Talk:Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Czar (talk · contribs) 12:53, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

I'll get to this latest by this weekend czar ♔ 12:53, 2 September 2014 (UTC) GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

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Please respond below my signature so as to leave the original review uninterrupted.

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose is "clear and concise", without copyvios, or spelling and grammar errors:

   multiple clarity issues noted

   B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. Has an appropriate reference section:

   mostly okay but some unreliable sources cited

   B. Citation to reliable sources where necessary:

   some MINREF issues noted

   C. No original research:

   several aggregate claims about reviewers aren't coming from a metareview and at the very least aren't directly cited to the sources whence the claim originates

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   B. Focused:

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   some files need to be reduced in size

   B. Images are provided if possible and are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

   I think these issues are surmountable. Good work

• Lede looks good and complete at first read
• Link jargon in Gameplay, e.g., RPG, character, attribute points, specific attributes, skills/powers, stealth, hub/level, artificial intelligence, etc. (the more links, the clearer for unfamiliar readers)
• Optional: clarify "three available areas" as skill trees or some other idea because it's hard to understand the paragraph you're setting up, whatever you choose should be used every time (e.g., "three areas" → "three available areas")
• feats section is unclear—why would you have success or failure in using firearms, brawling, etc.?
• The explanations are generally good, but some sentences should be recast for clarity, such as "During character creation each upgrade costs one point, with their cost increasing when the game begins." perhaps as "The cost of upgrading an available area increases with the duration of the game." Not sure if that's right, but there you go
• Perhaps give this section a copyedit for clarity? I don't think it's a big deal, but it would make me feel better. I'm holding myself back from tweaking it myself

• The attributes talk is dry without knowing what the attributes are for. Might be worth either putting the synopsis before the gameplay or actually incorporating more of the objectives and setting of the game into the gameplay section. It would be good to not have to introduce the clans twice.

• Plot looks okay, though it wouldn't hurt to simplify it one or two levels. Is the player-character the fledgling?

• The article could use a GOCE copyedit. Here are a few to rephrase: "but that October Valve experienced", "highlight their madness, without", "by some of the game's fans This resulted in two patch" (also needs citation), "GameSpot and GameSpy called the dialog was sharply written", "vulgar language worked; written as real people, such language"

I see now that the article was recently copyedited... so I'm not sure what to say. I still think it needs further work.

• "it was considered appropriate to allow the player to belong to one of its clans (simplifying the plot)" → "the team simplified the plot by letting the player belong to one of the LA clans" etc.
• No "spring" (Avoid "seasons")
• Why is Damsel mentioned? She isn't mentioned elsewhere
• Time of Judgment is italicized
• I'm noticing a lot of missing commas, e.g., "During character creation the game had an optional"
• and unnecessary hyphenations, e.g., "more-stable", "superbly-crafted", "nearly-flawless", "single-character", "well-written"
• "melee-on-range" ranged?
• parallelism: "one focused on disciplines" → "discipline-focused character"
• Dev section becomes a bit of a slog towards the end of design. Outside GAN scope, but something to keep in mind for 1a professional brilliance later
• WPVG consensus is to only include tracklists when the soundtrack has some notability of its own
• Consider converting the many parentheticals into notes with {{notelist}} since they become distracting
• Consider for the future actually citing to the individual pages of a review (that are compacted into megafootnotes here), since that aids in verifiability. Imagine me trying to track down a fact on three different pages now?
• "The game has been called a flawed masterpiece." I think this is a bold enough claim to warrant direct citations
• Titles of press outlets are italicized per WP:ITALICS: "Online magazines, newspapers, and news sites with original content should generally be italicized". Also the ones that can be linked should be on their first usage
• "wonderfully imaginative missions": direct quotes need direct refs per WP:MINREF. I think this is the only one in the whole article that was missing one. Nevermind, also RPS in the last ¶
• Eurogamer/EuroGamer: pick one
• Consider wrapping the sales section into the first ¶ of Reception—that's where most editors put it. The section is small on its own.
• "This was considered a poor performance" by whom?

