StrategyWiki:Staff lounge

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Welcome to all users! This page is where you can ask StrategyWiki-related questions to the staff and senior community figures, and they will do their best to answer. New issues are entered here, with the most recent at the bottom of the page. If your question does not pertain to editing StrategyWiki (e.g. asking for hints or game-specific information), please ask on the guide's talk page or on the forums.

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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)

Backward compatibility
Currently, there is a consideration to add all platforms that a game is playable on to its infobox. This includes platforms that offer backward compatibility (for example, all PS4 games can be purchased on the PS5's digital storefront, even though those games were not made for the PS5). The question then becomes how to handle this for platforms that offer limited backward compatibility (for example, the original DS and DS Lite models could play all GBA games, but this feature was discontinued with the DSi). Any thoughts? -- Wario Talk 19:01, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I think we should cover this information, but with BC being inconsistent, we would need some kind of clarification. I think the easiest solution is a template like ps5 in the infobox, which links to the  section on the relevant system's page, which can go into how BC is supported on that system. The infobox could look something like this:
 * |systems=PlayStation 2,
 * A related question would be purpose-built backwards compatibility like Super Game Boy, which allows you to play GB games on SNES. I think it supports everything that Game Boy supports, but some games have "special features", like special borders and colour schemes. Would these count as supported systems, or BC? -- Prod (talk) 19:42, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Still hoping to get more feedback on this one. -- Prod (talk) 00:22, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

cade
Please add these to template:cade− CDf, CF, CUf, CU, CUb -BrownDerby (talk) 17:10, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Done. -- Prod (talk) 02:32, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

Episodic games
Should we merge these episodic video games into one guide? Potentially not even having separate main pages. They all have the same gameplay, and could be treated more like the games, even though they were separate "releases". Half-Life 2 also had episodic releases, and maybe the episodes should be split off to a separate guide, but it seems to work OK as-is.
 * Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People - Episode 1: Homestar Ruiner (and the other episodes)
 * Sam & Max Save the World
 * On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode One (and the other episodes)

There's apparently lots of episodic games that we may cover, so there are a lot more instances of this that we would need to address in the future. -- Prod (talk) 00:18, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I'll vote for combining them. We have pages for some episodic games that are already combined anyway (The Wolf Among Us, Resident Evil: Revelations 2, etc.), so might as well be consistent. -- Wario Talk 04:09, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People and Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse are merged. The remaining Sam & Max guides will take a lot more time. The Penny Arcade games are much more complex, and the developer changed between ep2 and 3, so may need to keep them separate... -- Prod (talk) 22:45, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

On a related note, we should probably have an genre. -- Prod (talk) 22:45, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
 * The category has now been set up and populated. All episodic guides have been merged except for Penny Arcade Adventures. -- Prod (talk) 01:43, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

Main page reorg
Continuing the discussion from May, a number of guides have been migrated to the new format. I'll be implementing the re-organized inboxes later this month, and then look into setting up a bot to do a migration of the simpler guides to the new format. Any feedback on the changes so far would be appreciated. -- Prod (talk) 00:37, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Complete versions
One point I'm not sure the best way to handle is "complete editions", where the game is bundled with it's expansions. Having a separate main page seems unnecessary, even though we classify it as a compilation. Looking at the number of "complete versions" for Neverwinter Nights (2002) suggests doing this would be a lot of bloat. I'm thinking these types of bundles should just go on the main game page as sub-releases. -- Prod (talk) 01:01, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Reassess needcat, needinfobox, needimage and needimages
As my bot is going through all the main guide pages, it's removing these templates. It's adding categories for whatever listed in the infobox, and Game automatically adds pages to /, so the templates become somewhat redundant after processing by the bot. needinfobox should be re-added to pages where there's a belief of new versions that need to be listed in the infobox; the image templates can be used on pages which require non-infobox images. I'm tempted to say needcat is completely useless. -- Prod (talk) 21:08, 11 November 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

Infobox
For title1/2/etc I think it would be better to show the systems by default and have the year collapsed.

Also there should be a template like sys where I can just do "|systems= " and it'll say "Systems: Arcade, Sega Genesis, Game Boy" and it'll have the categories and I won't have to type everything twice. -BrownDerby (talk) 15:05, 4 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I showed the systems, but I feel the year is one of the most important parts, to help understand when the game came out. Second one is an interesting idea, and it would ease categorization. Maybe syslist? -- Prod (talk) 18:16, 4 October 2021 (UTC)
 * syslist sounds fine. -BrownDerby (talk) 20:10, 4 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Template created. Now I need to update my bot to handle it... -- Prod (talk) 01:07, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Nintendo 64 button images
I think we need a new set of face button images for the Nintendo 64. The current ones look like photos of the face buttons. The problem is, they have the letters and arrows engraved on them rather than printed, so they're not very visually distinct. The C-buttons just look like four yellow circles with the triangles only shown by a thin, faint border, so it's hard to visually distinguish them from each other. It would really improve readability if we replaced the A, B, C, and Start buttons with an illustrated version that had a black border, the A, B, and Start with white letters, and the C-buttons showing filled black triangles. Wanderer (talk) 23:02, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
 * (Link to images in question) Trig - 23:18, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Some of the Nintendo 64 manuals available on Nintendo UK site might help for getting some easier to read images. Particularly the Zelda ones as they are in full color. flagrama (talk) 03:30, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

