Talk:Final Fantasy VII

And so it begins.
So, now there's a Final Fantasy VII Wikibook and it actually has some content in it now, too. How... amazing. The thought of starting one had occurred to me quite a few times while playing the game, mostly while consulting GameFAQs - a lot of completely redundant work there and all under same "rip this off and I'll eat you for breakfast" license. I saw the FF6 work, and thought that starting a FF7 one might really work. So, now I just hope this thing gets even close to done. Slowly, but surely.

Erm, I don't have too much other words of exhortation, so here it goes. Go forth, edit, and ramble. --Wwwwolf 00:23, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Random Notes for the Wise Gamers
Here's some random details:


 * Use the character names as they're given in Wikipedia. That is, Aeris is apparently now officially, permanently, irrevocably "Aerith Gainsborough".
 * Walkthroughs should preferrably split into "boss-size" chunks. That is, one major boss-fight per page. Or, if there's no boss nearby, at least "hour or two of headless wandering". For examples, from meeting Aerith to getting dumped to the sewers from Corneo's mansion would be a "hour or two of headless wandering" (though it does have a boss in the end); from sewers to the fall of Sector 7 would constitute as a normal boss-size chunk: Wandering and instructions for so can be crunched into a reasonably-sized reading, and it contains exactly one major boss-fight (Reno).
 * Walkthrough modules are named "FF7: Walkthrough: Some title here, please". Non-walkthrough modules, or optional/in-depth subquest modules, should be "FF7: Some title here, please".
 * At this preliminary stage, there should be no need to make an unified walkthroug section-to-section navigation bar or anything. However, it would be neat if the articles would simply link back to the Final Fantasy VII article in the beginning. Just put a paragraph saying  to the beginning of the article. Remember, it can always be fixed later =)
 * I worry that going from Boss fight to boss fight will break the walkthrough into arbitrary sizes. some "stages" in the game have more then one boss fight, and some "stages" in the game may have no bossfights at all. it should all be about completion of an objective. For instance, blowing the first mako reactor is a mission that isnt really over till you get back to Barret's house, even though the boss is dead. I think it should be possible to break up the story into logical stages --Whiteknight 17:57, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Yep, wholeheartedly agreed. Didn't mean to say that the above was supposed to be a really hard, binding rule. So if it's better to break the story up into other kinds of sections, and it seems logical, by all means, go for it. --Wwwwolf 00:08, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Once again, happy editing. --Wwwwolf 20:06, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Damn, Mediawiki is smarter than I am. I actually read the instructions now. =) So, replace that last thing with this:


 * Walkthrough modules should be named "Final Fantasy VII/Walkthrough/Some title here". Non-walkthrough modules should be named "Final Fantasy VII/Something or other" - and they can be also subclassified as needed (for example, materia articles will be in "Final Fantasy VII/Materia/(Type) materia".
 * And there's no need to make ToCs or backlinks to the main article, the server does all that stuff already automatically.

This wiki stuff is cool. --Wwwwolf 22:30, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Article naming
Please observe the article naming. The modules should be named thus:

Don't include the quotes in the title, and replace the italicised things with your own, of course. Edit this table if you really think there should be another type of thing.

Also remember to link the article properly in the table of contents, for example, Article title.

And if the article is on the table of contents and it doesn't exist yet, and you want to change the title before actually creating the article, remember to change both parts - the article title in link and the displayed title!

List of currently available templates

 * Template:Final Fantasy VII/Boss - for boss statistics and strategy
 * Template:Final Fantasy VII/Summon Materia - for Summon Materia statistics and ability descriptions.
 * Template:Final Fantasy VII/Recommended Level - for showing recommended average party level.
 * Template:Final Fantasy VII/Walkthrough Navigation (nee Disc 1 Navigation) - Walkthrough navigation, to be placed to the bottom of each walkthrough module.
 * Template:Final Fantasy VII/Character Navigation - Navigation for the character articles

Templates to come and other ideas (add if you want):


 * Some other navigation templates?

"Preface" and "Appendices"?
I think I'll some day move "Appendices" (Eg "Final Fantasy VII/Appendices/Foo") to normal namespace ("Final Fantasy VII/Foo"), as recommended above. Some reasons:


 * 1) The "appendices" here contain information that is referenced to often in walkthrough. Links become mouthfuls.
 * 2) This is an electronic book that has the linear content (walkthrough, etc) and supplementary material (Other Stuff). Let's not think of it as a bound book. Don't think of it as an appendix, but as a margin or a footnote area that's as wide as eye can see!
 * 3) Adding "Appendices" doesn't add any useful semantic information, just structural stuff that's fairly useless in an electronic book. It should identify a tangible group of modules (like "Walkthrough" or something), rather than a vague group of texts that just hangs somewhere.

I'm too lazy to move the chapters right now though, but I recommend against creating new chapters as "Appendices", and just use the above-mentioned scheme for independent texts.

story section
I think that this guide should have a separate "storyline" section. that way, we can separate out some of the mechanics from the "spoilers." in the end, we could have a "Bringing it all together" section (or something similar) to boil down the story (Cloud's true history with Sephiroth, Jenova's true history, etc...). we could also include appendices for cameo appearances, strange points, glitches, and continued themes from other final fantasy games. --Whiteknight 17:52, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Good idea. The way I'm writing things is that the walkthrough itself is probably pretty mechanical, a la "kill the boss and watch a ten-minute cutscene". I'm not good at writing plot synopses, but if someone's into writing plot descriptions and analysis, that can, by all means, be included. --Wwwwolf 00:08, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Right, I added some of these things to the main ToC. I should also say that I wholeheartedly agree there should be a section something like Hacki's Ultima Nitpicks - I love Hacki's page and think it would work far better in wiki format =) --Wwwwolf 19:11, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Copyright patrolling & begging for help
Someone posted someone else's walkthrough at Final Fantasy VIII. Bang. Copyvio folks were a-hounding.

