Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Fallout 4: Far Harbor/archive1

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 archived by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 05:49, 30 October 2016 [1].

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Fallout 4: Far Harbor

Nominator(s): Anarchyte (work | talk) 05:48, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

This article is about an expansion pack for Bethesda's 2015 action role-playing game Fallout 4. I've been working on this article for just over two months and after going through two peer reviews, passing a GA review and being copyedited by the Guild of Copy Editors, I think it's finally at FA standard. Anarchyte (work | talk) 05:48, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

@AdrianGamer, Czar, David Fuchs, Jaguar, and Rhain: Pinging all users who have participated in the peer reviews and the GA review. Anarchyte (work | talk) 10:40, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Comments by David Fuchs

{{doing}} Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 18:08, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

@David Fuchs: Just in case you forgot . Anarchyte (work | talk) 12:04, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Having gone through the article I think the biggest issue is it still needs a touchup on the prose front. There's just a lot of stilted language, with explanations for what things are rather ungainly shoved in, for example The V.A.T.S. system carry over from the main game. V.A.T.S. slows the real-time combat—repetitious phrasing, "VATS slows the real-time combat" is hardly illuminating. The article really needs a copyedit from someone capable who hasn't touched the article. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 18:27, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I agree. Josh Milburn (talk) 19:38, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

Comments from JM

Happy to take a look. I've played some Fallout games but never really got into them. I've sunk far more hours than I care to admit into Elder Scrolls games, though.

