StrategyWiki:Staff lounge/2021/September

Mega Man ZX
Mega Man ZX has always been considered its own series, not part of the Mega Man Zero series. It may have some similar gameplay mechanics and a similar art style, but it has a different setting, time period, premise, and cast of characters. It's intended as a spinoff series. The fact that the two series got a shared collection doesn't make them the same series. The Mega Man ZX games should be split back into their own series.Wanderer (talk) 06:48, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Having too many categories makes it more difficult for users to navigate around and find the specific series/category they're looking for. I don't remember where it's documented, but the two main rules are that we avoid deep nesting of series ( -> ->  -> ), and a child series should have at least 3 games before it can have a series cat/template on its own. I'm open to suggestions on a better organization, but ZX having only 2 games makes it a pretty "minor" series. One possibility would be putting X/Zero/ZX all in one category, but I'm not sure if that would be overloading it. @ also worked on filling in some of the category pages, so maybe you have some input as well? -- Prod (talk) 23:43, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Bayonetta has only two games and we don't count it as part of the Devil May Cry series. Wanderer (talk) 08:05, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Different developers/publishers, and it's unclear if their stories are in the same universe. WP also says there's a 3rd game coming out soon. They have a lot of similarities due to shared director (designer?), but they still seem to fall under separate series. -- Prod (talk) 17:16, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Prod, but I also have another reason. If you only have two related games, the "preceded by"/"followed by" cells in the infobox are all you need to display all (both) the related games, and a series template becomes redundant. --Abacos (talk) 20:51, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

I think ZX should be listed as part of the overall Mega Man series until it meets the requirements to be its own sub-series. I'm more likely to go to the Mega Man series to try to find links to X, Zero, and ZX than I am to go to the Zero series to find ZX. This seems like an example of the deep nesting you don't want. To display it in the series TOC I'd probably add a ZX or Spinoffs (ZX) section above Sub-series and list both games. -- flagrama (talk) 02:44, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Now that there's a compilation, there's a easier justification for it having its own series page. You're correct that it isn't really a subseries of the zero series, it's a continuation. I've split it off and migrated everything to the new layout. Please take a look to see if anything still needs to be fixed. -- Prod (talk) 00:26, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Category sorting
With the new Game structure, I'm preparing a bot to migrate all the pages to the new format. At the same time, my bot will update all the categories to make sure none are missing. I'd like to propose we have a policy for the order that (manually added) categories at the end of the main guide pages should be sorted in. Alphabetical is the easiest, but doesn't really have any benefits. Does anyone have other suggested sorting orders that wouldn't be too complicated for editors to follow? -- Prod (talk) 23:49, 21 September 2021 (UTC)


 * I do not see any reason to have an order for categories. I do not think it truly matters that much. Most pages have no more than four--easily readable on their own, and those with more categories may take only a few seconds if that to identify a category. Corrections to the order would just end up being needless edits, especially if the terms are too subjective. There's no real advantage to alphabetizing categories that I can think of. Trig - 00:21, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * As my bot works through the pages, with a non-deterministic order, it'll potentially randomize the categories every time, potentially without other changes. We don't have to have a "policy" order, but we could have a "suggested" order. There's actually only a few sets of categories that we manually add:, , , , and a few other niche categories like and . The rest are automatically added by templates and can't be "sorted". -- Prod (talk) 01:08, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I'll be following the same order as Game for the main categories: developers, publishers, systems, genres, modes. Any one-off categories beyond that (achievements) will go at the end. There is still possibility for churn with this ordering (within each section) but hopefully it's not a lot. -- Prod (talk) 18:10, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I agree with Trig here, I feel like alphabetizing the categories is kind of arbitrary, and it will quickly fall out of order after you're done and other users edit after you. I like the idea of trying to follow the template, but in the end, I care less about how the categories appear on a page, and more about whether they're correct.  Pro  cyon  04:45, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Category:Games for Windows
Has this category outlived it's usefulness? PCGW probably covers this information as well. Is there value in keeping it? It was just branding at the time, and doesn't really suggest anything about the game. -- Prod (talk) 16:32, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I would agree, as a brand, it's no longer supported. Really Steam made this category irrelevant.   Pro  cyon  04:45, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Template For SSBU Movesets
Can I put a template for SSBU movesets here? Just in case anyone wants to do it while I'm working on UNDERTALE. That Funky Demon Pikachu  15:19, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Create a subpage of your user page, and save it there. Also, your user talk link in your signature is wrong. -- Prod (talk) 16:00, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Ok, I'll do that. I was just asking in case someone was gonna work on SSBU That Funky Demon Pikachu