Talk:Telengard/GA2

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: Indrian (talk · contribs) 17:49, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Nice to see a lesser known blast from the past get a little love on Wikipedia. I will be happy to evaluate this one. Detailed comments to follow shortly. Indrian (talk) 17:49, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

@Indrian, excellent. Looking forward to your review. czar ♔ 01:13, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

@CzarSorry it took so long for me to return to this; things got crazy at work last week. Anyway, there are only a few small things to address, so we should have this in order pretty quickly.

Lead

 Done Right now, the lead does not really summarize the "reception" part of "Reception and Legacy."

Gameplay

•  Done I do not believe the term "player character" is a hyphenate. Also, it looks like the second instance of the term is linked rather than the first.
•  Done The lead and the development section indicate the initial platform was the PET, but the gamplay section refers to the initial version as being on the Apple II. I believe the point you are trying to get across is that all the early versions used character-based graphics, but the wording does not convey that concept properly.
•  Done As written, the article could be interpreted to state that the attributes the player receives are random rather than the number of points in each attribute (so, some players get wisdom while others get charisma rather than some get a 7 in wisdom and some get a 16). It could be confusing for someone who does not know the D&D system. Also, I do not think the effects of the attributes should be relegated to a footnote. Best to just do a paragraph entirely on the attributes.
•  Done Continuing with the above, I think a slight reorganization is in order for this section. I would take the monster difficulty and permadeath info out of the first paragraph, which would then be just about the basic game world, the graphics, and the sound. Then paragraph two as above discussing the attributes with the info moved out of the footnote. Then paragraph three can include the combat, spell, treasure, monster, and coding info currently found in paragraph two along with the monster difficulty and permadeath info from paragraph one. This would keep like information together and lead to less jumping around within paragraphs.
• Speaking of coding info, perhaps one or two examples are in order.

Development

•  Done All the dev info looks fine, but I would be careful about some of the influence info. Lawrence himself is not a reliable source for whom he influenced since he does not have first-hand knowledge. Indeed, Apshai was released in 1979 and while it is theoretically possible that Connelley or Freeman saw the PDP-10 version, this has never been indicated. Wizardry, meanwhile, was clearly inspired by the 3D dungeon crawls on PLATO (particularly Oubliette from which it even borrowed many spell names).
• In the same vein, Barton's contention that the game was inspired by the Whisenhunt and Wood dnd game is also unlikely. There is no indication that Lawrence was ever working with the PLATO system (I don't know if Purdue even had a PLATO terminal), and of course he denies seeing the game. I think Barton's claim comes from an old belief that dnd and DND were actually the same game or variations of the same game due to the names when in fact we now know they were distinct products.
  • I was looking into this some more, and it appears that back in 2008, this article was edited to claim that Lawrence saw the game at the PLATO lab in Purdue and also during a visit to the University of Illinois and therefore based his game on the original. None of it was sourced to verifiable sources, however. So it might be okay to leave the Barton claim and the Lawrence denial in there. Indrian (talk) 19:11, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Reception

 Done "Some of the game's dungeon features, such as altars, fountains, teleportation cubes, and thrones, were adopted by later games such as Tunnels of Doom, and 1982's Sword of Fargoal had similar features to Telengard." No need for this to be a compound sentence. It would probably be better to split them and expand the Fargoal sentence with an example or two of features.

And that's it. There really is not that much work needed -- it basically comes down to reorganizing one section and reevaluating some info in another -- so it should not take too long to whip it into shape. Therefore, I will place the nomination  On hold as we work things out. Indrian (talk) 15:14, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Many thanks for the review! Czar may dig in sooner, but it may be this coming weekend before I can make the fixes. Airborne84 (talk) 18:02, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

You're welcome :) I did not realize this was a joint nom (the templates don't really account for that), or I would have pinged you too. I am in no rush, so take as much time as you need. The templates say seven days, but as long as the nominator and reviewer are in agreement the review can go longer. Indrian (talk) 18:21, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

• @Indrian, thanks for the review. I think I got everything. Some responses: The article didn't expand on specific similarities with Sword of Fargoal so I left it as is. And I didn't use Lawrence as a RS for whom he influenced—I phrased it as his own thoughts as a self-published source. I prefer to hyphenate player-character even though I know the standard is to leave them separate. I find that the unhyphenated phrase trips me up and I think of it as a compound noun anyway. IAR? I changed it to your preference. I don't have examples of the coding from RS without OR, and I don't think the reorganization (or stats paragraph) is necessary unless you absolutely insist. Let me know what you think? czar ♔ 22:24, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

@Indrian, ping czar ♔ 16:25, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

@Czar:So sorry. The last two weeks at work have been spectacularly crazy, but now that life is back to normal, I am returning to my other projects in earnest. Your changes have satisfied most of my concerns, and I also just made a couple of tweaks myself as well. I still have two concerns, however, one minor and one major. First, I am still a little uncomfortable at the amount of information you have placed into footnotes. I do not know that there is a policy against it or anything, but in an article this short, it sure feels like if its important enough to include in the article at all, the info can be included in the body. That said, recent FA Grand Theft Auto V includes lots of notes, so if you think keeping that info in a notes section is the right call, I will defer to your judgement.

I cannot pass this article in good conscience, however, with the info from Lawrence himself on the influence of his game. This info does not meet the criteria required for an SPS, as Lawrence is not "an established expert on the subject matter." Being a game creator does not automatically make him a game historian. Lawrence is also not serving as a "Self-published or questionable source as a source on himself" because he is making claims about third parties, i.e. that his game was an influence on the work of others. Simply put, Dan Lawrence is not a reliable source on the influence of his game, that is a question for historians and the other game creators themselves.

Once these final points are resolved, I will be happy to pass this article. Indrian (talk) 17:20, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

No sweat on the delay. I'll look into your other points, but to be clear, you're talking about

Lawrence wrote that his Telengard "predated" early computer role-playing games including Temple of Apshai and Wizardry and that he felt that his game inspired those that followed.

yes? This isn't a claim about the influence of his game (i.e., "Telengard inspired X") but a comment on how the developer saw the legacy of his game. Anyone reading it will not take him as an expert in influence but see that the developer thought highly of his legacy. I could just kill the sentence—I'm not wedded to it—but I think it would be interesting to note how the developer saw the legacy of his own game. I put it this way because I thought it was best. czar ♔ 17:28, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

I would think almost everyone thinks highly of their own legacy; we humans do tend to be self-centered after all. It's not Lawrence's place, however, to articulate that legacy; that's what we have critics and historians for. I understand why you find his claim interesting, but it is just not encyclopedic absent independent notability (like, for example, Al Gore's claims relating to the Internet that spawned so much controversy). Indrian (talk) 17:38, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

@Indrian, it was less that it was surprising and more registering his stake in the underreported ancient history of computer games (and because Barton later says it's hard for an unreleased game to influence released games. Anyway, it's gone. And I merged some of the notes, where I felt it was workable. (I prefer to relegate peripheral information to the footnotes, but I could see where some of those perhaps peripheral things would be helpful to have in the body.) Let me know what you think? czar ♔ 17:09, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

@Czar:@Airborne84:Well that review took longer than I had planned, but I do think it was relatively painless. Apologies for my contributions to the delays. Anyway, after the latest changes and a light copyedit by yours truly, I believe this article is ready for promotion. Well done! Indrian (talk) 18:12, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! Airborne84 (talk) 18:48, 1 October 2014 (UTC)