Comments from J Milburn that have since been addressed

"Being an expansion pack that requires the main game, the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. and V.A.T.S. systems carry over." This is tricky for someone who doesn't know the games well. Explained it a better "the season pass price was increased" I don't understand. What's a season pass in this context? Increased relative to what? By whom? I've added what a season pass is in this case, but I don't understand what you mean by "Increased relative to what". "Similar to the base game, in which the player character is tasked with finding their lost family,[2] Far Harbor has the player controls the Sole Survivor, who is enlisted by the Valentine Detective Agency—an company run by detective Nick Valentine—to investigate a disappearance, this time of a young girl named Kasumi." This sentence (which I've tweaked) is a bit too long. Also, I don't know what "the Sole Survivor" is. Cut it down a bit, is it better now? "While using V.A.T.S. (Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System), a feature first introduced in Fallout 3, the real-time combat is slowed, allowing the player to choose where to shoot the enemy." This is the first mention of combat or enemies. Give us context! I am left wondering how necessary these kinds of details are; discussion of the basic gameplay of Fallout is good, too many details about how combat works (unless specific to this expansion) probably are not needed. I've rearranged the gameplay section so that it mentions the enemy NPC before V.A.T.S., is it better now? I suppose my question is why we're talking about VATS and Power Armour and SPECIAL and whatnot at all. The information seems very specific; in this article, we need to get a general idea of how gameplay works in Fallout 4 and a specific idea of what the gameplay is in this expansion (and/or how the gameplay in this expansion differs from the gameplay in Fallout 4). This seems to be specific information about gameplay which is not unique to this expansion and nor is it necessary to understand this expansion. Or am I going wrong somewhere? Josh Milburn (talk) 04:08, 3 September 2016 (UTC) @J Milburn: I included the information about the vital parts of the base game because it was suggested by Czar in the first peer review: Part of the nature of a standalone DLC article is that you'll need sources from the original article to explain the basic gameplay. You should assume that readers have only a cursory knowledge of video games but want to know about this topic, so they likely don't know much about Fallout 4 and would need to know its basic gameplay to understand what Far Harbor adds. In terms of being true to the sources, I would preface such a recap as: "Far Harbor is an expansion of the main game, Fallout 4. It builds upon the basic game, which ..." so it's clear that the basic game explanation can come from sources about the basic game. along with: Work from the assumption that the reader is competent but doesn't know anything about Fallout—what is the game about? What do you do? What kinds of mechanics does it have? It only needs to be cursory and you can direct them back at F4's article for more info, but it should at least tell you how the game plays—it's not exempt from that simply because it's an article that expands on the original. I read those messages as a sort of "try to include basic information on the base game's mechanics as the reader may not know anything about Fallout". Anarchyte (work | talk) 04:37, 3 September 2016 (UTC) I agree entirely with Czar; I'm just not convinced that this is what you're doing. Let's try it like this; in order to understand what Ned Flanders adds to The Simpsons, I need to know a bit about Springfield, I need to know a bit about the Simpson family, I need to know a bit about the kind of humour there is on The Simpsons, I need to know a good bit about Homer, and I need to have an idea of the role religion plays in the series. I don't need to know anything about Springfield Elementary School or the Springfield Power Plant. If I want to know about Ralph Wiggum, I'm going to need to know a bit about Springfield Elementary, but very little about Homer and nothing about religion. If I want to know about Smithers, I need to know about the Power Plant. And so on. So, if we're writing about Far Habor, we have to ask what in the base game we need to know about to get why Far Habor matters and what it does. Do we need to know about Springfield Elementary? The Power Plant? Both? Neither? Josh Milburn (talk) 04:48, 3 September 2016 (UTC) @J Milburn: Hmm, fair enough. I think the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. section can be removed because it's early-game Fallout stuff, but I think the V.A.T.S. and Pip-boy can stay because during combat [in Far Harbor], V.A.T.S. still plays a big role. The Pip-boy is used in Far Harbor for the map feature (example source) and the player will receive a message on the Pip-boy when they can visit it (source. I'll update the article accordingly. Anarchyte (work | talk) 05:31, 3 September 2016 (UTC) "Weapons can also be shot at, disarming them." One does not disarm weapons, one disarms an opponent of weapons. Fixed. "Unlike the previous iterations" Of what? Fixed. "Even quests done back at the Commonwealth will affect the story" The tone's a bit off, here, and I think more explanation is needed. I don't remember reading about that or adding that and it's not found in the given reference so I've removed that sentence. "The Island, where many of the creatures native to it reside" Huh? Changed to "The Island, where many creatures reside". "The town uses fog condensers which turn the fog into liquid in order to protect its inhabitants, due to the creature's unwillingness to go anywhere without fog." No idea. What creature? Does the previous change help answer this? Do you mean creatures-apostrophe rather than creature-apostrophe-s? Josh Milburn (talk) 03:35, 28 August 2016 (UTC) @J Milburn: Yes, it was fixed by ‎Prisonermonkeys. Anarchyte (work | talk) 03:53, 28 August 2016 (UTC) Uh-huh. It was written in the possessive when it should have been plural possessive. Prisonermonkeys (talk) 03:57, 28 August 2016 (UTC) "who is against the destruction of the Church of Atom" Context? Reworded the sentence and removed that bit. "The Children of Atom reside in an old nuclear submarine base called The Nucleus and are led by High Confessor Tektus, a fanatically devout follower of Atom who seeks to disable or destroy the fog condensers, since the Church believes that The Island is the holy land of Atom, and the contraptions' mere existence are an affront to him." Too long. Also, singular/plural confusion. Fixed. What are Synths? Also, Synths or synths? I thought I fixed that, obviously not. Fixed now. Changed all to "synths/synth". "Kasumi Nakano, the person the Sole Survivor is tasked with finding, resides in Acadia." Presumably you mean to say she resided there before she went missing? You should check your other mentions of the character, too. She fled there. Fixed wording. "The expansion starts after the end of the "Getting a Clue" quest." Context? The way you've written this, it's like you expect readers to know what this means. Expanded. "Children of Atom's base of Operations" operations? Fixed. "three main Factions there and let them decide their fate themselves" Capital F? Also, the "their" is ambiguous. Fixed. "dungeons" is jargon Don't really know how I can fix this, the reference says "dungeons". "It added the largest landmass, hence the higher price compared to other DLC releases." Again, this is the first mention of a higher price. How about something like "Of the three, it added the largest landmass, and hence was sold for the highest price." Reworded. "The expansion was included in the Fallout 4 season pass, the price of which rose from US$30 to $50 due to the large amount of additional content." As above, I'm afraid I don't know what this means. Reworded. "and didn't turn out as they planned" Informal, ambiguous. Also, whose feedback? Players'? Reworded. "the game worked better." Informal Reworded. " but many, including Metro" First, I'm not keen on the personification; second, you don't cite Metro at the end of the sentence? I've changed it a bit. It's actually "GameCentral", but I've fixed the issues. Gotta dash; I'll be back for more... Josh Milburn (talk) 22:04, 27 August 2016 (UTC) Ok, back. "block-related parts were compared" What are these? The block sections are explained in the gameplay section: In some of the puzzle rooms, the player directs lasers to hit the designated targets, and in other puzzle rooms the player builds using blocks, similar to Minecraft. "Peter Brown (GameSpot) commended the addition of "hours of side quests driven by curious characters" added." ? Removed the "added" at the end. I generally find the reception section a little repetitive. For a slightly ironic example, consider the multiple times you mention that reviewers found the game repetitive. I think I've fixed it. "in the article by Paget" What article by Paget? This is the first mention. Fixed.