Walkthrough authors are obviously easily annoyed because it takes a lot of effort to write this stuff. Just look at any walkthrough you find in the net: "don't post this to (these million plus one sites) because they tried to rip me off by using it without my permission, grr".

I don't want copyvio sort of stuff to happen here. I'm not asking for really, really strict scrutiny of everything before it gets posted, but please, keep your eyes open. My heart skips a beat if I see a huge contribution by an anonymous user; I spent a while googling before my heart stopped doing weird noises. (Create an account and you might be able to sneak something under my radar... =)

But also, if you do know of a walkthrough that might be useful and the author doesn't mind, please do ask nicely before appropriating such content. --Wwwwolf 14:42, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Restructuring
I think that the current structure of this Wikibook is really flawed. Things are scattered around and not grouped consistently. Particularly, the "Time-wasting" section seems obselete as Chocobo breeding yields KOTR and other rare materia, and the battle square is the only way to get the Ominslash manual and the W-Summon materia.

I propose splitting the book into three sections:

Preface

 * Introduction to book, aims, etc.
 * Game information
 * Character profiles
 * Cloud
 * Barret
 * Story Synopsis/Timeline
 * Before the game
 * The Cetra
 * Rise of Shinra
 * Cloud's Past
 * Hojo/Gast/Sephiroth
 * Nibelhiem Incident
 * During the game
 * After the game
 * On the Way to a Smile
 * Advent Children
 * Advent Children

Walkthrough

 * Disc One
 * Disc Two
 * Disc Three
 * Disc Three
 * Disc Three

Appendices

 * Materia
 * Magic
 * Summon
 * Command
 * Independent
 * Support
 * Item Locations
 * Weapons
 * Armour
 * Accessories
 * Items
 * Enemy Skill
 * Chocobos
 * The Golden Saucer
 * etc, etc

I don't know how active this Wikibook is. I intend to help as much as I can.


 * Oh, the wikibook is "active" all right. It's just that I guess nobody else besides me thinks this is their "current project" or anything. Looks like I'm the only one who currently seems to write the walkthrough (I promise to do all of the stuff, but everyone's free to add stuff, of course). Not many people work on this yet, and since this thing is pretty new, there's not much stuff yet. =)
 * And apologies for the "time-wasting" thing. I'm definitely not the best one to come up with names. =) I think I'll split the contents somewhat like what's suggested, it seems fairly logical to me. --Wwwwolf 14:02, 26 September 2005 (UTC)


 * No problem. The new structure looks nice. I'll try to work mostly on some statistics, story, etc. --Joey Roe 15:26, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

CD 1 walkthrough is complete
(Movie trailer voiceover guy voice) It began as the greatest pseudointellectual adventure of all time... (cur) (last) 19:55, 18 August 2005 Wwwwolf (Created. And this is very very sparse.) ...and now, the the world is in brink of a new enlightenment... (cur) (last) 18:20, 2 December 2005 Wwwwolf (Created. And that concludes CD 1 walkthrough!)

Yay! All of the chapters of the CD 1 walkthrough are now in place!

Yet, it's not perfect. So, if there's anyone out there who knows something about something, here's the stuff to do. Many of the chapters are listed on the index as having 75% completion. Check those out. There's items in the text marked as "todo". It would be great to fill those in.

Also, the chapters could use puffing up here and there, as there's probably corners that I haven't searched too closely, and some placements of items aren't well-described at all. So I definitely encourage people to get a closer look at those. I will keep writing more of the walkthrough as I go along. Sorry to keep everyone waiting though - my excuse is that Demon Gate ticks me off, infinitely. --Wwwwolf 18:39, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

You should really have a link to the next chapter in each section
For someone just reading through the walkthrough and trying to use it, they want to be able to take a given chapter and go to the next one easily. I'd recommend doing something like the FF6 guide did and have a link to the next chapter during each section, or maybe even a chapter template at the bottom so you can skip to any part.--BigCow 18:32, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Yep, a good idea, and yes, it has crossed my mind. =) I'll definitely add them (at least for the CD1 chapters) soonish. --Wwwwolf 02:25, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Okay, done adding the stuff on Disc 1... I think we can let Disc 2 wait until the chapters for that are done. --Wwwwolf 02:58, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Another re-organization idea-Gold Saucer section
Would it be worth having a section just talking about the Gold Saucer? Things like the battle square and so on could be nested inside or as sub-articles, and it would provide a way to cover things like Chocobo racing, the speed game, the wonder square, and the fact that you can buy GP from the guy outside the tram sometimes in one place rather than having to split the information up into a bunch of separate articles. It just seems to make more sense, it's one of the things I would look for anyway.--BigCow 06:37, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I think it'd be a good idea. I think I'll move the Battle Square article to Minigames/Gold Saucer or something, and then there'd plenty of space to put all other minigames there. I don't think the Battle Square article is getting much bigger than it is, and it'd still be a very reasonable sized article with twice the length (I'm guessing that's about as long as it'd get with all of the other GS minigames). --Wwwwolf 16:00, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Awesome. I've started filling it in. Just so you know, I'd be happy to fill in the "events during the game" section as well, I've started writing up a little story summary which just gives the outline of the plot.--BigCow 16:44, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
 * That would be great. I'll be finishing the rest of the CD2 walkthrough shortly (sorry, a few days delay at most), and after that, I'll definitely finish the CD2 walkthrough, probably not go into terrifying detail what comes to the Northern Crater - though I'll definitely cover some of the end bosses... --Wwwwolf 22:59, 27 December 2005 (UTC)