Strategy RPG
AKA "Tactical RPG", should these have their own category? Like Disgaea, Final Fantasy Tactics, Fire Emblem, Ogre Battle, Shining Force, etc. -BrownDerby (talk) 18:45, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Our whole categorization is lacking a lot of necessary genres. Wikipedia does call it Tactical RPG so that's probably a reasonable category to set up. Here's a previous discussion on the topic: Staff_lounge/2014/June. -- Prod (talk) 19:16, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

syscat
Please add these: -BrownDerby (talk) 19:15, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
 * fm7 = Fujitsu FM-7
 * pc6001 = NEC PC-6001
 * pc8001 = NEC PC-8001
 * mz = Sharp MZ
 * scv = Epoch Super Cassette Vision
 * Done. -- Prod (talk) 23:21, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Also sg1000 = Sega SG-1000 -BrownDerby (talk) 06:50, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Done. -- Prod (talk) 20:13, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Please add m5 (Sord M5) and arcadia (Emerson Arcadia) -BrownDerby (talk) 18:30, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Done. -- Prod (talk) 04:31, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Cloud Gaming
Should we treat the various cloud gaming platforms as systems, or distributors (excluded)? For example Stadia, Xbox Cloud Gaming, PlayStation Now, GeForce Now and Amazon Luna. I'm tempted to treat them like distributors since they already have lists of all their supported games, which can regularly appear/disappear, so we'd always be outdated. -- Prod (talk) 03:31, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

colist
I've created colist to match syslist. Generally, the |developer parameter only has 1 entry but saves the trouble of categorizing separately. The publisher entry often has multiple publishers per version. What are your thoughts? I've implemented it on a few pages as a demo. -- Prod (talk) 18:25, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Maybe also make a modelist where you could just do like sp|mp -BrownDerby (talk) 20:30, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I'd be a bit hesitant on this one. Our genres system is a mess. We're missing many required genres and some have inconsistent/sub-optimal names (RTS vs. Turn-based strategy). As the common case is only one genre, it might be better to have a template more like co instead of a list template. I'm still not sure if colist or simplifying co is a better idea. -- Prod (talk) 20:59, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

~ removed
Following up on discussions in 2015 and 2016, all instances of ~ have been migrated to s or. -- Prod (talk) 19:41, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Rename please?
Could someone with admin powers please rename me to SupremeUmanu? I’m using that handle everywhere except here. Thanks! Wjk (talk) 20:44, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Done. -- Prod (talk) 20:55, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

Ratings
Please update (.png to .svg) Template:ESRB, Template:GRB, Template:PEGI, and Template:USK. Thanks. -BrownDerby (talk) 23:10, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Done. -- Prod (talk) 17:37, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

EarthBound
Do you think EarthBound should be a stage 5 wiki? It seems to meet most of the requirements to be one - That  Funky   Demon Pikachu  12:35, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
 * You can send it through the Featured guides process if you feel it's ready. -- Prod (talk) 16:51, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

Private videos
Hello!

I noticed the videos on Braid/Stars have been made private. Should they be commented out, replaced with an equivalent (If available), or left alone?

Thank you for your time! --Mbrickn (talk) 05:58, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Commented out. Hopefully one of our users will upload some new videos that can be used for demonstration. -- Prod (talk) 19:37, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Category:Guide-specific images
The term "images" is fairly limited, as we often store all kinds of files for some games. Including videos, text, and potentially even xml files. I've created Files to standardize the contents of the sub-categories, but I feel we should update the name at the same time. Should we switch to the term "Media" or "Files". For example: Perhaps even remove the "-specific" term and simplify to Category:Guide files. MediaWiki has both Media and File namespaces. -- Prod (talk) 20:03, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Category:Diablo images -> Category:Diablo files or Category:Diablo media
 * Category:Guide-specific images -> Category:Guide-specific files or Category:Guide-specific media.
 * Files. Media generally both through mediawiki and also as a general statement generally implies audiovisual content while Files implies a broader range of all file types. I would move to Files by guide, personally, if not Guide files. It could be contrasted to a files by type or files by license organization, in a more consistent way. Trig - 06:20, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Interesting idea. Base category would be Category:Files by guide, with the sub-category being Category:Diablo files. -- Prod (talk) 01:00, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm in favor of losing "specific." Maybe it's just the way I've been using the site all these years, but what files do we host on this site other than images?  I haven't seen videos, text, or XML files uploaded to the site.  Perhaps I missed it?  Are there examples of such files?  How do we integrate anything other than images into guides?  I know for videos, people use the YouTube template.  I'm not clear on what problem this solves.   Pro  cyon  00:45, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Special:MediaStatistics gives full details, but we also have text and xml files. I'm hoping in the future we can upload data files and have mw:Extension:External Data fill in templates with the data. -- Prod (talk) 00:56, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I believe there are a few Mario and Luigi series videos on the site, and I have seen a good number of txt files both for the site as a whole and for supporting a few games. While I personally would prefer we steer away from txt and xml, I think there is a large case to make for video or even possibly audio files being uploaded to the site (video puzzle solutions, tough segments, audio cues, audio for musical challenges like zelda instruments or music games). Animated GIFs/animated files (apng rise up) as a whole is also a gray area of is it an image or what is it. It might not be the most pressing of issues, but I think it could be made a little more consistent with other forms of organization. Trig - 06:13, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

short review
Dear Staff lounge, how do I write a short review to post on Strategy, I need step by step instructions from the Main page, hope you can help as I'm new to this thanks Robert.
 * Responded on Rabtherave's user talk page, but in short, we don't offer video game reviews on this site.  Pro cyon  17:50, 20 July 2022 (UTC)