From the first read-through, I feel that this is a strong article, but that the writing is a little below what is expected of FAs. I also did some copyediting (but more is needed); please double-check. Josh Milburn (talk) 22:55, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

@J Milburn: I've fixed and striked the majority of the issues you mentioned. I left a few notes under the comments I didn't understand. Anarchyte (work | talk) 02:34, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

@J Milburn: Were the edits for dot points 3 and 4 sufficient or are there any more comments/questions surrounding those? I've collapsed all the other comments underneath that as I've fixed them and FACs tend to get fairly long. Feel free to revert that if you don't want it to be collapsed. Anarchyte (work | talk) 10:50, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

@J Milburn: In your opinion, have all the issues you mentioned been addressed? Anarchyte (work | talk) 12:05, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

(←) Looking again, even in the lead, I'm not convinced that the first person/third person and VATS details are portrayed well. They come across as trivial details, and the fact you're talking about VATS's effect on combat before you've mentioned combat in its own right is a bit weird. The gameplay section a bit better, but I wonder why you jump into the some of the details (like VATS) without giving more basic info; dude in post-apocalypse landscape stomping baddies, fleeing from monsters, collecting stuff, doing quests, making friends. Some more specific bits:

• You mention the lazers in the lead, but not the building blocks.
• V.A.T.S. or V.A.T.S?
• You need to explain somewhere what a synth is. A half-line description of the Church of Atom/Atom wouldn't hurt, either.
• "start a war with Acadia" do you perhaps mean something like "trigger a war between the Harbormen and Acadia"?
• "The Institute will send agents to reclaim the synths, while the Brotherhood of Steel will launch an expedition to exterminate them. The Railroad will send an operative to make contact with Acadia, though Acadia will reject their help." You're going to need to explain who/what The Institute, the Brotherhood of Steel and The Railroad are.
• "dungeon" is jargon (I know I mentioned this above- I know what it means, but I'm a roleplayer. How about "self-contained quest locations"? That's a slightly more explanatory and formal way to say what you say.)
• "Reviewers highly praised the addition of new quests but disliked the puzzle sections" That seems to just repeat what you said in the previous paragraph.

  How do you suggest the paragraph be started? I don't have any ideas on how it could be changed.

• This isn't a view universally shared, but I find that "Game Revolution similarly expressed", "Metro liked" and "Game Revolution admired" is clumsy/colloquial. Publications don't express views and like/dislike things; writers do.
• "Reviewers were also divided over the storyline: Game Revolution admired the story and new characters,[27] while Peter Brown found it uninteresting.[29] Game Revolution admired the storyline and new characters.[27]" Repetition!

  Good catch.

• "Some reviewers had problems with the expansion's repetitiveness" As you've already said!

  I removed or changed all mentions of it being repetitive so that it's first mentioned in that paragraph.

• From checking references, I see that the puzzles were new to Far Habor, and not something in the main game; this could be made clearer!

  Done, but I don't think it's worded too well.

• "was disappointed that it was somewhat wasted" This suggests that we are endorsing that it was wasted, not something we can do in Wikipedia's neutral voice

  Fixed, I think.

• Italics for websites or not? I personally prefer not to; YMMV.

  I typically add italics for all websites. I've made it consistent to this way.

Much better, but not there yet, for me. Josh Milburn (talk) 15:56, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

@J Milburn: I've fixed the majority of the newly mentioned issues, but I'm not entirely sure how to rework the synopsis sections. @Prisonermonkeys and Shadeblade11: Pinging the users who worked on that section the most. Anarchyte (work | talk) 12:13, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

@Anarchyte — I will have a look when I get a chance, but if I am honest, I am not optimistic; I feel that the prose of the article as a whole needs work. To my mind, it lacks the flair that a GA/FA needs. Prisonermonkeys (talk) 00:10, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Closing comment

Sorry but with support for promotion and no commentary for six weeks or so this nom has well and truly stalled, so I'll be archiving it shortly. Anarchyte, pls note that per FAC instructions you need to wait two weeks before (re)nominating this or another article for FAC. As it appears you haven't taken an article all the way to FA yet, you'd be eligible to try the new FAC mentoring scheme if interested. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 05:48, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

• Closing note: This candidate has been archived, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Ian Rose (talk) 05:49, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

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