13:42, 25 October 2007 (CDT)
 * Yes, because it's being displayed in GiB. You should be multiplying the original number in (GiB) by 1024 to get the value to put into the template, though, rather than multiplying by 1000. There are not 1000MiB in a GiB! --DrBob (talk) 16:24, 25 October 2007 (CDT)

Some entries (e.g. Command & Conquer: Generals) stipulate a particular version of Mac OS as the minimum, and the same goes for Windows games that won't run on earlier than Windows 2000 or whatever. Should there be an OS parameter? Since Linux doesn't really have clear version compatibility changes (to my knowledge) I guess this would only require "win" and "mac" parameters. GarrettTalk 01:45, 26 October 2007 (CDT)
 * Yeah, I'll add win, osx and tux parameters (there are version incompatibilities on Linux; most older proprietary Linux games are compiled for older versions of glibc, and won't run properly on Linux installations with newer versions of glibc). Rocky, did you have to go and apply it to every article before it was completely ready? I might not've said so, but by the number of articles you've left with bits of the previous requirements text remaining, I would've thought it would make sense to stop and get the template improved first. :-( Also, when you see a game requiring an "Internet connection", I think it makes sense to look at the game, and just use a net value appropriate to the game type and age. Typically, MMOGs will require broadband (net=256), and older games will require dialup (net=56).
 * In reply to NMH's points on the template's talk page, I don't think it makes sense to add a parameter specifically for web browsers; games requiring a web browser/specific version of a browser are few and far between, and it's just as easily put into the extra parameter. I'm also against adding a sound card parameter, since it should be taken as given that just about all games will require a sound card, and I believe the ones which give special requirements for sound cards will – on the whole – work with any sound card anyway, since it's all done through DirectX or OpenAL. If a game truly does require stupid functionality on a sound card, that too can be put into the extra parameter.
 * Let me make it clear now that I don't want to see any text in infobox's requirements parameter outside of the pcreq template. Such text should either be put into the pcreq template in the proper parameter (or extra if appropriate), or just removed, since the non-concrete system requirements are fluff half of the time. --DrBob (talk) 05:27, 26 October 2007 (CDT)
 * It seems to have messed up with the 60GB hard drive on X-Plane.-- The preceding signed comment was added by Rocky (talk • contribs). 07:33, 27 October 2007 (CDT)
 * Fixed. --DrBob (talk) 17:09, 27 October 2007 (CDT)

MyCheats.com
Has anyone else seen this? http://www.mycheats.com/

It seems like a sexxier GameFaqs. A lot of it is wiki-style, but I guess everything you contribute is automatically copyrighted to the site owner. And it looks like its some subsidiary of 1UP.--ConfusedSoul 22:47, 25 October 2007 (CDT)
 * Yeah, it's been around for a while, and it's owned by 1UP (in turn owned by Ziff Davis). All contributions become Ziff Davis' property ("You hereby grant ... to ZDH and its successors, assigns and licensees ... a fully-paid, royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide right and license..."). Its presentation is confusing. They mix traditional non-editable FAQs in with "Superguides" (their equivalent of our "one game, one guide" concept). They've converted all their official guides to wiki format, but unfortunately they've also included empty guides like this one for every game in their vast database (rather than them being nonexistent until someone starts editing), which makes it fairly difficult to find a Superguide that actually has content. Since they still allow non-editable guides to be uploaded many contributors haven't made the jump yet. GarrettTalk 23:44, 25 October 2007 (CDT)

Community Meeting
Remember, meeting this Saturday at 2 pm EST. I expect you all to be there. -- Prod (Talk) 23:29, 25 October 2007 (CDT)


 * My apologies Prod. I spoke with Echelon the other night, and as it was my responsibility to announce the meeting in a timely manner, and failed to do so, Echelon and I thought it might be easier to move the meeting back one week and give people more time.  This would be a one time exception to the "last Saturday of every month" rule.  Is everyone OK with that?  Or does anyone insist on the meeting being this weekend?  Procyon (Talk) 09:19, 26 October 2007 (CDT)
 * I think it depends on who's available to come and what all do we have to discuss? Apart from a few new templates (which I don't think warrant online discussion beyond what we have here) the only change is the ads.  As there really isn't much to discuss over that (we need the ads, the only real discussion is about placement, which is minor, and longevity, which we can revisit at the next meeting) I think we can have it tomorrow as planned.  Are there any other topics people would like to suggest? -- Prod (Talk) 09:51, 26 October 2007 (CDT)
 * I can't make it there at all tomorrow, so I'd be for postponing it. -- 10:22, 26 October 2007 (CDT)
 * I absolutely won't be able to make it now, I have to head out and run some errands, emergency situation. I will be available next weekend if we all agree to meet then.  Procyon (Talk) 12:50, 27 October 2007 (CDT)
 * So did the meeting happen or was it postponed? I was unavailable all weekend, so I'm a bit out of the loop right now.-- Duke  Ruckley Talk 12:47, 29 October 2007 (CDT)
 * It was postponed until next Saturday. --DrBob (talk) 12:52, 29 October 2007 (CDT)
 * I might not be able to make it then either, depending on how long it lasts (I have to leave 3:30 EST), so how long is this going to take? If it'll take longer than an hour and a half, what topics are being covered so we can arrange to take care of the important ones/ones that I want to input into first? -- 16:45, 29 October 2007 (CDT)
 * Might as well get an Agenda started... Feel free to edit away.  Procyon (Talk) 18:24, 29 October 2007 (CDT)
 * The meeting is underway. Please log on to the IRC if you are available.  Procyon (Talk) 13:14, 3 November 2007 (CDT)

Agenda

 * 1) Advetisements: placement, behavior, how long we keep them, etc.
 * 2) Template management (basically all of the work that DrBob and Prod have been up to)
 * 3) An update about DoubleJump

Titles: Proper versus Asthetic
So, after DB started the project for the castlevania image cleanup, I realized that categories can contain colons in their titles, and then I realized I had created several image categories (with images in them) named without colons. I did this because colons in the title are really annoying in the category titles (category:title: subtitle). Anyways, I know that we should be doing it grammatically, but what do you guys think, should we add that to the cleanup list? -- 04:05, 29 October 2007 (CDT)
 * If any of the categories need changing, let me know and I'll send my bot on it, just give me before and after names. I think we should just stick with the name of the game as it is on the main game page. -- Prod (Talk) 10:46, 29 October 2007 (CDT)

New Image Category?
Hey guys, I just uploaded an image that has no real place in any of the currently available categories: Image:Ijji G Symbol.png. It's used in a template that encompasses many games, and its main affiliation is with NHN; I guess I could place it in Company logos, since it's one of their symbols... Maybe Company Logos + Category:NHN images? -- 05:07, 30 October 2007 (CDT)
 * Category:Artwork would do… --DrBob (talk) 12:19, 30 October 2007 (CDT)