Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Karanacs 23:28, 10 July 2011 [1].

Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri[edit]

Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): JimmyBlackwing (talk) 23:39, 29 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is my first FAC nomination in over two years. The subject is a fairly unknown game by Looking Glass Studios—one whose poorly planned development and massive commercial failure helped put an early end to the company's self-publishing venture. This article is the third regarding this company that I've brought to FAC; I plan to make a habit of it in the coming months. It's passed GAN, it's been thoroughly worked over at peer review (special thanks go to User:Prime Blue for his help) and, in my opinion, it meets the FA criteria. However, as you're the ultimate judge of that, I'll just stop talking now and let the nomination commence. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 23:39, 29 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support with a minor nitpick, "With sales above 100,000 units, Terra Nova was a commercial failure; it did not recoup its development costs." Above 100,000? This reads strangely to me, wouldn't a game that does badly be described as selling below a figure, and how would that figure compare to other more successful games? Other than that I think this a a perfectly good article and deserving of that little star in the top right corner. Coolug (talk) 11:28, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Many thanks. I have considered the strangeness of that wording; however, the source I'm using places sales "above 100,000", and no sources I've found have compared its performance to that of other games. I've tried rephrasing the sentence many times, and this version is, in my opinion, the least terrible. If you have an idea on how to fix the issue, though, I'd love to hear it. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 15:15, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • Maybe just remove the sales figure altogether? Something like"Terra Nova was a commercial failure, and did not sell sufficiently to recoup its development costs", I think if the information in a source is rubbish then there's no obligation to include it and I don't think that the article will lose out too much from missing this, the source is there should any readers want to delve any further into figures. Coolug (talk) 19:13, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • Eh, I'm not sure that's the best course of action. Removing fairly key information just to increase sentence flow isn't really my style. I try to get sales numbers whenever possible, and it's practically a miracle that they exist for this game. Looking again at the source material, it doesn't use the wording I thought it did; it's been months since I last looked at it. Here's a direct quote of the section: "Terra Nova, despite sales in excess of 100,000 units, never earned out." Perhaps I could change the wording to, "Although it sold over 100,000 units, Terra Nova was a commercial failure, and it did not recoup its development costs"? Tell me what you think. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 19:55, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support as peer reviewer. Found two small passages while rereading the development section, though: A release is given for System Shock – "(released in 1994)" – but not for Flight Unlimited. In the direct quote "there was a void to fill and I bubbled up to it", I think the "I" needs to be "[he]". Disregarding those minor qualms, you put a lot of work in the article and I support it as much as I can. Definitely deserves to be a featured article. Prime Blue (talk) 12:36, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks! And I fixed the second concern. As for the date problem, Flight Unlimited's release is mentioned at the beginning of the final sentence in the first paragraph, directly before the sentence in question. I've wondered in the past if this could be made less jarring, but no ideas have come to me. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 15:15, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:23, 31 May 2011 (UTC) [Translations added 13:31, 31 May 2011 (UTC)][reply]

