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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Homeworld/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 Sarastro1 via FACBot (talk) 21:19, 6 May 2017 [1].

Homeworld

[edit]
Nominator(s): PresN 15:01, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Claiming the title as the best strategy video game and best computer game of 1999, Homeworld is considered a classic of the genre for a single innovation: it was the first strategy game that was fully 3D, in the sense that units were not restricted to a plane like the ground, but could move anywhere within a sphere of space. Connecting the levels together so that the same plucky fighter ship from level 1 could end up leading a formation against a capital ship 6 levels later was the icing on the cake, and it's no surprise that when the rights came up for auction they were snapped up immediately. I rewrote this article from the ground up this past Fall, and it passed GA then; I've done some cleaning and archiving and polishing since, and I think it's ready to go for FA. Thank you all for reviewing, and I hope reading this makes someone hear "Adagio for Strings" in their heads once again. --PresN 15:01, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. - Dank (push to talk)

  • So, I pulled up the Homeworld soundtrack on YouTube ... and found it in my Favorites folder ... I didn't recall that it was from Homeworld, I just remembered it as my favorite version of the piece.
  • "was also highly reviewed": Roughly speaking, when doing prose reviews at FAC, I stay away from word usage problems, or at least the kind that people like to argue about. This is a close call; I haven't seen much support for "highly reviewed" in the sense of "highly rated", and it might even be a grammar problem rather than a usage problem. But if you think the usage is arguable, then I'll let other reviewers weigh in on that (or not). - Dank (push to talk) 19:38, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support on prose per my standard disclaimer. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting, and please check my changes. These are my edits. I think the greater appeal of this game helps the article become more appealing as well, and the writing is (mostly) easy to follow, which isn't always easy to accomplish in VG articles. Well done. - Dank (push to talk) 21:45, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. What's there is very good, but I think the article has to fail on comprehensiveness grounds due to the very small development section that really offers no insights into how the game was made. At the very least there must have been magazine articles at the time that offered previews with quotes from the development team. If you can prove me wrong, I will withdraw the objection, but I would still be hesitant to support, as I do feel a video game FA requires more in this area. Indrian (talk) 14:42, 16 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Indrian: Tracked down some previews and added about 2.5 paragraphs to development; you're right, that was a pretty big miss- the ones that had the good previews with interview quotes were also the ones that don't have an extant web presence any more. I tend to forget about the magazines that didn't end up on the web, and it bit me here. --PresN 16:59, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, unfortunately- I'd already seen those, and the CGW one is just a description of gameplay (which isn't changed from the final version, so no good there), while the PCG one at least has quotes from Garden, except it's just gameplay descriptions again, not design choices/development information. They're what I usually expect from previews, in other words (actually a preview, not a development interview), which is partially why I didn't think to search really hard for them in the first place. Will need to do that if I ever try to take Dungeon Siege to FAC, it came out around the same year. Thanks for looking though! Glad to see you still poking around. --PresN 00:38, 20 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Support

  • "Gameplay, as in most real-time strategy titles, is focused on gathering resources, building a fleet, and using it to destroy enemy ships and accomplish an objective." - Since you're talking about the genre overall, I think it would be more accurate to say 'building an army' or 'building military forces' than "building a fleet" and similarly 'destroying enemy forces' as opposed to ships. Most RTS have armies, i'd day half at most have space ships.
  • There's a noticeable absence of wikilinks in the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs of gameplay. I see wikilink opportunities at "ballistic guns, beam weapons, and missiles".
  • "As a ship is damaged by weapons its health bar depletes, then visual effects such as fire and smoke are added, and it can eventually explode." What needs to happen for it to 'eventually' explode? Complete depletion of health bar or being on fire for a period? The wording doesn't make this clear to a non-gamer. How about something like, 'as the health bar depletes visual effect such as fire and smoke appear, and the ship will explode if the bar is depleted'?
  • I assumed that video game plots required sources, but after looking through about a dozen current video game FAs only every second one appeared to have sources. Nevertheless, are you able to help readers by throwing a couple in there for key aspects?
  • "Relic spent effort on making high-quality ship models" - spent effort seems a bit redundant here, I mean, everything requires effort. Are you trying to say something like they spend considerable effort?
  • Not an FAC requirement, but an image from the remastered edition would be nice, assuming that on such small resolution image there would be a noticeable improvement in graphics quality. Even better would be a side by side comparison.
That's all I found. Well done on the article. Very impressive. Never actually played this one before. Think I might have to go download the remastered version off Steam now. :) Freikorp (talk) 00:55, 3 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Freikorp: Sorry for taking so long to get to this!
  • Done
  • Added a few
  • Tweaks slightly differently to make it clear that a number of things happen as a ship is increasingly damaged, which include fire and explosions
  • Yeah, plot sections for games (and media in general) are implicitly sourced to the work itself. That said, quotes are nice, so adding a bunch.
  • Done.
  • Added one down in remaster; got one that's similar to the original screenshot.
All done. --19:55, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
Supporting. Well done. Freikorp (talk) 23:15, 10 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Comments from Aoba47
  • This may be more of a personal preference, but I would recommend moving the screenshot in the "Gameplay" section to the left as there is some interference between it and the infobox in some views (where the infobox pushes the image down the page slightly).
  • The infobox image requires an ALT description.
  • When referencing the Star Wars influence, do you think you should clarify that it was influenced by the original trilogy? It is obvious from the context of the game's release date, but I always think it is better to be safe (especially since you clarified the BSG as the original series and not the re-imagined version).
@Aoba47: Done, done, and done. I had it as just "Star Wars" since they were inspired by the 70s films and also the 1997 Star Wars: X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, but I explicitly mention that game a few sentences later so I might as well be explicit about the films as well, as there's no indication in sources that they were notably inspired by any other pieces of Star Wars media. --PresN 03:40, 19 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinator comment: I think we still need a source review unless I missed one somewhere. One can be requested at the top of WT:FAC. Sarastro1 (talk) 21:27, 28 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Requested a week ago alongside the image review. Will ping WP:VG if no one gets to it this weekend. --PresN 21:34, 28 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Source review from Ealdgyth (talk · contribs)
Otherwise everything looks good. Ealdgyth - Talk 22:24, 4 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Ealdgyth: Both homeworldsdl.org and beloko.com/hw are used for a very narrowly defined purpose- specifically, just to cite the fact that unofficial ports to macOS and Android have been made. They're both the personal sites of the developers who did the ports, and while they're wholly unsuitable for demonstrate that the ports are notable, which is why the ports get four words total in the article, I think that as primary sources (especially the download links) they're valid for demonstrating that the ports exist. If you don't think that's a valid defense, I can just remove the cites/info, they're not a major component. --PresN 22:54, 4 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • In my opinion, there is a difference between assessing whether a source is primary or secondary and assessing whether it's reliable or not. Secondary sources are necessary for analytical, evaluative, interpretive, or synthetic claims but not for such statements, In fact, since secondary sources are often second-hand info, they tend to be less reliable than primary ones for primary information, such as a plot section. That said, are these developers people with a certain importance and history of reliability? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 15:15, 5 May 2017 (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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