• Images need to be reduced in size (length times width less than 100,000 pixels). Why does it mention 400px? (That isn't in the guideline)
• Unreliable or possibly unreliable sources: Game-OST, OVGuide (user-contributed?), What Culture (user-contributed), GameBanshee. I'm also not so hot on those interview blog sites, but hey.
• Some things to consider: varying sentence structure to use less "comma gerund" constructions (e.g., "structure, allowing" or "every skill (allowing") and to use "that" instead of "which" (which usually comes after a comma)

On hold for a week, more comments in template up top czar ♔ 23:08, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Comments

• Lede looks good and complete at first read
• Link jargon in Gameplay, e.g., RPG, character, attribute points, specific attributes, skills/powers, stealth, hub/level, artificial intelligence, etc. (the more links, the clearer for unfamiliar readers)
• Optional: clarify "three available areas" as skill trees or some other idea because it's hard to understand the paragraph you're setting up, whatever you choose should be used every time (e.g., "three areas" → "three available areas")

Changed all to "three areas". This what you meant? Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 22:39, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

That's fine. I can't think of anything better (though I imagine they have a name somewhere...) ♔

• feats section is unclear—why would you have success or failure in using firearms, brawling, etc.?

"The points spent on Attributes and Abilities combine to to determine a player's success or failure in performing tasks such as using firearms, brawling, and lock-picking; for example, determining how accurate or how far the player can shoot, or if they can can hack a computer"? Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 21:15, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Right, that's what I meant was unclear ♔

• The explanations are generally good, but some sentences should be recast for clarity, such as "During character creation each upgrade costs one point, with their cost increasing when the game begins." perhaps as "The cost of upgrading an available area increases with the duration of the game." Not sure if that's right, but there you go

"During character creation each upgrade costs one point, with an ascending cost for each additional level when the game begins."? Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 21:15, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

"During character creation, each upgrade costs one point. The upgrade cost increases as the game progresses." ♔

• Perhaps give this section a copyedit for clarity? I don't think it's a big deal, but it would make me feel better. I'm holding myself back from tweaking it myself

• The attributes talk is dry without knowing what the attributes are for. Might be worth either putting the synopsis before the gameplay or actually incorporating more of the objectives and setting of the game into the gameplay section. It would be good to not have to introduce the clans twice.

See point 4 above. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 21:15, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

• Plot looks okay, though it wouldn't hurt to simplify it one or two levels. Is the player-character the fledgling?

It says this right before the plot "The main character of Bloodlines (controlled by the player) is an unnamed fledgling vampire, transformed at the start of a game and belonging to one of the clans."

It's confusing for someone new to the series. I'd recommend replacing "the fledgling" with "the player" in the plot section, or otherwise clarifying once or twice. Not a big deal, though czar ♔ 21:56, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

I'd question it being confusing unless you skip the setting section, but how about "In Los Angeles, an unnamed human is killed and resurrected as a fledgling vampire." -> "The game begins with the player character, an unnamed human, being killed and resurrected as a fledgling vampire."? Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 22:16, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Sounds good czar ♔ 22:29, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

• The article could use a GOCE copyedit. Here are a few to rephrase: "but that October Valve experienced", "highlight their madness, without", "by some of the game's fans This resulted in two patch" (also needs citation), "GameSpot and GameSpy called the dialog was sharply written", "vulgar language worked; written as real people, such language"

I see now that the article was recently copyedited... so I'm not sure what to say. I still think it needs further work.

• "it was considered appropriate to allow the player to belong to one of its clans (simplifying the plot)" → "the team simplified the plot by letting the player belong to one of the LA clans" etc.
• No "spring" (Avoid "seasons")
• Why is Damsel mentioned? She isn't mentioned elsewhere
• Time of Judgment is italicized
• I'm noticing a lot of missing commas, e.g., "During character creation the game had an optional"
• and unnecessary hyphenations, e.g., "more-stable", "superbly-crafted", "nearly-flawless", "single-character", "well-written"
• "melee-on-range" ranged?
• parallelism: "one focused on disciplines" → "discipline-focused character"
• Dev section becomes a bit of a slog towards the end of design. Outside GAN scope, but something to keep in mind for 1a professional brilliance later
• WPVG consensus is to only include tracklists when the soundtrack has some notability of its own