  • WP:MOS edits needed - I noticed issues with quotes (mostly ellipses), maybe other problems [While in the process of checking sources, I noticed some aspects of the article that did not comply with the Manual of Style. In particular I noticed that the ellipses (...) improperly had square brackets, but there may be other problems]
  • Is the game manual paginated? It (and several other print references) need page numbers [Does the game manual have page numbers? If so, you should include those for references to it. Other print (non-web, non-game) references also need page numbers]
  • Ref 7: page formatting [A single page should be notated with "pg." or "p." (pick one consistently), not "pp.", which is used for multiple pages]
  • Ref 8: don't repeat publisher (applies to similar refs) ["Looking Glass Technologies. Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri. (Looking Glass Technologies)." - the repetition of "Looking Glass Technologies" is unnecessary, and should be removed both here and in other refs that repeat it]
  • What makes this a high-quality reliable source?
  • You seem to be using a relatively large number of primary sources - prefer third-party sources
  • In general reference format needs a lot of cleanup for consistency. [In addition to including all required information (publisher, title, etc), the formatting of each reference should be consistent]. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:23, 31 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • As I said above, I haven't nominated an article for FAC in two years. I'm not familiar with a lot of the shorthand you used ("issues with quotes", "paginated", "page formatting", "repeat publisher", for example), having been out of the loop for quite some time. If you or someone else could elaborate on the points you brought up, I'd be grateful. As for that source, it's an interview with the company's co-founder; as far as I know, there are special rules regarding reliability for those. Also, the primary sources are used mainly for the Plot section, which could not adequately be covered by anything else. You've got to understand that I've mined every possible third-party source here; there's not a lot to go on. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 04:55, 31 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Not to come off as snippy, but have to come to Jimmy's defense a bit here. If an editor takes the time to source a plot section with primary sources (which most other users are too lazy to do), I don't think it should be held against him for using too few third-party sources – that is, unless you skimmed through the references and did not notice they were used for the plot section. As for the RPGDot reference: interviews fall under primary sources and are considered reliable by WP:VG unless there is reasonable evidence to doubt the source (e.g. interview looks fake, site is known for spreading misinformation). Prime Blue (talk) 11:45, 31 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • Actually, I did check. Taking into account that interviews and such are considered primary sources, you've got not only Plot but a sizeable portion of Gameplay, parts of Development, and a few sentences of Reception - it's considerable. I've tried to translate some of the points above, but I do still have a question about RPGDot: is it known who the interviewer was? Nikkimaria (talk) 13:31, 31 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • Many thanks for the translation above; I'll get right on those. As for primary sources, that's the case with most video games: quotes from the developers are your only source of Development-related information. Only the biggest games get the kind of formal analysis in which developer quotes are not used. But, even if I wanted to, I could not add any more third-party sources to Development; they don't exist. And removing the developer quote-based material from Development would essentially result in the deletion of the Development section, which is not the optimal turn of events. As for the interviewer, he is listed on the site's staff page; other than that, I don't know. I'll admit that RPGDot isn't exactly the most professional site, but they had a good reputation with the other major underground RPG sites before they went under. The interview obviously isn't fake, at least. And again, removing it would cut a lot of critical information that cannot be replaced; no other sources exist. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 15:11, 31 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
          • I think I've addressed your concerns. The remaining print sources (PR Newsire and Computer Shopper, for instance) were not given author names and/or page numbers by the news directory search engines where I obtained them. If there's anything I missed or screwed up, feel free to point it out. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 16:10, 31 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
          • Better, though there are still some issues with MoS (ex. page ranges should use endashes, not hyphens). I haven't checked MoS issues extensively since my focus was sourcing, but that's something you might want to take a look at. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:21, 2 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support as peer reviewer- A couple of points I've found in this go-round:
  • Do you really need to break apart The Age's review score into 4 parts? Given that none of the other ones are like that, if they didn't use a summary score I'd just drop them from the table; their scores aren't far off of the others.
  • "The game's characters are procedurally animated via physics and..." animated via physics? Maybe animated via a physic model. Same goes for "Physics are also used to simulate weapon recoil" - it just sounds weird to me to refer to a science discipline as if it was a thing.
  • It's fairly typical for developers and game journalists to refer to a game's use of simulated physical models as merely "physics". I don't actually know enough about the concept to tell if that's strange or not, so I'll take your word for it. Changed. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 23:43, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
--PresN 23:29, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I don't understand why this Gamespot link is in the "External Links" section. As well, I have trouble looking at it. I don't know if its a url trouble or something. GamerPro64 21:12, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • That was there before I started working on the article. I never bothered to remove it, and it didn't have enough information to use as a reference, so it's just stayed put. I see that it's completely broken now, though; I've replaced it with an archive link. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 21:25, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No image review, no source check for adherence to sources and close paraphrasing? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:03, 12 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Image specialist needed to look at the resolution/FUR on the screenshot image (the infobox image is fine). Also, the caption of the screenshot image is rather confusing, especially given that at least one of the acronyms is not defined until a couple of paragraphs later. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:09, 14 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The rationale on the image states, "To illustrate the gameplay concepts and interface elements described in the prose, which would likely confuse readers without a visual aid," yet after reading through the section on the gameplay, I find myself understanding the basic elements entirely fine (The article says "the HUD contains three "Multi-Function Displays" (MFDs); these may be configured to display tactical information, such as squad command menus, maps and weapon statistics" which is a pretty good description of the image already), so I actually don't think the screenshot is really necessary. It's beneficial yes, but not required. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 17:08, 15 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm pretty loath to drop the article's sole image of gameplay. Is there some way I could make the image relevant again by strengthening the rationale? I've always been fairly bad at writing them. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 19:33, 15 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Also: readers entirely unfamiliar with video games would probably find the text impenetrable without the screenshot. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 19:35, 15 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've found theft to be a useful skill in this regard; the fair-use rationale for Resident Evil 2 was praised in the nom above, so I copied the language there and modified it to apply to this case. I think it's better now, and I would fully agree that had I not played a game with a HUD like that before I would not really be able to visualize what it looked like without an image. --PresN 21:50, 15 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the help; I appreciate it. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 22:22, 15 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The rationale does read better now, so it meets my satisfaction. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 22:59, 15 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good. Also, Nikkimaria: I tweaked the caption for clarity. Take a look. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 23:04, 15 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think the actual text for the FURs is fine, although I think that you could shrink down File:TerraNovaLandscape.gif a bit more to maybe 480-540 pixels without making the text illegible. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 00:31, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Will do. One question, though: what would the second numbers of those resolutions be? I'm not particularly image-savvy. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 01:14, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A 520px image would have a vertical pixel count of 325; a 480px image would have a pixel count of 300. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 13:19, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Reuploaded the screenshot at 480px. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 21:45, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Spotcheck for accurate representation of sources and close paraphrasing missing. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:53, 19 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • I've been asking on WT:VG for someone to do this, but no bites yet. Sorry it's taking so long. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 20:18, 19 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Paraphrasing check - alright, I don't know where that plagiarism script is so I had to do it all manually, and I now have even more respect for the reviewers that do it a lot than I already did. Spotchecked most of the available sources; no close paraphrasing or misrepresentation of sources found. --PresN 20:42, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments on talk page

