StrategyWiki:Staff lounge/2016/September

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Simplify {{Series}} further

Following up on May cleanup, I'd like to suggest getting rid of a few more entries from our series templates.

• Distributor - Doesn't really define a series. More relevant to each game. Only used on 10 pages (4 correctly).
• Modes - If it's important to the series it can be mentioned in the text, otherwise it doesn't help tie a series together. Used on 375 pages. Generally says "Single Player" and "multiplayer", 2 say "MMOG", 22 say "co-op".

-- Prod (talk) 04:46, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Main Page Rendering Issue

When I go to the Main Page, I see that the header text in the "NIWA" and "SEIWA" sections is wrapped (apparently to the width of the image that sits next to the text in question). I’m using Safari 10.0 on a Mac, if it matters. I would have posted a screenshot of this, but seeing as I haven’t edited here for a while, I am unsure about the proper protocol for doing such. If you could advise me of it for future reference, that would be great. Thanks! Wjk (talk) 00:42, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

I see the issue as well, thanks for pointing it out! I'll look into fixing it. -- Prod (talk) 04:55, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

This is now fixed. -- Prod (talk) 01:45, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Third-party cheating devices

I'd like to delete all pages that are about codes for the various cheating devices (Game Genie, Game Shark, Code Breaker, Action Replay). They're not part of the game and essentially defeat the purpose of using a walkthrough. Cheat codes that come with the game and console commands (steam) should be fine to keep. -- Prod (talk) 14:02, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

I would second this proposal. StrategyWiki's purpose is to give gamers a hand by providing strategy and other methods to, "lawfully" beat a particularly tricky part. Cheats rob gamers of the struggle, and truth be told, there are numerous other sites that hold cheats. Those people that like to cheat are free to seek them out, but we shouldn't be providing them in the first place.Orion35 (talk) 04:58, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

I disagree. When it comes to completing games, you may need to use cheating or debugging techniques in order to figure out how to win the game, or otherwise make it easier to practice a rather difficult section in the game. With knowledge that can be obtained from cheating, you may at least personally witness how the game actually works in the late stages (better than just reading text), and can at least plan better for regular play. Close variations of this have been done in the past with the TAS community (memory scanning is closely related), before the knowledge gained leaked its way into regular speedruns. They're simply yet another tool to eventually to complete a game.
Of course, there's not that much of a need to create further cheat pages, since they've mostly fallen out in favor of quicksaves or other alternate tools. The only need to list them is to get past the rare bug. --Sigma 7 (talk) 05:04, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

If it's required to play the game then we can include it. We don't need pages like Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire/GameShark. I think the mention of the beta world on this page should stay since it's inaccessible otherwise. But everything else on the page should be wiped out. -- Prod (talk) 13:40, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

I agree with Sigma7 here. There's two kinds of cheating: cheating the game, and cheating against another player. While I'm against the second, I think that for a self-contained single player game, if a player wants to know how to cheat in order to make something easier for themselves, and potentially more enjoyable for them, who are we to judge whether that's right or wrong? Furthermore, from a business perspective, I'd rather see SW be a one-stop-shop for any and all information about a game, as opposed to saying, "Here's a walkthrough on how to beat the game so that you don't have to figure anything out for yourself, but if you want to cheat, you'll have to go to Google and find some other site for that information." Seems kind of hypocritical, and it gives some other site traffic that would otherwise be ours. Procyon 13:49, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

I can't comment on those third party cheating devices, but I think built-in cheats and console commands should still be covered since they can be used for more than just completing the game. Aside from the debugging and research already mentioned, people don't just complete games, they replay them: when they do, they may just want to replay their favourite levels, and not all previous ones to get to them; or they may want to have fun with a rocket launcher on a level where they don't normally have one. There are also people who aren't interested in every aspect of a game: for example, they may play it for the dialog and story but have little or no interest in its combat, so cheats allow them to trivialize the latter while concentrating on the former.

Cheats can also help contribute to guides, beyond debugging and research: for example, noclip and notarget cheats allow screenshots to be taken from positions with a better view of an area than might otherwise be possible, without enemies converging on you to attack. This screenshot wasn't taken using such cheats, thanks to Stealth (although it was taken with a character edited to be a Rancor, for extra elevation), but it is the kind of screenshot that could be taken in other games with them... and it can be much easier to take screenshots of enemies themselves when they're not trying to kill you (or they can't). I've also used cheats to skip levels to quickly expand Tables of Contents, giving a better idea of how much work needs to be done before a game and its guide are completed properly.

While other sites may have cheats, even in my limited experience I've found they can be wrong, supplying the wrong way to activate cheats, codes which don't actually work, or inadequate descriptions (for example, infiniteuses for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic applies to your enemies as well: everybody with grenades and medpacs gets an endless supply!). It might be possible to get these updated on other sites, but I find it much easier just to add information I've personally verified to this wiki, and if I get it wrong then it's much easier for me or someone else to correct it later. Onderduiker (talk) 19:13, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

I completely agree that the built-in cheats should be covered. StarCraft/Cheats and similar pages are part of the game the developers delivered. My issue is that we should get rid of all these codes for Game Genie/Game Shark when there could be thousands of codes that are almost impossible for people to fully verify. I've bolded/clarified this in my original comment.

@Procyon (talk · contribs) These codes don't get checked very often, and if too many new users come to us and find bad codes, it could make us look bad. -- Prod (talk) 20:09, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

As some of you may know, I'm in the process of editing the Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen guide. One of the pages is "Action replay codes". Of course, once you go in there is a large list of codes, but little explanation of their use. I saw no Master Codes, which are essential to using cheats in this way, nor did I see an explanation on what the "Move" section was supposed to do, or how to make them affect the game.

I added a Master code I found on the web, but I still don't know if it will work anyway. This is just one sample of how "Cheats" make our wiki look bad. I say that either we delete these pages (again I talk about Gameshark or the like only, not cheats that come with the game or command codes), or at the very least we make a serious effort to edit them or replace them with something worthwhile.Orion35 (talk) 14:13, 10 September 2016 (UTC)