I think the soundtrack is notable, it's not a million seller but a lot of the music was popular and the reviews note the music as a positive component, plus one was written for the thing and another has its own article. Considering it's small status, I don't think this is a detriment to the article. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 18:35, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

That's fine czar ♔ 19:20, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

• Consider converting the many parentheticals into notes with {{notelist}} since they become distracting
• Consider for the future actually citing to the individual pages of a review (that are compacted into megafootnotes here), since that aids in verifiability. Imagine me trying to track down a fact on three different pages now?
• "The game has been called a flawed masterpiece." I think this is a bold enough claim to warrant direct citations
• Titles of press outlets are italicized per WP:ITALICS: "Online magazines, newspapers, and news sites with original content should generally be italicized". Also the ones that can be linked should be on their first usage
• "wonderfully imaginative missions": direct quotes need direct refs per WP:MINREF. I think this is the only one in the whole article that was missing one. Nevermind, also RPS in the last
• Eurogamer/EuroGamer: pick one
• Consider wrapping the sales section into the first ¶ of Reception—that's where most editors put it. The section is small on its own.
• "This was considered a poor performance" by whom?

• Images need to be reduced in size (length times width less than 100,000 pixels). Why does it mention 400px? (That isn't in the guideline)

The typical rule of thumb I have been given in the past and which has passed FA is that no one side should exceed 350px. The first two images have now been reduced but I'm concerned about reducing File:Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines - Character Sheet.jpg as it's already bordering on unreadable. If it isn't readable it's fairly pointless. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 20:18, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

I didn't tag that one because I agreed. Not sure how it stands up with NFCC or even whether it's important to have visualized, but I'm okay with the images for the sake of this GAN. FAC will be a bit more rigorous, yadda yadda czar ♔ 20:35, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

• Unreliable or possibly unreliable sources: Game-OST, OVGuide (user-contributed?), What Culture (user-contributed), GameBanshee. I'm also not so hot on those interview blog sites, but hey.

1. Game-OST seems ok, it's just backing up the track order, but if I must remove it would Amazon be allowed as I can't find another ordered listing for it, just the announcement for the tracks that'd be on it. EDIT: Forget Amazon, it isn't on there - REMOVED FOR NOW
2. GameBanshee is apparently owned by the now defunct UGO Networks. So I think it is reliable despite its appearance.

   There were WP:VG/RS conversations about its lack of reliability so I wouldn't assume that czar ♔ 22:02, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

3. OVGuide is a legit site, and as far as I can see it's content is not user submitted.

   Source: John DiMaggio on Freebase, licensed under CC-BY
   Other content from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
   — [1]

   This is what I'm going off of czar ♔ 22:02, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

   Ah, fair enough I didn't see that. Removed.

4. I'll take a look at WhatCulture. - Removed

• Some things to consider: varying sentence structure to use less "comma gerund" constructions (e.g., "structure, allowing" or "every skill (allowing") and to use "that" instead of "which" (which usually comes after a comma)

Question

Czar, can you give me more info on this "several aggregate claims about reviewers aren't coming from a metareview and at the very least aren't directly cited to the sources whence the claim originates"? Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 21:46, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

I had a disagreement with another editor recently, who argued that statements like "Much of Bloodlines' criticism focused on technical problems when it was released" cannot be made without pointing to a source that said exactly that (which is to say that it would be original research to make such a deduction by summarizing multiple sources). I'm not going to press it, but I'd at least recommend having immediate citations for verifying such claims. Wanted to run it past you—it's not necessarily holding up the GAN czar ♔ 21:59, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Done. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 22:19, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Pinging Czar. Dr Czar. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 19:11, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping. Saw your edits, will have more time to clean up over the weekend, if that's okay czar ♔ 23:14, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Made a few final replies. While I still think parts of the gameplay can be clarified (and some other broader points on prose outside the GAN scope remain above), I'll leave you to tweak at your leisure (ping me on the talk page if you want input) because the current draft of the article is more than sufficient for the GAN criteria. Good work! czar ♔ 14:53, 14 September 2014 (UTC)