Support - Oh, noes! Nothing more to pick on :) Oh well, support, great job! —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 06:45, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ha! Anyway, thanks for the support and thorough review. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 07:18, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You have about 20 citations to a 76-page range of a manual-- how are readers to find the individual pages cited in a range that large?

  • Hart, Dorian; Yaus, Jeff (1996). Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri manual. Looking Glass Technologies. pp. 1–76.

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:59, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • As a general rule, I avoid breaking down print sources into individual page citations. I tried that once, but found it both unhelpful for research and unintuitive for article writing. And, as far as I know, there's no rule that says I have to do it—only one that says citations must be consistent, which is the case here. Anyway, I don't think that most people will feel the need to examine the manual; it contains nothing of interest to the average reader. I used it almost exclusively to cite gameplay information, the credits, and basic plot elements. All of these things are completely uncontroversial, and do not incite readers to "dig deeper", so to speak. I did not originally list a page range on the reference, since it's used from cover to cover, but Nikkimaria asked me to add one. As a result, I cited the manual's full length: 76 pages. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 22:32, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • I was sure print sources were to be cited with appropriate page numbers/locations. After all, how would one find where the supporting material is, even in short sources. On the other hand, I am fine with game manual being cited without page numbers, if it supports non-controversial material, such as plot/gameplay. I would have cited the pages myself, but that's my preference, which I think shouldn't be enforced. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 13:31, 5 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • Well, I was specifically referring to this style of referencing. It's how I would have to cite the various pages of the manual, and a ridiculous amount of them would be required (unless I added some 30+ individual page numbers to the current ref, which isn't much better). I always include page numbers/ranges for non-game manual print sources, though. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 15:29, 7 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • I went ahead and added page numbers to the current ref. They take up an absurd amount of space, even after eliminating those that fall in a direct range. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 14:52, 9 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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